Purling Oaks

Friday's Nasturtium Bonus

Today was the first day of a much-welcomed four-day weekend. I did a mish-mash of things with some effort made to stay low-key. The dirt pile arrived today and DH worked until he dropped adding window wells and other necessary stuff before we can move the dirt from the pile to the back yard.

*******************************
As many gardeners know, this time of year there is an abundance of cherry tomatoes. I came across an interesting method of preserving them that I'm experimenting with to see if we'll use the result. Cut the tomatoes in half and set them cut side up on a sheet pan. I've lined the pan with parchment paper.
I crammed utilized all the sheet pan surface. The tomatoes were unadulterated (besides having a washing before the knife bisected them) but I've read that some people add herbs and sometimes olive oil.
They baked in a 250F degree oven for about 3 hours to achieve a not-completely-dried state. If they go longer they get crunchy with a very concentrated flavor, which is quite tasty, but not what I wanted to achieve today. As you can see they shrink quite a bit. I transfered the semi-dried tomatoes to a freezer bag for future use on pizzas and other food to be determined later.

**************************************
Today I also seamed the shoulders and one sleeve of Sonnet and I'm planning to finish the rest tomorrow unless I'm too zonked from dirt shoveling. I tried on the body of the sweater and it looks good. I hope the sleeves work out, too. I'll definitely need to add ribbon tape to the inside of the button band and neckline to provide a bit of shape-retaining assistance.

**************************************
My volunteer nasturtium is blooming. I would have thought our harsh winter would have killed off the seeds of last year's vines but I was proved wrong.

Hurray for invention

We arrived home to more water in the basement on Monday after work. Not a lot......just enough to suck (or is that wet vac?) an hour out of an evening. Sigh. No dirt pile (or time to move it) until Friday. What to do...what to do? DH came up with a great solution with some lumber and a tarp as a temporary way to convey water away from the problem area at the back of the house. It works. We had lots of rain last night. It works. Hurray.

I am knitting daily --- just a few rows on a sock each morning and evening -- but I am knitting. Low energy has been the theme the past two days with a few temporary health-related things piling on top of a lot of work stuff. I'm looking forward to a nice long weekend.

And here is a kitty that knows how to relax. White Dot is helping out by providing a nice photo for the blog. He's such a handsome boy...and a very good purr-er.

Such a stylish Kenmore!

This was a beautiful weekend! No rain. Lots of blue skies with sun and white fluffy clouds. Temperatures in the upper 70's (F). The grass finally dried enough for DH to mow this afternoon. Unfortuantely (or not), our anticipated load of dirt was delayed because of the rain/wetness so we can look forward to some landscaping work next weekend.

Due to the basement wetness this past week, my basement work-at-home office had to be "evacuated" and the contents moved to my sewing room, a thankfully dry place. Saturday I moved that stuff out of my sewing room back into the office but did nothing about organizing the office. I spent all my time working on getting my sewing room back in order. I felt quite compelled to have that room back to some moderate form of usefulness.

I should call it my "studio" since I do much more than sew there; but, my mom had/has her sewing room and I guess "sewing room" fits the bill for me for now. I have been sewing, actually. Last week I fired up my old Kenmore and worked on a little project and this week I'm working on trousers for me. The fabric is a crepe polyester/wool blend with a nice drape. It will look great with Sonnet, once I seam the sweater and add buttons. (Yes, I'm behind schedule on Sonnet. Oh well.) I found the fabric two weeks ago at Gayfeather Fabrics, a lovely place to shop for nice fabrics, especially when you're feeling a bit out-of-sorts. And if anything cheers me up, it is my old Kenmore.
Gorgeous, eh?! She says *style* in the most classic of styles. My folks bought her at a garage sale for $10 (yes, *ten* dollars and that includes the cabinet) and gave her to me about six years ago.
As you'll soon see, I do have other sewing machines but this one has a special place in my heart. She works great and she came with all sorts of do-dads and thing-a-majigs to do specific sewing tricks. As long as I'm showing, here's another corner of the sewing room. While I was compelled yesterday to find some floor space, I didn't go so far that everything was put away. *g* I still need another bookcase (but then, who doesn't?) for the books still in boxes. There's a bunch of yarn in that room too but it's mine, all mine.
Charlynn, I got the serger running today (you can see it on the floor next to my Kenmore) and it works just fine! I'm so pleased. It groaned for the first several tries since it hasn't been plugged in for how long?? But it is working swell now. I probably owe you more money for it. *g* Let me know!

Happy Birthday, Micah

My nephew, Micah, is nineteen years old today! He will be a sophomore at UC-San Diego this September. He is lifeguarding this summer and had a bit of birthday cake yesterday. He's also a great sweater model.

Somewhere, over the.........

Today's special treat was a rainbow! It was a full one, though my camera couldn't capture both ends since we were too close. Perhaps this means we may have a sunny day or two in store soon! These photos were taken from the passenger side of a moving vehicle this afternoon. I actually glanced up from my knitting and noticed the rainbow. I'm glad I didn't miss it. Besides providing blog material, rainbows tend to make my heart lighter and happier. The sock was glad to see the rainbow, too.

before & after

Thanks for the well (ahem!) wishes regarding a dry basement. This morning was also a dry basement morning...we are having a real run of it!

I think the haircut turned out fine tonight. Here's my before haircut: This photo was taken after a walk down State Street for lunch today in rather high humidity. I actually had some curls this morning. Here is the after haircut (and style) photo:
My stylist was pretty forgiving of my scissor activity but she did mention that the state makes her pay for permission to cut hair.

No knitting accomplished yet today since I drove myself into work and back. Tomorrow my knitting time returns.

No water for me, thanks.

No water in the basement this morning, thank you very much! We have fans and dehumidifers running to convince any lingering moisture to leave. I also called the local truck and dirt guys today so we could get a load of topsoil. Yes, we will be doing a bit of landscaping to eliminate any moat-like tendencies the backyard currently harbors. Of course, I'm referring to the "royal" we. DH is going to be doing the majority of the hard labor, as usual. (He's a very good DH.)

I've been making pretty decent progress on Nasturtium sock number two since I cast on Saturday. I'm working on the heel flap right now. I know my progress is rather tiny compared to the Summer of Socks folks, like Cookie with her 20-plus pairs of socks so far this summer but I do believe my knitting speed is showing some improvement! Hurray.

Tomorrow is haircut day for me after work. I hope my stylist doesn't grimace too much when she sees me. I had to push this appointment back by two weeks....and, thus, had to do a bit of scissor-work myself.

Happy Birthday, Kaylee!

The weekend passed far too quickly! I hate when that happens. *grin* Saturday, I met Vicki in Verona, Wisconsin, at The Sow's Ear. My latte was very yummy, the yarn store people were very friendly, and they had a lot of yarn and fiber I had not yet seen (or touched). Vicki was in town to visit with family and it was nice that we were able to meet. She brought along a Baby Surprise Jacket that is a lovely work-in-progress (I have to make that EZ creation sometime!) and I brought Nasturtium (second sock) to work on and some yarn I'm planning to use for Williamsro to get her experienced opinion. I actually found Vicki's blog last year from the Yarn Harlot's link to Vicki's Williamsro.

DH and I listened to rain all night long. Unfortunately, there was so much rain that we found some water on the basement floor this morning! It wasn't enough to cause damage---just enough to be an annoyance. It was an annoyance especially since we had a date Sunday late morning to be at a young lady's tenth birthday party. We were just a little bit late...whew!

Happy Birthday, Dear Niece Kaylee!

Fish in Parchment Friday

Tonight I was responsible for making supper for the two of us. I went to the Willy Street Coop and obtained a nice haddock filet. I thinly sliced some onions, carrots, and zucchinis put them on top-equally-of two pieces of parchment paper. I halfed the haddock and topped the veggies with the fish as well as some salt and pepper, fresh chopped flat parsley, fresh thyme, a drizzle of olive oil, and 2 tablespoons of a dry white wine. I used fino, a dry sherry, which we have on hand. Then I sealed up the parchment packets and baked them in a 400 degree (F) oven for twenty minutes.
It was yummy. For an appetizer, we had homemade tomatillo salsa.

**************************************
The weather was gorgeous today and helped my poor mood improve. Good timing, right?! I'm sure tomorrow will be an even better day!

Clean sticks!!

I finished the second Sonnet sleeve this evening!! My knitting needles are bare. I even have yarn left to seam the shoulders and sleeves. Huzzah!
I found buttons in Grandma Nana's button collection and I think they work well for this sweater. I am really pleased with the sweater so far. Now, to put it together and brave the mirror!

*******************************************

And if an almost finished sweater weren't enough, the deer family visited this evening. (Oh, for having the telephoto lens camera at hand for moments like these!) A whitetail doe and her twin fawns browsed in the backyard for about 20 minutes this evening. They finally saw me get up to set the table---well, we have to eat, too----and hopped into the woods for dessert.