It's Gonna Take About Two Weeks...

...to catch up. 

On my reading (of the blogs I haven't been following for a couple of months).

On my blogging (which got sadly overtaken by the elephant journal apprenticeship)

On my knitting (which is still there...wait till you see where the Dread Teal Sock landed...)

On my Business of Yoga class (I'm a week behind).

On my copywriting class (we won't talk about how far behind I am here...). 

On the voiceover demos I have waiting. 

But anyway. I'm back. The elephant journal apprenticeship finished! It was lovely, and here's a link to my thesis... Note what the image is. No, you have to go read it. Thank you. 

So I learned a ton about social media. I learned about how to write for a website - which is different than writing for print media and even more different than blogging. 

And I learned I still can't create a decent headline with any regularity. It comes in flashes. 

KNITTING...

Bowties are Cool

Here's the latest. My version of Dr. Who socks. No, no TARDIS on the cuff. But the yarn and pattern lend themselves to the Doctor. Yarn is Lorna's Laces "Bigger On the Inside" and the pattern is "Bowties are Cool." The pattern was done in red yarn and the pattern went all the way down the leg. 

But that's not how mine worked out. And I'm not fond of her heel design. But there it is. And, another thing. The sock is tight. Rats. Lorna's is so squishy and I was really looking forward to these. But it's tight and I even made a large. Such is the way of knitting though. I'll wear them anyway. 

As you look at the leg, you can sort of "see" a bowtie in the large diamonds with the small diamonds in the middle. But in the author's pattern, the weird thing she does with a k1b supposedly makes a little "bow." Not so much, but this is working up nicely anyway. 

There's a part in her pattern where you get to the leg length, and then K three rows - well... this is where it got weird because it created a long stripe of K stitches which wouldn't look nice when you put the pattern down the foot. 

Roman Rib

And I've decided, since Roman Rib, that I'm actually not fond of patterns down the instep. Yes, they're actually on sock blockers. This is Borneo Ricky, Opal's Jungle colorway, so it's tones of grey with some ivory. I think THESE are too loose. But they're comfy anyway. 

At some point, I'll pick up Kid #2's afghan. It's in grey and red, which goes with NOTHING in his house. I don't care, though. He chose the colors a while ago and I'm not going to re-start it for the 3rd time!!

Knitting IS supposed to relax you, right? 

GARDEN...

Lettuce thief!

So the veggie garden is going well except for some ^&#% marauder. Something got into the lettuce patch. Hubby ain't happy!

We thought about putting the lid back on, but we have some romaine in there and I think that we can just move on from the garden thief. I'm finding that earlier lettuce isn't always as tasty. Tender, yes, but the lettuce needs a little maturing before it gets a deeper taste to it. It's good in a salad and on sandwiches, so we're having fun with this early crop. 

We also have 2 tomato plants, a couple varieties of snap peas and some carrots. The neighbors and my yoga students will benefit if it all comes ready at once!

FRESH berries!

On a good note, the strawberries in the hanging pots are wonderful. Boy-o-boy...just like garden carrots, when you taste these, the strawberries in the supermarket are just -- blah. This batch is an odd batch: three plants of "pineapple strawberries" which are white and supposed to taste like pineapple, and 1 traditional berry plant. We have them in hanging baskets, but I think we could have put them in the raised herb bed. Which is a thought for next year. 

I went light on herbs this year; too much went to seed. And honestly, the dill in the front yard is just going to flower and be enjoyed by the butterflies. We are doing cukes, but only salad cukes, not pickles. We're still recovering from Picklemania 2014...

Campanula

The flower garden has exceeded expectations so far. We went light with this, too. Hubby really, REALLY over-planted last year and I didn't like it. So we have snapdragons, verbena, lavender, bee balm, columbine, gallardia, a vine-y thing the hummingbirds like, coneflower, and several plots of petunias. Oh, and cosmos. And this giant is the campanula that managed to survive our winter. We have 2 that survived. This guy is about 3.5' high! We put a little wire around it because it's so top-heavy. 

Oh, and there's also some salvia that over-wintered, and the butterfly bushes. And some tickweed. 

The front garden has some globe basil in a hanging pot and some clown flowers. I'm just waiting to see what else survived the winter. There's lots of green, but nothing much has flowered yet. 

STRAWBERRY MOON...

Last night was a Strawberry Moon. Sorry this isn't great, but it was with my phone's camera and we're in an area with a lot of light pollution. 

Strawberry Moon

The full moon had a pink-ish tint to it and it was very bright and beautiful. Tonight's yoga class will include a Candra Namaskara (moon salute as opposed to sun salutation). I did that Monday night, too. 

I tried to see it at sunset, but there was so much haze in the sky, and it was far too light. I know someone has a better picture out there, but I'm not going to stress about it. 

If it's still full tonight, I'll take a picture over the cemetery. Creepy? Not really - it's more in the country and I can get a shot that's less obstructed. We'll see how that goes. It's supposed to storm later tonight, so it might be clouded over by the time I get out of class. 

RANDOM PICTURE...

I have my bones and I shall nap.

So last night Raisa, after being an absolute nut-case (an 18-month old husky - what else is new??) crashed on the couch. As you can see, there's one Kong bone under her chin. The second one is tucked under that front foot - you can see it if you click on the picture to blow it up. She was snoring away and just gearing herself up for "last call." 

At "last call" they all sweep the back yard for any intruders who might blight the peace of their sleep. So begone opossum, skunk, stray cats! The Canine Patrol is in charge at night!