April ~ May

Why yes,

 I have been inattentive when it comes to blogging.  When my husband piped up twice to remind me to blog... well it's been busy around here.  

The second time he said, "You should put up a blog post.  They'll think you died or something."

Well  ~ hmmm.

Here I am, alive and well.
We spent a lot of time in April getting the property 

as fire safe as we possibly can.

It's a never ending chore and April is our busiest month to get everything raked and the fallen tree debris burned in order to make the mandatory 

150 feet clearance around the house.  Of course,

that also leaves the rest of the property to try to do as well.  It's going to be a very hazardous fire season this year because of the drought.

We (Rick) felled some dead trees and got 

the small limbs from those burned.  The

rest will become firewood for next winter.

I did get the fabric (shown on the last blog post)

 for the tote cut out and ready to sew. 

 Plus I have fabric for another project as well

that I want to get done  before vacation time.

 In between time, those projects got put on hold. 

We've had overnight company several times in 

April and again this month.

~~~

I found an idea on Pinterest on how to

take care of a cutting mat problem.

See what I mean on my well used self healing

rotary cutting mat.

It's no longer self healing.

Those white streaks are from cutting Pellon fleece

and it's the fibers that are getting stuck in the cuts.

The solution was to rub  a white eraser over the 

cuts and the eraser will pull out those fibers.

I tried a small section with  a green eraser,

and it does seem to work.

The Pinterest link leads to this blog.

 Click here to view Detroit Knitter's blog.

I thought I was going to have to 

purchase a new mat, but it looks like

this one will do for a while longer.

Another time sink for me has been the planning

and research for our cruise.  

The anticipation and planning has been fun.

Our friends that we're cruising with decided to 

celebrate the the 100 day countdown to the cruise date with a spur of the moment let's get out of town

and have a bit of fun day.

It's nice to have friends that say

"Let's go" and we actually do.

  

It was the same friends on New Years Eve,

who said we should go on the cruise,

and that's how this all started.

  

We've also passed the 75th day markdown which is the deadline for having our final cruise payment 

submitted.  So it's a go... and the countdown clock is still ticking.  I've been following "our ship" as she made her way around the Horn of Africa,

back and forth, back and forth during our winter season of waiting.

She finally made her way to Los Angeles

 and then left for Hawaii, Samoa, Tahiti and back to Los Angeles.

Then she passed our coast line on her way up to Vancouver BC.  From there she did a one day

party night to Seattle.  She's already made her first

trip of this season to Alaska.   I followed along online watching her bridge cam views of the sea days, Juneau, Skagway, the ice floating in Glacier Bay, Ketchikan, Victoria and back to Seattle.

I watched her come into Seattle and dock this morning.  Passengers are disembarking and a new group will board today for their trip to Alaska.

It will be our turn soon enough.

We'll be on the Golden Princess.

Her bridge web cam is  http://www.princess.com/bridgecams/

Meanwhile back at home and out of dream land... 

I tried another all in one pan pasta dish

from Martha Stewart's Magazine.

It's called One-Pan Orecchiette with Chickpeas and Olives.

I like all the ingredients,

but this recipe....

was one big flop.

Neither one of us liked it

or wanted to save the leftovers.

We usually don't waste food,

but this was just that terrible and we ended

up throwing it away.  Actually we freeze

our non compostable food waste and don't put it out in the garbage until it's time to go to the dump.

Otherwise, we attract bears... 

we learned that lesson.

This was the second all in one pan pasta dish from

Martha that I've tried and disliked.

I guess I won't be trying that method again.  

Twice is enough.

I did think about blogging through the month of 

April and now the beginning of May.

These photos are proof.

Here's a shot of Mt. Shasta when I went up to 

get the grandkids for an overnight visit with us.

There was very little snow cover. This photo was taken in early April.

We're on a volunteer (for now) 25% cut back 

on our water use.  That makes it hard to decide

what to do as far as gardening this year.

My garden area is tiny, but I think I'll still try to get some plants going. I did plant the parsley seeds yesterday. I received a surprise in the mail Friday.

It's from our granddaughter and her mama,

who live in Los Angeles.  We don't get to 

see Gwendolyn as much as we'd like.

But we do have camping plans with them next

month in Trinidad.  Yeah!  

Actually they're (our son's family) camping with our daughters family, and we'll be in a hotel nearby.  Rick's mom (great grandma)

will also be there in a hotel as well.  So it will be 

a mini family reunion for three nights with agate rock hunting on the beach, campfires, and lots of photos to tide us over until our next visit. 

They sent a selection of seeds for the garden.

I'm excited to try some of the ones I haven't planted before.  Some are cool season crops which I'll plant in the fall.  Others will go in sometime this weekend.  I'm sitting here in my garden harvest apron with the seeds in the pocket, but I got distracted and wanted to work on this blog post which I started yesterday by uploading the photos.

There's just so much to take care of, that blogging

time has become scarce.  I still want to blog.  I love having a record of what I've been up to and sharing it with family and friends.  That was my original purpose in starting the blog in the first place.

When I start getting discouraged, I look at past posts and say no way am I giving this up.  I just have to figure a way to fit it all in.  Blogging for me has slowed down, but I'm still here and will have to settle for fewer blog posts ... for now.

Anyway..,

When the grandkids were here, Katelyn found the

tiny alpine strawberries and had fun picking as many of the red ones as she could find. 

I purchased another packet of the seeds to start new plants.   These alpine strawberries don't tend to send out runners to start new plants, so I'd like to increase the number of plants I have so that Katelyn can share a few more with her brother Conner and me.  

I believe this is a penstemon.   It was a bonus

plant in a gallon sized container of another plant that I purchased.  That original plant had died,

but this sneaky plant decided it liked the conditions and stuck around.   

Speaking of sticking around...

Liberty is always around.  

Always begging to play ball. 

Her "cousin"  Shabado, just ate a hole in the carpet in the middle of the front room at his house.

(Conner and Katelyns family dog)

Shabado is the latest (and last?)  puppy in the family.

 Ah, puppies. 

  

Oh well, I'm just about to head out to the garden.

I need to take care of the weeds and all of the 

volunteer plants that have come up from last seasons garden.

Actually I was heading out to the garden to 

get started on that first.  But a detour upstairs

to retrieve the memory card for the photos that I uploaded yesterday... caused a distraction to blog instead.  That's usually how things go, and consequently nothing ever really seems to get done. Completely done that is.

The borage has reseeded everywhere and some of it's just about ready to bloom.

I also have volunteer tomatoes and cucumbers growing.  I hadn't planned to grow tomatoes but they decided to anyway.  I'll cage a couple of them and wait to see type they are.  

OK, I'm done.

Time to get outdoors and plant some seeds.

I hope it isn't too long before the next blog post.

   

Till then, I'll be out in the garden, and at the sewing table, and cruise dreaming, and seeing the grandkids, and throwing the ball...

Take care. 

Edited to add after posting:

I headed outside to garden ...

and still needed to come back upstairs to

get the camera memory card...again.

Ha, here I am hours later, still distracted

from what I wanted to get done in the first place.

Ah well, this rambling blog post

is done.

I can cross one thing off my to do list!