Junuary already?

G'day all!

I've been futzing around for a while now, wondering what blog reader to use...  I've got the blog in Bloglovin now but maybe Feedly would be good... dunno.  Too hard.

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

So there's the Bloglovin link.  I'll get me sorted eventually.

If anyone can tell me how we are in the Ides of June already, I'd be grateful.  Like what happened to the rest of the year?  The days are massively long - it is light at 4:30am now, if the sky is clear.  It is light almost at 10pm, if the skies are clear.  It is wrong.  I had to make a blackout curtain for the bedroom because it gets too light too early.  I'd take a pic of it but umm it works quite well.  LOL

Gosh, Blogger let me upload one
recent flower pic from the phone.
Generous!

Anyway, the weather is being interesting.  It warms up, it cools down.  It warms up, then the clouds roll over and it gets humid and I realise how odd it is to feel hot when it is only 25C, or worse, only 20C.  I'm Australian.  I come from a climate where daytime temps range from 12C to 40C or so.  I lived in San Jose, California, where temps are pretty similar.  It was fine!  But I'm used to dry heat, and Seattle gets more humid than I am used to even if it doesn't get hot.

Anyway, it is all fascinating and thank heavens it is warmer than it was last year at the same time.

Wish this was real.  Some days
it would be grand to get in
and go someplace else.

Exciting events in the recent past?  Umm, I'm lacking them.

My car is a year old.  He got serviced in celebration and has a clean bill of health.  He is a sweet little car even if he isn't the blue raspberry colour of my dreams.  I am hoping to take him to the car wash tomorrow and I'll wash him from stem to stern and vacuum him out as well.  I won't put him through the tunnel - I worry that it damages the paintwork - I'll wash him with the weird brush thing and get a whole heap of dollar coins whilst I'm at it.  I love dollar coins even if they do weigh more than dollar notes.

My rehab stuff continues.  I have "excellent" movement of my shoulder blades, they've seen trained athletes at the top of their game with less perfect motion than me and my squats with the trx system are "textbook."  That is nice.  I am wondering what form of torture they will expose me to next now that the current one is becoming easier.

This block was straight, as is the
photographer even if she can't hold
phone straight....

I knitted a block in some yummy yarn for an online acquaintance.  Pity that blogger won't bring in pics from the phone and will only give me a limited sample of pics that I've posted on G+.  I post pics every day but it says I only have Picasa albums from a handful of those days and never a day when I've put up 50 pics or more.  Blogger is annoyingly flakey that way at the moment.  (I do wonder what the NSA thinks of me and my habit of taking pictures of plants, bugs, powerlines, trains and various interesting things in the built environment.)

I knitted a little cardigan thing for Nathan's new first cousin once removed.  Goodness it was quick (two days of on and off knitting) and I haven't gotten good pics yet but at least it has buttons now.  Now I need to get their address so I can send it to them before the baby grows out of it.

I've started a Dreambird out of my own handspun (nb I think the only handspun I've ever bought was some thick and thin stuff and also some Ixchelbunny angora fluff plied with holographic thread!  Love me some holographic stuff).  Not one of the feathers of Dreambird is like the others but I am not fussed - it still looks very dramatic.

The slightly incorrect but I don't care
start of Dreambird.

I finished a knitted hat then pulled it back out again because it is too short in the crown.

I put a plastic Alice band in my hair and decided to walk across the bed, taking a short cut.  We have an interesting contraption across our room to hang things like lights and ornaments off and apparently when I walk across the bed, I am about two inches too tall to make it under the frame.  The plastic comby-grippy things on Alice bands really hurt when you ram them into your head and scrape them back....

I fell up the steps outside and grated my arm on the top medial side of my wrist on the side of a concrete step.  Thankfully on the left wrist cos the right has lymphedema and could easily get infected.  Why did I fall up the stairs?  Well DH decided to run up them and it seems one part of me said, "Great idea!" and another part of me said, "NO WAY!" and my legs got confused.  Or maybe it is because I was holding some flowers and just completely misjudged.

Some of the vicious flowers that
tripped me up the stairs.

I burned my lympho hand on a roasting pan and cut two of the fingers on a shelving unit in a shop but did not notice until I had left.  It still seems ok.

I made some muffins to celebrate Car turning one year old.  I was going to put candles in them and all.  Only problem is the muffins turned out amazingly gooey, like some sort of pudding only nowhere near as nice.  I think one of the flour mixes I have has much too much gum in it (guar and xanthan gums are used to replace gluten in gluten free flours).  I was sad - my lovely banana, chocolate and ginger muffins were GROSS.  The banana muffins were no better.

I have a new quilt in progress.  One of the lovely ladies at the last sew in I went to lent me her half square triangle squaring up ruler and OMG!  I have a new love!  I had to trot over to Joann's with a coupon and get me one the next day.  It makes squaring the blighters up so much easier... but it still takes a while and I am not devoting many hours a day to it.

That's not a quilt, that's bunting!

The flowers are magnificent still.  We are moving into the summer flowers now, though some have been out for nearly a month after the amazing couple of weeks in early May brought things on a lot.

My Chirita started blooming.  It isn't called a Chirita anymore - they changed the name, it is now a Primulina.  It is very pretty but I thought I had bought a small growing one and it is huge - at least 30cm/12" across and would very much like to grow out of the 20cm/8" bell dome it is in at the moment.  I'm not sure what to do about that...

I've been working on drawing things for work.  It is interesting trying to pick up some old techniques and bring them up to date and draw things in a totally different style to anything I've done before.  My drawings of people tend towards photorealism but with this I am going for a very stylised cartoon and trying to simplify things and "dumb them down" when I'm used to doing lots of detail is quite hard.  I keep having to take a step back and look at what others have done and pull myself back in my desire to make things complicated.  It is taking longer than I would like but then again I'm learning new techniques and it is getting easier.  And it is fun.  Work should not all be drudgery!

I have so many more pics to share but
Blogger won't bring them in, dangnabbit.

I seem to have settled down on the zomg, want to make all the things all the time at the moment.  I have a few projects I am working on and I seem fairly placid about it  There's a few things I want to do - given how many first cousins once removed are cropping up on DH's side, I should knit a few baby items and quite a few bibs and burp rags.  They are simple and quick to make.  I would like to make a couple of summer tops for me but I fear that with the current pace of the days zooming past by the time I've cast on it will be November.  LOL  They say the days get faster as you get older and soon they will be whizzing past so quickly I won't remember what happened on them.  No wonder old people have difficulty remembering recent stuff - they don't get a chance to experience today before it is tomorrow!  Or next month... or year....

I am sure I will remember some Very Important Things to talk about as soon as I end this post, but continuing to blather will not bring them to mind, so

anon!