Glorious Icarus!

I finally got it on the needles! I've been drooling over this pattern now ever since I learned how to knit, a little over two years ago. Well I finally CO for it this past Friday and it's going famously. I love how boring the spines are, and how I can take the pattern anywhere and know where I am when I pick it up.



My funny co-worker Bill DiLuigi likes to leave notes on my knitting when I walk away from my desk. They're hilarious! Things like, "We're your friends, we can help you through this" and "This is the Devil's handiwork". Well, attached to my knitting ziploc in the picture is the most recent one from yesterday. If you can't see it, it says "This should have been quarantined in Mexico".

Bill is the extra-special musician in my department, who modified the song "Psycho Killer" into "Psycho Knitter" just for me. I requested he make it more generic so all my knitting friends could enjoy it and he's in the process of recording it for us now. I'll be sure to share it when he finally gives me a copy.

In gardening news, I transplanted my egg-carton seedlings into pots of wonderful potting soil last night after work. Yes, in lieu of knitting I gardened. Sometimes it's a tough call, and the knitting doesn't always win. I've got pictures of my pots to share, but right now my knitting is calling my name and it's winning over blogging. Tomorrow will be rainy, I'm interested to see how the transplants do in their new (temporary) homes.

Next, I start my Charentais melons! Three for my Mum and three for me. In exchange she's giving me seedless grape suckers she started off her established vines and some yellow (crookneck & straightneck) squash. Only problem is - I have no place whatsoever for any of these plants... and thanks to the beautiful motorcycle-riding weather I am way behind in my garden construction. Here's a pic of my youngest son & my best friend Scott getting ready to ride. We stopped in Dickson at the Perfect Pig BBQ joint for lunch Sunday. Great BBQ! My bike is the one with the flames.



And here are three pictures of what's preexisting in my garden. My rhododendron which I would have SWORN was going to be pink but instead is the most gorgeous purple I have ever seen.



And my two azaleas that I was considering killing because I didn't like where they were growing until they bloomed and now it's not even an option. The white one has a carpenter bee feeding in it (I love those guys!) and the coral one is tiny but really packs a punch with those beautiful flowers!



I'm glad I waited to see what was already here before doing anything drastic. I love my yard, now I can plant all the flower seeds I ordered with a happy heart. I don't have to remove any azaleas!

Coming soon, pics of my pruned crape myrtles. I really chopped these guys and was worried they wouldn't survive it, but they've got leaves! Next year I'll have to prune the one on the side of the house. I was scared to do it lest the pruning be too much for the others to survive. I didn't want them all to die.

What a Beautiful Saturday!

Look! This is the pretty sock I've been working on since last Sunday. The colors look much more vibrant in the picture than they do in person. I'm about to turn the heel sometime this afternoon.



Below is my 1st tomato sprout, this is a Purple Russian. It's an heirloom tomato with a supposedly superb taste and small roma-style fruits.



Below are my beans. See how much they've grown since I first posted their picture? These are two bean types, Soleil a yellow wax, french style bush bean and Red Noodle which is a climbing pole bean that produces 18" long red beans. I thought the kids would love growing them.



Today we mow our lawn. Or, Kieffer mows our lawn - since he's trying to earn enough $ to take himself & his "girlfriend" Hope to a matinee tomorrow. I had plans to do yard things too but am feeling crappy today so that might not happen in quite the quantity I had originally planned. Keegan has been EXTEMELY sick lately, has Dr.'s orders to be out of school from last Tuesday until this coming Monday. Jeremy started getting sick yesterday & went to the Dr. too and so two of my guys are down. It's just me & Kieffer holding down the fort.

At least I've got knitting and gardening to keep me happy, and this magnificent morning too. I hope everyone gets to enjoy it doing happy things with the ones they love most.

How Does Your Garden Grow?

Above, are my Canary Climbers, that seemed to sprout overnight. They are a climbing yellow-flowering vine and they will be growing up the side of my porch as soon as the weather is just a little bit warmer. YAY!



Above is one of the two kinds of beans I have started. This one is a french style yellow wax bush bean. They just started peeking out of the dirt yesterday afternoon but they just came out so fast that you could practically watch them grow! I'm so impressed.



Last but not least, these are my beets. You either love 'em or hate 'em, but they sure are beautiful and even if you don't like the actual beets - their greens are some of the most scrumptious and nutritious salad fixins you can have. These grow like WEEDS, they sprouted nearly overnight and I'm just DYING to have them in the actual ground instead of my egg carton starters.

Anyone else growing anything? If Summer doesn't hurry up and get here soon I'm going to EXPLODE!

Finished the Hexagon Blanket

Hubby stole it this morning to add to his blanket pile so he could comfortably play video games in the "man cave" where it was very cold. He wouldn't let me TAKE the blanket from him so I could take a proper picture but he kindly compromised and let me take one of him using it. Apparently it's nice and warm and comfy. If Gwennie doesn't have a little girl, I'll keep it and make her a boy-colored one and make this one large enough for adult sized people to snuggle under it. If her baby is a girl, I'll make me a different colored one to snuggle under. I love this pattern, it's taken me two weekends to make. Talk about instant gratification! This is 22 hexagons big.

The Bitch that Stole My Husband

This picture is from yesterday, hubby took Kara out for a ride on his day off.



Here she's gazing adoringly at him (holding the camera) and ignoring me completely (standing behind her).



Yesterday was such a beautiful day, sunny and cool and yellow-green from all the grass and trees that are beginning to sprout to life again. It was Heaven-on-Earth. I went home on my lunch break and traded my car out for my motorcycle. Wish I had a picture of it but no one was home to take one. I rode it back to work and then left an hour early to pick my son up from school & talk to his new math teacher.

Things in the kid and school front are looking up. Still rocky but looking up nonetheless. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

My blanket is coming along more slowly, I haven't really had a chance to work on it this week. A little here and a little more there but not really a big chunk of time until knit night (tonight). I played hookey from work, came home & slept because I wasn't feeling well. My Mom stopped-by in the early evening, which is unheard of, and she brought me a whole truck load of compost for my new garden and some plastic coated chicken wire for my garden-in-progress. I had to shovel all the dirt out of her truck because her back is out (my dad loaded it with the front end loader on their farm in KY) and it was starting to rain. Then she was gone, just like that.

Hope everyone came through the storms ok. We missed you all at knit night. Maybe we can get together this Saturday instead?

Hexagon Blanket Update

Look how pretty it is already, and this is just day two! I really needed an instant-gratification project because the 10-stitch blanket is knitting up soooo sloooow.



Tomorrow at work I will get to crochet more circles to attach to the blanket when I get home. This may end up being much bigger than I thought I would make it originally. I still have plenty of yarn, so we're good to go until Sherry opens back up on Tuesday.

Hope everyone had a good weekend, despite it turning cold again.

Guess What!

I got CLEAR SNEAKS!!!!!!

I went to the Goodwill yesterday evening to look for some Summer clothes for the kids. Got nothing in that area, but I found FOUR pairs of shoes (under $10 each) for me and a skirt and top (under $5 each) and two books and a big dry erase board for the kids. Whoopee! One of the pairs of shoes is CLEAR SNEAKS and they were $6.00!!!!! Look how awesome these are! They are about half a size too large for me, but I have long toenails so they're just perfectly comfortable.



That's right, those are little red HEARTS on the bottom!!!!!!

Ok, well that's enough of THAT.

Here are some more pics from our Florida vacation. My laptop got terminally injured while we were out there so I couldn't blog any more, and I've been too lazy since I got back to catch up. Below is all of us in the Everglades. Some nice passer-by offered to take one of us. Doesn't it look like an African plain behind us? But no, all marshlands. It was one of the most amazing places I have ever been in my life.


Below is some of my beach knitting, the Ten-Stitch baby blanket that never ends. How pretty is that though? The day was perfectly sunny and warm but there was a cool relaxing breeze coming off the ocean. I slept (and sunburned) but it's all good today. That's also Keegan and PJ snorkeling. The water was absolutely stunning, clear and cool and beautiful.



And finally, below is the green thing we found in the water. It was huge, as you can see, and softer than a grape. It felt like it was filled with skooshy liquid insead of being firm like a grape is, but the skin (shell?) was the same as a grape would have been. It was softer than a grape and you could see light through it so I don't think it was any kind of egg because we couldn't see any THING reflected inside. There wasn't any kind of a stem though, so maybe it was an egg? If you know what it is, please leave a comment.

We found the thing & figured it didn't belong in the water so we brought it out. But after just a few minutes it looked like it was beginning to shrivel and dehydrate so we decided to toss it back into the water. PJ chucked it back in and within minutes, the kids had found the beautiful silver leaf ring also pictured down there! That's a moonstone set in the ring, moonstone is also known as "Opal of the Sea". So our new theory is that the green globe really WAS something's egg and we got treasure for giving it back.



There are more pictures, they'll have to wait for another day though because today I'm working on this:



It's the Hexagon blanket, you can find instructions on Ravelry. I'm making all the hexagons in the same color, because it's going to be a warm "real" blanket for my neice. Well, we THINK she's a girl. The ultrasound shows what they believe to be a girl but her heartbeat says she's a boy. So I guess I'm not sending it until I know for sure that she's a girl. I'm planning on lightly felting it and then lining it with either flannel or polar fleece. If she turns out to be a boy, I'll make her one in primary colors & either keep this for myself or give it to someone else who's having a girl. She's due the end of next month, so she won't really need a warm blanket until this winter. Her receiving blanket (the 10-stitch above) should be fine until then.