Hey, I actually got back to this, before an entire month passed! I really need to find a way to get to this more often, because stuff that seems very blog-worthy at the time of occurrence seems less so, once a few weeks have passed, especially as any "fun" details fade.
That said, about a week ago, I tackled the poison ivy in the front yard. I've been sort of worried about it, and trying to find the time to do something about it for a while. Fortunately, KB never seemed to make any sort of move to interact with it, but, you know, you don't want to just count on that. So, one fine day, Arazyr took our little girl to go hang out with her Grandma and Grandpa for a while, while I got started with the eradication project. I didn't want to use the standard chemicals for such things, because I just don't want toxic stuff sprayed around where my baby girl might play. (Ok, I really should quit saying "baby", because she's getting very big, and rather capable, but some habits are hard to kick). So, I used a totally non-toxic method from Ellen Sandbeck's wonderful book Slug Bread and Beheaded Thistles, which uses boiling water (ferried to me from the house by Arazyr). I took every precaution I could think of, including buckets of isopropyl alcohol and hot soapy water to scrub tools and other gear down with, afterward. I am pleased to announce that I did not get any poison ivy rash. As for the effectiveness of the technique (or, more likely, whether or not I did it entirely right), we'll have to see - you have to leave the poison ivy covered with plastic for the entire summer. So, now, we wait. Come September, we'll see if I successfully killed the ivy, and what other casualties there may be - the stuff was unfortunately mingled with other plants, some of which I don't really care about, but others of which I am hoping will survive.
On the knitting front, I've started very special project - matching sweaters for some friends of mine that have now been dating each other longer than either one of them has ever dated anyone else. I also have taught the lady of the pair how to knit (the same day we went yarn shopping for the sweaters), and she is fully and officially hooked. When her gentleman asked if she'd mind leaving, soon, her automatic and untutored response was, "let me just finish this row". (: I told her that I forbid her to make him a sweater. I'm generally not superstitious in the least, but I figured there is no point in testing the Sweater Curse, here - these two are just too good, together. (: I've got the front and a bit more than half of the back of the first sweater done. I'm hoping to finish it before my class starts.
... which segues right to my other thing that is "up" with me - that online class that I registered for, a while back is finally due to start, soon. I've never done an online class, before, so this should be interesting. I just ordered the textbooks (man, those were expensive). Soon, work on degree #3 finally officially starts....