Rain is What Happens...

... when you make grilling out plans.  You know I have pork tenderloins marinating in the fridge and plans to make a zucchini and onion pie to accompany it for tonight's supper.  What did it look like when I got to the patio door this morning?  Rain--and they're talking about it storming off and on all day.  Gah!  Maybe we'll have the second half of the spaghetti and meatballs we cobbled together for last night's supper and hold the pork and pie until tomorrow night, but maybe I'll lose patience and just grill anyway, especially if it's just drizzling.  The meat only has to cook 20-30 minutes; I can probably keep the fire going that long.  That does it, I'm grilling out tonight unless it's raining pitchforks and... well, you get the idea.  I have been drooling over this meal for three days.  I'm making it.



I got a little cocky, ankle wise, yesterday and stood on the hill in the backyard filling in a chipmunk hole with the hose and a trowel, never thinking that my left foot was my downhill foot and I was in the wrong shoes for hill standing, so the muscles of my left foot and ankle weren't happy.  Yes, I iced it, more than once, but I also changed into better shoes, grabbed a cane, and carefully and consciously made my way up to the raspberries to pick the first tiny handful of ripe ones for Durwood.  His neuropathy has been kicking up, he deserved a special treat.


Oh, I meant to show you.  When I went to the library to pick up the DVDs I'd reserved, I also borrowed an actual, paper book.  Really.  Audible or Amazon had recommended this series to me so I got the first book from Audible (since neither Overdrive nor OneClick Digital had it for borrowing through the library system), downloaded it, and started to listen to it at work on Thursday.  I barely made it through the first chapter before I had to turn it off and return the book.  The narrator was so horrible I couldn't bear listening.  He was even worse than Scott Brick who narrates the Clive Cussler books I like and can barely stand to listen to because he's got a note in his voice that tells you how absolutely fabulous he thinks he is.  ANYway, this narrator sounded like he's taken pains to make his voice as monotonous and dry as possible--and it wasn't a monotonous and dry story, even in the first chapter.  So to give the author another chance I checked the library's website to discover that the branch where my movies were waiting also had a hardcover copy of the book, so I borrowed it.  We'll see how I do reading a book old school.  The only problem I foresee is that I'll be unable to knit while reading it.  Hmm, Durwood got me a book holder a while back, maybe I'll unearth that and give it a try.  I wonder where I put it...

In the knitting department, while icing my foot a couple times, I added rounds to the July Seamen's Cowl and cast on July Preemie Hat #3.  I am very cleverly knitting the four sizes of preemie hats in this pattern from biggest to littlest so, as the month goes on and my enthusiasm wanes, each succeeding hat takes less time to make.  I am determined to keep up my resolution to make 4 preemie hats and one cowl a month this year.



July 17--Daniel Forster, #9.  Jane awoke to the sound of the tradewinds rattling the palm fronds outside her beach hut.  She tried to swing her legs out of bed but got tangled in the mosquito netting.  She stopped, took a breath, and found the edge of the netting to let herself out.  On her way to the bathroom she saw that her suitcase had been unpacked, a thin cotton robe lay over the vanity chair, and there was a carafe of coffee on the small table with a hibiscus flower nestled alongside.  Coffee.  Oh, it smelled like heaven.  She brushed her teeth and ran a quick brush through her hair before pouring a mug of the coffee, then going out to look at the island since it had been dark when she arrived the night before.

Well, it's getting dark again, darned windy too.  Maybe it'll rain enough to water in the bag of lawn patch grass seed I tossed around out there earlier.  The place where the plumbers filled in the hole they made last fall and then flung some seed and straw over has some grass on it, some weeds too, but it needed another seeding.  I had a bag with seed, mulch, and fertilizer mixed in the garage so I took out the garden rake, roughed up the area, and sprinkled the whole bag over it.  I'm counting on the rain to water it in so I don't have to drag the hose over there and do it myself.  Once it's done that it can stop raining so I can grill out.  I'll let you know how well Mother Nature cooperates with my plans for the day.
--Barbara

New Yarn is Very Addictive

I was going to put "like crack" up there in the post title but I thought I'd draw all kinds of less desirable readers to my blog.  Then I thought I'd put "vicodin" but that's really no better, speaking as one who has so recently gotten that monkey off my back.  So I stuck with the tame "very addictive" as an excuse for my behavior last night.  

Last night I meant to knit on the cuff of that eternal Autumn Cumulus sock (no, it's not done yet. don't you think I'd have told you if it was?) at Friday Night Knitting but I took the shiny yarn I bought to make a Christmas stocking to show off and ended up making the first of 16 hexagons.  (I knew I shouldn't have taken the hook along.)  Since I need to make two stockings it isn't the worst action I could have taken.  I figure if I make one hexagon a day I'll have stocking #1 done in a few weeks, what with the making up and all, and then I can tackle stocking #2 the same way and be done way before stocking-hanging-up time arrives.

But it was what I did when I got home that was really reprehensible.  I got my ice pack and settled on the couch to ice my ankle and knit a bit more.  First I finished weaving in the hexagon's tails, then I lost my mind and cast on an Indigo Doublethick Dishcloth.  I should have cast on the next Preemie hat or knitted a few rounds on the July Seamen's cowl but, no, I had to give in to temptation and cast on a cloth.  What'd I say yesterday?  I'm a weak, weak woman.  *sigh*





An oriole has been visiting the jelly off and on and I managed to get a couple pictures today.  The first time I saw it, it fluttered up into the apple tree by the time I got my camera up and ready, so I zoomed in and got an okay picture of it.  I hurried out to splash out the jelly water (rain makes jelly soup) from the dish on the feeder and replace it with some fresh jelly.  The next time I saw it, it was balancing to dip its beak down into the jelly.  I'm very happy to see it.







Durwood is happy to see it too.  He's still convinced that we've "lost" the hummingbirds since he hasn't seen one lately.  I told him that they're coming to the bee balm over in the garden out of his sight but when I went to the grocery this morning I stopped in at Walmart's Garden Center and spent ten bucks on some closeout red flowers that I planted in pots on the patio.  Since the honeysuckle's not blooming much this year maybe a couple pots of red flowers will draw them in so he can see them.  Now I am officially out of potting soil, but not out of pots.  I don't think there's any more space for pots on the patio though.  Not if I want to have room to walk around out there.

July 16--Brian Hill, Canoe C-2 Slalom.  Rita could see the shore, saw the trees bend and sway in the wind that blew spray from the wave tops into her eyes and mouth.  She had battled her way through the thunderstorm when the rain tried to fill her canoe but had lost the battle when the wind kicked the waves to a height that capsized her boat and floated her PFD away before she could snatch it up and put it on.  Stupid, stupid not to have it on.  She lost her paddle when a wave tumbled her to the bottom and rolled her along for a heart-stopping length of time. She wasn't a strong swimmer so she kicked her boots off, but refused to take off her jeans.  She wasn't going to be staggering bare ass up the beach for help.  Shoe-less was okay, pants-less was not.  Now that she had those things decided all she had to do was make it to shore.  She could see it, almost reach out and touch it, but the waves kept pulling it just out of her grasp.

And now I'm going to go marinate a pair of pork tenderloins we plan to cook on the grill for tomorrow's supper when we'll also make a zucchini and onion pie.  Remember those "impossible" Bisquick pies that were all the rage in the 1980s?  You assembled your ingredients in a pie dish and then made a batter that you poured over it and when it baked it made its own crust.  Well, this is the same sort of thing but I found a recipe for homemade baking mix online and made it this morning so we're going to give that a whirl with our grilled pork.  I suspect you're going to wish you were eating at our house tomorrow.  Toodle-oo!
--Barbara

His & Hers

Durwood called me at work yesterday afternoon to complain that we'd swatted so many flies over the weekend when we had "the big hatch" that the swatter was tearing and wouldn't kill a fly so I volunteered to swing into Dollar Tree on my way home to pick up a new one.  I found two.  His and hers.  His is a leopard print with a metal handle (remember all the metal flyswatter handles we untwisted for your wedding, DD?) and mine is yellow plastic with a big fake flower on one side of the swatter.  Hey, they were a buck each, we can afford to each have our own weapons in the fight against the invasion of the flies.

As I pulled into a parking place in front of the store I saw a cluster of colorful tents in the middle of the parking lot and remembered that the Military Ave. Business Association had started a Thursday night farmer's market.  It's small, only about a dozen stalls but I made out like a bandit.  I spent a total of $8.75 and got a lot of yellow squash (to make a zucchini and onion pie recipe I found), some sugar snap peas (because... SUGAR SNAP PEAS!), and 2 Georgia peaches.  The part of my purchases you don't see was an eggroll for Durwood and 2 crab rangoons for me, with duck sauce for dipping, for $2.25 which served as excellent appetizers before we threw together a big omelet with fresh veggies, fresh eggs, and lots of cheese for supper.  I want to be sure to email my thanks to the business association for the farmer's market.  They had a corner with hula hoops and sidewalk chalk for kids to play with while their grownups shopped and there was a porta potty.  Now if they only had a musician...


I finished Preemie Hat #2 yesterday at work.  Isn't it darling?  Some little dumpling's going to look like a flower fairy in it, I think.  Then I started the July version of the Seamen's Cowl.  I can't decide if I'm going to make a stripe of the rust solid on the other end or just knit with the green variegated until it's tall enough.  Since I'd like to knit an Advent Garland mitten from the green yarn I'll probably dig out the other skein of the rust and finish with that.  That must be why I'm counting the rounds of rust.  Seems like the decision's made.  And speaking of the Advent Garland, I unearthed the three training socks I made last winter to use teaching sock knitting at Guild and I found the very first sock I made with DD's help (lo, these many years ago) so all I need to do is crochet a loop for each one and I've got four more stockings for the garland.  Score!

You know how I keep saying that I have enough yarn for the rest of my life?  Well, I went to Joann's looking for a pattern to make a swimsuit bottom to go with LC's swim shirt, had one hell of a time finding a pattern and finally ended up with an infant size sundress and bloomers pattern I can work with, and while I was there I bought some yarn.  Yes, I did.  I know I keep saying that I don't need any more yarn but I've been wanting a skein of indigo cotton to make another doublethick dishcloth with and then there was this shiny stuff I saw that I think will be perfect for a Christmas stocking for someone I know.  Besides I had a "20% off your entire purchase" coupon and a "40% off any one regular priced item" coupon, PLUS a "40% off one item" Michaels coupon that Joann's accepted.  If those aren't reasons to buy yarn I don't know what is.  I'm a weak, weak woman.  *hangs head*







July 15--Harold Lee Miller, DS5-6-1-3.  It had been a long time since Henry had been in a locker room, much less in a gym.  He sat on the wooden bench, that had been polished by years of male behinds, with his elbows on his knees and wondered if he had the balls to leave the safety of the locker room and go out to face his fears.  Gym class had been a nightmare in high school.  He wasn't particularly athletic then and he was confident his abilities hadn't improved with age.  So how come he'd agree to join the Wednesday night basketball league?  "Hey, Hank," Eric's voice blasted through the half-open door, "you coming or not?"  Henry jumped, gripped his towel, and stood up to go out there and still suck at basketball.



This morning I sat at the kitchen table drinking coffee when a gorgeous goldfinch landed on the finch feeder.  I picked up my camera and by the time I had it turned on he'd fluttered to the top of a crook.  By the time I depressed the shutter button he was on the wing so this is what I got.  I kind of like it.
--Barbara

First Harvest

Look!  Blueberries!  Not very many but this is a bountiful harvest considering my inability to do much this year and my complete lack of doing anything to them last year.





The tomatoes are coming along too.  The first one to ripen will be on the bush tomato, then the cherry tomatoes, and the celebrity tomatoes, I think.  I'm trying to be diligent about watering them since they are in pots on a patio so they're out there baking in the heat and humidity we've had lately and there's been a bit of rain to help.  (plants seem to like rain better than hose water, don't they?)  It's a bit cooler today and I hope the humidity goes too but I see in the paper that it's supposed to cool off for the weekend, just a bit, and then heat back up during the week.  I guess it is summer so I shouldn't complain, besides next winter I'll be craving weather like this.



Speaking of baking, it was a good idea to put the blueberry pie back into the oven the other night.  I probably could have left it in another 5 minutes or so but it sure tastes good.



I got July Preemie Hat #2 started and almost finished yesterday.  I ran out of the turquoise just as I got to the crown decreases so this hat will have a green top.  It'll look like a little flower.  (Those purple things are cheap hair ties I use to keep the stitches on the needles and the needles together when it's in the bag.)



The daisies and bee balm are still going strong, and there's one purple coneflower poking up at the far end.

July 14--Brian Hill, Row Single.  Glor sat on a flat boulder in the edge of the river, her knees drawn up to her chest.  The morning was cool and fog hung just a few feet above the surface of the water and clung in shreds to the weeping willows that lined the bank behind her.  Out of the featureless white downriver came the barest sound of oars and exertion.  Rowing sculls slid between the fog and the river, the oarsmen clad in bright striped jerseys moving as if a single unit.  From the coxswain the cadence carried like a whisper across the still water.

That's better.  A few more words and a nice little description, no action, but it's something.  I've got a way-back full of tanks that need to be dropped off on my way to work so I'd better finish this and get a move on.
 --Barbara

Whew, That Was Close

I got all the way into the car and ready to drive off before I remembered that I'd put together lunches for the week the other day (the last of the curried chickpeas, the last grilled weenie, lime jello with pineapple in it, and chocolate fudge pudding with a bit of Jif Super-chunky stirred in) and they were in the fridge instead of my knitting basket.  So I dashed in through the garage and got the goods--and still made it to work on time.  Whew.  (Did you know that when DD moved to Kentucky she lived just up the road from the Jif plant?  It smelled great in her neighborhood.)

I finally (finally finally finally) managed to sit under the "cone of silence" long enough to get the second side of the Autumn Cumulus sock knitted so that I could join the sides and start knitting the ribbing in the round.  There's a whole lot less thinking and concentration needed for "knit one through the back loop, purl 1" around and around, than for the back and forth short rows with purling through the back loop, purl 2 through the back loop (that's a real trick to do without singeing the yarn with swear words), and wrapping and turning.  There's all that thinking and counting and if you screw up one time your ribbing gets off and you have to start all over again.  *sigh*  I know if my brain was younger it'd focus easier and I'd be able to do tricky things without snapping at Durwood for daring to talk to me.  It isn't perfect but I managed to fudge the one side where I ended up with a couple too many stitches leftover at the end so that the ribbing goes around evenly.  Now I just have to knit about 15 more rounds before figuring out a stretchy bind-off and then I'm done.  I know I've said this before, and we all know I tend to knit only one sock anyway, but there's no way I'm knitting another sock like this.  No. Way.  (now watch, I'll have a mild stroke or hit my head and end up making another one or even be like that Bill Murray movie and only knit that sock for the rest of my life--gah!)  Last night I finished Sudoku Strip #4 so on Friday night I'll assemble the middle panel of the afghan and then cast on Strip #5.  Woohoo!

Just so you know, the swim shirt fits LC perfectly.  Now I want to make her some bottoms to match.  It has to be warm with a full swimsuit underneath.  I need to go look at patterns on Friday.

I learned a valuable lesson yesterday.  I bought the stuff to make a blueberry pie the other day and made it yesterday afternoon.  It looked luscious.  The recipe is for making little individual tarts in a six-pack of graham cracker crusts but I bought a big one (Aldi doesn't have the little ones) so I upped the filling quantities but neglected to bake the pie longer so when I cut it after supper the blueberries were still separate.  They hadn't burst and joined together with the cornstarch and sugar to make filling.  I ate a piece anyway, it was good, real good, but I thought maybe I should bake it a little more so it was more pie-like.  So I did and it is.  (I'll be having a slice after supper tonight to make doubly sure.)  There will be a notation made on the recipe, yes, there will.

July 13--Brian Hill, Canoe C-1 Slalom.  Bram and Carina had put in a few miles from their campsite and arranged to be picked up at a resort in the next county.  It wasn't as far as it sounded, maybe fifteen miles, certainly do-able by weekend paddlers.  Bram...  I don't have a clue where I'm going with this.  I'm tired and I quit.
No, really, that's what I wrote in my prompt notebook last night.  It isn't often when a photo stumps me but that one did.  Let's hope I have better luck tonight.

Hey, today is my baby girl's 35th birthday.  Happy birthday, sweet DD!  I wish I could be there to bring you homemade mac & cheese (made with Grandpa's recipe) and a Baskin-Robbins ice cream cake.  I'd let you pick all the cherries off the top and eat them too.  I love you.
--Barbara

Thunder Woke Me

 



And then I couldn't go back to sleep but since it was 6 o'clock I got up and grumpily started my day.  I read the paper while drinking my coffee and the county horticulturalist said that the Japanese Beetles are about to hatch and eat our roses and raspberries so I went out and cut all the roses and brought them in so I get to enjoy them instead of the beetles.  I'm not sure what, if anything, I can do about the raspberries since they're at the top of the steepest slope in the backyard and that's still too steep for my ankle.  Grr.  I am so OVER this ankle thing, I could scream.  I've sprained this ankle enough times and know that it takes a long time for ligaments and tendons to heal and stop hurting but, damn it, I'm tired of needing to baby it and I'm especially over it's newly prominent barometric pressure predicting trick.



I cut out and sewed a swim shirt for LC yesterday while downstairs doing laundry.  I hope it fits her.  I found a free pattern for a simple swimsuit for her to wear under it but don't think I'm going to push myself to cut and sew that today too even though I don't work today.  I have plenty of fabric left.  Maybe over the weekend.




Once again I missed taking a picture of a hummingbird at the bee balm so here's a view of the metal dragonfly that lives in the garden.




Yesterday's big excitement was a housefly invasion.  It took a while for me to realize that some fly that got in the house a few days/weeks ago (I don't know the fly gestation period) laid eggs in the bin where we put organics to be recycled and they hatched yesterday.  Ye gods, there were a ton of flies.  Fortunately for us, they were sluggish and easy to swat.  I hurriedly put the organics bin outside and am sad to say that I dumped the contents into the trash out there.  We need to rethink our collection and storage method before starting up again.  There will be vacuuming today, especially around the patio doors.  Eesh.  But on the positive side, I dug out a little clay pot and saucer and potted the celery.  Now to see if it likes growing in soil as much as it liked growing in water.

July 11--Russ Gutshall, Youthful Pondering.  "Luke is a thinker," his mom always said.  "He looks before he leaps."  Luke could never decide if she thought that was a good thing or a bad thing when he would hear her say it to the aunts or into the phone.  Living so far out of town he had a lot of time to think.  School bus rides started almost two hours before the bell.  It was dark when he got picked up and dark when he got home.  He kept a small flashlight on a chain in his backpack to help him feel less alone in the solitary dark.

Now I'm going to go sit on the couch and knit the second side of the Autumn Cumulus sock cuff.  I thought I could keep count of the stitches and manage it while the TV was on last night but I was smart enough to know when failure was dragging at my yarn, rip it out, pick up the stitches again, and vow to take advantage of silence to get the darned thing knitted.  Today's the day.  I have nothing pressing to do and Durwood's napping.  It's now or never--or later but I'm diving in.
--Barbara

I Just Hate Days Like That

Yesterday was one of those days for me.  A day when for no apparent reason I was on the verge of tears most of the time.  A day when every failing or faux pas of my recent past came marching by to taunt and heckle me.  I sulked around in my jammies as long as I could, then went to JM's wedding which was lovely, then came home to sink back into my funk.

At least I was semi-productive.  I went to the grocery for an Rx on the way home and then, after changing into shoes that didn't make my broken ankle ache quite so much, I finished July Preemie Hat #1--and that is peachy-orangish yarn in that stripe, a whole lot orange-er than it looks in the picture.  Then I heated up some leftover spaghetti and meatballs while Durwood cooked the pasta and garlic bread baked.  We even managed to time everything so it was all done simultaneously, which as we all know is quite a trick.

Talking to my DD helped but I stayed up until midnight staring, slack jawed, at the TV watching people buy houses on beaches wishing I had a beach to overlook too.  Envy is NOT a great mood elevator.  I finally just gave up and went to bed.  Didn't even write a prompt.


This morning the celery is looking very energetic and will probably get a new pot with actual soil in it sometime today.

I think I'm going to go down and sew a bit while a load of laundry flops around.  That is all.