Summertime, sorta
G'day all!
Summer.
Summer is the best time to be in Seattle, really. It's been a little San Jose (Bay area, California) here recently - not the heat but the mornings have been foggy and a little tardy in clearing, but once it has cleared?
Glorious.
Summer makes winter almost worthwhile, cos to have these summers, we have to have crap winters.
I walked up to Sunset Hill again this evening and watched the Sun set. It is moving back down the Olympic Peninsula again, quite clearly moving towards its winter solstice home.
The Sun was setting in front of me, the Moon rising behind... The Moon is full tonight and apparently again tomorrow night. Mt Rainier was clearly visible and nicely pinked up with the setting sun. The breeze was so light as to not be there and it was a pleasant 22 or 23C.
These are the evenings that make my heart happy.
It has been a quite relaxing weekend.
Yesterday we had breakfast (brunch by the time we had waited 55 minutes for a seat!) with some of Nathan's colleagues, then took them to the locks and the fish ladder. The clouds were taking their own sweet time clearing but by 1pm the sun had broken through and by 2 it was clear as a bell. The difference it made to how the locks and the inlet look is quite amazing. Hopefully I didn't bore them witless by taking waaay too many pics of things.
We saw two harbour seals playing in the wash. I presume they were playing - maybe they were being amorous. They didn't seem to be going after the salmon that we could see swimming around below the fish ladder.
Today DH carried four half flats of berries home for me (lovely DH!) - marionberries, boysenberries (X2) and loganberries. I added them to the tayberries and 2 half flats of blackcaps (black raspberries). This afternoon I made blackcap jam. Tomorrow I have to make marionberry jam, boysenberry jam (or syrup) and freeze the rest of the berries. Our freezer is almost jammed to the top with frozen berries now - I need to get some different bags to double bag the berry bags in - at the moment I am not using the space efficiently.
I now have strawberry, tayberry and blackcap jam. I don't actually eat that much jam so I think I'll be giving some of it to new homes as gifts! I'll just have to find some people who like jam.
I made an artful arrangement of some flowers in a vase. I cooked a roast (chicken, but it wasn't as nice as I expected - the chicken was bruised and had not been handled gently). If I had cleaned the place, I would expect a medal for being a domestic goddess, but we have to draw the line somewhere! I did manage to get all the dishes done for about a whole 20 seconds before I started making jam.
Knitting? Hooray for me, after pulling the neck out three times, I finally got the cast off neck of my new top sitting right. The sleeves were done in a trice and then the weaving in of all the ends on a rather slippery yarn. Alas no pics yet cos DH decided to have a snooze and it is hard getting pics of yourself, or at least it is hard to get pics where you don't look a bit wrong.
The next top is about to begin. It is another summer top - gotta make them whilst summer lasts, then I'll have to make some winter things again. It would be nice if I wore my winter woollies more but I seem to like microfleece tops a lot. Maybe I'm just lazy. Or cold in winter.
Quilting? Umm, what is that? We had a visitor early in the week and I packed everything up and have not unpacked it yet. I was busy knitting instead. We took him for a drive to one of our favourite spots, but alas it decided to rain on us! At least the snow had melted quite a way further up the mountain.
It was quite amusing taking our visitor to the airport - he was using his iPhone to give me directions, and Siri wanted me to take the next right at one point, even though I realised that there were signs up ahead that told me how to get to the airport.
It turns out that Siri is a very literal person, if a computer program can be called a person, and was taking me to the closest part of the airport, known as the runway... Since I had gotten into completely the wrong lane, I then had to hit the turbo boost button and zip off at the lights to get across TWO lanes. With my indicator on of course! Then after we dropped our guest off at the airport, it started to rain. I've only once driven in rain like it (in Melbourne, on Boxing Day in ?98?). It was dark, it was pissing down and then just one lightning bolt lit up the gloom in a retina burning display. I drove from the airport up to the U district in pouring rain, then by the time we got to Ballard (?five? miles west), it was almost completely dry!
At least it gave the car a bit of a wash - it was that heavy!
I had an odd reaction to something early in the week. I'm still doing this rehab stuff - am starting to think I'll never complete it. I just keep breeding adhesions in my armpit and boob (well I hope they are adhesions!) where the muscle fascia rubs directly on the underside of the skin - when they took out the lymph nodes from my axilla, they just took out the whole chunk of fatty tissue, and of course the boob had a tumour so that whole area was resected. Anyway, the skin and the underlying tissue want to stick together and will probably always want to stick together. It is tedious. However, I am much stronger than I was and can now do full squats with overhead extension and one legged squats. I even discovered I can do girly push ups (but my pec area on the bad side puffs up like a balloon afterwards).
Anyway, the chiro called me an athlete, and I just bugged out. Me? An athlete? My body responds to exercise well, except for when it breaks down because it is whingy and whiny and a bit overly flexible. I build muscle - not like a bloke but I do develop muscle. But I've never been an athlete. Not ever. I could've been good at various power sports at school but the phys ed teachers were only interested in the cool and tough kids, not in the unco, unfit, slightly chubby kids like me. I could jump further than anyone else in my year, I could throw a javelin or a shotput as far as the more sporty kids but eh, I was unco and unfit and below being noticed except for being abused. IF they had bothered with me, I could've been useful rather than being the last or second last chosen for sports teams.
It really makes me wonder about PE teachers. If an English teacher or a maths teacher treated the less scholastically inclined kids the way the PE teachers treated those of us who weren't particularly athletic, the English/maths teacher would be on report.
So I bugged out. Me, an athlete?
I guess it is one of those vulnerable spots. I have a few of them, like anyone I guess.
I've also been doing a bit of reading on my Meyers-Briggs personality type again. I persistently test as one particular type (INFP) and most of it is very me. It is much more accurate than say an astrology chart (Scorpio, moon in Cancer, Pisces ascendant if you must know - all water signs). Anyway, it is nice to know that I'm not totally crazy, or at least if I am, there's quite a few crazies out there with me, and some of those crazies are/were very well known authors. Also it is good to know that various of the things I do are typical of people like me.
Maybe next time I'll have pics of the new knitted top and of a couple of quilt tops - I have lots of difficulty getting good shots these days cos I do not have a washing line or even a fence to hang the quilts/quilt tops on. Or maybe not!
anon!
Summer.
 |
| Gigantic lilium. There will be more pics of these. |
 |
| A chestnut, flowering now! |
 |
| Animated Space Needle! |
 |
| Love echinaceas, even yellow/orange ones. |
Summer is the best time to be in Seattle, really. It's been a little San Jose (Bay area, California) here recently - not the heat but the mornings have been foggy and a little tardy in clearing, but once it has cleared?
Glorious.
Summer makes winter almost worthwhile, cos to have these summers, we have to have crap winters.
 |
| Today's sunset. |
I walked up to Sunset Hill again this evening and watched the Sun set. It is moving back down the Olympic Peninsula again, quite clearly moving towards its winter solstice home.
The Sun was setting in front of me, the Moon rising behind... The Moon is full tonight and apparently again tomorrow night. Mt Rainier was clearly visible and nicely pinked up with the setting sun. The breeze was so light as to not be there and it was a pleasant 22 or 23C.
These are the evenings that make my heart happy.
It has been a quite relaxing weekend.
 |
| A King (Chinook) salmon. |
Yesterday we had breakfast (brunch by the time we had waited 55 minutes for a seat!) with some of Nathan's colleagues, then took them to the locks and the fish ladder. The clouds were taking their own sweet time clearing but by 1pm the sun had broken through and by 2 it was clear as a bell. The difference it made to how the locks and the inlet look is quite amazing. Hopefully I didn't bore them witless by taking waaay too many pics of things.
 |
| This tug tows barges to and from Alaska! |
We saw two harbour seals playing in the wash. I presume they were playing - maybe they were being amorous. They didn't seem to be going after the salmon that we could see swimming around below the fish ladder.
Today DH carried four half flats of berries home for me (lovely DH!) - marionberries, boysenberries (X2) and loganberries. I added them to the tayberries and 2 half flats of blackcaps (black raspberries). This afternoon I made blackcap jam. Tomorrow I have to make marionberry jam, boysenberry jam (or syrup) and freeze the rest of the berries. Our freezer is almost jammed to the top with frozen berries now - I need to get some different bags to double bag the berry bags in - at the moment I am not using the space efficiently.
I now have strawberry, tayberry and blackcap jam. I don't actually eat that much jam so I think I'll be giving some of it to new homes as gifts! I'll just have to find some people who like jam.
 |
| Strawberry jam. Yum! |
I made an artful arrangement of some flowers in a vase. I cooked a roast (chicken, but it wasn't as nice as I expected - the chicken was bruised and had not been handled gently). If I had cleaned the place, I would expect a medal for being a domestic goddess, but we have to draw the line somewhere! I did manage to get all the dishes done for about a whole 20 seconds before I started making jam.
Knitting? Hooray for me, after pulling the neck out three times, I finally got the cast off neck of my new top sitting right. The sleeves were done in a trice and then the weaving in of all the ends on a rather slippery yarn. Alas no pics yet cos DH decided to have a snooze and it is hard getting pics of yourself, or at least it is hard to get pics where you don't look a bit wrong.
 |
| A preview. It is very pink! |
The next top is about to begin. It is another summer top - gotta make them whilst summer lasts, then I'll have to make some winter things again. It would be nice if I wore my winter woollies more but I seem to like microfleece tops a lot. Maybe I'm just lazy. Or cold in winter.
Quilting? Umm, what is that? We had a visitor early in the week and I packed everything up and have not unpacked it yet. I was busy knitting instead. We took him for a drive to one of our favourite spots, but alas it decided to rain on us! At least the snow had melted quite a way further up the mountain.
 |
| Montane flowers. |
It was quite amusing taking our visitor to the airport - he was using his iPhone to give me directions, and Siri wanted me to take the next right at one point, even though I realised that there were signs up ahead that told me how to get to the airport.
It turns out that Siri is a very literal person, if a computer program can be called a person, and was taking me to the closest part of the airport, known as the runway... Since I had gotten into completely the wrong lane, I then had to hit the turbo boost button and zip off at the lights to get across TWO lanes. With my indicator on of course! Then after we dropped our guest off at the airport, it started to rain. I've only once driven in rain like it (in Melbourne, on Boxing Day in ?98?). It was dark, it was pissing down and then just one lightning bolt lit up the gloom in a retina burning display. I drove from the airport up to the U district in pouring rain, then by the time we got to Ballard (?five? miles west), it was almost completely dry!
At least it gave the car a bit of a wash - it was that heavy!
 |
| Recognise the mountain yet? |
I had an odd reaction to something early in the week. I'm still doing this rehab stuff - am starting to think I'll never complete it. I just keep breeding adhesions in my armpit and boob (well I hope they are adhesions!) where the muscle fascia rubs directly on the underside of the skin - when they took out the lymph nodes from my axilla, they just took out the whole chunk of fatty tissue, and of course the boob had a tumour so that whole area was resected. Anyway, the skin and the underlying tissue want to stick together and will probably always want to stick together. It is tedious. However, I am much stronger than I was and can now do full squats with overhead extension and one legged squats. I even discovered I can do girly push ups (but my pec area on the bad side puffs up like a balloon afterwards).
 |
| These were running quite well! |
Anyway, the chiro called me an athlete, and I just bugged out. Me? An athlete? My body responds to exercise well, except for when it breaks down because it is whingy and whiny and a bit overly flexible. I build muscle - not like a bloke but I do develop muscle. But I've never been an athlete. Not ever. I could've been good at various power sports at school but the phys ed teachers were only interested in the cool and tough kids, not in the unco, unfit, slightly chubby kids like me. I could jump further than anyone else in my year, I could throw a javelin or a shotput as far as the more sporty kids but eh, I was unco and unfit and below being noticed except for being abused. IF they had bothered with me, I could've been useful rather than being the last or second last chosen for sports teams.
It really makes me wonder about PE teachers. If an English teacher or a maths teacher treated the less scholastically inclined kids the way the PE teachers treated those of us who weren't particularly athletic, the English/maths teacher would be on report.
So I bugged out. Me, an athlete?
I guess it is one of those vulnerable spots. I have a few of them, like anyone I guess.
I've also been doing a bit of reading on my Meyers-Briggs personality type again. I persistently test as one particular type (INFP) and most of it is very me. It is much more accurate than say an astrology chart (Scorpio, moon in Cancer, Pisces ascendant if you must know - all water signs). Anyway, it is nice to know that I'm not totally crazy, or at least if I am, there's quite a few crazies out there with me, and some of those crazies are/were very well known authors. Also it is good to know that various of the things I do are typical of people like me.
 |
| Such a pretty spot on Rainier. |
anon!
So many amazing photos! You get to see such fun things like seals playing, and pretty flowers growing wild on mountains. I bet the jam is delicious, I love that it's made from berries I didn't know existed. Keep having fun in the Summery sun!
ReplyDeleteI love your animated picture. I could watch it for a while actually. Oh so many berries, and the jam looks so wonderful!! Anyone would be happy to receive it. I was never any good at PE at school, but there's always a time in Assembly for athletes to stand up and be clapped and have a medal but never one for a good Maths or English scholar eg. Bah humbug. Enjoy the weather!!!
ReplyDelete