The Victory Gardens were a little too early for my awareness.

However, our next door neighbors always had a huge garden where they grew lots of vegies, but also strawberries and raspberries - which were delicious right off the bush while they were warm from the sun.

They had a number of sons in the family though, and their sons were always out digging the weeks from the garden. I don't have sons, or daughters who are willing to help with that kind of work. My husband doesn't do it either. There was only one year when I had a good vegie garden - in Illinois when I was pregnant for our first child. I grew brocolli, carrots, beets and zuchini. We also had two wonderful peach trees in our yard which I would dry for my daughter to chew on home-made fruit leather.

This year, my flower gardens have gone completely untended, due to my arms being injured. They are overrun with weeds I'm afraid.

I'm sending my daughter and her new husband to Italy for their delayed honeymoon. The plan is that they will go in either October or in January. They will see Rome, Florence and Venice. David has never been there, so Emily will enjoy showing him the places she knows and they will find more together I'm sure.

creativity snafoo

Six pages of this little zine seemed to come together fairly rapidly and smoothly. Now the last two blank spaces are staring me down. I seem to be in some kind of creativity black hole. Q'est que c'est?

swap-bot and trades

Today I finished up a swap called "getting to know you". It basically involved writing a two page letter telling my partner about myself. It felt kind of self-indulgent to me when I was writing it, but I know that when I received the one from my other partner, I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. Hopefull this woman will find mine as interesting.

I have just finished a little thing called a "button fairy" for another trade. Today I went out and bought a box so that I can send it without it gettting damaged en route. It was fun to try my hand at something new and she turned out really cute - I would be happy to receive her. That's sort of the way I guage the things I make for these trades. If I would be happy to receive what I make, then I can send it on confident that the person receiving it will be happy with it too. That is one of the things I have enjoyed about the trades in Swap-bot. They have enboldened me to try making some things I had never done before.

I'm currently working on a zine for another trade in that group, and I'm enjoying the process involved in creating that. I have received zines from a few people before and I always think they are pretty cool little snippets of where the person is at when they compose them. I'm finding that it isn't easy to do them though. Since it's in writing and it'll be out there in the world, I want it to be good. It is supposed to be eight pages long, but the host of the swap wants them bigger than you would get from a single page of 8 1/2 X 11 inch paper, so I've made it out of two pieces and will staple the end result together.

physical therapy

I've been in physical therapy for tendonitis in my lower arms since April. Today was my last scheduled session and I am glad to be done with it. The PT clinic I've been going to is very good, with friendly, professional staff on board, but I'm just tired of the routine of having to go into the clinic twice every week to deal with this.

The tendonitis is much improved, and I've been much more careful at work to try to not complicate the problem. I will continue that plan of action, along with the strengthening exercises the PT people gave me to do . . . and hope I don't have any repeat of the pain I was dealing with in April.

Welcome to my blogsite. Come in and get comfy.

I'm not quite sure what purpose I want this blog to serve for me at this point. I'll set out on my journey and share the things I see and find. Feel free to make a comment anytime.

Right now I have a lot of things going on in my life that aren't usual. My husband is in a profound depression and is temporarily off work because he cannot function in his job in the state of mind he is in.

I recently injured my arms - tendonitis - badly enough that I had to take a month away from my job just to rest them and work with a physical therapist toward getting them better. They are much improved, but I am being very careful at work not to reinjure them. Because of my arms being injured, I have done no yard work this year. My daffodils and irises have been beautiful - but you couldn't see them for the dandelions I'm afraid. I have also stayed away from sewing or making anything since I didn't want to make matters any worse than they were.

I'm looking forward to getting started on some new projects soon, and to finishing up the few ufo's that stare at me each time I walk into my sewing room.