IMG00027-20090715-1843.jpg

Relaxing in Jackson, Wy.

Garden

Can't wait for the tomatoes to get ripe. I've seen a few of my neighbors selling theirs by the roadside, but mine are ripening so slowly. . .

This is my first try at bell peppers. They are supposed to get red, so I'm going to leave them on the plant for longer. It's tempting to go ahead and harvest them, before something gets them. I have a ton of jalapenos and I'm not sure what I'm going to do with them. I'll probably make some jelly, but I have more than I can use for that.

Okra blossom. I made fried okra the other night. I really love it, but I'm the only one at my house who does. . .

Gazania. I grew a couple of these plants from seed and they are blooming beautifully right now. The blooms are very distinctive looking and they can take the heat very well.

I'm leaving for a week in Wyoming tomorrow, we're staying at Yellowstone for part of the time. I hate to leave my garden right when everything's coming in, but this should be my last trip of the summer. Dd is already ready for school to start. We've been gone a lot and she's missing her friends (although they text each other all day and night long!). . .

Annette from Knitty

I just finished up Annette from Knitty. Details are at Ravelry. I wore it out to dinner last night and I love it. Now I wish I had one in white or cream, and it's fast and easy enough to make it quickly. I was at my parents' last week, so I had a little more time to knit (no chores!) and I managed to finish the knitting there.

Here's a photo of it blocking, the stitch pattern is *fishnet*. You start at the bottom and knit up and it's made all in one piece.

Closeup of neckline. This is some yarn I had in stash, St. Tropez from Almedahls. It's a blend of cotton, linen and acrylic. I have three balls left and I have no idea what I'll do with them. I guess it's enough for a scarf or something.

I caved and bought some silk dupioni curtains from Pottery Barn last week. I wanted to sew them, but my windows in my living and dining room have been bare for a year since we repainted and I just wasn't motivated. They were on sale enough that I don't feel too guilty about it. I want to make only what I enjoy making and not feel like I have to sew EVERYTHING.

Black Skirt

I made this skirt from Ottobre on Sunday.

Okay, for the photo I pulled it wrinkled out of the laundry basket, but I wore it to a funeral yesterday with a black t shirt and black embroidered linen jacket. I realized I had nothing to wear except a winter skirt from faux suede, so I managed to find a length of black cotton/lycra jersey. It had some bleach spots on it, so I had to cut carefully. It's a 10 gore skirt, and I love using one pattern piece, so easy.

Ottobre fits me well, I didn't even have to shorten this one. I only made a small adjustment for tilted waist. It's nice knowing you have some patterns that will always fit with very little tweaking.


Green beans are going gangbusters.

Tiny baby jalapenos.

The skirt gave me the itch to make a few more things. I don't really have any fabric that I love right now, so maybe it's time to shop a little bit. My rotary cutter is about as sharp as a mill wheel, so I need to go to JoAnn's for new blades.

I've got a knitting project going, but I think I'll wait until there's more progress to post it. Getting ready to go out of town again next week, whew. . .

Garden

Here's my first green bean harvest. I'm going to cook some when I get another handful. These are White Half Runners.

The vines are really huge. I have a few pests on the green beans, but never enough to jeopardize the plant, which is nice. No spraying required.

Okra on the right, peppers on the left. I'm growing jalapeno, ancho, and red bell peppers. I didn't grow any peppers last year, so I hope these do well. Peppers are supposed to be easy.

I took this photo of a pearl sized tomato on Tuesday. Today, they are the size of golf balls. Growing well.

I wish I had some summer squash and zucchini, but after least year's stem borer heartache, I'm just. not. doing. that. again.

Needless to say, these lazy critters are no help in the garden. . .

Beach Trip

It's the 8th year that dh's family has taken this trip, renting a big beach house in the same neighborhood. We used to stay in a smaller one 3 rows from the beach on a golf course. Now we're staying ocean front and close to a hotel because the teenagers enjoy walking down there to (watch boys?) drink virgin daiquiris? Something.

Shelling was bad when we first got there, so we chartered a small boat (if you can call it a boat, it was a rubber raft with a motor on it) and went to a neighboring island on a shelling expedition/dolphin cruise.

Riding in the boat.

Dolphins! It's so hard to get a photo with a digital camera.

More dolphins! The shelling was terrible on the island, but after we got back to where we were staying it picked up. It's a mystery to me what determines whether the shells are abundant or not (weather? tides? season?).

I don't have a photo, but we found 5 or 6 shark's teeth on this trip. There were a lot of patches of small broken-up shell and if you looked through those you could find them. I found two black ones, the rest were more gray or gray/pink. This is the first time I've ever found any.

There was a big piece of driftwood right in front of the house. You can see one of the shell patches around it. People were stopping to sit on it and take pictures constantly. We had a professional photographer come to take some photos, need to go pick mine out, it's gonna be expensive.

Starfish. Love the pattern he was making in the sand.

This year's tattoo. They never last long enough.

I got about 3 letterboxes, the mosquitoes were rabid, so I didn't do more than that. The kids parasailed, we got our nails done, worked some jigsaw puzzles, played mini pirate golf, painted pottery, shopped some. A very nice trip. Now I'm headed to Snapfish to work on a digital scrapbook. I need to do last year's too, thank goodness I didn't take a lot of pictures this time.

Tupperware

Using my new chips and salsa set by the pool. See how the salsa cup clips to the side?