Weekend

This weekend

- I watched "Don Carlos" live from the Salzburger Festspiele, a real treat for my eyes and ears.
- we bought the first apples at the farmer's market.
- I baked a Peach-Berry-Buckle and bread.
- I finished a book and did a bit of knitting.
- it rained a lot.
- we left the fans off for the first time in several months.
- I got my blanket back out.
- I wore long sleeves again.
- we watched a lot of British mystery shows on Amazon.
- was quiet and relaxing, just as I like it.

Now vacation is over and it is time to get the house back in order and establish a bit of a daily routine again.

Feline Friday

Three of our five girls, Brownie, MamaCat and Maggie. Brownie has been with us the longest, she showed up soon after we moved into the house but it took her a long time to trust us and to finally move in with us. She is a very sweet girl and happy to be a house cat. Maggie is one of our 'kittens'.

A Day in My Life

Today is my 51st birthday and Del is home from work all week so it was not a usual Thursday. It started with sleeping in and fresh donuts for breakfast (because I was not in the mood to bake myself a cake).

Then I opened my birthday mail, I got some nice cards and a lovely present from a friend - a handmade over the sofa arm sewing caddy, lots of little tools and some pretty green cotton yarn. From another friend I got an Amazon gift card. I checked my emails and FB account - more birthday wishes from friends and family.

Lunch was MSG free Chinese takeout, I had hot and sour soup, crab rangoon and vegetable lo mein, yummy and there is plenty left for tomorrow.

The afternoon was spent watching old James Bond movies, slurping iced coffee and finishing off the donuts.
The temperature was in the 70s all day which made for a nice cool house and I even had cold feet. The cats were livelier than they have been in a long time, enjoying the cooler temperatures as well.

Feline Friday

Our MamaCat, she got her name when she brought us 4 kittens in 2009. She had carried them up the stairs and into the mudroom. She is the cutest and sweetest cat and I am so glad she chose to live with us.

Fall Feelings

The mornings are cool and dark and damp. The days are getting noticeably shorter and not as hot as they were just a couple of weeks ago. We survived summer without A/C and had the lowest electricity usage ever for this time of the year.
The first fall feelings are beginning to stir. The urge to sort and purge, to clean the house from top to bottom, to make things again. I am starting to look for fall and winter recipes. The first apples and winter squash are appearing on the farmer's market, my favorite season is just around the corner.

Feline Friday

The perch on the pantry window is quickly becoming a favorite spot for some of our cats. Here are Leo and Jackie.

August

For some reason this week I kept feeling like it was much later in the year already. The weather has cooled down a lot, the mornings are dark again and I keep seeing leaves turning yellow. I am grateful for the lower temperatures and our house has finally cooled down a bit too. I have a huge mountain of things that need folding, ironing and putting away and I can finally tackle that.

I also have some lovely new sock yarn that I traded for some eyelash yarn with a lady on Ravelry and I can't wait to get started on some new socks in fall colors.

I will also start something new on my blog in August, something I did 5 years ago with Little Jenny Wren and that I enjoyed a lot. One day every month, more precisely on the 15th of each month, I will write a blog post about my whole day, everything I did and did not do and whatever else happened that day. I picked the 15th because it happens to be my birthday this month.

I have postponed my summer sewing project because it involves a lot of hand sewing and my fingers are not cooperating when it is so warm, but the patterns are printed, the fabrics chosen and soon it will begin. 

Weekend

The weather was cool and damp and we spent some time bustling around the house. We cleaned out Del's closet and found a whole bunch of pants he has shrunk out of, some of them still had the tags on. Some big guy will get lucky at the thrift store. We also gave away a still nice jacket that is now several sizes too big for him.
Because of all the rain and humidity we have some problems with mold around the house. I needed to move the laundry hamper from where it was and I have not yet found a new spot for it, so for now it gets kind of pushed around from room to room and with a little luck and a bit of cooperation from the weather it will be empty soon (for a glorious five minutes or so) anyway.
I started reading "The Source" by J. A. Michener and discovered that my eyes are not happy with the very small print. Geez, getting old is not for sissies. ;-)
I also had an unfortunate accident in which I got my foot caught in the fan cable and tore off half the nail on my big toe, luckily no blood and not very painful.
A friend of mine directed me to a website (and FB page) - Vintage Vienna - with old pictures of Vienna and I spent quite some time there on Sunday morning, taking a stroll down memory lane (which is not always a pleasant trip).
We had pizza for lunch on Saturday and I baked bread again. I really miss having a garden and I am making plans for a new beginning next year or maybe a little bit for fall planting, we'll see.

Feline Friday

I was so busy all day around the house, taking advantage of the lower temperatures, that I almost forgot about Feline Friday. So without much further delay, here is my boy Jack enjoying the cool breeze on the pantry window.

No new projects yet, it was too hot for anything this week.

Feline Friday

Best buddies.

Or maybe not?

Knitting

Have you ever done a 'MY-YN' project? A friend's daughter fell in love with this yarn and because she does not knit she asked if somebody would be willing to do a 'my-yn - my yarn - your needles' with her and I decided that it sounded like fun. The yarn is 100 % cashmere and is lovely to work with, the pattern is the Rick-Rack-Scarf by Purl Soho, much easier to do than it looked at first. I am almost finished with it and as soon as it comes off the needles I am going to start a brand new Summer sewing project. Stay tuned.

In other news: The weather forecast calls for a heat index of 100 this week so I am going to take it easy, no baking, no housework, cold dinners and a mandatory nap for myself and the furry ones (as if they need to be told to take a nap). Did I mention that our A/C is not working?

'Cool' Weekend

Oh yeah, the temperatures were down and I slept really well for the first time in quite a while. The cats were livelier too and ate more. I have noticed that they eat a lot less in hot weather than they do when it is really cold. In Winter I had to buy an extra bag of cat food every other shopping weekend, now I can skip one instead.

I took advantage of the cooler temperatures on Saturday and baked bread and scones and made pizza for lunch.

I took Sunday off from all housework except cooking 'whatever' stew for lunch. Beef stew with whatever else I can find to put into, this time it was potatoes, carrots, beans and lots of different spices and herbs, it was good.
I spent some time looking around blog world to see what other people are up to and came across this BOM which looks very nice and very work intensive. The patterns are in German. Wo die Liebe hinfaellt.
I found some nice blogs from fellow Austrian quilters and crafters as well. Lots of ideas and inspiration out there.
Del mowed and weeded and now the back yard looks a little less like jungle and a little more like a garden again..
The next few days are supposed to get very hot again, yikes. I just hope they will be dry so I can work off my laundry back log.
Hope you all had a nice weekend.

Feline Friday

My paper towels!

 

More Muffins

This week: Rice Pudding Muffins - my favorites so far.

Weekend

Fresh peaches from the farmer's market, a peach cake for our afternoon iced coffees. Time for knitting and reading. Hot and humid weather with thunderstorms and plenty of rain. Grass too wet to mow. Good food, homemade strawberry ice cream, playtime with our cats and plenty of rest and recovery.

New week, here we come!

Feline Friday

Leo & Jackie

Baking

This is the muffin book I am trying to bake my way through. Although I must confess so far I got stuck on just a  few recipes that I keep repeating because they are so good. Like the Peanut Butter Chocolate Muffins I made on Tuesday.

Cross Stitch

These are the two cross stitch projects I am working on. The stitching part is done, now I want to frame them with the fabrics that inspired the whole project and quilt a little bit to make small wall hangings out of them.

Knitting

Hurray! I was able to convince my camera to let me take a few pictures this morning. The light was not very good but I think you can see what it is.

This is a very small shawl that will work well as a neck-kerchief next Winter. The pattern is 'Cassiope' and it is so small because I used lace yarn (Patons Lace in Dove Grey) for it. Maybe I'll try it again with a thicker yarn sometimes.

And this is my current knitting project, a scarf called 'Summer Spleen'. I am using lace yarn again, this time with sequins (Patons Lace Sequin in Peridot).

What's Up?

Well, not much really. I am having problems with my camera and not being able to take photos has sort of taken the fun out of blogging for me.

I finished a knitting project and started a new one, I am working on some hand stitching projects and a quilted wall hanging. I can't show pictures of either one of them which makes me mad. I have also pulled out my "Dear Jane" quilt in progress and plan to work on that a bit more. I should really make it my goal to finish it.

The weather around here is crazy, hot and humid during the day followed by the daily thunderstorm. Rainy days are bad for doing laundry so I am creating quite a back log in my hamper. Luckily I used to hoard towels and kitchen towels back in the day so we are not going to run out of either any time soon. ;)

The cats are doing fine, just trying to keep cool like the rest of us. I find keeping the bedroom dark and the fan going makes it bearable and the cats agree with me by spending a lot of time in there. Summer - the time when the house appears to be littered with dead cats.

Despite the heat I am still baking bread at least once a week, sometimes twice and I am trying to bake my way through a book with yummy muffin recipes. I have 'summerized' our weekly menu, our bed and the sleeping places of the cats.

The weeds in the garden are doing very well and the grass grows at least an inch after every rain. Yesterday I discovered that there is now kudzu growing in one corner of the garden. Lovely, I hope we can get rid of it before it takes over everything. I am planning a completely new and different garden for next year. It has to be easier to maintain and not quite as work intensive. We are getting rid of the beds and we will switch to containers and downsize the whole operation.

Photo-less blogging is not much fun, keep your fingers crossed that all my camera wants are some regular batteries instead of the re-chargeable ones.