It’s been a while since I last blogged and I’ve been busy. The summer isn’t the perfect time to blog, plus there are so many other things I’d rather be doing than sitting inf front of the computer.

The garden is growing well, I eventually lost the cherry tomato to a critter. I had to move the lavender into a pot and am sprinkling pepper flakes on the soil to keep the critters from eating more of the lavender. Two of the plants are finally coming back, two died, one of the surviving plants is a replacement for a dead lavender plant. The cilantro went nuts and we’ve enjoyed a lot of salsa made with our own cilantro. The flavor of our own cilantro is much more intense than store bought since it’s freshly picked. Since the cilantro grew so fast, I decided to buy some seeds and have managed to get little cilantro plants growing in the kitchen that I’ll transplant outside later on. We’re patiently waiting for our tomato plants to produce tomatoes and for our little green peppers to grow up to be big beautiful bell peppers. The basil has gone crazy too and is huge. Sort of makes me want to plant huge pots of herbs next year or a huge herb garden when we finally are able to buy a house.

I’ve been sewing a lot lately. Since my last post I’ve made two skirts and two canvas bags, similar to the one I made for my friend that was shown in the last post. Each bag seems to get more involved and I love the last one I made for S. She gave me the fabric and I made the bag for her this week. It’s so cute and I love the bicycles. She also gave me these beautiful Amy Butler fabrics that I might to make into a skirt similar to this one, but I haven’t decided quite yet.

About two weeks ago another friend had a baby, it’s the fourth of six babies born to our friends this year. I decided I couldn’t work on another baby blanket right now so I decided to make my first baby quilt. With all of the babies being born and all of the babies needing gifts, I decided this might be a quick route to go since the baby was born last week. S helped me pick out the fabrics and is going to hold my hand in the piecing together of this quilt. I just have to have faith in myself that I can do this. It’s not going to be difficult, I just keep finding ways to distract myself because I’m so afraid of messing up a very simple block quilt. Last night as I was piecing the strips together, I realized that I cut my middle block too small, so I’m going to remedy that tomorrow by just buying a new piece of fabric for the middle block and cutting it to fit what’s already pieced together.

As you’ve probably guessed my knitting has been a bit stagnant over the last three weeks. I’m 16 of 36 garter ridges into the last blocks along the edge of the Moderne Baby blanket and I’m trying to make myself knit about two ridges (four rows) a day. I haven’t thought of counting the stitches because four rows takes almost an hour to knit while watching tv, plus it’s been so warm and muggy that wool on the legs is not the most pleasant thing.

Last week, I decided it was time to get started on the another baby item. It’s currently a secret baby project since I know the mom reads my blog. She’s due in late August so I hope to get that project finished by then. Until she receives it, it will have to remain the secret baby project.

I’ve also been working on my summer reading. Last summer I read 16 books between Memorial Day and Labor Day. This year I started my summer reading earlier since my summer ends a few weeks before Labor Day with the start of school. So far I’ve already read six books. One of them I feel I completely need to spread the word about. The book is The Girls by Lori Lansens. It’s a wonderful book about a pair of conjoined twins who are about to turn 30. I’ve loved so many books I’ve read since the beginning of the year but this one sticks with me. Somehow I completely identified with these women and just loved their story. If you’re looking for a great book to read that you probably haven’t heard about, this is definitely one to check out.