Live.Laugh.Love.Create.

Well, well...  It is now late into the evening!  I hope everyone is having a Great Weekend.  I know we all are.  Today has been about eating and organizing more than anything.

This morning, we ate at a great breakfast/brunch spot called Wild Eggs.  It was so delicious.  It's somewhat expensive for breakfast, and I never order anything healthy, so we don't go often.  For lunch, we just worked through it and opted for an early dinner instead.  Dinner was sushi and hibachi grill at Fuji Japanese Steakhouse.  Sooooooo Gooooood!  I love sushi and it is a family owned business.  We know everyone there and they have known my Little Darling since she was a toddler.  I love ethnic food, but more than that, I love family owned restaurants.  Owners take so much more pride in the work they do and you can *feel* the sense of family when you go there.  We have a family owned spot for all of our favorite sorts of foods:  Family owned Persian place, Chinese place, Indian place, Mexican place, and now we have recently added a Vietnamese place to the list as well.  If I could just get a family owned Italian place, I might be completely to the moon in Food Bliss Heaven!

I have also been paying more attention to my balcony container garden.  It has been very hot here, with so little rain.  I have been out every evening to water the plants.  Soon, I saw this:

All of the tomato plants have grown ABOVE the little gate that we made.  In the last garden we planted, birds and a lot of squirrels broke the branches on all the tomatoes.  They didn't eat the fruits, they wanted the tomato branches and the leaves.  I was so upset!  We tried everything we could, but, in the end, the squirrels won. All of our tomatoes were thrown to the ground and all the branches were eaten.  This year, we came up with a great plan!  This cage...  This year, the tomatoes grew so large!  I have never gotten them to grow so big and SO many tomatoes!!!

These are the best tomatoes I have EVER tasted.  And I grew them myself!  Now, if I could just get them all to turn red at the same time :-)  This is from two days.  Right now, we have about 20 more green cherry tomatoes, waiting to ripen. I can't wait!  I can taste a summer salad already!

I have also be getting so busy with crochet!  I can't even keep up!! I have so many projects in my mind right now.  I am trying to sketch them out, make voice recordings, and maybe even create a few motifs so that I have an example of what I am trying to do.  Well, let me tell you, even with doing ALL of that, I am still unable to record all of my ideas.  Oh Man!!  I am so grateful to be inspired right now. I have taken quite a break from crochet because I couldn't think of anything to do.  I was bored with it. 

Now, I have a new purpose.  The main inspiration I have right now is GIFT GIVING!

So the other day, I look at my calendar and I come to the realization that my friend's baby shower is in just a few weeks!  I have not even thought about what to do for a gift!  I had some ideas, but then I changed my mind...and I had more ideas, but then she mentioned colors that would not fit.  And then I lost my inspiration and motivation.  Well, thank God I am ready to rock and roll with my Hook again because I finally came up with this design here.  My dear friend *A* is having a baby boy.

I am almost certain that *A* does not read my blog, so I feel comfortable showing this project here.  Sometimes, knowing that people aren't reading your blog makes it easier to really just document what you have going on creatively, rather than worrying about keeping secrets.  I love it.  And I love this little project here.  It's part of a set that I am doing for her Little Mister.

Making Grannies is easy and fast and fun.  But I don't want this to be "just another granny blanket", so I have something special planned for it to make it just a little more interesting!!!  But THAT will have to wait for some other day.  I don't want to give everything away all at one time...

I just love seeing the process of a Granny Square grow from one round to the next :-)

Since I will have to get this in the mail within the next 10 days, this project and everything else that is in the package to my friend *A* are my Priority!  There are some other things in the making as well.  I will be showing those other projects throughout the week! That way, if I completely lose my mind with all these ideas, then I can at least have my blog to remind me of the projects I have planned.  Hahaha!

Also!!!  If you have not entered my Giveaway and you are considering it, Please feel free to enter the Giveaway here.  Just leave a comment on the post, and I will be drawing a winner on Monday!

Have a Wonderful Weekend!

Woke up late this morning, slightly dreading work.  We had this crazy storm that came from nowhere around 8am or something this morning.  Storms typically give me migraines, so my Little Darling and I hopped back in bed and slept until 11:45 this afternoon.  NICE!  Those moments are quite rare, as I am sure most can imagine, especially if they have children.
So I started my late day off the right way.... With some sugar cookies and milk!


My local bakery is Off.the.Chain!  It is soooooo good.  These soft, frosted, fresh-baked yummies are a great start to any day..... and unfortunately for me, they just so happen to be a great start to most of my days.  I am a true, bonafied COOKIE MONSTER!  I was a recovering cookie addict, but I have relapsed full throttle here lately.



As I have hinted about in previous posts, I have been preparing to homeschool my Little Darling.  She's 4, too young and too small to start kindergarten this year.  We wanted to do private or homeschooling with her anyway, when she was eligible for school.  I just figured, since she is totally ready and prepared mentally/cognitively for kindergarten that I would just do a year of homeschooling for her and see where she ends up around this time next year.  If she is ready, maybe she could skip into first grade, or if it goes well, I may continue to homeschool her for a couple of years longer.

This little morning board was sooooooooo much work!  I got a lot of print outs from different home school blogs, but then there was the cutting, the mounting, the laminating, re-cutting, etc.  And everything that wasn't pre-made, I had to make on my own.  I am so tech-retarded it's not even funny!  So I am sure some of you are shaking your head thinking, "This is what took you five days?"  It also took more time because it's a bilingual board, with the exception of the Bible verse.  I am teaching my daughter Spanish, or doing what I can at least. I am pretty proud of myself, and I am hoping to get some great use out of this as we go on our homeschool journey.  No worries!  I am not a Homeschool Blogger.  That would be terrible because 1- I'd be bored with the topic and 2- After blogging about schoolwork, I wouldn't have the energy or attention span to blog about arts/crafts, which is more recreational, as is this blog.
Speaking of which! REMEMBER THIS?
I can't even remember when I started it.  I just know that, at some point, I stopped working on it.  I think I got into some project as a gift or something.... Who knows!  Anyway, I had this little basket of hexies that I was supposed to make more of.  In fact, I think I needed about 80 more or something.  Just knowing I wasn't near the end was enough to drive me crazy.  So i just dropped it off into my dark abyss of a craft room.

Then, the magic happened.  Whenever I finish something that I have been working terribly hard on (homeschool planning and morning board) I kind of come off that high and get restless.  You know, after a really long run, your muscles are achey and you are tired and mentally frazzled.... but the adrenaline from the run and the excitement over your accomplishment keeps you from being able to just crash on the couch in bliss.  That was me last night.  After finishing my planning and the damn board, I was like "Now what?  What can I do?  Gotta decompress.  Gotta get my crochet on.  Something. ANYTHING?!!"  I know, I am a little crazy, but I can't stand to not be busy.

So, I picked up some things that I had been working on.  I finished a hat and a cardigan and I thought about working on some baby booties.  I changed my mind because I was in the mood to finish things.  So I walked around my arsenal of craft leftovers...and I picked up this guy again!


I laid all the hexies on my floor, and it was so perfect!  It was symmetrical.  It was just the right size for a baby boy.  And I had exactly the right amount of hexagons!  Not one too many and not one less.  If that's not a calling I don't know what is!

So.... what happened?  Nothing!  LOL. I fastened them all off, put them in the pattern I wanted to attach them in...and then I hit a wall.  I have no idea how to attach them!!!!  I actually only know ONE way to attach motifs.  I know a whip stitch.  So I tried that without a border, but it looked pretty terrible to say the least.

Remember what they looked like with the border versus without?  I most definitely don't want to go back and add the navy border to all those hexies! Not a chance in hell that will happen (angry voice).  But, I think I will attempt to crochet them together or do some research on other ways to connect motifs.  If you know anything-- hook a girl up!
Until then.... the mystery of how to get connected will remain unresolved....