September Thoughts

I love September, I always have. Sad to say though, it seems do I dare say the ether, is working over time to ruin the month. I work so hard and being positive in an very negative, changing world. That is all I am going to say about it. I do say every day to myself. Focus on the good, on the good. So Pumpkins are good. Maybe next year, I will just give my flowerbeds over to growing pumpkins. Every place I go, I always have to go over and look at the pumpkins. 

 

This week, my husband got the news, that the company he works for will be selling to an competitor. 

We just went though this last year. Now we are repeating it again. Do you hate repeating challenges?  

I keep wondering, what didn't we learn last time? I love this quote by John Bunyan. " I have found the bottom and the ground is firm." Its still firm. All other is sinking sand. 

I did dye wool on Tuesday. I got some amazing colors. Nice fall colors. I should have taken pictures before I sat down to write. Just take my word for it. Nothing gives me more joy than dyeing wool. 

Now I can finish the projects I couldn't because I just hated the yellow I have. Do you do that? If you have a color and its just so hard to try and get past it? I kept staring at the yellow I had, and I knew I couldn't even cut one strip because I hated it so much. I dyed it and now I can use it.  

Now I can finish it. I am much further, the bottom sunflower is finished and the green is finished now the background behind the rooster and the background. Nice work to accomplish today. We have clouds! Dark clouds with promises of hail, lighting and we are under a flood watch. I believe its called Hurricane Mario.

The weather man said its been 105 days since we have had rain. So I am looking forward to it. Weather in California is not the same and anywhere else. Weather in other states is serious. 

I will stop for now. I thought I should check in, or my blog is going to go stale again, I don't want that to happen. My new computer is so very nice. 

Have a delightful Thursday,

~Kim~

"To fear is one thing. To let fear grab you by the tail and swing you around is another."

---Jacob have I loved, Katherine Paterson, 1980
 

Thursday in August

I thought I would write a blog today. I hope your August is off to a good start. I think this summer has been one of replacing appliances. Our fridge went out in the garage. Thankfully, it didn't have too much in it. I had already moved most of the food to the upright freezer. All of the years we have been married and had a large family, I have always had two refrigerators. It dawned on me this week. Its only Ron and me. What do we need two? I could use that space in the garage for something else.
 

It sounds so simple on the blog. It took a week for me to finally figure that out. I cook everyday. I fix Ron's lunch for work everyday. I cook from scratch so I have ingredients. Lots of ingredients. I have two pantries and my large upright freezer. So having one fridge really does scare me. No clue why, we won't starve. I decided not to can and preserve or make jam this summer. I feel like a complete slacker. I of course have food I could whip up into a jar if it becomes to hard for me to not do. Its August. My whole life I have spent August in the kitchen, with my water bath canner, my pressure cooker and preparing for the snow, tornadoes and hurricanes. Oh wait, I live in California. Its been 69 each morning and I am freezing to death. I remember one of the last things I would order in October would be a cord of wood. Then I would feel safe. I could withstand even an earthquake. But not this year. 

I do have bricks I could make a rocket stove and cook outside if I had too. But then we have the travel trailer ready to go so I could just make it easy on myself and cook in that. Not canning food in August is harder for me not to do than to do it. Odd isn't it? I guess I like that feeling of putting food on my pantry shelves that I know whats in it and what I have prepared. 

All of this talk about food. But that is what I have done all week. I did order a new refrigerator. From a guy I have bought all of my appliances from for 45 years. He was too sick to deliver it. Which is so terrible for him. I felt so awful that I told him just to cancel it and just take care of himself. That was when I had my moment of why? Why do I need two? I just needed to work through it. 

Its grape season here. I just like looking at grapes on the vine. This is the garden where my daughter is a manager and she gets to work and see lovely things like this every day. When I look at that I see raisins. 

I hope you are having a nice week. I have hooked a tiny bit. Its been a summer of replacing appliances. I really broke my garbage disposal. I had to have that guy come out on Monday. I felt like I was in an episode of I Love Lucy. Lets say it wasn't pretty. Don't ever put old yeast down the drain. It blows up and makes a big mess. I cleaned and cleaned up my mess, then I discovered I hadn't thought about the ceiling. I have to do that at some point. We have ten foot ceilings. It was a big, big mess. 
 

I hope you have a lovely weekend. We have the master bath left to paint. That is going be the job to start in the morning. Then our whole house will have been repainted. I hope to get my dresser painted to match my bedroom set and my hope chest. Then the painting will be finished. Its such a nice feeling. 

Its nice to live here and get finished.

~Kim~

"If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world."

---The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien, 1937
 

A Delightful Week

What a nice summer it has been this July. In the past, we would have it seemed days and days of over 110. This summer we have had none. We have no 100 degree days the rest of July. But August is coming. Yesterday, we had that wonderful coastal breeze just flowing in, and we worked in the flowerbeds and the garden beds and I harvested the rest of my garlic, cut lots of mint to dry, found that the lemon balm had reseeded itself. I have tried and tried to get lemon balm and I might regret it in the future but I am so happy with all of it. I harvested red raspberry to dry. My rosemary was going crazy. I found a cinnamon scented geranium a couple years ago. It is also going to town. I am pretty happy with this year's garden.

I collected seeds and put them away to be dried and hopefully reseeded in the fall. So all in all a very nice day to play outside in the sun under the blue sky. Polly would make a great farm dog. She watches Ron for a bit to make sure he is doing everything the right way, then she will run to me and steal anything I might have dropped. She at one point took a clove of garlic that had fallen out of my hand and ran over to her spot on the lawn to taste what it was, and for awhile she smelled like that garlic clove. Having her outside while we work just makes us laugh and gives us hours of entertainment.

It was so nice last week, I even took my hooking project and hooked outside. I have to tell you about my little Indian neighbor next door. She is very shy. I have never talked to her. I have talked to her husband. She doesn't drive and she is very traditional in that she wears her sari when she is in her back yard. Their backyard is very tropical and they have a water feature that has a creek and a pond. We watch their house when they go to India. That is how I know that I was expecting Koi in the pond and they have big catfish. They love those catfish and they are so tame. But like I said, I have never talked to her. She watches me through the fence. So while I was hooking out there she stood and watched. I have wanted to say something, but she is skittish like a deer. So I just let her watch. I bet she knows more about me than I do her.  

Me trying to get a picture for you on my rug I am working on. She had just come back from a walk with Ron and she was all fired up and wanting to play.  

 

See the dog feet. She is a good dog and she does most often what I tell her. She doesn't get to get on my rugs like that but sometimes she just has her moments. I really do love working on chicken rugs and sunflowers. I hope to finish this next week. Then I will have to look in my stash and see what rug pattern do I have that I haven't done. I know I have a few. 

I hope you all are having a very nice summer too. I am thankful for days in which to rest and be thankful.

I hope wherever you are, your days are filled with sunshine, blue skies, and beautiful sunrises and sunsets. The lovely summer days that pass all too quickly. 

~Kim~

"Like all magnificent things, it's very simple." ---Tuck Everlasting, Natalie Babbitt, 1975
 
 

 

Odds and Ends

Its mid July now. I think its been a very productive month. The house is back to normal. I think it was worth the work. One of the things that happened while we were unhooking my computer and moving it back and forth during all of this painting project was my old computer, didn't like it much. Ron was afraid it was just going to die. I thought it was normal to get the black screen of death, every time I turned the computer on and then have to wait until it booted up. Like turn it on, go clean the house and come back and it might be on. I thought that was normal. It would take me so long to write a post. Sometimes things would go all wonky and I not being a power user just went on my merry way forgetting I was writing a post. Ron bought a new computer for me last week, so I had to wait until everything was moved over to the new one. Today is the day. I am back online.

I came in the morning to write this blog, and I turned on the computer, it was on. I touched the key board and I was into blogger. Just that fast. I went to find my pictures and again uploaded as fast as I can type. My goodness, I am just amazed. I don't normally like new tech but I think I am going to like this. 

 

I still continue to be enthralled with my sunflower. So are the bees and butterflies. Its just a wonderful thing to take pictures of each day. So you will see a bunch of photographs of my sunflower. This last week was fun because I got to play house. I have never been much of a decorator. Its not a skill I ever developed. I like a house that is comfortable and you feel like you can rest and put your feet up and stay and visit for awhile. I have always been about comfort rather than what is in style. I found a nice cover for my sewing chair. I just couldn't get rid of it. It looks nice now. 

I don't know why  I never thought of it before. I got my rug hung over the mantel too. I like it. Its different from my regular style but it is okay. Its what I wanted.

I read about Rugs and Pugs second day of her rug camp and Monochromatic rugs. Using one color and different variations. I really like that idea and I originally thought about it but because I have never gone to a rug camp, didn't really know how to go about it. I do now and I might try it in the future. I really like that idea of using one color. When I did my whale rug, I would only let myself use three colors and it worked.

That was last year about my fireplace. We had such a hot summer last year, I just wanted cool and ocean and it was so miserable. This summer is just the opposite. What an nice summer this has been. Hardly the heat that we have had in past years. But August is coming.

We cleaned the garage yesterday. I cleaned my laundry room and I am coming down to where I have almost reorganized my whole house. Have you ever heard of the book Swedish Death Cleaning.

I read it when we were selling our other house. I needed strength to be able to get rid of 8 peoples things and by far the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. I still wake up sometimes because I had to get rid of the kids things. It still breaks my heart. I begged and begged them to take it and they kept saying they didn't have room or didn't want it. So I did, but it was terrible. So now when I am de-cluttering, I remember how I felt and I don't want my kids to have to do it. It strengthens my resolve. Or, just go watch an episode on You Tube of  hoarders and it works the same way. I know I have hoarder tendencies. I still need to be more ruthless on myself. A friend of mine was having to clean out her Mom's house. She had 900 boxes of dishes. I kept asking her, 900 boxes? She kept answering yes, and looking at me like I was hard of hearing. That was just dishes. When they had a yard sale, they had 200 tables of stuff in the front yard and the inside was filled. She had one whole room of nothing but children's tea sets. I know that person lives in me. I have more rug hooking frames than I need. I have two wool cutters. I would buy an Townsend in a New York minute. So yes, its there.

I should stop, do you remember writing letters? Or journals? Remember when you had a really good pen and it felt so wonderful to use it and keep writing. That is how this new keyboard is, I could just keep writing and writing. Plus the zippy computer helps a whole lot. 

I really need to go for a walk and water the garden before it gets to warm. I go back to work August 23rd. I really, really hope I can do it all this time. Not disappear for months.

I hope you have a lovely mid July.

~Kim~

"Just to know you could. That was enough." ---The Indian in the cupboard, Lynne Reid Banks, 1980