Marked Safe

Good morning, my friends. It's dark as I'm writing this, although the sky is pinking up nicely. We're expecting another nice fall day here.

The one, shall we say, fly in the ointment are these annoying boxelder bugs. They're particularly annoying right now. This group is on the outside of the window where I sit. They're flying all around outside. When we're out, we're liable to have them flying into our hair or down our collars. Ick. They're completely harmless, thankfully.

I used to call these boxelder "beetles" until my entomologist friend, Judy, corrected me. You remember Judy, right?

Judy tells me:

Well, it is important to entomologists. Adult beetles have elytra, thickened, leathery forewings that cover membranous, folded hindwings. True bugs adults have hemelytra, forewings that are thickened at their base, but membranous at the tips, with membranous hindwings held underneath. Beetles have chewing mouthparts, while true bugs have piercing -sucking mouthparts. Lastly, beetles have complete metamorphosis, egg-larva-pupa-adult, while true bugs have incomplete metamorphosis, egg-nymph-adult, with the nymphs looking like smaller wingless versions of adults....Entomology 101. You know, the basic stuff.

Sure thing, my friend. It's good to have smart people in your life.

We survived our trip to the vet yesterday, and we rounded up both kitties in record time. Poor Smitty was there for immunizations and his annual physical. He ended up getting four shots and some oral worming medication. I think it all might have made him even more handsome, if such a thing is possible.

I may never forgive you for this inpurrtinence.

Sadie needed only one immunization, but she was still mad.

We should go on strike, Smitty.

When we arrived back home, we released them from their kennels into the great outdoors. It was the best part of their day up to that point. 

I checked in on the Firefighter dahlia. It might be just a little larger than the day before, but I think it's opened as much as we can expect.

There's still no sign of any color from the Fuzzy Wuzzy dahlia. It's taken its place as the most watched thing in the garden.

Back inside, I went to work making two more pieced blocks for the Girls' Getaway quilt. I switched out two of the fabrics for ones I liked better. Each block had 25 pieces. And it must be my week for making half square triangles because I couldn't do anything until I'd made 16 for these blocks.

You might not believe this, but I managed to sew them together with no mistakes.

Here are all the embroidered and pieced blocks I have for this quilt so far. 

Some of the pieced blocks have embroidered centers, and so I might be just about at the limit of how much I can do with these until all the embroidery is finished. Possibly, I could stitch them out of order too. Yeah, that's probably what I'll do.

That brings me to the last item on my list of WIPs...to make the final two blocks for the Shop Hop 3.0 quilt. I picked up these two fabrics on our spring trip. When these are finished, I'll have all the blocks I need to sew them into a finished quilt top.

I'll be making at least one more Shop Hop quilt after this. Already I've accumulated 11 fabrics. The next ones will be done in this "Suitcase" pattern from Slice of Pi Quilts.

I'll be making 16 blocks when I get started, and so I'll need five more fabrics to finish it off. I'm sure I'll pick up at least a couple when we make our Alaska trip next year.

Okay, so I'm happy to say I'm not going anywhere today or tomorrow. We'll have to do some grocery shopping on Thursday, but for now, I can stay put. To my Florida friends, please stay warm, safe, and dry. I'm worrying about you guys. We contacted a friend of ours in Orlando yesterday, and she seemed unconcerned. Maybe it gets easier with experience. Whatever your level of worry, just know we're thinking of you and hoping you come through the storm unscathed.

As for me, breakfast is next. I'm still working away at that Phenology piece. Maybe I'll get it finished today.