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.

Vacation Day 3; or, Laundry and Reviews

I also reorganized my flowers and stuff last night.

For all those who wanted one more hot day before fall really starts, you may thank me for taking my fans down to the basement. Yech. I decided to focus on reviews today but also doing laundry, since that was rather urgent. I read three more beginning chapter books last night, to add to the pile - Race the Wild, Petlandia, and Alien Invasion in my backyard and a big stack of picture books. Of course, that isn't ALL I did. I am a multi-tasker (otherwise known as having a short attention span).

Audiobook: Treasure Island (finished) Phantom Tollbooth
Relaxation Reading: Still reading Dell Shannon
Watching: Rocky and Bullwinkle marathon continues

• I made a new page organizing all my RA RA Read lists
• and then I started a Facebook group to go with it (yes, I'm procrastinating)
• and worked on adding my movie collection to LibraryThing. Still procrastinating.
• ok, if I've gotten desperate enough to do dishes it's time to stop procrastinating.
• 3 short reviews on Flying off my bookshelf
• also cleaning out my feed of all the stuff saved, mostly collection development
• 6 short reviews
• Reviewed Petlandia, Rain Forest Relay
• Reviewed 9 board books in 3 reviews, interspersed with laundry and cooking dinner. It's my bacon and I'll fry if I want to...

Vacation Day 2; or, I do ALL THE PAPERWORK

To review stack

This is the day of paperwork and catching up on all things online. 

Audiobook: Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

Currently reading: Dell Shannon's mysteries, having found them available on Kindle and regretting that I got rid of my collection years ago.

Watching: Continuing my Rocky and Bullwinkle marathon

• Cleaned out my email (if I haven't gotten back to you about a review request, you got deleted)
• Paid bills
• Finished writing a post on Chi's Sweet Home read-alikes
• Went through a Scholastic catalog for collection development
• Filled out more dentist forms. This is the third dentist in a year. Sigh.
• 1 brief movie post
• Took a break to do a little vacuuming and take the fans down to the basement. Thus ensuring the temperature will skyrocket over the next few days.
• 8 brief book posts (on Flying off my bookshelf)
• Writing letters and making up packages for the tea of the month club
• Packed up and froze the rest of the pot roast and goosh I cooked last week and made a pitcher of tea to put in the refrigerator.
• Transferring contacts to a spreadsheet b/c google decided to put them all into google+ which I can't stand and is completely useless.
• A short walk to get the kinks out before tackling the loan paperwork
• Loan paperwork

I'm calling it a day.

First day of vacation: Zooing!

I'm going to be on vacation! You want obsessive, detailed updates about my life, no? Well, you're getting them anyways. I wasn't technically at work on Friday the 25th - I spent all day at a workshop - but vacation officially started on Saturday, September 26th. I went zooing with my friend Sara.

We went to the zoo. I am wearing my new t-shirt, supporting the Heath family's adoption.

Incidentally, I don't really like the monkeys and apes, but I love walking through the trees in their sort of aerie. There were a crazy lot of people, so I didn't see as many chipmunks as usual, but I saw some! Yes, I go to the zoo to see chipmunks. 

We saw the baby giraffe. It came up to the fence (and peed copiously to the delight of all the children) a few minutes later, but this is a photo that proves We Saw the Baby Giraffe.

Then we went to World Market and OMG THEY HAD PAPER UMBRELLAS!! I have been wanting one for ages and they never had any. I bought two. I also bought some candy, cookies, and a set of measuring cups which I will use for bowls.

We went to Kopps and got custard, to Eclectica for beads, to Half-Price books (Sara needed to get a book), to Fava Tea, where I got the last of the Sweet Melon and some rock sugar, to Joanns where I bought fabric I absolutely do not need and a blue bottle to use as a vase, to Brennans for cheese and fruit, had dinner at Emperor's Kitchen, and stopped at Fresh Market on the way home where we bought fancy drinks (watermelon water! peach white tea!), cake, olives, and more cheese. I like cheese.

Purple hat

It's really a deep violet, I don't know why it looks gray here.

The Second Stage of Gladiolas