Category: Uncategorized

Kevin went skiing at Crystal yesterday, and I decided to take the day for fun errands. There are two thrift stores in Redmond that I keep meaning to peek into, so that started the day (I was more interested in getting the lay of the land than actually buying anything). Then I headed up to Woodinville to visit Molbaks. I’ve been meaning to go since we moved here four and a half years ago, and this was my first trip. I get the local paper’s weekly gardening email, and they’d mentioned that vegetable seeds were in, so a trip seemed in order. The store itself is amazing (read: enormous, comprehensive, and fairly overwhelming). There were aisles of seed packets, which I spent a good 45 minutes browsing through. I ended up with these guys:

The veggies from Territorial Seed Co were the main reason I went. I just didn’t get in gear last year on the vegetable gardening (two late tomato plants notwithstanding), and I’m all excited about the beans and peas this year, not to mention heirloom tomatoes. The leeks are an experiment, but I’m optimistic. I’m not sure where I’m going to plant the veggies yet. The over-the-top plan would be to build a raised bed or two on the side of our house by the bedroom window. We have all sorts of space and sun there now that the trees are down. And with an actual bed, we’d be able to grow lots of peas and beans, instead of just a token plant or two. Downsides include all of the effort of building the raised bed and figuring out drip systems and other irrigation (there isn’t a good source of water on that side of the house, so rather than a million trips with a watering can, I think I’d have to figure out some sort of system with a rain barrel that I fill every week or two. The cop-out alternative would be buying more containers and just gardening on the patio again, but then we’re basically limited to one container/plant of each kind. I have a few months to decide. Opinions?

The rest of the seeds are more straightforward. 🙂 The dahlias and zinnias are for the beds around the house (front and back) and for the rockwork. I had a few of each that I bought piecemeal and planted mid-July last year, and this will hopefully be a *much* cheaper expansion of that – they thrived and the color was spectacular. The Black-eyed Susans and lavender are for the now-empty space outside our bedroom window. I’m trying not to get my hopes up too much, but both of those are such great summer flowers. We’re both all excited about the Foxglove – we loved seeing these on our Oregon road trip last summer, and they’re supposed to prefer shade (which we have plenty of!). They don’t flower until the second year, I’ll just get them established this year.

After Molbaks, I drove around the top of the lake to Seattle – interesting driving. Quick clothes shopping at University Place, delicious lunch and a croissant at the bakery/sandwich place, and then I went to Acorn Street Shop to use a gift certificate from my brother and sister that I’ve been hoarding. 🙂 I had two small projects in mind, and found perfect yarn for each of them (a pretty green shade of Provence cotton, and some gorgeous blue variegated cotton that’s wonderfully soft and lovely colors.

On the way home, I knocked some less-interesting things off the list: cashed checks, bought a power strip at the hardware store, and stopped for groceries. That last errand was a treat, because the tulips are finally back! Bunches were 2/$7, so I picked out a medium and dark pink in honour of Valentine’s Day. I am so glad that we’re back to tulip season – it makes February and March so much more enjoyable out here.

We were both a little bit stir crazy and bored last night, but still too drained from our weeks to do anything big. So after dinner, we headed over to Ballard for cupcakes and espresso.

Yum. Perfect.

It’s nearly Valentine’s day, and we still have our Christmas wreath up.

It’s proven impossible to take down as it still has all of its needles and somehow it still smells like evergreen when we walk by. (It’s such a great smell.)

It’s also been a really good reminder that we need something on that wall, preferably exactly that size and shape – the wreath just suits the spot.

There were neat clouds outside Kevin’s office window just before sunset yesterday, so he sent me a picture.

It was fun to see it pop up in email, but way more exciting that the photo was taken at quarter past five — we’ll be driving home in the light before we know it!

I still pay all of my bills via mail, which seems to strike friends and coworkers as quaint. I like sitting down to write checks and making sure that all of the accounts are balanced. Every few months, I find an error in the billing and call to resolve it. And then when I’m done, there’s a neat stack of stamped envelopes waiting to go out – it’s a nice mark of keeping things in order. It’s such a little thing but it makes me feel successful.

Well over a year ago, Kevin went to the post office, I asked him for stamps, and due to a miscommunication on my part he came home with books of dreadful “celebrate” stamps. I tried to bring them back and trade them for something prettier, but it wasn’t allowed. So I’ve been slowly working through them for the last 14 months. The postage rate went up, so I could at least use the pretty Tiffany 1¢ stamps, too, but I’m so happy that I only have two left.

I bought two books of pretty new stamps (hearts and sunflowers) last week – they will bring such happiness to my bill-paying.

For some reason the last few inches of the hat took days this time around. I finally managed to bind off, sew in the few last ends, and get it blocked. Since this was a Christmas present, I’m feeling relieved that it’s finished before the end of January. Entering a new month with it still on the needles would have been too guilt-inducing.

(Note that the garlic is thriving!)

After months of growing increasingly irritated at the moss, Kevin began the war to eradicate it. First he tried spraying zinc sulphate, and when that wasn’t lethal enough he switched to an ammoniated soaps and fatty acids solution.

I’m pretty ambivalent about this phase of the project (the moss is so green, and I’m not really a spraying chemicals person), but I’m considering it a trial for our roof which desperately needs moss relief. The chemical-free solution (scrubbing with a wire brush) isn’t really an option for the shingles.

Several days later, the moss is distinctly dead in some patches and distinctly flourishing in others.

The colors in this photo are particularly true – the moss is thicker and greener than the lawn at this point.

You have to be impressed at its tenacity.

It took me ages to weave in the last few ends, and then even longer until we had enough daylight for a photo, but the striped Noro scarf is finally done!

And really, just in time. It has been so cold here, and I’m in heavy scarf rotation. I’ve been getting lots of compliments on it (and from randoms like people in the cafeteria at work and the cashier at Ann Taylor, not just friends who suspect I made it myself), so that’s an extra bit of gratification.

I’m still thinking I might use wool wash on it, since that’s supposed to make it that much softer (according to the Yarn Harlot). That will be a new thing for me, though — does anyone have a favourite wool wash? Where do you find it?

I finally measured Kevin’s head and ripped the hat back to the proper number of stitches (I was off by 20 stitches, or just over 2 inches, so it’s a substantial difference). Here’s a status photo 7 rows into the reconstruction.

All of the mini balls of yarn are the remnants of the ripping. I felt clever for labeling them as I went so that it would be easy to keep the order straight. Since this photo, I’ve finished the dark stripe, and am halfway through the next white stripe. The yarn is gorgeous to work with. I’m not managing to knit as fast as I did in December, but Kevin’s been talking about biking to work again so I’m trying to rush.

This is such a proud, happy, hopeful day. Call it youthful idealism, but it seems like we’re at a moment that’s defined by its potential. So much is off-kilter in our country now, from the economy to our wars, the environment and the investment in infrastructure, and our basic ability to view ourselves as a strong, capable nation. For so long, the trend lines on all of those scary long term problems (health care, social security, global warming, energy, education, etc) have been heading in increasingly dire directions. And there is so much uncertainty and fear right now that it seems odd to have confidence that those problems can be addressed. However, I’ve been listening to Obama speak for years now, and I think he not only has the intelligence and ability to tackle these big problems, but the more rare ability to inspire people to make hard decisions and progress past the nadir. The fact that so many millions of people listened to him and then voted him (and all of his complex opinions) into office is an amazing, wonderful first step.

Time will tell but I’m so optimistic.

I didn’t want to post without a picture. This one is completely appropriated (it’s a quilt from the “President Obama: A Celebration in Art Quilts” show that’s coming up at the Cafritz Art Center in Maryland – wish the show was closer, it looks amazing). There have been some really neat stories, I think, about the grassroots-level outpouring of folk art that the Obama campaign and now presidency are inspiring. Everything from photos and paintings, to street art, murals, mosaics, large scale carvings and sculpture… You certainly see evidence of it on the craft blogs, and there’s a neat general blog about the art here. I completely understand the emotion that drives all of this creativity, and so many of the results are just beautiful.