Showing posts with label Mother's Day. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mother's Day. Show all posts

Friday, May 15, 2009

Mother's Day Catch-up

No excuses, I just haven't put in my blogging time - mea culpa.

Mother's Day_2009_Lake Murray_-2823

This is a long shot of my Mother's Day Picnic Breakfast. (We're under the big center tree.) This is Lake Murray in La Mesa. (It's really a reservoir, there's little open water here in Southern California.)

Mother's Day_2009_Lake Murray_-2802
This is the view from the opposite direction.

Mother's Day_2009_Lake Murray_-2804
Party Crashers.

Mother's Day_2009_Lake Murray_-2799
And here I am trying to unwrap a roll of paper towels. (Is it just me or are they making plastic indestructible now a days!!)

We had such a good time that we're planning on a Father's Day picnic at another water side location next month. My girls gave me some wonderful presents. The gardener daughter gave me a couple of plants for the front yard remodel. (Due to up coming water rationing we've turned off the lawn sprinklers and are getting ready to take out all the grass. I'll sure miss all that cool green.) She gave me a Tree Mallow, the flowers are 2 inches in diameter.
Lavatera Tree Mallow
and a Leptospermum
Leptospermum Scoparium
both plants have very low water requirements.

The traveling Photographer daughter was in Portland, Oregon last month and surprised me with Shibui Sock yarn from Knit Purl.
Shibui sock yarn

When she first told me she would be in Portland I told her she could go to Knit Purl and buy me this sock yarn, intending to pay her for it; then I forgot about the whole thing. So I really was surprised when I opened her bag. I have great daughters!

Later that afternoon the four of us went and saw Star Trek. I loved it! Even better was I had enough passes and gift certificates that we ended up paying $1 for 4 tickets, two drinks AND popcorn! Not sure which was more fun the movie or buying the tickets for a buck!

Knitting Content: now what do I do?
entrelac fingerless mitts

These are the cuffs for entrelac fingerless mitts out of Silk Garden Sock.

They're huge - I can pull them all the way up to my elbows and they're still loose. I'm using a size 1 needle and don't think that they would be much smaller if I went down to a zero needle. Only way is to rip the whole thing out and rework the pattern to take one of the squares out - not sure that's going to happen. I even tried them on as sock cuffs and they fit around the largest part of my calf but that would be ALOT of entrelac. Just not sure where I'm going from here.

Ink Spot Scarf doesn't look much different. I've been carrying this around with me but I keep making mistakes and take out as much as I knit. I'm afraid this is going to have to stay home and go back to being my early morning project. It's not a complicated pattern but what with it being black I do have to pay attention and count.

I've started sewing the barn-raising squares, getting the 4 corners to come together is fiddly. It'll get there - eventually. I bought a warm semi-sold chocolate by Mama Blue for the crocheted border.

Still working on my milkweed scarf submission; I'm on the second ball of hand-spun. No pictures because it doesn't look like much until it's blocked. I'm worried about stretching my handspun out at blocking - there are a few thing spots.

A Knitty Sweater has been started in Elann's Peruvian Highland Wool. but that's all that I can say for now.

You've heard of Square Foot Gardening? I found planters that are exactly a square foot and the idea just grabbed me. There are three now but I'm headed out today to see if I can find more since the original three are looking so good.
square foot gardening

There is no way I can plant too much flat leaf parsley and cilantro!

And to close here's a photo of a visitor to the front yard. This is taken through the front window, he just sat there and stared - No Fear.
feline visitor

Monday, May 14, 2007

Picnic on Mother's Day

Several years in a row when ask what I wanted to do for either Mother's Day or my Birthday I've said, go on a Picnic. Finally, we went on a picnic and it was just as nice as I'd hoped. The weather cooperated and was sunny.

We were in Balboa Park, a very large city park right next to downtown. Now this family has a history of weird run-ins with nature; not the normal ants but somewhat unusual visitors. There was the breakfast cookout where we were swarmed with bees - no one got stung but who knew bees like the smell of bacon. We had bees again another time for lunch - different place and no bacon this time. Then there was the time in the mountains there were so many lady bugs we had to eat in the car or they would have been all over the food.

This current picnic was no different; this time it was squirrels. We set up chairs and a sunshade with no squirrels present but the minute we set the cooler on the table they were coming out of the trees. These were brave city squirrels, we couldn't fake them out just by moving toward them. We had to keep getting up and shooing them off. Very brave critters.

The Photographer kept himself busy with his camera...
Squirrel-Attack

Only thing that would have made the day any better would have been if #1 daughter had been there but she was on a flight home from Japan. It was fun to read her blog while she was gone and see what she was doing day to day. It was a 20 hour flight home! She got back that evening in time to call and wish me a Happy Mother's Day.