Days 139 - 145 When I Grow Up

I think I did it!  I managed to take a picture every day this past week.  Yay me!

 

What I did not manage to do was make a Family Friday print.

Fortunately I think I still have more Fridays left in the year than family members.

I should probably also try to work on posting more frequently (notice the "try to"?  Now I can still occastionally let myself off the hook!  Like when I'm out of town this weekend...)

Day 139

At a movie.  Such a bold carpet choice!

Day 140

 I took a mixed media metals class with a friend and her mom this Saturday.  It was great fun! 

We sounded like a bunch of miners in a cave.  Well, maybe cartoon miners.  Our hammering produced more tinkly and musical sounds than those of real work.  Plus at one point my friend and I sang "Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho, It's Off to Work We Go" and I'm guessing real miners don't sing at work? I don't remember the miners them doing that in Billy Elliot or Brassed Off.  Or even Zoolander... (Yes, I do get all of my information from movies, thank you very much!)  And they probably aren't down there making jewelry.

Some practice is necessary, but I look forward to it!

Day 141

Two friends and I planned to go the amazing Maltby Cafe after church, but alas, the wait would have been an hour. Inconceivable!  I, for one, was not prepared to wait that long as I'd not eaten breakfast.  We drove up to Marysville for a buffet lunch and shopping at the outlet mall.  All I bought was food, but as I had to shell out major bucks for a car repair last week, I think that was definitely for the best.

After the sunny weekends we've been enjoying, I was a little bummed for it to be cold and rainy, but it doesn't seem to bother these little guys:

(Doesn't his (or her?) shell look like someone painted it?)

Does anyone else count the slugs when they go out walking on a wet, rainy day?

Uhh, ....me neither.

 (If I did, I'd say my record was 170 slugs on one walk.)

Day 142

ADIDADL&CMB

(All Day I Dreamed About Doing Laundry and Cleaning My Bathroom)

Let's just say it had been a while and, sadly, I thought about it a good portion of the day.  Mostly trying to psyche myself up so I wouldn't find an excuse not to do it once home.  And it worked!

I like to sort out my closet by color.  I find it pleasing.  I also find that I forget how many items of clothing I own until I have to fold them all/hang them all up.  Time for a thorough spring cleaning!

Day 143

First signs of growth of the seeds I'd planted last week!  I believe these are spinach.

I was up until 1 am cleaning, doing laundry, printing a t-shirt and something else...oh, making maple-mustard chicken.  The chicken was quite yummy!

Day 144

After being so productive early in the week, my Wednesday was almost completely unproductive (outside of work).  I took these pics, then plopped on the couch and did not move for hours.  (As an aside, thank you KBTC for re-airing As Time Goes By in the evenings.  Love that show!)

Fortunately my little plants are not couch potatoes. 

This rock isn't growing, but I'd not noticed it before.  Isn't it pretty?

Here's the swiss chard.  I could barely find any the night before.  Hooray!

Day 145

7 pm meeting at Greenlake for an upcoming Ragnar Relay (I'm majorly freaking out about that, but I'm sure I'll share more in a later post).  It was very pretty, but very cold!

I'm off to pack, buy gas (gulp!) and then hit the road.

Have a marvelous Memorial Day weekend!

Days 135-138 In the Garden

Another work week has come to a close.

 (I will admit that that makes me happy, but don't tell anyone.)

Hopefully I can get back to Family Fridays again next week.  My screens have been otherwise engaged this and last week, but next week's looking good!

I'm finally feeling close to 100% after being sick and I've enjoyed getting back to walking and jogging and singing in the car.  

I've also really been enjoying my garden.  I'm afraid that this post will contain more about my garden than you may care to know, but here I am, typing it up and posting it anyway!

The past few evenings were perfect for getting my vegetable garden up and running and I'm very excited to see how it turns out this year as compared to last.  Last year was the first time I attempted to grow a garden and I felt it was a smashing success, but even so there was room for improvment.  This time around I simplified it a bit by planting less variety (more of what I know I liked and less of what didn't grow so well), which also meant I was able to time and space things out better.  At least that's my hope!

Day 135

I'm not the only one enjoying the garden.  I'm thrilled to say that it's a very popular hang out!

Well, it's very popular with the neighborhood cats. 

And the neighborhood dogs.  And birds.  And very recently a small rodent.  I'm not sure that poor little rodent made it as most of the time the neighbor's cat Simba (below) was tossing it around and "playing" with it.  I didn't stick around to see what happened.

Day 136

Half the garden is now planted!  Below are a pepper, tomato and cucumber plant.

It's amazing to think of what they will (or could, Lord willing!) become by the end of summer.  They're so cute and tiny now.

Day 137

I may have actually taken this on Monday.  Or Tuesday.  But I'm going to assume

I took it on Wednesday because it fits so nicely right here and I have no other pictures from

the mid-point of this week. 

We've been experiencing lovely, lovely, sunny, blue-sky days here in the northwest. 

May has always been one of my favorite months, second only to August, but it's been an exceptionally lovely one so far!

Day 138

I know I took these pictures last night.  So no cheating here!

It was another somewhat sunny day and as I was eating dinner I noticed this rainbow pattern on the side table.  So of course I got up to get my camera.

And that made me look outside and decide to take a few pictures of the current state of our garden.

This was my garden in April, a crazy mess:

Actually, it looks kind of green and somewhat full, but it was full of weeds and spinach from last year's seeds.  But I pulled it all out, added some new dirt (thanks to auntie Susan) and compost and now it looks like this:

I planted the pepper, tomatoes and cucumbers mentioned above, plus onions, spinach, carrots, peas, swiss chard and the sweet basil (in the blue pot below).  We're hoping the basil makes it this year as last year it didn't.  Sad.

 

The chives have returned from last year and are looking very pretty now.

(Does anyone else have Martha Stewart's voice go through their head

whenever they hear the word "pretty?")

 These are some of the stepping stones in our garden.  I've had as many successes as failures in attempting to make them.  I didn't set the stones deep enough in most and they've knocked loose over the past year, except for in these few.  And I didn't take care while installing them in the yard and broke a few.  And I set them all a wee bit too deep into the ground. 

I guess that means I get to make more this summer!

I really like the little flower ones.

I'm not sure if this is a plant or a weed, but it's cool!

 Bruno?  Elliot?  Boris?  Toad?  He needs a name...

 Kitty looks unhappy.  Or serious.  Something's not quite right!

Maybe she's tired of me calling her to come so I can take her picture.

When Simba's not around to terrorize her she sticks to my side when I'm outdoors. 

She relishes rolling around in the warm sunshine on the warm deck or dirt. 

Contrary to her reputation (have I mentioned that she's known as the "demon cat" in some parts?) she's very sweet!  And a cortionist.

Happy mid-May to all of you!

Days 125-134 Get The Party Started

This is going to be a long post!  It's been so long since I've blogged and since a

picture is worth 1,000 words I feel I must type 1,000 words for every day I missed. 

So prepare yourselves!!

Day 125

Um, maybe I could just owe you the 1,000 words?

Day 126

Make that 2,000 words.

Day 127

Ended the day by watching episode 1 of season 2 of Sherlock.

And then watching episode 1 of season 1.  Again.

This has to be one of the best shows on television!  Love Sherlock and Dr. Watson!!

Day 128 

How right you are, little fortune cookie!

Day 129

 

 What a beautiful sky!

Day 130

Make that 3,000.  Yikes, this is adding up quickly!!

Day 131

Would you settle for 4,000 of the same word? 

Day 132

Phew, I took some pictures.

I went with friends to the Women's Dessert Gala at church and it was so lovely! Our table hostess, whom I met that evening, is named Amy and she made the most beautiful gum paste flowers.  Pretty, don't you think?

 There were dozens of desserts.  I made it my personal mission to taste one of each. 

I failed.

There was very dim lighting so I got lots of practice in of taking blurry pictures.

(I think it's important to be good at something!)

I'd like to take a moment here to compare our plates.

This is Rachel's plate.  I applaud her amazing self-control!

It's quite different from my plate, which is clearly a sugary disaster area:

(Oh, see the little picture strip there on the right?  They had a photo booth and lots of fun props in the lobby - smart!)

Darlene's plate was almost as full as mine, but it was more tidily arranged.  Good job, Darlene!

Day 133

Cleaning day at Grandma and Grandpa's.  Or Gma and Gpa, if you prefer, which I often do.

10 (I believe?) aunts, uncles and cousins dusted, vacuumed, scrubbed, washed, swept and power-washed all of Gma's house for Mother's Day. 

Cousin Danny even installed a new toilet.  He kindly took a moment to pose on the old toilet:

Lori also graciously let me attempt to take another somewhat blurry picture.  Success!  

I caught her snapping pictures of the lilacs below.

So pretty!

After all the cleaning a wonderful lunch of pizza and root beer floats I left to run errands, including picking up some flowers for Mother's Day.

Day 134

Time to party!

I decided to use my favorite jam jars as vases for the flowers I purchased on Saturday as I love how how skinny they are.  I'd thought to Mod Podge on some pretty fabrics, but as I could not get the labels off I had to come up with an alternative. 

 I raided my fabric stash and just wrapped the jars in pieces of fabric.  Then wrapped the white ribbon from the table cloth I'd just purchased from Target around the jars.

 Finally I tied it all up with salmon-colored yarn from a discarded project and voila!  Pretty little happy vases.

 And the colors went very well with the cute little question cards Melita made to place on the table.

 Aren't they sweet!?

I worked on setting the table while my brothers were arriving to start the cooking.  I am just in love with bright, happy colors.  Fortunately it's Mother's Day so pink is appropriate.

I even used some of these mushrooms.  I need to make some myself!

 The boys made delicious fajitas complete with yummy avocado and spiced yogurt sauces.  I'm so proud of them!

Happy Mother's Day to our wonderful mother!!