Hockey Season is Over

The Pittsburgh Penguins did not win the Stanley Cup. They fought valiantly to the end and have nothing to be ashamed of. The Detroit Red Wings played hard but fair and were the better team in most of the games. I am not feeling to bad about it, they are young and there are many more cups to be won in the future.

Stale Bread + Wrinkled Apples

= Bread Pudding

Weekend

a walk in the park


new yarn to play with


and the first radishes from the garden

Another Blanket

I finished the second baby blanket for my shop.

In the Garden

On one of my early morning walks through the garden I found this little beauty happily blooming away between the shed and the rose bush.

Blankets

I was feeling a bit overwhelmed by having too many ongoing projects, so I am working on finishing as many as I can. The first two I finished this week were a hooded baby afghan, that will go into my shop (minus the penguin)


and an afghan made with all the yarn I had left over from my shawls. Now I am working on finishing another baby blanket and a couple of afghans for the camp.

New Knits

I added a splash of color to our dining room with knitted place mats. I love the colors in this yarn.


And I knitted some new dishcloths because I wanted to try out this pattern. It is quick and easy and the dishcloths come out nice and thick.


I decided not to work with the crochet pattern I tried out on Wednesday. It uses too much yarn and the dishcloth comes out rather bulky and hard.

A Day in My Life - May 14, 2008

Time flies whether you are having fun or not. Another month has gone by and once again it is time for Jenny's "A Day in My Life".

When the alarm woke me at 6 am today I felt like I could use a couple more hours of sleep. We watched a hockey game last night (playoff game no. 3 Pittsburgh Penguins vs. Philadelphia Flyers, my Pens won 4:1 :-) ) and hockey always wears me out. ;-)

Half of our house has been without electricity since yesterday morning and I am waiting for the electrician to come around 9 am. In the meantime Mr. Coffee was sitting on top of the stove, happily gurgling away.


I saw a new cat at the food bowl but it was a shy one and did not want its picture taken. Pretty thing it was though, big, dark brown tabby with white, and huge yellow eyes.

I made breakfast and packed Del's lunch. After breakfast I slapped a Bengay patch on my left hip (must have slept in the same position too long last night) and when Del left I put a load of laundry in the washer. The weather forecast called for showers in the evening but it looks like they might start earlier, well, sometimes you just have to take your chances. I am getting way behind on laundry with all the rain we had recently. At least my allergy symptoms seem to have lessened since yesterday.


I put the dishes away that I washed last night, set up for making ginger ale later, let the cat out into the enclosed porch and tidied up the living room and bed room.

Checked my emails, answered some, read my favorite blogs, downloaded the photos of the day from Webshots for my background. Checked what's new in Austria and in the world.

8:30 am I just came in from hanging the first load of laundry. It is cool and overcast but the sun is bravely trying to peek through the clouds. My husband whacked some weeds last night and now the legs of my pants are covered in clippings. The vegetables that we planted as seeds are coming up nicely and the new plants I transferred into the garden yesterday look good too. The little Carolina Wrens are especially lively this morning. I am always amazed at how big a voice these little birds have. They get extremely noisy when there is a cat in the garden. :-) One of the bigger cats has recently gone after the little tortoise shell one that has become a little more trusting and even allows me to pet her, and I sprayed her with water. Looks like she remembers, you should have seen the look she gave me. ;-) Our neighbors have added a fourth dog to their pack and it sounds like she does not get along very well with the others. They are constantly yelping and barking. I very much prefer hearing the birds in the garden to that. My second load of laundry is in the washer. Laundry today is mainly towels, tea towels and dishcloths. If it rains I just leave them out there, they will get dry eventually sometime.

I made a batch of ginger ale from a ginger beer plant I have been feeding for the last 7 days.


The electrician called and said he would be a bit late. He came shortly before 10 am and was finished by 10:30. Miss K. was not happy about his visit at all, not enough that a stranger invaded "her" house, he also used the dreaded vacuum-cleaner-monster. We had some sweet ants in one of the sockets and they had built up some stuff which might have caused the problem. All sockets are working again. I watched the young man for a while but had to leave the room when I caught myself wanting to ask him if those were boxer-briefs. ;-) Can't these guys fasten their belts better? :-)

I baked 2 dozens lemon-coconut cupcakes, cooked pasta (giant elbow macaroni, I am so happy I found those at our grocery store, I like them much better than the small smooth ones) and took some chicken out of the freezer for dinner (cold chicken and pasta salad), made instant butterscotch pudding for tonight's dessert (steamed apples with pudding) and raspberry iced tea.


When I looked out the front window I saw two guys ripping leaves off one of the bushes in our front yard. I motioned to them to find out what is going on and one of them said something about that plant being good for backaches. Maybe I should have gotten their recipe for whatever it is they are doing with the leaves. The bush is rather ugly and Del wanted to get rid of it. There is also a nest of fire ants close by it (which will probably save it, who wants to mess with those little pests?).

Made the salad for dinner and gathered my - thankfully - dry laundry.

By 2 pm I was ready to take a break, so I watched two episodes of "Crossing Jordan" (one of my favorite TV series) while trying out a new dishcloth pattern and finishing up some things I have knitted recently.


This is the new dishcloth pattern, it is very easy but it uses a lot of yarn. I am not sure whether I like it or not. Miss K. is still disturbed over this morning's invasion.

I washed the dishes and wiped down the kitchen counter and put some cat food out for our afternoon/evening guests. The weather seems to be changing, it is very windy and very cloudy now.

In about an hour Del will come home and we will probably work in the garden a bit after dinner.

Weekend

My sweet husband had put some money for gas aside and since we did not use it all I could buy some plants this weekend to replace my frozen ones. I got some tomatoes and peppers and a lavender plant. It was raining heavily on the weekend so I decided to wait with planting them.
Here they are waiting to be transferred into the garden:

I spent most of the weekend indoors. I am having a hard time with allergies. I never ever had hay fever before but something in the area where we live now is giving me big trouble. The itchy and runny eyes and nose I can deal with, but I am also coughing and that is very exhausting. The wonderful pills I got promise you 24 hour relief, yeah right. The take 2 hours to kick in and last for 6 hours at the most. I hate taking pills and what is the point in taking something that does not really work? Has anybody had real good results from their allergy medicine? Any advice would be appreciated. I am taking a store brand that has exactly the same ingredients as the brand name that starts with "C".

I want to crochet a curtain for my kitchen window. This weekend I started that thing for the third time. I had made a test swatch, measured and calculated and got to work. Several hours later I had finished 10 rows (over 253 stitches with a 2.5 mm hook) and the whole thing was 5" too wide. I am getting frustrated and put it aside for now. I don't know why I can't get it right.

One of our neighbors keeps a whole flock of birds in his garden, a pair of turkeys, a bunch of chickens and some ducks. Sunday morning as I was checking my emails I heard the turkey and it sounded a lot closer than usual than I saw something big walk by the window. Oops, they turkey got lose. Del decided to go over to their house to tell them that the turkey got out and as we stepped outside our front door we saw the rest of the flock had gotten out as well, both turkeys and most of the chickens. Only the ducks stayed behind. Luckily whenever his birds get out they seem to congregate in the space between our house and the next one which makes it easier to herd them back. I think the ducks talked the other birds into leaving and then stayed behind to get them into trouble. ;-)

Old Things

I made my last quilt project with a special purpose in mind. I have an old dresser and some old stuffed animals I wanted to display. I had some leftover nine-patch blocks made with 30s reproduction fabrics. I sewed them together, tea-dyed the whole thing and when I liked the result, I tea-dyed some more fabric for backing and binding. I hand quilted it and now it is the perfect place to display my old stuffies on top of an old dresser.

Gardening Woes

The average last frost date for our city is April 3, +/- 10 days. We planted our garden on April 25. On April 28 we had heavy rainfalls and on April 29 morning frost. All my tomato plants are dead and most of the pepper plants too. The only survivors are the seeds we planted, they are all coming up well. Unfortunately we have no extra money at the moment, so buying replacement plants is out of the question. Looks like I'll be having a tomato-less Summer (at least as far as homegrown tomatoes go, there is always the farmer's market). Yikes.

Note to self: Don't plant anything before the first weekend in May next year.

Thieves in the night

Once again somebody thought they needed something in our possession more than we did. Last night somebody broke into the shed in the garden. We have not yet taken the time to clean it out and so whatever got taken was neither valuable nor important. What is important is, that they trespassed on our property and opened a door that was not theirs to open.
And what else is important is that I am now feeling violated and scared once again. Who says next time they won't try the house or the basement? I don't want to leave the house because I don't want to come home to it empty and my cat gone. I am scared and don't feel safe in my own house at the moment and I hate these people, whoever they are, for that.

No more music

Tomorrow Sonific will go offline and all our blogs will be silent again.
If you want to know why, you can read it here.

My Weekend

We finally got the garden planted:


Discovered the first roses:


A new knitting project:


It was a quiet weekend. We both got a bit too much sun on Saturday and spent Sunday inside, resting, watching hockey and eating way too much. ;-)

Azaleas

Weekend

My fridge - Friday night:


And Saturday morning:


A finished baby quilt:


A bit of gardening:


A lot of knitting:


And some thrifting:

A Day in My Life - April 14, 2008

Monday, April 14, 2008 - a day in my life

We got up a little after 6 am. While Del was in the bath I started the coffee, checked on the yogurt I made last night and packed his lunch box. The weather forecast said it would be raining today so I did not do laundry.


6:30 am Breakfast for everybody:

Sunrise:


7:10 am: Del leaves for work. Checked on the seedlings in the enclosed porch - it came down to almost freezing last night, I am glad we did not plant them outside yet. Let Miss K. out into the porch to get some sunshine.

Read and answered emails, read my favorite blogs.

Washed dishes, tidied up the living and dining room, walked around the garden, filled the bird bath, found half a dead mouse + head, apparently a love gift from the outdoor kitty that decided to take up residence in our yard. We had just recently talked about the advantages of having an outdoor cat that is a good mouser. :)

10 am: Morning tea and books.

11 am: Wrote first part of this post, checked emails.

12:30 pm: Lunch

After lunch the weather report proved to be true, what started as a bright and sunny morning turned into a wet and gray afternoon. I spent two cozy hours on the sofa, watching re-runs of Crossing Jordan and knitting a blue scarf with the yarn I bought on Saturday.

After washing another load of dishes (yes, I admit, I did not do them yesterday), I fixed dinner, veggie rice, made from leftover veggies and brown rice and a tossed salad.


5:45 pm: Del comes home a little late, we have dinner.

7:00 pm: IT'S A HOCKEY NIGHT IN PITTSBURGH!!!
Game 3 of the Stanley Cup play offs and my Pens are leading their series 2:0. Keep your fingers crossed for tonight's game. ;-)

That's all folks! Just another quiet, ordinary day, just the kind I like best. :-)

Good Night!