Today...

     Today was a beautiful..but busy day. I spent most of the day playing catch-up with some housework I fell behind on thanks to a wicked sinus headache turned migraine. I finally called it quits at about 7pm and stepped outside to snap a couple pictures of something I've been working on. Only two of the pictures turned out...I am such a noob when it comes to cameras..but here they are regardless.

     First up...Mario (pattern here)! Well..his head at least. This will be my second Mario. My oldest requested Mario for her birthday, and when The Grouch's brother saw it he said he had to have one. But just the head. Why? I have no friggen clue. So there it is..just waiting for eyes, a felt letter M, and his hat. Also need to make him a Yoshi. Again..just the head.

     And, some itty bitty two round grannies. They are part of a little design I'm currently working on. Just need a couple more little grannies and then on to the body. I'm hoping I can have it done this weekend.

     Hope yall had a wonderful day, I'm off to finish Mario's hat..hopefully before 2am. :)

Rain! Glorious Rain!!

     I can't tell you what a beautiful sight this is. After what has been ages of clear skies and crazy high temperatures...we finally got some rain this evening. As soon as it started pouring I grabbed the girls and we ran, jumped, danced through the yard. It was wonderful!

     It's funny how things work sometimes. This time last year we were dealing with to much water and now we don't have enough! After the flood last summer I never thought I'd be wishing for giant downpours. It has been raining pretty steadily since around 7pm or so and we are loving every second of it. And, I'm guessing the garden is going to be a lot happier as well.

     I seriously love the little yellow flowers that cover our jumbo muskmelon vines. I grin everytime I look at them. Such happy little things.

     And here are a couple of the melons. Really can't wait till they are ready, I'm such a sucker for a good melon.

The squash are doing surprisingly well for being so crowded. I've actually never tried spaghetti squash so I'm going to have to have a look around for some recipies.

And our one and only eggplant is doing even better despite the crappy appearance of the leaves. There are six eggplants in this one pic, only one of which I saw while I was trying not to step on the melons or squash as I took the pic.

And...more of my little maters. I failed miserably at getting a good shot of the whole plant. I thought I had one but when I finally sat down to look at all my pictures I realized that my shadow was the most dominate feature. So, I got some close-ups instead. And yes..that is yarn in the picture. This plant is so big that it is pulling the cages (yes...we have it in two cages now) up out of the ground. So The Grouch did some creative "fixing" with some of my cheap yarn.

Next year, I'm taking over the garden. I'll be damned if I'm going to let The Grouch call his dad in again.

Bedtime for me, I was up way to late last night working on some projects and taking pictures of them in my little photo studio (aka..the bathroom. the one and only room in the house with decent lighting). A couple of them are presents for The Grouch's brother. And the other is a pattern I am attempting to write. I'm really excited about it so I hope it works out the way I see it in my head. Especially since now I'll have a way to share it with all you lovely folks!

Life...it happens

     Hello there! Long time no post. I had all kinds of things planned out when I started this little blog of mine, and then..life happened. And, as usual, all my grand little ideas got pushed to the back burner. I am working on a few things and I hope to have some pictures to show soon. Need to create an extra hour or two of daylight to take some things outside and take pictures. We have such dismal lighting inside that it makes my pictures look like they were taken in the 70's.

     The picture above is of the very last rose on my old rosebush. It was doing so wonderfully, pretty blooms covered every inch (this was before I owned a camera..) but, the heat seems to have done her in.
    
    This summer has been an interesting one so far. Quite the learning experience. For example, I learned that one should never, under any circumstances leave the veggie garden to one's fiancee. Especially when said fiancee apparently knows nothing of gardens and calls his Dad in to do all the planting.

     That folks, is a snapshot of the mess garden. The tall stuff on the right is corn, right next to that is spaghetti squash (5 separate plants there..) and right in front on the left are the peas. In the middle..right up against the peas is cabbage. Behind the squash is jumbo muskmelon and wedged in between the melon and the corn is eggplant. Yeah..I know, don't need to say a word. Did I mention that the culprit (fiancees dad that is) is a bit of a boozer. Yep..he was three sheets to the wind and that is probably the biggest understatement of the year. What isn't pictured as we already harvested them is the eight thousand radishes and spinach that he planted. You don't want to know how long it took me to wash/bag all that. I tried to explain to The Grouch (fiancee) what went wrong out there, but he didn't listen. I hope he learned something from this..I really really do.

     At least my tomato is doing well. It's huge. Like, mutant huge. I need to go out and take a more recent picture as it is now over 5 feet tall and wider than I am..and that's saying something as I am not exactly narrow.

     Its a black prince tomato, originally from Siberia of all places. And apparently it really loves the heat. Except for the fact that I have to pick the maters as soon as they show a bit of color and let them ripen inside that is. It is so hot that they rot on the plant before they can fully ripen. So far though we have only lost four maters out of way more than I can count. This is what they are supposed to look like when fully ripened.

Beautiful aren't they? Can't wait to try them!

And with that, I am off. Have a wonderful night everyone and stay cool!

Work in progress...

     Making this for my oldest daughter using Lucy's Neat Ripple Pattern and Bernat Satin yarn in Mai Tai, Sultana, Snow, and Aqua. She chose the colors and the stripe pattern. I'm pretty happy with it so far, though it is not as wide as I wanted. It is just about as wide as her twin bed. By the time I realized my mistake, I didn't feel like ripping it all back and starting over. So, it will be more of a snuggle down and watch a movie kinda blankie rather than snooze time blankie as was planned. Ah well..she loves it and thats all that matters.

     I have a few other works in progress, but when I tried to take pictures of them Little Miss Hurricane ran off with some of the bits and pieces. One of my little projects is an amigurumi kitty for my oldest. I have all the parts made, but I'm stuck on the eyes. I have no safety eyes at the moment and I ran out of black buttons that are small enough to fit. I tried giving the kitty eyes like I did on the Panda for LMH, but they didn't look right. Any ideas anyone? The head is maybe an inch and a half or so around..I'd measure but I haven't found where LMH hid it yet...so they need to be fairly small. I have a lot of other buttons..in all sorts of colors, and some are the right size but I'm just not sure if they would look alright. The kitty is lavender in color if that helps. Will have to snap some pics tomorrow if I ever find poor kitties head.

Beginnings...

     Let me begin by saying that I really can't believe I am actually doing this. I have never considered myself much of a writer, and honestly...I'm not sure I really have all that much to talk about. But, I did get a brand new digital camera for my birthday (which was Friday) and I figured I would need some more people to share all my piccies with...so here I am, we'll see how this stuff works. :)

     Also..there's this crochet thing. I freakin love it! Mother tried to teach me when I was a kid, but I was far more interested in video games than in yarn at the time. All she managed to teach me was how to chain and single crochet. I still love video games, though I only play World of Warcraft these days, but crochet has suddenly become a much larger part of my life. Especially when I discovered that..aside from blankets, washcloths, and other useful things, I can make toys for my girls! Who dosen't love something handmade? The above picture is a little panda I made for my youngest daughter. She just loves it..wonky stitches and all. Let me just say that black yarn and not-so-good lighting is a royal pain in the you-know-what. But, little ones are easy to please..sometimes. She just loves her "Pandy". As you can see, he is already been well loved as his head is a tad squished. The pattern is here for those interested.

Well, I started this post almost two hours ago and it is now after 3am. My little one had a bad dream about a spider (she is absolutely terrified of "buggies") and had a rough time getting back to sleep. I am now about ready to faceplant my keyboard.

Goodnight everyone!