Front Porch

We had the house assessed a while back and the assessor said that the porch would sell the house, but sadly he hardly ever sees anybody using their outdoor spaces.  Not so for our family.

Technically speaking, the house is considered on the small side, 1900 square feet I think.  But we have a wrap around porch that spans the front of the house, out a few feet on one side and out and around the corner of another.  On the back of the house we have a deck.  So I have never felt deprived of space.  We have a basement too, that DH mainly uses.  I do not love basements.  I like to be out in the fresh air and natural light.

Okame Cherry Tree

DD and I spend most of our time out here on days like today.  I am sure that I have waxed poetic about the porch before.  I have always wanted one.

Right now the porch is dirty.  DH has been talking about pressure washing it and the house and driveway for about a year.  And it could use a coat of paint.

DH just hacked back the bushes in front of the porch.  They had grown up past the railing, which I like.  The giant bushes hide the porch from the front and make it quiet.  But now that they’ve been pruned to about three feet, the porch seems to have grown, even though the bushes did not extend onto it.  What an odd perception.

Blah-blah, blah-blah.  Really, I am just enjoying Spring.  Both kids have Spring Break next week.  So I am trying to find many fun things for DD to do.  So far we have a family visit and a trip to a bouncy house scheduled.  I also plan to take her to the park and library.  And maybe if DH is not horribly busy, I can take her to have lunch with him.

For anybody who needs to know, the secure connection at the Forsyth County Public Library requires WPA2/TKIP.  Not AES.  And Service Pack 2 for XP.

Yes, I’m sure you wanted to know that.  However, that has been my morning, the upside of which is that I can now vacate the distraction of my house to this location which is relatively free, and very clean.  I say relatively free, because we pay taxes.

I am also free of the distraction of any typical social network, i.e. Facebook, and Yahoo Groups.  That’s sort of a bummer, because I just tried to shut off my Yahoo Group notifications and will have to wait until I get home.  But since the idea is not to read them anyway, not a big deal.

DH wants to go away for a few days over Spring Break.  His idea of a good time is going to a remote local with either nothing to do except golf, or absolutely nothing to do.  This does not work for me managing a five year old.  She needs bounce houses, and swimming pools and movies and trains and things.  Otherwise, she’ll be a miserable little child who would be happier at home with her friends and her stuff.

Anyway, we’re looking for a place where everybody can be entertained that isn’t incredibly far away.  Atlanta, of course, has everything, but is too close.

Weed-whacking Equipment by dvs

DH was super-industrious this weekend, which culminated in the breaking of a somewhat expensive garden tool.  Ugh. These projects always spawn more projects.  On the bright side, the cars are all freshly maintained.  And the part of the yard that doesn’t require the broken tool looks terrific.

DOWNSTAIRES LIBRARY EMPTY SHELVES by Yuba College Public Space

I didn’t give much thought to how entirely convenient it is to have a library five miles from the house.  It’s almost on on my way to and from DDs school.  I might drive a mile or two out of my way to get there.  But that’s incredibly close compared to driving fifteen miles one way with no other reason to be in that location.

The wifi sucks, however.  And in the area near the children’s section, there are tiny chairs and tables, and one lounge area for grown-ups that is not conducive to laptop use.  I made it work.  But it wasn’t comfortable.  I downloaded a document for an alternate setup to connect with the counties wifi.  I hope that I can configure it next week, and that it will work consistently, rather than intermittently.

I saw several college or high school looking students with laptops.  If I have time, I’ll inquire of somebody else with a laptop if they have good service.  I have found that asking the library staff yields very friendly dialogue, and an absolute dearth of useful technical information.

I could use the library computers.  But that rather defeats the purpose of owning a laptop where I can have all of my information, instead of just what is hosted.  Also, part of what prompted me to have a laptop is that the library computers have annoying pop-up screens reminding me of how many minutes I have left, do I want to renew, blah, blah.  It’s distracting.

On the other side of the library, nowhere near the children’s section are rows and rows of computers and laptop hosting stations.  That’s terrific if you’re studying for an exam and don’t want to be disturbed.  But it isn’t great for me who wants to go there after school with my child and work while she browses the children’s books.

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This doesn’t make the series any less interesting to me.  But the element of suspense that Band of Brothers had for me, where I had heard of a few of the battles and locations, but had never heard of the characters, is not the same.

I worked at the Naval Hospital at Camp Pendleton in the 90s.  So I absorbed some historical information without actually intending to do so.  This is not to say that I didn’t find military history interesting at the time.  I was just working and going to school and didn’t really have time to pay it a whole lot of attention.  I don’t think I had cable; because I didn’t have time to watch tv.

In any event, I managed to learn who Basilone, Leckie and Sledge are.  Though given my location at the time, it probably would have been hard not to learn those names.  That and the fact that I am a warehouse of useless information, that occasionally turns out to be useful.

Iwo Jima Memorial by kanu101

And so continues my obsession with made for HBO series. I used to rent all the HBO series. Then we got them on Netflix. And now we have HBO with Comcast, free. Free from Comcast of course, means that they’ll be charging us for it any minute.

And I’m not looking at an ingredient list for a bag. I’d just like it to be a brand that isn’t going to fall apart. And by that I mean, that I have used them and haven’t torn out the lining, the zipper, etcetera within a short span of time. Those brands all seem to carry no red at all, or a deep red.

I don’t understand this. Red occurs in nature.

epiphanie by MissMessie

What I should do is buy a red fabric that I love. And make it into a bag. But that requires energy. And if I had energy, my house would be cleaner.

Maybe it’s 80s nostalgia. I nearly bought a lime green bag.

Ack. I wrote this post almost a week ago, but didn’t post it. Nice job – not. I have since given up on finding red. I ordered an aqua color Tignanello bag.

Tomorrow is St. Patrick’s Day. DD proudly told me she found something green to wear: panties. Of course, I explained that she won’t be showing those to anyone and found her a green pair of pants.

Monday is always a total carnage situation of domestic sloppiness at our house. I usually plan cleaning, not paperwork because of the Monday mess. But for some reason I imagined that today I could ignore it and at least work on the taxes.

Not so. I’ve run off to a cafe with wi-fi. I came actually for a croissant. But then arrived and wanted asiago bread. I’ve been known to drive 50 miles for croissants.

I no longer feel sick. But I’m tired. And this does not make for a lot of productive housework. Friday I hung shelves in the laundry room. They’re nice and level, though way too high for anything but storage. Then Saturday I felt exhausted and sat on the couch doing taxes.

I pulled DD out of ballet. She’s annoyed. So am I. She wants to go, and just goof off. I think if she’s going to go and we’re going to pay tuition her teacher should teach, not babysit the toddler they allowed to enroll. Anyway, too late to join a new program this season. And it’s time for swim lessons.

DD has developed a sudden aversion to water. She screams in the bathtub and says she does not want swim lessons – which is exactly why she needs them. I taught swim lessons when I was a teen. So in theory I could teach her. But it has been my experience that things go much more smoothly if the instructor is a stranger. Kids are weird like that.

I am going to continue to ignore the charcoal colored, elastic/cotton hat knitting attempt. I’m now on the lookout for organic cotton for a pattern that may or may not be more simple.

I started a hood/cowl thing in bamboo silk blend for me, mainly because I had the yarn and sort of a pattern. The Silk Fountain Hood pattern confused me. So I’m just knitting a very simple lace pattern, which is working out fine. Though by the time I finish I may have to throw the cowl in with the winter clothes and down into the basement until next year.

DH is impatient for me to become a better knitter. He wants a new hat.

I pruned the cherry tree and have been gathering the sucker branches to make a compost bed. It is far from a work of beautiful manicured gardening. But in my opinion, preparing compost for future caprice salad ingredients is more important.

Off to the census.

In my absence:

• DD broke her collar bone, which has mostly healed.  We made a build a bear to cheer her up.


Stuffing the Build A Bear

• I am now reasonably healthy. I won’t be turning cartwheels. But at least I feel up to poking a little fun at myself.
• I watched a few movies, since that was the level of my energy.  And some television.  I usually feel bad when I act like a couch potato.  But I actually felt bad enough already to escape guilt.


Alpaca Silk Scarf (prior to completion)

• I continued my amazingly slow, moderately successful knitting.  Which is to say that I started DH’s hat project attempt three times and have since tossed it to the bottom of the bag.  Finished a scarf that needs blocking, because my first attempt at blocking it seems not to have affected it at all.  And started my own version of the Silk Fountain Hood pattern.  My own version because I have bamboo/silk, not pure silk, and the original pattern is lacy beyond my skills.

I watched Coming Home, with Jane Fonda and Jon Voight.  Mainly I watched it because it occurred to me that it was recent at film time, Americans having pulled out of Vietnam for good in 1974, and the movie being released in 1978.  And I remember my father ranting that Hanoi Jane had no business making a movie about the plight of any veteran.  And that was years later, when the movie came out on video.  He was still totally indignant.

hanoi jane by pineapple palace

It was interesting.  I found it most interesting that Fonda’s character wished most for, if trapped on a desert island, a husband.  And this was considered unremarkable.  I think that would be appalling now.  Her relationship with husband was interesting too, not very intimate and seemingly unsatisfying.

Voight’s character, confined to a wheel chair, begins bitter and develops from there.  It was interesting to see him looking so young.  And also interesting to see Fonda looking relatively the same as she does now, which I find suspicious.

I had thought that the way coming home from Vietnam would be portrayed differently in 1978 than it is now.  But I didn’t find Coming Home to be tremendously different in concept than any other post war film.  So it must be universal, at least on film.

Mark Wahlberg (in black and white) by Lessio

I also saw Fear with Mark Wahlberg and Reese Witherspoon.  The thing that I wonder about most with that film is why the producer or writer, or whomever makes such decisions, felt it necessary to make it over-the-top obvious that Wahlberg’s character is a criminal.  I wonder why, because I don’t think having a criminal record is a requirement for being a frightening, abusive person.

I’m looking forward to the new episode of Southland coming out this week.  Though I hope I will get my energy back and be too busy doing things other than watching tv to care much.  I told DH I might do some gardening today.  And he gave me that look that said if I tried it he might have to intervene.  So maybe a couple days before any attempted gardening.

I want to prune some plants that need it badly, and use the prunings to make a bed for tomatoes.  My attempts at organic gardening annoy DH and the neighbors, who prefer to purchase expensive commercial items.  Whereas, my idea of good gardening is to use kitchen refuse for compost and cover it up with pine straw, and use yard refuse like prunings to build beds rather than expensive plastic stuff.

IMG_5924 by Pip_Wilson

Yeah, it looks sort of like a birds nest at first.  But then the twigs settle, and plants grow and just the plants are noticeable.  I do always have to buy topsoil.  Because we just have hard red clay.  And no amount of household compost alone could keep a new plant alive in my yard.

DH made fun.  But we had fresh tomatoes and basil until October last year.  And enough dried lavender to make lavender oil, sachets, and still have some left over.

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On the up side, I have recently resumed the purge of unnecessary household objects. And have delivered several carloads of stuff that was cluttering up the garage and house to Goodwill and The Place. This makes me feel much better, in spite of the fact that the stuff had piled up so high in the first place. At least now we’re going in the right direction.

Cleaning out my grandmother’s apartment really put me behind in my own cleaning. And then… I brought many of her belongings to my house. Trumpet please, announcing way too much stuff. I had given so many of her possessions to charity and friends that I felt that I should keep more things out of respect than I actually needed.

However, I have just given the wool sweaters to Aunt D. I had tried to line them so that I could wear them myself. But it looked ugly. So I gave up on the lining and then just held onto the sweaters waiting to find somebody who could wear them. When I realized Aunt D is the same size and wears wool, I brought the sweaters over. I’m glad they have a new home. I just couldn’t bear to throw them in the donation bin. My grandmother loved those sweaters. I needed be sure to give them to somebody who would really enjoy them.

I have felt so lousy the past several weeks that I have done very little writing. So much so that when I finally tried to log in to my sewing blog, I found the account locked. Fortunately, this was easily fixed with a note to support.

In my absence, the today.com network has changed their revenue policies. I think this will be for the better. But I haven’t fully check it out. Another thing I must see about.

I managed to make money on another venue on royalties from past work, in spite of my current lag monster status. That was nice and cheered me up for a minute.

The knitting is going pretty well, generally. I received my orders from Knitpicks and Elan. And I’ve been experimenting and working on a simple scarf. It seems that I can tolerate alpaca. I’m working with an alpaca/silk/nylon blend yarn. It took a while to get used to it. But now I seem to be able to keep the tension pretty even. Hopefully, when the scarf is finished, I’ll be able to wear it around my neck and not have to give it away.

I got a very brief note from grandmas attorney. As soon as I saw the envelope I had terrible anxiety. Of course they want to know if I’ve closed everything out. And I have not. Every time I do something related to my grandmothers estate it just spirals out into a drama. I feel ill just thinking about it. Still the end is in sight. After months and months, less items that need to be addressed by me are rolling in. The only things really problematic left are family related. Which is where I see doom.

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Leather Handbag

Nice work, mom.

I managed to dry out the registration without tearing it. It was all folded up and in an envelope. And I really thought I’d be paying the county a fee to get them to issue me another copy. But I managed to extract it from the envelope, and spread it out to dry. It is still legible. Though I won’t win any awards for tidiness if I need to present it.

I cleaned up the lake with napkins and the coffee cup cozy that I recently knitted. I was thinking that it was my first functional project. But the dishcloths have turned out to be very useful. So it is my first project that required sizing. It is a little loose. I used it like a towel. Very absorbent.

coffee cup cozy

I ordered ten different types of yarn from Knitpicks and Elann. Most of them are from Elann, which is killer on the shipping, since it’s Canadian. One yarn is either alpaca, or an alpaca blend. I don’t remember which. One skein of yarn seems a reasonable gamble to determine whether or not I can tolerate, and even enjoy alpaca. If not, I will pass it along, no harm done.

The rest of the yarns are cottons and blends with hemp, linen and silk. Some have touches of acrylic and elastic, which I’ve read are terrific to have blended with cotton and other non-stretchy fibers.

And I got a one-skein knitting book, so I’ll have something to do with all the random yarns – or try anyway. And I got two stitch holders, and some stitch markers, guessing about the sizes. I don’t know what kind I’ll like or will work well with the types of yarn I’ll have. But since it is all a big experiment, I’m willing to just try them out.

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We went to get away for the afternoon. MIL kept the kids. It is silly that DH and I hardly ever get an afternoon to ourselves, since there is a teenager completely capable of a few hours babysitting, and the in-laws not so far away. But that is the reality. We spend most of our weekends with family. It’s nice. But it’s equally nice to get some couple time.

Also, there is the granary. And since DH has been doing a lot of baking, fresh grain has become even more alluring. And going there is fun.

Nora Mill Granary

I went searching for locally made goods other than grain, and was really disappointed to find that most of the other items in the store had a home spun look, but were imported from all over. I did find some locally made honey lollipops. Then after I had purchased them found some soaps, ironically, made close to our house. So I went back through the line and got those too.

The coffee shop next door was badly overheated. I couldn’t stand it and went outside.

And of course, we went to the Habersham Winery and sampled the wine (not me so much). The bartender was trying to help out this young man by getting the woman with him very drunk. DH was astonished by how much wine she purchased. Possibly it was that she had had so much of it to drink.

Habersham by turbojoe (away)

I don’t usually buy more than one or two bottles. But I can see why you would want to have it around. Then you don’t have to think about buying it, just pull one out when you are going to a gathering. Also, it’s really fun to have lots of variety and a tale about buying it.

Before we left, both of us scoured the restaurant recommendations. Most all of them had mixed reviews, except for Safari Steakhouse, which was just all bad. Which left us without much for a recommendation. So we went to the Nacoochee Grill. I couldn’t remember why I knew it. But once we arrive, remembered that I ate lunch there with friends a few years ago. It’s a cute place. The food was good, but not fantastic. And we didn’t have to look at really bad uniforms.

Chattahoochee River Dam by jimmywayne

We ate lunch first, then enjoyed the touristy stuff. Then we went to Hofer’s Bakery for coffee. It has all the super tacky decor and tremendously unflattering clothing. The coffee was good. The croissant, mediocre. I saw baguettes when we arrived. But by the time we left they were gone. And all that was left was rye bread. Boo. I didn’t get a picture. But click the link to their site to see the spectacular tackiness.