Garden Progress

A brief (haha...not really brief, you'll see.) update on the garden happenings around this place.

garden

left side of garden, where my prized weed collection is growing with a fury. (no kidding, see all that green? there are only a handful of ACTUAL plants in there, the rest is grass/weeds)

eh....herb. what kind you ask? quit pokin' your nose in other people's business! ....ok I'm not sure. Its either oregano, or basil, or....

potato! I didn't even know we'd PLANTED potatoes! (no really, Eddie went out one evening and threw them out there, I actually tore them up thinking they were weeds because *I* was not looking for potato plants. I tried to put them back and begged them to forgive me and grow anyway. So far so good)

Sunflowers. I'm 99% sure anyway. Or weeds I'm just ignoring, hoping they grow into big yellow flowers. Time will tell.

Green onions. I don't even like green onions. But they're easy to grow, and I knew going into this, I'd need a morale booster. APPARENTLY Zach likes green onions. Weird kid.

Carrots!

Water...melon? Again, didn't mark these things, and was really good at remembering what was where for about - oh - 4 days. I think its watermelon though.

no idea. Couldn't even fathom a guess. Wanna take bets? Odds are in your favor! (I've got my money on "vegetable")

Tomato plant

Tomato flowering

Pepper flowering

Well hello firefly! or lightning bug. Whichever you so wish.

I was taking pictures of the pepper flowers and then Oh! Oh Wait! Call the press! Hot dang its a PEPPER! Its about a half an inch, but it still counts as a pepper! So after all my hours of weeding, I know all my hard work will be rewarded with at least one measly green pepper. ...and a ton of green onions. still...

Peas! Well...pea PLANTS. no 'peas' as of yet.

mystery plant #27. I'm fairly sure its acorn squash? Uhm...all of you garden pros, ya better start talkin' if you've got answers. Help a girl out here.

zuchinni. actually I don't know. But I bet I could TELL YOU its zuchinni and most of you would believe me, no? Why didn't I think of that earlier in the post. Just fake your way through Sarah, maybe no one will notice!

Green beans! Of that, I'm sure!

Spinach! I actually grew spinach! ...I also tore out spinach. Because I'd long since given up on the spinach coming up. ...and thought it was weeds. Until I noticed...it looked strikingly similar to a leafy green I eat quite often. Dangit. ...and then there were 3. plants.

ever the helper, Zachman digging while I was picture-ing.

Finished! Falling Water Scarf

Well, first to catch up this eventually became this:

uno

dos

& tres

And then dos and tres started in on a journey together (uno was left out, while I love it, its more thick/thin than the second two) and with the use of this pattern - Falling Water PDF - and some 88 cent "size 5..and a half? ish?" circulars I bought at Hy-Vee a while back (you don't need circs, I just used them because I didn't have a size 5 straight, and I hate my LONG size 6's) We eventually came out with something very similar to this -

ok, so it WAS this. Good point.

holy heck, that's a lot of scarf!

Yeah, its a little long, but I'm a little obsessed with long scarves. Remember I live in Illinois. When its not pouring rain for a week straight and flooding the good ol' Mississippi river (which it has, I'll have to try to get some pictures today) Its 20 below and the kind of bitterly cold that makes you wear a scarf INSIDE. I need that sucker to WRAP and make layers.

Although...its pastel, and I don't really...wear...pastel. And it has some funny color sections going on that I don't LOVE. But I'll wear it regardless. Because I MADE it! ...and because I'll be freezing... and I'm not picky when I'm cold.

I made a planner - isn't that comical.

This is probably my favorite finished project as of late. (and probably my most desperately needed as of late...) Last fall I'd bought one of those binder style planners, about 5"x5" thinking 'great, small, fits in my purse!'.

Yeah except that really translates to 'great, small, can only write one appointment per day...if you abbreviate' and that just doesn't fly. I really don't know what kind of freakishly-minuscule-handwriting folks they cater to, but I can't do it.

But I kept using it because...well, because I'm cheap and stingy and couldn't rationalize throwing away a "perfectly good" planner, right? Forget the fact that it was pure junk, and I didn't really USE it. I had an obligation as a responsible consumer to carry the darn thing until we both crumbled to bits of dust, thus continuing the cycle of life. Its biblical, its maybe in Ephesians.

(side note: this will show you what a crappy Bible scholar I am, I really have only a vague idea of what's in Ephesians...pretty sure Target planners are not covered though.)

So finally, I decided THAT'S IT! I'm going to be wasteful! ...because I'm forgetting doctor's appointments! and that's no good.



So I wanted a bigger planner, one I could actually write out b-i-r-t-h-d-a-y in the appropriate day, instead of scrawling 'bd' in a size 2 font. Or actually have room to write out which one of us had a "Dapt215" and maybe even with which doctor.



But...standing in the planner aisle of target, I was suddenly reminded "oh! that's right! I'm cheap and stingy" and didn't really want to pay $17.00 for a faux leather, snap closure, WITH RULER! binder. (I mean, c'mon! a RULER!)



So as I'm bitterly mumbling about why planners are so darned expensive, I happen to glance at the refills. ....refills.... huh. wait.



The refills are...8.5x5.5....kind of the same dimensions as an 8.5x11 piece of chipboard cut in half. DING! lightbulb!



So, grab the refills, head home and cut a piece of chipboard in half, a few coats of a hideous bright pink (why did I paint it bright pink? I'm not a bright pink person by nature?) drilled a few holes, toned down the obnoxious pink with some various patterned papers, and a few o-rings, and voila! Planner! Cheaper and cuter (although I'm fairly sure 'cuter' isn't a word)

I still need to swap out the O-rings for a smaller size, but that's what I had and they work for now!

So color me happy! And a bit more organized (a bit) because now I can actually keep track of what we're doing each week. fan-tastic.

**note** yes, it did occur to me to do it completely handmade and just make up calender pages, and address pages to fit, and print them out. The reason I didn't? ...I'm out of printer ink. And can never for the life of me remember which number I need...98? 92? cripes. I am contemplating making up a bunch and trying them out on etsy though. we'll see.

Softie Swap!

Its not that I'm horribly behind in posting, its just that I was...uh..building suspense! Yes! Suspense! ...I meant to do that...

So now that you're all on the edge of your seats (humor me) I'm finally getting around to posting pictures from the Softie Swap.

I have to say that I had the package sitting on my dining room table for mmm....5 hours? before I'd open it. I've never been so scared of an envelope.

Why you ask? Because there was the fear of the unknown. What if it was a softie masterpiece, the likes of which the world had never seen? In other words...what if I opened that envelope, and realized mine ...SUCKED.

That's kind of what happened. See, I finally opened that envelope and found my little bee, and her little button face, and pretty purple lace, and the red and aqua collar (that just so happens to match the 'color scheme' that I'm thinking of for this room) and her funky vintage body. Lordy knows I have a thing for funky vintage....its a sickness.

She fits in quite well...

But I got over it. Because in the end, I had a great time with the softie swap. ...a lot of anxiety, worry, agony.... But there's nothing like exchanging handmade for handmade.

And now take a sec would ya, and go visit Marianna at stargirlshop blog or even better stargirljewelry. She does AMAZING amazing stuff. Her jewelry is awesome, and her lampwork beads blow me away. I'm currently fawning over a few things. Maybe like this or something along the lines of this (I know, its sold...whatever) or this. I could keep going (summer breeze earrings? Sheepy lampwork beads?) but you can just head over to her esty shop and peek yourself. Its worth it, I promise.

Oh, and on my end? This is the bunny I sent:

Its the phantom crochet bunny pattern that has yet to be published. Except...I realized some days later, this bunny...has no tail. I know this, because I found the tail...in my knitting/crochet basket. Where it is most useful. Of course.

I started out trying to sew a dress that would have this really cute trim. I then realized I know diddly squat about sewing garments for bunnies. I still have the 'evidence' in my sewing basket. I don't know why, I really should burn it. So, change of plans, I thought I'll make her an apron. A cute vintage apron! ...or a country looking smock? Close enough :)

All in all, still pretty darn happy with it. I'm so glad I did the swap. I've got an awesome new softie, and I found a great new etsy shop to stalk ;) Thanks so much Marianna! And a thanks to Simone at Crafty Dasies for organizing this!

The Garden Beat Me Up

So I had plans to finish catching up around here.

Then I went out to weed my peonies. JUST. THE PEONIES.

...and hour and a half later...

I'd weeded the peonies (which was a task, let me tell you!) dug up all of my overgrown lilies (which was a task, let me tell you!) and then started turning over an area of grass between the two beds (which was...yeah, you're following me..)

So, since I'm pretty sure that sometime after midnight tonite, I'm going to lose all ability to move my extremities without wincing, I thought I'd do a quick post while I hoarf down my baked potato I made for dinner.

I found this on Vintage Pleasure, feel free to play along!

The concept:
a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.

b. Using only the first page, pick an image.

c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd's mosaic maker.

The Questions:

1. What is your first name?

2. What is your favorite food?

3. What high school did you go to?

4. What is your favorite color?

5. Who is your celebrity crush?

6. Favorite drink?

7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?

9. What you want to be when you grow up?

10. What do you love most in life?

11. One Word to describe you.

12. Your flickr name.

i tried to post the linky thing they give you to link back to each individual photo, but its not working. hmm...

in case you're wondering, since some of these don't really make sense: 1. sarah 2. salad 3. rock island high school 4. blue 5. mike hererra (ok, 8 years ago, but its the first I thought of) 6. pepsi (coincidentally, had to pick between pepsi and coke, and then found that picture) 7. martha's vineyard 8. strawberry shortcake 9. crafty 10. family 11. domestic 12. i had to cheat on this one a little to get any images, I used the 'sarahtakestoomany' part of my flickr url.

Memorial Day Sonnet

I heard this Saturday night on a Prarie Home Companion, and managed to scribble the last line of it down to remind me to find the 'text' of it to share here. After a bit of searching...

We're here to honor those who went to war

Who did not wish to die, but did die, grievously,

In eighteen sixty-one and in two-thousand four

Though they were peaceable as you or me.

Young and innocent, they knew nothing of horror---

Singers and athletes, and all in all well-bred.

Their sergeants, mercifully, made them into warriors,

And at the end, they were moving straight ahead.

As we look at these headstones, row on row on row,

Let us see them as they were, laughing and joking,

On that bright irreverent morning long ago.

And once more, let our hearts be broken.

God have mercy on them for their heroic gift.

May we live the good lives they would have lived.

~Garrison Keillor May 29, 2004

Spinning Stuff

"How I Spent My Summer Vacation" ...or at least the better part of the last 3 weeks!

I got in touch with Amanda from LoneStarArts who I "know" through twopeasinabucket and ravelry. I wanted to see if she could dye some BFL for me, and lucky for me, she happened to have 8 oz hanging around ready to dye. (It was a sign, I swear...I HAD to buy it right?)

after looking through her colors, I chose 'Carnival'. She had it dyed and mailed to me within a week I think, it was fast and I was thrilled. ...and it was soft and squishy, and it smelled good. (Yup, I smelled it. Part habit, and part 'I've received some smoky things in the mail before'. This just smelled fresh and clean. Awesome)

I spun most of this on 'my' spindle. ('my' as in 'its in my possession at the moment', it is not MINE)

nothing like spun singles on toilet paper rolls *sigh*

that's a nickel buried in there, to give you some size reference. Isn't it purty?

---------------Right about here...is where I ordered my spinning wheel---------------

More of that later...