Bountiful garden

Yesterday we drove up to see Chris' folks in Clear Lake. We had a groovy time hanging out, scoping out their garden, eating, yakking with them and Chris' sister, Michelle.

When I mentioned interest in asparagus, not only did they send us home with 6lb bag of their fresh cut asparagus... they also dug up a root ball for us to plant at home. Dad gave us some explicit instructions, most of which I remember.. hopefully Chris remembers the rest, if not, we'll call Dad back. That root ball must be 40lbs! I'm so excited! I can hardly stand it.

So, the heat last week was very good to our garden ...

This photo was taken May 12th.

Just a mere 10 days later after 4 days of solid 100 degrees the garden burst into this...

Taken May 21st

Our fruits/veggies: early girl tomatoes, sweet 100 tomatoes, basil, green bell pepper, jalepeno, scallions, eggplant, cucumber, zucchini, corn, carrots, baby mescalun lettuce, canteloupe, strawberries and grapes. Maybe I'll end up with a booth at the farmer's market .. heh heh... We planted the corn, scallion, carrots and lettuce from seed. We also planted sweet peas from seed as well as sunflowers and those are all happy as well. Excitement!!

Good reads....

Karma .. it's what's for dinner!

I was perusing the info super highway for a knitted pattern to make the original sock monkey of my childhood. Now, I've never liked the sock monkey .. even as a child, much less now, but Maggie always wants one and keeps asking if I'll knit one for her. It is in "the (perpetual) queue", but I have stalled hoping she will lose interest.

What I did find was something is a link for Artists Helping Children. What a fantastic cause! Of course my intention is thick where time is thin, but I'm sure I can manage something! Maggie, who has a highly developed sense of empathy and community at the tender age of 8, always saves a bit of her money which she wants to donate to the Children's Hospital of Oakland. Crafty or not, it doesn't take much to brighten a sick child's day and even a simple hand made card can make the difference.

Today's Karma Challenge... pay someone a compliment and make them smile. GO!!!

Knitsploits

Currently I'm working on a prayer shawl for our friend Jan. Jan and Bill were our fabulous neighbors across the street. They have three sons and we really miss them being just across from us. Jan's mom went through chemo treatment last year (in her 80's!) and did really well. She developed pneumonia about a several weeks ago and passed away. Having lost my mom relatively young (she 56, me 20) I understand what Jan is going through. It doesn't matter how old you are it still sucks.

Jan is one of those fantastic people that just captivate me. She works for her church and is in charge of the liturgy. Having not grown up Catholic, I'm not sure what that means, but it is important.. I know that. She is one of the few Christians I know that I truly respect because she walks the talk, as they say. I've been quite disillusioned with organized religion during my life and I remain skeptical, but Jan is truly someone who represents her faith well.

As I work on the prayer shawl I remind myself to send positive thoughts into stitches and at the end I will take the shawl to her Priest and have him bless it as well before giving it to her. I could not find a pattern I liked well enough so I developed a pattern by choosing a stitch in my Vogue Stitchionary and built the shawl around that stitch. It is a twisting leaves pattern.

I'm about 20" into the shawl and only have 50" to go! HA! Jan is about 6' tall so I need this baby to be almost as tall as her to wrap comfortably around. I'm not sure where I got that idea, but it seems to me that most scarves or shawls that wrap should be about as long as the wearer is tall. This would be a fast knit for me as I top out at a staggering 5'3". Haa!

I hope that I can put some inches on this shawl over the long weekend. I'd sure like to finish it before too long so I can give it to Jan. Fly little fingers... fly!!!!!

namaste

andie

What this race needs... is more COWBELL!

Chris has been cycling now for oh... 6 years...maybe longer. Cycling has improved his physical and mental well being as well as, if I'm honest, given him an even more kick ass, well..... ass!

He rides appx 20-25 miles a day during the week and occasional weekend rides. It has all led to this.. his first road race!

Sunday we awoke at 5:15am (wow.. I haven't seen the front end of a sunrise that early in a long time) and left the house by 6am due East to beautiful, exotic and hot as hell Modesto! As we drove over the Altamont we saw the road was peppered with fellow motorists with bikes atop their cars... all destined for the Modesto Road Race.. a 56 mile circuit.

When we arrived at the site just after 7am it was already 77 degrees. Phew! Chris got registered, got his one day cycling license and got suited up and had time for a short warm up. The Pro's started at 8am and Chris started at 8:20am. About every 20 minutes we'd see him (Maggie more often with her sharp kid eagle eyes!) but I was able to get him in one action photo!

Maggie and I made sure to shake our cow bells (yay Livemore Farm & Feed!) each lap and Mags even brought a smile to one lone rider who had fallen off the back of his peleton. He was pedaling alone in earnest, 86 degrees by that point, no reprieve by way of the peleton slipstream... slogging out the miles trying to catch back up or be lapped and catch on the back. As he went by Maggie rang her cow bell and cheered him on and he managed a smile. (note the cowbell next to her in the chair :D)

When we waited for Chris to lap we busied ourselves by helping the race folks and picking up cast off water bottles from cyclists and putting them on a bulkhead.

Chris not only finished, he finished in the peleton and with nary a bike flat or road rash. Success!! We are so proud of him! He even rolled back in with a smile. (He placed #46 in a field of 65.. very respectable for a first timer!)

LIVESTRONG

Our LIVESTRONG event is coming up quickly! We're all very excited. We're doing well on fundraising and hope to exceed our goal of $300.

Shameless plug.. if you are looking for a cause and want to donate please visit one of our respective pages .. all funds go toward "Team Rosendin" as we have only specified a Team fundraising goal, not individual.

Maggie's Page * Andie's Page * Chris' Page

Setting goals and achieving them.. that's what Maggie wrote to me in her Mother's Day letter about why she is proud of me. That gave me wings!

This morning we headed out on the trail after Chris returned from his training ride for tomorrow's race. It was already 80 degrees and the sun was pretty intense when not in the cover of the shady sycamores. We chose the Veteran's Park side and plodded our way on the Nature Observation trail.


We took a few breaks here and there, but when I could see Maggie's pluck waning I reminded her of the unconditional depths of the human spirit.... the brave astronauts who went into space not ever knowing if they'd return or the child that is fighting with all their might against cancer.


When I begin to fatigue those are the sorts of things my mind turns to in order to find that tiny bit of energy in the well. I draw on Chris' encouragement and his support of me. I think of my dad who did not have the chance to fight his cancer. I imagine my folks along side of me giving me strength and encouragement. I want them to be proud. I hope that they are proud.


Yet it is always my little Maggie who is the biggest catalyst for me. In her I see so many possibilities. I want to be a strong role model. She makes me want to be the very best of myself. She is my hero.


Maggie and I completed our 5k and we all enjoyed skipping rocks down at the creek. Later we reveled in our hard work and enjoyed an afternoon at the pool.

BE THE CHANGE

Tea for two and two for tea

Maggie and I have gone ga ga for tea. Something amazing has happened. I've suddenly found my "inner girly". Prior to Maggie I had no pink in my wardrobe, now I have quite a bit. I've always loved tea and Maggie has enjoyed it also, but since we viisted the Pleasanton English Rose Tea Room we have gone simply bananas for tea.

It was such a relaxing and enjoyable time just sitting and chatting, enjoying each other's company and having tasty tea and yummies.

The Menu:

Maggie - Oolong Jasmine tea, peanut butter and jelly, petit four, baby chocolate cupcake, fresh warm scone, fruit

Andie - Chocolate mint tea, egg salad, veggie delight, cucumber aoili, fresh warm scone, lemon cake, mini apple pie, fruit

The mission:

All of this inspired us to take an unused corner in our front yard and create our own special tea garden.

Before

After

and afternoon tea....

Oh... DUDE... SHE LIVES!!!

Favourite words from one of my favourite Disney/Pixar characters.. Crush from Finding Nemo.

It's been a while since I posted here. I'm inspired by our friend Paulano who has just started blogging.

Come with me as I actually going back in time and ramble on about the first day of Farmer's Market. It was an insufferable 101 degrees on the first day of Farmer's Market. That is mighty unusual temp for mid-May. Maybe those Global Climate Change scoffers will start to believe.

As is tradition, I always get a photo of Maggie at the same lamp post.

We found many glorious goodies that day... tomatoes, pablano peppers, white nectarines, tender asparagus, persian cucumbers and of course... kettle corn.

waiting in line at disneyland? no problem!

the queue at disneyland no longer frightens me. not when i have a couple of sticks and a piece of string :D


i whipped out this little beauty for our neighbor while waiting to rock n' roll through space or sailing with the tide with some ruddy handed pirates.

okay, these were NOT worked on in disneyland, but i haven't posted any knitted goodies in a while, so i thought i would post a couple of my latest projects.

Our Journey of Giving: Locks of Love

Maggie has been wanting to cut her hair shorter since the summer. I briefly mentioned that if she wants to lose 10" of hair, she should consider donating it. After that day she did not stop talking about donating her hair.

Of course, initially when I mentioned it I thought, well, she'll think about it and forget it. Yah.... I forgot who's kid it was! Anyhoo, Mags insisted I call to get our hair cut before the holidays and begged for an appointment. I figured since she is being so brave to chop her lovely long locks, I should suck it up and consider doing the same.

So, that is what we did as you can see below.

Now that you know what we look like now... allow us to take you on our photo journey into donating our Locks of Love...

Maggie's Journey - Locks of Love

Maggie's Journey

Locks of Love

Andie's Journey

Weezie's Blanket

It has been a long time since I've updated this blog after stepping into the world of the Myspace blogosphere. (Pictures below, after this entry)

Well, alot has happened, but I'll bypass all of that to say someone incredible has touched my life. I've never met this person. She is the friend of a good friend of mine. And because Heather is such a wonderful person - a friend of hers is a friend of mine. That brings us to Weezie.

Weezie was diagnosed with aplastic anemia. Her treatment takes her on a voyage of immunosuppressive therapy and subsequent bone marrow transplant (BMT). All the while she had to find a bone marrow donor. Her brother and sister were best possible matches but they did not. She had a donor lined up but they, being anonymous, for whatever reason decided to remove themselves from the donor list. Weezie finally got a donor and she had radical chemo (that is usually chemo is done every three weeks over months, hers was done in five days), full body radiation and the day after those were done she had her BMT.

What I know of Weezie's journey is through Heather and Weezie's blog. Heather is one of ten people allowed to see Weezie during this journey. Weezie had hit the bottom with the pain and nausea, chemo causing blisters on the inside of her body, her body stripped of an immune system. This reminds me of the Marines where they say a Marine is torn down, stripped to the bone and rebuilt stronger and better. I find myself thinking of Weezie often... sending her positive vibes and I'm awestruck by her courage and spirit. She is a reminder of the saying "count your blessings", "life is too short", "be thankful" and "mind over matter".

Well, as I've said I've never met Weezie, but I have been touched by cancer. My dad succumbed to a fairly rare and virulent case when I was 18. Cancer has no regard for anything but itself. I wanted to make a difference. I knit chemo caps from time to time for friends or family of friends. Basically anyone that needs one. I wanted to do something for Weezie. I perused my Vogue Stitchionary and found a stitch pattern worthy.. a leaf and vine pattern. This was perfect as I came to find out that Weezie's favorite color is green. To me this pattern and color were a sign of life renewed, of hope and of earth itself.

I knit furiously for many days and when I was bogged down by concentration issues (as the pattern required more attention than usual), or short on time due to this and that, or fatigue in my wrists and hands.. I thought of Weezie and her fight and how much bigger her stakes and setbacks were.

I missed my self-imposed deadline of having the blankie to Weezie before chemo and my second goal of before the BMT. Alas, I finished Sunday, washed and blocked it and it is now ready to go. Here I share my creation with you. I tried to focus love, determination, healing and comfort into each knit, purl and yarn over. I only hope that this blanket will keep Weezie warm inside and outside for many years to come.

weezie's blanket photos

hug o' war

sophia, maggie and charlotte
first livermore farmer's market of 2006

this picture reminds me of one of my favorite poems from childhood....
i will not play at tug o' war
i'd rather play at hug o' war,
where everyone hugs
instead of tugs,
where everyone giggles
and rolls on the rug,
where everyone kisses,
and everyone grins,
and everyone cuddles,
and everyone wins
- shel silverstein

booga booga!!!

booga felted bag in kureyon red & brown colourway.

cuppa

"Why knit that?" you might be asking? The simplest reason I can provide is "because I can." That being said, I give you .... CUPPA. This bad boy is destined for my favourite cafe in the entire world. It's like the Cheers of Livermore where everybody knows your name. The service is fabu and the liquid caffeinated expresions are always first rate.

what're you up to norm?

i'd like to think that norm would enjoy this knitted stout. though i believe he was a lager man on the show cheers, which i barely watched. still, i know enough to get the norm references and of course a fan of woody and cliff. was there anyone else on the show of note? nah.

upon reviewing fab patterns in knitorama, i realized i didn't want to crochet a stout so i set out to design a knitted version. alas, i give you the knitted pint of guinness which is destined for my mate big andy may in the UK. it is his birthday on the 23rd and he's starting a new job on the 24th, so i plan to mail this to his new office so all of his brit officemates see just how cool americans can be.

spectre or no?

i'm not sure what i really believe in with regards to the here and the herafter but i do have a certain amount of belief in ghosts or spirits. i felt a definite presence on the uss hornet in alameda especially in the sick bay and some crews quarters. i guess alot can be said for those sorts of places, but i really did feel something deep in my gut.

the east bay has been the new seattle so rather than wait for sun to have our fun, we decided to hit the road in search of fun regardless of weather. we trekked out to santa cruz for some pizza at our fave place and then hit the road on the 9 to big basin for some hiking and exploring. along the way we passed the famous (or infamous) brookdale lodge. this place is supposed to be haunted. http://www.hauntedbay.com/features/BrookdaleLodge.shtml

so believer or not, take a gander at these two photos. one was taken literally one after the other at 2:20pm. i took a photo and saw the blob in the viewfinder and then took one immediately after without moving the camera or blowing on the lens. i supposed it could have been a dust particle illuminated by the flash but i've never seen a dust particle look like that. there were definite cold spots in that room (colder than the normal unheated space) and i felt like there was a presence there as well. you be the judge...

with six you get eggroll

good fortune is a terrible thing to waste.... continuing into my foray of non-edible knitted treats i give you the felted fortune cookie as seen in fellow blogger indigo muse http://indigomuse.blogspot.com/2006/01/felted-fortune-cookies_30.html

let them eat cupcakes!!!!

why knit a cupcake? because i can, dammit! it's petite, sweet and 100% calorie free. i may find some vanilla scent to add to it if i'm feeling crazier.