24 hours

I had 24 hours to myself this weekend. DH & J went camping Friday afternoon. I dropped A&B off at the ILs on Saturday morning.

I signed up at the neighborhood pool for the summer. I went to the FiberFest, resisted all temptation and bought the needles I needed. I almost succumbed to the $150 set of interchangeable needles. Maybe I'll ask for a set for my birthday. Next I headed to Lowe's for light bulbs & plant. They didn't have the day lilies I needed to finish the alley, so I bought some herbs instead.

By then it was late and I was hungry. I bought myself a yummy mushroom swiss burger and came home to eat it while watching HGTV. After a little dozing, I finally got up and went to work in the yard. I wanted to finish cleaning up my alley. It took another 3.5 hours but I finally finished.



It was much harder work than the last time. I think the ground must have been drier. The worst part was that I ran into a few fire ant piles. I worked around the biggest one but after multiple tries and way too many bites, I gave up. I put out some poison and left it.



My mom stopped by and took me out to dinner. That was a nice treat because I was planning on eating the kids leftovers. I got home from dinner with grand plans to watch a movie. I slept instead. It was so nice. I woke up early in morning but was able to go back to sleep until 8:45. I then sat in bed watching home landscaping shows while knitting until 10:30. Glorious!

Yesterday, DH & J came home early. J & I went to the nursery and bought the rest of the plants I needed. He "helped" me plant the lilies and the herbs. I still need to take pictures of it all done. Once planting was done, we picked up A&B from the ILs. We came home and it was back to routine. Scrounging for dinner and doing some laundry.

Oh, it was a nice 24 hours.

A day at the zoo

I'm full of it

My last post was all about working on old projects and finishing them. I had deadlines and they were going to motivate me. I had 6 days to finally finish up my lizard ridge bag. I was going to do it!

Nope. It didn't happen. I didn't even go dig it out of the drawer where it has been hiding for the past 6 months or so.

I worked a lot this week. I did some laundry. I cooked dinner. I threw a wedding shower for A's teacher. We refinanced the house. Okay I didn't do anything for that but show up and sign a bunch of papers. I read two books. I was busy, but I didn't touch my knitting.

I'm still going to go to the FiberFest tomorrow. I'm still going to buy myself a pair of needles so I can make my shawl. I might even buy some yarn.

Who knows when I'll ever finish my lizard ridge bag. Who cares!

UFOs

The wool is waiting for me to knit it into a wool pedder's shawl. Half of it is sitting on my dining room table. The other half is in my bedroom. Everywhere I go it taunts me. I promised myself that I would finish unfinished things before I would start the shawl. Honestly, the only thing that is stopping me from starting it is the fact that I don't have needles the right size with the right cord length to complete the project.

Since I don't have the needles, I did start working on unfinished objects. I started a washcloth from the leftovers from the owl before Canada. I finished it this weekend.



I know it looks odd with the abrupt color change but I ran out of the first yarn and it was really just way to use some time and yarn.

The other thing that is hanging over my head is my lizard ridge bag. I knit the panels up way back last summer. I sewed half of one side together and quit. I happened to look at the project in Ravelry today and noticed that I took the class last June. It has been almost a year. That is dreadful. I really need to finish it up but I'm still lacking motivation.

I think I finally found some. Next weekend DH & J are going on their first Y Guides campout. The ILs offered to take the kids on Saturday night. Even though J is going to be gone, A & B are still going. A has a soccer game at 8am on Saturday morning. I could take the kids over there at 9:30 and then have a whole day to myself. Actually more than 24 hours alone!!!

I've been thinking of all kinds of things I could do. Most of them involve practical stuff like weeding the yard, cutting the dreadful vine that is taking over my beds again this year, buying more daylilies and finishing up the alley clean-up. I will probably do some of that but for fun, I'm going to the DFW Fiber Fest in Addison. The shop where I took the class will be a vendor there. I would love to bring my bag in to show them that I finally finished it.

I've got 6 days and counting to finish out my bag. Let's see if this is motivation enough. Then as a reward I can buy some needles and start my shawl.

Bribery

There is a couple at the school who hosts a crawfish boil every Memorial Day weekend. I am friends with a few of her friends but we had never officially met, so therefore, we were never invited to the party. DH has heard about this party and dreams of going. This is like high school popular people are throwing a party and he has to go.

Last summer I finally met the woman of the couple and DH was ecstatic. He told me it was my job to get the invite. This school year we've gotten to know them a little better. We've been to the same parties, I can walk up to her and talk without feeling awkward. I'm working it, which really isn't my thing, but I'm trying.

Two weekends ago they were at the soccer fields after their son's game and I was there before J's game. I went up to talk to a group of the parents from the previous game and the subject of the crawfish boil came up. I said that I heard an invite to their crawfish boil was the hottest invite of the year. She said she could be bribed with cookies. I said I would be over with some that weekend. She replied it would have to wait until after Easter because she gave up sweets for lent.

So yesterday I finally got around to making the cookies. Honestly, this isn't my best batch of cookies (too crunchy) but it will have to do. I couldn't just bring over a plate of cookies. Instead I found this video and made some decorations to dress up the bribe. I hope it works!

Beans, beans, again

The bean plants are growing.











Unfortunately, something is eating all the leaves. I need to go google and figure out how to save them!

Easter

We had a very nice Easter this year.

We went to Easter Vigil mass because a friend of ours was going through RCIA with the added bonus of making Sunday morning a little easier. It started at 8:00 and J was asleep by 8:30. B on the other hand was going strong. During the candle portion of the mass, he was yelling at the top of his lungs, "I want fire! I want big fire!!" When we left mass at 10:15 he walked out doing a robot dance.

Easter morning we managed to hold J off until 8am and had to wake B up for the egg hunt.







I bought the kids matching clothes for Easter but failed to take pictures. The plan is to get real pictures taken of them. I was so good about portraits with A&J. Poor B hasn't had one done since he was about a year old.

After the egg hunt we went to brunch at the ILs, then Sister #4's house. B stayed to play at ILs, J stayed to play at Sister #4. A had cousin Emily over to play at our house. DH stayed to drink beer with BILs. And the best part of all, I got to take a nap. It was a lovely day.

Beans, beans

The bean seed package said the plants would take 7-14 days to grow. Yesterday was day 10 and we found a new seedling in the bed. I was about to run in to get the camera when A had an accident with the door and her fingers. Her fingers hurt bad. (DH said she was crying so loud he thought I had run into her with the car. I don't know how the car & I fit into his picture but, needless to say, she was very upset.) Today I went to go check out the new plant and found a dozen or so bean plants growing.

I knocked on the window and called the children outside, asking them to walk slowly and be careful with all fingers. They were amazed. They counted all the plants they could see and noticed all the bulges of dirt that will be a plant tomorrow.

Since everyone made it outside with all digits intact and unscathed, I got to go inside for my camera.







Only another week or so before the carrots should start appearing!

Sunday

I managed to survive Sunday. I woke up at 4am all dry mouth and feeling hungover. Too much hookah party. I got up, chugged water & advil and went back to sleep. Since the kids were at the ILs, I was able to sleep in until 10am before I had to get up and face the day.

DH & I went out to breakfast then picked up the kids. They were suppose to have a play date at 2pm but it was cancelled. We went to check out a farmer's market at a local nursery. It is still to early in the season so no fresh vegetables, but we bought plants for the alley instead.

We have a strip behind the fence that is maybe 1 foot deep and full of weeds. It irks me everytime I drive down the alley. I tried transplanting some monkey grass back there last year but the yard man mowed it down. I had been thinking of just putting rock or something back there but I wasn't thrilled with the idea. I finally decided on daylilies.

We got home from the nursery and I set to work digging out the old weeds & grass. I quickly realized that I hadn't bought enough plants but I was secretly glad because I had not realized just how long our fence line really is. After 4 or so hours of work, I've got 2/3 of the fence line cleaned up. I need to go buy 5-6 more plants and I can finish up the rest.


New plants


what is left


Of course, I realized after planting that we have a freeze warning for tonight. I need to go search for that stack of old sheets I put somewhere just in case.

Dude, what a game

It's been a long day.

We had two inter-school rivalry soccer games. The kinder team was routed 7-o but it was their first game 7 v 7 on the big field so understandable. The 3rd grade girls had a tougher fight. It was 4-1 at one point and they fought their way back to a 4-4 tie. I think that was the outcome all the girls needed.

Dh & I sent the kids off to the grandparents for the night, then went to a crawfish boil and a hookah party.


But the best part of the evening was this:



99.88%!!! Way to go Michigan State!

The last one

I had a meeting with the women's group from church on Wednesday. It is "bring an appetizer, dessert, drink of choice" type of meeting. Most months, I'm running out the door at 6:55 with empty hands. There is always more than enough food but I feel bad because I'm normally the one who doesn't bring anything.

I realized around 2pm on Wednesday afternoon that I had time to make cookies. I read this blog a lot. She has beautiful knitting and she bakes cookies once a week, a great combination in my eyes. I finally had a chance to try a recipe.

I wasn't sure about them when they came out of the oven. They spread quite a bit and I was afraid they would be really crunchy. I like a chewy oatmeal cookie. I was wrong. They were terrific. The cookies went over well with the ladies at the meeting and with the family. Last night Sister #2 and her daughters came over for dinner & A served the cookies for dessert. I managed to get half of a broken cookie before they were all gone.

Today I found the container I had stashed in the pantry with one cookie left. I guess A didn't see it and pulled the freezer stash out for dessert. The last cookie, aren't I lucky!

It was good!