Summer life at the home on top of the ridge, and retirement goals!

Here we are at the cusp of summer and progress is being made. 

No news today and no completed projects, but just wanted to share some glimpses of our "outdoor" life. In the summertime, my mind is always on staying cool, but now that I've entered my "sometimes-gardening-and-piddling" phase of life, I look forward to seeing what's happening in our little splotch of land.

Either last Wednesday or Thursday I picked four cucumbers; Hubs found another lurker. We picked the first one a few days earlier, immediately ate it, and declared it to be the best cucumber we have tasted in years. I ate another one Thursday for lunch and cut up the rest for a cucumber and onion salad that we have enjoyed for a few days. Cucumber and onion salad takes me back to my youth and spending time with my grandparents—my grandmother made that salad at least once or twice a week, and always from the cukes my grandfather grew. 

Blackberries: the neighborhood is full of them, and they largely reside in the lots surrounding ours. Hubs will go out with the puptarts for their morning constitutional and pick them. I made a small cobbler and froze the remainder—I saw a handful on my walk with the puptarts Monday morning, and I’m sure this will be the last week for them. This year’s crop is much better than last year’s. Last week also marked the end of strawberry season here in central Arkansas. 

Other crops: tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, crookneck squash, okra and green beans. Tons of flowers are popping on the plants, so I eagerly await the produce. I attacked the mildew hitting the squash using a baking soda/Dawn dishwashing liquid mix, then applied some Neem oil; I hope that helps. 

Flowers, too!

When I stepped into my studio earlier this week, I was grateful for the ability to move around in it. We moved one of the computer workstations into the closet of what is now the fabric and cutting room. Even Hubs admitted the space in the current sewing room looks much larger--but it's not enough to get me to change my mind on repurposing the workspace in each of the studios. We looked at lighting yesterday--my sewing setup has a lighting and suspension system the Hubs engineered for me while we were in the apartment. I realized yesterday that I'll need additional lighting in the front room when we convert it to the cutting room, and lately I've been seeing quilters using the hexagon garage ceiling lights when updating their studios. I showed Hubs a few, and now we will install a set in the cutting room (unless he comes up with a better idea before that happens). 

And, he's working on the plans for building a new sewing table for me. Cabinets are extremely expensive, and I can't justify one for each sewing machine. When he told me he would build me a new table to accommodate both The Beaut and Ani, I was over the moon. 

And now for a laugh--before I retired, I had so many goals for how I wanted to spend my free time. Being with friends and family, travel, learning (it’s important to me to keep learning while I have active brain cells), but most all, quilting. But one other goal that I have had for many, many years is taking a nap. 

Napping as a goal? Hear me out. I don’t know if it’s because of how I am wired or because I have so many things I want to do, but I have never been good at taking a nap—even as a child. In the very rare occasions that I fell asleep during the day it was usually because I was completely exhausted or not feeling well. With those few naps, I learned that a good power nap for me was approximately 20 minutes. 

With retirement, I had hoped that my body would adjust to the idea of having the time to take a nap, but it did not happen quickly. In fact, just in the last couple of weeks I have been enjoying an almost daily nap, but that came with exhaustion. My sleep rhythm has this on-again, off-again thing going on where I sleep great one night but not so great the next. I’m a light sleeper, the puptarts sleep with us, and Jolene has of late decided she must come burrow in my back somewhere between 1:00 am and 3:00 am. I typically cannot return to sleep when that happens. I get up, make my coffee and do my review of email and social media. Hubs wakes up around 6:00, and always seems surprised that I’ve been awake so long. It is what it is. I try to make the best of it.

Quilting and other crafts: I am still knotting off in the back the starts and ends of all of the blanket stitching on the baby quilt I am making for Vicki’s soon-to-be-here great-grandson. Borders will be added and then it’s going to be quilted with a grid using the walking foot on The Beaut. Some of the Stitch & B!tch gals and I went shopping Tuesday and made our way to Linda Marie’s in Vilonia and a cross stitch and needlework shop in Conway, The Stitcher’s Garden. I purchased fabrics at Linda Marie’s for the Mod Owls Revival quilt that will be a class at the shop in September and October, and a small piece of 28 count linen and floss for this pattern that is my foray back into counted cross stitch after a 30+ year absence:

I’m going to test my ability to cross stitch while we’re driving up the interstate to Nashville.

Work on switching out the rooms will happen as soon as we return, and I’m still hopeful that we can get everything done before Hubs has to return to school. That includes building the cabinet. I will be the “here, hold this” volunteer and that will cut into my other projects, but this is a must for me. 

If you've read this far, I thank you for reading. I hope you're busy doing all the things you want to do--go make!