Stake Anyone?

The garden is coming along quite nicely. It was a very rainy week so the garden was happy. I didn’t think it had grown much height wise but boy was I wrong when I went to out to take a closer look. They had just grown along the ground and everything is flowering so I should have some nice veggies pretty soon. My son’s first green bean plant already has 5 beans on it. It seems the marigolds are working for keeping the pests away. Rush visit to Canadian Tire to get some stakes. And voilà!
I don’t think I’ve seen my lavender so lavenderAnd a little unexpected surprise. I've never had a plant growing in a downspout before.

The sweater’s coming along nicely, too. It’s been pretty plain stocking stitch up until now.

A Day at the Zoo, and Knitting Too

My Dad won a special Father’s Day Package for the Metro Toronto Zoo by listening to CHFI FM98.1. It was for him and three other guests. Being the person he is, he thought his grand-kids would love to go, and since my Mother wasn’t particularly interested, he gave the whole package to us. It entitled us to a barbeque lunch in a special area with other winners of the draw. There were buskers and a special animal visitor. We also got free parking, free entry to the zoo, free zoo-rail pass for the day, and free face painting the kids (or adults if you wished). What a great way to spend Father’s Day!

Peacock in Tree

Giraffes - always a favouriteJellyfish – Believe it or notKangaroos and Wallabies – Oh MyI’m now doing my Mother a favour. Over a year ago, she bought some Sirdar Snuggly yarn and a pattern book to make my other niece a sweater. She hasn’t touched it because the yarn, in her opinion, is expensive and she’s too afraid of screwing up. So she’s asked me to do the knitting. I wasn’t going to accept any requests from other family members for a while and REALLY FOCUS on finishing some of my existing UFO’s, but I thought, if I didn’t do it now, there wouldn’t be enough yarn to knit my niece a sweater later. After all, it’s already been over a year. By my standards, the pattern is a simple one but my Mother was still intimidated by it. I don’t get it; she used to knit cables when we were kids. It looks simple now; the cabling only comes in the upper bodice area and there’s really not much of it. You’ll see as I go along.

Coming Up Roses

I put the buttons on my niece’s sweater today. I went with something pretty neutral – it’s more to my sister-in-law’s taste I think. She tends to go for gender neutral things. She also plans to use it for her forthcoming son so I couldn’t use some cute daisy buttons I found at Michael’s.

The garden is doing quite well. My patio rose tree is blooming nicely.

My daughter’s nasturtiums are emerging.

And the marigolds seem to be keeping the rabbits at bay.

Knitting Accomplished! And new shoes, too.

I finished my niece’s sweater but I still need to put buttons on it. I still have to go buy buttons. Here’s a picture anyways; I couldn’t help myself.

I also bought shoes today! I only went to buy one black pair to go with my suit. Instead, I bought three. The additional two pairs were on sale! I couldn’t pass that up. They were just too good to resist. Can you believe that the shoe sizes from left to right in the picture below are 9, 8.5, and 8? And they all fit perfectly.

I didn’t want to want to buy anything too plain even if it was for a business suit; that just wouldn’t be me. So, I got the black shoes with gold heels and little studs. I purchased them at NINE WEST which seems to be the only place I can find heels that are actually comfortable.

The other two pairs came from STYLESENSE and are just all out funky; very me. The lavender floral shoes are so cute and comfy and way too pretty. Just look at the underside of the shoe.

It’s as pretty as the inside. I don’t want to walk on them because they’re so pretty. Well, I’m sure I can find a way to convince myself.

Finally! Fran Gardening?

Knitting taking a back seat? Unthinkable! But true.

I must admit that gardening has taken precedence in my life; sadly, by necessity. It’s that time of year when you have to plant and weed before nature runs amok in your backyard. Well, we were too late so there was a lot to be done. I started my seedlings indoors too early and they died before I got to plant them or maybe I didn’t know how to sustain them properly once they’d sprouted. So, we’ve bought more plants and I’ve done some direct planting of seeds and we’ll see what happens.

We made a nice little vegetable patch, which I hope will get enough sunlight, and hubby put in stepping stones to get to the water faucet. It’s a solid plan, now let’s see if it will work. It’s been one day and the plants seem to be intact so I guess the marigolds are doing their job.

Excited About Something Not Yarn?!

I am typing this entry on my new Dell Studio 17 laptop! I was so excited about it, I thought it definitely deserving of a blog entry. It’s absolutely gorgeous and extremely practical not to mention powerful. My hubby prepared the specifications for the order since I’m a bit tech un-savvy in the hardware department.

The design is called New World 4 and it’s by Joseph Amedokpo in support of the PRODUCT (RED) initiative to help eliminate AIDS in Africa.

Just when you thought screens couldn’t get any better or clearer, they did. The quality of the images is getting extremely close to the level of my HDTV. This laptop also comes with a separate number pad (nice), but that means my hands are a little off-centre on the keyboard initially. I’ve been automatically placing my hands one position to the right of where they should be (laugh to myself about it every time I have to look down and think of where to put my fingers). And Vista DEFINITELY takes some getting used to.

I had to get a cool green laser mouse to go with the laptop and they work perfectly with the funky pink laptop case which DH got me for Christmas 2006.

Spring has Finally Sprung!

Warmer weather is here at last. But with my flowers:

Come the weeds. Good thing our friend, baby rabbit, comes by from time to time to help out by eating the dandelions. Unfortunately, he can’t eat them all fast enough. It’s incredible; our yard has been overrun by weeds in a week!

And I got some knitting done. Voilà, the sleeves!