Five years and nine months

Five years and nine months.  That's how long it took for the deer to find the hostas in the front yard:

If you look closely, you will see that the stems in the foreground have no buds on them.....  argh. 

So.  A closer look at our yard.  Remember this from the last post?:

 Paul and his brother digging trenches for the electrical wiring and water to go to the new garage.  They cut the phone wire, which Paul patched up.

This one is the beginning of the excavator's work for the garage site.  Our yard is going to be a huge muddy mess for a few months.  The excavator also cut the phone wire (in a different place), which the phone company will be coming to fix today.

In Knitting News:
I made this Mystic Sprial hat a while ago:

It's currently blocking with a plate in it.  That's what the instructions said to do in order to give it the right shape.  Another picture to come once it's dry.  I haven't shown it to you because I bound it off too tightly and it took me about a month and a half to shake off my annoyance and then take out the bind off and re-bind it off more loosely.  How annoying is it when you think you've finished this great new hat and then when you go to put it on the brim is too tight?  So annoying.  Cute hat though.  Probably an upcoming class for me to teach at The Spinning Room.

I can't remember if I told you I started a Citron shawl(ette):

I am on section 5 of 5.  Then there is a ruffled edge.  However, I have a lot more yarn and this shawlette is pretty small, so I'm going to add 2 more sections.  I'm getting to the point, though, where I'm getting a tiny bit tired of this project and knowing that it's "supposed" to be done soon is making me re-think if I want to make it bigger.  I keep thinking, "Maybe it won't be that small." or "Small could be better."  I'm trying really hard to overcome this.  Hopefully by the time I get to the last row of the section, I'll go right on to row 1 of the additional section and not cave in and got to row 1 of the ruffled edge.  Apparently it will depend on my mood at the time.

Here is the next pair of Travelling Socks that I'm sending on to Oregon:

Pretty funky looking but  that's pretty much the point of these socks!  I just received the next pair so those will be posted soon too.

And check out my sister-in-law Anita's sweater!

Isn't it great?!  I think it's her first sweater. I love the yoke pattern.  I forgot to ask her the name of the pattern....
I seem to be back in knitting mode and thinking of patterns to teach for classes this fall.  But I can't get any of that together until I get the craft room put back together.  That's on the list for today...

More DIY.... and pizza.

Ok, so I lied at the end of my last post.  I said there would be book reviews.  But there are no book reviews in today's post.  I have finished some books but.....  well, there is no "but".  I just don't feel like writing about them yet!  So, instead, I'll tell you about this:

Last weekend, Paul and I made a trip  to IKEA for shelving for the craft room.  While we were in New Haven, we of course had to make a stop at Frank Pepe's Pizzeria on Wooster Street:

Mmmmmm.  The. Best. Pizza. EVER.  Hands down.  Bar none.  I wish wish wish wish wish WISH we had pizza like this here.  Sal's Pizza in Cooperstown (an hour from here) is close, but still just not the same. 

While Paul was at work the next day I tackled putting the shelf together by myself:

I looked and looked all over the garage, ransacking Paul's tool boxes for the lightweight hammer and rubber mallet, which would have been very helpful in putting this together.  I could only find the heavy hammer and a folded up cloth to protect the wood since I didn't have a rubber mallet......until I took this progress picture.  Check out what is laying on the desk at the top of this picture.   Lightweight hammer and rubber mallet.  Sitting there the whole time.  Putting the rest of the shelf together was much easier from here.

Stay tuned for an upright shelf, filled with all my yarn-y, knit-y, spin-y things.

Then, remember the windows in this picture?:

We got them at Brimfield in May 2012.  So, finally, over a year later, we did this with them:

Paul cleaned them up and painted them.  Someday, added to our long list of household projects, we will put real windows there. And built-in bookshelves underneath them.

Finally, this lone lily bloom:

Oh, and this:

July 4th Celebrating

Some hamburgers, hotdogs and potato salad.  And some fireworks:

....courtesy of our neighbors who do this every year (and throughout the summer) so we just sit on our deck and enjoy.

Also:

In the middle of the pond...

In the yard...

....courtesy of Paul's brother, John, who brought these from Virginia.

Lots of fun!

A few random things...

1) I was at The Spinning Room yarn shop yesterday and got these:

 

The book is the latest by Alana Dakos, a designer I love.  And now I'm obsessed with making the Oak Trail hat:

Ravelry/Book pattern pic

The yarn is Periwinkle Sheep Watercolors in the color The Rising of the Moon, which will be for my soon-to-be-started Glitz at the Ritz shawl.

2) Paul and I went to a wedding last night.  When we got to our table, this was there:

Paul said, "What is that?  White chocolate?"  I informed him it was butter and he seemed disappointed.  He was hoping it was white chocolate.  To be fair, it was right next to the Hershey kisses scattered under the flower arrangement so he thought they were a related item....

3) We keep seeing the strangest things in our yard this year.  The green heron (and sometimes two) keep coming around and they have been fun to watch.  Yesterday afternoon, out of the blue, a baby/teen deer went streaking around the perimeter of our yard, with no one else in tow.   Also, this robin was all puffed up, trying to eat a worm and we couldn't figure out what he was doing.

4) This came today:

Unfortunately, I cannot help stack it since I will be going to visit my mom.   See how I emphaized "unfortunaely"?  It really is a shame that I can't help....

Next time, I'm hoping to give you some book reviews!

Finally...a Knitting Update

I know you've been waiting with bated breath for a knitting update from me.  You probably just couldn't concentrate on anything else, checking your computer every few hours to see if I've posted my latest knitting projects.  So sorry to keep you waiting....

I'm working on my Cozy wrap:

Due to some distractions, it took me a little while to get comfortable with this really very EASY pattern, but now I'm on a roll and each row is easy to memorize - especially the even rows, since they are all purls!  I'm using the very yummy Cascade Alpaca Lana D'Oro which is 50% alpaca and 50% wool. And this picture does not do justice to the dusty plum color.

I also started a Citron shawlette:

This is the first time I've used laceweight in quite some time, so it is taking some getting used to.  I feel like I'm not knitting with anything because the yarn is so fine.  I am thinking of switching from my Addis needle to a Knit Picks wooden needle since the Addis are very slippery.

And, since the new Knitty came out, I am obsessed with the Glitz at the Ritz shawl:

Ravelry pattern pic

And the Vino mitts:

Ravelry pattern pic

Both use fingering weight yarn, of which i have plenty in my stash, so I'm pondering what to use and when to start...

Now... your run-of-the-mill-here's-what's-happening-with-our-yard update:

Paul is working on clearing some stuff for a new project:

....the site of a future new garage.  This one should be fun...

The green heron has been a regular visitor to the pond because we have tons of food for him:

And finally, our peonies are blooming!

love. Love. LOVE!

Backwards Dinner

love. Love. LOVE backwards dinner:
Ice cream sundaes....

...followed by take-out pizza and breadsticks!

What's better than that?  I'll tell you what....backwards breakfast-for-dinner.

Sunset on Sunday after the storms:

Ok, next post will be a knitting update.  Probably.

Yard Related News

With my posts being sporadic lately, I thought maybe you'd want a hint as to what I've been doing:

That's all I can give you for now!  More explantions later, but posts might be sporadic for a little while longer....

But in Gardening News:
I have a wonderfully lush weed garden:

Isn't it pretty?

But seriously, I changed that today and now have some veggies growing:

Tomatoes (thanks to my sister-in-law Anita who is a much more accomplished seed-starter than I am!), cabbage, zucchini and eggplant.  Beans to be planted soon.

In Other Yard-Related News:
This red-winged black bird has been SUCH a nuisance!:

 

A nuisance in that we haven't seen any finches at the feeder in days because he keeps chasing them away, and when we were walking around the pond, he was  diving at us, and chirping up a storm, to warn us away.  We can't seem to figure out why -- we don't see any nests nearby.

Paul did see some activity from one of our pond turtles the other day.  It walked away from the pond and started digging in the grass, we believe to lay some eggs.  Here are a couple of the digging spots:

Isn't it weird that they both look heart-shaped?  During one of our walks, we actually saw the turtle sitting in a hole (but of course I didn't have my camera).

Then, we checked up on the growing frog population:

There really are frogs in those last two pictures.  You just have to look hard (toward the middle of each picture).

That's all for now.  Knitting update next post.  I finished a hat, but haven't blocked it and you can't tell what it looks like un-blocked.  I'm also working on a wrap with some soft alpaca/wool yarn and a scarf/shawlette with laceweight yarn.  The wrap is in the first picture of this post but I forgot to take better pictures!