Quilts in progress

I am determined to start finishing some projects. I've had this one since I was 16 and I am now....probably 33? so it's definitely time. I hauled it to work today to lay it out and pin the layers.

Apple Crisp

cortland apples, a little extra sugar, butter on top and 10 minutes broiler, cinnamon

Vacation Day 9; or, It is over

small stack left to review

Technically the weekend. Drizzly and gray outside, so I'm glad I finished the gardens.

large stack waiting to go back to the library

GIANT stack still to be read

• I got dressed (hey, every small achievement counts)
• Cybiling
• 4 short reviews
• Reviewed Big Red Kangaroo, Bee Dance, 2 titles from Jump's Way to Grow series
• Chocolate break
• Wrote a review for another Jump title and then the internet went down and of course it didn't save. Wrote it again *mutter*
• Another Jump title reviewed.
• 7 brief reviews
• reviewed Desmond's Blue Whale
• If anyone's interested, in my backup blog I have 16 fiction reviews, 3 misc. (mostly some aware wrap-ups for the end of the year), 13 nonfiction, 7 picture books, 2 ra ra read posts, 6 board books, and 7 easy readers. 16 of these posts are still drafts.
• Rocky and Bullwinkle dinner break
• Reviewed Pig and Pug
• Reviewed Stinky Cecil for No Flying No Tights
• Reviewed Hamster Holmes and Don't throw it to Mo
• Reviewed board book
• another break
• Reviewed My pet human
• Reviewed a series for No Flying No Tights.

And that's it. vacation is over.

Vacation Day 8; or, Work is creeping up on me as is old age

Technically vacation is over and this is the weekend. I am a little achy from all the gardening. I went out for breakfast and then shopping with a friend (my version of shopping is to go to Lowes, Kohls, and Walmart) and then more brick hauling. Already work is creeping up on me. Sigh. Sinus headaches.

• Went to get the last couple bricks and OF COURSE Lowes doesn't have the same ones as Home Depot. Positively refuse to go back to Home Depot and buy slightly different color. Who's going to know? Besides me.
• Feeling slightly gloomy because of vacation ending and weather darkening and work hovering and also probably because I didn't eat lunch.
• More hauling of dirt. More moving of bricks. Exhaustion is imminent.
• But I have made it to bulb planting! Now all that's left is to add more dirt, lay out the wire, put the stepping stones and trellises in place, spread out the old vines for mulch, and do the last few pots.
• The garden is done. So am I. Now I can....work on Cybils, write reviews, and start stressing about work on Monday. Clean the kitchen and cook all the stuff in the fridge. Clean out the freezer. Vacuum all the dirt I tracked in. Plant all the indoor bulbs. Yay.

Dirt and mulch. OF COURSE I didn't buy enough, although my aching back says otherwise

Wire and stepping stones. Yes, it looks horrible but it's the only thing I have found to repel squirrels.

Not so bad from farther away.

Done! The two pots will have climbing vines and hummingbird feeders in the spring/summer

The viny tangle is in lieu of more mulch and/or compost.

Next year bulbs will sprout from the dead plants! Morning glories and nasturtiums will reseed themselves! I hope.

Vacation Day 7; or, I am Librarian, Killer of Gardens

Goodbye beautiful gardens. We loved you very much.

Have decided to bite the bullet and *gulp* cut down the garden. I really have to. If I wait any longer, it's going to be too cold and I won't have time. I have to cut down the wilderness of plants, sobbing quietly because they are still flowering, move the trellises, pull out the embedded chicken wire, move the bricks, expand the gardens (buy more dirt, mulch, and bricks) rebuild the wall, plant more bulbs, add new wire, and then I will probably throw the cut down plants over the top as mulch.

And I really have to stop procrastinating on those reviews. Sigh.

Audiobook: Miss Silver Comes to Stay (and my LP kids collection)
Relaxation Reading: Still on a Dell Shannon kick
Watching: Rocky and Bullwinkle - on season 5, marathon almost over

• Of course, the first thing that happens when I get up is I have a message from my new dentist that they  never got the x-rays from my previous dentist. Which I requested sent on Wednesday. My appointment is Monday. Old dentist is closed Friday and Monday and did not have the courtesy to either actually send the x-rays or call to tell me why they couldn't. Reschedule appointment and make note to call dentist. AGAIN.
• Fresh batch of Cybils pending nominations and discussions awaiting me.
• Started on the gardens. Felt a lot better when I realized they were mostly dead underneath anyways and lots of seeds were already dry and ready to collect.
• After a little more procrastination, decided to finish pulling everything own and reward myself with croissants.
• Did that thing.
• On my walk to get croissants I thought about how I wanted to lay out the garden and it's just as well I had to cancel my Monday morning dentist appt. because this is going to be a lengthy job.
• AUGH  SNAIL EGGS
• Finally finished cleaning it out, time to go buy more bricks! and dirt. and mulch. of course I forgot my gloves - my hands are not happy.
• AUGH I AM TWO BRICKS SHORT. I have worked until my legs are jelly and my back aches. Time to tidy up and call it a day.
• I might write a few more reviews tonight...I might not.

one bed cleared

All bed cleared

Sad and empty

Trellises cleaned off - will use vines for mulch

Moved all the bricks, digging the new bed

See? bricks all moved

More bricks

MORE BRICKS. I loaded them on a cart at Home Depot, loaded them into the car

Then unloaded them. ARGH I'm short!!

Oh well. Tomorrow is another day.

Vacation Day 6; or, Vacation is slipping away so fast...

Trimmed all the zinnias, added cages, shifted pots.
Still not quite right.

Appropriated empty pot. Hope someone didn't want it
because it is now mine. Next year there will be more zinnias
and daisy things in the little clay pot

Current daisies moved to sit in solitary splendor

Alone but not forgotten.

The sidewalk booby trap grows

Hmmm, I keep walking out to look at it

Maybe I should actually work on it

Of course, there are vegetables and bulbs and pots and things inside too

And zinnias picked from my garden!

Today I planned to really tackle the reviews and the gardens and cooking and EVERYTHING.

Audiobook: Death of a fool by Ngaio Marsh; Miss Silver Comes to Stay by Patricia Wentworth
Reading: More Dell Shannon
Watching: Almost finished season 4 of Rocky and Bullwinkle

• Farmer's market! vegetables that I'm going to cook and/or freeze
• Was inspired when I came back and finished my row of pots over in the driveway.
• Cybiling and gardening
• Gardening and Cybiling
• Second pot garden is done! Vacuumed up all the dirt I tracked in, both in my apartment and the hallway, swept the sidewalk, complete! The big garden isn't ready yet - the seeds are ripening, so I'll wait a little longer on that one. Maybe tomorrow...and I'll do the inside planting this weekend because I need more dirt.
• Dove into the Penguin spring 2016 catalog. Requesting review copies, adding titles to next year's carts and to read lists, etc.
• Took a break and dang it's 4:00pm.
• OMG THE SEEDS POP. I thought I was going insane, with these weird little sounds and I found some random bits of brown stuff on my desk and realized the black-eyed susan fine seeds I had sitting pop open and fling seeds everywhere!
• Finally finished the catalog. Time to design the big garden. I even MEASURED this one.
• My brain is tired. I fiddled with librarything instead of doing dishes.
• Ok, ok, I'm doing dishes. Dishes done. For one brief moment.
• 3 short reviews
• more fiddling with LibraryThing
• Prepping reviews (i.e. making drafts)
• cleaning out the refrigerator. hmmm, I either need to stop buying eggs or start eating them again.
• got obsessed with LibraryThing and spent the rest of the evening listening to audiobooks and deleting and re-writing tags.

I chopped up the mini pumpkins from our CSA for the squirrels. Hey, SOMEBODY is eating them right?

Wall finished. Waiting for the new layer of mulch and the return of the pots.

The pots are back!

The nasturtiums are just temporary. They were already in a pot I moved in and I didn't want to pull them. They won't be there next year, that pot is four o'clocks

The hose coils into the garden so you can't see it (necessary since I can't get it off....) and you can just barely see the mint pot under the faucet.

Not looking at the big garden to the side! NOT LOOKING.

the empty pot will probably be violas next spring

Quilted knitting bag (poppy bag 2)

I made two small quilts

Added a backing of the figured white cotton

Then sewed them together

Put lace on a strip of cloth for a small handle and tacked it in by hand

I might add a second, longer strap later.

Vacation Day 5; or, It's pot season!

cleaning out the pot garden

As I tell my colleagues in May....when I buy all the little clay pots for our summer art program. Today I'm tackling my two container gardens and finishing the quilted bag I was making for my knitting projects.

Audiobook: Death of a fool by Ngaio Marsh
Relaxation Reading: Had to buy more Dell Shannon b/c I read them all
Watching: Rocky and Bullwinkle marathon continues

• The garden is very muddy and full of slug eggs and somebody's dog pooped in the lawn so I had to clean that up (or smell it while I was working all morning). Sigh.
• All the errands. I went to Home Depot and got chicken wire and bricks and mulch, to the old dentist for paperwork, to the hardware store for tomato cages and birdseed, to the nursery looking for slug bait and ended up getting pots and bulbs instead, then back to town to pick up our farm share. I drove THROUGH town, a thing I never do, even when it's not the height of the tourist season!
• and around and around we go, calling dentists all the way.
• Since NOBODY had the slug killer I wanted (only one place had any at all and it was the kind that kills everything) I had to order it online.
• I decided to finish my quilted knitting bag and spent the rest of the afternoon on that with a few meanderings out to fiddle with the garden.
• Then I went over to the library to pick up my holds and go to the knitting club.



Pots waiting to be returned

Vacation Day 4; or, Rain

Part of a garden plan

Well, I was going to start on the gardens today. Um....*looks out at rain, cold wind and dropping temperatures* I guess I will plan the gardens today *puts on fuzzy socks*.

Audiobook: Phantom Toll Booth; Stately Home Murder by Catherine Aird; Death of a fool by Ngaio Marsh
Relaxation Reading: Still on Dell Shannon kick
Watching: Rocky and Bullwinkle marathon continues (currently in season 4)

• Still some laundry in the basement to finish
• Still cleaning out saved articles in feed
• Figured out how to get photos off my phone and added them to the general pool of pictures I mean to organize. Fiddling with photos. I really dislike google's photo organization, or lack thereof. So I started another blog for my photos. Why not?
• 10 brief reviews at Flying off my bookshelf
• Laundry finished! (well, except the stuff on the drying rack but it's so humid that will probably take a day or two)
• Finished 2 of the three garden plans I need
• Most of the dishes except some pots and pans that need a thorough scrubbing
• Read Little Robot, We Dig Worms, My Pet Human, and Sharks have six senses
• Drat. Now there are more dishes. Oh well.
• Read another stack of books, a couple picture books and board books, Don Brown's Drowned City and some graphic nonfiction I'm going to review for No Flying No Tights.
• Going through more articles.
• Sudden urge to go outside and get started on the gardens. Hauled some pots around, started trimming stuff back, moved pots temporarily onto sidewalk (but only one neighbor isn't home yet and hopefully she won't fall over them) and discovered strange clumps of insect eggs. 
• AUUUGHHH THEY ARE SLUG EGGS THE WAR CONTINUES KILL THEM ALL WITH FIRE!!!!
• Down to 137 books on my currently reading shelf and 22 on my to review stack
• 6 short reviews
• Am not going to bed until I clean out all these dang saved articles.
• Read another stack of books
• Finished feed! Going to read trashy alien romance and go to bed. Errands and gardening tomorrow.

Miniature Rooms for inspiration

I've seen the Thorne Miniature rooms in the Art Institute in Chicago several times, but I took pictures when I was there in August 2015 specifically to give me some ideas for my own miniature rooms.