Pardon the Garden

My soul is restless

September 11, 2018 Marie Leave a Comment

Do you ever feel like you desperately need a change? Something totally, completely, radically different from the way you’re living now? Like everything you’ve been doing is all wrong and suddenly it feels so unbearably bad from all aspects that you just need to light the whole bitch on fire and, when the fire dies out and things settle down, rise from the ashes as though you’ve just completed some magical transformation?

Yeah. That’s my mood today. And I feel it so very, very deeply.

I want to throw away half my house (or, well, donate it since throwing away would be wasteful). I want to completely overhaul my habits. I want to lay waste to every single thing that no longer serves me and, instead, has turned me into an anxiety-riddled mess.

It’s clearly time to do some major soul searching, cut the crap from my life, and embrace a period of change. Get back to things that really matter.

A little forest bathing

September 9, 2018 Marie Leave a Comment

This weekend we went away to a perfect little cabin nestled in the woods. I wish I could say it was 100% relaxing, but I have homework for college that I needed to do while there. But, we made the best of it. The Little Mr and I headed down Friday night and because we arrived so late and it was already dark we grabbed pizza from one of the local places, watched a movie, and had a really lovely evening.

Saturday morning I woke up and did a little knitting on the porch while listening to the rain in the trees. Then took advantage of the hot tub and did some more listening to the trees from the comfort of the hot water. Once the Mr arrived, we all headed to the caves to do some hiking. It has been far too long since I spent time out in nature, and I feel that void so very deeply lately. It was raining while we were there, and we didn’t let that get in our way until it started raining extra hard (which can make the hiking a bit dangerous with a little one), but I could have definitely used more time there before coming home. Oh well, I’ll take what I can get at least.

I’m way behind on homework now, because we were all exahusted and I couldn’t focus after we got back, so now I’m playing catch-up and trying to not stress about all the work that I need to do. But even if I bomb this homework and following exam, the self care alone from the weekend was worth it.

September, already.

September 3, 2018 Marie Leave a Comment

I finished a thing! Autumn has been calling to me, and I have been suddenly feeling in need of warm wool in my hands in preparation for the season. I ended up starting this Stormy Sky shawl in July – on my birthday, in fact – and that urge for warm wooly goodness has only grown since.

The yarn is handspun, which Ravelry tells me I purchased back in 2010 and it looks like I spun in 2011. It’s a lovely, drapey blend of wool and seacell from Fiber Optic that I remember really enjoying spinning up. At the time, it was just too lovely to use and I was SO excited to get such a large amount of yardage off the fiber. These days I find myself trying to be more mindful of using what I have, and decided it was time to pull this lovely yarn out of storage and to use. Aside from the fiber itself being lovely, it was actually pretty wonderful to use this yarn and compare my past spinning to my skills now and be able to really see/feel the difference practice makes. I actually have enough yarn, I believe, to make a second one. The pattern was easy enough to remember and makes such a lovely shawl that it might just have to become a holiday gift knit, as it’s something I can manage to work on when I’m entirely overwhelmed with homework for my college classes.

Canning season

August 12, 2018 Marie Leave a Comment

A lot of years I have been terrible about canning up our tomatoes. I’ll freeze them for later and then forget about them in the deep freezer never to see them again.

This year I’m trying to be better. Small batch recipes are my favorite, simply because they’re quick to make with my limited time. So far I’ve made pizza sauce, which we have been using a lot of for homemade pizzas, and today I’m doing crushed tomatoes for use with pasta recipes. There’s still a pile of tomatoes ripening in the garden so I’ll have to research more recipe ideas (or just load up on pizza sauce)

A little August break (and things I forgot to post)

August 5, 2018 Marie Leave a Comment

Is it just me, or did it feel like July flew by?! Summer was FULL for me, between work and motherhood and taking two college classes and the Mr’s new 2nd shift work schedule. So. Full. Today, however, is the first day that I feel like I can really breathe and relax. There’s no assignment deadlines staring me down or tests to study for, so it’s a peaceful few weeks in my future and I fully intend on soaking up all the crafting and baking and canning time… as soon as I can decide what, exactly, I want to do.

Things that happened recently that I’ve failed to post (in no particular order):

Shortly after my birthday, we bought a fire ring thing so we could have campfires and s’mores at home. It is, by far, my most favorite purchase of the summer. I even hosted a “crappy dinner party” with pizza and s’mores and a bunch of my friends and it was so perfect – kids running around everywhere having fun, adults enjoying good company and beverages… I really should do that more often!
We also bought a blueberry bush. I have long-term plans to redo the backyard and move the raised garden beds, so we planted it in a corner where we won’t have to worry about moving it when those plans begin. The Little Mr basically ate all of my raspberries, so I figured a small blueberry patch would be good, too, and maybe between the two I’d get enough berries to make SOME sort of jam!
The garden is in full swing – we have peppers that are bigger than my hand, and tomatoes are finally ripening. It is excellent timing that my classes are over for a few weeks so I have time available to make some salsa with the tomatoes!
Despite all of the class work, I have managed to make time to craft at least a little bit here and there. I spun some yarn for Tour de Fleece even though I didn’t officially participate in the event, and started making a Goldilocks and the Three Bears stuffies for a new grandbaby that is on the way in the family.