Garden Update

I am very happy with how some of the plants are doing! It has been wonderful growing time. The pepper plants that thrived all see to be the hot ones, but that is okay, they will definitely get used.


The Coleus is doing great! You can see the lovely red/brown color even more now.


A close up of one of the Cacti.


Another close-up of the some Cacti


Here is one tray of the Cacti.


Here is the second try of Cacti.


Some more peppers!








Lots of little tomatoes!!












I thought I would include a couple geese pictures in with this update. This is at the end of the parking lot where I work. The geese are always out here like crazy and most of these little guys I saw as babies just a few months ago! They are wonderfully beautiful creatures.










Hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend!

Food Friday - Orange Cranberry Muffins

I have missed Orange Cranberry Muffins like crazy. So, I decided to make some myself so I would have some muffins to eat with my yogurt in the morning before work. Boy am I glad these turned out! ☺ They were yummy!


I chose to try this!


But I needed some dried cranberries. I left these whole. I thought about chopping them up smaller, but I love cranberries and thought larger would be better. I think it might be beneficial next time to try a mix of whole and chopped up. I used about half of this bag, so about 1/4 lb.


Here is my orange, about medium size. I zested the heck out of this guy, meaning, I used all of the surface area. I also squeezed a generous amount of the juice into the batter. Next time, I might get two oranges.


Here is what my lovely batter looked like. Can't see it as well as I would have hoped because my bowl is yellow!


I accidentally cooked them a couple minutes longer than suggested, but they turned out perfectly.


Doesn't this just look yummy!




Overall experience, I will definitely be making these again. The boy didn't care for them, but oh well. I will probably try some other fruits in it to. A raspberry orange sounds good too! ☺

Contest/Giveaway Results

This is short and sweet cause it's been a long day!

The random number generator chose number 4 - which is knitting dragonflies! Congrats! I will most likely get the package sent out this weekend!

Thanks for everyone that commented for the giveaway. I appreciate my readers very much.

Interweave Crochet Summer 2010 Review

Hope you all enjoy. Let me hear your opinion, likes, and dislikes.

I will be hopefully getting up the KnitScene, Knitty, and Interweave Crochet reviews up soon! :)

Video Blogging #7

Notes:
~Tour De Fleece : Sorry to see it go, but with this heat it's probably the best for a little while.

~Elijah : Still making some progress

~Cloud Chaser : moving along, hopefully as the tortoise and not the hare.

~Garren's Giraffe : Found the fabric!

~Beaded Ring : hopefully some work on it tonight! :)

Sunday Inspirations

~Spin Control Podcast : this is a new podcast to me. I found it through the Stitch It Podcast. She's a multi-crafter. I like it, check it out if you listen to podcast!

~Baby Sunsuit Tutorial : This is an adorable sunsuit for a baby and directions are given for other ages. Too late now for this summer, but maybe I'll make one next spring in preparation for summer.

~Bead Journal Project : I absolutely love this.! The color and saturation is wonderful. I would definitely hang something like this on my wall.

The downfalls of Swapping and a Contest!

Unfortunately swapping doesn't always work how the creators hoped it would. My swap for the Great Sewn Potholder Swap of 2010 didn't work out the way one would have hoped. I received something poorly made and with little to no thought put into it and the potholders that I sent her sat for 6 or 7 weeks at her post office, before being returned to me. Why you ask? Because the postage was miscalculated and she had to pay 30 cents to pick it up, but wouldn't. Which is ridiculous, she could have just let me know and I would have sent her the extra money. Any who, I am rather bitter about this whole experience and have waited a while before posting anything, so I didn't post anything I would regret. ☺ Trust me, I have a quick temper and there were almost some not nice things posted about this whole experience. But in the end, who will that benefit, no one.

So, I decided you all could benefit from this unfortunate mess! ☺ Remember these?







If you want more info on the potholders, you can go to this post.

But onto the part where this benefits you! Just leave a comment on this post and you have a chance to win them! I will do the random generator to draw a name on Wednesday night when I get home from work. So you have until 10pm Wednesday, which is the 28th! To make it extra special there will be a couple other goodies thrown into the package! Good luck, I know with my lovely readers they will go to a home that will appreciate them. ☺

Food Friday - Fruit Roll Ups

I will forever be a fan of fruit roll ups. It's just the way things are. However, I am no longer a fan of commercial fruit roll ups. I love making my own. I made three batches over last weekend. Here you will only see two because banana fruit roll ups . . . well, they are not so good. :)


First thing I do is cut up some fruit and blend it with a little applesauce.

Then I spread it out on the fruit roll up sheet (which I have ordered a couple more this week so I can make more than one at a time!) First batch was Apricot, super yummy!


Then it gets dehydrated for approximately 8 hours and then it is a nice dried sheet of fruit.



The I tear it into about sixth and fold it up in some plastic wrap, label it, and stick them in the fridge. I need to figure out a more environmentally sound way to wrap them. If you have some suggestions, please let me know.


Next was Nectarine, again yummy!







This weekend I hope to make a Plum batch and a couple Pear batches.

July's Bakers Dozen Square

Bakers Dozen is the group I am in on Ravelry where we trade squares each month. July's member of the month in our group is going to connect her squares and make some blankets to donate to the animal shelter. So, I decided to make mine animal themed:

This is the pattern looking straight down. Visible, but not as clear.


At an angle, the design is more visible.






Yarn: Red Heart Designer Sport
Content: 100% acrylic
Color: Pistachio - I think, I took the ball band off long ago
Pattern: Knitted Paw Print
Needles: US 3 / 3.25mm
Cast on: 66sts
Modifications: Since my gauge was so small and I was making a 12x12 square, I decided to make it so it ended up with 4 paw prints in the square. I took a couple stitches and rows out to make it fit the size.

Overall, I really enjoyed making this square. For one, I am a fan of the Red Heart Designer Sport yarn. Second, I have never made something before with the design made just by altering the purl and knit stitches. I am thinking maybe a square soon I might try shadow knitting.

Video Blogging #6

Notes:
~Echo Flower Shawl : still trying to knit on this here and there. The heat and humidity makes it hard to work with wool though. Started my 7th repeat in the flower chart and will need to add a new lifeline soon.

~Bakers Dozen Square : Knitting paw print designs for my square, the Member of the Month (MoM) is sewing hers together to donate blankets to the animal shelter.

~Cloud Chaser : making some small progress on it, trying to finish up some other things though, so it's not getting as much time as in the beginning.

~Elijah : I keep forgetting to work on this little guy, but I am making progress. :)

~Little Pea's Blanket : Sketched some designs for his/her blanket and will hopefully be starting on it soon.

~Tour De Fleece : Still enjoying it, still managing to find a few minutes each day.

Still have some reviews I will hopefully be getting out soon now that I am feeling better! Hope everyone is having a great week!

Sunday Inspirations

~Paper Towel Free - - I think this is a nifty idea. I would love to do this and have tried before, but the husband is an avid paper towel/napkin user. Maybe I'll try again in the near future.

~Baby Gators - - this is a free pattern from Anna Hrachovec of Mochimochi Land from her new book Knitting Mochimochi: 20 Super-Cute Strange Designs for Knitted Amigurumi. I think the baby gators are super cute!

~Slow Cooker Sweet and Spicy Pot Roast - - this sounds interesting and good. My mom use to make coca-cola chicken and that was good. Rootbeer and roast sounds like they could work together.

~Owl Friendship Bracelet - - This is cute and nifty. I like their diagram of how to do it. Seems simple enough, maybe I'll try it.

~Reverse Applique Pillow Tutorial and some more design ideas. Love this whole thing, as I mentioned before. Will make one of these hopefully in the not too distant future.

~Easy Tank Tutorial was a link mentioned in a post from Malka of A Stitch In Dye. I like the look, it's nice and easy. I have some thin knit material I might use to make me a couple of these.

Garden Update

Well, the weather has been super, super warm. The balcony garden had a horrible attack of aphids. It appears that I was able to save the tomato and pepper plants, but they attacked the strawberry plants relentlessly, even with the stuff I put on it to detour them. So, the strawberry plants have been uprooted and tossed out. The cilantro, dill, and zucchini are not fairing well with the current weather, so I am not going to show them. Not sure they'll be around much longer.

First up is the plants that I am trying to grow:

Coleus is thriving in the heat and has grown a lot!


Tray one of Cacti are thriving!


As is tray two of the Cacti!





Lastly we have the actual veggie plants:

The tomato plants are in a cage to help their growing. Tons of flowers, but no little tomatoes yet!




Pepper plants are absolutely loving the heat!


Many, many, many buds on the plants and here is our first baby pepper. Not sure what it is, as the planter is a mixture of different pepper plants. It is starting to look like a sweet pepper, but we shall see.

Video Blogging #5

Okay, notes are here :)


~Tour De Fleece
Loving spinning again! It's nice to get back into it. I wish I made more of a conscious effort to spin more. I am definitely going to end up navajo-plying it when all is said and done. Just not sure if it'll held double and made into socks or held single and made into a shawl.






~Elijah
Didn't get finished with Elijah, but made some small progress.






~Cloud Chaser
Still enjoying this. It is nice and not too complicated.

Close-up on cables.








~Klutz
Won this from a giveaway Beki from arsty-crafty babe had. I enter many contests, but entered this hoping to win it for my niece Justice. They look wonderful in person, may just order some for myself.

Wonderful Week

So far this summer has been great overall!

Yesterday we spent the day with the husband's family. We went to the zoo, out to eat, and just hung out. I am sore, sunburned, and happy. Garren was adorable and such a smart little man.

Here are a few of the animals we saw at the zoo:










This little guy broke my heart. Am I the only one who thinks hyenas are cute? He looked so sad, hot, and tired.





This bobcat was a HUGE pacer. All he did was pace back and forth along the same worn path.
















Garren loved the man with the frog puppet, I think that was the highlight of the zoo trip for him!





He wasn't so sure about the train or the carousel though.

He rode the train with his dad, Allen, and he was very glad when it was over. It was loud(squeaky) and slow and he was not thrilled by it. Allen looks a LOT like a smaller version of my Uncle Joey.


Grandpa tried his best to comfort Garren on the carousel, but shortly after this all he did was cling to the pole for dear life and wait for the ride to end.





Here are a couple of videos of Garren. This first one is of the underground area where you can see the sea lions, he loved this. Forgive me that it is sideways.








The next one is of him dancing and singing. Evidently he loves anything to do with dancing and singing. His favorite person is Michael Jackson.








Overall, great visit. They were pleased to find out we got married. The husband's dad, Rodney, remembered I like fish so he brought me some fish he caught and cleaned. Honestly, probably one of the nicest things he could have given me. I am a firm believer in it being the thought that counts, it was nice of him to remember.