Tag Archive for 'summer'

Currents

Published
by
robayre
on July 3, 2010
in General Update and life
. 1 Comment

I haven’t posted in a while, not for lack of things to share. I have been keeping a looooong list of things I want to write about, but just haven’t for whatever reasons. Inspired by this post, I thought I’d drop in and share my currents.

listening: A playlist on my ipod titled Rad Music. It basically consists of my top rated songs.
eating: Last thing I ate was homemade Tuscana soup.
drinking: Snapple diet green tea
wearing: Red and gray striped pajama bottoms, blue ‘lumberjack punching a grizzly bear’ t-shirt
feeling: Hopeful, and also irritated by the fan blowing those little hairs against my face and making my face itchy.
weather: Warm, but cool enough to have the windows open
wanting: My art studio to be miraculously clean next time I open the door.
needing: I can’t think of anything I need. I’m satiated.
thinking: I have so many things on my list of things to do and I wish I could get them done, but I feel the messy studio is holding me back.
enjoying: the last few days that have been summery, but not so hot I wanted to lock myself up in the closed house, blasting the air conditioning. Sometimes I hate summer for making me sweat just for walking out the door. So, I really enjoy the times when it’s warm, but not hot and the sky is blue speckled with white puffy clouds.
wondering: What next week will bring. I’m excited for possibilities.

Have a great weekend!

garden update

Published
by
robayre
on June 18, 2010
in General Update and life
. 0 Comments

Last I updated about my garden I was just watering dirt, waiting for any signs of action below the soil. It seems like forever ago, and while I now have plants, they appear to be quite delayed from what other gardens seem to have going on. A coworker told me about how his tomatoes are taller than he is, and already producing fruit. My tomatoes, in contrast (above in top right corner), are not even one foot tall yet. Given, I did plant from seeds and it was pretty late in the spring. I was at a nursery the other day and see they had potted tomatoes ready to buy that that were way bigger than mine.

This year I have tomatoes, zucchini, cilantro, and mixed greens growing, and I JUST started some pumpkins as well. One thing I learned from last year was fewer was better and to thin out the plants, since I’m doing container gardening. As soon as I did that my plants starting taking off. The zucchini have tons of blossoms AND I was very happy to share my started plants with many people so far.

We’ve been harvesting and using the greens and cilantro for quite a while. Last year I grew all sorts of salad greens and I really couldn’t stand to eat any of it because it was all too bitter. This year I bought greens that said they were heat resistant. Cutting some from the pot and taking a bite I was sad to taste that it still seemed bitter, but I brought it in and thoroughly rinsed it. I don’t know if it is because they are a heat resistant or because of the thorough rinsing, but added to salads they don’t taste bitter at all.

And thanks to the garden we’ve had some delicious salads so far. I’m looking forward to zucchini bread and yummy tomatoes later this summer.

Still alive

Published
by
robayre
on July 9, 2009
in General Update and life
. 3 Comments

Yes, I’m still alive and kicking.

Some things I’ve been up to:
-reading, reading, reading (blogs, books, etc.)
-going to lots of different functions (family reunion, wedding, 4th of july, etc.)
-matt’s birthday was last Friday, so we went out to eat several times, and we’re going out with his family tonight
-doing a little bit of playful sketching, and ink drawing on a larger secret project
-plenty of lying around (partially because of the hot summer and partially because of the sprained ankle)

Really, I didn’t have anything really important to share, just thought I’d drop by to say “hey”. Please check my twitter for more frequent tiny updates and linky goodness :)

Until next time…

* edit* after posting this I noticed that the address had a “2″ after the title, which led me to find this earlier post from a few years ago. I especially enjoy the quote from Matt about drinks needing to be drinkie not eatie. AND uh-oh, probably the first mention of making my art themed geocache. Good thing I put it on my list of things to get done this year, otherwise who knows how many years later I’d still be talking about doing it.

Introductions

Published
by
robayre
on June 24, 2009
in Fun, General Update and life
. 5 Comments

Don, don na DAAAH!
Welcome to the world Tomato a (small a ’cause he’s so tiny) and Tomato B (below).

I just hobbled out to water my plants and was surprised to see I’ve got two little tomatoes growing. I squealed when I saw “a”, which is probably the diameter of a dime (if even) and then shocked when I saw “B” (probably the size of a half dollar) because ‘How had I not seen this big ol’ tomato yet?!?!’.

For my first container garden I said I’d be pleased if I got one fruit or vegetable off of each variety of plant I grew. As I only had one tomato plant, that seemed reasonable. Then I thought “oh no, do tomatoes self pollinate or will I have a fruitless plant because I only had one?” but it worked. Multiple tomatoes off of one plant (so far).

My mom told me, since I’m enjoying my container garden so much this year, that if I wanted, I could till up a section in their old garden (which has just become one with the rest of their lawn) and have a garden there. I think I might take her up on that. I have dreams of making a little fenced in garden area, like my grandma used to keep, where things are all planned out and have their places. I’m learning a lot about that after seeding and planting so many in just the containers this year.

I’m excited for Tomato a and Tomato B and the rest of the gang to develop and ripen.

I’m sure they will all be delicious. Is that disturbing? Naming and then eating your produce? I promise not to get too attached :D

shop update and what’s going on

Published
by
robayre
on August 3, 2008
in General Update
. 4 Comments

I added a few pinback buttons to my shop.
Did you know that tallgrass prairies could be 6 feet tall, but still there is more underground than what is seen above ground? And according to wikipedia 99% of the original prairie is covered with farmland now. I once heard that the majority of the remaining original prairieland runs along railroad tracks.
My grandmother, who was involved in prairie restoration, got me very interested in prairies when I was a child. I’ve loved them ever since and wanted to bring something with my love of prairies to the shop. They’re 1″ with pinbacks, or a magnet if you prefer, and they’re priced at just $1. Not too bad, if I do say so myself.

As for “what’s going on?” Not much. The heat has officially kicked on and thus I feel super lazy. I hate sweating unintentionally. My face gets drenched and my make-up melts off. It’s also very hard to get motivated to do anything, even exercise, even though I’m already hot and sweaty. Yesterday I mowed and the rest of the day I had a headache and felt like I could not get th heat out. I kid you not, I even sat at the computer, air conditioner on, with a bag of frozen mixed vegetables on my head hoping to cool off, but no dice. BUT, good news, as erin noted to me the other day, the cicadas are already started to sing which means the end of summer, hurrah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I probably just had 2 of my 3 readers unsubscribe from my blog for saying that. People seem to really love their summer here. But, I was thinking earlier this week, I have a very small window of comfort, 65 to 75 degrees. If it’s above, I’m sweating, if it’s below, better pile on the layers.

Even Bishop and Theo feel the heat. Must be torture with permanent fur coats. Above you can see how they are getting along. We are pretty comfortable allowing them to be together alone, without fear of one tearing the other one to shreds. We also have the sneaking suspicion that while we are gone during the day Bishop sleeps outside of Theo’s cage. Tomorrow morning Bishop is going in for the big snip-snip. And while my friends Al and Elinor are in between moves, I’m renting their budgie, Ted Nugent. It’s nice to have some company in my studio while I work.

summer time

Published
by
robayre
on June 25, 2008
in General Update
. 0 Comments

I saw my first firefly of the season tonight.

That’s all.

Not much going on here.

summer means skirt wearing

Published
by
robayre
on June 6, 2008
in General Update
. 1 Comment

6.6 theo skirt, originally uploaded by robayre.

Last night I decided I was going to make a skirt. I have the book 49 Sensational Skirts and had some sudden and driven inspiration. I dropped by JoAnn Fabrics, where they were having a 60% sale on linen, went home and got to business. I wore the creation to work today, and although I did not get any “cute skirt” comments, I didn’t get any sideways glares either, so I’ll just take it as a compliment that people assumed it was a store bought skirt. It’s a simple, just below the knee black skirt with detailing on the left lower portion, seen above.

  • I cut circles of yellow, gray and black patterned fabrics, layered 3 of them and tacked them down in random/balanced/assymetical position.

  • I used the sewing machine to sew three stips down each stack of circles.

  • Then I took the scissors and cut between the strips of sewing, dividing each circle stack into three divisions.

  • Next, I trimmed away a little bit of each circle away, making each layer underneath slightly visible.

  • Lastly, I went through each circle layer and fussed with the edging, letting it fray and look messy.

Voila, an adorable skirt.

One more thing, completely unrelated.
Within a week, it has gone from “okay, it’s finally getting to be summery” to “Dear Lord, please bring on a new ice age”. I hate the feeling that I want and need to take a second shower during the day because I’m sweating. yuck. Point being, all week the only thing I’ve craved are the following 3 things: slurpees, thai iced teas, and mcdonalds new sweet tea.

Have a great, cool weekend everyone!