Boring Post

The dog days of summer have definitely arrived here in North Texas! August is the hottest month of the year for us and the second driest month historically. Hot and dry, a wonderful combination! We've been at or over 100º for the past 3 days. I feel like I'm in the fiery furnace when I look outside!

Stitching-wise there's not much going on that I can show you. I should finish up my little complimentary exchange piece tonight and then get it ready to ship out to its recipient next Wednesday. It's such a cute piece! If Jan doesn't like it, I hope she sends it back to me! I don't see that happening, though as I have stitched several exchange pieces for her and she's never sent any of them back.

The garden continues to decline and roast under the hot sun. Unfortunately, most veggies, except for okra, don't tolerate our heat very well. We've pretty much eradicated the ugly leaf-footed bugs by using the shop vac on them in the morning and evenings. The cantaloupes have pretty much given up the ghost and the watermelons are on the way. The cukes have slowed down and I'm not sure they'll make it to reproduce in the fall, but we're trying to nurse them along. The bell peppers are filling out and producing, but the peppers get sun scald, which makes them pretty much inedible. The okra & jalapenos, however, are going like gangbusters! Here are pics of today's harvest:

Today's harvest basket was full of cucumbers! We have 4 White Wonder, 5 Lemon cucumbers, and 1 Marketmore 76 cucumber as well as a handful of jalapeno peppers.

Mark harvested the smallest of these watermelons late last week and then the other 2 were harvested yesterday and today. I think I'm going to be eating watermelon for awhile! That's okay though since ice cold watermelon is a great way to cool off on these hot summer days.



On the kitty front, Mr. Tumbleweed is settling in nicely. He's such a good kitty! We did have to take him to the vet for a tapeworm issue, but other than that, no problems with him whatsoever. I did think I'd lost him yesterday when I couldn't find him before it was time for me to go to work. We needed to feed him and put him in his room before we left. I spent 20 minutes calling and looking for the little twerp to no avail. Finally, I put some food down for Hannah and he came out of hiding when he heard the crunchies hit the bowl! This morning, I figured out where he'd been sleeping...under the couch!

He and Hannah are learning to play together. She still hisses and swats at him occasionally, but each day they do better together. He and Hannah tend to spend the most time together. I think he's trying to convince her to be his friend. They've played chase and wrestled a little bit, so I think he's close to winning her over. Callie pretty much ignores him unless he tries to get in her space and then she'll hiss at him. They have been seen running around and chasing each other, though. :o) Tumbles has full run of the house when we're home and awake. He goes back into his room at night and anytime we're not home. This is mainly because we're not here to supervise him with the girls in case something were to happen and because he's so tiny, we don't want him to slip out the door when we open it. He's afraid of the noise the door makes, which is a good thing, but since he's not chipped yet, we don't want to take any chances.

In this pic, he was going to jump Hannah, who is behind the curtain, but he was distracted by a jogger outside the window.

Here Callie, on the ottoman, and Tumble are looking out the window at something.

This is one of the best pics I have of the unique coloring and pattern to his coat. He's looking less like a brown tabby and more like a gray tabby boy.

Headless No More!

In fact, he's not even stitchless anymore! I put the last stitches in my Silly Snowquake ornie on Friday night while watching The Blind Side.

Design: Silly Snowquake
Stitched on 28ct. Cascade linen from Silkweaver with DMC B5200
Design available from Erynne's Be-Stitched Blog

Tonight, I will start my new incentive piece, BBD's "Evergreen". I'm so excited! I will be stitching it on 28 ct. Iced Cappuccino linen From R&R Reproductions with WDW's Palomino, GAST's Forest Glade, and CC's Carrie Berry.



I just realized that I never came by on Thursday to post the captions for my pics! Sorry, folks!

My exchange piece from Veronica. It's Quaker Heart from Piecework Magazine stitched in WDW's Romance. LOVE it!

My Creeping Veronica aka Georgia Blue Speedwell. I planted this 2 falls ago and it's really grown and spread! I love the bright blueish-purple flowers. Apparently, the bees do, too. (Can you see the bee??)

The poppies are really growing! I'm continuing to find them everywhere in this flower bed as well as other flower beds in my yard. This particular stand is from last year's poppies which reseeded themselves.

The lettuces have been loving the rain and warmer temps. They've all grown like crazy!

We have liftoff with the Wando peas!!

The potatoes are continuing to do extremely well, too. I've got shoots about 8" tall in some of the planters. Time to start hilling them to give them a better chance of producing and to help them be a bit sturdier.

A Little Update

Just wanted to post a quick update on my Silly Snowquake ornie. I've moved him to my lunchtime rotation spot, so I only have about 15-20 mins a day to stitch on him, depending on whether or not I hop on the internet during my lunchtime at work. LOL I do think he looks a bit sad without a head, now that I look at him on my computer screen!!

Please visit my gardening blog, The Haphazard Gardener
if you're in need of some greenery in your life. It's springtime in Texas and things are a-startin' to grow, including my taters!

Wordless Wednesday 02.10.10

Who Sent the Frog Back to Me???

Last night as I was finishing up my stitching for the evening on Emmanuel, I noticed a mistake in my stitching. Now, I want to know just who sent that frog back to me?!? I haven't decided whether or not to frog it or to just work around the mistake, yet. I'm going to put this away for the week and work on my exchange piece and then I'll turn my attention back to this monster.

Here's where I started last night for Saturday Night Stitch:


And here's where I finished:



You're not imagining things if you look at the wing in the upper right part. The bird is right side up, but I've been stitching it upside down (turn my fabric and my chart upside down). Everyone take cover, I've sent that little frog packing!!

Closing with some views from my flower and veggie beds today.


Blue Bedder Sage & Rudbeckia

Mr. Lumpy Pumpkin getting his color on.

Garlic getting its stalk and leaves.

A view of the lettuce bed (& weeds--mixed greens!)

Baby spinach plants

"Give" is Coming Along

I have been working on Plum Street Samplers' "Give" this week. This is my piece for the incentive round on the Only One Ewe message board group. I know that some of you have requested a conversion. I'm working on a complete conversion and will post it soon, so stay tuned! I played around with the settings on this scan and the colors are much truer to the colors in real life, at least on my monitor!

In the garden, things are enjoying the cooler temps we've been having. We have 3 baby pumpkins. These aren't big carving pumpkins, but smaller baking pumpkins. My hope was to get enough to make canned pumpkin to use in baking and for our kitties. Callie, my older cat, has kidney problems. As a result, she also gets constipated and the pumpkin keeps her regular. We give it to Hannah just because she likes it.



DH transplanted the lettuce and spinach seedlings into his new garden plot. They took a beating a couple of days ago in a rain storm, but they're looking good. We're expecting more rain this weekend, so we'll have to wait and see how they fare. He also transplanted some of his cantaloupe seedlings. Don't think they'll do anything, but he's so proud the seeds sprouted at all, so into the ground they went!



Until next time...!

Not Much Progress on Saturday Night Stitch

I've been stitching on my ornie for the past week, but alas, no finish. It just seems that gardening and life get in the way on most days, leaving me spent and lacking no motivation to stitch. It doesn't help that God's turned the heat up outside either. Since we don't want my entire paycheck to go to the electric company, that means the AC doesn't go below 76º in our house, and when it doesn, it doesn't usually last long. Normally, we set it at 78º during the day, which I find stifling, so I turn it to 77º and crank up the ceiling fan.

Also, I've been having a horrible time with tightness in my upper back and shoulders leaving me with headaches that last for a couple of days. It's hard to stitch when your head hurts too much to concentrate! I've started to do some exercises to stretch out those muscles, using my little massager (okay, Mark's been using the massager on me), trying to sit up straight and watch my posture, and I've been limiting the repetitive muscle useage. This has cut down on the muscle spasms and helped relax those muscles, but they're still tight. The chiropractor told me I need to stop doing whatever it was that was making them tense!! Yes, I pay him to tell me this kind of stuff, can you believe!?!

Here's where I started:
Here's where I ended:


In the garden, things are heating up and most of the plants are loving it! The cantaloupes (muskmelons) have finally taken off and are blooming like crazy. The little girl cantaloupes have finally shown up, so maybe we'll have some fruit to show soon. The watermelons are taking over the universe in the backyard. We've got 5 more baby watermelons on the vine right now in addition to the one that we've had forever it seems. That one should be ripe in time for 4th of July. It's just the right size for one serving for both me and Mark. LOL The beans have taken off and I've harvested some of those already. The okra is really starting to shine in the heat. We've battled hornworms on the peppers and the tomatoes and aphids on the okra, peas, and beans continuously since planting. I didn't realize that vegetable gardening was such hard work that required such diligence to fight predators!

Hornworm chowing down on one of the pepper plants.

Jalapeno Peppers (Can we say, "Salsa?")
More Cherry Tomatoes
The watermelon patch overtaking the yard
Okra bloom, finally caught one open!
Sunday's harvest

Hope & Anticipation

Everything is established in the veggie garden. All the plants are growing and doing well. Fruit is setting on our tomato plants. The yellow squash has 2 little babies on it. The zucchini is starting to put out flowers. The okra has buds. The bell peppers are flowering and setting fruit. The strawberry plant has new buds and may produce another round of fruit. The cantaloupes have started flowering, but haven't put out any female flowers yet. (The boys have to strut their stuff first! LOL)



But this...THIS has been the most exciting thing going on in the garden.

Wednesday (Discovery day)



Thursday



Today



This is a Sugar Baby watermelon and it's so fun to go out in the garden and check its progress everyday. I love the hope and excitement brought about in the garden. Here's another exciting picture. This should open tomorrow. Will be fun to see what it looks like.

A Belated Progress Pic & Meanderings

I realized this morning that I hadn't posted my progress on LHN's Heart of America since I spent my week of vacation stitching on it. Here's what I got accomplished between planting my flowers from the plant swap, helping to build and then plant the veggie garden, and catching up on some much needed rest and down time. I'm enjoying this piece immensely. The fabric is wonderful and the colors really stand out nicely on it.

Because it's garden planting time in Texas, I've not put one stitch on this or any project for the past two weeks. In addition, my husband has gone back east (to Tennessee, not very east but east of Texas) to visit family this week, so I've been doing some extensive de-cluttering, cleaning, and reorganizing of his junk. I've made significant progress and I think he'll be happy with the results when he comes back home, mother in tow. Between work, gardening, the extensive cleaning, listing items on Freecycle , and managing the household all by myself, I've been too pooped to stitch.

Let me tell you about Freecycle. It's an awesome way to get rid of your junk and/or stuff you no longer need. Click on the link above and see if there's a group in your area. If so, you'll need to join the Yahoo! group for your area and wait for approval. Freecycle is truly the epitome of the phrase, "One man's junk is another man's treasure." You list the items that you have to give away and then people email you and request it. You can then pick whoever you want to "gift" it to. Then, and this is the awesome part, they come pick it up!! No lugging it to the car to take to Goodwill or the thrift store or some other organization. No carting it to the curb for an organization to come pick up. You can either arrange to leave the item on your porch for the individual to pick up, agree on a time for the individual to come pick it up at your door when you're at home, or you can agree to meet in a neutral location (preferably a public place) to exchange the goods. It's awesome! I've gotten rid of several boxes of miscellaneous items by simply listing them as "OFFER: Box of Misc. Garage Sale Wannabes, ZIP CODE". Those things go like hotcakes! Of course, you have some people who will email you and ask for everything you've offered. I ignore those greedy people. I click the little "delete" button in my inbox when I see the list of 15 things they want. I mean, really people!! Get a clue! While it is frustrating to know that greedy people haunt the site, it's nice to be able to get rid of things and not be filling the dump with our junk.

Here's what I accomplished yesterday in approximately 2 hours of cleaning before I had to leave for work. All of the contents of these 4 bins plus a trashcan, a paper sack for papers to be gone through, and a small box for paper recyclables got sorted into appropriate places.



This is where the above contents came from. The dresser, which had 2 boxes of crapola in them plus a plastic green expandable folder blocking access to the drawers, and part of the corner desk which will be going SOON if I have any say-so in the matter. This thing is hideously huge and doesn't belong in this room. DH just "had to have someplace to put my stuff." Uh huh.



The rest of the corner desk area. Please note there is one disassembled CPU on the floor under the desk, one computer (no idea if it's working or not) on the floor, and one partially disassembled, but working CPU on the desk. Really!! Do we NEED all these computers?!? Most of the stuff in those totes is computer parts, pieces, tools, and software disks. Seriously.



This is where I will begin today.


Hubby tells me last night, "Those boxes in the corner are semi-organized." Right! I'll get 'em organized alright! LOL

Then I'll move on to this:



See those boxes? Mostly DH's books from school that he probably hasn't looked at in TWENTY YEARS!!!

And I'll finally tackle this, though it might not be today:


Aren't those computer parts boxes on top lovely? They are just so.....decorative!!

Wish me well. I'm goin' in!! But first...first, I go to the chiropractor for an adjustment and then to the massage therapist for a soothing, relaxing massage. Priorities. It's all about priorities. Who cares that my mother in law will be here next week?!?

Please visit my gardening blog, The Haphazard Gardener , to see what's cookin' in the garden.