birds singin' in the sycamore trees

[it's sunday which means garden pictures, but they aren't uploaded yet, so tomorrow will be garden day.]

i'm all talked out this weekend. saturday everyone but matt went to the lake. we took the boat out for the first time this year and it was lakey and perfect.

the lake brings out ripley's calm side.. and jeff's country side.

the one piece has some design flaws. it should be fine poolside, but maybe not the best for the boat with all kinds of wind. for $15 though? i can deal.

this is my drool shield for when ripley is up wind.

this afternoon i went to austin's first renegade craft fair. there were bazillions of booths with all handmade stuff. screenprinted t shirts, purses and pouches of all kinds, jewelry, onesies, etc. i made it out without buying a single thing, which is some kind of miracle.
spent the rest of the day hanging out with andy and will. frozen yogurt, poolside chats, gyros at miltos, drinks at spiderhouse, and an attempt at the fountain (which is apparently closed for maintenance). it was a busy day. we ended up renting a movie about a summer camp that andy thought i neeeeded to see before camp on tuesday.

fun weekend.

tumbling by

i'll admit it. i'm not good at sharing. i've never been good at it. as the oldest, and the only girl, i haven't had a whole lot of practice. i hide the tube of thin mints under the frozen pizza in the freezer so no one else will know where they are.

but i'm growing up! i'm turning over new leaves! and so i'm going to share two of my things in my secret 'folder of cool things' in my bookmarks.

the first is famille summerbelle. it's a french company, and they have all kinds of cool things, but the very coolest is their collection of cut out paper prints of paris, london and NYC. the one below is paris.

i don't know anyone with a really solid connection to any of the three, so i haven't gotten to buy any of them. but they are so cool and crafty and would be so neat for someone who really loved the city.

the second is hudson paint. they make chalkboard paint in all sorts of fun colors. i don't know where the photo went, so you'll just have to imagine glass jars with three or four inches of lime green or perrywinkle chalkboard paint on the bottom, with 'flour' or 'sugar' written in white chalk. so cute.

and for those of us in austin.. my favorite secret indian food place: swad on lamar and rundburg. soo delicious and cheap. i had the masala dosa. that thing is literally two feet long.

what a crazy day driving around in the pouring down rain.

make it better

for the last several months, i've been on a quest to find grandpa mannix's dill bread recipe. we know it has sour cream and cottage cheese in it. i thought i found it, but it didn't call for any water or milk. sour cream and cottage cheese were the only liquids.

so it tastes yummy but it's pretty dense. it didn't rise very much because i don't think the yeast got wet enough. soo back to the drawing board. i think i'm going to combine a few recipes and see what happens.

and my sustainable shoes came in the mail today. a little wide but otherwise great. really comfy.

now if only we could do something about those banged up taiwanese legs.

p.s. is there anything worse than loving people you meet and then finding out that they're sarah palin enthusiasts? these three elderly women who were also volunteering at the musical in the park tonight were so sweet. we bonded over book club books, teaching and stale popcorn. then one of them had to go and mention how sarah palin is such a good writer. ...

just a dream

peas! we harvested 6 of them today. and one more yellow squash.

today i'm on a mission to finish reading slaughterhouse five i borrowed from pg, and my 2 library books so i can go turn them in.

ripley wasn't so sure about her pea pod. she didn't want me to take it away, but she didn't want to eat it either.

spell what you can't say

we have squash! and we cooked it. it was delicious. i felt a little like i was eating my babies. but i savored every bite and thought about their whole lifespan and the daily watering that went into them. it was all very zen.

i got a lot done today.

physical for camp

had lunch with [yet another] ex boyfriend, sean

bought a lifeguard appropriate one piece

picked up my bridesmaid dress

pint night
this week is feeling very rushed now that i have a week before i leave for camp. exciting though. i've always been a chronic over thinker, so i've imagined the people i'm going to meet, how the kids will be, etc. of course you can't plan for that kind of thing. but it's exciting before something like this starts. you just have no idea what it will be like.
what i dooo know is that the last few years have taught me that my experiences are up to me and they will be what i make them. and i have a whole lot of awesomeness saved up from the last several months of inactivity.

darling you thrill me

today? awesome. signed my contract for work. tried on a pair of shoes at whole earth to make sure the size that's being shipped to me right now is right, and it is. and they're comfier than i thought.

they're from a cool company called simple and they're made of hemp fiber, cotton, recycled plastic bottles and the bottom is an old tire.

tonight maj and i cleaned out all of the clothes/sheets/towels left at the other house. we filled up the back of her car and thought we had plenty of time since goodwill closes at 9. little did we knowww, the time on the stove was pre-daylight savings time, so we were 15 minutes late. now the back seat is just piled up to the roof with clothes.

and the best part of allll was that i got curious and opened one of the boxes from my apartment and i found my ballet clothes/shoes ANDD bedding, which i thought was lost forever. i thought it was in trash bags in jeff's house and i've searched high and low for them. turns out the trash bags were in boxes with the rest of my stuff all along.

this is whitey. he lives behind us and no one ever plays with him. we're not even sure what his real name is. but jeff sometimes hops over the fence to play with him, and we sneak him treats.

garden at 6 weeks

happy mother's day!

the eggplant is thinking about producing fruit soon. it's getting all flowery.
and we have lots of tomatoes! the biggest one was composted this week because it had been inhabited by something that was chewing tunnels all through it.
i'm turning into an expert caterpillar killer though. the black ones live around the marigolds (so much for natural pest control). and i can spot the furry ones under a leaf now. you just have to go check for them 3 or 4 times a day.
we might have enough peas to add them to a stirfry or something. probably 6 or 7. they're a favorite of the caterpillars, but luckily they only munch on the leaves. there are also lots of spiders living in there.
the dill is coming back to life now that it's protected by the zucchini.
cucumber!
the cilantro is bolting like crazy, but it attracts wasps now that it's flowering, and apparently they're a good bug.
lots of cherry tomatoes.

i only have 2 weeks left before camp so i hope stuff starts ripening soon!

the squash was closest, but i overwatered it and two of them got kind of rotten. i read that you're not supposed to pick anything before it's all the way done though or else the plant gets frustrated that it put all of this energy into producing it and you took it before it was ready. so i'm going to leave them and see what happens.

i smell like camp fire from a party last night. will wore seersucker pants. tonight we're going to our favorite restaurant for mother's day.