7 Quick Takes (Vol 135)

Yipee!!! It is Friday and I have actually found 7 things to blather about. You know the rules. After partaking of my blather you click on the pic above to be whisked, at the speed of Herman Cain’s rising pole numbers, over to Conversion Diary to see what everyone else is doing.

And now the blather blather blather.

1.
I am going to rant a minute so be prepared. At the present moment I am not happy with my browser, Firefox. Not that they care one little bit about that but I am frustrated. They nag me and nag me and nag me about installing the latest update. And when I do I find that my Google toolbar is not compatible with this latest update.

I. Need. My. Google. Tool. Bar.

I used it all the time. And it is not there. And I am bereft.

Grrrrrrrrrrr. Get it together Firefox!

2.
This is my old high school

Wheaton Central High School

We were the Tigers. I think I still have a pin or two and some other memorabilia hanging around somewhere with the Tigers logo.

Why am I posting this picture you are asking yourself.

Because soon, it will be no more. Soon, it will be torn down and a food market of some kind will be put up in it’s place. Granted, it hasn’t been a high school for a while now. They switched it to being a middle school for a number of years and then closed it altogether. But it will always be Wheaton Central High School to me.

I am sad.

3.
I was a bad girl yesterday.

I broke my yarn diet. I had been so good. Really I had.

Honest.

And then, well……

I knew that there was a yarn shop that I hadn’t visited in the town where I was born. And we were visiting said town. And I really thought that it was my duty to just stop in there to see, just to look, just to browse and pet the yarn.

Serious knitters pet the yarn. Did you know that. You have to run your hand across it and see what it feels like and pick it up and look at it, and think about it, and pet it some more.

Mimi didn’t think that this place had a lot of yarn. But she hadn’t been in there for a while.

She was wrong.

A WALL full of Cascade 220. Cubbies and cubbies FULL of sock yarn. Cubbies full of lace yarn. An entire store full of yarn.

Oh help me.

And I bought two skeins of sock yarn. Just two mind you.

We all have to break our diets every once in a while you know.

4.
We are having lunch today with Slim Jim, Shoe Queen and Slim Jim’s mom, The College Professor.

And I am unaccountably nervous for some unknown reason.

Which is perfectly ridiculous.

Really.

And maybe she is nervous about meeting us. I will hope so because I am nervous about meeting her. Which is ridiculous because they aren’t getting married for Pete’s sake! They are just dating.

Oh put on your big girl panties Deb and get over it!

5.
Just to let you know. Because I don’t have enough to do.

Starting next week sometime you will have another blog to watch and stalk.

The 100 Days of Cleanout will be going live on Thursday morning.

There isn’t anything there yet. Just an empty blog waiting to be filled.

So come on over to The 100 Days of Cleanout and see what it is all about.

But don’t come until Thursday.

But please stop by and comment and tell me what you are going to clean out. If enough people are interested we can do a blog carnival. But I am not going to think about that yet.

6.
As just a “teaser” for more Pictures From The Crypt I give you……

Was I trying to imitate a beaver? Evidently my favorite thing to do at this age was to re-arrange this cabinet.

And I seem to have gotten a late start in the hair department.

We have been looking at slides. Oh there are some DOOZIES I can tell you. I can hardly wait.

7.
By the time I finally get these Quick Takes published it will be way later than I had intended. I had meant to write them all last night. To be all witty and pithy as I usually am.

But then the power went out.

We are actually at the home of the Parental Units and we were happily having a glass of wine and watching “Hoarders” when ZAP POP ZZZZZZZZZ Off On Off On Off! The power went out.

And stayed out. For 3 hours. And by then I just wasn’t going to sit down and write these out.

So I am a bit late.

Be Prepared. And Be Scared.

This is sort of an anticipatory post.

Because, you see, Papa (my parental unit) has bought a new slide scanner. You know, one of those things that you can scan your slides and make digital copies of them.

You do know what slides are don’t you?

Well, Papa has his new toy and he has been diligently using it. Going through his approximately 23,000 slides and scanning them.

Ummmmmm, I wasn’t joking about the 23,000 slides. Really. Boxes and boxes and boxes and boxes of slides. Slides from way back. Way, WAY back. And once he gets done with scanning the best of them you know what that means don’t you?

He will give me a big DVD or perhaps more than one DVD full of pictures.

And that means more Pictures From The Crypt.

Be prepared.

And be afraid.

So, in anticipation of this coming pictorial event I thought I might pull out a picture or two that I have in my own archives.

I am not sure at all what I think I am going to do with that scrub brush and a box full of kittens.

Lordy I loved that hat. Can you see me down in the bottom right corner? That hat was pink and fuzzy with bird down. I hope the bird didn’t mind giving up it’s feathers. Oh and in the upper right hand corner is Aunt Bean. We have known each other a LONG time. You need to go over and check out her blog. She is one smart cookie.

My cousin Ann is a much more well mannered person (and child) than I am. She holds the kitten very nicely. Me, I want to smell it’s fur and then SQUEEZE it until it meows.

Or poops.

Dwebbie, just wisten carefuwee to de sounds. Soon you wilw do my bidding. You wilw wend me your sailor hat.

The above picture will abundantly explain why I am the way that I am. The man in the lovely checked pinafore with the fabulous falling down socks and brown sturdy shoes?

That is my grandfather.

Need I say more?

The dog belonged to my piano teacher, Mrs. Augsburger. He played the piano better than I did. But then she liked him better than she did me. She made me wash my hands before touching the piano and yet she let the dog put it’s little grubby paws on the keys!

For the LOVE of all that is holy! Who cut my hair like that? I look like a deranged pumpkin.

You would be smiling too if you managed to get your brother to wear your grandmother’s hat!

She won’t wet me dwive the horsie!

Shut up and smile for the picture. I’m in charge of the horse!

I don’t know what is worse, the pants, the shoes or the fact that it doesn’t look like I have washed my hair in a month of Sundays. Or even brushed it for that matter.

I had better stop now. But be afraid and wary and scared. You never know what is going to come next in…..

The Pictures From The Crypt

Archie and Me

Or is that Archie and I?

Archie and Me? Archie and I? Me? I?

Oh whatever.

I have been meaning for a long time to tell you our story about “the painting”. The convoluted story with big highs and low lows.

Today is that day. I don’t have anything else to tell you about so this is it. Be prepared to be amazed. Or not. And I am going to tell you that this is a bit of a long story so you might want to go and brew another cup of coffee and get a snack…or dinner.

But I digress. As usual.

Last year, when Abuela and Bursto decided to make Lima, Peru their full time home they had to make some decisions about what would be put on a slow boat to South America and what would stay here and be distributed to HHBL, NYCwoman and Kidney Doc. The big items that needed new homes were three paintings that had hung for many years in their home. The pictures were packed up and shipped to their respective new owners.

And one day the UPS guy rang the doorbell and handed me a really large package and then skedadlled off down the driveway. Leaving me with a large package.

SQUEEEEEEE the painting has arrived! And I should tell you that this was really my favorite piece of artwork that resided at their home. I have no clue why I liked it but I did.

After some huffing and puffing and laying the package down I went off to get the utility knife so that I could open up the package. Slice. Slice. Slice. Unwrap. Unwrap. Unwrap.

And there he was.

Archibald Rogers by Eastman Johnson.

I stepped back to look lovingly at the picture, already thinking about where we were going to put him and…

Hey wait a minute. Wait a cotton pickin’ minute. What is wrong with the picture? Specifically what is wrong with the FRAME of the picture. Take a look at the frame. Take a look at the upper right corner of the frame.

That is not good. That is SO not good.

And down in the opposite corner there was also a crack in the glass.

And this is what I found after searching through all the wrapping that the painting came in.

Grrrrrrrrrrrr.

But hey, it isn’t a problem because Bursto had told me that he had insured the painting against damage during shipping so we are all golden. Only when I call UPS they refuse to make good on the insurance because THEY hadn’t packed it. They had gladly sold my step father-in-law a boat load of insurance but they wouldn’t honor it. And believe me I spent a lot of time trying to get them to do so. Weeks of time and endless emails and endless pictures and endless explaining that no the UPS shipper hadn’t packed it but it had been packed by a PROFESSIONAL MOVER  and that the paintings that were shipped to NYCwoman and Kidney Doc arrived undamaged and that all the paintings that went ALL THE WAY TO PERU arrived undamaged. And after all of that we still had hear UPS say that, “Yes we know we sold you the insurance but we still aren’t going to pay you a red cent. And thanks for your business and please use UPS again.”

I haven’t used UPS since that day and I don’t intend to if at all possible.

So, I patched up the frame and we lovingly set Archie up on the mantle piece and enjoyed him. Didn’t really know much about the painting other than it was done by Eastman Johnson.

And we carried on like that, in ignorance, until The Family Reunion this past June. We are sitting around the NYCwoman/Norwegian Guy apartment, having a beer and chatting with Dapoo (HHBL’s dad) and the discussion turns to the paintings.

Dapoo: Oh, I remember those paintings. They hung in the Kennedy Gallery for a time until we retrieved them sometime in the 1970’s. They had the two paintings appraised at around $5______ for the two of them.

Kidney Doc: What did you say? Did you say $5______ for the two of them? Chaching!

Dapoo: I think that is right.

And for a time we heard the angels sing. And we saw high brow art auctions in our future. And the possibility of the Smithsonian and fame.

And then we sort of panicked. That painting is worth a boat load of money and we just have it sitting over the fire place. And we are going to have to INSURE the thing. And hide it when we are out of town.

AND it sort of took away some of the enjoyment that I had in looking at the painting because now I had to worry about the darn thing.

And then we brought the painting to an art appraiser who works with the Cleveland Museum of Art…….

Appraiser: Yes, this is definitely an Eastman Johnson. It is worth about$3____. But the art market for these kinds of paintings is really poor right now. You might as well take it home and enjoy it.  And really, if it was a landscape it would be worth a whole lot more. Or a person IN a landscape. You know they painted portraits to eat and landscapes because they loved them. Oh, and it needs restoring. We will call you when it is done and you can pay the bill then.

Rats.

No fame. No fortune.

But I do have to say that the story of how the painting came into the family possession is interesting in itself. The painting belonged to Abuela’s Aunt Lillian, a most fascinating woman who had been a model in NYC in the 1920’s as well as a Zigfield Girl. One of her husbands, of which there were several, was a lawyer. In the early 1930’s he had been instrumental in helping Jews leave Germany and had been paid with these paintings.

Now that is cool. I don’t know a lot about Archibald Rogers yet, other than he was a great friend of Teddy Roosevelt and seemed to spend a great deal of time racing boats,   but I am doing some research. And so he is back where he belongs, all restored, new glass, smiling his secret smile.

And all is right with the world.

7 Quick Takes (Vol 134)

Well here we are again for another Quick Takes. How time doth fly. Remember, when you are done reading my nuggets of goodness be sure to click on the picture above to be whisked, at the speed of the rapidly approaching storm, over to Conversion Diary to see what the others have been up to.

And now on to the nuggets!

1.
Guess what it has done most of the week?

Come on. Guess.

Fine, it has rained. I KNOW! What a surprise! Tech Guy told LookLeap who told me that we have had 50 inches of rain this summer.

50 inches.

I am sorry to those who are in Texas and who would like some of that rain. If it was in my power I would send some to you. We have PLENTY. The garden was very squishy yesterday.

And it just makes me a tad nervous thinking about what the winter snow total will be if the summer has been so wet.

2.
Max the Wonder Dog has developed a mysterious limp.

Seriously he has. Tuesday night he was just fine. Wednesday morning he gets up and is limping.

Yesterday was his last day on the gold plated snot medicine and maybe he thought that he should hedge his bets and find something else to be sick with.

Sigh. He did seem a bit better yesterday. He isn’t crying out with pain and he can run like crazy if you tell him we are going to get the mail

MAIL!!!

I would just like to go one week without having to think about taking him to see Dr. Jeremy, much as we like Dr. Jeremy. By now I think that we have funded at least one of his children’s college funds.

3.
I am getting ready to start a bit of a project here at Chez Knit.

I am calling it “100 Days of Clean Out”. The premise is that I have to spend the next 100 days (or whenever I start the project) cleaning out and removing from Chez Knit at least one thing a day. When I have it all fleshed out I will give you all the details. HHBL and I are determined that when the time comes for us to move that we aren’t moving anything that we aren’t using (for the most part). Even though we have cleaned out a boat load of stuff there are still things that keep appearing. They are breeding in some remote part of the house I am convinced.

I am actually thinking to give this project it’s own blog. That way I can post pictures and commentary about what I am cleaning out.

Cuz you know I don’t have enough things to do during the day.

Thoughts?

4.
I woke up on Wednesday to find that Facebook had again changed everything around and I didn’t know where anything was and my News Feed was all wonky and I was all,

HEY! YOU CAN’T DO THAT TO MY FACEBOOK! I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO NOW. I DON’T KNOW WHERE ANYTHING IS! MY NEWS FEED IS ALL MESSED UP.

I seemed to be speaking all in capitals for a time.

And then I got a grip on myself.

Yes they can change whatever they want whenever they want. Facebook  is a FREE service. I make the choice to use it. And I needed to stop the automatic whining and see if I actually liked it rather than get my panties in a wad about something that I really don’t pay for.

Put on your big girl panties Deb and work with the new interface for a bit. And I have to say that it isn’t all that bad. Like anything it just takes some getting used to.

I lead such a boring life that changes in Facebook can screw up my day. Sad.

5.
Today was the day that HHBL and I had penciled in for our long ride (25+ miles) on The Towpath Trail.

We have done the ride before and it was a bunch of fun. Who wouldn’t like to take a bike ride on FLAT paths amid beautiful scenery with the promise of a train ride at the end. I have been looking forward to it for several weeks.

But we have been stymied by the weather daggnabit!

This is what we are dealing with today. Big blobs of green/yellow/red are not compatible with a pleasant biking experience. Oh HHBL would ride rain or shine that is a given. But I am being a wussy pants about riding in the rain and wind.

But since HHBL has sweetly blocked out this day as my day then we will do something else like perhaps go to the West Side Market. If we get there at the right time we can have lunch at the gyros place.

Yum

But I am disappointed about the bike ride.

6.
This next one is for those who like knitting. Oh come on you know you all do you just aren’t willing to admit it.

KnittingKnoobie has reminded me that next weekend is the start of Socktoberfest. Yikes I totally forgot!! 

I must plan.

I must prepare.

But I think I am only going to set my sights on knitting one pair of socks for the yearly event, unlike some who try for a pair a week. I did that one year and that is a lot of sock output even for me. I have other things that must be knit for other projects (family Christmas stockings which take a boatload of time) that need some time from me. And I did make three pair of socks over the summer for Summer of Socks.

But we all know how much I love knitting socks. It may actually call for a trip to purchase some special sock yarn. Yes I know I am on a yarn diet but this is something special that doesn’t fall under the edict that I must not buy any yarn and must use only stash for a while.

This is important!

7.
This is my new daily mantra.

“I love everything!”

Garden Update: The Garden is Waning.

Today is the last day of summer.

Sniff.

And because it is the only day this week that hasn’t been either cold or rainy or both LookLeap and I took the moment to go out and do some much needed work in the garden. The sun was shining. The birds were singing. The fuzzy caterpillars were doing what fuzzy caterpillars do.

What do fuzzy caterpillars do?

I know what I wanted to do TO the fuzzy caterpillar but I was prevented from doing that by the bleeding heart people that I garden with.

Oh but he is so cute and fuzzy!

Yes, and he will make a lovely squishy noise when I step on him with my gardening clog.

Debbie!

I have to say first off that we are not the only gardeners at the Community Garden, obviously. But what is so sad to us are the plots that were planted with great enthusiasm and then left to fend for themselves. It is so sad.

There are so many plots where the gardeners have just literally left the fruit on the vine until it has dropped on the ground and begun to rot. And lest you think there aren’t a lot of these plots I have to tell you that there are a bunch. And they just make us so sad to see. And I just want to go in there and pick up the tomatoes that can be used.  But rules are rules and I cannot do that. Rats.

Look! The Little Carrot That Could! Well this one can’t because LookLeap pulled it but there are other carrots that are coming along. And more broccoli for the fall.

But the green beans are all gone. I pulled up the rest of the plants and cut off the pole bean vines. Yes I know that those will continue to produce until the first frost but I have to tell you that we were REALLY unimpressed with the flavor of those beans. We harvested several different kinds of beans and the unanimous feeling was that the best ones were the filet beans which were straight, tender and sweet. I think that is all that we are going to plant next year.

Umm we might have missed a few green beans on the pole beans. You can’t imagine how big these things were. Big and menacing.

All the tomato plants are now a part of the very large compost pile at the front of the garden. We had a much better “harvest” this year than last but we both think that we will not bother with heirloom tomatoes again. They were unimpressive to say the least. We need more Roma tomatoes and less slicing and eating tomatoes. There is talk about trying to start our tomatoes from seed next year.

Fine I am the one that is talking about that. We will see.

The cherry tomatoes are still in abundance so we left those. We just sort of stand there and munch right off the plant like biped deer.

A few weeks ago the sunflowers looked like this.

But now they look like this. We are hoping that the birds don’t find them just yet.

We look like farmers when we have our hats on. And we smell like farmers after we have been in the garden for a few hours.

There were a few more red onions to harvest and a beet or two as well as several acorn squash and some green tomatoes.

Look a picture of both of us together in the garden. Lookleap’s oldest progeny, Miss Pretty, came to help with some of the weeding and I persuaded her to take a picture or two.

Hey! Where did that picture come from? Who let that in here?

We get along fine I tell you. Just. Fine.

Oh and one more thing. If you look behind us you will see a bunch of corn stalks. That is a plot that belongs to another gardener. He hasn’t been there all that much.

We are thinking about expanding. We need some space for things like pumpkins or watermelon.

We want his plot. Resistance is futile.

I will keep you posted.

Gardening is Hard (Part Deux)

Here at Chez Knit it is clean out the garden and landscaping time. Otherwise known as, “Oh My Achin’ Back!”

Sometimes things happen in the garden. Hard things.

There has been a gnome accident in the back garden.

I picked him up from where he had been living all summer long, happily under the Hosta over by the bird bath. And his foot came off. It was most startling.

It has yet to be determined as to whether he will become a permanent amputee or if I will try to repair him. His time in the garden may be at an end. But do not fear. There are other gnomes that will step into the gap and take up the slack.

Since the sky wasn’t leaking at the time I went out to take the picture of Mr. Gnome I decided to wander around the yard for a bit, very carefully looking where I was stepping. And then I became enamored with looking at the different fungi that are cropping up around the yard.

I do not know what the heck those things are but I am totally fascinated by them.

And to top it all off and continuing in the sort of “limbs are broken or don’t work” theme that I started this rambling post out with…..

Max the Wonder Dog is limping.

I am sorry Alpha Male.

We have no idea what could have happened between last night, when he was not limping, and this morning when he was. I have determined that it is his right front paw that he is favoring. I have checked the paw for obvious signs of a thorn or a cut and I don’t see anything. He isn’t crying out in pain and he will run if he chooses to. Just say the word “mail” and he is ready to go. But he is definitely limping. We will wait a day or two and just observe. I have really had enough of the vet for the moment.

I am pitiful and I need another dog treat.

TREAT!

Gardening is An Ugly Business

The garden is slowing down.

Slowing dying.

Giving less produce. A lot less. But one of the things that is still sort of plugging along is the broccoli. And I have to say that is just amazing to me because the broccoli plants that are still producing side shoots are ones that were nearly pulled up by yours truly way back in the early part of the season. We had planted two squares of broccoli and fairly quickly most of them became sickly little step children with no hope for the future. We cried over them. We begged them to get better, to perk up. But to no avail. LookLeap went on vacation and left me in charge of our mutual space….

And I pulled all of them up and put them in the compost pile. I was trying to save her the agony of doing it. She is more tender hearted than I.

Or should I say that I pulled MOST of them up. I left four plants that didn’t look quite so sickly. Hoping against all garden hope that they might prosper. That they might withstand the Japanese Beetles and the little white flies. And by gum they have produced! Nice large heads for the first harvest and now a steady stream of side shoots.

So I made a quick trip to the garden this morning after the walk and before the rain, just to see what was going on and to deal with a few of the tomato plants that have given the last full measure of devotion and aren’t going to produce anything else.

Ah there are broccoli side shoots! Lovely. I think there are just enough to steam and then throw into a pan of Chicken Divan.

So I cut them and threw them in the bag along with a tomato or two and toted them home. Left the bag with the broccoli on the counter while I went off to do my usual Monday errands and then back home to steam the broccoli.

I had just finished steaming the last of the beets. I had replaced the water in the pan and was waiting for it to start to steam so I figured that I would take those few minutes to trim off any leaves from the broccoli. Dumped the shoots out onto the counter, picked off the leaves and about this time the water was boiling so I dumped them into the basket to steam.

I gather up the few leaves that are on the counter and throw them in the compost pot.

Oh there are a few more “greeblies” on the counter. I will just pinch them up with my fingers and……..

You know sometimes when you are in the midst of picking something up your brain will register that you don’t really want to do that. Your brain screams out,

NO! You are so going to regret that you are picking that up.

This was one of those times.

Even as my fingers were closing in a pincer like movement my brain registered that not all of the broccoli greeblies on the counter were actually broccoli greeblies.

Hmmm, I don’t think broccoli crumbs are supposed to be curled up like that, said one part of my brain to the other.

But it was too late. My fingers had already completed their appointed task.  And that was when I both heard the slight “pop!” and felt the slight “squish” of something that was not broccoli.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yuch!

I don’t even want to contemplate which end that stuff came out of. And what has me even more skeeved out is the fact that…..

 
1. I left the bag with the broccoli AND bug sitting on my counter for several hours. He could have taken it upon himself to pack up his old kit bag and move to other places in my kitchen.
2. I might have actually steamed him and added him to the Chicken Divan.

Why does gardening have to include bugs?

7 Quick Takes (Vol 133)

As usual the week has just flown by. And here we are back again for another round of useless and inane ramblings that are my usual 7 Quick Takes. Sort of my own version of brain barf. You know the routine. When you are done slowly and carefully reading my “takes” then click on the pic above to be whisked, at the speed of approaching Fall, over to Conversion Diary to see what the other Quick Takers are doing.

Now on with the show.

1.
Borders Books and Music is gone. Gone, gone, gone. And I am sad.

I have always been a lover of bookstores. It seems to go hand in hand with loving books. Funny how that works. I have fond memories of spending allowance money in bookstores, usually Walden Books because that was what was in the mall near home. Even from an early age I had A LOT of books.

For almost 10 years we have had a Borders a 15 minute drive from Chez Knit. It was a comfort to know that if there was a book that I might want to purchase there was a Borders near by. And I will admit that I would go in there and look at the new releases and note which ones…..that I wanted to check out from the library.

Sorry about that Borders. Massive numbers of hardback books just aren’t in the budget.

Unless they are knitting books of course.

But now, it is no more. Thursday was it’s last day.

I can hear the funeral dirge playing.

2.
I am sorry, it was a HIGH of 55F yesterday. That is just not right! I couldn’t get my fingers to warm up all day. And the skies wept rain for the entire morning, the sun coming out weakly in the late afternoon. It prevented LookLeap and I from going to the garden as we had planned.

However, a day like yesterday also meant that I could break out a pair of hand knit socks. Oh my tootsies were warm and toasty in “I Lean To The Right”. Should I consider these my political statement socks?

Maybe not.

Aren’t they purty (sorry, I was watching The Unsinkable Molly Brown yesterday).

Thank goodness for hand knit wool socks.

3.
The hummingbirds are gone for the season.

It happens every year. There will be several weeks where they feed like crazy. A veritable frenzy of hummers circling the feeders with abandon.

And then, slowly, it will dawn on my that I haven’t seen any hummingbirds for a day or two. And then it will be four or five days. And finally it sinks in that they have all left for the winter.

Does someone send out a mass email that tells them that Monday is the day that everyone packs up their little hummer suitcases and heads South? They were all gone in one day.

I miss them already.

4.
I made doughnuts yesterday for the very first time.

Why I have never made doughnuts before I do not know. Oh I made “Pillsbury Biscuit Doughnuts” when I was growing up. You know, pop open the tube, roll them out a bit, cut a hole in the center and fry them. They are good but they are REAL doughnuts.

I used Joy the Baker’s recipe for Old Fashioned Doughnuts with Chocolate Glaze. Found it through that dang Pinterest. Oh Pinterest you are so hard on my waistline.

But I digress.

The doughnuts turned out…..

OK. Not great but OK. That is no knock against the recipe which I think is good. I just think I need to work on my technique some more. Another batch or two will have to be made in the near future just to see if I can make them look like the picture on her site.

Perhaps this will be one of my goals for the winter months, to perfect my doughnut making abilities.

It is a tough job but someone has to do the deep fat frying and it might as well be me.

5.
There has been very little gardening going on around here this week. LookLeap and I met up at the garden on Monday for a bit. We picked green beans and tomatoes. We discussed what we might want to plant next year. Potatoes! We planned on being back in the garden yesterday to clean some of the beds out and do some weeding maintenance.

But it didn’t happen. Rain, cold temps and bad backs all conspired in an evil plot to prevent us from fulfilling our gardenly duty. Even if it hadn’t been raining all morning it just isn’t fun to pull weeds in 55F weather. My fingers never would have warmed up.

The zinnias and sunflowers missed us.

6.
Are you on Google+ 

Do you WANT to be on Google+

Because if you do I have 150 Google+ invitations that I would love to give away. They are waiting and waiting.

So if you want one then shoot me an email and I will send one to you. But then you have to go and find me and friend me. That is the deal.

And then maybe I can find some time to actually play around on Google+ and see what all the fuss is about. Actually I have liked the ease of picture download but that is about all I can say at the moment.

7.
I have set myself the winter task of getting the basement thoroughly cleaned out and organized.

Yes I know it is already sort of organized, I couldn’t live with it if it wasn’t. But when we tried to sell the house last year and packed up bunches of things and put them in boxes in the basement I didn’t do as thorough a job at weeding through and discarding as I would have liked.

I haven’t really tackled much of it since then, some but not all. And it just seems like a winter project since, well, it will be winter and cold outside.

I am still determined that when we do actually, finally, sell Chez Knit that I am not moving a darn thing that I don’t use on a regular basis. Yes there are family things that don’t fall into that category but you know what I mean.

It is me or the junk.

And it is going to be me.

Winning!