After a very long day yesterday, the phone rang at 9:39 AM this morning I figured it was the library asking me to come in earlier today. Instead it was the circulation manager who is just back from vacation calling. She asked me if I was still interested in the hourly circulation position that I interviewed for last week. I said, “Definitely” trying to keep my cool and not scream in her ear. The scream came after I hung up. She wants me to start soon so I may be starting as early as next week, it all depends on how we can work the schedule out with my shelving manager, who will now be a co-worker. I had a few clues that I might have the position when my manager said something about she and the circ manager comparing schedules but I didn’t want to set myself up for disappointment. Going into work this afternoon will be even sweeter than yesterday where I was watching the clock all day. I had expected the circ manager to be back yesterday and it made for a very long day when she wasn’t.

For some knitting content, I cranked out two more baby bibs for a man at work whose wife is having a baby in a few weeks. He’s leaving the library for another job and his last day was yesterday so I started the first one on Monday and finished the second one Thursday night. He and his wife loved them. I made the blue one adjustable by putting two button holes in the strap.

Mrs. Tomato is doing well. Thursday night we had some big thunderstorms, much to George’s dismay. Yesterday morning, Bryan was looking out the window at Mrs. Tomato and noticed that one of her tomatoes (the one on the right) that was just starting to ripen was lying on the ground. He went out, checked it out and realized it probably fell during the storms but it had a quite a few bites taken out of it. Another little creature wanted to share in some of Mrs. Tomato’s goodness so what else could he/she do than to eat part of the lovely tomato sitting on the ground. We thought it was funny but I’m sorry that we lost our largest tomato yet to storms and a curious, hungry little creature.

Sunday was a very exciting day around our house, we picked the first baby tomato from Mrs. Tomato. Last night, we picked the second tomato. All of her babies are coming along quite well. I can’t believe how many baby tomatoes she has on her right now. In all, she has 10 babies, two of which have been picked. Now we have two of the babies ripening on the kitchen window sill. The first one will be ripe enough to eat tomorrow. I can’t believe that with some watering and love, I can grow tomatoes. A few weeks ago, the wind knocked over the tomato pot and I was heartbroken when I noticed that the oldest tomato’s branch was broken, but not completely broken off. I took some rags and made a sling for the branch hoping that it wouldn’t hurt the tomato and I was so proud to see the tomato survive and be the first one to turn red. A few weeks ago when a few of the leaves at the bottom started to turn yellowish-brown, I was worried but was reassured by several people that their tomato plants do that, too. (The bottom photo was taken just before the first tomato was picked. This was the first baby tomato that appeared on the vine in mid-June.)
update July 27, 2006 - We ate the first baby tomato last night on our pizza and it was scrumptious. I see tomato, red pepper and basil sandwiches in our future today to eat the second and third (I picked it this morning) tomatoes.

The log cabin blanket is nearly finished. On Sunday, I finished the last stripe and started on the border. By Sunday night, I had finished the first edge of the border and had started the second edge of the border. I’m knitting the border as they describe it in Mason-Dixon Knitting, where you pick up one edge of stitches and knit them increasing on the right-side rows to make a “picture frame” effect. The first border edge looks really great and I know that the rest of it will look great too. I’m waiting until it’s all finished before I take another photo.

This past weekend was a quiet one, I got a lot of knitting done and some reading. Yesterday, I finished yet another book called The Minister’s Daughter by Julie Hearn. This book is another Young Adult novel and is about two girls in England in the mid-1600s, one who is a “healer” and the other is a minister’s daughter who accuses the “healer” girl of being a witch. It was a really fascinating book and I had a hard time putting it down when I first started reading it on Thursday. It also sparked my interest once again about the Salem Witch Trials, I was so fascinated by them when I was in junior high and high school. Several years ago, I saw a program called Secrets of the Dead II — Witches Curse on PBS about how a lot of the hallucinations of the people who accused others of being witches were actually caused by eating fungus-infested rye. One thing that the author of The Minister’s Daughter observed is that a lot of the women who accused others of being witches were minister’s daughters themselves. Very interesting.

update July 27, 2006 - I most likely won’t hear about the job until at the earliest tomorrow.

I’m sure you’re all waiting to hear about the interview. I’ll get to that in a minute. Getting ready for my interview this morning was a bit more exciting than I would have liked. Not long after we got up this morning, thunderstorms moved in. As Bryan and I were sitting down to breakfast the lights flashed. I immediately said, “Maybe I should go dry my hair.” Bryan said, “Definitely.” So I dried my hair and curled it. As soon as I unplugged my curling iron the power went out, almost as if I had caused the power outage. We continued our breakfast by candlelight. When I was finished with breakfast, I still had to brush my teeth and put my makeup on. Brushing my teeth wasn’t a problem and fortunately we have a window in our bathroom so I could turn the bathroom mirror in such a way that it reflected the light coming in from the window and put my makeup on. It was a bit too more excitement than I would have liked but everything worked out fine. Bryan was kind enough to get the car and pick me up at the front door of our apartment. He had to go to work anyway, so he drove half way and then we traded spots and I drove the rest of the way to my interview. Since the power was out, we left 1/2 an hour early, not knowing if there would be traffic lights out, which gave me about five minutes to sit in the library’s parking lot and just listen to the rain. I arrived at the interview 10 minutes early which gave me time to collect my thoughts and just breathe.

The interview itself went quite well. Interviewing with people I know helped and practicing with Bryan for four days also helped. Several of the questions that we had thought they could possibly ask were asked in different forms. I’m so glad we practiced. Bryan having worked at a circulation desk before really helped because he helped me think of different scenarios they might ask me about. After the interview, I felt quite confident and was so proud of myself. I should hear something by the end of next week because they want to get someone trained as soon as possible since several people are leaving or going on vacation. I’ll let you know anything as soon as I know.

When I came home after the interview, we still didn’t have power. In fact, we didn’t have power until 2:45pm, which was more than six hours without power. We had to go out for lunch because our gas stove doesn’t work without electricity. It gave us lots of time to read and I ended up reading more than 70 pages and finishing Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, my 7th book of the summer. The only unfortunate thing about the power being out is such a silly thing but I missed what could have been a very exciting day on Days of Our Lives, I know I can always catch up online.

Tuesday night and last night, I got a lot of knitting done. It’s amazing what can be done with nervousness and a few hours to just relax. I managed to finish the color stripe I was working on on the Log Cabin Blanket and am now 8 of 9 garter ridges through the next stripe. After I finish this stripe, I have two more left. I may even have it done by the end of the weekend.

Sorry for the lack of photos, it just didn’t seem to be a post that could use any photos. I promise photos of the blanket when it’s finished will be posted.

I have an interview on Thursday for the circulation position that I mentioned in my last post. I’m so nervous that I’m starting to drive myself a little crazy with the possible questions they could ask and the questions that I need to ask them. Now I know I’m as qualified as any person applying for this position, heck I even typed 55 words per minute (wpm) on the typing test when they only require 25 wpm, I’ve worked in the library for seven months, including special projects for the circ manager and I really want this job but I feel like I’m going to screw up the interview somehow and be disappointed in the end. It’s not the end of the world if I don’t get this job, but I haven’t wanted something this much for quite a while. (I think I might even want this job more than I wanted to get into school, which was pretty darn much.) So I ask you once again (hey, it worked in December) cross your fingers and needles for me on Thursday. It could be a long wait to hear about the job though because the circ manager is on vacation next week, so I might not hear until she gets back. Wish me luck.

I have just made myself a promise, you are all my witnesses. I promise, I will NOT, I repeat will not start any more ball-band washcloths until the log cabin blanket is finished, at least there are no more baby showers to attend. I have 3.1 stripes left to go and then I just need to do a little border around the edge. For the border, I’m going to just knit two and a half garter ridges around the edge of the blanket in red. It will be beautiful but my idea of knitting an i-cord around the edge is no longer. I don’t want to deal with knitted on i-cord and I think the few garter ridges will be easier, plus I have half a gazillion ends to sew in. This baby is due any day and I want to get it out the door the day or so after he’s born. (Still trying to be artsy with the photo just so it doesn’t get too boring, for those of you wanting the progress photo here it is (click on the image to see the larger photo). See, I have made a little bit of progress since June 17.)

Speaking of babies, the bibs were once again a hit at the shower. The mom is a new knitter and I think she really appreciated getting hand-knit gifts. I did manage to finish the third bib Saturday morning, I even bought and sewed the button on that morning.

My other project that I’ve been working on is putting together a big project that our knitting group has been working on. I’m in charge of crocheting the pieces together and then knitting a border around the edge. Saturday, I decided that I was going to make it my goal for the week to get four of the 13 pieces together by the end of this week. I had four pieces together last night! That’s all I can say until it’s finished and ready to go.

I haven’t even touched the sleeveless sweater since I last mentioned it, I’ve been too obsessed with baby bibs, washcloths and the log cabin blanket. I also haven’t done any spinning in over a week and I don’t remember the last time I knitted on the pair of socks I’m working on.

Yesterday morning, I got up and made peach bread. We bought a big bag of peaches at the farmer’s market and some of the peaches need to be eaten quickly or they’ll go bad. So I tried a bit of an experiment. I took a blueberry muffin recipe, changed the fruit to peaches and the muffins to bread. It worked out quite well and was delicious, except I didn’t bake it long enough and the very middle of the bread wasn’t cooked, which we didn’t find out until this morning after we’d eaten a few slices of bread. This morning, I thought, let’s just pop it back in the oven for another 20 minutes and it will be great. Nope, didn’t work. So we’re just going to eat the top of the bread that’s cooked all the way through. Fortunately, I didn’t use eggs in the bread, I used applesauce instead so we don’t have to worry about the undercooked eggs. I will try again later this week. It’s been so hot that to do anything in the kitchen, such as baking, needs to be done before 9am. This isn’t a bread I wanted to make in the bread maker, just because I didn’t know how to make it all work in the bread maker. The last loaf of bread that I made in the bread maker this past weekend was a french bread and it was really good.

Finally, an update on Mrs. Tomato. She and her baby tomatoes are doing fine. There are several little new tomatoes making appearances. I’m anxiously awaiting the day when I see one of the larger tomatoes turn red.

I seem to be having one of those weeks where I think, what have I done with my time? I know what I’ve been doing but then again I don’t. Do you ever have those weeks or days? Here’s what I’ve been up to just to prove that I do remember and that I have been doing something. Bryan’s nephew, M, was here this past weekend, I went to a baby shower on Saturday, I’m working almost twice as many hours as I do in a normal week and I’ve been knitting and reading a bit. I’ve also applied for a position at the circulation desk at the library. My interview is next Thursday. I’m so excited, if I get the circ position, I’ll no longer be a shelver and I’ll be moving up in the library world. Maybe, just maybe, this will help me get into school this next time around.

It was raining the yesterday and the day before and everything in our apartment felt damp. I hate that feeling. The carpet feels damp and today I just felt so sticky. Yesterday afternoon we got almost 3 inches of rain in about an hour and a half with parts of town getting over 4.5 inches. So there is a lot of moisture in the air today. It’s about 85 with a dew point of 75. When it’s sticky the last thing I feel like doing is knitting on the log cabin blanket, so it’s been neglected the last several days. It’s going to be neglected this weekend too since it’s supposed to be over 90 all weekend. I think we’ll be spending our weekend in the living room with the A/C cranked.

I was just catching up on blogs today for the first time in about a week and I found out that I won Knitbrarian’s haiku contest! I had the first two lines down immediately but the last line didn’t come to me for about five days until I was lying in bed on July 4th. My haiku skills from third grade worked for me again. (My haiku won third place in poetry for third graders in the entire town.)

While M was here we took him to the farmers’ market to get raspberries, blueberries and fruit spread, and of course came home with more including lettuce, peaches and corn, M had never seen so many ears of corn in one place before, I don’t think I had either. We also took him to several parks and Bryan took him to the local children’s science museum. To say the least, he wore us out. We’re not used to eight-year-old energy. I also started a washcloth similar to Uncle Bryan’s for M. We called the colors in the washcloth - mint chocolate chip.

My late grandmother’s “ancient” (1991) break maker also arrived on Friday. Saturday morning, I loaded the bread maker up with a whole wheat bread mix that we’d bought accidentally when we were trying to buy bread flour, and then I set it to do its thing. While Bryan and M were at the park, I took a shower and got ready for a baby shower that I was attending later in the afternoon. As I was getting out of the shower I heard the breakfast dishes on the countertop clanking and I thought Bryan was home. I said, “hello” and no one answered, so I walked out to the kitchen. Just as I was walking out of the bathroom I heard a thunk, it was the newly bought jar of fruit spread from the farmers’ market crashing on the floor. The break maker had made its way across the countertop while it was kneading the bread dough, the jar of fruit spread was broken and I was still in a towel, so I finished up in the bathroom. Later, I thought I would just save the fruit spread in a container in the fridge but after talking to my mother later that day, we decided against it not knowing what little shards of glass might be in the fruit spread. The crashing didn’t hurt the bread in the slightest. It was quite good bread and I think I’ll be using the bread maker more just not on the countertop. I’ll probably set it on the floor where it can’t break anything, except it might freak the cats out a bit.

Sunday morning, just after breakfast I sewed in the ends of M’s washcloth. He was so impressed. We asked him if he’d like to learn to knit and he said, no, but he’d like to learn how to use the spinning thing (my wheel). I told him he needed to learn how to knit before he could learn to spin. My wheel cost too much for it to be a toy.

This week I haven’t gotten much knitting done because I haven’t been home enough. When I am home I’m not watching tv which is when I usually knit. Tuesday evening while watching the All-Star base-ball game, I did start another baby bib from Mason-Dixon Knitting for another baby shower I’m going to on Saturday. I’ve already made two bibs. Since I have all evening tonight, tomorrow night and most of the day on Saturday, I think it will be done by the time the shower rolls around. The shower I attended this past Saturday, I gave two bibs and they were a hit.

A few weeks ago Hobby Lobby had a sale on Sugar n’ Cream, it was on sale for 99 cents. Twenty-five cent savings each was enough to make me stock up. I came home with 11 balls of yarn (only 10 are pictured because there are some duplicates). I should have enough for quite a few more washcloths!

Also for you Jane Austen fans, you might like this book, it’s called Enthusiasm by Polly Shulman. It’s about two teenage girls, one of whom is obsessed with Pride and Prejudice. I read it within a few days and quite enjoyed it, a very entertaining young adult book.

I can’t believe how quickly the weekend went. I did manage to feel like I got a few things accomplished, always a good thing. This summer has definitely felt like summer the last two weeks. Bryan being home a lot and us just taking everything in stride, more so than usual, just makes it feel like summer. It’s that same feeling that I had when I was in college and didn’t feel when I was in the work-a-day world of an office job. We’re re-defining the lazy days of summer with reading and knitting. I finished yet another book today, another junior high book called The Slightly True Story of Cedar B. Hartley (who planned to live an unusual life) by Martine Murray. It’s about 13-year-old Cedar who is learning to be an acrobat with her friend, Kite. Bryan received this book from one of his friends who works at Scholastic, it’s one of her favorites. Then Bryan read it, loved it and suggested I read it too. I’m a few days off of my book-a-week pace by two days but I’m not letting it get to me. If you’re looking for a quick read that’s really fun, check out this book.

This weekend was a very exciting one for Bryan. He received some birthday money from his mother and my grandfather, which he immediately knew what he was going to spend it on. Saturday was the big day his gift arrived - it was a keyboard to hook up to our computer. Saturday afternoon, Sunday and Monday, Bryan was playing his keyboard. Several of the songs that he’s composed over the years he recorded and he also composed and recorded a song just for me. It was so sweet. Part of the time on Saturday that he was composing music, I was knitting and watching the Cubs vs. Sox series on tv, the first ball-game I’ve been able to watch since the World Series in October. We don’t have cable by choice so I have to wait to watch those few games that are on basic network tv. Fortunately, the good guys (White Sox) won that game but lost on Sunday. During the ball-game I managed to start and almost complete a washcloth for Bryan. I gave up on the organic cotton. I didn’t want to spend a lot of time making something that I knew probably wouldn’t stay together, so I went out on Saturday morning and bought some Sugar n’ Cream yarn in similar colors.

This weekend, I also started spinning the bright pink yarn that’s going to be plied with the “cotton candy” yarn.

The library was open yesterday so I worked and spent part of my day trying to track down those lost books again. I was happy just to find the four or five books that I found, most of them were either where they were supposed to be or they were shelved with the wrong books, such as a few adult books with children’s books and vice versa.

Today, I’ve been reading and fixing a sweater. In December 2003, I finished the “Joy” sleeveless sweater in Rowan’s Cotton Tape and just never have worn it because it fits a bit funny in the chest. Let’s just say it didn’t cover as well as it should and the armholes were huge, although it looks perfectly good in the photo from 2003. This afternoon, I ripped out the top of the sweater and am reknitting a bit of the body to lengthen it and then I’ll reknit the front and back. Considering it’s on size 13 needles, I don’t think it will take me long to finish. I really love the yarn and the way it feels, so that’s an incentive to finish it. It’s a perfect summer sweater.

This summer we’ve been pen pals with Bryan’s nephew and with our last letter we sent him an Andrew Lost book. We had never read any of the Andrew Lost books, we figured we’d better read the one we sent so that we could ask his nephew about the book when he’s here this weekend. This afternoon, we both read the entire book, it took us each about 1/2 an hour to read. It was entertaining and something an eight-year-old boy would love. It’s about a boy who shrinks he and his cousin with his newest invention. They end up getting shrunk down to microscopic size and end up lost on the neighbor’s dog’s nose. I see all of these kids’ books at the library on a regular basis and thought it would be worth reading them just to see what our nephew might like. We’re gathering a list of books to send, hopefully, we can continue to be pen pals through the school year and continue to send him books.

Have a happy and safe Fourth of July. In the U.S. be safe tonight.

Btw, the title of this post is from Someday You Will Be Loved by Death Cab for Cutie.