*Guinness chocolate cake….um, yes please.

*the kitty and Dexter, who are hilarious together.

*tangle’s new back door

*did I mention honor turned 7? Can you believe I have a 7 and a 8 year old?

*Even though I swore I’d never hand quilt, this weekend found me doing just that. I whipped up a simple picnic quilt – just four giant squares pieced together for the top and backed with Anna Maria laminated cotton. I had orginally planned to hand tie the blanket but decided that was going to be way too fussy for me and decided that hand quilting with embroidery floss and giant stitches would be better.

*My moms cherry tree had another bumper crop, so I spent the weekend preserving cherries. I dehydrated a huge batch and froze a bunch (I like to freeze cherries in a cookie sheet in a single layer and then transfer them to containers for long term freezing. This is just a tiny bit more work, but ensures the cherries aren’t stuck together) and packaged them with my new seal-a-meal. I bought it several months ago on clearance in anticipation for the summer veggies.
Today I’m pitting the rest of the cherries to make jam and maraschino cherries. I’m especially excited about the maraschino cherries and hope they turn out.

*Honor said to Dexter the other day, “Dexter, life is hard…. Life is hard Dexter.” And I thought, someday life really will be hard for Honor. And while part of me wants to fiercely protect him for that, the other part knows that the hard parts of life are what will make him and are what can bring him the greatest joy. But until then, I’ll be happy to watch him live his life where the hardest thing he faces is folding the socks and cleaning his room.

• Um, rick rack in a dish towel? Yes please.

• Can’t believe I haven’t posted this yet, but a couple months ago Jim’s band, Pineapple Crackers, released their CD at an epic CD release party at the Mesa Theater. The show was fantastic.  Sometimes it’s surreal to watch Jim being a rockstar on stage with crowds screaming below. But  when he’s on stage with his guitar, he’s the most himself and it’s amazing to watch. Their CD is available through itunes.

• I bought these amazing toggles from a yarn rep today. Now I must design a sweater around them.

*well the twins have come and gone and I hardly took any pictures of them. I’m always amazed at the hectic pace my sister’s life is with twins. Basically all she does is feed them. It makes me exhausted thinking about it. They are entering the age that I love for babies – when they start doing tricks and their personalities start to emerge. It was sure fun to see them, Ashley and Gerardo too.

*Eden made it safely back from camp and had a wonderful time. When I asked her if she would like to go back next year she said, “duh.”

*I found this handy little calculator for calculating the calories in chipotle food. Since Chipotle is the only restaurant in town that serves free range/hormone free etc. meat, we will be eating there a lot.
chipotle calculator

*I’ve been turning on the sprinklers to water my garden and therefore haven’t looked at it closely in a few days. Yesterday I went out to discover I have a whole lovely row of green beans. There is nothing like accomplished feeling of growing your own food.

*today, if I can muster up the energy, I’m going to paint a fresh coat of blue on my front steps. We’ll see.

* my sister, bil and the twins arrived tonight. They are so big! I can’t wait to play with them more! We will spend tomorrow at the lake – our first wednesday trip of the summer. And, I think, the twins first time swimming.

* today we dropped Eden off for camp. She was pretty excited up until we started driving to the church to drop her off. She then told us she was ‘half and half’. But she got sent off without any tears – from any of us. I left feeling really grateful for the opportunity for her. I think it will be a time she will never forget. This was a new emotion for me. I mean, I’m really thankful for a lot of things in her life like her school and her friends. But this was different. Somehow I feel like this could change her life – in a good way – and I just feel really excited about what’s in store for her. She comes home Friday.

* with working, camp, meal planning, house guests, family dinner over here tomorrow and going to the lake, I’ve been a little overwhelmed. But I’m still making time to work out. I feel pretty determined about the whole thing. This morning, I ran, even though my legs were so damn sore that I could hardly move. Just don’t ask me to traverse stairs. (squats=torture) I think being sore is something I’m gonna just have to get used to.

* I made my first batch of homemade yogurt last week. It was so delicious. I will blog about it in more detail soon – with the really easy recipe.

* After four years of my last design I decided it was time for a face lift. So I spent the weekend redesigning my blog! And I’m proud to say that managed to do it all by myself with only one text message to Jim saying “please call, i broke my website.” I’m still working on redoing all the HTML pages to match the new blog, but will hopefully get it all finished soon.

* After today, we only have two days of school left. It’s been such a cool spring for GJ that it really doesn’t feel like school should be out. I’ve been trying to come up with some ideas of things to do with the kids to keep them occupied. Last summer was pretty epic with all the fun things we did, hopefully this summer can be the same.

* I’m thinking these reusable snack bags would be perfect to make out of our laminated cotton. I hate how many ziplocs we go through. Maybe this would be a good project to do with Eden. She has been showing a lot of interest in sewing.

* I’m working today on finishing the second quilt for my sisters twins. They are coming to visit next week and I’d like to have it finished to send home with her. I can’t wait to see the twins, they are getting so cute!

•I am in love with this shower curtain. If I didn’t already love my white terry cloth curtain (and know that Jim would HATE the girliness of this one for our ONLY bathroom) I’d order it.

•Ever since we started carrying Anna Maria Horner fabric at Tangle, I’ve been obsessed with her blog. I love that she has 6 kids, runs an amazing creative business and seems quite sane. She has to be my favorite fabric designer for the moment.

•Speaking of fabric, did I tell you that Tangle is teaching sewing classes now? I’m not teaching them – we hired a pair of amazing seamstresses to teach – but I sure do plan on taking them.

•I think Carrington and I need to make a batch of homemade deodorant.

•Today we are working on raising the bed of my garden. Normally we would have our garden planted, but it spent the later part of last week spitting snow… it’s been such a weird winter/spring for us here in the desert of Colorado. Hopefully we can plant next weekend. I think I’m going to simplify and just go with tomatoes, peppers and maybe green beans. I don’t have a very big space to plant all the things I’d like to preserve for the winter, so I’m just gonna go for a salsa garden and rely on the farmers market for my pantry.

• The chandelier is finished, but we had a snag with the new light hardware I bought and I need to go to Home Depot and cross my fingers that I can actually find someone to help me before the light can be completed and hung.

• I’m working a whole bunch over the next week so I can take a little va-cay. This includes our superbowl sale on Sunday. I’m really excited about the postcards we created for the occasion.

• Yesterday whilst shopping at evil-walmart, I came across a woman screaming horrible profanities at her small children because they wouldn’t choose a bag of chips fast enough. I was so shocked that I didn’t regain my ability to speak until after she had left the aisle. I looked for her in the store so I could give her a good talking-to but never found her. People, it was so heartbreaking, I nearly burst into tears right in the middle of the chip aisle.

• Sometime this week Tangle will receive our first shipment of Noro. Our customers are so excited I wonder if we will sell out in the first week?

• I woke up this am at 4:30 for my first of two TV appearances today. I talked about Tangle and how fashionable knitting can be. It was really interesting to see the behind-the-scenes of our local TV station. At noon I’ll be making an appearance at another local TV station.

I’m quite tired…

• I’m really liking these knitted key cozies and this knitted arm chair. All need to do is knit so I can make everything that I fall in love with.

• Maybe it’s because I’ve already been awake for an ungodly amount of time, but I feel as though I’m hyper-aware of every detail today. I noticed the chipped fingernail polish of the anchor who interviewed me, the City employee picking his nose as he waited in traffic, and the way the hair curled on the back of the grandma-lady’s head as she carried packages into the post office. It’s like a super power or something.

• Also, I think I’m going to find a way to turn off my voicemail. I loathe listening to it and usually I wait weeks to listen to them anyway. Texting is the way of the future yo.

• Yesterday one of the local TV stations called and asked me to appear on their noon show next Monday. I’ll be talking about Tangle, demonstrating how to knit and showing off some of our finished projects. I’m wondering what I should wear! eee! (It’s KREX for those of you who live in town and want to watch.)

• Speaking of my “celebrity” (haha) appearances, here’s the MP3 of my radio interview. Thanks to my lovely friend Carrington for recording it for me.

• Other than that, I don’t have too much else to say today. Life is… well, life, full of surprises, heartaches and joys as always.