Greenhouse Effect

Ooh, it was a cold weekend. We had sleet much of the day Saturday, and there was white stuff on the roofs of the houses when we woke up. Either snow or sleet accumulation.

We brought in most of the delicate plants and covered the ones we could not bring in. Most (I think all) survived, though yesterday the peppers looked puny. Today they are perky again. Perky Peppers!

In honor of the cold snap, here's a photo I took that I call "Greenhouse Effect." (It's photoshopped, so that's why it looks stylized.) These plants made it through the cold snap just fine...the frame is the old door that we took off when we installed the new one with doggie door ("we" being Lee). He just leaned the old door against the house under the kitchen window until we figured out what to do with it. Well, the bad ole weed plants that keep coming up between the house and the patio of course emerged behind the door. They ended up growing rather prettily and look like plants in a lovely greenhouse, not weeds and a discarded door. (In there is Virginia Creeper, Wandering Jew and a lantana seedling from the plants in the front of the house thanks I guess to the wonders of bird poop).

Obviously all this door and weedage has to go, but I am glad we got some photos of it before it went!

Other than coldness, it was an OK weekend. The Flower Communion at Ye Olde Spiritual Community went fine, and I got a flower that perfectly matched my purplish shrug. There was a children's choir and they did GREAT (especially compared to previous attempts at getting kids to sing at this church). We were all late, but managed to sing our song OK. It was the one with weird UU lyrics and including the word "architrave" of some such unfamiliar word.

At home, Lee, Beccano and I cooked a lot. The boy and I made pear cobbler from scratch (and it was delicious, with three types of pear). I made deviled eggs with tartar sauce because the mayo we bought has disappeared. It was interesting, but people ate it. I baked bread with ricotta cheese in it, and that was way yummy and moist (we had extra because we got a large container of it for the lasagna). And Lee and I made lasagna. He did it, mostly and it was GREAT. MMMM. We have great leftovers right now, including split pea soup I made on Saturday.

My sister showed up for her final holiday meal before moving, and we ended up also having the Girl with us at dinner, since her family was late picking her up after visiting Older Boy much of the day. Poor Older Boy has lots of ups and downs now that the Girl is in the picture. But he is mostly happy, and she's quite nice. It was good to have here there. We had a pretty fun meal and used the big table in the dining room, which I had decorated in yellow and purple and green with fertility symbols all over it (glass eggs, birds, and butterfly paperweights).

My only unsuccessful event of the weekend was a knitting mess up. I bought some GORGEOUS yarn, GGH Mystik in color 94, a VERY green and shiny color that looks like an emerald. I decided to make a lacey round yoked top in the new Rebecca pattern collection out of it, because it will really show yarn overs well. So, I spend all Saturday night cursing and swearing as I tried to cable cast on with size 1 metal needles and this slippery yarn. Then began tedious twisted ribbing. Then said, hmm, this appears rather wide. I looked at the instructions. Where I mentally heard 140 stitches, the actual number was 114. You can see how my auditory/kinesthetic learning style did NOT help in that case! So, I have to cast on again. I didn't knit on that yesterday. I kept plugging away on my lovely bamboo shawl. Still have to finish the top-down sweater from the class, too. I know what I am doing with it, now. A horizontal leaf border, then feather and fan to the end. It will be "different."