Drawstring Bags

I made these drawstring bags for some of my rubber stamps. If you want specific instructions, I have posted them as a Flickr Set. These are to protect the stamps when they are placed in letterboxes. Most placers wrap their stamps in a scrap of fabric, it keeps the dirty stamps from getting ink all over everything else in the box. I realize these will get all inked up, but I see it as a stash reduction opportunity, plus it's fun to do.

I tried to match the theme of each stamp to a fabric print.

Some of them were a bit of a stretch. I just hope they get a giggle from the finders.

A View from My Lounge Chair

Socks at Last

I finally finished the Noro Kureyon Sock socks. If you want details, Here is a link to my Ravelry notebook entry. The yarn isn't the softest, but I won't be wearing and washing them until fall, so I don't know how I'll like them.

I really don't know what to work on next, maybe some crochet.


Went fishing again. Caught this delicious bass. Big un, ain't he?

Took ds to the playground this morning and guess what we saw in the creek?

It's a Common Snapping Turtle. I didn't have my camera with me, tried to take a cell phone picture, but you couldn't see beneath the surface reflection and it was too far away. I was so shocked, this creek reeks of pollution and I didn't think anything could live in it. I have never seen one of these for real, outside of an aquarium, I was so amazed. . .

The Summer is Saved

A green waterproof cast. Can't be beat. Plus, he's only wearing it for 4 weeks instead of 6. . . Let the swimming begin.

Is it just me, or is that some kind of demon face on this peach cobbler??? The recipe came from a local church cookbook, it's called *Prized Peach Cobbler*. The only change I made was to add some almond extract to it -- I always add it to cherry, peach, or any stone fruit dessert I make. I think I heard somewhere that almond extract comes from apricot pits. . . I think all those plants are in the same family.

When I went to Nashville last month for a wedding, we stopped at the Lodge Cast Iron Outlet in South Pittsburg, TN. I finally bought a cast iron dutch oven and I love it. My mom has one and she uses it for fried chicken, and lots of other things.

I went to the local farmer's market today and bought some lady peas, which I'm cooking in the cast iron dutch oven. I already showed you the cobbler, made from peaches from 90 miles away. Dinner tonight will be ham, the lady peas, corn on the cob, sliced tomatoes, corn bread (cooked in cast iron skillet), and peach cobbler with vanilla ice cream. I had two green beans ready to pick today, so I threw those in with the lady peas, ugh. I hope I have enough green beans to harvest a mess at least once. Frustrating to have so little.

I've been trying to give the Mac a fair chance, but today I officially decided it sux and I'm allowing dh to go and buy windows software to use. Every single application I want to use for geocaching and letterboxing requires windows. We spent the entire day trying to figure out how to load letterbox clues onto my iPod so I don't have to print them out on paper and we can't get it to work. Bleah. Wasted the whole day on it.

The software that you need to load geocaches on your iPod is windows based. I hate computers. . .

We are renting a cabin in North Georgia over the July 4 weekend. One of my friends and her daughter are coming to join us. I'm trying to plan some outings (Helen, GA, Foxfire Museum, etc) for our trip. Dh is taking the girls horseback riding through a river and we hope to do some tubing. I've been spending a lot of time checking this stuff out, which is fun.   I've been re-reading the Bill Bryson book about the Appalachian Trail, too.

Finished a pair of socks today, so I'll have an FO to post soon, yay!

Fishin'

We fished a little this weekend. Dh's company had a family fishing tournament on Saturday at one of the big lakes nearby. Nobody caught a thing. Ds was worrying me to death afterwards because he won a new tackle box in a drawing at the tournament, and he wanted to use it. We went up to the pond in our subdivision, which has lots of sunnies, and used bacon to catch them. A grandmother and granddaughter came by with bread to feed them with and we discovered that when they are in a bread frenzy, you can reel them in easily with the bacon on your hook.


A cool bug we found by the pool. Anyone know what it is?


I finally got to work in carving rubber stamps for a series of letterboxes I'll plant in Tennessee. I picked a theme of activities that the park provides, camping, fishing, watercraft, and a deer bonus box.



We camped there two summers ago, and I think we will try it again in July. The kids never mentioned wanting to go last summer, so I skipped it. Now they realize *hey, we want to do that again.*

Ds broke his arm yesterday. He fell while climbing up a doorway in the house. His hands got sweaty and he slipped and fell on his wrist. He's in an air cast until the swelling goes down, we'll get the real cast on Friday. A 7 yo who can't swim all summer, that's just terrific. . . What am I gonna do with him?


Off for a nap, y'all.

Zucchini

My first vegetable of the season. I don't really like zucchini all that well, but I saw a recipe for chocolate chip muffins made with it. I might try to trick the kids.

I am growing flowers on my porch. Literally.

I haven't had a flower in my house in three years because the cats knock them over. For some reason they haven't found this bouquet yet. (I love the bag of Tidy Cat in the background.)

Chuy is still adjusting. True to her name, she chews on everything, including me, so we're trying to break that habit.

I've been taking her out to look for letterboxes and geocaches this week while dd was at art camp. Puppy gets so tired in the afternoon and conks out in the car.

*I really, really, don't like dogs.*

I'm not making anything lately. Reading, swimming, gardening, driving kids around mostly. I did finish a first sock, started the second yesterday, so maybe I'll have something to post next week. I already feel like the summer is getting away from me. . .

Summer Stuff

I couldn't resist showing this photo from the beach trip. The starfish seems to pick one arm and propel itself in that direction with all the tiny legs on the underside waving. Very interesting to watch. When a wave comes over, the legs go back out evenly, back to a star shape.

Zucchini blossom. I wish I had enough to stirfry them in butter, but I (wisely) only planted one zucchini plant. I don't LOVE zucchini and I think I'll have more fruit than I want with just one plant. I have two summer squash plants coming along, also with the edible blossom/baby fruit.

The green beans are needing support. I'm getting dh on that this weekend.

Weeding help. I think I've created a monster. I was using a claw to dig up some grass runners and little pup wants a part of the action.

She is learning to swim. We are trying to show her how to find the steps in the pool so she can get out if she accidentally falls in. She is terrified of course, but this is one of those safety things we have to teach her. She's definitely not a water dog.

I did a little letterboxing this week while my youngest is at sports camp. The camp is in an area with a lot of boxes, which I don't get to very often although it's close by.

There are two extra girls at my house who spent the night after last night's swim meet party. They were up really late and I won't be here to see them off to swim practice this morning because I'm taking ds to camp. It's so strange having kids old enough to get themselves where they need to be. I really like it though. . .

My friend's dd went with us on vacation and stayed here all week, so I'm delivering her back this weekend. My brother is breezing into town briefly at some point, so he might come by. Dh is leaving for Europe on Sunday, so I'll be on my own next week.

I'm not making anything much, a pair of socks on the needles barely started. I've been working on the garden and sitting by the pool reading mostly (the new David Sedaris book, can't put it down). Have a great weekend. . .

Back from the Beach

We're home and I'm working on the laundry mountain. I'm trying not to repost the same type photos from last year's trip, but we did see a lot of the same things. I guess that's what happens when you take the same vacation year after year.


Holes were dug.

We ran in the surf.

An alligator crossed our path.

We saw a pretty parrot.

We found lots of young (and dead) sand dollars. It worries me that they were washing up when they're so small. That means they won't grow into big sand dollars. Maybe it's just one of those seasonal things.

We looked for letterboxes and geocaches which took us to a few new parks. It was fun to see some new places, with lots of wildlife- alligators, snakes, waterbirds, and unfortunately ticks, chiggers and sand fleas.

I am such a wimp (said while scratching and mainlining Benadryl).