Suburban Life
6:42 p.m. - 2017-05-19


My life now is all about all the interesting things I want to do. Sometimes I knit and design knitting patterns for months on end, then that creative arc ends and something else starts. I've been sewing and drafting patterns for almost a year now with the knitting interest very slight, but I can feel the winds changing direction. I'm also really interested in baking right now, mostly bread. That's probably because I discovered that my oven had been baking 100 degrees too hot for years, so I got an oven thermometer and fixed the oven temperature dial. Things turn out so well now that I am trying lots of new things. Also interested in vegan or "plant-based" foods though we have no interest in going vegan. So far I have made some pretty good veggie burgers and right now some non-dairy ice creams.

We had a very wet winter and spring ending seven years of drought. It's great to get back to a big garden. My husband built a huge raised bed, really raised to about waist height for easy working, and I have that planted with beans, basil, and some experimental potatoes (which I have never grown before). We have a newish little bed on the side fence which is planted with tomatoes and chilis, and the big area in the far back (called the Back 40) isn't all planted yet but right now has the cucumber trellis and more chilis. I bought a package of assorted chili varieties including habanero that had all the seeds of the different chilis mixed up together. I ended up with about 10 plants. The spouse and I could never eat the really hot chilis but luckily, my sister-in-law and her husband love them, so I have somewhere to send them.

After languishing for 2 years, the poor sad-looking raspberry plants loved the wet winter and look like they just might amount to something after all. I hope so.

We had to buy a new sofa and picked one in an acidy green color. We needed mats for the side tables so I have been crocheting them using tapestry crochet. The cushions that came with the couch have a leaf pattern in beige, green, purple and red violet colors. The crochet threads on the market were much brighter - the white was stark, the green too appley, etc., so when I finished the first mat I dyed it with coffee. The green ended up matching the couch almost exactly. The mat I'm working on now is for an old handmade trunk that was my husband's great grandfather's. It has a tapestry crochet panel of a vine of leaves, but using three colors in a row was a royal pain, so I decided not to put a panel on both ends. The rest is just a make-it-up-as-you-go stripe pattern. Over halfway done already!

I have also been organizing all the cupboards and storage areas. The pantry cupboards and kitchen cupboards are all done, and last week the refrigerator got an overhaul. We have to live with the fridge for a while to see if it works for us since now that it is nice and neat there is no room to cram in some big dish of whatever. I may redo the lower shelf to make it work better.

All in all, lots to do. Don't know why some people get bored since there are so many interesting things to learn and do.