~

Now that the veggie garden is planted and it’s mostly maintenance chores, I’ve spent the last week pulling weeds and spreading mulch in the flower garden around the house. I ran out of mulch before I ran out of garden. When I went to buy more I stumbled and a bunch more flowers came home along with the mulch. I added phlox, black-eyed Susans, angelonias, lisianthus and zinnias and another fern to the garden. The zinnias have expired on me which makes me angry, but I still have color to spare this year.

Late this spring, just before my Knockout rose was getting ready to bloom, I pruned it back to within an inch of its life. It was overpowering the garden and I was mentally giving it one last chance to shape up or face the compost bin. If it died that would make my decision easier. And of course it didn’t die. It shook off the scalping and went about its business. It’s about half the size it was last year, so it’s more manageable and the blooms don’t seem to have suffered any. The governor has given it a reprieve for now. 

Sometimes it pays to be fearless. Or stupid.

~

Amazingly I missed the local strawberry season this year. I kept waiting and waiting for an e-mail from the pick-your-own place and finally sent one of my own the first of the month. “Too late” they said and “we don’t send out notices because the season’s so short” they said. “What?” I said. I feel gyped. Grump.

But somehow we’ve gotten decent strawberries at the grocery store this year. Not stupendous, but they do actually taste like strawberries. I don’t know what the California growers did differently, but I hope they do it more often.

And then I had to see this: Environmental Working Group’s list of the 15 most highly contaminated fruits and vegetables. Strawberries are #3. sigh

And look what’s at #5: Blueberries, which are ready for picking right now. double sigh

Another reason to grow my own.

~

I was rereading yesterday’s blog post and saw that I wrote

“And I’m looking forward to recommendations from the lists of other bloggers more organized than me“ and did a double-take. Should it be “than me” or “than I”? I went to Grammar Girl and checked a couple other sites and decided “than me” is OK since this blog is definitely informal in speech and tone. I could have said “than I am” but that’s a little fussy.  Just as long as I didn’t say “than me am”.

~

Carpet cleaning today and I lucked out. The humidity and temperatures moderated this week so the air conditioning was off and the house was wide open. Once the cleaner left, we closed up the house and turned on the a/c to lower the humidity. Right now I’m sitting on an exercise ball to type because the carpet’s still wet around my desk, so no office chair and I had the couch cleaned too so no knitting corner to slouch in.

I’m loving the look of a spot-free carpet again. Taking bets on which cat throws up on it first.

~

Woot! I pick up a spinning wheel from the local guild tomorrow to use during Tour de Fleece. Since my spinning addiction isn’t nearly as strong as my knitting, I don’t feel a yearning to own a wheel most of the time but it’s nice to have one for TdF. I expect I’ll buy one later this year because I do wonder if I had the proper equipment if I would spend more time spinning.  For now, I’m happy to make do and looking forward to TdF shenanigans.

~

I have a book to add to yesterday’s reading list: Sue Hubbell’s A Book of Bees. I’ve written about her before (see “obscure literary reference”) and happened across her book as I was looking for something else in the bookcase yesterday.  It’s as enjoyable as the first two times I read it.

~

I think it’s time to call it a day, a month, a quarter and a half-year. See you on the morrow!

I managed to acquire grandkids without having kids myself  and I have a serious background in aunting (is too a word) with various degrees of separation (first degree, great, great-great and really-great). Here’s the best list I could think up from our years with the nieces and nephews.

1.) Slumber parties. Get the nieces and nephews away from the parental units for a night. Make popcorn, play cards, watch a movie. Break out the sleeping bags. Serve silly face pancakes for breakfast.

2.) County fairs. Cotton candy, candied apples, pony rides, merry-go-rounds, visit the cow and chicken barns. Oh wait, that was MY childhood. Tunbridge Fair was a blast every year.

3.) Picnics, even if it’s just PB&J sandwiches and Kool-aid. The kids don’t care, it’s all about eating outdoors with the Aunts.

4.) Hot summer day + bathing suits + hose and sprinkler + popsicles = the best day ever.

5.) Get ice-cold watermelon out of the fridge, slice it up and sit on the bridge over the brook. Make a contest out of who can spit seeds the farthest (furthest?).

6.) Build a bonfire and have a cookout. After it’s dark, sit around the fire and tell family stories. If you’re lucky, the bonfire tradition will stick through the next generation. Right, Kim?

7.) Go berry picking, any kind but if the kids are young, blueberry and strawberry picking are the easiest to get at and there are no thorns.

8.) Go for a walk and make up stories about pituitaries living in the woods.

9.) Have them help you cook. Peeling carrots, husking corn, shelling peas are all easy for little kids. Making fudge or popcorn balls (see #1) is also great fun. When we were kids, Mom would make molasses taffy and we had to pull and stretch it until it was ready to eat. I remember making it more than I remember actually eating the taffy.

10.) Teach them a craft. Even if they don’t stick with it, they have a foundation to build on later. I don’t remember who taught me to knit but I learned the basics as a child.

So what’s your favorite way to entertain a child?

These irises started blooming about the time the tree peony blossoms died back. Now they’re both faded and the summer flowers are coming on.

And peas! I have peas! OK, maybe only enough for one meal if you have a tiny appetite, but these make me happy. They’re bigger than this now and I’ve been pulling them off the vine and eating them raw. Next year, I’m planting a ton of them. They taste like spring. So.good.

&

If you change a few of the pronouns this is pretty much what happens when I sit down at the computer these days.

&

Because I’m supposed to be spinning in preparation for Tour de Fleece in July, I have of course been hit with the knitting bug. I’m working on the Minimalist cardigan (Ravelry link) and have the back, a front and half the second front finished. Because I started this in March, having the body nearly finished is lightening fast knitting for me. There may actually be a whole sweater finished in one year. Can I hear a whoo and a hoo? It’s navy blue moss stitch so I’ll wait to show you progress when front #2 is finished.

Speaking of knitting, (weren’t we?) have you seen this series called Fit to Flatter that Amy Herzog of Stash, Knit and Repeat is doing? I’m on a quest to figure out how to fit sweater patterns to my shape and this series is perfect. I’m only up to Number 3 about assessing whether a pattern will flatter or flop. Very well done.

&

My oven is on the fritz. I should have figured it out sooner, but it took a flopped German apple pancake, pecan bars that burned on the edges and didn’t cook in the middle, brownies that didn’t rise (not a complete failure because fudgy brownies are the best but these were a little thinner than I like) and finally chocolate almond bars that completely burned on the bottom before I realized that I haven’t lost all my baking skilz and maybe the oven needs a tuneup.

Nothing pisses me off more than wasting perfectly delicious butter, sugar, chocolate chips and almonds.

&

Wandering off to find something to eat. I think I hear chips and almonds calling my name from the pantry. Not cooking these.

ETA: to add links I was too lazy to do yesterday and clarify a point here and there.

It seems like a century since I was last here.

~

The travels for health and pleasure are finished for a while. Jack has been checked out tip to toe and the upshot is he’ll be a woodworker for a long while yet. A cranky, deaf woodworker, but nonetheless. The doctors’ visits will yield at least one post about hearing loss, but that will keep for another day.

~

The peonies and irises are the best I’ve seen in years. The storms have mostly spared their blooms, an amazing thing considering the amount of rain we’ve gotten. Days and days of it.  So much, that a few of the plots at the community garden have tadpoles swimming in them. The only harvest there will be frog legs. ewww

~

Some creature has been digging up my transplants, going after the bone meal I use in the soil. Not unusual in itself, but the way the plants appear to have been picked up and placed out of the way makes me suspect the raccoons.

I solved the problem with little cages and coffee grounds to mask the bone meal odor.

~

Last night a young raccoon was on the deck drinking the hummingbird nectar. He laid down flat on the railing and looked so forlorn when I came out to get the feeder that I let him finish drinking it before I took the feeder away. sigh

~

I’ve been knitting, but not spinning and I need to get my spinning mojo back because Tour de Fleece is coming up in another month. TdF is a month-long spin-every-day project timed to coincide with the Tour de France. Unlike that endurance event we don’t have to undergo any doping tests. But then our winners also don’t get pretty boys handing us flowers and stuffed animals and kissing our cheeks either. Cookie, can you do something about that?

~

There’s been a pair of socks (the same pair) on the needles for nearly a year. The second toe is in sight.

~

I like physical exercise when I can see results. Let me haul straw and push wheelbarrows and I’m a happy girl. Make me go to a gym: cranky girl.

~

My reading has been eclectic:

How to Win Friends & Influence People (let people know it’s all about them) and How to Stop Worrying & Start Living (don’t worry, be happy). It’s taken me 3 months and I’m still not finished. It went back to the library today.

The Twitter Book. I learned two new terms: ambient intimacy, a lightweight but meaningful connection, and attention economy: distributing ideas and comments about what people care about. How do you measure the value of attention? Oh and this blog got it’s first tweet mention. Amazing.

Carrots Love Tomatoes. Don’t plant garlic next to pole beans but it’s OK to plant it next to bush beans. Wah?

Sally Melville’s Mother-Daughter Knits. The patterns don’t sing to me, although the Classic Shirt and the hoodie are possibilities.  However, there’s an excellent, concise explanation at the front of the book regarding getting sweaters to fit. I’ve taken Sally’s classes and it sounds much like her. As well as this post from TECHknitter on designing and fitting knitwear. I’d knit more sweaters if I knew they’d fit me when I’m finished.  Perhaps after 15-odd (very odd) years of knitting, it’s time to figure it out.

~

I killed all the zombies by uninstalling the game in an after-midnight fit. Up till all hours, not getting any work done, throwing corn cobs at pixels. Enough already.

I hope the marigolds are doing OK without me (in the Zen Garden of Plants v. Zombies, that is).

~~

Tomorrow my sisters and I are going here. Gail flew west and Geri flew east and we met in the middle on Wednesday. Yesterday we drove north and we’re in position to attack in the morning. Since the weather bunnies are predicting an inch of snow tonight, I think the hat and mittens I threw in the suitcase at the last minute will come in handy.

Today’s sightseeing was a bust because it’s been raining since we got up at 5 am (yup, 5 am). But the lilacs! The lilacs are in full bloom. Too wet to stop and smell the flowers but lovely to see.

~~

We had lunch with one of Gail’s college friends, a woman who has lived all over the world. She asked what we were doing in town. When we explained about the fiber festival, there was a moment of silence and then she changed the subject. It’s not an uncommon reaction. Muggles just don’t get it and the looks on their faces when you explain it are getting tiresome.

So we’ve decided to stop telling people when we go to a sheep and wool festival. Instead, we’ve decided to tell them we’re in town for a prostitutes’ convention.

It’s called a ho down.

Somehow I don’t think we’ll have to explain that.

~~

That is all.

We were married in a small church a few miles from where I grew up.  My sister Gail was my maid of honor, my brother Ronald walked me down the aisle.  Jack’s brother-in-law Bob was his best man.

After the wedding and luncheon, most everyone  went to an after-wedding party at my Mom’s home where the real fun began. I think there was a bonfire, at least there usually is at family gatherings.

The whole thing was low-key and pretty relaxed. I put it together with one trip home from Kansas City.

The next day we left for a honeymoon in China and Hong Kong.

Happy anniversary Sweetie. Here’s to the next 25.

Have I mentioned how much I like pansies?

They’re the first flowers I buy each spring. I can’t wait to plant them, even if they get buried under 6 inches of snow the day after.

They’re easy to care for, always bright and cheerful, come in more colors than daffodils, and a bed of them looks soft and beautiful.

My mother always used to grow pansies and she’d let me cut small bouquets of them for the house.

Growing up, we used to have community functions at the village fire hall: the fire trucks were garaged downstairs and the upstairs was the closest thing our town had to an auditorium. There were large windows on each side for plenty of light, a stage at one end and an open floor for chairs or dancing, depending upon the occasion.

We did our school Christmas pageants there, complete with Christmas carols and ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas, and Santa always showed up with small boxes of candy before the evening was over. He usually looked a lot like Mr. Race, the store owner and school bus driver.

(I remember dancing with my father during some event at the fire hall when I still wore pigtails, both of us dressed up, with my feet riding on top of his, because what 6-year-old knew how to waltz?)

I don’t remember what school function it was (someone’s graduation most likely), but I still remember Mom’s punch bowl surrounded by pansies sitting on the table in the hall. There were pansies floating in a block of ice in the bowl. The light through the window made the flowers glow like little jewels and the sherbet-colored punch was a sweet background to their brilliance.

Yep, there’s nothing that makes me happier than pansies in the spring.

Except maybe chocolate Easter bunnies.

The granddaughters are the short ones in the front

The granddaughters came and we played all week. Hallmark’s Kaleidoscope, lunch at the Crayola Cafe, shopping, Junie B Jones and A Little Monkey Business at Theatre for Young America, lunch out again, walks with Grandpa Jack, painting glass stones and finally, quiet time, filled up the week and they were leaving for home before we knew it. The cats thought it was an eternity, but then they’re basically anti-social prima donas so it’s good they get a reminder once in a while that it’s not all about them all the time.

Fun week and it was over too soon.

Oh and I made the best beef soup evah.

Then yesterday I took a basket making class at Powell Gardens. I’ve wanted to learn how to make baskets for some time and Gayle encouraged me a while back (do eeet) so I signed up. I don’t need another hobby right now, but I figured what could one class hurt?

We made a melon basket, those ones that look like butt cheeks although I think my basket needs to do a few lifting and toning exercises to get its shape back.

So far I like it. There’s weaving and flexible reeds and staves and hoops and you get to play in water and use an awl and trim stuff with scissors and then sign your work. What’s not to like?

Yeah, it’s a beginner’s effort but we all have to start someplace. I’m not wild about the sea grass since the dye comes off very easily so I don’t think I’ll use it for the second basket.

Understanding how to wrap the God’s Eye, which holds the two hoops together making up the rim and handle, was the toughest part for me.  I ended up buying a second kit so I could practice in class and finally got it the fourth time.

And that’s what happened to the week. The rest of the time has been shuffling papers, looking for work, bookkeeping and realizing it’s the first of April and I haven’t touched the taxes and we’re going away again before the 15th and OMG I’d better get the paperwork to the accountant naow.

I can’t believe tomorrow’s Monday already again.

First, find a good supermarket and head to the deli section. Fill your shopping cart like so: 1. Start with some spring flowers to brighten up a dreary day.
2. Add some good Czech beer. 3. Throw in a couple rotisserie chickens. Warm them up in the microwave and carve for easy eating. Set aside the wings and drumsticks for those so inclined. 4. Don’t forget salads to go with the birds; cole slaw and potato salad are always good. I was hoping for baked beans but there were none to be had. 5. Don’t forget dessert….raspberry rhubarb pie (taste-tested before the guests arrived). Throw in some chocolate chip cookies for good measure 6. Top it off with a darling baby boy sporting a hand knit sweater that almost fits. (Double points to the parents for bringing the sweater just so the knitter can see how it fits AND triple points for remembering to bring the toys that were part of the gift, to show how well-used/well-loved they are. Both parents mentioned how pleased they were with the sweater. Guess who’s going to get something hand knit again?)

Little Jack

~

It’s good to be home after last week’s long and trying trip. There’s no fun to report, like a visit to a new yarn shop, since we spent most of the week in doctors’ offices and the rest of the time fulfilling social obligations.

However, winter’s hibernation is over and suddenly I have more than I can handle on my plate.

And I came home to some lovely goodies in the mail which I’ll post about next time. ]]> http://www.woolandspice.com/2010/03/16/hostess-with-the-mostest/feed/ 9 http://www.woolandspice.com/2010/03/09/would-you-like-crackers-with-your-pea-soup/ http://www.woolandspice.com/2010/03/09/would-you-like-crackers-with-your-pea-soup/#comments Wed, 10 Mar 2010 02:17:59 +0000 Diane T http://www.woolandspice.com/?p=3061 The only thing worse than driving across the state of Iowa in March is driving across the state of Iowa in March in a fog so thick that you get tunnel vision: nothing to see to the right or left, up or down, except a blanket of white cotton; nothing in the rear view mirror and in front the barest shadow of a tractor trailer. I chose to follow a dark blue and yellow trailer truck because the white and gray ones disappeared in the fog. When the truck changed lanes, I changed lanes, figuring he was passing another vehicle that I couldn’t see yet. This strategy got me from Des Moines to the border without mishap.

Edibles consumed:  some of the cheese and crackers, nuts, one clementine, a few Tootsie rolls and a rabbit’s worth of baby carrots to keep me awake in the fog. Plus shrimp salad for lunch.

It was a long day.