Finding Time for Me

Summer vacation is coming to a close - the kids all start school on Thursday.  This comes, as always, with a bunch of mixed feelings.  I am a little sad to have them going back, we have great times over the summer together.  I love hanging out with my kids and watching the siblings (and cousins!) reconnect.  The school year is so chaotic with each child going their own ways for school and activities.  I am also looking forward to more "me" time.  With everyone home for the summer, I have not had a chance for any breathing space.  My exercise routine went out the window as did the time to accomplish much of anything else.  I wouldn't want it to be any other way.

 I was able to keep knitting (a real sanity saver!)  These are hexis for the last two weeks.  Not so many of them this time!

 I also kept up with my garden.  This is just some of the bounty.

 Lettuce from the salad planter.

 I love the look and taste of those that look like little trees.

 I have tried to start a pineapple plant from the top of a pineapple - Only time will tell.....

 This is how the celery looks now that was started earlier this summer from the bottom of a bunch of celery from the grocery store.

 A new celery bottom waiting to be planted.  I love celery in salad!

These are plans for more crops to be planted in the next week or so.  This has been such a fun experiment this summer.

After the kids go back to school on Thursday, my plan is to do.......NOTHING.......this will be the first time that I don't have lists of things to get done.  Don't misunderstand, there are many, many things that need to be accomplished, but for Thursday and Friday I am giving myself a "free pass".  A little time to breathe and to hear myself think.

I am sharing for Tuesday Tallies and 5 Minutes for Mom today.

Works in Progress

This is some of my current knitting (in addition to the hexi puffs!)

 In true fashion, this little scarf came with me on my vacation and stayed put in the bottom of my knitting bag.  Well.....by the time we came home, the needle had fallen out of the stitches and a few had unraveled - this particular scarf is now in a pile of things that need to be "fixed" before I can continue with it :o)  The books are all about homesteading - they have tons of great information on growing your own food and creative ideas of how to do it in relatively small spaces.  I am totally enjoying them.

 A few weeks ago we moved our patio table and chairs to the front of our home.  We created a little barrier/wall with half wine barrels and now have a very nice place to sit and eat our meals.  You can usually find us out there for lunch and dinner.

 Each barrel holds a different vine/bush - we have Bougainvillea, Red Raspberries, Blackberries (which have tons of fruit and the kids keep eating them as we walk by) and a Pink Jasmine.  When they have all grown in, it will offer us a little more privacy.

 In each barrel, near the front, we have planted carrot seeds - just around the perimeter of the front half.

 Hopefully we will get tons and tons of carrots.

 And....more carrots :o)

 This is our little plot on the side of our driveway.  There are two crookneck squash, two zucchini, one eggplant, one artichoke (that I don't think is going to make it), two celery, and the rows have more carrots.  Can you tell we love carrots??

 The celery is being grown from the bottoms of celery that I bought at the grocery store.  Another pinterest idea.

 These are potatoes.  I researched growing potatoes from potatoes that had been purchased and there were basically two schools of thought.  The first was to put the potatoes in a bucket and cover them completely with soil, then let them grow.  The second....

 was to cut them in half (or several pieces) and lay them cut side down in a deep planter.  As the greens grow, keep adding soil until the level of the soil reaches the top of the planter.  I am conducting an experiment on which method works best.  Will keep you posted!

 Yet another idea I saw on Pinterest - a salad table.  I truly didn't want to build something as big as was shown in the picture, so I just got another long planter and planted all different kinds of lettuce.  In just a little while, we should be able to pick our salad for dinner each night.  How cool it that?!

 We have one raised bed in the back yard and I kind of went crazy on what I decided to plant out there. Who knows if everything will grow and give vegetables.  Above is corn.

 Tomatoes and beans - you can't really see the beans.

 Green cucumber, yellow cucumber and a volunteer pumpkin plant.  There is also a pepper plant up there at the top right.

 Our one lone pumpkin.

Our first beans ever from our garden.  Can't wait to cook them up!

Please head on over to Tami and Ginny's for more works in process!

Finished Objects :o)

Finished Objects:

 From my Garden

 Off my needles

 Linen Stitch Scarf

 Front - Love this stitch!!

Back - looks equally nice.

Linen Stitch Scarf

Started and Finished in April

Needles:  US6

Yarn:  Koigu

Color:  P865  Lot: 23  Dark Purple

Color:  P469  Lot: 8  Orange Multi Colored

Color:  1113  Lot:  53  Orange

I knit this mostly while standing at Disneyland and Lego Land over spring break.  I had cast on the 450 stitches at home before we left, and by the time we got home it was almost finished.  The next couple of days were spent finishing and then blocking it.  I am totally going to have to protect this with my life since 4 of my 5 kids wants it!!!  I am being completely selfish and KEEPING it for myself :o)

Go to Tami's to see more finished objects

Tuesday Tallies

These 5 hexis are from 3 weeks ago - before our spring break.  With everything that had to get done, I only had time for a few.

These are the hexis from this week.  No other one a day projects were completed, but I do have a FO to show off on Friday.  WOOHoo!

 I just thought this was fun to add in.  This is the bottom of a bunch of celery.  I read on pinterest that you can grow your own celery by planting this part and thought I would give it a go -  I'll let you know how it works out :o)

Off to do some weaving - I am starting a class next week and am so excited about it!!

TUSAL, fishes, gardening

Here is my April TUSAL! Just look at all those threads! There is lots of DMC from cross stitching, there is the plastic lanyard from lanyard making on our vacation, and lots and lots of cotton from weaving in the ends of fishes. I think I'll need a bigger jar for my TUSAL soon :o)

What you see here are 4 stacks of fish that equal 96 fishes. Why am I showing you all the same fishes yet again??? Well.....these fish have all their ends woven in! You betcha! I sat down and wove in all the ends one right after another - now, I am weaving the ends just as soon as I finish a fish. I absolutely do not want to have to go on another end weaving binge again, EVER.

I was also busy planting. I love spring so much! We planted strawberries...

radishes, tomatoes and eggplant (there are now three different kinds of lettuce in this bed now as well)...

crookneck squash and zucchini (there are also 2 artichoke plants here now). Boy did we have fun!! Mostly the 6year old and myself, but everyone did a little bit. You can bet they are all going to want to eat our harvest :o) I also want to plant some sunflower seeds, some gourds and a few pumpkins from our pumpkins last year. Why are there only 24 hours in every day???