Plant shows: feeding my bad habits since 2001

I went to a plant show a couple weekends ago and bought way too many plants. The same day later on it decided to hail, and so that's my excuse why they're not all potted yet. It's like new yarn - all the possibilities are there and none of the liabilities, unless you make yourself stop and think about where it's all going to go and when you'll spend all that time doing that planting.


I put this big delphinium in a pot on the front steps. It's blooming NOW. I have to stop and look at the flowers every time I walk by. I am a sucker for a dramatic plant.

And Vanna, show us just how tall that flower stalk is - 2, almost 3 feet.



This doesn't look like much but it's a shame there is no web smell-o-vision because this is a lemon-scented geranium. Just rubbing the leaves a little releases the fragrance.

I have wanted a columbine for years but this was the year I caved.
I admit I was too lazy to grow one from seed. Maybe next year.

It, of course, is blooming now too, feeding my terrible habit of craving instant gratification. Don't worry, I got a hardy fuschia too, which shouldn't do its thing until well into July.


The columbine is hard to photograph, but it has the mostly ethereal flowers. It'd be nifty to have a garden full of odd flowers, wouldn't it? Definitely would need a passiflora in there somewhere.


And last of all, my bay tree is blooming. This one's 5 years old, it's not a new plant. I didn't even know they bloomed. It's gotten very rangy, I badly need to prune it back for better form. Anyone need any bay leaves? Or maybe I'll just get some rooting hormone and start a couple new trees, then I can avoid having to plant all those hostas I bought. Yeah, good idea.

Do not forget

It's back to cold weather again, blowing wind and overcast cold skies. I miss my taste of summer.

At least there is cherry tree denial. These pictures are actually a couple weeks old. The trees have already leafed out now.


This is the line of flowering cherries planted next to the waterfront, as part of the Japanese Internment camp memorial. A beautiful monument to an ugly, ugly time in U.S. history.

Filthy Mouth & Bad Attitude

The weather has been perfectly gorgeous lately, starting with Saturday, just to shock us all into submission. I just keep trying to get a glimpse of outside at work. And I take a lot of walks. I'd get tired of this weather if it were around all the time, but it's an amazing thing after a winter of cold & rain. Everything's blooming, or just finished blooming, or coming up on blooming, and there's that new Spring green color that you only see once a year.

Which is a good thing because I'm barely hanging in right now, and a sunny sky, shorts, a t-shirt, and a margarita help quite a lot. I'm not knitting. I've got a billion things to do and no inner compulsion to do them.

In positive news, the rheumatologist says it's very unlikely I have an incurable autoimmune disease gradually destroying my back. I just suck, that's all. Oh, and I have a vitamin D deficiency. From lab tests performed in February. In Portland. Where 1/2 the city has a Vitamin D deficiency by February.

I have these super enormous dosage Vitamin D pills I take once a week now, and hopefully that'll recalcify my bones 'n' all that. Meanwhile I do my damn stretches and exercises every stupid frickin' day because at least then it doesn't get any worse. I've taken to doing them (so so boring) while watching old season 1 X-Files. Dear X-Files, I know you were based in BC, could NO ONE tell David Duchovny how to pronounce 'Oregon'?

Also there are a lot of scary, scary forest shots. And they shouldn't have ripped off the Repo Man death-by-radioactive-alien thing, because it is just funny.

I'm also sort of pissed that the latest batch of hormones (changed BC a few months ago: see needed recalcification of bones, above, among other things) appears to have slowed my metabolism EVEN MORE, so despite some changes in diet and exercise in the last few months, I weigh slightly more than the last time I was in the doc's office. OH JOY.

My current obsession

Double-striping socks, with 2 balls of Mini Mochi from Crystal Palace, alternating every 5 rows.

Tip: if you do short row heels to make the stripes all line up (at least one side. arggh), you need an EVEN number of rows. Rows upped to 6 rows per skein on the heel.

Really, the hardest thing was figuring out how to carry the extra yarn so that it wouldn't show through. I finally memorized a twist that worked and spent more time deciding on just how tight to pull it. I'm thinking the second sock is probably going to look better.


This yarn, though. I freely admit being sucked in by the colors and the stripiness. But it's a 1-ply. It's got nylon, sure, but I'm probably just denying reality by making socks out of this; the single ply just isn't going to hold up to much strain. Dear long-stripe sock yarn manufacturers: really digging the colors, but could you see your way through to a PLYED sock yarn?

Oh well, love is blind.

In other news, I really like riding my bike. It's just so much fun. I like riding my bike even more on warm sunny Spring days. Hopefully my back will not kill me for today's adventures. Wheeee!

Love for the Dizzy Blonde

Yes, I'm pimpin' the La, 'cuz she does nice work. I've bought a couple of her skeins of sock yarns and they are the good stuff (I also appreciate muchly that there is plenty enough yardage for big feet like mine. Look, I don't want to be a hater, but I don't buy Jitterbug, period, because 320 yards doesn't even cover my FEET let alone cuffs).

This is the La behind Dizzy Blonde Studios & she's teaming up with Knitty Knitterton's House of Awesome for a SUPER EXKLOOSIV yarn club. (I have no experience with Knitty Knitterton, but I'm sure she sells a quality product, plus she's got the sexiest shark on Ravelry).

All the details are at the Mean Girls Yarn Club blog, so go take a look if you are so inclined. Did I mention the SUPER EXCKLOOSIV? Because there's only 50 spots. Signups open up tomorrow.

No, this isn't from the club - just one of the regular colorways: