2008.07.18

I finished the first section of the pie shawl, and am about a third of the way through the second.  I’m starting to feel confident that I’ll finish it up before we leave.  I’ll take an updated photo over the weekend.

We took a walk to the local farmer’s market yesterday afternoon, and got some more incredible bread:  a loaf of potato-garlic-onion, and a loaf of apple-cinnamon, a slice of which I had for breakfast this morning.  Also a few more tomatoes, since our plants are just barely flowering.

A woman had her free-range chickens there for the kids to see, and the Peep couldn’t get enough of them.  I’d love to keep chickens in our yard, but the law says the coop needs to be 25 feet away from all property lines, and since that would put it smack in the middle of the yard, I think it’s a no-go.   Of course, I barely have enough time to keep myself clean and fed, so it’s probably for the best anyway.

Aside from a family dinner on Sunday, we don’t have any real plans for the weekend.  Good thing, too, since it’s supposed to be beastly hot and humid.  We’re thinking of going to the town pond, but I think it’ll depend on the air quality.

Whatever you’ve got in the works, stay hydrated and have a great weekend!

2008.07.16

Not much to report these past few days, really.  Work on the house is progressing - it may even be done by Labor Day, at the rate things are going.  There’s been a lot of work at work, too, which really cuts into my blogging time.

I started a semi-secret knitting project last Friday.

But I was halfway through the first skein of yarn (I only have two) when I realized that I was only a tenth of the way through the pattern.  Ergo, I didn’t have enough yarn.  So it never progressed beyond this photo, and to the frogpond it went.  I love the pattern, though, and will definitely make it using larger quantities of other yarn.

But the semi-secret goal remained, so I changed my plans, and am now using the same yarn with a different pattern.

This is about a tenth of the way through the pattern, and a tenth of the way through the yarn - yay!  I haven’t actually picked it up since Sunday, but I’m hoping to get some good solid knitting in tonight - Project Runway premieres, after all.

I’m taking tomorrow off, so with a little luck there will be more knitting then.  I have high hopes of finishing this project before we leave for vacation next Saturday.

2008.07.14

We went to the Garden in the Woods on Saturday.

Owned and maintained by the New England Wildflower Society, it’s a botanical garden that’s mostly (as the name implies) pretty shady; there are something like 1,500 different species of plants on the property.  It was a warm day, so we were thankful to be in the shade, but the downside to being in the woods is that bugs like the shade, too.  Luckily I had packed the Natrapel, and we were okay.

We’d never been there, and driving into the parking lot, we were a little worried:  there was only one empty space, and from what we could see of the visitor’s center, it was mobbed.  Turns out they had a new art installation premiering on Saturday; who knew?

Thankfully, once you got through the admissions process and out of the visitor’s center area (the gift shop, nursery shop, and admissions are all processed through the same register - a tactical error if you ask me), the crowd thinned out considerably, and for the most part we walked and looked at our own pace.

The featured sculptures were spread out across a trail that was just about a mile long, and there are plenty of other side trails that loop in and out of the main path.  Some of them are a little steep, and some have steps, but the trails are well-marked, and there were nearly always a detour sign offering an alternate, step-free path.  Perfect for us, since the Peep was in the stroller.

So we walked the loop, and took a side trail to see the ‘rare plants’ section.  We also spent a bit of time lingering by a little pond loaded with turtles and frogs.

All in all It was a nice day for a walk, and the few plants that were in bloom were really nice - it probably would be better to go earlier in spring.  We got some ideas for things to plant in our yard (some day).

We ended up back at the nursery, and got a couple of Bee Balm plants for the front yard, and two pots of switchgrass for the backyard.  Switchgrass looks like tall grass, so I didn’t bother to take a photo, but once we got home I did get a nice one of one of the bee balm flowers for ya:

After the stowed the plants in the car, the Peep was getting restless; he’d been in the stroller for better than an hour by then.  So we put the stroller in the car, too, and we walked the loop in reverse for a bit - he liked the spider and the ant sculptures best, so we walked as far as those, just about halfway back.

All in all we were there for almost two hours, which was in line with my time-distance policy.  Have I ever mentioned this rule here?  My feeling is that, any driving trip we take - whether to visit friends, or go shopping, or to do/see something - the time we spend at the actual destination has to exceed the time we spend in the car getting there and coming home.   Since the Garden in the Woods is a 30-minute drive from our house, we were well within the limits.

2007.07.11

We were watching television the other night, and we saw a hotel-chain commercial.  The family in the commercial wanted to take a summer vacation, but they couldn’t decide where to go.  So using their criteria (they had to be within a 500-mile drive of the place, it had to have outdoor activities, and it had to have one of those hotel-resort-chains), each family member put their idea into a hat, and they picked one (San Diego won).

I thought it was a pretty good idea, generally speaking.  We have a weeklong getaway coming up in a couple of weeks, for our annual family vacation, but aside from that, we don’t have any vacation travel planned for this year:  gas prices are high, the house is eating up our finances, and Larry doesn’t like to fly; it all adds up to staying pretty close to home.  And yet, we don’t want to spend the summer parked in front of the television (time enough for that in winter).

A while back we made a list of places we’d like to visit/thing we’d like to do this year.  The general guidelines were that they had to be places that were within an hour of home and wouldn’t require an overnight stay.  Originally we thought a daytrip a month would be good, from say, April through October.  The Aquarium was on the list.  So was the Thomas day, and even the Spinners game.

Well, here we are in July, and there are still eight or nine things/places on that list.  There’s no way we can pull off all of them this year (not to mention, the pressure of trying to cram them all in would be a major buzzkill, and defeats the whole purpose).  On the other hand, how to choose which ones to do and which ones to let go?

So earlier this week I wrote each one of the ideas onto a strip of paper, and put the balled-up strips into a mug.  I figure every Thursday we’ll decide whether we want to take a day trip over the weekend, or stick around and go to the swimming hole.  If we decide a day trip is in order, we’ll pick out of the mug.

(why Thursday, you ask?  because I’m a planning fool, and will require at least 24 hours to get organized)

We pulled the first one last night.  Tune in Monday for a full report.

And in case you’ve been wondering what the Peep’s been up to, he’s been helping the builders (aka playing in the mud in the backyard)

And running through the sprinklers afterwards.

2008.07.09

Here’s the latest sock.

The yarn is ‘Multicolor Sock’ from Rio de la Plata in ‘Leather Brown/Medieval Blue/Ecru’ colorway , and I really like it.  It’s 3-ply, and each ply is a different color, so it looks very tweedy.  I’m using the ‘elongated corded rib’ pattern from Sensational Knitted Socks.  I love how it looks, both on the foot and off.  And it’s going so quickly - I just started this sock last Friday, and by the end of last night I was ready to begin the toe decreases.

Good thing, too, because although I’d planned to knit nothing but socks this summer, my friends are reproducing left and right, so there will be baby knitting as well.  There’s also a semi-secret project that I plan to begin tonight; more on that later.

2008.07.08

Stitch N Pitch at the Lowell Spinners game was a great time!  It was a hot summer night, perfect baseball weather.  We got the ‘Gator Pit’ tickets, which included an all-you-can-eat barbecue buffet (plus soda and popsicles).  Not bad for $25 including your seat.

But the highlight of the night was definitely being with the knitters.  I meant to get up and take some photos - two sections of people with knitters every couple of seats was something to see.  But I never did get off my arse.

Thankfully, other people did - you can see some of their photos here.  The Ravelry crew was there, with buttons and stickers.  I scored some stitch markers and a tote bag from a yarn shop.

The Peep did wonderfully well - he didn’t kick up a fuss at all.  True to form, he didn’t want any part of the mascot, and it turns out he doesn’t like fried dough, but otherwise he was his usual easygoing self.

Here are the few photos I did take.

I even got a good bit of knitting done - I’m just about to begin the toe decreases on the latest sock.  Of course I don’t have any photos to prove it, though.  I’ll try to get Larry to take a couple for posting tomorrow.