Summer Stuff

Things started with the summer office get together at a local ranch. There was longhorn cattle, brisket, a hay ride, and the obligatory water balloon toss. It concluded with an outstanding example of a Texas downpour.
Fourth of July brought barbecue and fireworks watched with neighbors, all of us out in front of our houses "ooohing" and "aahhing".
Now, now it's all about avoiding the heat during the day and waiting for my niece to make her entrance, punctuated with the attempt to keep my tomato and sweet pepper plants alive and very unfocused knitting.

I made it through May! Yes, I know it's mid-June.

May was, busy.  There was the trip to Key West, my youngest turned 15, my in-laws came for a visit over Memorial Day, and my husband was gone for about a week thanks to work (ok so it spilled over into June).  There was very little downtime between festivities, (much of said downtime was spent knitting baby items that still need to be sent to my darling sister).  Housekeeping amounted to trying to get the laundry in the general direction of the hamper to be tended to at a later date and randomly picking things up as I stumbled to bed in the evenings.  It was certainly fun, just rather exhausting.

This last week has been a return to what passes for normal around here: laundry caught up, plants tended, floors vacuumed and me thinking I need to cast on every potential project in the house.
The weekend will bring the celebration of our sixteenth (are you as shocked as I am?) wedding anniversary and Father's Day.  Both look to entail grilling tasty bits of food on the barbecue and eating various pastry while watching movies on the couch.  It honestly sounds like bliss.

A vacation happened

I know it seems odd to announce a vacation "happened", but that is what it felt like. There were so many things going on before we left, many at a frantic (all stressful) pace, that going anywhere seemed downright surreal.  Some of it is still processing in my head.  Yes, it felt that weird to take a vacation.  It was the first time I'd flown in eleven years.  I teared up at the first whiff of sea air the night we got there.  We saw people we hadn't seen in ages.  Awesome sun hats were involved.  I even wore proper day gloves and heels at one point.  I took pictures, though not nearly as many as a good tourist should have.  I think I was too busy revelling in sleeping in and eating a late breakfast outside with roosters pecking round our feet.  Or me with a big grin, hopefully waving at people on the tour buses and boats, usually with little to no response.  I still kept waving.  It was a vacation where I really tried to be polished, elegant and physically coordinated.  Two out of three is good right?  My knee is still healing up from where the pavement demanded blood.  I should probably stick to going barefoot.  Shoes with any sort of heel tend to be dangerous for me to walk in for an extended amount of time, (though I managed to fracture a toe while barefoot so maybe just sitting and knitting is better?).  And I did give in and eat a beloved blue raspberry lollipop, even if blue lips, teeth and tongue look less than elegant. Yum!

Grown Up Summer Clothes

Courtesy of a shindig we are attending in early May, I have been making a fervent attempt at re-working my rather old clothes for mostly housekeeping into an actual wardrobe of clothes I love and am not slightly embarrassed to leave the house in.  This has involved much knitting, some less than stellar sewing on my part (in my defense, pants are more complicated than simple skirts) and the purchasing of some very particular pieces to fill out the rest of it.  

One thing I decided I must absolutely have was a pair of red high heels. Not on everyone's list, I know, but can make a dress pop and jeans look flashy simply by sliding them on.  A bonus is that the pair I bought happen to be exceptionally comfortable as well as affordable! Thank you Payless!  While not the only shoes I purchased for the spring/summer season, they are the only ones that are not black.  All have a slightly vintage vibe to them.
As for the Nuance line from Salma Hayek I've been using, I still love it!  Nothing I've used has caused a negative skin reaction (for once) and the coffee and cocoa butter cream smells like you've smearing a light coating of milk chocolate truffle over yourself as well as improving the texture of the skin.  I will be replacing what I have when it runs out, as it's one of my new favorite things!

A little help for my friends!

One of my dearest friends is a part owner of a lovely little bean to bar chocolate company called Snake and Butterfly  Now they are really trying to open their very own real world store! Please, head over to Dulce de Leche to read more or just head here, to their Kickstarter page  to help them reach their goal! They make amazing tasty treats and happen to be absolutely wonderful people too!

Bunny Bread and New Bath Stuff

All I could think of as I was forming the bread for Easter was a line out of one of the novels by Sir Terry Pratchett, where random characters shout:"Do deformed rabbit!" My poor bunny bread was not the ideally shaped bread sculpture I had hoped for, but he was tasty and went well with the roast lamb.

The other thing that I have been playing with is bath stuff. I will be the first to admit, I am a bath product junkie. Give me beauty in a jar!  So when a friend of mine pointed out a new line she was trying out and that it was currently on sale, I decided I needed to give Nuance by Salma Hayek a try.  I also happened to be out of night cream and rapidly running out of face cleanser, so it wasn't entirely an impulse purchase.  The radiance renewing night cream is really nice. It does the job, isn't overly greasy and doesn't cause any unpleasant reactions (which is a major thing with me).  Ditto with the black walnut face scrub and body scrub, both which have rather slinky consistencies, more like polishes than scrubs.  In fact, I liked the things that I had bought in the line well enough (her hair anti-frizz stuff is also kind of awesome), that I decided to get a few more things to test this weekend.  Dark cacao and coffee body cream?  Prickly pear body wash? Sign me up!

Birthday Books!

These are the wonderful new books that I got for my birthday this year.  My husband took me to a bookstore, stood there and asked, "Which ones did you want again?"  He knows me so well!  Now to find time to read them.  Most of my time has been consumed with an impromptu re-do of what resides in my closet.  Spurred by an upcoming event, clothes a decade old that scream "I have kids and do lots of housework" have been replaced by items that follow more of a "Morticia meets June Cleaver" theme. There will be pictures, I just have to actually take them.  I am also making several of the items, so that slows the whole process down a bit and with my deadline fast approaching, my lovely new books will just have to wait a wee bit longer.

Not dead, just still unpacking

It's not been a bad move this go around. Having a clue about the process and rolling with what the current situation presents are exceptionally helpful skills.
But...we have a lot of stuff, though less by the day. It takes time to unpack everything. Things have gone missing or are no longer in the condition they were when we started. Things that have to be re-placed for the unpacking to be finished. Our gorgeous four poster bed frame languishes in the garage as it did not fit up the staircase in the new house. Needless to say, there have been a few hurdles.
We did get a new place reasonably fast. A definite positive when you have four people crammed into an economy flat (one actual bed, kitchenette, fold out couch, bathroom in the space of a smaller hotel room).
The weeding out of unused stuff continues, since the new place is smaller than the last and I refuse to let things take over the house. Convincing two teenagers that this purge is worthwhile is a task unto itself.
I've had a rather glorious distraction from boring daily activities though, the plotting and planning of entertaining baby items. A distraction kindly provided by my darling sister who will be making me an Auntie this summer! Why yes, I am absolutely ecstatic! How could you tell?

They aren't Resolutions.

They are Deadlines.
There's cleaning house top to bottom, getting everyone ready for the trip and clearing out the rest of the clutter. All have to be done in the next two weeks before the movers get here.
Then there is a get together with friends at the beginning of May that I refuse to rock the frumpy housewife look for. There's the minimum of three outfits that need to be made for the shindig, as well as putting in some effort so my behind does said outfits justice. Luckily, I already have the patterns and fabric, so the sewing can commence as soon as everything is actually unpacked. Making the clothing the easy part of the equation for once.
It really didn't seem like much at first, now the sensation is more akin to trying to jump hurdles while tied to a chair. (While I've never tried it, I imagine it would be a wee bit complicated).
There's a lone bottle of champagne left over from New Year that I think will be used to toast the (hopefully) semi-organized chaos that will be the next 4 months!

So how are things for you?

A joyous holiday season to you, whatever you may be celebrating! I am behind, as usual, on just about everything. At least I have good reason this go around!

Halloween arrived....

...then everything went wahooni shaped. Now I am trying to clear out four people's five years worth of accumulated stuff in about a month and a half. While all the insanity is for very good reasons, it's still a bit difficult to deal with as short notice makes everyone run around like a chicken with it's head cut off.