and we have grass!

This update might possibly be boring for people, but it's mostly to give my Mom an update on what's going on!  So, I've talked a bit about my back yard projects and you might remember that previously it was just a bunch of dead weeds. Well, it is now transformed!

A few weeks ago now, I had sod delivered to my house and a few friends helped me lay it out into the yard. We had prepped the dirt the weekend prior. We did not bring in any dirt, additives or fertilizers. When we were digging up the weeds we found that there had previously been sod here so we figured that the dirt would support grass. Honestly I didn't think about it much until after the sod was down and I was telling people (in my excitement) and people kept asking if I had pre-treated the soil - nope.

So, this first picture is the very first day! It already looks so, so much better. You can see in the forefront that there is still some dead weed matter. I have since cleaned that up and covered the edges with weed barrier. 

The picture below is a couple days ago. You can see how lush and green it is. Also, against the fence in the background you can see the angle of the slope towards the back. During the excavation process that slope was gone over a few times and so it is more gradual now than it had been.  Plus we raked over everything to try and even out the area so make it a nice home for the grass.

And, because this is George's home too, here she is enjoying the yard.  I imagine she likes how soft and cool the grass is.

Here's a little peek at the front flower bed, which I am just LOVING! I had planted rudbekia last year and this echinachea this year at the beginning of summer. The yellow rudbekia has been bloomed for like 2 weeks! I must remember to look out for more for the back yard. 

garden catch up part 2

This garden catch up is the flower edition.  These first pics are in the front yard.  The front yard is significantly easier because I have an HOA which maintains the grass in the front. I do have 3 flower bed areas that are mine to maintain but it's not as overwhelming as my back yard which is a foxtail dead zone nightmare.  But! I am slowly reclaiming it :)

 I know I've shared pics of these flower beds previously but I have made some new additions.  Home Depot had bark mulch on sale for Labor Day weekend so I grabbed a few bags to help with weed control in the front.  And it looks nice too :)  I also picked up these pretty pink coneflowers, I put one on each side of the giant rose bush. Which I still need to prune back! Yikes.

The yellow is rudbeckia. The flowers only lasted a day, then pooped out. But, the leaves are still green so I have hope the plant will live.  In the back row you can see my lavender and salvia did really well through the summer. That salvia is about double the side of when I put it in and the bees love it!

Oh man, this was a great day.  So I stopped in Freddy Meyers to pick up a prescription and the pharmacy computer was down.  What's a girl to do?  Check out the clearance plants, of course!  I totally hit the jack pot!!!  They had just gotten a shipment of mums and the clerk was marking a whole rack as clearance - 50% off!  He said the leaves were droopy and dirt a little dry but the roots weren't dry.

Well, I know from experience that clearance plants usually perk right up after they are planted, watered, and loved!  So I filled my entire cart with mums!  I was planning to buy some anyway so it was really perfect timing.

I planted them around the crepe myrtle tree in the front yard. I have quite a few different colors which are kind of fun.  I have to admit planting around that tree was not fun at all!!!!  The soil is super compacted and the roots of the tree are all over.  I wore a hole in my hand digging holes for the plants. I did manage to also put a ring of daffodil bulbs, tulip bulbs and crocus bulbs all around under the mums.  Hopefully once springs rolls around it will be beautiful!

So, a small update in the back yard. I started the spring/summer thinking that I would be able to pull out all the weeds and reseed the grass. I must of thought I was 10 people with tons of time and energy!  Needless to say that is not what happened!  I did get the hill weeded and a couple areas down to dirt.  Which then invited new, different weeds :) Boo.  

But!  This weekend I thought I'd get after it again.  My tools of choice are my rigid tine rake that I rake as much of the dead weeds out as I can.  Then I use my hoe to pull the foxtail seeds into a heap.  Then I put them in my little cart which I dump in the trash.  It is slow going.  The hill also has a bunch of rocks, for stability I imagine, that hold up the raking process.

 I did manage to claim a small victory in a corner on the hill today!  Woot!  I picked this particular corner because you can see it from the couch in my living room when the curtains are open to the sliding glass door.  I have been dreaming since I bought the house of being able to look out into the back yard and seeing a beautiful flower garden.  I put a hollyhock at the back, a blue aster that is very bee-attractive, a couple "goblin" gaillardia, a white salvia, and the last two mums. I also put daffodil and tulip bulbs along the bricks next to them.  I tried to build little dirt burms around the flowers to help keep the water from flowing down the slope. 

In the spring I plan to put hollyhock seeds along the fence. I also want to work on making the slope less of a hill.  I think by trying to put in steps instead of a slope I will have better success at growing things over there.  Next year I also want to put in my apricot tree! 

garden catch up part 1

I think the easiest way to get caught up at this point is a few posts. This will be the first in a series of what I will call "garden catch up"! Oy vey, where did the summer go???  Doesn't everyone say that at he end of every season?  I know I do.

So, we'll start with the veggie garden. This was so much fun and I learned so much.  I should also mention this was my first real garden so I really had no idea what I was doing. I did a lot of googling, a lot of question asking, reading, etc. to get where I did with my garden.  

Some things I thought going into this: I would have bumper crops of things and be able to can as I went. I did have bumper crops of patty pan squash, which are the cute yellow squash above.  But, my cucumbers were kind of more of a slow steady trickle.  My tomatoes did not really ripen. Green beans pooped out.  And zucchini?  Welp, I am still the only person who doesn't grow an abundance.

 But!  As you can see I did get things canned.  I realized that I could just do small batches of pickles as I had the cukes.  Luckily I was able to find fresh dill at the grocery store in big bouquet form since my dill did not even come up.  I also was able to make strawberry rhubarb jam with rhubarb from my plant in the front yard.  A coworker of mine gave me a big box of tomatoes from her garden that she couldn't use and I made a bunch of canned salsa, which was a first for me.

My spaghetti squash, pictured above, did really well - I think I got about 5 very, very large squash from one plant.  

This past week was the first frost and everything died.  Well, except for a couple leaves on a couple of my zucchini plants which have a couple very small squash so I'm leaving them be for the time being.

I've started a little list of what I need to do differently next year, how I want to rearrange things, what plants I want to do again, add to, etc.  I had a great time with this garden and will definitely do another next year!

Some canning stats:

10 jars of salsa

8 jars of strawberry rhubarb jam

8 jars of dill pickles

how does your garden grow?

I've got lots of updates in my yard to share today.  We'll start in the back yard which is honestly still pretty grody but has had a lot of progress made.  

In the picture on the left is where I ended last summer.  I had killed everything in the back yard and moved over the garden frame which was on the other side of the yard completely in the shade.  The garden box was already here when I bought the house last year.  The photo on the right shows the beginning of this spring.  When everything started coming up green I was so excited! Then, after the first cutting I realized it was all fox tails!!!! Rude. So, I set about pulling them - by hand.  It's verrrry slow going as you can imagine. But! If I weed eat them the heads that have the seeds just go on the ground so this way I am eliminating some of the seeds.

And here we have the day I planted the garden!!!!  Oh that was an exciting day for sure.  I bought already grown plants for most things. Next year I will start things from seed indoors.  I'm learning, slowly but surely!  See that cart in the background?  That is my weeding cart. I try and fill at least one or two cart fulls every day. This past couple of weeks I have not been hitting that mark but still do something every chance I can. Slow and steady I am reclaiming my back yard!

So photo on the left after a nice drenching rain. Photo on the right this afternoon.  I thinned out the onions in the bottom lefthand corner so I know it looks bleak but they are just thin shoots but still there.

 And I have baby tomatoes!!!!!!!  Oh happy day!  I have one group that will be yellow pears and another group of cherry tomatoes.  I have not had any success growing tomatoes up here in the past so this is very exciting!

Now for the front yard. The front is like a whole different house. Ha! My HOA takes care of the lawn in the front yard, keeping it green, aerating and mowing.  So it's lush in front and weed free.  I have two flower beds, one on either side of my walkway.  This first picture is in front of my living room window and there's a bit of a covered porch area behind the roses.  The roses and rhubarb were already here, and the rest before I started planting was grass and weeds.  I pulled everything out back to dirt and planted flowers.  The purple is veronica, in front of that are pink carnations, next is a spirea that is small now but will be a shrub eventually. 

 

The flower bed on the other side I don't have as many photos yet.  On that side there is a giant rose bush that was already there, and tucked behind it was a clump of lilies. It also was full of grass and weeds. I did the same thing here, pulled it all back to dirt.  There are also a bunch of rocks so it makes me think at one point maybe it was filled in with gravel? Anyway, I thinned out the lily plant and divided it into 6 plants and spaced those evenly in front. In the back row on either side of the rosebush I alternated lavender and purple salvia.  In between each lily plant I put in some iris tubers that a friend gave me from her garden.

Everything is filling in very well, which makes me happy.  I can see what I want it all to look like in my mind's eye.  I know it's going to take a long time to get rid of the weeds and replace with healthy grass and flowers. But! With God's grace I have hope.

Fall finishes and award winning socks

I have a lot to catch up on!  Yikes.  

 This year I decided to enter some hand knits into the fair.  I entered my Duchess of Devonshire shawl, which won an "honorable mention"!  I already knew I had won on this because of friend of mine had sent me a picture while she was at the fair letting me know!  Last Friday night I made it out to the fair to check everything out.  I found my shawl first, as it was in the aisle on this mannequin figure.

Next I had entered these socks.  I thought they were fun with the contrasting colors and silver stellina.  I had written little note cards on each item telling the yarn, the pattern, when I started and ended each project.  I thought the judges might like to know?  These socks didn't win anything but it was still fun to find them in the showcase!

And here's the big surprise!!!  I got a first place prize ribbon for my eyelet socks!  Wooo hooo!  I truly did not expect to win, at all.  One of the doctors at the clinic I work at had entered a pair of socks that were cables cuff to toe and I thought for sure those would win! She did win 3rd place.  My first place was a shock!  I didn't realize it at the time but I also won $10 :)  I thought the prize was the ribbon - even bigger surprise!  Now every time I wear these socks I will remember they are prize winners. ha!

Last weekend I finished up these Halloween quilted items.  There's a couple pillow cases, a table runner (in front, folded) and a table topper.  I'm giving the table topper to a friend.  I bound them all with a thin black and white striped fabric, so fun!

The other quilted item I worked on last weekend and finished the binding today was this mini quilt.  When I bought this house with the fireplace, I knew that the open space above the mantle would be perfect for mini quilts!!!  

Honestly I think I could go a bit bigger but I like it.

The pattern did not have the little borders in between the o's.  I sort of wish I hadn't done those now, but meh.  I sort of like it.  Sort of don't.  But, it's not like I hate it and it's ok.  I really love the fabrics I used, they are sort of Fall but I think can also be used at other times too, you know?  I didn't use anything that screams, this is only Fall!  

Since I had finished that up I started putting out decorations.  I wasn't going to because my energy is super low.  I've had a cold all week and it has just drained my mojo.  boo.  But!  This week it is officially Fall so I just took my time.

It was fun because I had put things on the mantle, then take a step back and was like, nope.  Still needs something or don't like that.....it's now pretty close to really great!  ha.  Also!  I almost, almost forgot this little turkey pillow!  I did forget it last year.  

It's so fun having this new house, a new layout of furniture and surfaces to decorate.  That was one thing I *loved* doing at our old house when my husband was alive.  Every season I would take everything down, unpack the new season and enjoy all the things I've collected and love.  It's been 3.5 years since he died and I'm just now starting to want to do that again and get a bit of joy from it.

In knitting news I am almost finished with all the parts for a little animal.  There's nothing to really show since nothing is sewn together yet.  It's been nice since my energy has been like nothing to have just little pieces to knit and finish.  I'm really missing having a sock on the go though!  Oh! I found a new podcast (to me) that I really like!  It's called Bookend Knits, you can find it on youtube here.  It is seriously cracking me up.  It's two ladies who are identical twins, they chat about knitting, books, yarn, nerdy stuff....and they are quirky.  I love quirky!  So, I have been binge watching them, I'm on episode 4.

I just have to say that I'm so glad I found podcasts.  Mostly knitting podcasts.  In my real, regular life I know a few knitters but that's just about all we have in common.  The podcasts I really like also read, do other crafts, they have a sense of humor.  It's nice to "chat" with them!  If you don't watch podcasts I know that may sound funny but most podcasters also have some type of forum where you can interact, ask questions and such.  Anyway, I just wanted to say it's been nice to have that connection.

putting the craft room together

I am so, so close to being completely finished with the craft room!!!  I did take a "before" picture that is hairy scary!  Usually when I tell people I have a lot of stuff and that it's all over the place I can tell they don't really know what I mean, or think I'm exaggerating.  The mess I had was not an exaggeration, lol!

As you can see, I had stuff everywhere!  I had boxes brimming with stuff, stacks of stuff to organize.  I just took it one box at a time, and pretty soon you could start to see more of the floor.

Last weekend I also realized that I still had not put the light switch cover back on from when I painted.  In every room of the house the switches are different colors.  Like my bedroom has all white switches, the spare oom has cream colored switches.  The sewing room has cream colored covers and it was kind of old looking.  I thought about covering it with fabric, but instead did scrapbook paper and mod podge.  It turned out super cute!  And, if I get tired of it, I can re-do it.

This view is looking in from the doorway.

Here is the view standing by the window looking straight back.  You can see that I have a double closet with huge floor to ceiling doors.  I decided to use the door space like another wall.  Not sure if you can really tell but I did paint the corkboard a violet color, one of my favorites.  I plan to put mini quilts around in the open space.

This view is standing over by the bookcase looking towards the door.  I put my design wall on that wall.  My super fancy design wall is two table cloths that have the fuzzy backing.  I bought these on clearance for a total of $5!

I have my sewing table right in the middle of the room.  That way there is room to walk around the table to cut, and also table space for quilting.

This view is standing at the closet looking towards the window.  On the left is my yarn stash.  On the right bookcase are my scrapbooks, notions, and patterns.

I'm including this picture for my Mom in case she reads this post.  This was her dolly growing up I believe?  Well, I put it through the wash last weekend and she came through really well!  I need to get more wool yarn for her hair, that was the one thing that sort of frayed.  Isn't she cute though???

I finally got a lily bloom!!!!  I am so loving these lilies in the front flower bed.  These will definitely be staying.

It's such a relief to have the craft room put together.  I am finally feeling like I can sew in there.  I have a million ideas.  While Mom was visiting she remarked that there are bits of my creativity in every room.  It was so nice of her to notice because that really has been my goal.  I've wanted to fill my home with things I've made, that make me happy and others feel comfortable and welcome.  It has been soothing for me.

I've tried not to talk about losing my husband as much here lately.  But, this year being an election year....and all the horrid things going on in the world right now....make me miss him more.  He was my safety zone.  My person to talk politics with that would not get angry or defensive, or misunderstand me.  I don't always know how to say what I mean.  And lately the daily headlines hurt my heart - every one of them.  Knowing that another family is now knowing the heart wrenching loss that I have and in the public eye, with people commenting on either end when really their hearts are broken....it's too much sometimes.  I pray for peace, love, understanding for everyone.

a visit from Mom

There is a point in life that I have been blessed to get to.  That point is enjoying your Mother's company.  I think we can all get there at different speeds, different time frames, but once we do it is so sweet.  I have appreciated my Mom's company, her presence, for a long time.  We drive each other batty-mad-crazy sometimes but she is also one of my best friends.  Why do I mention this now?  This past weekend, Mom came to visit.

I was pretty excited for her to get here.  This would be the first time she has seen my new home!!!  So, of course, I had preparations to make.  I had not put up curtains yet in the spare room where she would be sleeping so that was first on the list.  I had the above pictured fabric in my stash for I'd say 15 years.  10 at the bare minimum.  And the funny thing is that Mom gave it to me!  I think she still has some?  

I had been saving it to make one of those quilts that you can fold up into a pillow.  The faux quilt squares seemed just perfect for that.  But, I never got around to it.  And then I wasn't sure that's what I wanted to do with it.  Last week when I was considering what I wanted that room to look like, I remembered this fabric!  and it is perfect!  Privacy achieved but also lets in lots of light.

Friday morning I was just toodling around, waiting to go meet her and bring her to my house.  I finally finished these purple striped socks.  Which, by the way, turns out that I put the heel in too soon so they are too low and a bit tight on the inseam.  Boo!  I could rip them back....but I think I'll see if any friends with smaller feet might like them.

I met Mom under this flag in a teeny little California town.  It was a beautiful day and I was so SO relieved that Mom made it safely!  Oy!

I didn't get any pictures while she was here - we were just doing stuff!  no time for pictures!  It was a lovely visit.  The weather was perfect.  Funny thing about that - for us here is was hot, like 75-80 degrees.  But she came up from Chico which is like 100 degrees during the day in the Summer so she was chilly a lot of the time!  ha!  

So my neighborhood has an annual yard sale where tons of houses in the subdivision have a sale, maybe 40 sales?  We didn't get around to all of them but we did have fun and found some goodies at the ones we did get to.  I scored two wooden chairs!  I needed one for my sewing room and one for the desk in the spare oom.  Then, we got back to my house and threw together some stuff quickly that we wanted to get rid of.  It was great.

I grilled kabobs that afternoon and then we indulged in ice cream from DQ.  It was like the perfect Summer evening.

I had such a good time showing my house to Mom, and she really loved it.  One thing she commented on was that my house is cozier than it appears in pictures.  I do love a cozy home so that was nice to hear :)

I took Monday off work, and I'm glad I did.  I was the biggest lazy bones in the world!  I did cast on a new pair of socks but other than that was super lazy.

home, nesting and socks

Last weekend I was in Bend with friends for a ladies retail therapy weekend.  I may have gone a little bit overboard at Hobby Lobby, but that's easy to do there!  I want to do a gallery wall in the dining room and I found a bunch of sayings and scriptures and cute stuff!  Once I get everything up on the walls I'll share pictures.

I finished up these socks this week. I'm really pleased with them!  You can't see the sparkle, but the green yarn has silver stellina in it, which made it fun to knit!  These need to have ends woven in but then they will go in the drawer for cooler weather.  

Rocky was extra lovey when I got back from Bend, he was very snuggly.  One thing that really stood out was that on the way home, I was really looking forward to being *home*.  This house really feels like home for me which is such a great feeling.  

One of the fun things about my new house is finding out what is growing where.  I decided that this first year I will just observe.  I've been learning a lot!  This week the rose bushes in the front bloomed and they are beautiful.  So vibrant and lots of blooms.  I have a lily plant in the front that I think is right about to bloom, can't wait!  I love lilies.  So far, the roses, lilies and rhubarb will stay.  I really want to put in shrubs.  I've seen a couple houses in the neighborhood that have nice small delicate looking shrubs and I think I'd like some like those.

So this week after I finished my green and pink socks, I found I had no projects I wanted to work on.  I have one pair of socks on the needles but I didn't feel like working on them, more on that later.  I do have a cross stitch project but didn't feel like that was it either.   

Suddenly I decided I needed to make a pom pom garland for my mantle!!!  Yes!  I super love how it turned out.  I found that wooden whale up in Bend and had just set it there, and once the garland was on it just looked right.

I have to share this lamp shade that I bought.  A coworker had an estate sale this weekend and had a couple beautiful stained glass lamps.  I technically did not need another lamp, but I saw this dragonfly one and had to have it!  She gave me an amazing deal on it.  I swapped out the shade I already had on this lamp and I really like the way it looks.

This is the pair of socks that I was avoiding working on the other night.  See, the thing is, I had them on magic loop two at a time.  I had already finished past the heels even!  But I've come to realize I just don't like magic loop.  I've also realized that I accomplished what I set out to do which was learn how to knit two socks at a time but I don't have to keep it up if it's not a pleasure. 

You can see a progress keeper, that is how far I've gotten since Friday!  Also, I had been using size 0 hiya hiya sharps, but did not have that size in DPNs.  Well, no, technically I do but the ones I have are too long for my liking.  This set of Knit Pro Zings is the next smallest size I have.  I had ordered them awhile ago and when I got them they were a disappointment.  First, I bought the wrong size.  Then the color was not what had been pictured.  Further, they seemed to have too much drag.  There was like a powdery coating or something and I just did not like them.  So, I set them aside.

But!  Guess what?  I thought I'd give them another chance since I didn't have too far to go to finish these socks.  And the powdery coating has come off the more I knit with them.  And now I really like them!  The funny thing is that my gauge is the same as when I was using the zeros.  So there you go.  

My sewing room is still a disaster zone.  It's really bothering me but I also feel like way overwhelmed by it.  I have too much stuff.  But, it's stuff that I may use and hate to give away because then what if that day comes for that project and I have to repurchase.  The struggle is real.  But I need to get it sorted out quick because my creative energy is getting that pent up feeling and it needs an outlet.  Knitting doesn't do it, it's more just relaxing for me.  I need to sew and quilt and MAKE!  I need to just buckle down and do a little at a time.