Butterflies Like Lantana

Okay, that does it.  I'm planting a lot more lantana next year.  I have some butterfly weed planted by the blueberries, the purple coneflowers are blooming, and the basket with my single lantana plant seems to be a butterfly hot spot.  Early this morning I saw this Monarch butterfly sipping nectar there.

In the afternoon there was an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail having a snack.  Need more lantana.  Hummingbirds like it too.  Need lots more.



 

This rabbit spent part of the morning on the step outside the patio door peering in at me and trying to nibble the fibers of the door mat.  What could it find to eat there?????


 

The Wisconsin 55s are starting to ripen.  Here's hoping that the chipmunks don't find them before I can pick a ripe one for Durwood to enjoy.





Speaking of Durwood, he's moving into his new studio at the assisted living facility tomorrow.  DS helped me move heavy things and assemble other things last night, which is why I didn't blog last night or write the prompt.  Too tired.  (thanks, DS, I really appreciate the help)  Today I moved the birdfeeders from the nursing home to outside his window in the garden at the new place and got his laundry all washed, dried, and the shirt facings ironed so it's easier for him to button them.  Man, I hope they can help him get back some of his leg strength so he can do a few things for himself.  It has to be very depressing to sit in a wheelchair day after day. Fingers crossed.



I made the first slipcover attempt this morning.  It's not bad but it isn't right so I'll recut and start over.  Good thing there's 6 yard of the fabric.  It occurred to me that I don't have to have everything finished and all ready for tomorrow's move.  I need to learn to give myself a break now and again.


Tomorrow will be busy again.  I need to turn in.  Can you believe that tomorrow is August 1?  Man, time sure flies when your life is crazy busy.
--Barbara

The Day of the Lilies

 




I had to smile this morning when I went out to plug in the fountain and saw that another of the closeout lilies I bought last fall had bloomed.  Isn't it pretty?  White with pinkish lavender like watercolor on the petals.  The yellow and burgundy ones are still blooming as are the plain lemon yellow ones.  I'm always sorry when lily blooming season is over.  I should do some googling to find lilies that bloom all season, find a list of varieties that as soon as one quits another starts.  I'd like that.










I spent most of today getting things ready for Durwood's big move on Wednesday.  DS will come over to help move the heavy or bulky things tomorrow evening so today I washed all the wood furniture with Murphy's Oil Soap, then ransomed an old lamp of Mother Malcolm's and a carton of plastic Gillette shelving that will work for the bathroom from the storage locker, then on to Goodwill for Corelle dishes, coffee mugs and cutlery, and finally to Walmart for a TV and a landline phone.  I'm tired.  Tomorrow I'll work on organizing the things I'll need help hauling over and setting up, then spend Tuesday sewing slipcovers for the $1.49 chairs.  Seen in the harsh daylight the upholstery needs help but since they're motel chairs I can't remove the seats and backs to reupholster them (the screws were countersunk and then dowels were glued over them; I'm not drilling out the dowels) so slipcovers it is.


  
I was all cocked and primed to pick the ripe Early Girl tomato, toast up a slice of Rosen's Rye bread, grab the jar of mayo, and take it all to Durwood for him to enjoy but when I walked into the garden to get the ripe tomato I saw that a $#@%& chipmunk had knocked it down and eaten half of it, the rat.  Good thing more tomatoes are starting to turn.





This shy Downy Woodpecker came over for a snack but sneaked up on it.  First it landed on the tall crook  that the hummingbird feeder hangs from, then it hopped down to the short one that a wind chime hangs on, and finally fluttered up to the back side of the suet feeder.



After supper I went out to knit with a couple friends and made some progress on the sock.  A sock foot is the perfect sitting and chatting knitting since it's mindless around and around and around, no counting of rows or stitches just tedious sameness until there's 7 1/2" of foot.


July 29--John Singer Sargent, Spirito Santo, Zattere (Venice, Zattere)  The constant quiet lapping of the water on the stones was like white noise most of the time but at other times it was like a dripping faucet.  On windy days the water made a sound like footsteps that sent Julie checking the hall and checking the door locks.  It made her jumpy.  It made her feel like she was reacting to phantoms so when someone did come, someone up to no good, she didn't react and her life was forever changed.

It's late.  I'm tired.  I'm outta here.
--Barbara

These Days I'd Forget My Behind...

 

... if it wasn't tightly screwed on.  I remembered to put my bag o'chair into the back of the car for sitting and knitting this afternoon.  However it wasn't until I was about up to Brussels, roughly 20 miles from home, that I realized that I'd forgotten my KNITTING.  Sheesh.  So I called KS and asked her to toss a pair of size 5 needles and a skein of dishcloth cotton into her bag so I'd have something to knit in case the thrift store had disappointing yarn and the wrong size needles. (which it did)  Of course I also forgot that I always have a cloth bag with a dishcloth project in the driver's door pocket (the lime and purple one) so I wasn't completely out of knitting but I didn't remember that fact until I was about midway through this (variegated red) dishcloth.  I will be so very glad when Durwood's all settled.  Maybe then my brain will snap back into shape and I can turn back into something resembling myself.  Thanks, KS, for a lovely day of thrifting, lunching, knitting (with your yarn and needles), and talkingtalkingtalking.



It's a wonder that we could knit or talk with this view.  We tucked ourselves into a little park area at the Ellison Bay marina and boat launch that's hidden behind the Pioneer Store.  It is the perfect place to have a deli take-out lunch (curried chicken salad on a ciabata roll for me) and then while away the afternoon playing with sticks and string.





We met at around 10:30 at Bargains Unlimited in Sister Bay.  Here's what I left with:  6 yards of upholstery fabric for $18 that will be good for redoing those chairs I got at Goodwill yesterday (if I don't clean them up and decide that they'll do for now), a wooden dragon puzzle for the toy box for $3, and 2 silver spoons for a dime apiece.  I was hoping for some postcards but didn't see any and I didn't think to ask, besides it was crazy busy.

 

I got lucky this morning and the hummingbird sat still long enough for me to take a photo that isn't blurry.




 

Oh, another bird today.  I saw a loon swimming just off the beach this afternoon.  I'd heard it earlier but was surprised to see it in such a busy area.  They usually like it in quieter waters.  I know you can't really see it, it's the tiny black speck in the middle of the shot, but when I cropped it the image was way blurry so you'll just have to humor me and pretend you see it.



I didn't write the prompt last night.  Once again I stayed up too late the night before I wanted to be up early so I could leave early.  Maybe I'll write tonight.  Tomorrow the table and chairs get scrubbed and Old English-ed.
--Barbara

Busy Busy Busy

This morning it was cool enough and un-humid enough to do yoga with the patio door open so I ended up being serenaded by this loudmouth chipmunk that sat on the back of the Adirondack chair chirping or whatever you call that annoying sound they make the whole time.  Way to enhance my relaxation--not.

After spending an hour signing and filling out forms for the assisted living facility I went on a quest for a table and chairs for Durwood's studio kitchen area.  He's a table-sitter, has never been a couch or easy chair sitter, so I know that he needs a table.  I went to three thrift stores--Bethesda, Goodwill, and Salvation Army today.  I stopped at St. Vincent de Paul the other day but all their tables were either too big or too rickety.  Bethesda had only one table and it was waaaay too big and came with 6 chairs for nearly $100.  Nope.  Goodwill had a few tables, one of which was a bit too big but was square and had possibilities for $30.  Maybe.  At the Salvation Army store the marquee said "Everything in the store 50% off Friday and Saturday."  I was hopeful.  There were a bunch of tables, most with chairs.  One of them was exactly the right size, came with a leaf, and had 4 chairs with cushions but it was $80.  Even at $40 it was more than I wanted to spend especially since I thought that we had a couple of Durwood's parents' old dining chairs out in storage.  But there was a 4' x 2' wooden "work" table with

turned legs and a drawer in a long side marked $20 which made it $10.  Sold!  I ended up having to remove LC & OJ's car seats and all the junk I keep in the back of the car and cram it into the front passenger seat in order to fold down the back seats so I could put the table in there.  To be honest, taking those car seats out was a challenge.  I blistered the air with enough frustrated cussing that I'm surprised that the head liner is still attached to the roof of the car, but I managed to finally get the darned things unhooked and slide the table in.  After lunch I zoomed out to the storage to discover that my memory was faulty and there are no dining chairs out there, only rocking chairs, so the search for chairs was on.  I skipped Bethesda, they didn't have much in furniture.  At Goodwill I struck gold.  I found 2 wood and Herculon "motel" chairs for $1.49 each.  Sold!  So I have $13.66 invested.  On Sunday I'll scrub them with Murphy's Oil Soap and give them a rub with some Old English in a medium shade to see if I can't make the woods seem related.  I also plan to recover the seats and backs of the chairs, at least slipcover them so they're a bit fresher and less motel-y

Once I had the furniture dilemma solved I tackled the phone and TV issue.  There's basic cable/satellite included in the rate but Durwood's a big boxing and sports fan so I promised him that I'd figure out a way for him to watch them there.  And he wants a landline.  I called AT&T which is the company they recommend and got cut off in mid-conversation and didn't get a callback so I saddled up and went to the AT&T store a couple blocks away and a lovely man named Jose Manuel helped me.  I had to go to the facility to make sure that they had permission to install a dish and back home to pick up some info needed for Durwood's account but within 1 1/2 hours all the Ts were crossed, the Is dotted, and an appointment was made for installation next Friday.  Granted he's moving in on Wednesday but I have the phone thing and instructions how to hook it up and he can watch Basic TV for a couple days.  That just leaves purchasing a suitable TV and a landline phone--if I can't scrounge one up downstairs.  All of a sudden I feel like I've got this.  Whew.

For supper after my day of furniture hunting and technology service wrangling I enjoyed a lovely supper of Mediterranean Chickpea Salad on a bed of butter and leaf lettuce.  Yum.  The Basic Lemon Vinaigrette you're supposed to dress the lettuce with before putting on the chickpeas is way too tart and lemony for me so I added a little Splenda to the jar for next time.  If it's not to my taste I'll dump it and just be happy with the dressing on the chickpea salad.  

July 27--Indian, Malwa, Krishna and Vakasura.  The pile of cows is what took the painting from real to surreal.  The line of marching men, the pair of men walking into the giant bird's beak, those I could make some sense of, but the cows stacked one on top of the other?  No.  I don't have a lot of experience with cows, none actually, but they've never impressed me as being particularly cooperative animals that would be amenable to being stacked.

Tomorrow morning I'm going to drive away up the Door County peninsula to meet a friend at our favorite thrift store, then we're going to a deli for sandwiches and salads to take to a park or someplace overlooking the bay for lunch and then we plan to sit in the shade and knit and talk the day away.  I can't wait.  (better put my bag o'chair back into the car in the morning)
--Barbara

Very Little

I have very little to show you today.  I got up fairly early and spent most of the day playing outside watering, deadheading, and weeding a bit.  Spent some time watching this bee work its way around the zinnias and talking about it with my able assistant.  He decided that this is a mama bee gathering pollen and nectar to feed her babies.  I think that's very advanced thinking for a man of his age.


Durwood, aka Baba, appreciated the cherry tomatoes as we knew he would.  He's getting excited to move next Wednesday.  I'm feeling frantic but I suspect that I'm kicking up dust and not getting anywhere.  The few things that I can control I will take care of tomorrow, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday--on Saturday I'm driving off in the morning to spend the day in Door Co. thrifting, lunching, and knitting with a friend.  I really need a day away.



The only creative making I did today was to get through the gusset stitches on the Pink & Gray Anklet.  Now I just knit around and around and around until I've got about 7 1/2" of foot and then it'll be time to decrease for the toe.  Man, I just love being able to knit a sock.  It's my favorite form of slo-mo magic.  All knitting is magic, I think, but knitting a sock is advanced magic, IMHO.


One of the daily recipe emails this past week was "How to Meal Prep for a Week of Easy Dinners" from allrecipes.com.  I looked at the recipes, ran five or six of them through the WW recipe create function (skipped the Italian Bread Salad and the Chicago Hot Dogs, as neither of them lends themselves to WW-ing), and finished up the grocery shopping today for a round of not really investment cooking since none of it will get frozen (except maybe some of the marinated and then grilled chicken), but I'll have the basis for a Cobb salad (love that), a Mediterranean chickpea salad that shows up as a vegetarian supper one or two nights and as a side to Lemon Rosemary Chicken Breasts which then become part of the Cobb salad.  I'm ditching the flank steak and marinating chicken tenders in the Dijon mustard, Worcestershire, and red wine vinegar meant for the steak (I try to save my beef meals for cheeseburgers. Hey, if I'm having beef I want it to COUNT.) which will go great with fresh corn and green beans from the farmstand.  Oh, and another recipe is Shrimp Florentine on Zucchini Noodles.  I'll make a half recipe because I don't imagine that holds in the fridge long enough for four servings to all be good and I suspect that wouldn't take well to freezing.  (Can you say limp and slimy?)  I'll report and probably have photos.  I'm looking forward to cooking up a storm over the next week--and eating well too.

July 26--Martin Johnson Heade, Apple Blossoms.  "I'll be with you in apple blossom time..."  The old song played in my head as I looked at the painting of the delicate pink flowers in clusters on the arthritic branches with their rough, dark brown bark.  The tree had to be alive with bees that were busy pollinating as they moved to sip the nectar in the centers.  How manipulative trees and plants are to have evolved the shape, color, and fragrance to entice the birds and insects they need to help them spread their seeds or grow fruit.  It's ingenious of them and sneaky too.  I like that.

Tomorrow morning I get to go sign a stack of papers to get Durwood into his new place and then call to get his phone and TV hooked up over there.  Then the rest of the day will be mine.  Maybe I'll sew... all I have left to do on a tunic no. 1 is the neck binding and the hems, how long can that take?  An hour?  Maybe?  We shall see.
--Barbara

See How My Garden Grows

 

It's midsummer and the garden is hitting its stride.  The Strawberry "thanks for the tomato cages" cherry tomato plant is still ripening tomatoes for devouring.  This handful will be headed to Durwood tomorrow.

He'll be glad when I show him that soon this first Early Girl big tomato will be ready to be picked.  I'll bet it'll be the first one I take to him in his new assisted living digs.  I dropped off the application for residency today, talked the executive director of the nursing home off the ledge when he called me (while I was getting a haircut) to ask what they'd done wrong since I was taking Durwood out of there so quickly.  I assured him that they'd done nothing wrong, that the hospice nurse had told me that he didn't need skilled nursing so moving him to assisted living would save us a boatload of money every month and he'd be able to regain some leg strength and balance because they'll encourage and help him to walk more.  There are fewer people needing help there unlike at the nursing home where it's too easy to just leave people parked (path of least resistance, you know).  While waiting to talk to the LPN at Grancare Gardens, the assisted living place, I met the other two male residents who are over the moon to have another man moving in.  



I was sad to see the only baby butternut squash has fallen from the vine.  All of the other flowers are male flowers that I can see right now but I have faith that more squash will appear.  (you can tell because between the flower and the vine the males just have a stem while the female flowers have tiny baby squashes)








The purple coneflowers and the butterfly weeds are blooming so there are butterflies fluttering around the yard.  I see lots of monarchs and today I saw a black, blue, and orange one in the garden but since I was all the way across the yard in the house I haven't got a clue what kind it was.



 








The red-skinned potato plant is going gangbusters and the sweet potato vine is taking its own sweet time growing but it is growing.  I can't wait until it's time to open the bale and see if we've grown
potatoes.







July 25--Paul Cezanne, Great Pine near Aix.  Gabe hiked up the valley.  He took the same path he had taken since he was a boy.  When he rounded the house-size boulder he was relieved to see that the tree was still there.  That pine had been his refuge when things got too crazy at home.  When Dad and Leona got to fighting, throwing plates and pickle jars and cutlery at each other, he and his mongrel Amos would slip out the front door and head for the pine tree.  It was just big enough to hide a ten-year-old boy with a medium size dog until things cooled down at home.

We just had a short, fast moving thunderstorm.  I do love me some thunder.  Thunderstorms make the garden happy too and I like that.  Time to fire up the dishwasher and hit the hay.  

I've got 6 days to gather up things for Durwood's new place and to make sure that all of the hospice people and the oxygen people and the transport people deliver their assigned parts in good time.  I'm hoping to find a sturdy small kitchen table at Goodwill so I don't have to buy a new one but I will if I have to.  I found out today that hospice will provide him with a wheelchair and hospital bed so that's off my list of things to buy.  I'm happy that TVs are reasonably priced and he's got a tall dresser that will be perfect for his clothes and as a TV stand.  My mind's like a hamster in its wheel right now. Yes, I have a list.
--Barbara

If You Knit On Them...

 

... things get done.  Not that I finished anything big but I did manage to finish the Bodhi Leaf washcloth this afternoon.  It's kind of small and thin but I'm thinking maybe a good dunking will let the yarn bloom, puff the thing up a bit.

After supper I worked on the Montparnasse Eco Cardi back.  Lately purling has made my right wrist ache so I try to do no more than 4 rows, 2 knit and 2 purl, at a sitting.  Love the color, don't you?  It'll look just great with the gray and brown/gray sleeves and fronts.



 

Caught the sun peeking through the maple tree's leaves this morning.  Lately the sunrises, when I've been up for them, haven't been very colorful.


Today's big news is that Durwood can move to the assisted living facility a week from tomorrow so I spent most of today getting things organized and will probably spend the next few days following up.  Fingers crossed that this place works for him and he'll stay there a while.  Moving him once a month isn't very relaxing.

July 24--Joseph-Francois Ducq, Diana.  The leather strap of her quiver of arrows dug into her shoulder and chafed between her breasts as she ran into the forest.  Her bow fitted her hand as if it had grown there and she held it so that it didn't catch the low brush that grew in the open places.  She had been hunting since daybreak, leaving her warm bed before first light and heading out with her game bag slung around her waist.  Her brothers were too small to hunt and since their father had gone off to the war it fell to her to feed the family.  Mama and the boys tended the garden and Eli fished the streams.  It was Anna's job to bring home meat and she was good at it.

My mind has been running like a hamster on a wheel ever since I saw the assisted living place yesterday trying to figure out what furniture I can take from here and what I have to buy.  I'll find out tomorrow when I can start bringing things for the room, like a dresser and TV.  I hope to find a small kitchen table because Durwood is a kitchen table sitter so he'll be most comfortable if there's one in his new place.  I need to get in touch with the social worker at the nursing home to get the release paperwork rolling, drop off the application at assisted living, find out how to arrange transport, and make sure what he needs will be there next week.  Good thing I'm a good organizer.
--Barbara

Not So Lazy Monday

I had big plans for sitting around, for lolling around today but that didn't happen.  See, last

week I was told that Durwood doesn't need to be in the skilled nursing facility, that he would be better in an assisted living situation.  (no one mentioned that when I was scrambling around to find him a place at the end of June)  Last night a friend mentioned a couple places that she was familiar with so I decided to make a couple unannounced visits this morning and I found the perfect place only two blocks further from home than he is right now.  And even better, about half the cost.  I put down a deposit to hold the studio with the best view of the garden, took pictures, and visited another place which was lovely but more expensive, farther from home, and didn't have a kitchenette.  Tomorrow the nurses from the assisted living are going to visit him to evaluate which of their levels of care he fits into and with any luck he'll be able to move by August 1.  Fingers crossed.  This is the garden his room overlooks.


 
The stargazer lilies are showing themselves off.  Even though they're pink which isn't anywhere close to my favorite color, I love them.  They're gorgeous and they smell almost better than Dad's roses.


 


Speaking of Dad's roses, this little rosebud is fixing to open.  Hopefully the Japanese beetles that turned the strawberry leaves into lace last week won't notice it.  Japanese beetles love eating roses.


 

I was quick enough and lucky enough to snap a cellphone photo of this little lady hummingbird on the feeder today.





 

In between roaring around checking out assisted living places and getting ready to go to Aqua Fitness at the neighborhood pool tonight I managed to add ten rows to the Bodhi Leaf Washcloth so I'm ready to start the decreases.  With any luck I'll get it finished tomorrow.


 

Oh, and the zinnias really like living in the green planters on the edge of the patio with the petunias.  Why do I keep forgetting how pretty zinnias are and how easy they are to grow from seed?


July 23--Josephine Trotter, Frank's Party.  All Frank wanted to do on his birthday was ride the carousel.  Since he was now an old man of five years old he wanted to ride on of the life-size horses on the outer ring.  Frank had been in love with the carousel since the first time he rode it with Pop holding him tight and standing alongside him.  Every year Pop let him choose a horse on the next ring out.  His third birthday was the first year that the horse went up and down.  That year he had begged to ride every ride, to spend all his tickets on the carousel.  Last year Mama had given up inviting his cousins and friends to go to the amusement park for his birthday.  They wanted to ride on all the rides but Frank only rode on the carousel.


In honor of Shark Week on The Discovery Channel I dug out the "creature cup" that DS gave me for either my birthday or Christmas a couple years ago and bumped noses with this critter as I sipped my coffee.  Makes me smile and these days I need smiles.

You know, forty-five minutes of jumping around in a pool kicking your legs and swinging your arms is tiring.  My eyelids keep slamming shut.  I hope I manage to write more than ten words before I conk out.
--Barbara

Lazy Sunday in July

Everybody deserves a lazy day now and again.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.  I didn't wake up until almost 8 o'clock this morning (halle-freakin'-lujah!) and didn't get around to doing yoga until after 11 o'clock.  This goldfinch was flitting from feeder to feeder, playing tag with another male goldfinch so I thought I'd take his picture.  Trust me, he isn't nearly this blurry in real life.

Last night for some unknown reason I went downstairs, dug out this red yarn and some needles, and cast on this Bodhi Leaf washcloth from the Mason-Dixon Knitting's Field Guild #7.  First I did my usual and went down 2 needle sizes, which is what I do whenever I knit a dish/washcloth because I'm a loose knitter, but I got about 20 rows into it and realized that what I was making looked like a Barbie washcloth so this morning I frogged last night's efforts and started over.  Getting caught up to where I'd left off is what took up my morning.  Who cares?  It's Sunday.



After lunch I cooked up an ear of Sunny Hill Farms sweet corn and took it, along with salt and butter, over to Durwood.  He claimed to still be full from lunch (which is the main daily meal there) but somehow managed to make the corn disappear.  I promised that next time I'd wait a couple more hours so he could spoil his supper with an ear of corn rather than feel overstuffed after lunch.  He said that many staff members are entertained by the phalanx of birdfeeders that I set up for him and a hummingbird visited yesterday so he's loving it too.


Once I got home I took myself downstairs and got the next garment in the queue started.  It's a Tunic no. 1 with a redrawn neckline out of some linen-like upholstery fabric.  I'll get the neck binding on and the hems sewn tomorrow.

July 22--Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Wedding Dance.  By nine o'clock every wedding dance has devolved into a sweaty, liquor-soaked scrum.  The well-dressed, well-mannered guests of the afternoon church ceremony have checked their inhibitions at the door and made their way to the bar, thus the downward spiral of behavior begins.  Bridesmaids are barefoot, their mascara streaked down their faces as they dance in a circle in the center of the dance floor.

I was invited to visit a friend who lives in a place with an indoor pool after supper.  We had the pool all to ourselves so she taught me a bit of tai chi in the water.  It was so relaxing, I kind of feel like an overcooked noodle.  I think I'll turn in.
--Barbara

Hello, Fred

 


I stopped in every post office in Green Bay over the last month and every single one of them was sold out of the Mister Rogers stamps.  Last week I looked on usps.com to double check what denomination stamp needs to go on a postcard and noticed the "shop" option so I clicked it.  There Fred was in all his cardigan glory so I ordered a sheet.  Since I was there I took a look around and found a sheet of bioluminescent sea life.  Got that too.  And next month there are dragon stamps being issued.  I pre-ordered those.  I like stamps.  I don't collect stamps but I like the pictures on them and consider which one to put on things I send, trying to match the stamp to the recipient.  It's probably seriously goofy of me to do it but I like it and I like the pictures on stamps.  I figure it's a harmless thing.







  
 
This morning a guy came with a hand auger, a wheelbarrow full of gravel, and a long coil of corrugated pipe that was pierced.  He was here to auger out the window wells on the rental side all the way down to the drain tile BY HAND, then insert the pierced pipe, and fill it with gravel so when it rains the water drains down that gravel filled pipe instead of leaking into the basement next door.  it only took him a couple hours to do two wells but it was extra-sweaty and super dirty work.  He earned every penny of what I paid him.





 
In the afternoon I went downstairs to do Durwood's laundry and while I was down there I sewed up the last Shirt no. 1 that I cut out last month.  The fabric is some cotton pique that's been in the stash for at least 4 years and, lo and behold, the front and the back of this shirt match.  I don't know, I may be establishing a dangerous precedent with that but I'll risk it.  If it's as crummy tomorrow as today was I suspect I'll get a Tunic no. 1 (the next project in the pile) sewn up.  Or maybe I'll just loll around on the couch knitting and napping.




I picked up a package of kabobs in the "reduced for quick sale" meat case at Pick 'n Save today and grilled them in between rain showers.  I kind of overcooked the meat in my zeal to make sure the onions and peppers were cooked but figure I can make a bit of au jus to moisten them up.  I'm having a hard time getting back into the habit of cooking decent meals but I'm not giving up, not just yet.


And Sunny Hill sweet corn is now available on a wagon near me.  I nabbed a few ears and had one with my supper tonight.  Mm, Sunny Hill corn is the best.  I'm trying to figure out a way to take an ear all cooked and ready to devour over to Durwood tomorrow.  I'm thinking wrapping it in foil and then rolling it into a towel to keep it hot on the short drive to the home.

I didn't write the prompt last night.  By the time I got home from knitting I was so beat I just went to bed.  I do have this lonely little Black-eyed Susan to show you though and I promise to try writing the prompt tonight.  Cross my heart.
--Barbara