Take that, stinky, smelly basement!

We discovered yesterday why the water was pouring into our basement through the windows: the excessive amount of dirt and muck that has washed into the wells over time. My gardening brother had inadvertently raised the soil around our window well until any time it rained more than, say, a millimeter, it washed crap into the well. Then the water had nowhere to go but through the window itself, down the wall, into the basement carpet and thence into the rinse-n-vac. So look what I did today:

I stood on it and stood on it and stood on it to get it to sink into the ground. You'd think my fat butt would ensure it took only a second or two to get it sunk into the ground, but it took almost five minutes. Now, maybe, we won't be sucking water out of that mucky carpet for a little while -- at least until I can get the stupid carpet cut up and tossed out. Blech. After that, I'd just be squeegee-ing it into the drain in the laundry room.

In other news, I've decided what to make myself for Christmas (what, I said all my Christmas gifts this year would be knitted!) I'm going to make myself the Show Your Colors Shawl using my Yarn Love Juliet in Dog colors (sob! I miss my fat fuzzy!):

Actually the color is "Turtle Cheesecake", but these are the colors of our dearly departed Dog.

I think it's a sign that I'm recovering that I even touched the bag this yarn is in today.

I also need to find the second skein of Berroco Sundae in Snozzberry that I have in order to make Mater Gloriosa's Christmas Cowl. I've found one of them (already balled up and ready to go), but the second.... I dumpster dove through my Stashtainer, but it's not there. I'll have to go dig through my bag again (on the off chance it's there), and barring that I'll have to go through the rolling sub-stashtainer to see if it's stuffed into a bag with some other project.

Gah. Is this a sign that I've got too much yarn? Is there such a thing as too much yarn? Before now, I doubted it, but since I've lost a whole skein of super bulky, I begin to wonder!