treeskin

In no particular order.....

Rain day yesterday. Not the whole day, but my allergies (aThe Boy nd The Boy's) needed a day inside. The kids went a little crazy, spending the whole day inside. They're mellower today, for the outside time. The Boy has had extra swing time, and The Miss has an extra large bouquet.

By's folks called to ask us if we'd planned for "in flight entertainment" for the kids on our trip next month. We'd been working on it (trying to figure out how to make one of our nooks play movies for them), but they offered to send us a portable dvd player. Much simpler, problem solved.

D is supposed to be coming over sometime today to get the plants I've been watching for her, which will simplify things for me. If she doesn't make it, I'll take them over to her tomorrow.

If D takes her flats of tomatoes, I think I can make spaces for the random seedlings, between the space in the rhubarb patch, and the space in the vegetable garden. I may have to put poison out there...I seem to be getting moles, or voles, tunnaling around the bottom of the garden. Which would explain why some of the squashes didn't sprout.

What's blooming today? Less than there might be, since The Miss has been on her "fresh bouquet every day" kick. I've gotta plant more flowers, to keep up with her.
* purple coneflower, all over the garden (thank goodness there's lots, it's one of her favorites)
* shasta daisies, both short and tall
* the last of the tickseed coreopsis
* the first black-eyed-susans (if you're sensing a daisy theme, you'd be correct)
* lavender
* yarrows in white, lavender, a bright rosy-purple, peach, red, pinks
* verbena-on-a-stick
* "Mesa Yellow" gaillardia (more daisies!)
* "Nearly Wild" rose
* ladybells
* showy milkweed
* the last few anemonellas...I'm amazed they've lasted this long
* annual pinks, and lavender china pinks
* oregano
* the first of the queen annes lace
* leadplant, Amorpha canadensis, which is a prairie shrub native to central Ks, and one of my favs
* daylilies-- "Stella d'Oro", "Happy Returns" (dwarf, clear yellow), "Black-Eyed Stella" D dwarf yellow with dark red eye), that unnamed orange-red bicolor, and one of the very dark red ones I got on clearance last year
* asiatic lilies, dark red, light pink (that one's a big clump this year), light orange
* petunias in pinks and purples
* purple globe amaranth
* a few little orange french marigolds
* the last of the tradescantia, the pale blue kind
* Salvia farinacea
* wood betony
* two little geraniums that I got for a quarter each, and planted with a red coelus and hot pink petunias (it works better than it sounds, its a fairly bluish red), and have unfortunately turned out to be bright scarlet, which doesn't match the rest of the pot at all
* mother-of-thyme, pale lavender, which the bees like so much
* the first of the mountain mints, threadleaf and the creeping kind, both white and fragrant

In the front yard, I've got mixed daylilies, a small patch of lavender-flowered monarda (the one whose foliage smells like rose geranium), and some daisies. I don't water the front, so it's not as lush.

Rain day = catch up on indoor chores day. :-P

Got sheets in the washer, have folded the backlog on clean laundry in The Miss's bedroom and pulled out the outgrown stuff, started a new box for Goodwill.

Am now sitting down with the Afghan of Doom. Again. Not at all what I wanted to work on, but it **really** needs finished and out of my way. Am hoping to at least finish those last two big blocks I need to assemble and sew in. Finishing the seams is probably optimistic, but that's my goal.

I am hoping to get the rest of this list done today:
* wash the rest of the laundry (2 large baskets' worth, may spill into tomorrow)
* fold and put away clean laundry
* clean sheets on beds
* empty / reload dishwasher
* bake oatmeal bread (to use up leftover oatmeal in fridge)
* bake pumpkin bars or muffins ( same recipe, different pans)
* assemble 2 large afghan blocks
* get blocks sewn into Afghan of Doom
* finish vertical seams in Afghan of Doom
* start edging on Afghan of Doom ( a major undertaking, it's for a king-size bed)

It's officially winter--took down the sun shade that we've had up in the backyard most of the summer. The chairs that were beneath it look a little lost, now.

By made oodles of progress in the greenhouse. Never as much as he hopes to, but lots done. And its about to get a door that will actually close and seal, yay! Part of today's progress was derailed by the bench-shelf along the outer wall crashing down while I was watering, dumping large heavy things inches from my toes and breaking my last good pot. Dammit. But he got the shelf reset, and strengthened, and everything back up where the rodents (hopefully) won't eat it all winter. And sometime soon I've got to figure out what to put the residents of the broken pot into.

Have started rubbing vitamin E oil onto the raw patches on my hand. Dunno I'd its helping it heal any faster, but it does ease the stinging and tenderness, and softens the dry bits that catch on stuff and tear and make new raw spots.

The Sock Report: am halfway down the leg of the mother-in-law sock. Have lost one of the needles--it fell out of my hair, and I'm afraid that happened outside where its gone for good. I do have a spare, so that's vexing but not a crisis.

So far today, I have accomplished (in no particular order):
* cooked a hot breakfast for me and the kids (oatmeal plus applesauce, breakfast of champions)
* packed By's breakfast and lunch
* started laundry
* emptied and reloaded dishwasher
* hand-washed some stray stuff that doesn't go in the dishwasher
* over-dyed 4 skeins of terribly turquoise sock yarn with moss green icing dye, plus the leftover dab of green pigment dye from Dharma
* since that batch went well, I wound off about 4oz of undyed sock yarn from my big cone and tossed that in too
* there was still some oomph in the pot, so I added salt and urea and soda ash, and then tossed in a chunk of the cotton I've been using for doll stuff, some of the dolls can have green dresses

Next stop, setting up a rack on the front porch for these things to dry on, and maybe winding off one more skein of white yarn to see if it'll do. Graduated shades of the same green are a good thing.

After that, I need to get the crockpot out and start dinner--souped-up potato soup for a damp chilly night. I've got a leftover end of 2-day-old bread that needs used, so it'll get sliced, buttered and seasoned, and toasted into croutons. May do another batch of fresh bread, to make the house cozy.


The Sock Report: the first sock for Mother-in-Law is finished, except for the decorative flower ends on the ties. Will start the next one this afternoon.

Have started the Sooper Sekrit Sock Project, twice in fact. Because halfway down the leg the first time, I realized it was too big. It looks really good now though.

And once I get some of the gifting projects done, I'm starting some for me. Socks with a fine and fancy mosiac pattern, and maybe a nice hat. We'll see.

Had a mostly low-key weekend. The HSA meeting actually got out early on Sunday, and the list of people absent was telling--proof of who the long-winded talk-forevers are. Went to Half Price Books with Cammie and John and Tristan, which was bad. No one in the group coutned as adult supervision. We came home with a couple of plant books, some fiction (including the Dune Messiah, which I've been missing for years), the final volume of The Traditional Bowyer's Bible, and a stack of cd's. I think By's already got most of the new cd's on the hard drive.

We ended up not making a road trip to KSU to fetch my transcript, because HR atwork had received it already. Whew. I'm hoping for a call about setting up an interview sometime today.

Both of the boys are off at work today, and I don't have to be anywhere. I made cheese-stuffed rolls last night, so we have noshies already, and By got groceries while he was out yesterday, so we have ingredients for dinner tonight. Got one load of laundry done, and another in the washer now. Changed the sheets, made the bed, tidied in the kitchen a bit. And as a reward for getting all that done, I get to knit.

( The Sock Report )

( The UnSock Report )

Good thing this is a three-day week for me. I'll need a short work week, just to ease back into that whole "work" thing.

My application is in, and waiting in HR for my transcripts to get there. Which ought to be today or tomorrow. By's going to fax the request for me ths morning. **crosses fingers** And now, I'm trying to figure out whether I should go ahead and order trees, and make plans to get them installed, knowing I might now be here when the time comes to do that, or put it off....much as I'd love to leave a mess for New Boss to clean up, Courtney'd be the one who's got the knowledge to actually fix that stuff, and I'd rather not do that to her. I should probably have a talk with her about that today.

We were self-indulgent last night--dinner was leftovers from Monday, followed by chocolate malts, because By's been hungry for that since Saturday, and finally remembered the ingredients. Oooooo, sugar.

I didn't get nearly as much progress made as I wanted to, excavating the other desk. Did generate a whole bag's worth of recycling, so the pile is smaller by that much. Got a pile of things typed up as part of the sort and recycle process. That's really slow, but I'd rather do it once, than move the pile (again) and put off dealing with it that much longer. Which is how the pile got that tall in the first place.

By came home somewhat cranky, because the boss wasn't very on the ball yesterday. Between getting the pets to and from the vet, and trying to get stuff ready for photo shoots, and a batch of tableware cleaned and off to a cooking show as props, and getting designs drawn out, and.....well, she's a bit more scattered than usual. The dog's not doing well, he had some weird infection between his shoulders, that had to be cut out, and he's not healing well from the last surgery he had, so they're worried about that. And, he's down to 96 pounds. (This is usually a 120+ pound dog, so that's all kinds of not good.) And the cat seems to have lost bladder control, so she sort of dribbles everywhere she goes, which means a lot more cleaning now. (There's more to that bit of the story, which I've forgotten since last night.) And on top of all this, Robyn got into a show in Beverly Hills (it's one her sister did last year, and did well at), and so she's trying to do all those arrangements long-distance. Don't remember if that show is this month or next; must ask By.