Works in Progress

No that lovely bit of knitting is not mine. My Shalom is green. A green that does not show up very nicely on crap mobile phone pictures. But a green that is beautiful in person. The colorway is called Shire. It is dark green with these little shots of golden and pale green. It puts in mind a lawn that is just waking up in the springtime sun. Perfect for knitting now (if it were not to hot and heavy!) It also is an homage to my husband and his reading of the Lord of Rings Trilogy. He has been reading the books on his commute and he is so close to done. When I bought the yarn he commented that it looked like what he pictured the fields in the book to look like- "you know before they got all bloody and broken by that wizard guy"....

See told ya- crap photos..

But I am on row 34 thus far. I got all the way to row 38 when I realized I had screwed something up. I unknitted ( yes actually unknitted not just pulled out) See that left side there? yea all that had to come out. I have not picked it up again, as I may just freak out and toss it all aside if I mess it up again. Today it is raining and gross so it may get back in my hands while the kids watch movies or whatever... So there are 214 stitches and 38 rows of knitting already done and roughly a million more stitches to go. I am going to put it aside and cast on my dress (or a wedding present blanket) when I get to the point of dividing for the sleeves. At that point it will be just mindless stockinette (and on the dress too) so it should go quick.

In other news: The yard is coming along nicely...

When we moved in I planted bulbs in the front beds- the tulips and daffodils in this picture are mostly from the planting I did. This week we mulched over the beds because I am sick of weeding and it really just makes the beds look finished. We also edged them with all the rocks we dug out of the garden space in the back. I still have to really clean all the clay off them as they are all still a sickly grey/brown color... behind that rhododendron bush on the side of the house there is a brand new, made by the husband rain barrel. If the rhododendron does not bloom it will be removed and replaced (there is another rhododendron on the other side of the house that is also a little sickly looking and hiding another rain barrel). I really like rhododendrons, they remind me of my childhood home.

The backyard is a little less done. But here is our peach tree. Joe calls it the Gordon tree after the old man neighbor who gave it to us. Gordon comes over every few days to pet the dog and water the tree (even though we assure him we are taking care of it!) See that blue bucket in the back there? Next to it we planted 4 strawberry bushes, a raspberry bush and a blackberry bush and we laid down a roll out butterfly garden seed mix. It all the pretty cedar mulch and I am working on edging it all in. The garden bed is still being filled and amended, but the hubby laid down some grass seed in the rest of the yard.

So that's our progress thus far. Of course the inside of the house still has no pictures on the walls, and Jude is still sleeping in a corner full of boxes, BUT we made a laundry area in the basement and the yard is almost ready to entertain in....