My Giant Weed

It's back from last year.  Does anyone out there know what it is. Is something good that happen to come into my yard and just doesn't want to go away even though I don't even water it? Oh well, it's going to be there for a while as I'm just too lazy to dig it out. I wonder how much bigger it will get.

The funny thing is my gardener came by the other day and to trim our bushes and weed whack everything in sight but left this one. I think it so big that he think I'm actually trying grow this plant/weed. 

Only if my other plants did as well with so little care. Here's one more tomato plant picture. I got to show off something that's doing well.

Cherry Tomatoes

cherry tomato, a photo by april_yurie on Flickr.

This is second batch of ripening tomatoes. Tomato plant like this very sunny spot near my front door. To the right of it, is my ever ripening chili pepper. It quite giant, only produced this one fruit and has been taking it sweet time to ripen. But at least, I'm getting something unlike last year's zucchini :(

Mischief night

struck our house last night. 


Ding dong, my doorbell is ring at 10 last night. WG is passed out, doesn't even move. I start making my way down to the front door, looking to throw something on over my pj.


Ding dong, ding dong, knock, knock, knock.
I'm coming, I'm coming. Who is it? I asked with a little concern.
It's the New Brunswick Police, from the voice behind the door.


Now I'm even more concern and I hurry to open the front door. There he was Mr. Policeman and another person with a bucket.


He tells me that there were kids in the neighborhood egging the houses and cars. And our house was one of them. The young man with him was one of the kids they caught and he was here to clean up some of it. 


The young man wipes my screen door off and makes an utter mess. Then give me a half-ass apology with a smile on his face after the Mr. Policeman asked him to do it. And now there were off to other house to clean up.


Now this all came as quite a whirlwind and much confusion for me to absorb in the moments it happen. After they left, I had screen door with a soapy mess on it. It took 20 minutes to clean up. And I could figure out why it had such an aftershave smell. 


So I woke up this morning thinking I could use this morning to start baking early and testing more recipes. But I forgot to get eggs and I think I need more butter. 


So out the door I went at 10 to find out that I had a flat tire. I have no proof of who or what made the tire flat but I just find it an odd coincidence that the flat tire is where there is crap on my car from those outstanding young people from my neighborhood. And by the way, that stinky aftershave smell, is that awful men's bodywash. I have evidence as they threw the container down near my front door. Here's some picture some pictures of the evidence and my flat tire. 



So instead of baking, I'm writing my story about mischief night and those outstanding young people in my neighborhood. And by the way, they suck. 

A good cleaning

That's what my kitchen got this morning. I needed to do it. Got rid of junk that we would probably not use and reorganized cabinets and shelves. Now I have space on my counter to do something. If it only could stay that way.

Tonight will be a big baking session to test a could of a ideas for the restaurant. Hope one of my ideas turn out tasty. Pictures to come.

An Elephant in the House

I mean an Elephant chair. A Thai Elephant Chair to be exact and guess who brought it home.


So the story starts out as I mention to WG that I wanted to move the chair in my office up to the bedroom so I can sit and knit and crochet more comfortably. He said "Why don't you buy a new one?" You can't imagine my excitement. We usually fight about what to get. That's why my furniture in my house looks like we just got out of college--hand-me-downs and garbage picked and a whole lot of mis-matched items. I'm like, Okay! (my mind is racing to figure out where can I look for a great comfortable chair that looks great, too. 


So about a month has gone by. I haven't had the chance to look for a chair. 


Then WG said "I need the truck to pick your elephant chair" 
"My what?" I replied very confused. 
"Your Thai Elephant Chair." WG said with confidence
"What does it look like? Where are you getting it from" I worriedly replied.
"It's Teak. Don't worry you will like it. Someone had put a sign up at Pad Thai." He replied back with no clue that about the images and thoughts that are running in my head. Does this chair look like elephant? Do I have to straddle it to sit on it? And what does it matter that it is teak? 


So I end the conversation with "What if I don't like it?"
Annoyed, he answered, "Then you have to buy your own chair and we can put this somewhere else.


Which is what I thought I was suppose to do. 


Well, the chair is here. And it is not really a chair more like a love seat or day bed. And it was heavier than WG and I can carry. But of course, like everything else that is heavy in our house, I had to help him carry it from the truck. There was a lot of yelling about not to drop the extremely heavy piece of furniture. But finally we got it in the house.


With both of us sweating from wrestling the chair in the front door, I asked "are moving it upstairs now?" 
He looks at me like I have 2 heads and said "No, it's too heavy."


So that's why I have an elephant chair in the middle of my living room (please remember, it was only suppose to be small club chair for the bedroom). We still need to figure out where we should put it with all the other mismatch items there. 


I have to say, it is a pretty nice chair/love seat/day bed. And comfortable, too. Here's a pic of the elephant. The bottom section is where it sit on the elephant's back. By the way, when WG was telling how it is suppose to sit on the elephant's back, he said this chair was too heavy to sit on the elephant. Probably the really elephant chairs were made out of rattan. 

Cleaning out crap

UPDATE: 6 boxes of of crap went to Goodwill yesterday. 5 boxes of books and a box of housewares. Still have more to get rid of. I'm on a roll now.


I'm on a break from cleaning out crap from my garage. I just loaded 5 boxes of books (roughly 75 books) and a box of housewares in the car. I still have a lot of stuff.


Here's some pictures of my goings-on.

WG's "Keep" books. I gave him 3 full boxes to look through and this is what he kept.



My pile of books, not bad for someone that has 5 boxes in the car to go to goodwill.



And a box of reference books to give away to any takers. 


Now I have to figure out where to put all the things I'm keeping. I don't like it in the garage. Hard to get to. And I have to break down the boxes that don't have anything in it. I wished I could get rid of more stuff. Maybe one more sort, and I'll eliminate even more.

Vinegar in My Wash

I finally tried it, 1/4 cup of white vinegar in the rinse cycle. My clothes feels soft and doesn't smell like vinegar. I even bought those dryer balls and now I'm softener and dryer sheet free. 

Rain, rain, in my basement

Yup! Once again we got water in a our basement--6" this time. Not as bad as last time and we learn not to keep too much crap down there. Got a pump--so quick, 4 hours. Then wet/dry vac the rest. Now, 4 fans are running to dry everything out. Hopefully by the weekend it will be good and new. At least the floor is clean.

my poor neglected garden

As I mention in a previous post, I haven't been paying too much attention to my plants this year. But despite that fact, I think they are all doing pretty well. Here's some pictures:

my chili pepper plant



many little chilis have been popping up. not sure when they will be ready. So far they look too small to harvest.


zucchini plant



Like my chili plant there are many flowers and hope to see some baby zucchini soon. Once we have had too much, it will become zucchini bread.


new grass



From several years of neglect (allergies for both WG and me) before we got our landscaper guy, our grass go a bit weedy. WG decided we should do something about it. So late spring, with the help of our painter/all-around handy guy, we put in some new grass with the patch grass seed stuff. That's the stuff with the ground up paper and fertilizer with the seeds. It was much more of a ordeal that WG thought. Luckily, painter guy had the forethought to get a rototiller to dig up all the junkie grass, 2 1/2 days later with had most of our back yard and part of front tilled up and spread with pulpy grass seed stuff. With the luck of the very wet June, the grass is doing great. Here's a picture of our back yard in all of it's green glory.

pattern adjustment

Guess who was so disappointed when she found out how hard it would be to adjust the her flea market patterns. ME! I'm so sad!

It will be a major reconstruction to the pattern I brought to Sac with me, that I had to leave it with my sister. She knows really how to do it as opposed to me that read something on internet.

I guess it's the gym for me. Here I thought I would be sewing up a storm this summer, having all these cute pieces (that fit) to wear. Oh well, it really suck to get old.

ps: are you surprise that i posted twice in a day. I guess I'm a bit jetlag and I'm sitting a WG's laptop and posting away while he sleep.

wheatgerm's fabulous buys

Went to the flea market this Saturday. WG got some great buys. I thought I'd shared them with you. It's not exactly what I would have wanted but WG couldn't pass up the deal.




Goram Silver plated flatwear 44 pieces






noritake setting for 8

Got some great ideas for bags. Keep seeing these great crochet bags in a granny square patter in this black cord-like yarn. I need to do some research to figure out the the "yarn" is. I'm work on a scarf right on using a yarn that may work for this bag. I may have to buy more to make a prototype. Will post something soon when I have worked out a bit.


This is also the lunch WG made for me today. Rad Na Moo--flat rice noodle in a pork sauce with baby chinese broccoli. Yum!!

Trying to catch up

It's a snow day for me today! YOO HOO! I love these days, didn't get them in Hawaii, when I was a kid. I totally understand how kids feel about them.

I decide to be productive and try to get caught up with posting all the things I've been wanting to post since this summer, mainly my vacation pictures. I've been so slow with that. I still haven't gotten to edit those pictures, let alone and posting them. Maybe if we get another snow day this month, I get to the vacation pictures!

But I have a lot of knitting stuff for you. To my surprise I've been knitting and crocheting a great deal these past few months. So I wanted to share with you what I've been doing.

My stripe vest
I've been working on this for sometime. I'm not really happy with it. Size is off and I'm hoping when I block the piece I can make it fit better. Just the ribbing on the armholes to go. But it may go by the lily pad.













Boucle bath rug
This was suppose to be Mom and Dad's x-mas gift. As you can tell, I didn't make it. Too many dish cloths killed me this year. So they'll probably get it at niecey-poo's graduation. It's coming out great. I hope they like it.










.99 cents bag
Really it was .99 cents per skein and I bought 6 skeins. How could I past that up. The pattern is from Berroco.com called the knitting tote. Right now, it looks like a big rust color rectangle. I hope it will transform into a great-looking bag. Need to buy a handle and grommets for the draw strings on the side. And did into my fabric stash for some funky retro lining to finish it up. Will post the finish piece when done.










WG's mittens
I think he's been wanting something for a while. I've knitted for everyone else but him. I wanted to make some thing quick, that looked great to me and he would want to wear. Ta dah! Mittens in Jo Sharp Silkroad Aran Tweed with a simple stripe that runs through it. One more side to go, I hope to finish it today.













That's it for me. I'm off to knit by the fireplace. Then get our tax papers together. Visitors are coming this weekend for an overnight. I guess I'll be clean this week. Need more snow days for this Hawaiian girl.