What a difference 22 days makes

The garden on June 1st

The garden on June 23rd

DH has been eating on the radishes for a week or so.  There are 2 baby green tomatoes and both the beans and the zuchinni have a lot of blooms.

Yay!

hunt and peck

I know posting here has been really sparse so it seems kind of silly to say “posting will probably be non-existent for the next couple of weeks.” I’m having carpal tunnel surgery on my right wrist tomorrow so all that fun stuff that requires the use of my hand like typing, crocheting, knitting, baking, etc. are going to be seriously limited. Depending on how this goes I may be getting the left wrist done later this summer. Yick.

BTW – I’m on Facebook but under my real name. If you want to link up there drop me a comment and I’ll email you. I play Mafia Wars and Pirates if you’re looking for more crew.

PS – April and DH, I blame you both equally for this new FB addiction. Just saying.

Things

Something finished:

a wedding present for my lovely eldest niece and her new groom

Something in process:

Stevia, Basil, and starts of Cushaw

Corn, Tomatoes, Carrots, Radishes, Zuchinni, and Eggplant

Something brand new:

KPPM from Loopy in Chicago

foreshadowing

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

it always sneaks up on me

So I’m going along with my life and I start noticing things.  Things feel odd.  Other things are just plain wonky.  People act weirder than normal – including me.  Then I happen to read somewhere in passing that Mercury is in retrograde.

When will I learn to mark these things on my calendar up front?

The horoscopes have been pretty spot on.  This one is for the whole retrograde:

Aquarius (January 20 – February 18)
Your sign rules the sky, yet you can’t reach for the intellectual heavens if you’re not grounded on your own two feet. It’s time for a real spring cleaning, but in addition to organizing your basement, wrap up unfinished business with your family.

I got the house to myself most of last weekend and spent it pulling stuff out of every drawer and cabinet and cleaning and organizing for hours.   I need to restart on the dissertation but I somehow can’t make my mind focus with all the clutter – the clutter of stuff not where it belongs and other things undone and unsaid.

At least we’re at the end of the semester

The effectiveness of most of the training appears to be impactful.

Wow, it’s been a while. Have some banana bread

I hadn’t realized that it’s been almost a month since I posted last.  It’s all grading all the time here so there really hasn’t been much of interest to post. The semester’s over next week so hopefully things will pick up around here then.

In the meantime, have an adaptation of my standard banana bread recipe.

Really Good Banana Bread II

1/4 c. margarine, softened
1/3 c, sour cream
1/2 c. white sugar
1/4 c. light brown sugar, lightly packed
1/4 c. dark brown sugar, lightly packed
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. Penzey’s Baking Spice*
1 1/2 c. flour
1 c. mashed banana
1/3 c. vanilla yogurt

Cream the butter, sour cream and sugars together. Add in the eggs and vanilla, mixing well. Add in the dry ingredients and mix well. Stir in the bananas and yogurt. Pour into loaf pan and bake at 350 for 50 minutes – 1 hour.

* Or you can use Penzey’s Cake Spice or  1/2 tsp. cinnamon with a dash of nutmeg and a dash of allspice

Why yes, I *am* easily amused.

Why do you ask?

in which things are finished

If you have a brand new baby girl going by the code name “Little Miss” please look away now.

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Really.

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OK, the coast is either clear or someone doesn’t like surprises

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I love making baby stuff. It’s smallish, cute, and tends to be finished fairly quickly.

Yeah. Right.

I swear I knit this Baby Surprise Jacket at least twice after all the ripping. And it’s not that it’s really that complicated of a pattern. It’s mainly straightforward and it’s just garter stitch. What’s so hard? My complete and total inability to count and keep track of what the #$@% row I’m on at any given time.

Oh well, in the end it’s cute and it’s done. It may need bigger buttons but I’ll leave that decision to the new Mama.

Even given the trials and tribulations I had with this I still want to make the adult BSJ.

There also must be blankets for all new babies.

I love the way this one turned out.  I knew I needed something mostly mindless to take with me when I went up to be with Mom when Dad passed away.  I grabbed four skeins of related-color baby yarn, added a couple of hooks, and drove out.  This is simple sc, ch 1, repeat, turn sc into ch 1 sp, ch 1, repeat for a long, long time.  The color changes are what make it interesting.  I’m betting it would have been easier to do the striping with 5 colors instead of 4.  I’ll have to try it with 5 for the next baby that comes along and test my theory.

This next one is a big square of My So Called Scarf with a crocheted ruffle around the edge.

The rainbow colored big ass skeins of JoAnns Sensations look reallly pretty in the skein but if you look closer (which, of course, I didn’t before I bought it) the color changes are about every 3″-4″.  I tried and tried to come up with a stitch pattern that would look decent and this was the best I could find.  I like the way the colors work in this but since it’s a bit on the fuzzy side I’m betting this won’t hold up well to frequent washings.  I’m going to recommend it as a car blanket.

I had a couple of hats queued for her too but I think I’ll wait until fall to make those since (FREAKIN SNOW in APRIL notwithstanding) I don’t think she’ll need them that much now.

I may still make a rattle with some of the left over bits of the first blanket just because it’s too darn cute.

This is what Simi thinks of me taking one of her toy balls with a bell to make a baby rattle:

I doesn’t matter that I bought a new one specifically for the rattle.  It’s like a 2 year old – what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is mine and what I think I might want is mine and of course anything that you are doing anything with is mine.

Sort of back

I’m back but digging out from the stuff that piled up while I was gone.  Therefore in lieu of real content you get this:

Your rainbow is shaded violet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What is says about you: You are a creative person. You appreciate beauty and craftsmanship. You are patient and will keep trying to understand something until you’ve mastered it.

Find the colors of your rainbow at spacefem.com.

Thanks to Rabbitch for the linky