8 posts tagged “what i'm making now”
The last few weeks have been crazy busy-- lots of stuff going on, including my hitting the road for work once again. Just got back last night from my first multi-day out-- the first of many to come. In the midst of all of that we had to say au revoir to our dear friend Carrie.
I've been busy making stuff, too....
And we took in what is prolly the last harvest of the year. (I had planted peas for fall, but the bunny ate all the sprouts, so no peas for us :( )
Tomatillos and sweet red peppers...
And hot peppers. I put them all together for dinner the other night....
Tomatillo and Corn soup with sweet red peppers (and a few hot ones, too). Delicious!
In the meantime, Mr. P has been busy building a person out of wood. :)
Sooooo, last week was a bit of a whirlwind-- a very very full workweek, including several days out and about in the state, followed up by seeing the parents in DC and doing one of my shifts at Artomatic. Which would have all been quite a bit to start with, but when my usual two hour drive to DC turned into a five hour odyssey on the way up and a four hour one on the way back, it really put a capper on a very long week. Which is why I'm trying to think about my garden and stuff instead....
I've also been working on some hats as well-- these are meant for wee heads.....
Lastly, I finished up something that I've been making for a friend... the theme is very much up her alley....
Hope she likes it!
So, I've been working on a few projects lately... including a few things that I'm contemplating putting on Etsy. I'd love feedback-- do these look like something you'd be interested in?
I've been experimenting with some placemats:
Sadly, yes. Many of the things I planted in containers this year are either a) dying or b) failing to thrive. It is a sad sad story, which I am rather upset about. Suggestions from gardening forums have included: 1) overwatering; 2) underwatering; 3) bad soil; 4) bad plants; 5) bugs; 6) not enough fertilizer; and my favorite, 7) gardening is often frustrating, so try again next year.
For the second year in a row, plants in the garden have failed to hit full growing steam prior to the heat wave, which seems to stunt certain things. I planted a full month earlier this year in response to this problem last year. And what happens? The brussel sprouts very excitedly began to finally grow last week. Today it was 94 degrees and they are looking all wilting.
Much more worrisome is that I have not seen a single bee-- honey, bumble, what have you-- since April. The peas are finally coming into their own, as are some of the tomatoes, and all of those flowers are going unpollinated. No bees, and not even really any butterflies. Nor hummingbirds. And I don't have the time to perform plant sex activities on these things. So we may not get much in the way of food this year.
On the upside, we did manage to have one salad out of the garden last week.
I also ended up making another container using the same materials and colors, although I added some handles to that one....
Finally, I experimented a little with some scrap fabric that I have had around, literally, for years. It's actually scraps going back to my first attempts at sewing a quilt, which I did my first year at grad school, now more than a decade ago. (I thought it might relieve some of the stress of grad school. It might have done, if I hadn't skipped the part where you take a class or at least read a book. Instead, I just bought a bunch of fabric, cut it up, and started sewing it all together. I still have some of the blocks, and it isn't as bad as that sounds like it should be. Although it's probably okay that I never quite finished that project). In any case, I used the scraps to make an oval shaped vessel, and to try out making a lid.....
Which was more or less what I did this weekend... and now I'm sooooo sore. We have some things blooming, which is nice. Especially considering that the squirrels and chipmunks dug up all the new bulbs I put in for the spring.
On the upside, one of our predecessors planted some bulbs that have continued to bloom (and a whole lot that have stopped blooming-- I have bazillions of non-blooming irises all over the yard. Lots of leaves, no flowers). So we have a few pretty things popping up around the house. But only a few so far...
I did some soil testing this weekend, confirming that yes, our clayey soil really is acidic. Shrug. It's pretty much what I thought, and the soil is so clumpy and clayey that I've needed to add to it just to be able to work it at all, but I guess confirmation is good. Also, it means that I'll go easier on the pine bark in the pit when I finally plant that rhodedendron that I picked up at the nursery to replace the one that the retarded squirrel killed.
Soil tested, I prepped the garden and planted the early stuff now that we should (I hope) be past having hard frosts. Radishes and lettuce and some more brussel sprout seeds to keep the ones that resprouted company.
I had a couple of little lettuce sprouts pop up as well-- black seeded, from last year, that must have self-sedded. I'm also trying soaker hoses this year, as watering was an issue last year.
P went at the space next to the garden with the tiller that his father gave us last year, so the garden has doubled in size-- whoo-hoo! I'm holding off on planting the second bed until it gets a bit warmer, as most of the other stuff I'm planning for the year want warmer feet. I'm also going to try to do some raised beds-- one I got on sale, and the other one I'm making out of bottles as per a suggestion in an organic gardening magazine. Recycling good, right? Of course, I ran out of dirt, as P thought I would, and had to stop part way through the process.
I'm actually in town this week, which is exciting. Especially since I'm going the two weeks after, solid, and almost half of May to boot.
Still too deep in (many hours of overtime) work to really catch up with myself and anything resembling life outside of work... like blogging. Which is why I'm rather late on posting the first of these things:
1) I've been meaning to write something about the Lily Ledbetter law being signed. Woot! Just another step closer to becoming full citizens for the mammoried set.
2) Been doing a lot of traveling of late, and not for fun. I spent the night in a hotel room that I'm sure was the scene of a murder in the not so distant past. It was the star and hole scar in the bathroom tile that must have been made by something small, roundish, and traveling at a high velocity and the blood colored stains between the cracks of the tiles that led me to this conclusion. Later, I was in a school where a child was really upset about the idea of taking an imaginary trip to New York City-- seriously, he Did. Not. Want. To. Go. Even in his imagination. He asked if he really had to go like seventy times. And then he wrote his name on his activity page. The name? John Boy. I'm not kidding.
3) Yesterday I spent six and a half hours of my ten hour work day in traffic on I-95 and I-495. That was fun. Because I love sitting in traffic above all things.
4) I finally finished a baby quilt for friends who are meant to be welcoming their second sprog in March.
Three random things whose only connection is that I was thinking of them and am too tired/sick/busy to make three separate posts.
1) Today it snowed. Almost enough to snow like for real. In Richmond, this is like a blizzard. I was going to go grocery shopping today, but I felt like dookie, and once I saw the snow I knew there would be no milk or bread at the store, so I stayed home and worked on Artomatic stuff and took a nap. Today was my first day off in almost a month, so I know how to celebrate.
2) I read this article in the NY Times and wanted to throw up. I was particularly taken with this sentiment:
“My bonus is ‘shameful’ — but I worked hard to get it,” said John Konstantinidis, a wholesale insurance broker, lunching Friday at Harry’s at Hanover Square.
Obviously, I have misunderstood the whole thing. The bonuses are really just representative of how very, very hard the people who wrapped my retirement account in toxic assets worked to liquidate any hope I might have of retiring. Ever. Before death. And clearly, as Mr. Konstandinidis implies, the rest of us are a bunch of slackasses who don't work hard enough to get bonuses for.... doing our jobs really really badly. But working hard doing it.
You know, it does occur to me that a lot of those people who are now being laid off from all sectors of the economy might, you know, have been hard workers. Except that all they got was a pink slip. I say we take your "hard worker" bonus and dole it out to some of those people. Also, Mr. Konstantinidis? Shut up please.
3) I finished the quilt for friends Rick and Sarah's new arrival-- who shares her name with my mom! Only they don't share the pronounciation. Still, I was happy to manage to get it finished just as things got ridiculous at work, which made it impossible for me to mail the thing, and I carried it around (along with my brother's birthday present) for two weeks before managing to get to a post office. But it arrived! Which is good. :)
I've also started working on some embroidery projects, one of which (if I ever get the time) I am hoping to turn into a birthday gift for one of my oldest friends. Her birthday is a bit over a month away, but considering how things have been lately, I'm not entirely confident I'll be able to finish it..... fingers crossed.....
Mostly because we gots no monies this year. Soooooo.... well, everyone's getting something I made. There are a whole lot of homemade cookies currently in circulation as last weekend was the great bakefest of a low bank balance Christmas. (I'm bringing some home, too, Mom, so don't bother baking anything!) The last couple of months have also been chock full of craftiness, with my niece coming in as the winner. She's getting a dress I made earlier in the year (hope it fits!), and a Princess Quilt:
It being a crafty Christmas, I thought I'd deal with our lack of stockings for Santa:
Everything is packed up and ready to go... we're heading for Massachusetts tomorrow (assuming-- ha!-- that we don't get stuck at the airport like everybody else in the country, apparently. I went to the library yesterday to stock up on books to read while waiting for our plane to show up). Hope it won't be toooo long of a wait....
