I'm entering my second summer in my current house. The people before me didn't take care of their lawn, so I basically live on nearly a quarter acre of weeds. The backyard is completely weeds, but oddly no dandelions. The front yard is another matter. Last week, dandelions popped up like crazy. A quick estimate on Saturday morning was about 300+. I put down weed and feed on Sunday where I could, but there are a significant number of dandelions in the garden and bush border at the front of my lawn and in other places where I couldn't put weed killer down. I attempted to pull dandelions there, but I keep pulling tulips as well. I'd really hate to dig up the better looking landscaping at my place, but it looks like I may have to. I'll have to mow the yarn soon and I'll reassess the dandelions and the border then. (My neighbors don't have dandelions and the ones to the east of me were a bit testy with me last summer as they felt that it made their place look trashy. My opinion is that I'll deal with it the best I can, but I'm not a semi retired person who knows tons and tons about lawn care and spends 5 hours a week on my yard the way he is.)

And the scare: When I came home yesterday, I had a brief moment of panic where I thought someone had been in the house. Several doors were open that I didn't know the cats could open. The three entrances were locked, everything was in place, and the cats were mellow and normal. The last place I lived, I'm fairly certain I had a ghost, but I don't get that feeling here. So I went and closed the various cabinets and closets. A few hours after I came home, I ended up watching Boo open one of the cabinets I had closed and latched. I'm thinking I should check this cat for opposable thumbs. Later last night, Boo got herself back for giving me the heart attack. I have a metal slinky that I have sitting on my shelf in a little half circle. She thought it was interesting and used her paws to grab it down. (It was on the third shelf of a bookcase and she was standing on the floor on her hind legs reaching for it.) It ended up falling on her and trapping her whiskers. After she got free, she left my stuff alone for an entire hour!

School news: Tonight and Monday (the 15th) are the last two days of this class. I think I finally know enough about what the professor wants for a project to actually do it. I need to finish by Saturday as I've been invited to attend a picnic on Sunday. But at least I know what I need to do!

Crafty news: Not much getting done here. I forgot to put away my shawl and found the yarn snapped last night. I'm going to have to figure out how to splice the yarn. My attempts at spit splicing were only so-so. I probably won't get back to it until after I finished my class project. I've got about 3 rows done, though and I'm pretty proud of that. My knitting right now has been the Ballband dishcloth from Mason Dixon Knitting. It's a pretty pattern, but also pretty mindless - so it lets me relax a bit when I need to take my mind off of my schoolwork. Everything else got thrown on the back burner as is typical when I hit the last week of classes. Not Jenny reminded me that I also have a sock that I really ought to work on, too. It has to have been about a month since I've worked on it.