The Dog Days of Summer

This is the little banner I made for (guess who?) Katy, Leif's cousin, who turns 9 today! Happy Birthday, Katy!

Funny story: I thought I had her present, which was the same as her sister, Sarah's, who had her 10th birthday this past Monday. But, when I went to wrap Katy's present, I discovered I didn't have one for her, and I realized what had happend: At the store, I had decided on Sarah's gift, and tossed it into the cart and I was trying to decide between two gifts for Katy, when Leif said, "Momma, I have to go potty!" I tossed the two things I had in hand, raced him to the bathroom (all the way across the store) and when we emerged from the bathroom, I totally forgot that I had never chosen Katy's gift, and left the store without anything for her.

So, since I didn't want to drive all the way back in to town (it isn't laziness, it's 45 minutes each way!) I decided to make this little banner from materials I had on hand. I found it online (oddly, with the name Avery spelled out, which is another cousin of Leif's) and decided to try my hand. I thought it might require mad scissor skills a la Edward Scissorhands, but it wasn't too terribly hard (thank goodness!) The extra ribbon hanging from either side are so she can tie it up somewhere in her room. I didn't take any time in hanging it up (so it is a bit crooked), but that doesn't matter since that is not it's final hanging place.

Here is a close-up of the sea glass candles I made the other day. We have used them every night - we use them as a centerpiece, then I took them to the bathroom and took a shower with them glowing (we have a large walk-in shower, so they were technically in the shower with me, but nowhere near the water). Later, I took them in to the bedroom and placed them on the dressers beside the bed where they gave a lovely glow well into the night. They were lovely and perfect in all three instances...I need to make more of these - I can't get enough of their jewel-y glow around the house, whether the candle is lit or not! Luckily, I have loads of seaglass (the three candles above were made from one trip to the beach -and they are only part of that load!) so I can make a lot more of these for the house :) I literally have bags of seaglass (and shells) waiting around to be made in to something beautiful.

On a gardening note, the heat came around again and pretty much did the garden in. I'm still harvesting tomatoes, though. I thought they were done, but they just keep coming! I actually had some pink ones come up that I planted from seed, but I didn't see them until too late, so they rotted on the vine (oops). Sort of like the okra that Caryn pointed out to me - "You'd better pick that okra or it is going to get bitter!" I had no idea what she was talking about, so we went out into the garden, and she pointed out a single okra that was bigger than my thumb...well, it was more like two of my thumbs. I had never seen it before, so I had no clue it was even there. We picked it and I cooked it up with okra from the store.

The squash have bitten the dust again, and the cabbages have stalled in their growth. The {hot} peppers are doing well, though. Unfortunately, I have forgotten what type they are, so I will have to dig into my notebook to see when I should harvest them. Right now they are adorable little things sticking up all over the pepper plants. The basil is doing beautifully, though, trying to go to seed as hard as it can, but I won't let it! The parsley is doing its darndest to stay alive despite my constant picking. I'm quite pleased with its success!

On another note, I've finally gotten around to cleaning some large clam shells that I dug up several months ago during a very low tide. I'm going to use them to make a nice candle display. Love me some free beauty for the house! Right now, I'm fast-forwarding the sun bleaching process by sitting them in the sun in a bucket of bleach water. Had I washed and set them out when I gathered them, they'd be all beautiful and white right now, ready for my project. But I didn't. So they're not. So, I'm attempting to speed it up. Reminds me of when we used to gather scallop shells, and other types from the beach, set them on anthills, bleach 'em, dry 'em, and polish 'em up with clear nail polish and sell the to tourists at the Dock. I guess that was our version of the lemonade stand. :)

Right now, Leif and Jason are going for a walk. Leif hasn't napped today...he fights it every day. His excuse d'jour is that his crib is "too 'mall for me!" He's been using that a lot in the past few months, which stems directly from a conversation that Jason and I had, woefully in front of Leif, that perhaps Leif might be getting too big for his crib and that he needs to graduate to a big boy bed. For various reasons, we have not gotten him a big boy bed, but he is certain that his beautiful crib is "too 'mall" for such a big boy.

But, his lack of nap today only means that he'll be crashing that much earlier tonight - and I'll have his crib fresh and waiting for him :)