I’ve had the great pleasure to participate in the Share a Square Project founded and managed by Shelly Tucker. Last year, Shelly asked people if they would please send her a six inch crocheted granny square to be used in afghans for kids who will be attending cancer camp this June in Fort Worth, Texas. Shelly hoped that enough people would donate squares that they might be able to make 140 afghans, each having 48 squares. (Let me do the math…..hold on while I take my shoes off…….Um, that would be 6720 squares.) Shelly also wanted all the squares in an afghan to be from 48 different people. The squares have name tags with messages for the kids tied to them. Each child will also get a special bag to hold all these name tags as a memory of the 48 people who cared enough to send them a square.
A number of the ladies in my exercise class donated squares to the cause. I think we may have sent around 300 squares. I lost count as I sent the third box of squares to Shelly. Late this winter, I realized that Shelly still needed help to assemble afghans, so I volunteered to take on two of them, and then I ran to my exercise friends and begged them to help me! And boy, did they! We finished the two afghans and I was able to send them off last week. This project has brought us a LOT of joy!
This is the first of the two afghans:
Sometime around January Shelly realized that she had more squares than she needed. She thanked people for their generosity and said they could stop crocheting squares. A month or two later, it almost sounded as though she was BEGGING people to stop sending squares. I think she has been inundated with over 10,000 so far. You can click on the link above, and in the upper right corner of her blog, you’ll see a link to Share a Square. Go visit to she how they are doing. And, I hope you’ll consider sending Shelly a donation to help defray the registration expenses for the campers. Each child is assessed $150, and anything we can do to help make it possible for them to get to camp is a GOOD THING!
Here’s the second afghan we assembled:
Shelly, thanks for letting us share the joy! Congratulations on a job well done!
Monthly Archives: April 2008
Well, Drat!
Last week I had my head down, ploughing through the work on my desk so that we could take a three-day weekend to visit with my sister, Nan, for her birthday. I didn’t have much time to read my e-mail and even less to visit my favorite blogs.
I was irritated this morning to learn that I had missed wishing one of my favorite on-line and real life friends “HAPPY BIRTHDAY!” How could I have forgotten?! Luckily, Bogie, her daughter, bid her mother a happy birthday, so I figured out my error.
No doubt I have missed a whole lot of birthdays on-line. I hope you all had wonderful celebrations of your special day.
So…COP CAR…..I missed the right day, but I hope you know that my wish is most sincere, when I tell you that I hope you had a great day, and that you did something special to commemorate the momentous occasion of your birth! *G* Happy Birthday, my friend!.
Go read what Cop Car has to say on April 20th. I like her thoughts about what the focus of our election should and should NOT be! Way to go, CC!
We’re Off to See….
….My sister, Nan, and her family! Nan’s birthday is this weekend, and it’s Prom time for the girls. Elegante Mother, Dear Husband and I are going to amble down through the fields today. Our oldest sister, My-Sister-The-Nurse, and her husband (yet to be nicknamed), will be joining us on Saturday.
Second Son is going to stay home and keep an eye on Ed. Someone has to be his doorperson!
We have a car to finish packing, and some last minute details to attend to. We’ll be back late on Sunday.
I hope you all have a great weekend; I expect to!
Pruning
I’ve had a full day, today. I can recall as a child that I thought Sunday was a lazy day, but it’s been a long time since I’ve frittered away a Sunday.
The CPA’s assistant, who is also a CPA, is going to visit us tomorrow to help me with some accounting problems. I’ve been trying to clear things off my desk, and make a list of all that I need to have her oversee. I still have a stack of filing (don’t I always), but I managed to clear the important things off my list, and I can get to the filing and a few less important things tomorrow morning.
My next big block of work was centered on the herb garden. It seems that when I have the time to work in the gardens the weather is foul, and when the weather is gorgeous, I have too much work that must be completed inside! However, we managed to get one of those rare spring days when the weather was beautiful, and I could get out to enjoy the gardens.
I started by pruning back the oregano, which took the largest part of my gardening time. I have six or eight mounds of oregano, enough to supply a small town, and I followed the current thinking and let the superstructure of the plants remain in place over the winter. The oregano is leafing out. If I had waited much longer to prune, I wouldn’t have been able to avoid taking some of the new growth. I took a picture before I started. I’ll try to get one of the pruned plants, and one a week later. You won’t be able to tell it’s been pruned by next weekend.
I cleaned out part of the chat walkway today. I left a few volunteer Shasta daisies, and some lamb’s ears and thyme, but I pulled up the garlic chives that have spread. If you don’t get those chives before they establish themselves, you have to dig to the other side of the world to get them out!
As I was working a bird sitting above my head started calling. I have NO idea what kind of bird I was listening to. For all my musical training, I find myself unable to read the call charts in the bird books, or describe to someone what the call sounded like. What was interesting about this particular call was that half-way through a bird across the grove picked up the call and imitated it. I don’t know if the birds were looking for mates, or if they were trying to establish territory, but the timing of the repeat, and the pitch of the repeat were perfect!
I planted three Italian Flat-leaved parsleys earlier this week, and a bunny or a deer had a fine meal one night! There are still some leaves, and I’m fairly sure that the plants will come back. However, when I plant the spinach this week, I’ll surround it with circles of hardware cloth!
It was a joy to be out today. I don’t work as fast or as long as I once did, but I probably enjoy my time in the gardens even more.
Signs of Spring
As I sit here at my computer, I can see the star magnolia just outside the window, and it has just begun to open. All it took was a little consistent warmth. The daffodils along the east side of the house are doing well, and I can see oriental poppy greens at the turn of the sidewalk. The short, scruffy Darwin tulips are open, too.
The scilla or squill that I wrote about earlier is a mass of tiny blue flowers against a green background, and the iris and day lilies are coming along nicely.
The only off note in the news is that the forsythia blooms look spotty. Perhaps I need to give it a little more time. I know that it blooms after the magnolia has opened, so perhaps I’m just seeing the early color, and the rest of the bloom is yet to come. This is a Lynwood Gold variety which has not been pruned, so it has the traditional arch to the canes.
Sunday, I’ll have to go out to check the shrub rose to see if there are any signs of new growth since we pruned so hard, and I want to check the peonies to see if there are any signs of starts coming through the dirt.
I love this part of the year. There’s so much to watch for!
Playing in the Dirt
As I’ve run errands the past few days, I’ve been where plants have been for sale, and I simply couldn’t resist making a few purchases. Elegante Mother can’t pass up a pansy in the spring, so we had 29 plants waiting for some dirt.
Yesterday, while we were out, I picked up potting soil so I’d be ready when I had a few minutes, to get some of those plants into the dirt. We have a large coir-edged basket at the front of the house, and I filled it with gerbera daisies, a purple hyacinth, and purple petunias. I may change that planting during the summer, but I needed to see some color at the front of the house.
I alternated yellow and purple pansies in a wrought iron basket lined with coir, too.
I had two lavenders, two rosemarys and three Italian flat-leafed parsleys to plant. I had just enough time to get the parsley into the herb bed last night before I HAD to start dinner. As it was, I probably should have waited for this morning to plant them, but I was on a roll! *G* It’s going to rain later today, and should rain through Saturday morning, so I won’t have a lot of chance to work outside for a couple of days.
Dear Husband suggested that I look into the Haz-Mat suits made of Tyvek for weeding where I suspect I’ll find poison ivy. That’s not a bad idea at all! I don’t have my half sleeves made yet to cover below my wrists when I’m in the gardens. Maybe that will be my rainy day chore on Saturday morning.
More Firsts
It was in the upper sixties today. It might have even hit 70. As I went out to call in Edward Scissorhands, I noticed that the daffodils along the east wall of the house have begun to bloom, and I can see the heads of the lily plants poking out of the earth.
Somewhere back in my archives there is an entry or twelve on Scilla, a tiny blue flowered bulb that blooms early in the season. Last week I noticed a sea of thin green leaves around the base of one of the trees in the grove, and today the flowers had opened. Here’s a good picture of scilla thanks to the University of Illinois.
I went back through my archives, and was interested to see that the squill bloomed much earlier in some years than others. This must have been a tough winter, with all the snow and cold.
And, we have at least one Rufous-Sided Towhee! Welcome back little bird!
Hurray!
Today, April 12, we saw our first egret for the year. I’m pretty sure it was a snowy egret. It was at the edge of a retention pond that is ringed with cattails, and it was fishing.
Personally, Elegante Mother and I feel that both the heron and this egret are a bit early, but that doesn’t make us any less happy to see them. While robins are generally a harbinger of spring in this area, the egrets returning is usually a signal that we are going to start see the weather warming.
It’s drizzly and damp, and rather chilly today. The skies are a sullen gray. It’s a good day to be inside, getting indoor chores done so that we will be free to go outside once the sun finds it’s way back.
We do have two birds that are content with this weather. For quite a number of years, we have had a pair of Mallard ducks come to visit in the spring. Papa duck keeps an eye out for danger while Mama duck Hoovers (as in vacuums) up any stray birdseed and corn she can find. Occasionally we will see Mama contentedly eating away, and wonder where her mate has gone. One day, Dear Husband told us that he has seen Papa duck sitting up on our roof, where he can apparently get a better view . We’ve enjoyed their visits. They are beautiful birds.
Can it be FIVE YEARS???
Out of curiosity, I scrolled down through my archives to see when I started blogging. In 20 days, I will have had a blog for FIVE YEARS! It’s really hard to believe I’ve been on-line that long.
A friend from the Red Hatters once likened my blog to the diary which Samuel Pepys kept. We both cover the minutia of our lives. On rare occasions, I get on the soap box, but for the most part, this is a journal of my days.
Today as I browsed through my friend’s blogs, I discovered that one was writing about the prevention of dissemination of information about contraception and abortion, another was writing about her family honoring those lost in World War II. Another of my blogging friends spends her days working for Blogher, and so on, and so on, and so on. Nothing earthshaking is happening on my blog, but these ladies are clearly interested in what’s going on around them, and not afraid to discuss it.
I may be a little jealous of their wider horizons, but there’s nothing keeping me from following their lead. Sooner or later, I’ll get there. Until then, you can continue to expect to see me whining about weeding, and complaining about poison ivy, kvetching about the lack of time to quilt, and carping about the demands of the house and office.
When it gets old, tell me to lighten up! ( And I’ll just go off and sulk for a bit. *G*).
Credit Given Where Credit Is Due
I don’t know that I’ve said much about my beverage of choice, but I am one of those rare people who don’t drink coffee. When I was growing up, Elegante Mother had a variety of teas available, and I came to like iced tea in the summer and hot tea in colder weather. I enjoy Earl Grey, Darjeeling, Jasmine, English Breakfast, and black tea flavored with orange. I don’t care for fruit flavored tea (with the exception of a decaffeinated apricot tea I found some years ago) or most herbal teas, and until recently I wanted my iced tea to be strong, orange and black pekoe without sweetening.
I am making the first step toward a healthier me by changing the blend I use for iced tea. My youngest sister, Nancy, told me years ago that she was making her iced tea by brewing it with three bags of orange and black pekoe, and two of green tea. This week, I swapped one of the black tea bags for green tea. I can’t tell there’s been a change, and I know that the green tea is a healthier drink. Soon, I’ll be using two of the green tea bags.
I know, Sis….it took me a while, but I’m getting there. Thanks for the tip! *S*
And, while we are on the subject of tea, is anyone else irritated with Mickey D’s for being served sweetened tea when you have taken pains to request UN or NOT sweetened tea? Sometimes the problem is with the microphone system where you place your order, and sometimes it’s with a server who only drinks sweetened beverages, who automatically goes to that canister. Now, when I order tea, I ask them to confirm that it is not sweetened when they hand it to me. There’s nothing worse to a tea purist than getting a mouth full of sugar when you are anticipating the clean, astringent taste of unsweetened tea! Yuck!