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    T Tuesday: summer wrap up edition

    These last few weeks of summer have us trying to squeeze every bit of summer fun and activities that we can. We’ve already started the school ramp up. Orientation yesterday…during the second half of the eclipse…nice timing people. At least it was raining like crazy at that time so no one cared.

    Speaking of the eclipse…did anyone see it? I built a couple boxes in case the clouds cleared. We got peeks at it as it was eclipsing.

    The clouds rolled in thick enough to obscure our view minutes before the greatest point of totality in our region. It was very strange though….the temperature suddenly dropped and the crickets started chirping. So awesome…just wish we could have seen as well as felt it.

    The eclipse reminds me that I should show you my still work in progress of the acrylic pour project.

    Somehow I seem to have lost the chipboard 3 overnight….I’m guessing Marvin had something to do with that.  I think I’m going to paint the numbers either white or black…leaning towards white. Then seal the whole works before attaching the clock parts.

    I’ve also been playing around with my button collection again…

    I have some ideas for projects. More button stacks. I just love how they look.

    Over the weekend we had an evening that was just perfect for a fire. Hot dogs for dinner anyone?

    As I waited for the fire to get going I checked out the garden. Late summer has done a number on some of the plants.

    Such as the pumpkin  plant..totally dead and gone.

    The green beans have totally taken over. I’m surprised since they were really poor early in the season….which is completely opposite of the last few years. I’ll definitely have some spicy beans to can.

    And diced tomatoes as well.

    Since the thick humidity, as seen here over the weekend, has finally cleared out. I’ll likely tackle the canning today in between playing taxi driver of course.

    What are you doing today?

  • Blog - Crafts - Creativity - Kitchen

    Interpretive crochet

    That’s what I decided to call my near inability to follow a pattern. I’ve decided that I’m ok with that. I crochet mainly for myself making dishcloths. My stemware really doesn’t care if I have too many or too few stitches. Why should I?interpretive crochet

    Honestly, I can and have followed a pattern…once for sure.  The green hexagonal dishcloth proves it. I’m pretty sure the purple one is correct as well. The rest of them..not so much.

    interpretive crochet

    I tend to crochet when I’m waiting or watching TV. I think its the TV that screws me up with the whole pattern thing. OH well. They are pretty and will certainly clean dishes so that’s all that matters.

    Incidentally…the purple yarn is the last of my cabbage dyed yarn.

  • Around home - Art - Blog - Creativity - Outdoors

    T Tuesday: gardens and more edition

    This week I thought I’d give you a look at how my gardens are doing followed up with some art.

    FYI-photo heavy post

    The deck box garden holds my yellow pear tomato plants each year to keep them from cross pollinating with the red regular sized varieties, This year I think I got a few seeds mixed up. I have some non-pear shaped tomatoes on a couple vines. Hmmm. Time will tell. I also have my Egyptian walking onions, radishes and jalapenos in there. Resting on the edge is a new to me shepherds hook. Mr. G is going to move one hook about 10 inches down for me when he digs out the welder.

    The shed garden is going gangbusters after what seemed like a very slow start. I have tons of tomatoes on the vines. Even the bedraggled plants that came home from Biology class with J are doing fantastic.

    The pumpkin and this tomato included. I really had no hope for either of these plants so I didn’t work very hard making a good home for them. Obviously they don’t care a bit.

    The yellow summer squash and zucchini are getting large although the zucchini hasn’t produced anything yet.

    The yellow ones are tasty though.

    The first bit of bounty from the garden has arrived.

    I am dealing with this pest though. Anyone know what it is and how to get rid of it without chemicals? I’ve been knocking them off and squishing them but the little munchers keep coming back for more.

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    We changed things up a little this year and didn’t attend the local parade for the 4th of July. Instead we went to a party close to our old neighborhood. We figured out that we hadn’t been to their annual bash in 10yrs. I forgot my phone at home so no pictures from there.

    We came back for the standard evening shenanigans on our block. J had 6-7 friends hanging out by the end of the evening. You wouldn’t believe how quickly 3 large pizzas can disappear.

    We joined a neighbor in their front yard for the awesome view of the fireworks, What a fun night.

    Of course, there was lots of overindulging of all sorts so my drink of choice the next morning was….

    alka-seltzer.

    I did take a bit of time for creating. I’m not sure how I feel about this page now that its dry.  The colors of the stains were so fun and vibrant before they dried. Now the page is a little dull.

    I went back and added these paper beads I made years ago to try and dress things up a bit. I love that they’ll hang outside the book begging someone to open it up to take a peek.

    I’m planning to work on the landscape edging around a flower bed before it gets too hot. The humidity is what is so bad right now. UGH! I get very cranky in the heat.  And don’t even talk to me about my hair.

    What are you doing today?