Lots of New Things

The past few weeks have been filled wiht new things. Like right now, I am typing on a new keyboard that is connected to a new Mac Mini. Technically, it is Steve's for work, but he is letting me share.

Other new things include a bird bath. Actually, it is more like a bird torture chamber. The bath itself is lovely (thanks to steve's parents who funded this endevor). Unfortunately, since we live in a god aweful oven of a state, water just doesn't want to stay in the birdbath. Steve ran the daily drip line to it so that it gets water twice a day. Too bad that when it doesn't get water, the thing gets so hot that is it the equivalent of hot coals. When water goes into it, and before it evaporates 5.6 seconds later, it is practically boiling. I have not seen any birds come near it. Someone said that it takes a few weeks to get used to it being there. It has been there three weeks. I think that some poor guy landed on it, burned his feet so bad that he could not move, and then got sprayed with boiling water. Come to think of it, there are far less birds in the yard these days. Word must have gotten around.

Included in new things are a couple of sewing projects. I made my first article of clothing. It is the A-line skirt with an elastic waist from Sew What! Skirts. The fabric is an Amy Butler fabric that Steve thought was too ugly for household things, but was OK for a skirt. Curious. Anyway, it took a few tries to get it right. It came out too big, twice. Third time was sort of a charm. I need to learn how to do zippers. The elastic waist seems sort of granny-ish, but the skirt has already come in handy for the heat. Plus, who are we kidding, I am not getting any younger. The girl wo does my eyebrows told me that my skin texture was starting to show my age, and that is all of the samples of face cleanser, night lotion, and masks didn't help, she will really be at a loss as to how to fix my face. Great. She was also appaled that I use *GASP* regular soap and a wash rag in the shower. Guess what? I also use Trader Joe's shampoo and conditioner. THE HORROR!

Today I made a little blanket for a cat basket that we have in front of the front window. Every week(ish) when I clean the house, I get so grossed out when I clean under the basket. There is a ton of hair and pet dander. Barf. I made this to help be a little grossness collector. I figure that washing is better than wiping.

Craftiness has ensued...

We hosted a going away party for our friend, and Steve's colleague, Keren on Friday night. She is moving back to Israel to be closer to her family. Sad for us, happy for her. It was the first time that we were having people to our house, and we were worried about the seating situation. So, last weekend I went to the used furniture store and got a small club chair. It was ugly, of course, so I bought $12 worth of clearance upholstery fabric and attempted to make a slip cover. I did the whole pin-it-in-the-wrong-side-and-sew thing. After 6 hours, the result was a very misshapen and slightly passable slip cover. I made another pillow to cover up some of the mess. After all that, no one even sat on it. I guess it is for the best. Roxy likes it though.The party was the first time that we were able to see our friends Kate and Jeff. They had a little baby, Henry, at the end of April. Henry was born at 25 weeks, but is doing extremely well. I took the opportunity of seeing them to make a couple of little hats and a blanket. Being the sucky geologist that I am, I forgot to put something in the photo for scale. Each hat is about 3.5" tall. Hopefully Henry gets some good use out of them.

Way Back When

I have some pictures to share form Steve's parent's visit. I am only three weeks behind! While they were here, in between their fixing the shed and installing a programmable thermostat, we took a day trip to Bisbee and Tombstone.

Bisbee is an old mining town. A lot of the houses were miners shacks back in the day. Some still look like they have not changed in 100 years. Others are remodeled and are going for about $300K. AZ real estate is ridiculous. Here are some Bisbee sights.
Before we left , we stopped at the Copper Queen Branch open pit mine. They have a mine tour of the underground workings, but not everyone was up for that. Still, the open pit was pretty cool.On our way back, we stopped in Tombstone. We had driven through before, and thought it was lame. Steve's mom really wanted to stop, and we are glad we did. Apparently, we weren't driving through the right part before. There is a whole street that is blocked from traffic so that stage coaches and horses can use it. Every where you look there are people in period costumes (even kids!) doing stuff like shopping, drinking beer (can you believe that is a job!), having conversations, hanging out. It was kind of craptacular because it was all so fake, but it wasn't fake at the same time because most of the buildings were from the 1800's. Worth going for some entertainment. While we were there we drank some beer.

And saw a posse.

ugh.

Things have been really busy around here. Visit from Steve's parents. Trip to San Francisco over Memorial Day weekend. People having babies, people getting pregnant (NO! DEFINITELY not me), people getting married. Pictures to come soon. I swear.

Miss Poo has lived up to her name!

I just got a call from the vet. She ate. She pooped. She is being a pain in the ass. Time for Kate to come home. Weeeeee!

Oh, and they still have no idea what she was passing, but the new x-ray shows that she is free and clear.

Sick Kitty :(

Kate had been throwing up a little bit for the past couple of days. Yesterday morning I had the pleasure of stepping in, and cleaning up, mucous and blood. Since this is never good, she had to go to the vet ASAP. She is passing something, they don't know what from the x-rays, but ti is irritating her insides as well as blocking up her whole GI tract with fluid. The X-rays also showed that my attempt to get her to stop eating the weather stripping from the back door was in vain. She had to spend last night and tonight at the vet. she is hooked up to an IV to help hydrate her in hopes that the hydration will help her push through the poop. I went to visit her last night after work. She was all meows when I got there. When she realized I wasn't there to take her home, she started to blow air out of her nose like a bull. She's so cute. Keep your fingers crossed! I need Miss Poo to come home!

Weekend Pictures

Ok, I really did do stuff this weekend, and to prove it, here are some pictures of sewing. First off, the office. Steve was nice enough to let me add my craft/sewing table to the room, as well as move the bookcase. The bookcase was looking cluttery, so last month I made some curtains for the middle shelves and hung them with tension rods. Gotta love those Joann coupons! Then the table was looking cluttery, so to dress it up I made a skirt for it this weekend with some Amy Butler fabric. I love this stuff. The only thing I love more is the light fusible webbing that I used to hem the sides instead of actually sewing. Then I used 3M adhesive strips to attach it to the table.
The other thing I made with the same curtain fabric (some sort of Liz Claiborn stuff) was some spring pillow for the sun room. The other pillows are old ones.And of course, the bird update. Look how big they are! The mom leaves more now, so it is easier to get pictures.

Ugh.

Already I couldn't meet my goal of posting every day. Whatever. Like I was really going to do that. Actually, we had a busy weekend of bowling, planting, sweating (it is already in the 100's), napping, sewing, and yogaing. There would be pictures, but the light is bad in the house at night, and obviously really bad in the yard. Oh, and bird watching. There are TWO babies.They have doubled in size since I took this late last week. It's hilarious seeing all three of them shoved in one nest.

Work

Today I had meetings all day at one of the mines. I can't say which one, probably, or why, but I took a few pictures of things that were cool that aren't significant, legally anyway. I figured some of you might be interested since not everyone gets to go to a mine.

Here are copper plates. After a long process involving cool stuff like acid, starter plates of copper are set in a solution that has copper dissolved in it. An electric current is run through the whole thing and the copper in the solution sticks onto the starter plates. Each of those pallets are about up to my waist.Here is a SMALL haul truck. The tires are taller than me. I caught this when I was leaving, which is why it seems far away. I have no idea why it was in black and white, but it looks kind of cool.
And the best part.....take a look at my thermometer at 3pm. In May. Blech.

CSA

Thanks to a tip from Kali, last month we joined a CSA. It stands for community supported agriculture. Basically, a farmer near phoenix has a bunch of different land at different elevations and farms a bunch of different things. Steve goes every Monday to a place near the university to pick up our shares. We never know what we are going to get for the week until pick-up day. This is cool because we have to be creative, but can stink because we can't buy everything we need for the week at TJ's on Sunday because we don't know what vegetables we need to incorporate. At least we are forced to try some new things. On the menu this evening were purple carrots (they taste like regular carrots, but are much more fun to look at)....... .......and Russian kale. the kale was cooked with a yellow onion and garlic, both also from the CSA.

Sweater? I don't even know her!

Well folks, here is a sweater that I recently finished. I used some sort of cheapo cotton yarn from Joann's. I originally bought it for a sweater for my nephew, but it was a bit too thick and crappy. I decided to try out an idea I had, which was loosely based on the Glampyre mini sweater. At the risk of looking like a lard ass, here it is.

Pattern: General idea of Glampyre minisweater on top, minus the poofy sleeves, plus a k2 yo lace on the bottom. Knit in one piece.
Yarn: Crappy Joann cotton, maybe Peaches and Cream?
Needles: #8 Addi Turbo circulars
Date Started: April 27, 2007
Date Finished: May 5, 2007
Comments: I didn't do a swatch first. I thought that the cotton would shrink, so I made it a little big. It didn't shrink. Next time I will throw it in the dryer. The cotton SUCKED to knit with. I still have a blister on my right pinkie. I think I will make something similar in wool, but with long sleeves for the winter. Also, wasn't sure how I wanted to close it, so I didn't include a button hole. I currently am using a dancing cat pin, but that is so cliche/creepy with a hand-knit sweater. I need to find something better, like stick or a cocktail sword or something. I don't know. Obviously.

Speedy Delivery!

Look what I got in the mail today! Two new bras and an Interweave Knits (complete with a WARNING THIS IS YOUR LAST ISSUE notice). Either this is terribly exciting, or I need to get out more.

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!

We got up at the butt-crack of dawn this morning for Steve to run a 10K. He came in 10th overall and first in his age group.Normally he doesn't stay around for awards, but his was a Cinco de Mayo race, and Rey REALLY wanted a prize. Reymod Alehandro on his sombrero.Oh, and we have babies! Looks like the dove must have had them a while because they are grey and furry already. You can see one at the bottom left of the nest. Again, I'll try to get some better pictures.

Am I up for the challenge?

I started this blog to keep in touch with friends and family. Unfortunately, I have been bad about posting consistently. To overcome the hump, I propose a challenge to myself. I am going to post every day through the end of May. The only exception *might* be when we are in San Francisco at the end of the month. I don't know what the internet access will be there. So, let's get on with it then!

We have been busy with the outside, mostly. We spread 5 tons of gravel in the front yard to fill in the bare spots. We also moved about 2.5 tons of river rock to make a dry stream bed in the front and rock borders in the back. Not sure how I feel about the rock borders yet. The eventual plan is to fill them in with gravel and have decomposed granite for the rest of the yard instead of dirt.
Good news is, everything is growing except for the penstamon. I don't know if it is too much water, not enough light, too acidic of soil because they are under the Aleppo Pine? Whatever it is, they are not happy.
We are also battling leaf cutters. Those little assholes are doing a number on our redbud. We have tried diatamaceous earth, flooding with water, flooding with vinegar, and busting up their house. They keep coming back. I HATE them. They are fascinating in and of themselves, but they piss me off when they eat our plants. Steve wants to get a blow torch and burn them. I don't think I will go that far.
In other animal news, we have a vermilion flycatcher somewhere in the front yard. A neighbor pointed him out to me last week, but I have not seen him since. We also have a nesting dove in the pyracanthus in the front yard. I just saw babies this morning. I will have to try to get a picture of them soon.
Oh yeah, and by better half turned 30! He got jokes about being old all day. Payback is a bitch :)

Until tomorrow!

Spring has sprung in the Old Pueblo!
Palo Verde across the street at the park.


Purple-nurple cactus (not the official name) in our front yard.


Prickly pear down the street.


Ocotillos down the street, but in another direction.


Kate says "Spring time makes me hungry for kitties!" Roxy says "Step off, jerk."


Schnoggle Doggle has allergies, but he is still cute. Spittty tongue and all.

Ok, the moment you all were waiting for…

Finished bathroom! Of course, it took my dad taking pictures, not me. My dad and sister were here last week, and we had a great time. I just had my eyebrows waxed in this picture, which is why my forehead is so shiny. I have no excuse as to why my upper lip becomes non-existent when I smile.

Anywho, my dad took a few pictures of the bathroom. We still need new towels, rugs, and a shower caddy (the Ikea one didn’t clear the showerhead), but you get the gist.

Also, here are some photos of the new yard plantings/Rey in action. Looks sparse, but I am hoping it all grows in quickly.

IKEA-A-GO-GO

So Joan and I made the hike to Phoenix and went to Ikea Saturday. It was the first time I have ever been there. We got there right when the opened to beat the crowds. As soon as I walked in, I started hyperventilating. It was really overwhelming, and CHEAP! Some of the stuff is crap, but some of the stuff is really good. I got a couple of little lamps for the guest room ($6 each!), some picture rails for the sunroom, and some glass shampoo bottles for the bathroom that match the glass tiles. The big(ish) purchases included a leaning floor mirror for the front room/entrance area,

A craft desk and chair for the office so that I can use my sewing machine without swearing constantly because I have no light or room,

And a couple of side tables ($13 each!) for the guest room.

Before you knew it, we were there for 3.5 hours, including taking a little food break, and I had this weird sense that I couldn’t leave because there was something fabulous that I didn’t buy yet. Good thing I didn’t because we had a very troubling, if not hilarious, time getting everything in the car. The mirror was about 10” too long for the car with the seats down (and I have a Forrester), so we had to have part of the mirror suspended above our heads the whole was home. Good thing we are short.

Between all of the things my dad did while he was here (new light timers, track lighting in the sunroom, laundry room shelving), new plants in the backyard, burying the drip irrigation lines, and some decorating inside, I think that we might be able to invite people over without being embarrassed! The kitchen cabinets are still crap, but those will eventually get done. I don’t know when, but they will.

Busy Bees.

Again, no pictures. No excuses either. Just pure laziness, in the recharging the battery area anyway. Otherwise we have been busy bees. Lots and lots of yard work. I am not going to fall into the trap of being the white trash weed people this year. Oh no! Three weeks ago, I physically pulled up every last weed in the front and back yards. Unfortunately, you would never know this now. I spent a good 30 minutes yesterday after work spraying those little asshole weeds with Round-up. The battle begins again……

Steve tore out our termite tree, and we got a new Desert Willow from the city for $6.00 to replace it. Awesome. I think it is dead though. It was like that when we got it. The dirt was wet in the pot, but I think they did that to claim it was “alive” when they dropped it off. “See? We watered it!” If it doesn’t start getting buds or something in the next couple of weeks, I am going to be pissed. I know it was practically free, but still.

The big news is we bought new plants for the back yard, including a mandarin tree, meyer lemon tree, and Oklahoma redbud tree. All are in the ground and all have…..wait for it……DRIP IRRIGATION! Steve and I put it in ourselves. A ton (but significantly cheaper than hiring someone) of money and a VERY long weekend later, and we are almost done. We have a 6 zone system, with 2 zones going to the front (these will be completed later) and 4 in the backyard. Everything works. There are some leaks, but it is a galvanized to PVC thread issue, and should be able to be fixed this weekend. We also had an electrician come this weekend to hard wire the control box on the side of the house. As soon as the leaks are fixed, we’ll hook it all up electronically. We are both still sore from the weekend. I can’t even think about yoga.

In between everything, I have been working on a pair of socks for Lorie’s 60th birthday (I am a little late, sorry), and I made myself a purse with the Tiny Happy tutorial. Oh, and we went to a neighborhood doughnut party. Don’t ask. Oh, oh, and the mirror for the bathroom came. Again, no pictures, so I will stop now before total boredom sets in.

I suck.

I suck because I was on a roll with the whole posting thing, and then the batteries died in my camera, and I have been too lazy to charge them. how lame is that? Very lame.

The bathroom has been done for two weeks, except for a mirror, which should have shipped yesterday.

Because blogs are boring with no pictures, I will stop typing. Instead, I am writing "CAMERA" on my palm to help me remember to charge the camera. I doubt this will help. I do this every month to remember to give Rey his heart worm and flea stuff, and I usually go to the bathroom and wash it off some time during the day, and forget. I don't feel the need to pee, and shouldn't feel the need to pee before I get home, so maybe there is a chance.

We are the Bears' Shufflin' Crew
Shufflin' on down, doin' it for you
We're so bad, we know we're good
Blowin' your mind, like we knew we would
You know we're just struttin' for fun
Struttin' our stuff for everyone
We're not here to start no trouble
We're just here to do the Super Bowl Shuffle