Perfumed smoke rising to the heavens
The vague plan was for Mom and I to go to Lowe's together on Sunday afternoon to look at gardening stuff together -- specifically edging stones, for replacing the crappy metal borders on our front flowerbeds with something more attractive, and also for creating a sort of freeform bed on the side of the front lawn not already occupied by the roots and stump of the pear tree cut down last year. Only I got started on a book that morning, and came home from the gym wanting to do nothing but finish reading it, and then by the time I was done I was ready to sleep.
Monday I got off to an early start but it was a really rainy day, which killed the gardening prospects and also postponed dealing with the rabbit cage. It stopped raining by afternoon, but by then I was out of gas for the day. At least I'd been really productive up till then, dealing with grocery shopping and laundry and visiting Grandma. I woke up for a bit when Mom got home and took care of the base layers for my manicure.
Tuesday was when I finished the Monday list and got some gardening done -- weekly maintenance, plus a bit of pruning in the backyard and planting the new climbing Don Juan I'd picked up for cheap at Wal-Mart during my grocery run. I put it on the sunny side of the house, just outside my bedroom, and in the years to come I hope to run some branches around the corner to the front of the house. Meanwhile, I have a lot more dead trees and unwanted saplings to cut down in the backyard (to say nothing of the other tree in the back corner of the yard that's been neglected and has branches tangling with themselves), and I figure if I just work on a couple each weekend for the next few weeks, we'll have a much prettier backyard this summer. So right now there's a small pile of branches over by the side of the yard (plus the pear-tree-trimmings over by the storage shed), and I think next week after another round of trimming I'll haul everything to the front yard for Wednesday pickup.
Finishing Monday's "to do" list, gardening, and hitting the gym ate my day Tuesday, so I had a few hours left to do what I could on the computer and try to nap before work. At least I got my mani finished, and did most of my computer stuff but posting this entry. (Oh, and putting the new ink cartridges that finally arrived last week into my printer, so I could finish printing up charts for my next few knitting projects. Still need to do that.)
I think this is before I cut a few to stick in a vase in the living room. The ones I planted last fall in the front flowerbeds are starting to bloom now. I think after the leaves die off on these here in the backyard, I'm going to dig up the bulbs and move them to line the back fence. I'm also going to buy some more daffodils next fall to add to the bed I'm starting to clear on the side of the house, and probably add to these in the back yard.
The first tiny strawberries are starting to turn red. Some of these are June harvest but some are supposed to produce all season.
So Mom's car figured out she had some money coming in and decided it needed some repair work, which ate all of Mom's tax refund and then some. So there went the $100 Mom had promised me towards all the money I've been spending on gardening supplies. (Mom after all is benefiting from the cut flowers, the improved backyard view, and the hoped-for summer fruits.) Also, the car isn't to be ready till tomorrow, so she's been home and underfoot yesterday and today. At least today she stayed in her room (working on a fidget quilt for Grandma) and let me snooze on the couch right after I got home from work this morning. (Far too early -- still not enough work coming in to give me a full shift, let alone overtime. I'm burning off my paid time off filling up my time to forty hours each week, and when I run out my paychecks are going to be even smaller. Need to pick up some new tasks I can do if the workload doesn't pick up...)
It's amazing what changing the backdrop from neutral grey to dark green did to the colors in my progress photos. The lighting and camera were exactly same, but I had a cat lying on my bed snoozing and didn't want to evict him to detangle my blankets and lay out the grey throw. Anyway, leaf lace in sunset colors.
Here's the sock I cast on last week and forgot to take a photo of. This is maddening, trying to work with elastic thread while also stretching out two alternating colors to make sure the floats won't be too tight. It's going to be hibernating for a bit until I feel ready to deal with it again. (It's going to be a beautiful result -- but the beginning is daunting.)
I chose this pattern to go with this yarn because I thought the rainbow pops would look interesting over purl bump designs. Only the rainbow section kept appearing on the underside of the foot where no one will see it. At least it's finally starting to migrate to the top of the foot (as seen on the left side, next to the row counter).
Very nearly done with the calf increases, yay! Unfortunately, also very nearly done with the self-striping yarn, boo! This makes me glad I used the black yarn at toe and heel to expand the region the bright yarn would cover -- but if this pair is to be kneesocks, there's going to be a very broad section of plain black around the tops, like the Lupin Stockings only more so. Well, that's the part that's going to be up under my jeans, usually seen only by me.
Once upon a time, I had several incense burners. There was a really nice wooden one (with a compartment underneath the ash-catching panel for storing sticks of incense), I seem to remember a bitsy metal holder for cones, and there was a plain ceramic turtle for holding sticks upright beneath a big hollow ceramic dragon that someone gave me for a high school graduation present. I cannot find where any of those went (though I turned up some old stick incense to go along with the cones of dragon's blood Lauren gave me a few years ago to go with another hollow dragon sculpture with strategically-placed smoke holes). I got a cute new holder that works with cones (and will also do well with a resin/charcoal disk combo) but needs sand to go into the bottom (and probably won't be suitable for stick incense, since I don't have a grid or screen to go over the top and hold sticks upright). I am mildly perturbed at not having any idea where I put these things, and it's hard to excavate my way to the region of my room that seems most likely to be holding such artifacts. (The big dragon smoker got knocked off my TV and broke off a wing and was trashed, and I'm not sure I didn't trash the turtle holder that came along with him. But the nice wooden burner should surely be somewhere? Probably near to where I found the packages of stick incense?)
Holo glitter on the three accent nails, regular silver for the detailing on the other seven nails, and I was just using French tip sticker guides for the designs. Lazy but satisfying.
It's a really good shade of purple, kind of wine or orchid, not the blatant violet I'd been using so much of in previous years.
I'm using that same winey purple this week, along with teal glitter and gold glitter. Three solid gold nails, the others alternating purple and teal with gold detailing. (Again using French tip stickers, but adding a slop of the gold glitter atop the metallic gold before peeling the sticker away.) I am thrilled to death with this week's mani. Next week is likely to be similar, though defaulting to the more standard Mardi Gras color scheme of emerald green and violet purple.
I woke up in mid-afternoon and after dealing with changing out water bowls, watering plants, and doing the dishes, I was tempted to go out and deal with the last few gardening tasks I didn't handle Tuesday morning. I have the first potato grow bag to start, it's about time to plant the lily and iris bulbs I've been slowly accumulating over the last month or two, and the seeds I bought last fall that weren't for fall planting are about ready to lay down now. Also, the amaryllis bulbs that I dug up last fall have had long enough to dry out in the pantry and are ready to put back into pots (or possibly even into the ground, especially for the weentsy new bulb that the larger plant budded off last year). (So now I know: If I want amaryllis blooming in pots around Xmas or in January, I need to dig the plants out of the ground before November, assuming I'm not working with a newly-purchased bulb.)
But, I also had this entry left to post (and some Amazon shopping I decided not to save for payday, since Amazon was offering a deal today only -- that it turned out my purchase didn't qualify for, sadly), so I came into my room and got online instead of going outside to mess about with potting soil. Tomorrow, tomorrow.
Crossposted from Dreamwidth with
comments made.
Monday I got off to an early start but it was a really rainy day, which killed the gardening prospects and also postponed dealing with the rabbit cage. It stopped raining by afternoon, but by then I was out of gas for the day. At least I'd been really productive up till then, dealing with grocery shopping and laundry and visiting Grandma. I woke up for a bit when Mom got home and took care of the base layers for my manicure.
Tuesday was when I finished the Monday list and got some gardening done -- weekly maintenance, plus a bit of pruning in the backyard and planting the new climbing Don Juan I'd picked up for cheap at Wal-Mart during my grocery run. I put it on the sunny side of the house, just outside my bedroom, and in the years to come I hope to run some branches around the corner to the front of the house. Meanwhile, I have a lot more dead trees and unwanted saplings to cut down in the backyard (to say nothing of the other tree in the back corner of the yard that's been neglected and has branches tangling with themselves), and I figure if I just work on a couple each weekend for the next few weeks, we'll have a much prettier backyard this summer. So right now there's a small pile of branches over by the side of the yard (plus the pear-tree-trimmings over by the storage shed), and I think next week after another round of trimming I'll haul everything to the front yard for Wednesday pickup.
Finishing Monday's "to do" list, gardening, and hitting the gym ate my day Tuesday, so I had a few hours left to do what I could on the computer and try to nap before work. At least I got my mani finished, and did most of my computer stuff but posting this entry. (Oh, and putting the new ink cartridges that finally arrived last week into my printer, so I could finish printing up charts for my next few knitting projects. Still need to do that.)
I think this is before I cut a few to stick in a vase in the living room. The ones I planted last fall in the front flowerbeds are starting to bloom now. I think after the leaves die off on these here in the backyard, I'm going to dig up the bulbs and move them to line the back fence. I'm also going to buy some more daffodils next fall to add to the bed I'm starting to clear on the side of the house, and probably add to these in the back yard.
The first tiny strawberries are starting to turn red. Some of these are June harvest but some are supposed to produce all season.
So Mom's car figured out she had some money coming in and decided it needed some repair work, which ate all of Mom's tax refund and then some. So there went the $100 Mom had promised me towards all the money I've been spending on gardening supplies. (Mom after all is benefiting from the cut flowers, the improved backyard view, and the hoped-for summer fruits.) Also, the car isn't to be ready till tomorrow, so she's been home and underfoot yesterday and today. At least today she stayed in her room (working on a fidget quilt for Grandma) and let me snooze on the couch right after I got home from work this morning. (Far too early -- still not enough work coming in to give me a full shift, let alone overtime. I'm burning off my paid time off filling up my time to forty hours each week, and when I run out my paychecks are going to be even smaller. Need to pick up some new tasks I can do if the workload doesn't pick up...)
It's amazing what changing the backdrop from neutral grey to dark green did to the colors in my progress photos. The lighting and camera were exactly same, but I had a cat lying on my bed snoozing and didn't want to evict him to detangle my blankets and lay out the grey throw. Anyway, leaf lace in sunset colors.
Here's the sock I cast on last week and forgot to take a photo of. This is maddening, trying to work with elastic thread while also stretching out two alternating colors to make sure the floats won't be too tight. It's going to be hibernating for a bit until I feel ready to deal with it again. (It's going to be a beautiful result -- but the beginning is daunting.)
I chose this pattern to go with this yarn because I thought the rainbow pops would look interesting over purl bump designs. Only the rainbow section kept appearing on the underside of the foot where no one will see it. At least it's finally starting to migrate to the top of the foot (as seen on the left side, next to the row counter).
Very nearly done with the calf increases, yay! Unfortunately, also very nearly done with the self-striping yarn, boo! This makes me glad I used the black yarn at toe and heel to expand the region the bright yarn would cover -- but if this pair is to be kneesocks, there's going to be a very broad section of plain black around the tops, like the Lupin Stockings only more so. Well, that's the part that's going to be up under my jeans, usually seen only by me.
Once upon a time, I had several incense burners. There was a really nice wooden one (with a compartment underneath the ash-catching panel for storing sticks of incense), I seem to remember a bitsy metal holder for cones, and there was a plain ceramic turtle for holding sticks upright beneath a big hollow ceramic dragon that someone gave me for a high school graduation present. I cannot find where any of those went (though I turned up some old stick incense to go along with the cones of dragon's blood Lauren gave me a few years ago to go with another hollow dragon sculpture with strategically-placed smoke holes). I got a cute new holder that works with cones (and will also do well with a resin/charcoal disk combo) but needs sand to go into the bottom (and probably won't be suitable for stick incense, since I don't have a grid or screen to go over the top and hold sticks upright). I am mildly perturbed at not having any idea where I put these things, and it's hard to excavate my way to the region of my room that seems most likely to be holding such artifacts. (The big dragon smoker got knocked off my TV and broke off a wing and was trashed, and I'm not sure I didn't trash the turtle holder that came along with him. But the nice wooden burner should surely be somewhere? Probably near to where I found the packages of stick incense?)
Holo glitter on the three accent nails, regular silver for the detailing on the other seven nails, and I was just using French tip sticker guides for the designs. Lazy but satisfying.
It's a really good shade of purple, kind of wine or orchid, not the blatant violet I'd been using so much of in previous years.
I'm using that same winey purple this week, along with teal glitter and gold glitter. Three solid gold nails, the others alternating purple and teal with gold detailing. (Again using French tip stickers, but adding a slop of the gold glitter atop the metallic gold before peeling the sticker away.) I am thrilled to death with this week's mani. Next week is likely to be similar, though defaulting to the more standard Mardi Gras color scheme of emerald green and violet purple.
I woke up in mid-afternoon and after dealing with changing out water bowls, watering plants, and doing the dishes, I was tempted to go out and deal with the last few gardening tasks I didn't handle Tuesday morning. I have the first potato grow bag to start, it's about time to plant the lily and iris bulbs I've been slowly accumulating over the last month or two, and the seeds I bought last fall that weren't for fall planting are about ready to lay down now. Also, the amaryllis bulbs that I dug up last fall have had long enough to dry out in the pantry and are ready to put back into pots (or possibly even into the ground, especially for the weentsy new bulb that the larger plant budded off last year). (So now I know: If I want amaryllis blooming in pots around Xmas or in January, I need to dig the plants out of the ground before November, assuming I'm not working with a newly-purchased bulb.)
But, I also had this entry left to post (and some Amazon shopping I decided not to save for payday, since Amazon was offering a deal today only -- that it turned out my purchase didn't qualify for, sadly), so I came into my room and got online instead of going outside to mess about with potting soil. Tomorrow, tomorrow.
Crossposted from Dreamwidth with
comments made.