Memorial Day Weekend

We had a great time this weekend! It's always great when you don't have to work on Monday. We played with the lovely and talented Disco, ate crawfish, visited the 'rents, went to church (they had a wonderful tribute to military personnel), went fishing, and took lots of pictures. Not bad, huh?






Who is this hottie?




Why, it is Her Royal Highness, Queen Disco the Sweet









Meet our new friend Rudy the hummingbird:

Rest and relaxation, folks...that's what it's all about.

This is where I was yesterday...






And this is what I heard...

Weaver Fever

Have you ever been on Ebay, you know, just looking at stuff, 'cuz you're not gonna buy anything, you're just browsing, but if a good deal pops up, maybe, well no, you shouldn't buy anything today?

Yeah, that's what I thought.

In a moment of what I like to call "Weaver Fever" I accidentally bid on a loom. Granted, it was a good deal (I think) and I may eventually need one of these looms, but I really don't need it now. It's too much loom for me. It's an older LeClerc Dorothy table loom. The shipping from CANADA was half as much as the price of the friggin' loom! I really need to limit my Ebay searches to items available in the United States. At least it didn't ship from Australia. Lesson learned. (BTW, if anyone is interested you can e mail me for more info on the loom. I'm trying to unload it now.)

Some camera stuff

I took a few pictures a two local parks this weekend, but I don't have any magical photos to show off. I was just trying to get used to the camera. The camera and software have so many bells and whistles! I still haven't gotten it all figured out, and I think it may go fairly slowly for a bit. Bear with me.

I think the photo of the bird would have been great if I could've found a spot that allowed me to get its face without the willow in front of it, but there was no such spot.

Check out this spider!!!!!!!!! This is without a doubt the biggest one I've seen "in the wild". It was several inches long. I enlarged it a bit with some software (but couldn't figure out how to save the edited image) and I could see all its eyes. CREEPY.

I like these photos of an outside wall a reconstructed fort.

Curse of the Black Thumb

Some people are born with the ability to grow anything. They surround themselves with lush, happy foliage and can do so in any environment. If they put a plant in a dark, oxygen-deprived room, they could still make it worthy of Southern Homes and Gardens. I know people like that. And I hate them.


I hate them because I have the Curse of the Black Thumb. It runs in my family. There's nothing I can do about it, yet I fight it every year. You see, that which I love I also kill. And I really love herbs. Lemongrass, spearmint, chives, basil, you name it, I've tried to grow it. Each Spring I have visions of walking through my container herb garden like that scene in Gladiator when Dude is walking through the wheat field and he's touching the stalks with his fingertips, enjoying the sensation of having a meaningful exchange with the fruit of the Earth. Oh yes, I can smell the lemongrass now, as I brush past on my way out the door. I laugh gaily as I snip a fresh sprig of rosemary for my chicken dinner.






Eventually the fantasy dissipates, and I am left to face a harsh reality. I am a killer. And here's the proof. Yes, the brown, dry "sticks" you see here are the remains of a bergamot plant. It never even flowered.



And these gems, formerly known as spearmint (left) and chives (right), shuffled loose their mortal coils in the recent and yet ongoing drought. They made it through the winter when I rarely watered them. The chives actually thrived. And here they are, dead as doornails, but I won't throw them away. I guess I think I can resurrect them. Ah, but I know better. The curse will not release me. And apparently I don't even have the decency to remove the price tag from the chive pot. Man, that's classy.

I Will Survive

Okay, I know everyone is on the edge of their seat, waiting for an update on my sinuses and stomach contents.

Turns out the antibiotics I was taking made me sick. Apparently, lots of people have trouble with this particular kind, and I am one of those lucky individuals. Now I'm taking a different kind and am no longer kneeling at the porcelain throne and my sinus issue is clearing up. Thank you, modern medicine. Of course, the incantation and chicken may have worked just as well. :)

I have made progress on the banjo strap. It has been a little slow because of my heddle issues but it's moving along now.

AND...

My camera and lens were mailed to me so I now have a working digital camera to use whenever I see fit. Yea!!!!!!!!! I'm so excited! FINALLY. I'm going to take pictures all weekend and annoy everyone with e mails of my spectacular photo achievements.

Praising Queen Latrina

FYI - low cal/low fat, microwaveable pizza-like frozen meals add even more unpleasantness to vomiting. Shoulda' eaten soup.

I need an incantation and a chicken, STAT!

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!! (shaking fists at the Heavens)



That was my yell of desperation accompanied by fury fists a la Frank Castanza from Seinfeld. This is my 12th day having a *&%$! sinus infection. Normally they aggravate you and go along their merry way but this one has latched on and knocked me on my butt. Will it never end?! I've missed work, missed sushi with the girls, and missed yard sales because of this microbial infestation. Yard sales, I say! That's how my husband realized I was actually sick - I missed the yard sales advertising the sewing machine I'm drooling over. Too sick to shop. Tsk, tsk.



To add to my misery, my reward for accompanying Ty to the woods this weekend (while sick!) is having 42 gazillion mosquito bites covering my body. Mostly my lower extremities. Before we left the house, I think I said something stupid like, "Mosquitoes don't really bother me much. I guess I just have that kind of body chemistry that turns them off." Can you say KARMA?



So since I'm confined to the house I have no choice but to rattle on, forcing y'all to read this, searching in vain for something cool with pictures. I'll refer you to yesterday's blog.

Oh, goodie, another wave of nausea... Odd, being hungry and wanting to vomit at the same time.

Anyway, I am making progress on the banjo strap. I like the colors so much that I decided to weave the full 8 feet my inkle loom is capable of so I can use some of it for my own purposes. Whatever they may be. The only problem is that even the new heddles I made are too fat and fluffy. I keep having to cut off white fuzz from the woven strip. And when I push down on the warp it gets caught in the fuzz and I can't tell which are the open threads and which are the heddled ones. Soooo, I push down three or four threads at a time and use my stick-thingy to hold them down. AND my heddles are not exactly the same length, so some of the heddled threads look like they are, in fact, open threads and that slows me down a bit. Other than that, it's going swimmingly. God as my witness, I will not cut this warp off AGAIN.

Photos to follow when I get a Freakin' lens for my new, expensive, birthday present which is staring at me even now, begging to be used.