The days are getting longer! My drives from work to daycare in the evenings this week have been filled with pink light and gorgeous sunset mountains – it’s been an unbelievably enjoyable sight.
The entrance to the daycare comes about 30 ft after you crest the hill and the Olympics come flooding into view. It’s wonderful. The strictly fastest route home from daycare takes about five minutes and features lovely views of the Cascades. There’s a twelve minute route, though, that winds through a neighborhood up on a hill, and has gorgeous views of the Olympics and Lake Washington and then swings around and you can see the Cascades. It’s just enough longer that it’s not an everyday route, but the views are inspiring.
Really the only thing I miss about our old apartment is those Olympic and lake views – they were incredibly uplifting. It’s a treat to have a daily reason to glimpse them again. We live in such a beautiful place.
Protected: Evening
Playing along
I have been steadily planting bulbs for the last two years. Last spring, the result was underwhelming – a few listless daffodils. But I got so much enjoyment out of that paltry showing, and planted tons more bulbs last fall. They all starting cropping up about three weeks ago along with the ones from two years ago that never came up, and I can’t tell you how much I’m enjoying the steady growth and anticipation of blooms. These are pictures from Valentine’s day – each of the sixteen photos is a different spot in the yard. (And it turns out that I missed one, because the mini daffodils in the rock wall suddenly bloomed on Tuesday!)
My very favorites right now are the bulbs outside our bedroom window, because they’re the first thing I see in the morning, and the increasingly full garden of tulips along the path to the front door.
Other fun signs of spring:
The elephant ears in the rock wall are blooming pink. This is definitely their most attractive time of year.
The pathetic forsythia (that lives under the pine trees and doesn’t get anywhere close to enough light) is blooming a bit!
Due to the sparseness of the buds, this one is best appreciated from less than a yard away. At least the flowers look pretty next to the red holly berries, although seeing such an early spring flower next to such a Decemberish plant is kind of jarring.
And now something basic
After finishing the cabled vest (which I still need to block and take photos of!), I was in the mood for something stockinette from the stash. Since pants have been the weak link for us recently, I found a pattern on ravelry for long-legged soakers that also worked as pants. The yarn is Plymouth Encore left over from a hat that I made for Kevin years ago.
The rounds are long, but between the short rows every 7 rows and the stripes every 15, there’s enough to keep it interesting. I had to stop and measure them to make sure they’ll fit – they seemed enormous, but the tape measure says they’re perfect.
Protected: First rice cereal!
Queuing up
I stopped by the fabric store to see if they had more of the dishtowels I’d need to resew H’s pants to a better size. Success!
I even found a pretty blue bali print that will work with the brown (a nearly-impossible one to find a good lining fabric for, it turns out).
I also found these fat quarters in the discount bin – such pretty stripes.
I’m thinking lining and patch pockets for a new pair of reversible spring overalls? After the success of the baptism outfit, I’m all gung-ho about sewing more overalls for him.