Living one day at a time
The foliage has been losing its freshness through the month of August, and here and there a yellow leaf shows itself like the first gray hair amidst the locks of a beauty who has seen one season too many…. September is dressing herself in showy dahlias and splendid marigolds and starry zinnias. October, the extravagant sister, has ordered an immense amount of the most gorgeous forest tapestry for her grand reception.
~Oliver Wendell Holmes
Have a wonderful weekend!!
What a beautiful way to spend the last day of summer on the lake, kayaking and visiting with the loons who call this place home.
I will admit that I have not been the best of bloggers this summer…nope not at all and truly, I wish I had spent more time visiting here, but somehow the hours and days managed to get away from me, even though I did have the very best of intentions.
What I have done however, was to get out in the big wide world and enjoy what life has to offer. This summer was a mixed bag of the best of times with some challenging times tucked in between, but isn't this what life is?
I can honestly say that I thoroughly enjoyed this summer, it has been one of the very best ones ever. In between my days working at the vet hospital and dye pots, Ken and I managed to spend our free time enjoying leisurely days at the ocean, kayaking on the many lakes we are surrounded by and lazy Saturday afternoons playing games of bananagrams, tending to the gardens and reading.
So while I have taken a gazillion pictures that never made it to a blog post, the memories of this summer will carry me through the winter months that surely will follow my most favorite season…Autumn.
This song will remind me that Summer will come again and these beautiful birds will be singing to us once again.
This week's Ten on Tuesday is…..Ten Things I Did This Weekend:
1. Started the holiday weekend off with a day of work, but it's ok because I only have a 2 day work week as a reward.
2. An unexpected trip to the hospital after work on Saturday. I'm ok…no worries.
3. Headed to Pine Point Beach on Sunday ready to pick up arm sleeve stitches.
4. Failed at picking up sleeve stitches.
5. Enjoyed an amazing September day oceanside reading one of many books I have surprisingly read this summer
6. Took advantage of Craftsy's sale this weekend. One of the two classes I took was on picking up stitches. 😉
7. Successfully picked up stitches and moved 1/2 way down the first sleeve.
8. Spent Monday lakeside on Lovewell Lake, a new paddle for us and even though it looked smallish, it was a wonderful paddle.
9. Bananagrams, snacks and a visit from Courtney to close out the weekend.
10….and a little peek at what an amazing moment I had on the lake…
In between work and dyeing I have managed to squeeze in a few extra things this summer.
I have really enjoyed reading again which makes me smile because books always filled in the quiet spaces of my life when I was younger. Even though my schedule is crazy busy I read 7 books this summer which is super good for this very slow reader. I love how easy a kindle has made reading on the go. I toss my kindle into my bag and squeeze in some reading time at lunch or just before falling asleep at night and always at the beach.
I have also been knitting and sewing and the bag above is my newest bag. I love this fabric! It is a heavy weight canvas that is neutral and colorful all at the same time.
This time I put a zippered pocket in. I love the little gray birds poking out here and there in this cheerful fabric.
Sewing these bags is a fun challenge. They do take a lot of time, but I enjoy the process.
Next week I will share my sweater that is almost finished. Knitting a sweater in fingering weight yarn is not an easy feat for this slow knitter, but I can't wait to see it finished now that the end is near!
Carole's Ten on Tuesday topic this week is 10 Things I Miss About My Home When I’m Away…
Given that we just came home last week after a full week away, it's very fresh in my mind what I miss.
1. My mattress! Some of the hotels I have stayed in are actually more comfortable than my own mattress, but our little house on the Cape does not have good mattresses, so this time I bought a memory foam pad with me.. 😉
2. Knowing where the utensils are in the kitchen and real dishes, not melamine.
3. My coffee maker! I love a good cuppa in the morning to set my feet in the right direction. My coffee maker makes a good cup of coffee.
4. My shower…you know, the one that Ken just finished. I love being surrounded by all of that marble which reminds me of the incredible city library of my youth. Our vacation home has a very small shower in the bathroom we used this year….we call it the coffin shower..ha!
5. Our big screen tv with extended cable. Our little home does not have very many cable stations. Not that we watch tv all that much on vacation, but it is nice to watch some mindless house hunters at the end of a full day of fun.
6. My big kitchen, but hey…this year we ate out way more than we usually do, so I am not complaining. 😉
7. Hannah…my last child kind of living at home. This will be a bittersweet year for us as she finishes her last year of college. It was great to have her home this summer. I miss having her here already!
8. My 5 loving companions who great me with kisses every day. (I didn't miss picking up the poop though…)
9. My summer backyard. I love the birds who share my yard.
10….but really…this was a stretch because I LOVE being on VACATION! I love our little home, I love all of the different things that we do and I enjoy our quiet mornings on the beautiful deck that graces our little home.
Thank you Carole for a good 10 on Tuesday!
First ocean visit minutes after we arrived before dark…
As the days of summer comes to an end, I thought I would spend the week sharing some of the highlights of our summer with you.
This post has a lot of pictures as there are so many parts of our yearly visit to Cape Cod that I love, so beware. 😉
We spent our first day of vacation winding down from the Fiber Revival Show in Newburyport enjoying the beautiful beach that we call home for a week. This year we decided to take our 16 year old granddaughter, Mckayla, with us to spend time introducing her to one of our favorite places. She loved the Jellyfish caution on this sign..ha!
We shared my love for the ocean and my big ocean companions with Mckayla as well. The sun was bright and warm and the waters were some of the calmest I can ever remember going out on a whalewatch. We were treated to a number of humpback whales, but the unexpected visit from a large pod of bottlenosed dolphins who were leaping in and out of the waters were such a special treat.
I think Mckayla enjoyed the trip out into the ocean. 🙂
We also took a trip over to Martha's Vineyard. Oak Bluffs is a big shopping area which Mckayla loved, but my most favorite part of Oak Bluffs are the cute little colorful Gingerbread cottages that are a part of the old summer Methodist campground, Wesleyan Grove. This year many of the homes were getting decorated for their yearly Grand Illumination celebration. What a treat it was to watch everyone preparing their homes!
Normally we come in to and leave the Vineyard via Oak Bluffs, but this year because of timing we landed in Vineyard Haven and oh my…it is SO beautiful! Other than the little cottages, I can honestly say that I am not a huge fan of Oak Bluffs, but I loved everything about Vineyard Haven. It was much quieter…and just beautiful with all of the colorful sailboats just bobbing along in the water.
We also took a trip over to one of my favorite little shops…Eden Hand Arts which is located in Dennis. It's so hard to describe this little place that you have to have a ticket just to go in. When I first heard about it and the need for a ticket (kind of like an appointment), my first thought was ….yikes! How snobby is this? Once I visited however and saw how tiny the shop was and how little parking they had, and their desire to just keep it small, I understood.
I am fortunate to have a number of special pieces from Eden that I love.
This year I bought Mckayla her first bracelet to remember Cape Cod and maybe one went home with me too. 😉
We spent time dining out with friends…..
…and dining in with friends…
Those friends would be my dear friends, Dale and Carole.
It was Carole who helped me find our little home on the Cape and I love that we get to spend one week as neighbors.
Dinner out at Anejo's and the Raw Bar….yum!
Snacks and Bananagrams at my house and Lobsters at Carole's. So much fun!
The days in between were filled with time in our cottage, reading, relaxing and knitting for me. Time outside in the bay with kayaks exploring the beautiful nature that is part of the Cape… but we finished our vacation the same way we started it. Enjoying this wonderful beach that we call home for one week every year.
I am already looking forward to next year!!
Do you love this design?? I know I do for sure…I love it!!
This lovely sock pattern, Milkweed, was designed by my good friend Anne Podlesak of Wooly Wonka Fibers.
Anne and I have worked on a number of patterns over the years and I am always amazed at her talent and flattered at what she creates with my yarns.
Milkweed was knit with my Pearl yarn in the Cornsilk colorway, which happens to be one of my favorite colorways.
I knit a sweater with this color and a shawl in this same color is wound and ready for casting on once I finish my Marklee sweater. I'm thinking that a new pair of socks would be a nice thing too now after seeing these beautiful socks.
Anne and I have very similar color sensibilities. Last year she designed this stunning Three Sisters Shawl using the colorways Suede and Butterscotch for her Free Spirits book, which is an incredible collection of patterns. A book that you should check out for sure!
The colors of Autumn are my most favorite colors and I love that Anne creates the most scrumptious designs in these colors!
Fall is definitely in the air isn't it? I am not quite ready to give up summer this year as it feels like it has gone by much too quickly, but I can feel the change coming up here with the days getting a bit shorter.
I have not been good about blogging this summer, but I was pretty good about taking pictures, so next week I will spend a little time sharing what we did this summer before it comes to a close….it's been a nice summer for sure!
xoxo
Alternate between the solitary and the social.
Whether alone or with others, keep serenity.
Deng Ming~Dao
This post has been marinating for a while….it's about how I spend my lunch break.
Most of you know that I now work at my local vet hospital and it is indeed a very popular and busy place with a phone that is forever ringing. Finishing a thought or a conversation can be a challenging thing during the day, but it is a day that almost always passes quickly.
When I first started my job and watched one of my co-workers spend his lunch in his car instead of the lunch room we have, I asked him why? He just smiled at me and nodded his head, mentioning NPR and quiet. What? I quickly came to understand why he chose to spend his 1/2 hr in his truck.
No ringing phones, no mindless conversation…..a true break from work for a short time.
I too now spend my lunch enjoying the quiet in my car listening to NPR while I eat my lunch and squeezing in some quality knitting time.
My summertime knitting is Elizabeth Doherty's sweater pattern Marklee in my Airy yarn in the Violetta colorway. I will be vending at the Indie Dyer Trunk Show in Rhinebeck, NY this fall so I am on a mission to have this sweater finished. It is what I have on my lap at lunch, while I watch tv at night and when I am fortunate to sit at the beach. Knit in fingering yarn, it is a much slower knit than my Helvetica Sweater, but I am really enjoying the process.
One of the beauties of Elizabeth's design is you can block the top part of the sweater to see if you are at the correct gauge or if you should make adjustments before you have invested too much time. While I made a large swatch for this sweater to get a good idea of what my gauge would be, I was nervous as I was knitting the sweater. I was worried that my gauge was too loose, but once I soaked and blocked the back of the top part of the sweater, I was spot on. Whew…I was already prepared to rip it out and drop down a needle size, but blocking it told me that I was on the right track.
Between working at the Vet Hospital and dyeing on my days off, my knitting time is limited, so not only do I knit in my car…I block yarn there as well..ha! This portion of my sweater was mostly blocked at home, but I gently placed it along the passenger seat of my car to finish drying so I could pick up stitches during lunch for the next section.
Marklee, like Helvetica is mostly stockinette knitting which I have to say I completely enjoy, but there are definitely some challenging portions in her patterns for sure. Fascinating techniques that truly do create a well fitting garment.
Tonight with some of the challenging portions of this knit behind me, I took the sweater to our local Concert in the Park put on by North Conway's Art Jubilee.
The concert was a duo replicating Simon and Garfunkle's concert in Central Park, NY. I have always been a huge fan of their music and with each and every song a memory of a moment in my life growing up was wrapped up in each song.
While this may not have been Simon and Garfunkle in any way, it still made my heart smile.
Summers are short up here, so I better get knitting!
"A garden requires patient labor and attention.
Plants do not grow merely to satisfy ambitions or to fulfill good intentions.
They thrive because someone expended effort on them."
Liberty Hyde Bailey
As long as I have been blogging I have been sharing my love of gardening. My successes and my failures.
This year my raised beds had finally told me that they were finished. The wood on the beds were at the point where we were going to have to redo all of them…they were falling apart from the years of sun and rain beating down on them.
Last year with all of my good intentions, the vegetable gardens were neglected. I was just too darn busy to keep up with everything and they were the one thing I let go, and it made me sad to look at it. We still reaped a lot of deliciousness from them, but a lot went to waste as well, which I didn't feel good about. Sometimes 24 hours in a day is not enough is it?
This year money has been a little tight since I changed my website…another story for a blog post about SEO soon., so I spent a lot of time thinking about making gardening fun and manageable again…and affordable as amending the big beds each Spring is expensive.
We are a much smaller family now that the kids are all mostly on their own, so there really is no need for me to produce the volume of food that I did when they were growing up.
I thought about the things that we enjoy most from the gardens….
Lettuce…we eat a lot of salads all year round and it's really nice when you can go out into the garden and cut your own for a salad…I love it!
Thus the new lettuce bed with basil growing in between. We use basil all year round and it's so easy to freeze.
Another must have is my herb bed. I love growing and drying herbs.
Having them to use all year round is always a treat.
I have a new herb this year called "Curry Plant" It's the one right in the front center, which is going to be moved to the back center now that I know how tall it will grow. I think it will be an interesting addition to the family of herbs that we enjoy.
Some of the herbs are going into individual pots…the ones that if left to their own devices can take over a garden, such as my chives. The mojito mint another garden hog will live in the whiskey barrel flower grouping by the stairs.
I look forward to using this herb in mojitos this summer.. 😉
I have never been a huge tomato fan even though I love the flavor of tomato…it's a texture thing for me in it's original state
.
Now that the kids who were veracious tomato eaters are gone, I decided that one grape tomato plant would be enough. We do use a lot of these over the summer in different dishes, so one patio grape plant is all I will have.
This big table will be going away soon and the tomato plant will live in a new plant stand.
The beds I am using are made by a company called Veg Trug. I have 2 of them now and will add a third one when I can for the single plant vegetables that I will grow such as Broccoli, Peppers (hot and sweet), radishes, carrots and a few others, but the season is late now, so there is no hurry to add that third bed yet, until it's time to plant fall garlic.
You can purchase different cover to extend the garden season which is awesome. One to shade the lettuces, one to keep the pesky bugs away and a greenhouse shade….but the beauty of these beds is that they are very manageable for my back.
I thought about giving up the gardens, but at the end of the day, I just couldn't.
Gardening is in my blood and it always gives me so much summertime enjoyment. This is definitely a new way of doing things, but I think the smaller volume and the elevated beds will make it so much easier.
Garden on!
“Let us dance in the sun, wearing wild flowers in our hair…”
― Susan Polis Schutz
I have so enjoyed the time that I have had to play in the dirt this week. The happy faces of these Zinnia's in my favorite summer colors make me smile. How can you not love all of the colors that summer gifts us?
I hope that you all have a wonderful weekend in your corner of the world!
Summer is short, so enjoy it to the fullest!!
The Woolen Rabbit 