I love you, Mom. Forever.

Wish I could bake you a cake...

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age 12

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 WWII

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1940

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1957 or 1958

                                                                             1986

Yep...

...summer Sunday in NYS...

  

Of course this is still heavy after blocking cuz no yarn disappeared but at least it's a little easier to manipulate now that it has had the bejeezus stretched out of it.  I do love those colors and the hippy dippy medallions. Maybe we'll get a blizzard this year.  

July is off to some kind of start, alright...

I'm not feeling energetic but I can't relax, in fact I'm pretty tense. A pinched nerve and watching smoke from a huge spreading fire in East County has me uncomfortable and stressed out at the moment.  Chances are slim that the fire will get to us but that's what we've thought before.  It doesn't pay to be complacent. So I need to take stock of the evacuation closet. And if only I could take ibuprofen...

I've started another project.  This vest (free pattern!) by Elizabeth McCarten is going to be a nice addition if we ever get cool weather again. Interesting that her last name is only one letter different from ours...

I blocked the last thing in my basket over the weekend:

Another cold weather item. Clearly, I need to live somewhere else.  It's a version of Lucy at Attic 24's Japanese flower scarf.  In fact, it is identical in the yarn and colors and, for the most part, in the placement of those colors within the flowers.  I like it when someone else does the creative thing and I do the worker bee thing sometimes.  Same with the vest, no creativity on my part , just labor and following directions.  Sometimes I just want to knit, not think. And it's always nice when something pretty or useful is the result!

Please keep the fire fighters and people and animals in the fire's path in your thoughts...

It was a nice day...

...for a birthday party, America!

Summer Solstice!

Earth Day 2013

Thank you, Mother Earth, for your myriad blessings.  I stand in awe and gratitude.  How amazing are these gifts of yours to us!

Warm, soft air.  With a view.

Tiny gift packages that open to reveal lovely jewels.

Plant a seed: lettuce!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Or chard.

Or kale. 

Or don't plant a seed...something jumps up anyway!

Aphids? Whoosh! Here come the ladybugs. Nature's insecticide.

How do they know?  Was there a ladybug news bulletin?  And just look at those perfectly placed polka dots!

Tomato forest.  Time to transplant.

There are even ballerinas in Nature.

And basking dinosaurs.

Fields of perfume

...and bits of sunshine

...dancing

...at our feet.

Something so magical about...

...the sky through branches of  a tree.

Surprises tucked everywhere

...if we only open our eyes to see.

And, maybe my own hair isn't so wild after all.

 I hope everyone gets a chance to go outside and celebrate the planet today.  Whatever the temperature or the location, there are gifts for the taking everywhere we look!  Happy Earth Day!

Yesterday's pile

This is what went out yesterday. Believe me when I say that this is just a scratching of the surface of what has already gone out and what will go out in the future.  Just a day, a single day...arghhh. There are two actual groups in my purges at the moment (this does not include any clothing or fabrics or yarns, books, etc.):  new or newer or non-collectibles, and collectibles/antiques.  The newer/non-collectibles go in the give-away or swap meet pile in the garage.  The collectibles/antiques get wrapped and put into boxes to be sold at some point.  Which presents its own issues...how the hell do I get rid of it all...?  I don't really want to pay for a booth in an antique shop, nor do I want to get all involved in eBay, Craigslist, or the like.  I could have a yard sale (which I do intend to do at my house in NY for those things there that I'm purging.)  But here in El Cajon, out here in the boonies, a garage or yard sale is not a great solution.  We don't live in a neighborhood, a sale of this kind would not attract anyone way out here.  I'm just not sure what to do.  Consignment?  I may just get so sick of the whole thing that I will donate it all and some lucky thrift store will get a hell of a bonanza one of these days.  Cuz there is a LOT of nice stuff in the things I'm getting rid of.  A lot.  I just don't want it any more. I'm done.

A new year...

Things are moving out the door in our house lately, in great numbers.  The theme here is 'less is more.'  We are in a real clean it out and get rid of it mode.  Amazing how good and freeing it feels.  My very real commitment is to get rid of at least one thing every single day of 2013...that will be 365 things gone from the house in a year.  And most days since I've been purging there are several(!) things that go.  So, if I have to pick a theme or phrase or some such thing for this next year, that is it: Less is more.  Onward!

Today would have been your 95th birthday.  I will never stop missing you.  I love you, Mom. xo

Rain, rain, where are you????????  You promised!!!  According to the weather report, there is 0% chance of rain by 1 pm, but 90% chance by 2 pm.  Fast moving "storm", I'd say.  We'll see how that goes.

ETA @4:15 pm:  Oh, hey, I guess it's started...Well, I mean, I think they will call this mist "rain"... STORM WATCH 2012!! Hahahahahahaha!

Well, the weekend sure went quickly.  

We went to see The Descendents Friday night, which was good.  Intense, but good.  I didn't realize it was as serious as it turned out to be, but it was very human, too, and quite funny in parts.

Before the movie we had dinner at a new veggie restaurant near the theater.  I  am pretty excited, I must say.  Veggie restaurants are not that easy to find, and we go to this indi film theater fairly regularly.  Don't know how long this one will last.  I can only hope for the best.  It did take the place of a Pizza Nova and people are a little mad about that.  But, if PN were doing that well, wouldn't it have stayed open?  (I will miss the salad I always got there, though; it was yummy.) Anyway, my dinner was scrumptious.  Veggie-stuffed quesadilla with salad.  Yum.  It's cool because at this place there are a ton of veggie choices and just a few meat-eaters' choices...nice to have that kind of menu when I'm so used to menus where there are only a couple veggie choices...veggie burger, salad, and maybe a veggie broth based soup, if I'm lucky.  Oh, and sometimes pasta with marinara sauce or maybe a cheese pizza...tired of those choices! So, yay!

A few weeks ago, I remember now, I sprinkled a seed packet in some of the pots out on the patio, and promptly forgot about doing it.  When I checked out there recently I saw that something was sprouting...that was when the vague memory popped up.  But, I will tell you, for the life of me I could not remember what exactly it was that I thought I was planting...until the other day.  I was out there again, poking around, and saw something that made me dig (haha) deeper, and, lo and behold I give you:

It was delicious. And there are at least a hundred more =-)


Now, I am off to the grocery for taco fixins.  I guess I must be hungry.

It's tulip time in the grocery store again!  I'll be buying these lovelies every chance I get until they are out of season. We don't grow them well here, our winters are neither cold enough nor long enough.

 

We had a birthday celebration here recently.(ETA: it was DD's, not mine.  But, thanks!) Pizza, pink cake, pink ice cream, family game night, lots and lots of laughing.

Tomorrow evening I will be headed out to watch/listen to DS perform at a local beach pub.

Lovely, simple pleasures.

Wow.

It's been over 6 months since my last post.  I think a fresh start, perhaps, is the best idea, rather than a rehash of months and months of living.  So, before January is over, and it appears that suddenly it almost is, I will wish you all a great 2012, and make a plan to write here with some (more) regularity.  I have been consistently reading blogs...I just haven't been writing in my own.  So, I will see what I can do about that.

Though this started out years ago as a quilting-related blog, it morphed into a general topic blog some time ago.  And now, it seems that quilting is rarely a thing I do anymore...in fact,  never...which, really, seems unbelievable, given the 35 years or so I have been doing it.  When I was far younger, back before I was married, I was very into yarns and fibers and spinning and weaving and natural dying and crocheting and basket making and sewing clothing (when I perfectly fit a pattern and had no need to alter!), and all kinds of needlework, like embroidery and needlepoint and cross stitch and crewel.  When the quilting bug bit, though, I gave that all up and never looked back. 

Well, I've been looking back, more and more.  And recently I've gotten, shall we say, sucked back into YARN, YARN, YARN.  I learned to knit in 2005 and it has been taking over ever since, much like quilting did when I learned how to do that, though more slowly and steadily... my yarn stash is currently still smaller than my fabric stash, and my aim is to keep it sorta small...but you know how that goes. I have big plans to get rid of most of my fabric because it makes me feel bad, is a weight on my shoulders and conscience, takes up a LOT of space, and I'm just plain OVER it...but you also know how that goes...

                              Hazeline Shawlette made for Anne Hanson's Fall in Full Color Knitspot Club, pattern by Anne Hanson

Soooo, short story long, that is a lot of what I've been doing the last 6 months...loading up on yarn and patterns and ideas.  And reading.  And tea drinking.  And mom-ing.  You know.  Being.

Happy Birthday, everyone!!

Yes, I'm here...

I haven't posted in oh-so-long.  I've been busy. Well, busy at times.  At other times I've been lazing around.  Reading. Knitting. Crocheting. Not sewing.  I'm almost done reading The Help.  What a WONDERFUL book.  I wanted to read it before the movie comes out in August.  I've joined a knit along for a summer pullover sweater.  I've just about finished a crocheted Japanese Flower scarf inspired by Lucy at Attic24 and I've started some Christmas gifts.  So, though I have been flying under the radar, I've been here reading blogs.  Sounds like everyone is having a great summer so far, there is so much productivity and REALLY lots of everyone enjoying summer after the long, long winter in most parts of the country (and world, actually.) Yay for summer!  I will be going back to my little house soon, too, so then I will KNOW summer is truly here =-)

I have a new post on my other blog, for the Magpie project.  Blatantly autobiographical, as most of mine are. Go over and take a look at some of the other posts for some good reading.  This is the new prompt:

Have a great week everyone!

Swooon...

Have I mentioned that I love my sink?