Spring is here!

While Oregon teases us and lets us see the sun every once in a while, I know that more sun is coming.  It is already much warmer and after such a harsh winter we are ready to get outside! 

I’ve been working a lot in the garden this week, cleaning, setting up, and repotting the plants that the kids started over two weeks ago.  I live in an apartment so I don’t have and ground to dig in, but I do have a good space for a potted garden.  

Really I have a brown thumb.  I have killed so many plants it isn’t funny.  I have been trying to learn over the years what works for me and what doesn’t.  For the longest time I couldn’t have indoor plants and my ferret would dig them up, or my kids would knock them over.  My kids will ever be a danger, lol, but I’ve learned better placement when I have plants indoors.  TV trays in the corner by the sliding glass door work pretty well.

On the porch I’ve had realize that I have FULL SUN all day long and certain plants don’t do so well, or don’t do well if I don’t keep them *really well watered.*. (Cough) Sorry tomatoes! (cough). So I’ve skipped the more delicate plants until I improve with my diligence of caring for the plants.

Last year I had a *gorgeous* succulent that I unfortunately lost to an insect invasion in the fall.  It spread to a few other plants I had, too, which was really sad.  I’ll have to get another one of those.  Besides desert plants, I have a spider plant that my sister gave me from her Mother Ship.  I’ve named it Satellite (hehe) and it has done extremely well both on my porch and inside the sliding glass door.  She’s produced many of her own satellites over the last year and a half that I’ve had her. 

Marigolds always do well on my porch, but this is the first year in several that I don’t have any.  This year a friend gave me a bunch of wildflower seeds so I’m trying those out.  I also got Teddy Bear sunflowers as my kids really really really wanted sunflowers.  These were the smallest I could find, and they’ve planted so many seeds that they’re going to take over my garden later this summer.  lol. 

Besides flowers, I really like to have an edible garden.  Peas are excellent; they’re pretty, provide some privacy screening, and are a yummy snack. 😃. Thomas loves to grow carrots and eat them fresh out of the garden, so I always have some smaller varieties of those.  I have spinach, basil, and rosemary too!

I have a little shelf connected to my house where it gets some shade during the day.  I’ve decided I want chives (they did extremely well before) and cilantro there.  I’ve not gotten those in yet, probably get to it this weekend.

A few weeks ago my daughter decided that she’s in love with worms.  She kept begging me to go on a walk so she could say “Hi,” to all the cute pink worms.  Haha!  Some friends encouraged me to build a worm bin and let her have pet worms.  I reluctantly have agreed but I am *not* going to be the one taking care of them. lol

I repurposed a rubbermaid bin that I had in the other room.  I drilled some air holes in the sides and drainage holes in the bottom.  The kids shredded newspaper, soaked and squeezed it out, and I fluffed it up as they put it in.  Then they threw in some old fruits and veggies we had, as well as some coffee grounds.  Then we had to wait for it to rain again.  The instructions we followed to build a worm bin are here: http://www.motherearthnews.com/diy/garden-yard/make-worm-bin-ze0z11zhir?pageid=1#PageContent1

My daughter was so cute with her shovel and pail.  We walked the older kids to school and she was saving worms in the parking lot.  She talked to them and tried to encourage them to get on her shovel!  Haha.  I think she saved about 15-20 worms that day.  We’ll have to gather some more again soon.  I don’t see much activity in the bin yet, but maybe we’ll see some castings soon.  They’ll be really good for our garden when they’re ready.

Today I bought some bricks to boost up the garden pots off of the concrete, and while I was at it, I bought some big bricks for the worm shelter, too.  They’re going to live on the porch so I’ll have to block the sun from roasting them.  I’ll get you a picture of that when it is complete.  As you can see, my daughter is NOT shy about playing her pets. lol

 

Stretched Thin

I've told you before that this is a blog about my life just as much as it is about my art.  My artistic efforts are one segment of my life, and an important one.  Without creating, I wouldn't be me.

Some days its been hard to have enough brain power and inspiration to create.  My husband and I have been struggling to keep up.  Not with the Jones', but the bills - the demands of life.  He has his regular job which pays most of the bills, but those bills keep increasing.  (i.e. Rent just increased in the fall.)  He has a creative mind, too, and

The Peanut Purge

My husband has been having... (clears throat)... digestive issues lately.  It happens on occasion, but it's been really bad the last month or so.  He's allergic to peanuts, so I figured maybe one of the kids stuck a butter knife full of peanut butter into the dishwasher.  So I started having the kids use plastic knives to make their sandwiches.

It is normally Blur's job to load and unload the dishwasher but he had a bad insomnia night a few nights ago so I was doing the dishes.  His verbal filter was off and he was rambling and complaining about how every time he ran the dishwasher he had to clean out the filter because of the pumpkin soup.  This was really odd to me as no one had eaten the pumpkin soup for more than a week and therefore there shouldn't be any soup dishes to cause any issue.

I pulled out the filter and Blur pointed at the small bit of debris complaining how filthy it was.  I really wasn't bad.  As I was looking around it and trying to explain that it wasn't a big deal I saw it, and I groaned.  At just that moment my husband walked in the front door, heard me and asked what was the matter. 

The inner dome of the filter, where my fingers couldn't reach, was coated in a suspicious brown sticking something.  I got a swap scrubber thing and check it; peanut butter.

I don't know how long it had been going on, but for weeks every load of dishes had been inundated with a indiscernible coating of peanut butter.  Indiscernible unless you're allergic, that is.

So began the Great Peanut Purge of 2016.

First we had to get the peanut butter out of the plastic filter.  We boiled water and tried to melt it off.  It mostly worked.  Eventually Blur was able to get the filter apart (it was really tricky!) and we got it clean.  Then I changed the dishwasher settings from the 1 hour wash to the full wash with extra hot water and a  sanitizing rinse.  Then I ran it again.

Since I found it late in the day that was the only load I was able to get finished right then.  I pulled out disposable cups, plates, and flatware and had Mike eat off of those.  I also have changed the peanut butter routine.  It should be on paper plates / paper towels, and the plastic knives are NEVER to go into the dishwasher.  At some point I got interrupted and I had Blur finish loading the dishwasher.

The next morning I found a blue plastic knife that was used for peanut butter in the dishwasher.  Sigh.

So now I have put up large obnoxious construction paper signs above the sink and on the dishwasher.  - NO PEANUT butter EVER!  Hopefully they'll remember now.  :/  If they don't I'll have to ban peanut butter from the house.

So my other projects are currently on hold until I get it all clean.  Yesterday I systematically started working through the cupboards.  I got all the lunch plates and bowls first.  Then the silverware and glasses.  Next my hubby's favored water mugs and the dinner plates, etc. 

While I was working on the dishes I figured I'd better bleach all the kitchen towels.  My kids often wipe their unwashed hands on them (ew!) and could possibly be contaminated with peanut butter.  There was only half a load of whites so I went searching around the house for other things I could toss in to fill the load.  I grabbed my daughter's pillow and one of my husband's pillows to balance it. 

The saying goes; when it rains, it pours!  I should have known better.  This is my husband's pillow out of the washing machine:

This Week

It has been a long couple of weeks for me.

I am working on setting up a new schedule.  Thomas started school last week and Anna started preschool this week.  Blur is still having sleep issues.  Since my husband works swing shift I'm the only parent two of my kids see M-F; I have to make it all work somehow and still get my work done.

My big project right now is trying to solve Blur's sleep problems.  I've been selling our old

New Elastic Sanity Segment

Hello!  I've been hoping to get blogging here more frequently but it just didn't happen over the summer.  My life exploded, as it seems to every summer! lol.  Of course I should have predicted that, but I seem to have selective memory. :P

My tagline is "Crafting daily to retain sanity in a stressful world."  Every wonder what has me so stressed?  I used to do a blog for a while about all the weird random stuff that happens in my home

Some 2016 Yarn-Related Goals

I posted some de-stash goals in a Ravelry group earlier this year.  I'd been thinking about it more recently as I've been making progress on dishcloths.  I have other yarn related goals as well so I figured I'd share my list with you all here. :)

• Two major commitments at a time should be my limit this year:
• 1) the MKAL I’m running [still in progress]
• 2) my pet ferret'€™s health [done!]
• 3) Working on next pattern
• Write at least 2 more patterns
• To try to use some of my current lovely yarns for my new pattern designs
• Spin enough of my stash to knit myself Awilda B.’s In Time and Space [starting combing]
• To start to sew together larger hexagons out of my itty bitty hexis for my the beekeeper’s quilt
• Continue to use up the excessive amount of acrylic yarn in my stash
• Make a stash of dishcloths out of my existing stash of dishcloth cotton [Current count is 4]