First I’d like to thank you all for your comments on my depression post. I’ve been prescribed Celexa and we’ll see how that goes. I’m feeling very hopeful, which is certainly a change. Right on.

So, this weekend a dear friend came in from out of town, and she and I were sitting on the back deck chatting with the kids running up and down the deck stairs. Suddenly I heard shrieking, and the Preschooler comes running up, shrieking. A swarm of wasps came with him. Yikes.

I grabbed him and ran inside, hoping no wasps followed us. Luckily, none did and we were able to get him calmed down with a baking soda paste applied on the stings and a cool washcloth.

Mr. Ivy went outside and sprayed the wasp’s nest with some wasp and hornet spray. Normally, we like non-chemical means to get rid of pests, but these wasps stung our baby! Terminate without prejudice.

Now that we’ve got them dead, I’ve been looking for methods of keeping them away. One thing my mom suggested is to paint the underside of our deck a light blue. According to Mom, the wasps assume that’s the sky and won’t build there.

Another thing I saw awhile back and saved for later consideration is crocheting my own "wasp nest," pictured above. Here’s a link to the pattern for crocheting a wasp nest. According to the link, wasps will come by, see there’s already a nest there, and will move on and build their nest elsewhere. It’s definitely worth a try.

Wasps are so prevalent in Tennessee. I absolutely hate them, being allergic myself. Do they do any good at all? Ugh, I wish they’d pack up and move somewhere else.