Mornings

Not sure if I've mentioned this before on the blog or not, but I am a morning person.  As my mother can attest to, I have always been an early riser and would blithely eat cereal and watch cartoons at hours considered uncivilized by some.  As a kid, this talent didn't serve me very well because it also meant I was rather happy to go to bed at a reasonable hour.  I'd be the first asleep at slumber parties and normally the victim of several pranks because of this.  Mom would give me permission to stay up and watch Saturday Night Live and sleep on the sofa bed which I thought was the height of luxury, but rarely if ever did I make it past the opening sketch.  I have found as an adult that while I'm not as chipper in the morning I still feel fairly ready to face the day by 7 am at the latest.  When I'm up, I'm up and I want to start doing things like cooking, straightening, getting things out of the way I don't like doing so I can enjoy the afternoon.

Now, I married a NOT morning person.  Josh is at best barely functional after a cup of morning coffee and at worst incoherent.  Woe betide he who suggests cleaning before 10 am.  This has been the source of many a spat in our relationship, but if that is the worst we ever have to deal with I think we're ok.  Apparently my child shares a similar penchant for sleeping in.  Maegwin is a bear to wake up and wants to just sit and watch some songs and eat her yogurt like a little robot in the morning.  If one deviates from this routine, there will be hell to pay.

All this is my long-winded way of saying that I've found new joy in mornings.  Since both my little sleepy heads like catching late morning Z's, I get up and brew some coffee and enjoy some me time.  For these glorious few hours my coffee is hot, I can watch what I want, and knit without interruption.  I save my more delicate knitting maneuvers or anything that involves scissors for this time.  This morning I wove in the ends on my latest project and sauntered out to get some well lit photos.

I give you-Spring Garden Tee!


I knit it in Rowan Panama yarn in the Hibiscus colorway. I loved everything about this little knit and Maegwin loves the yarn. She tried it on last night and kept petting her belly and saying it was so soft and purple. Best compliment one can get from a two-year-old I'd say!  Now it goes to hang out at the yarn store for a month as a sample and then it is ours.  I made a size 3 so I anticipate getting some good wear out of it.  I think it will look cute with a sweater over it as well.

I haven't done a garden update in a while but things are going nicely.  If you recall, last year I put tons of cone flower seedlings around the tree up by our stone retaining wall.  This year they have filled in nicely and the bee balm really expanded so that section is quite full and we're happy with it.  We get many hummingbirds, finches, and bees.


In the background you can see how bad the fire was next door. The flames were shooting out of the roof in the place where it is gone. We also have a little chipmunk that lives in our stone wall and comes out each morning to sun himself on the rock by the lungwort prior to finding his food.
I love watching him. He's so cute!  We had a hummingbird come by while we were watering the vegetable garden and it darted in and out of the hose spray for about ten minutes.  We were both too afraid to move to go get the camera but it was pretty amazing.  It was a very hot day so I'm thinking he must have been taking a little shower.

I've started reclaiming the pond area.  It got overgrown with weeds last year and we sort of picked our battles and let it alone.  Just too much work to do with our limited outside time.  Now each time we can get Maegwin to play in her sandbox (thanks, Mom & John), I go hack down a little more and leave it to dry out in the sun before I rake it away.  I've almost made it through and then we're going to put down that black weed suppressing stuff and add perennials slowly.


Here's what I've raked out of it so far.


Here's the start of our beans we planted a few weeks ago.  Maegwin was a great helper and diligently placed just a few seeds in each hole.

We also put out sunflowers but only a few have come up so far.  We've had two mini harvests of peas which was nice but they are probably winding down at this point.  Next year we will definitely plant more.  We only did about a third of a bed this year.

We got a zoo membership and have gone once on it so far.


We had a great time but have decided that we need a wagon so we can haul some stuff.  We took drinks and snacks for Mae and my shoulders were aching by the end from the backpack.  Josh had to haul her around on his shoulders once she got tired.


My dad said he had an old one he used to use for my nieces and nephew when they were young so we're going to check that out and see if it will work.  We look forward to many more forays to the zoo though.  I love that we feel no pressure to stay.  If she's tired and we've only been there for an hour, no big deal.  We can bring two unnamed guests on our pass too so come visit us, family.  We can go to the zoo!

All signs point to yes

While recognizing there is still work to be done (changing sheets, making bed, and going through that pile of shorts of Josh's that I put on the rocking chair), I am declaring early victory over the clutter.


I even put some flowers in there. See them?
 I think that's probably what I will get done today because
A: You can't make me neener, neener, neener
B: Our neighbor's house caught fire this morning and we were up at 4 am talking to the police about whether we had seen them over there. (incidentally we are pretty sure they are out of town and they didn't find anyone so all children, adults, and even pets are safe)
C: Last time I saved my PTO for enjoying a long vacation I ended up sick as a dog alternating between my in-laws' and grandpa's couches.

We were so glad that their van wasn't there because the fire was so hot that the firemen had to give up their rescue operation. The entire roof is gone. They used so much retardant in their water mix that it looked like there was six inches of snow. The fire fighters didn't find anyone once they could go in.

Anyway, onward to enjoying my day!

Doing my thing

Hello, All!  It seems I can't even manage one post a month but things have been very busy around here.  Blogger also has some new settings that I'll have to get used to so bear with me.

I'm home today for my version of a "mental health day" which just means the house has gotten to a point where I can't bear it anymore.  I have been using PTO days every few months to reset the system and it seems to work ok.  I hate doing it but I love the result and I seem better able to relax and enjoy my weekend when I'm not trying to cram in laundry, dishes, mopping, dusting, straightening, etc.  I finished the bathroom down to scrubbing the tub and mopping the floor-two tasks that are often overlooked.

Note the streak free mirror even!  I've been taking flowers from bouquets and cutting them down when they start to wilt.  I can then put them in one of the little glass bottles like the one on the sink and they will last for weeks longer.  I think their stems just wear out after long enough but the flowers are ok if they have closer access to water.  I love seeing them in the morning too.  It's a nice start to the day.

Next up today: the bedroom.  Wish me luck! Note that it looks worse because items were dragged out of the bathroom.  I'll post an "after" in a bit.


Now to distract you with cuteness! I'm not having all work today. I'm also knitting a sample for my local yarn store, Knitting Temptations. I've just got the collar bind off to do but I tried it on Maegwin a few days ago and it seemed to fit her pretty well. She had just a little scratch on her nose when we went to my cousin's wedding but she scratched it while on the way home and got all the skin off on the upper area of her nose. We've been keeping it ointmented and bandaged as much as possible to discourage further damage and it seems to be healing well. See? There it is way better. I really need to remember not to stand sideways in pictures. It makes me look heavy. :p Nope, haven't gained any weight since last you all saw me though I had to take about six months off from the gym (I went but it would be a few weeks then off two weeks, etc) because of back to back sinus infections. I'm back to going three times a week though and hope to build my arms and general muscle tone back up. Stupid sickness and not being able to breathe.

More later!