Contained

I finally got around to doing a second round of planting to replace the seeds and seedlings that didn't fare so well in the frosts we had at the beginning of May. There's a big container with melon seedlings, a medium container with butternut squash seedlings (no idea if the it'll be spacious enough for that, oh well!), a big-ish container with leeks, and two medium containers with one bell pepper seedling each. There's also a windowbox in which I planted onion seeds, a container with edamame seeds (that are rather ancient and may never germinate), and I planted a row of beans in the garden proper, where whatever I'd planted - no I didn't map it out, was I supposed to? :) - didn't take off.

I have some leftover melon seedlings, a couple of leftover leek seedlings, and a bunch of leftover seeds that I can't possibly find room for. If any local readers can use them (or not-local readers who could use seeds)), drop me a note and let me know!

Inevitable Accountability

Oh lordy, time to take stock of the weekend and see how I did with the things I wanted to accomplish. Here we go....

Things that have to (or really really really should) get done:
- Finish Curtains of Doom (I found my sewing machine - yay - and sewed one set of curtains, but the room has two windows...) Um. Yeah. Didn't do this.
- Replace closet door handles, using the vintage electric drill that came with the house Nope, not this one either. Was going to, then realized the cord on the drill was too short to reach from the outlet, and I couldn't find an extension cord. Got distracted by something else whilst looking for it.
- Take and post pictures of the completed attic space Wow. Third item on the list, and we still haven't gotten to something I actually did. Hmmm.
- Sand, prime, and paint the front porch steps (Should this really need to be done every year or two? I can't recall ever seeing paint flake off a surface so quickly. Thoughts on how to avoid having this happen again are surely welcome.) OK! I very nearly finished this! Did the primer, did the white paint on all the horizontal surfaces. Still need to paint the vertical surfaces yellow.
- Weed the vegetable garden; re-plant the seeds that didn't make it through those ridiculously late frosts; acquire large containers for that which won't fit in the garden proper Sigh. I weeded the garden, but didn't get around to the planting.
- Weed the crazy-overgrown side bed next to the house, then plant mustard greens there (for lead removal) I *started* this, but hoo boy is it a long process. Super-Invasive Wild Rose Bush is feisty, I tells ya!
- Move garden furniture, remove rocks and sticks from yard, then mow I finished this one! Hooray!
- Channel my inner MacGyver and fashion a splint for the one broken spoke on my patio umbrella Annnd, back to the failure column...
- Use up languishing produce in the form of soup; general cleaning of fridge Nope.
- Dishes (argh) Yes! Another item I can cross off the list!
- Sort through closet and ruthlessly set aside items to get rid of. Found a measley two things to toss, though I didn't actually go through that much stuff...
- Go to the gym (twice minimum) Went running once. Also did quite a bit of yard work, so I'd say it almost counts.
- Make side dish or similar to contribute to holiday weekend cookouts Yup! Done! And it was a hit!

Bonus points for the following: Got around to none of these! Not a one!
- Trip to the mall (ugh) to see if a certain fancy soap store has a certain nearly-discontinued fragrance of shampoo and conditioner (mmm... orange ginger...)
- Trip to farmers' market to replenish produce supply (see above)
- Take and post pictures of sweaters that were knit ages ago and never given a proper photo shoot, the poor things
- Address stack of clothes to be mended/re-hemmed
- Pilates
- Turn house upside down in search of (1) MP3 player, (2) gym membership receipt, so I can apply for reimbursement through my insurance
- Turn house right side up again

I did, however, go to my (one year late) ten year high school reunion. I'd been sort of apprehensive about going, what with the potential involved for reverting to wallflower status. But I managed to keep that potential at bay for the most part, and I had a terrific time. Terrific!

AND, I just learned that I don't need to find my gym membership receipt, because I can just go in and ask for a printout of my payment history! Whooo! That makes my life so much easier. And it makes me happy that I didn't waste any of my weekend searching for the receipt. And it gives me added motivation to go to the gym tomorrow before work. And and and and and. :)

ATDL

Another long weekend is nearly upon us, so you know what that means: it's time to post another Ambitious To Do List for the sake of holding myself accountable. Woot!

Things that have to (or really really really should) get done:
- Finish Curtains of Doom (I found my sewing machine - yay - and sewed one set of curtains, but the room has two windows...)
- Replace closet door handles, using the vintage electric drill that came with the house
- Take and post pictures of the completed attic space
- Sand, prime, and paint the front porch steps (Should this really need to be done every year or two? I can't recall ever seeing paint flake off a surface so quickly. Thoughts on how to avoid having this happen again are surely welcome.)
- Weed the vegetable garden; re-plant the seeds that didn't make it through those ridiculously late frosts; acquire large containers for that which won't fit in the garden proper
- Weed the crazy-overgrown side bed next to the house, then plant mustard greens there (for lead removal)
- Move garden furniture, remove rocks and sticks from yard, then mow
- Channel my inner MacGyver and fashion a splint for the one broken spoke on my patio umbrella
- Use up languishing produce in the form of soup; general cleaning of fridge
- Dishes (argh)
- Sort through closet and ruthlessly set aside items to get rid of.
- Go to the gym (twice minimum)
- Make side dish or similar to contribute to holiday weekend cookouts

Bonus points for the following:
- Trip to the mall (ugh) to see if a certain fancy soap store has a certain nearly-discontinued fragrance of shampoo and conditioner (mmm... orange ginger...)
- Trip to farmers' market to replenish produce supply (see above)
- Take and post pictures of sweaters that were knit ages ago and never given a proper photo shoot, the poor things
- Address stack of clothes to be mended/re-hemmed
- Pilates
- Turn house upside down in search of (1) MP3 player, (2) gym membership receipt, so I can apply for reimbursement through my insurance
- Turn house right side up again

Um, nevermind...

Right, so my Leaf Sweater Knockoff idea is going to the back burner indefinitely. The leaf instructions I found are kinda wonky, and after twenty rows and not seeing leaves where I thought I should see leaves, I decided it isn't worth the effort right now. I did find more yarn for Lillian, though, and I'm probably a few days away from finishing it up. Then I can either muster up all my motivation and go back to Buttony, or I can find a new project to cast on. Gee, I bet nobody can guess how this one'll go...

Big news of the week is that I bought a lawnmower: an electric mower with a cord that makes it look like I'm vacuuming the yard. I got about half of the yard mowed, and will do the rest after I've had a chance to move my yard furniture out of the way, and when it isn't raining, I'm not at work, and it's light outside. So, probably Saturday. The whole weekend is supposed to be nice, actually, so it'll be great if I can mow on Saturday and actually use the yard after that.

Other big news of the week: I baked. Using a recipe. That I didn't healthify. This is exceedingly rare for me. First, I don't bake very often; I much prefer cooking. With soup or chicken-and-stuff or whatever, you don't have to measure or otherwise get things just right in order to have the result turn out ok. When I do acutally break out the measuring spoons and bake something, I almost always feel compelled to use whole wheat flour or replace the oil with applesauce and that sort of thing. But ya can't really do that with lemon squares (well, if you want them to taste remotely good, anyways), and that's what I made. Lemon squares with sugar and butter and eggs, both the whites and the yolks. I should've taken a picture...

The Curtains of Doom still aren't done. Sigh and a half. Today or tomorrow, I *will* go on a sewing machine hunt in my basement. If I still can't find it, I'll use a needle and thread. Hmm. And while I'm at it, I also need to go on an MP3 player hunt. I find my MP3 player, I find my running motivation. Lately I've been going to the gym and ellipticalling for x amount of time (where x = [time left before I have to be at work] - [time I need to shower, get dressed and dry my hair] - 10) then hopping on the treadmill and running a mile in that ten minutes I saved for myself. (Please don't scoff, I typically do eleven minute miles...) So, yeah, it's not like I haven't been running at alllll, but I'd really rather get back to not having to use the elliptical machine as a motivational tool/bargaining chip. And if I can get myself to a point where I can run three miles all at once in under thirty minutes, I'll be one happy girl.

Inspiration, Poorly Timed

I mentioned last time that I'm feeling sort of lackluster about the knitting projects I've got on the needles right now. Don't really feel like backtracking on Buttony, am afraid I won't have enough yarn to finish Lillian, just blargh all around. I'll return to both of them at some point, but for now I think I've found a project that will hold my attention a little better. I'm going to try to copy the Phildar sweater pictured here, but in white. (Mind you, this is NOT a picture of my own knitting efforts.) I found instructions for the leaves, and I can do the math for the rest. Even if I had the pattern, I'd make a million changes to the shape of it anyway.

The poor timing? Yeah, that'd be because I'm at work and can't even start figuring this out until this evening. And even then, I really should get other things done. Porch steps need to be painted. Curtains of Doom need to be sewn. General tidying/decluttering *always* needs to be addressed.

Sigh.

General Update (warning: may be boring)

Knitting: I finished the Not-so-orange Wave Cardigan yesterday, and realized that it actually isn't charcoal gray like I'd been thinking this whole time, but actually a dark grayish-green. Huh. Go figure. The pink variegated Buttony needs to be ripped back about 15 rows because I messed up the bust darts. I'm usually not too picky about mistakes in my knitted items, but this is just beyond what I can handle, and it's prominently on the front of the sweater, so fix it I must. I cast on for a Lillian tank (link to be provided later) as a way to use up some stash yarn, but I'm realizing I may not have as much of it as I thought... by which I mean, about half as much as I'd need. I might set it aside and wait for more of the stash yarn to appear (am in the process of organizing/decluttering my house, so that could very well happen). So, both projects I have on the needles right now are sort of uninspiring. I might cast on for Eileen (again, link to be provided later) in a bamboo blend I picked up a couple weeks ago. Hmm. If I was smart, I might also just not knit for a little while so I'll have time to work on other things, but the possibility of that happening is slim.

Gardening: As it turns out, peas are highly resilient. I planted them, we had multiple nights involving frost, and they've still managed to germinate. The tomato, cucumber, and canteloupe seedlings I planted didn't fare so well, and I might end up just buying plants, with a reminder to myself for next year to not be so darn impatient. Obviously, finding tomato plants won't be an issue, but I'm trying to recall if I've ever seen cucumber plants for sale. And canteloupe would be even more of a longshot, I'm sure. Hmm. Will have to scout out the garden store this week. Ooh, and the farmers' market!

Non-veg Yardwork: I need to acquire a lawn mower. That's all there is to it. Borrowing the Crafto-Fam's mower every couple weeks just won't fly for another season. I have an electric mower that doesn't work, so I need to see if it's salvagable (and based on cost, whether it's worth it). If not, it's off to Home Despot for me! I also should probably, at some point, figure out how to address the Big Patch of Death on my front lawn. It's probably a 3' X 4' oval where grass apparently cannot grow. (Methinks it's linked to the fact that it's near the filling spot for my heating oil, and the delivery folks have probably spilled/dripped that which is the opposite of fertilizer, but I'm not sure.) Now, I'm not one of those folks who must-must-must have a perfect lawn, but it's really quite disheartening to walk past a miniature Death Valley every day. Also, I need to decide once and for all whether to keep or eradicate the wild rose bush next to the house. Keeping means trimming it back, otherwise it enthusiastically (diabolically?) sends offshoots out into the grass, where one can't always see the dangerous thorniness until it's too late. Eradicating involves much more trimming back, and probably at least two seasons' worth of trying to dig up roots. Are the flowers (pretty, though not the color scheme I'm shooting for long-range, and fragrant) worth the thorns like daggers? Hmm. Lastly, must plant mustard greens in side bed to extract lead (from house painting/sanding) in the hopes of making the soil safe for vegetable use next year.

Attic Renovation 2008: Painting is done (though the color looks wildly different in various lighting levels, and often too close to white for my liking. ah well.) and furniture is set up. I just need to change the closet handle knob thingies (this invovles a drill, and thus, much procrastination), hang a framed mirror that I lurrrve, and sew some curtains. For that last one, I have to find my sewing machine. Which should not be that difficult, because it's fairly large (it can't, say, have fallen behind the fridge or been kicked under the couch), but I do have an uncanny ability to misplace things...

/ stream-of-consciousness rambling

Weekend Excerpt

This weekend was filled with terrificness and horribleness, most of which I won't get into here. I've picked one element for you, from the Terrific category. I bought a t-shirt for myself that looks like this. Seriously, how perfect is it? It's punny and includes the word "yippie." I approve times a thousand.