hibiscus in a vase

Hibiscus from our garden.  The vase is a vinegar bottle I finally took the label off and put paint and sealer to - I've been meaning to dress it up for years. 

There is a pumpkin outside nearing 30 lbs or more.

The moonflowers have a beautiful smell to them.

crochet basket and shawl

I've finished a few projects, FO.. in crochet, not in knitting.  I'm knitting dishcloths here and there, but the crochet items were on my list .

A crocheted basket 'in the round'... my hand kills after doing this each time, but I keep making them once in a while.  I had found this raffia rope in my stash and used all of it to make this seven inch wide basket.

and the colorshift shawl I've been working on for a few months.. these two balls of yarn came from a vendor at the flea market and I've been looking to try this colorshifting yarn out..

bus stop in august

I got her to grin at the bus stop for me.. she is usually so serious.  She looks like twins with her 'I don't want to laugh' next to the full grin.

The thistles were starting to emerge from their fuzzy spiky beginnings today, and the mallow and other wildflowers are just as pretty and detailed.  I captured some of them in pictures today.

 I don't have a name for this one, but Esme and I both like them.

 even the lespedeza was flowering in profusion this morning.

 this yellow mallow type flower is loved by the bees.  I love the way the dew falls on the little hairs on the outside of the petals.

a thistle just barely starting to fuzz out

 above my head - but this is the first purple thistle

and Esme noticed this ladybug on one of the thistles, too

pumpkin and moonflowers

 more pumpkins from the garden this morning

caught this picture of the wild moonflower plant growing on our steps

all the things, pumpkins, cleaning, a painting

 

This is a painting I did of the road where we live.  I've finally found a frame (at a thrift store) and hung it in the hallway.  I painted it last year.

I'm still cleaning the house.  When I get on a jag it's best to just keep going until I'm satisfied.  Esme says I've cleaned out all the 'smell of home'... Mark says when I stop I'll fall over probably.  I'm cooking a pizza now so the home smell comes back.  I probably will fall over later tonight and it will be 'okay' that I do.

I'm also starting to learn hiragana Japanese again.  I had a dream the other night that someone was speaking to me in a restaurant in Japanese and I couldn't respond.  I didn't want to have bad manners, but I didn't understand them.  So, I started on a little Duolingo Japanese and it's not hard.  The phonetic letters look a lot like something I designed for my diary when I was a little kid... especially the 'fu', 'bu', 'pu' differences... odd.

Our pumpkins are starting to ripen.  Some of these are 20 lbs or more!

 Old family photos I had printed in Fargo a long time ago.  I had found the negatives in a desk of my mother's and she didn't have any prints - so I printed it up and framed it for her and kept a few prints in my own photo album in their envelopes.  It was a happy surprise as I didn't remember I had them.  I also found some pictures of my wedding dress from 2002... which I got to show Esme.  That was something I was regretting when I thought I had gotten rid of all of those pictures.

 

These pictures show my mother and her family, circa 1951.  The big guy in the pictures is her father, Floyd Warren Hulrbut.  and Grandma shows up in the top picture, Vera Irene (Lipe) Hurlbut.  The  children are from left to right, Joanne (Doyle) Hinton, James Doyle, Josephine Hurlbut and Gerald (Jerry) Doyle.  Jerry, Joanne and Jim were all from Grandma's first marriage.  Jospeh and Jeanne had not yet been born.  My mother is running away from her big brother in the top picture with a ball... I think she is about 2 or 3, which is why I am dating it about that time.

busy bee

We are going to have our house appraised for refinancing sometime in the next few weeks.  For the past few days I've been kicking up organizing and getting rid of trash/useless things that have accumulated in our entryway, gardening nook, laundry room etc etc... Last night I tackled Esme's TV counter, which was in need of a thorough dusting.  I washed down a few appliances, and cleaned out aforementioned garden nook.  This morning I went down to the laundry room and gave it a onceover - although it is a bit more difficult with all the dust and lint from the dryer.  It looks better.  I also weeded out our pole garden - it needed it - and made the border edges especially visible again so you can see exactly what we've done landscaping that in.

We've made a lot of improvements to the property and we want to show them off - and tell them what we are looking to improve on further.  We want to build a barn and equipment shelter outside, not a huge one, but enough to keep our tractor in and give the goat and chickens a better home.  And we want to add a lot more insulation to the attic - it has been our list for years but we've never been able to do it all at once.  Once we have the tractor running again and properly sheltered, we can upkeep the road and bring in more gravel.  I have a bit of hope we can further apply a bit towards some gas heat and putting a better surface on our shower valve wall, which has leaked through to the water heater closet a few times.  These things will really help the value of our home and make it nicer overall.

In the meantime, while we are waiting for everything - I will be seeing what I can do 'with what we've got'.. long overdue organizing and destashing etc. 

I made a big dog pillow for the couch again last night out of old clothes that I had been putting in a plastic bin and some fabric Mark found at the thrift store the other day.  They really appreciated the last round of those.  I've got some other, better condition, older clothes to drop off at a thrift store, and some in between things I was going to cut up to make a new set of counter mats for the kitchen.  I've tried to reorganize my yarn and projects into one place - there is a sweater I was working on last Spring, and the current rectangular 'color-shift' shawl I'm crocheting.

If I can do more with the giant fabric container sitting out in the middle of the floor and things near it - it will give more space there and not feel so crowded.

So.. those are the goals right now...