Auspicious Starts

I wanted to begin this new year with a good start, something positive in a sea of negative happenings in the world.  So for several nights after Christmas and before New Years Eve I got busy and did a lot of crocheting.  I got the "Granny Blanket" done! 

To review - the yarn belonged to my 102 year old Grandma Nellie who passed in November.  She and my mom had been cleaning out her craft cupboards and sent me a pile of yarn and when I went to help my mom care for her in August we had found a few more balls that I crocheted together while sitting and visiting with her.  She liked the pattern of the 'granny squares' and the idea of the afghan.  As I crocheted the squares after I came home I would often think of her and say a little prayer for her and my mom and aunts as she approached the end of her life.  There was no rhyme or reason to the yarn, it was just 'ends and pieces' of stuff she had used for years.  I really thought it might be fairly ugly with all the disparate colors going on.  I am so pleased with this silly thing, the colors are not hideous, the pattern is attractive and there was enough left over to do a border and it turned out fairly good size.  (On a side note I pulled out all the delicate or thin or summery colored yarn and will find another project for that stuff)

The unveiling:

 It nearly covers the washer and dryer

There are only the four corner holes in each square so it will be warm!

I really am pleased with the look of the 'single crocheting' the squares together rather than stitching them, I think it has a 'blanket stitch' kind of look to it.







So I am off to a good start for my year,  I have a lovely memory and a completed project that will spend a lot of time in January spread across knees as the temps are staying pretty low here, it was 6 degrees (F) last night (about -14C) and a throw over the legs is going to be very welcome!  (The pattern is free on the Red Heart Yarn website under the name 'Monkey Around' baby blanket.  I just liked the solid squares!)

Happy New Year to all of you and prayers for a blessed 2015!

Slow Living Monthly 9

Fair warning - I am really excited about spring!  I also detest hot weather, so - just so we are all on the same page here I am behaving in a slightly nutso (it's a technical term) manner.  Totally jazzed about spring and the garden and sort of dreading the advent of the warm season, getting out my capris and complaining about having to paint the toenails.  Sort of a schizo kind of thing.  The good news is that when the heat really hits I just settle in to full time grousing and moaning so the multiple personality thing goes away and it's just full time Flying Monkeys! (that may not actually qualify as good news...)

Here goes the look back at March - (And yes I am late!)

Nourish - They opened a Trader Joe's in Boise (about 20 miles away)!  This was my favorite store in California and I told my Mom that the only things I missed about CA was the family and Trader Joe's.  I have been now twice and we are eating the lettuce and avocados and cucumbers that are so welcome in the warmer weather, and are so fresh and tasty and clean from TJ's.  (I do actually miss really good Mexican food and roadside fruit stands, but not enough to move back to 'Cali' as my kids call it) TJ's also has all kinds of different cheeses and a lot of the goods are organic and they do fair trade....it is just a wonderful store and my life is a little more...hmm...fun(?) because it is there.  (And that probably says something really sad about my quality of life!)

Rototilling Hubby

Prepare - We are continuing to ready the garden for planting and clean up the area so the detritus from the long winter is just about gone.  Garden is cultivated - the new electric rototiller is my new best friend - compost bucket is dumped into the area it is getting tilled into and the new part of the garden is completely dug out.  This summer we will plant 1000 square feet of garden in the back!  (be still my heart - this is a long time dream!)

Reduce  - I'm going for reuse this month or maybe just save from the trash bin.  I am now the proud owner of a whole pile of yarn from my Grandmothers closet that may be a much as 30 or 40 years old.  Grateful to my Mother for thinking of me and being willing to send it on.  I will have much fun with this largess and it will save quite a bit of money for me.  If you can get your hobby down in cost it is a win - win!

Green - We are now using a lot of those containers we rinsed and set aside over the winter months.  this year we will not buy any containers for seed growing and we will set back the ones that are still in good condition to use again.  Old milk cartons become scoops and creamer bottles are great for taking liquids (dressings) to potlucks.  I think this year we have finally begun to really use the things we've been saving (and then tossing) for years.

Grow - I have peas!!!  This is not as disgusting as it may sound.  My peas (plant when it is still cold) are here and there peeking through the dirt and I am thrilled.  The first sprouts of the season always send me into paroxysms of excitement.  (around September - I start grumbling about how many  zucchini are still there!)  Hubby is going to try iceberg lettuce this year and his seedlings are coming up as well.

Peas!

those little leaves are lettuce!

Create - I decided to move out of my comfort zone with my crochet patterns this month and I am very pleased with the results so far.  I am doing a throw that is very textured, the picture is just once through the pattern and that will be done 9 more times.  All but two of the rows in the pattern are new stitches for me so I feel like I really stretched  on this project.

crocheted panel

Discover - I have an obsession with genealogy and this month I have worked on a branch of the family tree that could, I suppose, be called a 'side' branch, but is in actuality one of those wonderful loops that we find in the people that live in pioneering times.  I have had such a good time discovering the connection between the relative I knew in my family and the relative in a cousins family.  I was able to get back to the 1600's in America and find the ancestor who started the family and then the place where the family branched and they lost track of how they were related.  What fun!!!  (really, you have no idea - it makes me feel like Sherlock Holmes or something!)

Enhance - I am once again taking photos for a website called "Find a Grave.com".  This is an awesome tool for family historians and I have gotten some new photo requests for my area and will be taking more cemetery/headstone photos and posting them online.  The public can then look for a headstone of a relative or ancestor and it is just really fun.  Spring and newly dry roads have me planning trips to some pioneer cemeteries.

Enjoy - I am enjoying open windows! After a long winter of closed up house it is so nice to smell fresh air and cut grass and damp dirt!  There simply isn't an air freshener that can beat them.  I may even lemon oil the furniture and get another good smell in the mix.

Happy April!