I do not like hot weather.....

I am not a hot weather person. It should not be 86 degrees at 11am in the morning. I can handle snow and cold weather, and when it gets above freezing, wearing a winter coat is optional for me. Neither do I like air conditioning that creates 'artificial cold.' If I lived in a climate where air conditioning is required practically to survive, it might be different. But I just don't like it. It dries up everything, I feel like a shriveled up prune, a cool one, but still!

So I am cranky! I decided I needed a photo in my profile or somewhere, anywhere. I've spent the last hour resizing and renaming, and I'm not any closer than I was before. You'd think someone who has been on a computer forever would have figured something like this out a long time ago. I guess not....

This is the pic, I'm trying it again. Heaven knows what I will end up with. That's me, some years ago. No, I'm not admitting how long ago. But my Mother crocheted the pineapple dress I'm wearing. You know what, that white hair, I have that back. Come to think of it, I look like that now, just older. And I'm not smiling. And I don't fit into the dress. I have the dress and find it hard to believe that I ever fit into it.

I posted this pic once a few years back on a crochet forum, and people started looking for the pattern. I didn't have it among my mother's patterns, since a lot of her old patterns were destroyed in the great bathroom flood of the 80's that ran water down on most of her old patterns and books. Not just a little water. Lots of water, enough to destroy every book and paper it landed on.

Someone found the pattern somewhere, but I didn't save it. I don't want to make another one, because I have the original, and none of my 3 granddaughters (or my 2 daughters) fit into it anyway. Heaven knows what will happen to the original when I'm gone. After the whole discussion of the 'duck rock' over the weekend when both my daughters were here and together, I've given up the idea of all these wonderful heirlooms I'm leaving to my children and grandchildren.

Now that I've mentioned the 'duck rock' I might as well tell that story. Nothing like rambling on when you're hot and cranky! The duck rock was my dad's. He found it in one of his farm fields one day a long time ago when we all out picking rocks. To anyone who lives in the rocky midwest, at least this part of it, picking rocks is the most thankless job on a farm. It never ends. Pick all the rocks off a field, and next year, they all come back or multiply or whatever, and there they are again. That's another story.

Anyway the duck rock is shaped like a duck. My dad liked it and always kept on the cement patio by the house. When he passed away in 1997, I said I wanted the duck rock. I thought it was neat, and at one time in my life, I was always saving pretty rocks or rocks of unusual shapes. One farm we lived on, we picked arrowheads and pieces of flint. The arrowheads and flint got divided up between all six of us , because everyone wanted those. They are worth money these days. No one wanted the duck rock, except me. So it has moved with me to every house and apartment, and now lives in the backyard right next to what my daughter calls her firepit, but that I want to fill with flowers. No one has won that battle yet.

Saturday afternoon, we are all sitting outside watching all three of my granddaughters play. Or we're watching the younger two (almost 3 and 5) having the time of their lives, and the drama queen (age 8) complainig because no one likes her and wants to play with her. Another story, complete with tears and dramatic gestures and wails of anguish.

My older daughter, her husband and 3 yr. old daughter were here from Houston. Somehow the conversation ended up with the duck rock. I said they better not just toss it when I die. Someone has to keep my rock, that once belonged to my dad, and was found on the farm that I still own a piece of, another really bad story. Whatever, I want someone in my family to keep my rock. Neither daughter wants it, there were suggestions of just leaving it where it is, tossing it, throwing it in the river, none of which I was happy about. I threatened to send it to Houston with my older daughter when she goes back. My son in law is a lawyer, he knows when not to say anything, but sits there with this smile on his face. He already knows my OD really well. That rock is not going to end up in Houston!

Finally my older daughter said 'well, mom, what do you want us to do with it?' By this time, I didn't really care anymore and just said, I don't care---bury it with me or something. OD said, okay, that's what we'll do! Good grief! I think I was joking! I'm not sure I want to be stuck with this rock for eternity!

1000 years from now, someone will dig me up and find bones and that duck rock. They'll think I was some kind of rock or duck worshipper.

By the way, I'm taking the pineapple dress and all my crochet hooks with me too. We won't even get into that.

I want a pink flamingo....

Not just any flamingo! I want an 8 feet tall wooden pink flamingo, and it's for sale! The city of Oshkosh is 15 miles north of where I live. They have this flamingo that they confiscated somewhere in the city that has never been claimed by the owner. Eventually these sorts of things that are taken in arrests or whatever and are unclaimed, are sold to the public. Oshkosh has an auction site http://www.ci.oshkosh.wi.us/Auction/Terms_And_Conditions.htm The price is already up to $301! Now that is a little high, but I can just imagine this sitting in my backyard. I want this! Isn't it neat? I wonder who makes 8 feet tall wooden pink flamingos.

Fried Green Tomato Disaster...

There's a knitting blog I read everyday by a woman in California http://www.crazyauntpurl.com/ Laurie talks about a lot more than knitting, her cats, where she lives and what goes on in the life of a 30 something, recently divorced, very funny lady. I have cats, I'm single (and a lot older than Laurie, by the way) and I crochet. But this is probably my favorite blog to read every day. I keep thinking that since I have a son in Orange County the same age as Laurie, that I should be setting these two up. Neither one seems to be able to find someone they want to go out without, and after reading Laurie's blog for months, I think she would be perfect for him. That's another story, and mothers are supposed to stay out of their grown kids lives, no matter how tempting it is to tell them what I think they should do!

Okay, on to the reason for this! Yesterday, Laurie gave the recipe for fried green tomatoes, and it brought back a very funny memory from my younger years. Fried green tomatoes is a southern thing, and I live definitely in the north. I am English and German and live in the northern US. My mother's English heritage was lost long ago, her family has been here and everywhere in the US it seems, from what I've found out, since the mid 1600s. But Dad's family has only been in the US since the late 1800s, so we ate German when I was growing up. Lots of meat and potatoes, head cheese, pickled pig feet and other delicacies that I'd rather not think about.

I was around 20, working, when someone, with obviously southern heritage, talked about fried green tomatoes. I had never heard of them before! We ate red tomatoes out of the gardens, sliced with sugar or pepper and salt. My Dad, a farmer, had two gardens. The smaller house garden right outside the kitchen door for my Mother to take care of and grow lettuce, radishes, carrots and tomatoes. Then there was my Dad's big garden, usually somewhere around the buildings or on the edge of some field, where he grew sweet corn, potatoes, squash, pumpkins and more tomatoes.

By August, we had more tomatoes than we could ever consume in our lifetimes! Every year! My Dad's gardens were amazing. He stuck seeds and plants in the ground, or rather we kids stuck seeds and plants in the ground under Dad's supervision, and they grew like crazy. That's another story, one we won't get into here, about planting potatoes. If I never see another potato in my lifetime, I would be happy. Yuck! I hate planting potatoes!

Anyway..... I thought the idea of fried green tomatoes was great. It was something different, and I was so sick of the same food we ate day after day. Always meat and potatoes, vegtables, boiled beyond recognition, and always fresh tomatoes, at least in the two or three months that we northeners call summer.

So I got the recipe and made the one night for supper. They did not go over well! Everyone, except my brother, Bruce, who never ate anything at all, there's another story in that one, had one bite of a tomato, dipped in egg, rolled in cornmeal and fried. Salted and peppered, I wasn't that crazy about them either, but they weren't poison. According to my family, this was just one more of my crazy ideas and no one in their right mind would ever eat fried green tomatoes, and maybe this time, Shari was trying to poison them! The tomatoes got thrown out, and my Mother quickly cut up a dish of ripe, red tomatoes into slices, appearently to take the taste of fried tomatoes away.

I heard about the fried green tomato, poisoning my family, episode for years! It became one of the family stories that anyone who came along heard and laughed about. The time Shari tried to poison the entire family with fried green tomatoes! After that I quit cooking, at least for those ungrateful people I'm related to! Good thing too, since after all the ribbing I took, the poisoning thing didn't sound that bad!

My parents are gone now, but my sisters and brothers still remember the fried green tomatoes. I still hear about it now and then, not so much in the last few years since I don't see a whole lot of my siblings. But mention green tomatoes to any one of them, and I'm sure they will drag the whole thing up again!

When I saw Laurie's recipe for fried green tomatoes in her blog, it brought a lot of memories back, not very good ones, but even I can laugh about it now. But, the recipe she gave is the exact same one I used! If all these people from the southern states are eating fried green tomatoes, there can't be anything wrong with this, right? They must taste good if so many people are making and eating these all these years.

I am buying some tomato plants and growing them in my backyard. And when the tomatoes are green, I'm doing this again. I'm going to make fried green tomatoes exactly like Laurie's recipe. But this time I'm eating them all myself. My family now consists of daughter, Erica, who lives downstairs with her two daughters. I'm not feeding these to her. I know her eating habits, and there's no way I want a repeat performance of my younger years!

New plants from a friend....

I've got new plants! The top one is a Creeping Charlie. It's so healthy and green that I'm hoping I can keep it looking this way. A friend started this for me from cuttings from her plant. The one at the end of this post is a succulent called the Mother of Thousands. It will eventually have plantlets all up and down each leaf. Each little baby will drop off and grow into a new plant if it lands in dirt. This one too, my friend got for me where she lives. I've never seen them in the plant shops around here.

I want to thank my friend for bringing these to me and for the nice chat we had yesterday. It's always fun to have someone to talk with about our major obsessions, which for both of us is crochet and houseplants.

My friend had brought some bags and purses she had crocheted for my granddaughters to use. Both girls love having their own purses to carry all their stuff around in. I had them all laying on a chair waiting for them to get home today, when my daughter walked over to them. She picked up one and said 'I love this. It's now my new purse!' Although my daughter has never used any of the purses and bags I've crocheted, this is not surprising. I tend to use much brighter colors than she likes. This one is beige with narrow jewel colored stripes in darker tones. I was laughing about this when she left for work, and realized that for my daughter this is the perfect bag. Colors that aren't so bright, and a size that would be too small for me. But for her, this is exactly the size of bag she likes.

Back to my cleaning. My older daughter and family should be arriving at O'Hare in Chicago tonight sometime. Though the last I heard the plane had been delayed by the weather up here. Fortunately they have reservations to stay in Chicago tonight, and will drive up to Wisconsin tomorrow. First to see her Father and Grandparents, then here on Saturday. By then the nice warm weather should have moved in, so we can grill out in the afternoon, and all three of my granddaughters can play outside. I've not seen my daughter since 2003 right after her daughter was born, so this an exciting visit. My granddaughters who live here can't wait to meet their cousin who will be 3 years old next week.

Flowers and rabbits.

This is my new plant. A Hindu Rope Plant in solid green. It's a plant I 've been looking for months to find in all the plant places I know about. I've got a white and green one, whose leaves don't curl near as much as this one does. Years ago I was given this same plant by my then in laws, and over the years, it had gotten huge. I hung it outside every summer, and it would blossom with tiny white waxy flowers that smelled heavenly. Then it died somewhere along the way, through a few moves, then an apartment that was unfriendly to all plants. I ended up with the few houseplants that I had left dying within a few months of moving in. Now I have it back. I have to find the perfect place to hang it. I'm thinking in front of my kitchen window where it will get sun but not the hot midday heat. I think it will like it there.

Erica mowed the lawn today, the first non rainy day in weeks, it seems. Well maybe in two weeks. While I was out there raking up the hay (it was that long!) I dug out some sod I wanted to get rid of, and threw it in front of the little hole in the side of the garage where I thought one little rabbit was living. Now this rabbit has eaten one of Erica's daylilis, the flowers off two other plants she had planted, and some little flowers I had planted last fall that didn't even get a chance to flower yet! We were not happy with that little rabbit! So I covered his hole.

This evening I was looking out my door to the backyard, and here were two baby rabbits, trying to figure out where their hole in the garage went. Poor things! It was gone! Of course, I felt guilty as hell. And ended up outside uncovering their hole into the garage! Those little buggers had better not eat the 8 coleus plants I just planted out there! They are so cute, how could I cover up their entrance to their home. Now that I've seen two of the cute little brats, I'm wondering how many more are out there. More, I'm sure!

Erica has one rose that does not care if the sun does not shine for two weeks. Her pink rose is still sulking over all the wet and cloudy weather, but this yellow rose seems to not let little things bother it. This is how it looked today.

No more American Idol...

A Tuesday night and I'm not watching American Idol! I, along with a lot of others, have just had it with that show. All week long, all we've heard are excuses from Fox and it's supporters on why the best singer and performer on the show got booted last week. What's left are three that should have been off the show weeks ago, or at least before Chris. We all should know better. Reality shows are about as far from reality as we know it. And American Idol is no different. This is the last anyone will hear from me about this show. Next season, I'm watching LOST, which is about as far from a reality show as it can be.

More proof that I can actually finish a crochet project

I'm feeling very proud of myself that I have finished another crochet project. Proving that all those works in progress I have sitting around in my yarn closet will eventually get finished, or made into something else. This is the Knot Ugly Shrug from the Stitch & Bitch, The Happy Hooker. My first project from that book, but not the last. Next challenge is the Frou Frou Sweater.

That won't get started for awhile yet, since I started another sweater today from the new Interweave Crochet magazine. It's the Lacy Leaf Cocoon by Annie Modesitt. I started it in Caron's Simply Soft Country Blue and Light Country Blue, and I love the way it's working up already. Right now it looks a very large doily in yarn!

The plant below is a Hydrangea I recieved from my daughter, Erica and her daughters for Mother's Day. Though the day is really cool and rainy, yet again, this is making my kitchen very cheery with it's beautiful blue and purple flowers. If we ever warm up around here, I plan on taking this one outside for the summer. For right now it's living on my kitchen table, which now is officially a jungle. What you can't see is behind the camera is a five feet tall palm tree, patiently waiting until it is warm enough to move outside to my balcony for the summer. I sometimes get the feeling that some morning, I will have to chop my way through the kitchen!

You'd think I'd know better....

A year ago I swore I would never watch American Idol again, after the 'Barbie doll' won and the actual singer came in second. But I got sucked in again this year.

Not right away, but half way through the season, I started watching and it became an every week thing. An hour on Tuesday night and a half hour on Wednesday to see who got kicked off.

Until last night. Chris, the only one with the presence and the voice of a star got kicked off the show! There are rumors today of one of his lines not working and error messages when Chris's fans tried to vote. Who knows? Yet again there are rumors that this show is not a reality show, but in fact staged and the person who will win is already picked before the season hardly gets going.

Whatever! There is no reason to watch anymore. One guy with a good voice and the personality of a slug, a girl who can sing, when she can stay on tune and remembers all the lyrics, or the one that we never really listen to his voice, because we're trying to keep from getting dizzy from all his antics and jumping around. That's what's left to choose from?

Listen up, Fox! Who cares?!

I want a pattern for this.....

I want a pattern for this top I just got at Wal Mart for $3! I can't even make this for $3. I can't believe something this cute is on clearance for this price. It's kind of hard to see in the picture, but it has a pineapple edging at both the top and bottom. Just simple double crochets and chain stitches in between is what it looks like. I never see patterns for clothing like this. This one might fit my 26 year old daughter. But I'd like to make one for her 8 yr. old. She wants this one! I'm afraid it's a little long for her. It would make a dress, but that neckline just wouldn't work!

Finished halter top.....

This is not the best picture of the halter top I finished tonight. But it is finished! Whenever I finish something I feel like I have made a dent in the bags and bags of works in progress I have stashed in my yarn closet. Never mind that I started this just a day and a half ago! I have hope that I will finish at least of some of the projects I've started.

I wanted to try the Bernat Baby CoOrdinates self stripes yarn, and wanted a halter top to see if I could come up with one small enough to fit my almost three year old granddaughter. This isn't it! It is the yarn, but looking at it, I think it's more likely to fit the five year old granddaughter. Smaller hook next time! I'm not sure I like the blotches of color. Maybe purple and white or pink and white. Something about the pink and purple I just don't care for, maybe there should be a third color in the mix, like white. Little girls will probably love the colors.

I do have a couple of skeins of green and blue mix that I'll try next just as soon as I finish the Knot Ugly Shrug from the Stitch and Bitch book. Then I want to get a few skeins of the Bernat yarn in the purple/white and pink/white combinations. I think I might like those colors better. Also gives me a good excuse to go look at the yarn at Wal Mart again. Like I needed an excuse!

My daughter's flowers....

My daughter has been bitten by the flower bug! After I told her there were dozens of perennials at our local Menard's store, she had to go there this morning. After a visit there and stops at Home Depot and Wal Mart, she came home with a car full of flowers, potting soil and a very big whiskey barrel planter.

She managed to get all but the whiskey barrel planted before she had to leave for work. That planter needs more dirt, which she will have to get on Tuesday. She has this picture in her mind of how she wants things to look. I had started digging up this flower garden last year already to plant some tulips and dafodils, which obligingly all popped up this spring and blossomed.

Erica bought a bird bath, filled the bottom with sand and planted that right in the middle, and now she's filling in the outside. It is pretty, but will be better later on. I've covered the whole area with grass clippings, so right now the plants kind of fade into the grass clippings. That will change. She bought some pretty things.
I'm hoping the little rabbit that lives in the garage, and has his/her exit hole very close to the flowers, will not decide that these pretty plants are lunch planted just for him!

There is so much yet that needs to be done. When spring showed up around here, it took off racing. As it is, we can barely keep up with the lawn mowing. I need to get that weed whacker out again too. Here's a pic of the whiskey barrel before it gets planted. Erica and Ashley picked out some beautiful flowers to go in it. No petunias, which I love. But I'll get those and put them in all the hanging planters I have.

We'd like more flowers, but that will come in time. The people who lived here before had none whatsoever. So we're starting from scratch, with a very odd shaped yard. It will be an ongoing project for us.

Not too bad a day at all.....

I never talk about work, because talking about where you work is not usually a good idea. But today, working turned into a fun day that always makes me remember why I work Saturdays a lot, unlike most of my friends who do not want to work on weekends. On weekends I work with mostly teenagers or very young adults, and this weekend was fun! Working with 3 teenagers and one moron (me!) made the time fly by. When I am not in my comfort zone at work, I'm rather lost, and these kids thought that was hilarious! Fortunately it helps to laugh at yourself, especially when you have just done something (or a lot of somethings!) that is incredibly stupid. Thanks, guys! You all reminded me why it is I don't mind working Saturday mornings at all.

I have started a new project from the Stitch and Bitch, The Happy Hooker. Though I wasn't overly impressed with this book when I first got it, it does have some really nice patterns. One is the Knot Ugly Shrug. Since I tend to crochet rather tightly, I upped the hook size to a K, and I am using the large size in the pattern. It still looks too small for me, at least as far as I have gotten. Good thing there is an 8 year old around who looked at it and said, 'I want that!' That's great, since it will probably be hers when I get it finished.

Spring is here?

Spring should be here, although the temps are going to be below normal overnight and tomorrow. Further proof is in my backyard.

The Christmas present in May....

The picture is a Christmas present for Andrea, my 5 yr. old granddaughter that finally arrived today! There is a story to this.

It started with the Fisher Price Little People. I've been buying them for each granddaughter as they became old enough to play with these happy little people and their endless little playsets. Years ago, my son who is in his 30s had a Little People Farm complete with animals and a Little People Bus that occasionally even had a kitten or two riding in it, thanks to a rather creative little boy who could always find other uses for his toys.

I have a granddaughter in Texas named Sophie, who is almost 3, and I've been buying Little People sets for her. Before Christmas in 2005, I found the cutest little Ferris Wheel. This was just a little set, with the ferris wheel, a ticket booth, two Little People and a nice little hand crank that turned the wheel and played music. There is also an annoying little circle, appearently for a loud mouth circus barker, that laughs like a maniac when you place one of the Little People on it and press it down. That last part could have been left off, I would have left that off, but that is, of course, a favorite of any small child.

Andrea saw the set before I wrapped it up and sent it off to Texas, and she wanted it! I said not to worry, I would get one for her too. She was okay with that, but little did I know I was setting off on a journey that would mean Andrea would not get part of her Christmas present until May.

I had bought this at a local discount store. It was the last one, and every store, Target, Wal Mart, Geoffreys, KayBees, you name it, I went to did not have this set. Every other Little People set, but not this one. I got a different musical one for Andrea in hopes this would be an acceptable substitute. It wasn't! She already had it! So, grandma's can do anything, right? I said I would find it and get it for her!

And so it began. I searched every site online I could think of. From Target and Wal Mart to Amazon and E bay. Everything! I put Fisher Price Little People in search engines and visited hundreds of sites, none of which had the ferris wheel. Not even the Fisher Price site had it. A few places listed it, and it was sold out.

Finally in desperation, I found out I could list it as a pre order on Amazon, and if---a big IF---it came in, I could buy it. I put $20 or so in the high price I would pay, considering it was cheaper than that in the stores. By now I was determined. I would have gone over that just to get this elusive toy. By this time, Andrea had forgotten all about it.

From January until last week, I kept renewing the pre order, thinking that sooner or later, I really should end this. If I kept it up, Andrea would be too old to play with the toy when I finally did find it! Last week, in my e mail was one from Amazon. Since the one other order I had there was already shipped, I wondered what this was. Unbelievable, someone in Levittown, NY had listed a ferris wheel set for $10. Amazon had already charged my credit card, and it would be on it's way to me soon.

Then another e mail, saying it would arrive between May 4th and May 18th. Today it arrived! In it's box, the Little People, the ferris wheel and the ticket booth all still twist tied in, the whole thing in perfect shape! Andrea wasn't home when it got here. When she did get it, she just stood and looked at it, turned the crank on the ferris wheel to play the music, and then began ripping apart the packaging to get it out! The smile on her face was worth waiting 4 months for this toy to arrive.

After a concentrated 10 minutes untwisting all those twist ties and cutting through the tape that holds these toys into the packaging (just where do they think toys are going to escape to?) The ferris wheel is all set up, and Andrea has raided her other Little People sets for more people and animals who will be riding the wheel. As I was looking at the box it came in, I realized that there is a whole carnival that goes with this. I've never seen this carnival in any store. And I'm hiding the box, I'm not up for another 4 month long search for a toy!

Finally a finished project....

I finally have a finished crochet project. I didn't really get many projects finished in April at all. This is another poncho, a fishnet poncho. I've made shorter ponchos similar to this, but not quite as long. This is for a 9 year old friend of granddaughter, Ashley. She is quite tall, so I think she will like it this long. It actually came out longer than I thought it would. It's made from Caron Simply Soft Brites in Berry Blue.

I also, had to post today's picture of the cactus blossom. It closed up overnight, but this afternoon, it opened even bigger than it did yesterday. It's closing back up again tonight, so I wonder if it will open again tomorrow.