a bit of Summer

 So, yesterday I took advantage of the perfect weather we’re having and did things like hang laundry on the line, wash the car, and do some weeding. While we were gone for a week or so, the flowerbed that we put in along the front of the garage burst into bloom. The rain that happened at the beginning of the week kind of hammered some of it, but with the past few days of sun, this is what its looking like:
   
and the ones that I transplanted to the stairs are beginning to bloom as well:  We saw this odd looking jellyfish on the beach  when Sunny and made the five mile ( round trip ) walk into town for ice cream in the afternoon. I suppose like lots of other things, jellyfish have some sort of seasonality, or maybe a migration pattern? I’ve seen a few of the little clear ones before here, but this big ( 9″ ) amber one was new to me. 
I never ventured into Long Beach to see the kites, maybe today…….

I want to do some sewing, but that’s best left to a day when its rainy out.

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beating the odds

 Even though there’s been a call for rain for the most of the week, we’ve only really had one day of it. Okay, and a few showers.  Today is beautiful again, so we will go for a brisk walk / run, Sunny and I.  The other day we did take our walk towards the ‘lighthouse’. About a mile before we got there, however, a dense fog bank rolled onto the beach, obscuring everything around. we ducked behind a dune; ate some lunch – out of the wind, and kept going, as we were sure to be getting close. The fog lifted a bit, and we were able to see it.  Now, I’m insanely curious as to who owns the land and the obvious compound there.  After a lot of searching, I could only find this (page 3). (My neighbor says it’s owned by some church.) There are several buildings, as well as a small lake, and a huge set of gates from the street. I will keep on the mystery hunt for info. We walked back along the street, to get out of the wind that had picked up, and finally arrived home. When I looked it up, I saw that we’d gone over ten miles! yipes. The three of us were very tired. Even Sunny.
The next day we did some cleanup outside. On the never-sees-sun north side of the house we’ve uncovered what used to be the roof of this place. I guess about ten years ago they tore off the shake roof, and just left them there – kindling? Anyway, it was two feet deep of pine needles layered with the decomposing shake shingles. We moved somewhere between fifteen and twenty overflowing wheelbarrows full of them around to the burn / firepit area. After they dry out some, we’ll begin to burn them. Richard also cleared more downed branches from around the well house, so that he could get in there and check the whole system out. We’re going to have the water tested on Wednesday. (after only a couple days, the new toilet is showing signs of an iron ring in the bowl, and that shouldn’t be ).  Then we’ll address the water issue.

We made a trip across the river the other day, to find out about renting a tractor or something to scrub out some of the bushes and grade off the area around the garage and that north side of the house. Like I said, this weather really makes me want to get out there and make some changes. 

Needless to say, I didn’t get the sewing done that I had planned. Maybe that will happen today. 
But first, Sunny and I need to go for a walk. 

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searching

I’m on the hunt for a new email service. My regular address has become a magnet for spam – mostly rx ads, the few gold watch ads, and a lot of ‘hot ticket stocks’ ads. I keep blocking them, but its gotten really bad lately. Also, when we move, the cox.net account will not be good anyway so I might as well start the switch. I have a hotmail account that is connected to this journal, but I just don’t like it.  I’m looking for opinions on both yahoo mail, or gmail. If anyone has input, I would appreciate it. (Not sure if the ads on gmail would be too intrusive, though I am able to ignore them when I do a search)

Richard brought the trailer home last night. The weekend will be spent loading it. Lucky for me, the new neighbors are rapidly emptying their boxes, and they are happy that they don’t have to take them to the recycler. 

Another realtor is coming this afternoon, so I have some housework to do, before making a trip to the studio. 

This morning Sunny and I went to Mission Trails park for a hour long hike. We met a friend and her huge golden retriever there. It was cool and beautiful out. I will definately do that again, but it will have to be early. It is becoming ‘baby snake season’, and they come out when it warms up.

I came across this site:    http://www.mahardrygoods.com/index.php                
It is a lot like what I have envisioned for my website.  I love the variety of things that he has – sweet inspired baby and kids things, and the presentation is perfect.

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Happy.

I’m happy that there are no longer staples in my head. The hurt even less coming out than they did going in ( and that was not much ) . I was cautioned to be careful and not bump my head. Yeah, check that.

As it turned out, I did go downtown for a couple of hours last night to stand around and be there ‘just in case’  for a fitting with a couple of actors. The only thing I ended up doing was shortening some pockets??, then I brought a couple of things home. 

I did a whole lot of nothing today. We had a nice 2.5 mile walk this morning, without coming back pooped, even. It felt darned good. 

The biggest reason I am updating:         I have a computerized sewing machine that periodically there are updates for. To do this,  an update is downloaded from the company’s website; then I connect the machine to the computer via a usb cord, and new stitches and features are added to the hard drive of the machine.  I can also transfer embroidery designs the same way, or use a flash drive.  This latest update has been out for a couple months, and I finally got around to doing it, and the above is one of the new stitches! I did this initial test sew out and voila`! Little dogs in a row. (And I am tickled to see that its not Scottie dogs. )Of course, you can set it to make just one dog.  I’ve no idea what I would use it on, but they are so funny and cute that it makes me smile to look at them.  There are also cats, pigs, a car, a trailer !, fish bones, bicycles, coffee cups, etc. Some 27 new stitches in all this time around.  I remember that Mom had a Singer with those cams that you put in the top that made all of those fancy stitches. that was a long time ago, and I was amazed then at how that all worked. This is truly fascinating for me.
 
Dogs.

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