Doldrums of August

 I always love this picture with the glowing middle. August is such a bittersweet month. All of my plants and trees are so tired of this years seemingly endless heat. I really do think we should celebrate the life of Willis Carrier. This is what I found.

 "Genius can strike anywhere. For Willis Carrier, it was a foggy Pittsburgh train platform in 1902. Carrier stared through the mist and realized that he could dry air by passing it through water to create fog. Doing so would make it possible to manufacture air with specific amounts of moisture in it. Within a year, he completed his invention to control humidity – the fundamental building block for modern air conditioning."

When I was a kid my grandparents lived in an old farmhouse. It had a cooler that was in one of the windows. One of the jobs us kids had was in the summer, one of my grandparents would say, " Kim go out and spray the pads on the cooler." We would go out there with the waterhose and spray the pads down and the air would be blissfully cooler and we being hot would just lay in front of it until we cooled off and went back outside to play. Even today, I am happier outside than I am in the house. 

I finally quit procrastinating. I dyed wool. I am so happy how it turned out. I am working on my whale rug and I kept thinking of the ocean and ocean colors. So these came out so pretty. 

 This is from Saundra's website. I am working on this. I love this rug so much. I worked on it a bit yesterday. I dug into my worm stash and I have some interesting colors to use. Trying my hand at just putting my hand in and pulling out wool. Very hard, but I wanted to see if it works for me. 

Here are my colors for ocean. 

The top photo is my favorite color. But now I have lots to choose from. Its really prettier in person. I really experimented yesterday. That was fun. When we went to the beach last weekend, I really stared at the water so I could try and recreate it in wool. I think that is why I am so excited, it turned out like I see in my mind. 

I also finished this rug. Its by Old Tattered flag. I need to bind it but that just has to wait until its a tad cooler. 

It turned out okay I think. I was trying different colors, (for me) so it was a tad harder for me to hook. 

Rugs that I am comfortable with the colors and even my own designs are so much easier for me to hook. I was looking through my pictures and I ran across this rug I had made. Still I think the best one I have ever finished.

 

I should try it again. It was so much fun from my daughter drawing out the pattern for me to dyeing the wool to hooking it. Its still my favorite. 

Its time I started my day. My photos on Google give me fits and it takes such a long time to try and write a blog. I wish I was more computer savvy to completely redo my pictures. I hope you have a lovely day on this summer morning. 

~Kim~

When humor goes, there goes civilization.---Erma Bombeck.

 

Mid Summer

 

Here we are at the last week of July. You have no idea how hard I tried to get the waves to look like it was washing away July. The waves would only get to here and then would go back out. It wasn't until I put my camera away and then of course, July was washed away. I have lost count now how many days now we have been over a hundred degrees. At least a month. We did get rain yesterday, which is very rare in July.

We decided to drive over to the beach. It was 60 degrees and foggy. It was bliss. 

 

 We had lunch, walked on the beach and just enjoyed our reprieve. It was a nice drive. We haven't been here since 2018. It was hard to believe that it has been this long. So many things have changed in my life since then. I bet it has for you too. 

For the first time in a year and a half, Ron went back to work in person. What was supposed to be two weeks turned into that. It felt like the first day of school. This is a first for me too. First time to be in this house by myself. I have never had a real empty nest until today. I will get used to it but it is different. But isn't life full of things all of the time that are new and different? I remember how I used to think that at some point in my life, things would be normal. Now I have learned, there is never any normal at all. Just putting one foot in front of the other and trying to accomplish something in spite of the changing circumstances that are all around me. I compare it to trying to do jumping jacks on a merry go round. 

In order to sew or hook, I have to be home. Imagine that? I haven't been home long enough to pick up a hook or even a needle. I keep hoping that I will get to that place where I am bored. It has never happened yet. 

I really want to dye some wool. I sat the other day and went through my dye packets, so I am pretty sure I can dye lots of wool and I have wool. So its time to get off my duff and get to doing that again. 

I hope your day is tip-top. Full of lots of nice things. 

Today my life is that big box of chocolates which one should I eat first? 

~Kim~

 

“Promise me you’ll always remember that you are braver than you believe,

stronger than you seem,

and smarter than you think.” (Winnie the Pooh)

Summer in July

 Its just another day in July, a summer day. We have a fire now, so it smells of burning and there is that red look to the sunrise. It is so disheartening when the fires start. When they start the evacuations and all of that. I find my thoughts on the poor displaced people.

When we brought this cactus back it was such a tiny little thing. It just keeps growing and growing. We need to put it in a bigger pot, but there are all of those spikes. We even have the pot and the cactus mix. Just the wrapping it up in carpet or tarp and doing the re-potting. 

I finally picked vegetables from my little garden. Its been really interesting to see if we could. I picked stuff because of the heat we have been having. I am very happy with the fresh goodies so far. We have green beans and some squash coming on. 

Now for my next projects. 

Here are some Maggie patterns I am going to start very soon. I just love working on these patterns. They always make me so happy. 

I plan on working on this today. I really want to get it finished. I don't know about binding though. It might have to wait. Binding when its 111 is just no fun. I just have had such a hard time sitting still lately. I guess its cooler fiddling with stuff in the house rather than hooking. 

I have these two patterns that I got from Saundra at Woodland Juction. My hardest problem is deciding which one to start first. 

 

The first one" Mighty Whale", I have wanted to hook forever. I have always loved that pattern. Then the second," Magdalena's Goat" just makes me so excited, because it is going to be such a challenge for me as a rug hooker. 

Both look like such fun to me. 

That is on my list of things I want to get done. Plus trying to be a better blogger and get my blogging mojo back. 

I hope your week is a good one. Its too hot here to do much outside. So its a very good excuse to stay inside and do inside projects. 

Have a wonderful week,

Kim

 

 “I had not known before that love is obedience. You want to love, and you can’t, and you hate yourself because you can’t, and all the time love is not some marvelous thing that you feel but some hard thing that you do. And this in a way is easier because with God’s help you can command your will when you can’t command your feelings. With us, feelings seem to be important, but He doesn’t appear to agree with us.”
― Elizabeth Goudge, The Scent of Water

Good Old Summertime

 When I woke up this morning, I thought, Its wonderful Wednesday! I kept thinking of all of the good things I wanted to do today. First, get up and go outside and drink coffee. I wanted to watch the moon before the sun came up. (its a brand new moon.) Then watch the sun come up. (Its over Greenhorn now.) 

I sat and breathed in the summer air. Warm and toasty. No air conditioners were running. So it was very quiet and there was still crickets chirping. I said to myself, you better hurry, Mr. Cricket, better get that wife pretty soon. 

I watered my pots of Chrysanthemum that really should be pulled out but in my mind, I still have that secret desire to make Chrysanthemum tea. Here is what I found about it.

 "Chrysanthemum tea is said to have a host of health benefits, and it has definitely become my go-to when I’m feeling under the weather. It may help you reduce inflammation, serve as a good source of vitamins A and C, and lower blood pressure and cholesterol". 

My tiny herb garden still needs plants. I have been so picky about plants since I moved here. Having a smaller place, I have to really think about what I want things to look like. I can't go all willy-nilly like at my other house. There are things I still miss like my pots of mints. I need to plant things in the fall when it gets cooler. They say we could have temps 113-115 by the weekend. Last time they said that we got monsoon clouds and it never got that hot here. It that hot in the desert. Where you expect it to be hot. 

I got out my camera this week. I had got lazy just using my phone. I think I have the brain power to take pictures again. Wow!! What a learning curve. I forgot everything, even how to plug in the memory card to my computer. I had to fool and fool with it and finally I was able to get pictures I liked. Its going to take a lot of refresher courses on my part to remember how to use my camera. When life is in upheaval I loose my creativity. My life has been pretty crazy the last few years. I keep telling myself, life is never going to be perfect, so you have to be creative in spite what is going on inside of me. Creativity is where my soul settles down and peace happens and I forget what is going on in the world. I keep telling myself, I can't change it so why do I give myself airs thinking by worrying about it, it will help. To live life in spite of the storms that sometimes come from unexpected places. At the first of the year, my words were Enchanted by the Unexpected. Now in July, I hope I can continue to do that. 

I am going to hook today, and listen to "The Unexpected Mrs. Polifax. The books were written by a lady name Dorthy Gilman. That is the first one. I got my books from Audible read by Barbara Rosenblatt. I love when its hot outside to listen to the antics of Mrs. Polifax. What could be any nicer than that? 

I hope you have a wonderful day,

Kim

"In the morning when Mrs. Pollifax awoke she realized at once that a fateful day was beginning. She lay and thought about this dispassionately, almost wonderingly, because to every life there eventually came a moment when one had to accept the fact that the shape, the pattern, the direction of the future was entirely out of one's hands, to be decided unalterably by chance, by fate or by God. There was nothing to do but accept, and from this to proceed, doing the very best that could be done.”
― Dorothy Gilman, (The Unexpected, Mrs. Polifax.)