July 9, 2022

 Well, here I am again.  Just boring ol' me.

Chuck is gone until next week.  My Nigerian house guest just left yesterday.  So I am suddenly feeling rather....alone.  So I am posting to keep you company, or vise versa.

Do you ever get the feeling that you are always staying busy, but feel like you get nothing done?  That is how I've been feeling.  I suppose it's because I tend to do the same thing every day.  Every day I have to repeat what I did the previous day, as if I hadn't done it at all.  Like making the bed, watering the garden, cooking meals, washing dishes, washing dishes, washing dishes, did I mention washing dishes?  Apparently we are always eating something and dirtying up dishes.  I keep doing these things over and over and over.  Like a hamster on a wheel.  I keep moving to get these things done, only to do them over again, as if these things never get accomplished.  It's not like writing a book where you write every day, and then "Voila!" one day it's done and you don't have to work on it anymore.

Oh, me and my hum-drum-ness.

I am not complaining though.  I am very happy with all my blessings. It's like the old poem about washing dishes - we should be grateful for dirty dishes because it means we have food to eat.  Right? Of course, right!

So all that being said, it's nice to have something different or unusual happen once in a while to break things up or just to make my hum-drum life a little more interesting.  Nothing real big has been going on for me, but I did do something that I normally don't do.  I volunteered to host a college student from Harding University for 3 weeks.  Her name is Hannah and she is originally from Nigeria, so I was able to have some interesting conversations with her about her background.  She came here with 3 other Harding students and 2 chaperones on a Mission trip, so they spent 3 weeks just helping out church congregations with whatever they needed help with. I mostly only saw her in the mornings and evenings. Anyway, I don't know what compelled me to rise to the occasion and host her, but at the last minute they were still looking for hosts, and I have an empty guest room, so I thought "why not?"  I had no idea who I was taking into my home or what it would be like or "what was I getting myself into?", but it turned out to be a good experience for me.  Anyway, after 3 weeks of her company, and Chuck gone in Juneau, I just suddenly feel alone.

But I still remain busy with my everyday routines.  This summer has been hot and dry, so I've been watering my gardens every day.  I have learned to do this in the mornings because the afternoons were getting "scorching hot" and it's no fun to be outdoors working in that heat.  I know that high 70s, up to 80 is not "scorching" to most people, but for us Alaskans, that's hot. Our June temps were 10-15 degrees above normal. Our Harding guests were feeling hot too, but they were still dreading going back home where it's worse.   Anyhoo, it's been like that day after day after day for most of June and into July.  Just this week we are finally getting cloudy skies and cooler temps (high 60s), but still not enough rain, so I still have to water everything.  Sometimes I get bored with my daily routines, but I am glad I have something to do, and I can see that the fruits of my labor are already coming.  We are already picking some tomatoes, and I am picking a bowl full of strawberries every 2 or 3 days (YUM!) They are so good with granola! 

My greenhouse is looking like a jungle!

I have to be very careful now walking to the back because my squash plant got too big to be under the shelf, so it decided it needed to lean out into the aisle.  When I planted those there, I was not anticipating them getting that huge.  Also, you can't see it, but way in the back is where I planted my pumpkin, and the vine has gone crazy!  The vines are growing so long and hanging onto everything it can.  I just wish I could see some pumpkins on it.  Chuck said he saw a good-sized one, but I still never saw it - I suppose I'm not looking in the right place. I tend to avoid digging around in the leaves too much cuz I don't want any spider surprises. My cucumber vines are also getting out of control.  After Chuck gets back, we will have to see what we can do about getting them stringed up.  Strung up?  

Other than that, in my free time I have been doing more scrap booking  because Hannah was sleeping in my sewing room.  I had to stash away all of my current sewing projects while she was here.  Now that she's gone, I can pull them out and work on those again.  I don't even remember where I left off, but I believe I was starting to tie my Halloween quilt.

Welp! That's about it.  I'm back in the kitchen again now.

Enjoy your summer weather!

Wild flowers growing in my back yard.

Spring 2022

 Happy Memorial Day, Y'all!

I hope everyone out there is having a fun and safe day.  We spent the weekend in Fairbanks and got back last night.  It was a good weekend - very very busy.  Steph is putting her house up for sale, so we went up there to help her get prepared for that.

On the way home we saw a Mama Grizzly and two cubs.

I know you can't really see the Mama in this picture.  By the time Chuck took the picture for me, she was disappearing through the trees, two cubs following her.

When I got back home, I was worried about my garden that I had left in Justin's care.  The weather has been hot and dry so they really needed to be watered every day.  Our neighbor came and checked on them the day before we came home and said everything looked watered.  To my relief, my plants were still alive when we got home.

We finally bought a nice greenhouse this year!

Then Chuck wanted to add some gravel around it so he wouldn't have all those weeds growing up against it.  I think it adds charm, plus it gives me a place to set some pots, which adds even more charm!

Eventually I want to have the whole greenhouse surrounded by cute pots, but this is the best I can do for this year without spending another chunk of money.  We also bought a couple shepherd's hooks to hang a couple baskets.  I would love to have bird feeders and bird baths!  Maybe next year.

We also bought two apple trees!  I am excited about the apple trees cuz I have been wanting apple trees for so many years now.

So, when we picked our greenhouse, we ordered one that has a shelf on only one side and then we built beds to put on both sides.  I put tomato plants on the left side, and shorter plants on the right side under the shelf (squash and cucumbers).   And then I put all my peppers and some herbs on the shelf.  I also added a few marigolds to help keep aphids away.  When the cucumbers and beans get taller we will have to string them up through the wire shelf.

If you look closely you can see a bell pepper already on that one plant.

Outside in the beds, everything is doing really well.

I already have some clumps of tomatoes growing.

I think this is going to be a better year all around for gardening than last year.  We have more things going for us this year - warmer weather, a greenhouse, and also I had a better head start on everything (started my seeds earlier this year).  Plus I have been more diligent about fertilizing.

I put my pumpkins in the front yard this time just because I didn't have anywhere else to put them.  Chuck built these beds for me. 

 I want to fill them up with perennial flowers, but this year I wasn't very well planned for it, plus I felt guilty spending more money, so I just planted some different flower seeds in them (on both sides of the pumpkins) and now I will just hope that they grow.  Next year I will put more thought as to what perennials I want in there.  I think I want some bleeding hearts and some irises to start with.  Tulips would be cute too.  Chuck says he would rather use the beds for more practical things like more veggies, but I think I would like the front of the house to look pretty with flowers.

I planted some onions seeds in this frog.  I wanna see what it will look like with onions growing in it.

Around the sunroom we have even more beds!

This is where I am growing mint and catnip and some new rhubarb plants.

After I planted all my tomatoes, I had 4 left that I needed to find a home for.  A friend took my last two Polar Beauties.  Another friend said she would take one Sub-Arctic.  I was gonna give the last one to Stephanie but she is too busy now with selling her house, so my neighbor gladly took it.  I kinda felt like I was getting rid of a litter of kittens.  :-(

This is the last one that I am holding for my friend until she gets back from Texas.  She will be pleased that it already has some tomatoes on it.

When I posted last Fall, I wrote that I was going to start making a Halloween quilt.  Well, I finally got the quilt top done!

Now I just need to sandwich it and quilt it.  I am planning on tying it because I want it to have thick batting.  This quilt has sashing with cornerstones, which was a nightmare because my cornerstones weren't matching up, so I had to take in a LOT of seams in order to get them to match up.  It was a pain in the butt and I worried that it would look obvious, but now that I can see the whole thing, you really can't tell where I took the seams in.

The other sewing project I'm working on is English Paper Piecing.  I just learned how to do it and I am finding that it is something that I really enjoy doing.  

I am making a big stack of three different flower designs.  After I get all the flowers made, I will applique them onto some background fabric and make a quilt out of them.  This is just sort of an experiment project before I start trying out some harder designs.

So that's about all for now.  I know I haven't posted in a really long time, but that's because my posts are boring and uninteresting.  I don't know why I thought of posting again today.  Because I miss you??

Peeka and Weeners send their greetings.