Tomatoes!!!

Off to a slow start, but my first year of veggie gardening totally from seed is out the gate and making a good run!

I've already harvested my first few tomatoes. They are small, compared to grocery store and/or farmers market offerings, but they really pack a punch. They are SO tasty!

These are going to be SO awesome with grocery store cucumbers and a couple of onions from my garden. Just add a skosh of vinegar...

I enjoyed tiny little spoon tomatoes from the grocery store in my salads last winter, so I searched and found seeds a couple of months ago. I planted 20 seeds, and I've got four plants, one of which is beginning to blossom! Fingers crossed!

First peas weren't enough for a meal, but they made a great snack.

First beans weren't enough for a meal, but I stuck them in the veggie bin in the fridge until I had enough, and oh, were they heavenly!

We still have plenty of rhubarb. I bought strawberries and bananas from the grocery store and then cooked up some rhubarb.

Lizard is LOVING the strawberry banana rhubarb sauce with his plain yogurt every day. I just love to make him smile!

No red sunflowers yet, but still hoping. However, I had a very pleasant surprise last week... I put my amaryllises on the (very hot and very sunny) front porch each summer before I put them in the basement for three months in the fall. Sometimes I will get an unexpected blossom in the hottest part of the summer. I'm so tickled peppermint with this year's bonus!

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Snowflake Monday

I wasn't sure we would ever get to travel again. Lizard has just been too miserable being couped up in the car. But he braved the road to Durango with me last week, and we attended the open house of the Farmington (New Mexico) Temple.

Every temple I've been to (36 so far, and hopefully still counting...) has inspired quilt block designs, although I've not pieced any of my ideas yet. I did once make a temple quilt for my friend Shonna, and I'm hoping to have enough photographs to make another similar to hers one day.

The Farmington Temple had so much quilt inspiration, I'm itching to sit down to my sewing machine again. SOON! For now, though, the motif on the ceiling of the bridal room provided perfect snowflake inspiration. No photography is allowed inside the temple, so you'll have to use your imagination. Or visit the temple yourself!

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I immediately began working on today's snowflake when we got back home. I thought it would be much easier to create than it was. I ended up frogging all but the first two rounds at least seven times because none of my ideas formed the shape I visualized in my head. What I finally used came to me that night in my sleep, and when I tried again the next day, it worked on my first attempt. I had worked out even the stitch count in my head during my sleep!

You may do whatever you'd like with snowflakes you make from this pattern, but you may not sell or republish the pattern. Thanks, and enjoy!

Finished Size: 4.75 inches from point to point
Materials: Size 10 crochet thread, size 7 crochet hook, empty pizza box, wax paper or plastic wrap, cellophane tape, water soluble school glue or desired stiffener, water, glitter, small container for glue/water mixture, paintbrush, stick pins that won't be used later for sewing, clear thread or fishing line

Bridal Snowflake Instructions

SPECIAL STITCHES:

Popcorn Stitch (pc)

Work 5 dc in designated st, take loop off hook, insert hook through top loop of 1st dc and replace loop on hook, pull loop through top of 1st dc.

Make magic ring.

Round 1: [1 pc in ring, ch 3] 5 times; 1 pc in ring, ch 1, 1 dc in starting pc to form 6th ch 3 tip of Round. Don't pull magic circle too tight.

Round 2: Ch 2 (counts as 1 dc), 4 dc over post of dc directly below, 7 dc in each of next 5 ch 3 sp, 2 dc in next ch 3 sp, sl st in 2nd ch of starting ch 2.

Round 3: Ch 2 (counts as 1 dc), [5 dc in next dc, 1 dc in each of next 6 dc] 6 times, omitting last dc of final repeat; sl st in 2nd ch of starting ch 2.
If you're not reading this pattern on Snowcatcher, you're not reading the designer's blog. Please go here to see the original.

Round 4: [Ch 3, 1 dc in each of next 2 dc, ch 3, in next dc work (2 tr, ch 3, 3 trtr, ch 3, 2 tr, ch 3), 1 dc in each of next 2 dc, ch 3, sl st in next dc, 1 sc in each of next 4 dc, sl st in next dc] 6 times; bind off. Weave in ends.

Finish: I've been stiffening my flakes with undiluted, full-strength water soluble school glue for quite a while now, and I've been squishing the glue onto and throughout each flake with my fingers (yucky mess!!!) instead of gingerly painting the flakes with glue. Yes, it's a mess. But it's faster. And stiffer.

Tape wax paper or plastic wrap to top of empty pizza box. Pin snowflake to box on top of wax paper or plastic wrap.

If using glue, mix a few drops of water with a teaspoon of glue in small washable container. Paint snowflake with glue mixture or desired stiffener. Sprinkle lightly with glitter. Wash paintbrush and container thoroughly. Allow snowflake to dry at least 24 hours. Remove pins. Gently peel snowflake from wax paper or plastic wrap. Attach 10-inch clear thread to one spoke, weaving in end. Wrap fishing line around tree branch (or tape to ceiling or any overhead surface) and watch snowflake twirl freely whenever you walk by! Snowflake also may be taped to window or tied to doorknob or cabinet handle.

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Friday Funny

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Oops! I Did it Again!

(affiliate links to my designs)

I came up with this adorable floral rainbow collage a few weeks ago.

Actually, I've done a few floral rainbow collages in the past. They are so fun.

Last week I created a blue floral collage for Spoonflower. Last weekend I had the urge to do it again, this time using all the colors in my garden. Green was a challenge. But I got creative in my interpretation. I'm pretty tickled with how this turned out!

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Wordless Wednesday

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Too Real

(affiliate links to my designs)

Lizard sometimes has horrific nightmares. Thankfully, he more recently is unable to remember most of his bad dreams when I wake him to calm him from blood-curdling screams. I consider his inability to remember his night terrors as one of the most gigantic tender mercies we receive these days.

We both had gone sleepless several nights the week I scheduled to drop off snowflakes in person to a pair of Operation Ornaments coordinators. Carol and Carolyn (the founder) were conducting workshops for disaster preparedness and to assemble ornament packages for families affected by the 2023 fires in Lahaina, Hawaii. Lizard accompanied me to deliver ornaments handmade by me, Sisters of the Snowflake founder Autumn, and a pair of sister missionaries from my church. We had a delightful visit with the two women, whom we were so excited to meet, and I even got interviewed as an "Ornament Angel."

Both Lizard and I fell fast sleep upon returning home... in the middle of the day. We have been working diligently since March to flip our sleep schedule. We had gone 35 consecutive days of sleeping only at night until near the end of June, when suddenly and without explanation we were struggling again. I hear it's very common for people with Parkinson's (and as a result, their caregivers) to sleep all day and be up all night. Just like the old song from high school, only not from partying...

Our palliative care nurse had recommended we nap not longer than 30 minutes during the day (up to three times per day) to make sleep at night more needful. That's how we'd finally built more than a month of back-to-back success. I let him sleep an hour if he's had a difficult night, and he'd definitely had a difficult night. I told Lizard we could sleep only until the alarm signaling his next medication dose, which would be just a bit more than an hour.

Now it was my turn for nightmares. I dreamed, so vividly I thought it was real, that I had forgotten a box of snowflakes and instructed Lizard to sleep on while I delivered the final box. I planned to be back well before his next dose of medication.

In the dream, I quickly delivered the snowflakes, then returned to the parking lot, only to discover my car was gone! Sheer panic set in as I tried to figure out how to get Lizard his pills without transportation to get me there on time. I wandered the neighborhood in a high state of anxiety, pushing the alarm button on my key FOB, earnestly listening for the beep of my car's alarm. Crickets.

I wandered beneath an overpass where the eyes of gangs of unkempt men much larger than me riveted upon me. I was even more terrified. I tried to briskly make my way back into the daylight when suddenly I heard my car beep. I had continued pushing the button on the FOB as I walked. My eyes followed the sound of the beeps from my car, but instead of my car, my vision landed upon a vehicle filled with even more men, and they were driving straight toward me. I began to run toward the daylight as fast as I could.

My phone rang, and I was shocked to see Lizard was calling. I speedily answered and tried to keep my calm while explaining to him why I wasn't home yet while marveling at his renewed ability to use the phone. In real life, he has not been able to operate his phone for more than a year, but just the day before, he had succeeded in calling me while I was in the garden. He didn't know where I'd gone and was trying to find me. I asked him how he figured out how to call me, and he couldn't remember. But, back to the nightmare, Lizard expressed his anxiety over not being able to find his pills.

I tried to explain how to open the Saturday compartment of the pill box and how to retrieve just three pills when his alarm, on his phone, on which he was trying to speak, began blaring again. In real life, he often accidentally hits the snooze button instead of the stop button. He began panicking, and I told him I would call for an Uber ride so I could get home and help him with his pills. I was still running for daylight, and a monster car was still gaining on me.

Just then, his real alarm in real life began blaring, jarring us both. The dream seemed so real to me, I thought our car was still missing. My heart was up in my throat, and my blood pressure likely was off the charts. I ran to the front window and stared in shock at the car properly parked right where I'd left it. All was safe and sound. Lizard got his pills, and his reaction to my trepidation was enough to thoroughly wake both of us. For HOURS!

Not the most user-friendly method of enforcing shorter naps, but I can't deny its effectiveness. On the very bright side, we didn't fall back asleep until after 10 that night. Even more importantly, we slept through the night!!!

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Snowflake Monday

I have a very different breed of snowflake to share today. I recently donated every last crocheted snowflake I have, plus every last crocheted ornament Autumn, our Sisters of the Snowflake founder, donated to me to donate to Operation Ornaments. One set (of 150 crocheted snowflakes and bells) went to Ruiodoso, New Mexico, just 40 miles from where I grew up and which has been enduring horrific fires and flash floods last year and again this year. The final set (of 92 ornaments) is going to Lahaina, Hawaii, which suffered a devastating fire in 2023.

In the boxes and boxes of stuff Autumn donated to me were a few beaded snowflakes in a kit. There were extra beads, but no pipe cleners. The sister missionaries who've been helping me prepare ornament donations offered to make more beaded ornaments. I just needed to get some pipe cleaners. I bought three more bags of clear plastic beads of various sizes and shapes, too, because, why not? Maybe even I could make a few beaded snowflakes.

We staged a mini ornament-creating party the day before I scheduled to deliver in person everything I have left to (local) Operation Ornaments board member Carol Burton and Operation Ornaments founder Carolyn Nicolaysen. I'd never made pipe cleaner and bead snowflakes before, and there were no instructions. So we winged it. I think we did a GREAT job! And it was fun, too.

I thought it would be fun to share this inspiration with you. (And now I have to get busy and start crocheting more snowflakes!!!)

You may do whatever you'd like with ornaments you make from these instructions, but you may not sell or republish this blog post. Thanks, and enjoy!

Finished Size: whatever you decide
Materials: For a snowflake, six pipe cleaners (I bought a whole bag of sparkly silver) and beads of assorted sizes and shapes in multiples of six (the kit we started with had blue and white, and I purchased clear irridescent), optional adhesive-backed snowflake shapes (what we used came in the wide assortment of supplies Autumn donated, but I'm sure they are available at department stores, craft stores or online) or buttons or whatever small decorations that could be attached to snowflake centers, scissors not meant to cut fabric or thread (DO NOT use your sewing or quilting scissors to cut pipe cleaners!!! They will NEVER cleanly cut fabric again if you do!)
NOTE: The sister missionaries also made wreaths, snowmen and other holiday shapes, too. I think the possibilities are endless.

Beaded Pipe Cleaner Snowflake Instructions

Twist three pipe cleaners tightly in the center. (After my first ornament, I twisted the ornaments one or two inches from the center and used clippings to make ornament hangers for other ornaments and to make smaller snowflakes.)

Begin sliding beads onto pipe cleaners, using six identical beads each round so the spokes will be even. I alternated sizes and shapes, but colors could be alternated, too.

After desired spoke length has been achieved, twist pipe cleaner ends to secure beads in place and clip off five ends. Twist or bend the sixth end into an ornament hanger.

Clippings also may be used to create smaller snowflakes.

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