Wow, I guess it's been a while since I updated. I got really busy with the end of school, and finding out that I need to look for another job (again!). I've been really stressed about that whole business, because my options at this point are: 1)get a job by July 8 and go through the Non-Traditional Licensure Program through the Department of Education (my preferred option), 2)If option 1 doesn't pan out, if I get a teaching job later, I can enroll in a Master of Arts in Teaching program which would be really expensive and involve a much more drastic reduction in leisure/craft time than option 1, 3)find a different kind of job.
So there you go. If anybody has a lead in the Little Rock metro area, I'm open to suggestions.
Lately, I've been knitting and crocheting toys. I've done a knitted bunny and started a second one, I've crocheted two octopi, and knitted two "plumps" from a pattern I found on Ravelry. Right now, I've been working on a TARDIS quilt. I've got the doors done, but one of them is kind of wonky, so today, I'm going to try to fix it.
Neale had an idea for me to make some science-fiction themed quilts and display them at the MidSouth Con art show. Of course, right now, I really shouldn't buy the materials for a new quilt, but I have some really interesting ideas.
So, there you go, that's pretty much what's happening. Oh, I got the first produce from my garden yesterday. It got really hot really fast, and my peas are about done, but I did get a handful of pods from my peas. There's one small green tomato on one tomato plant, and blossoms on the other one. There are blossoms on the zucchini, and a couple of little proto-peppers on the bell pepper. Unfortunately, something bit into the green tomato, so today, I put some bags of cat litter in the garden, to keep small furry thieves away. I suspect this may have been the work of a squirrel. I know that, oddly enough, squirrels love tomatoes. A squirrel stole a tomato off one of my grandfather's plants once and took it up into a pine tree to eat, and I remember watching from the kitchen window as he stood at the base of the pine tree yelling at the squirrel, and the squirrel chattered back, eating the tomato.
Next year, I want to do really work on landscaping the yard. The planting beds around our house need some work. The reason we haven't done more before now is a combination of time, money, and reluctance to get out in the heat. There's a house in my neighborhood with a bed I covet. Right now, it is crammed full of daylilies, irises, and other cottage-garden-type flowers, planted so densely there is no room for weeds. That's what I would love to have in front of our house, in the space where we took out a coupe of azaleas that died. I'd like to re-vamp the rosebed, and either fill the space with other plants, or mulch heavily to discourage weeds. I'd like to take the azaleas out in the bed in the back and put in a proper shade garden, with hostas and hydrangeas, which would be a better fit for the corner with the clump of dogwood trees. I also want to clean out the bed along the back of the house. There's a massive azalea that needs to be pruned, and I'd like to put a rosemary bush there. I also want to get rid of the vine that keeps coming up. I think it's some kind of passionflower, but the blossoms are tiny and pale green. I originally wanted to take the creeping vinca completely out, but now I think it just needs to be managed better. It looked beautiful when we bought the house, it was this mound of green leaves, but if you pull the top layer back a little, it's a mat of naked stems, like felt made of plants, with these dead leaves caught in the mesh. That just can't be healthy. One of the big things I want to do, though, is get all of the beds to a point where I don't have the massive week incursion. The rose bed probably looks the best, except for the weeds in the back corner. The wildflower seeds I planted two years ago were great at the time, but now, I think I want to do something different, so next year, except for the California poppies, I'm going to try to actively discourage them. Here's hoping I have a good-enough job that, come November-ish, I can afford the massive quantities of mulch and bulbs I need to make this vision happen.
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