Six word memoirs for pets

I read the book Not Quite what I was Planning which is full of six word memoirs collected by Smith Magazine and I have been writing some of my own for my pets. Holly, the beautiful, long-haired calico cat wants only to be waited on and left alone. However, her long, soft fur and beauty make her irresistible -- everyone wants to pet her.

I know I'm beautiful, don't touch.

Gambit on the other hand is extremely tame, to the point that we have sometimes wondered if there is something wrong with him.

I am shameless; rub my tummy.

In addition to the pets in the house, we have animals outside the house. I apparently did not scare Mama Robin off by cutting down half the tree and exposing her nest, she has laid her final egg and has taken up residence. She stays put when the dogs are out but gets up and scolds us when we get too close. I suppose we are lucky that we don't have a nesting red winged blackbird -- they apparently dive bomb people who come too close to their nests.

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I made up some six-word memoirs for myself as well, they include:

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Iron low, thyroid low, very tired.

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Mother, manager, engineer, artist -- hired housekeeper.

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Teenager driving, parents gray and broke.

Red, white and blue . . .

All of the snow this winter, and spring, and all of the rain an cool weather have made my roses very happy. My favorites are the firecracker roses. Since I hurt my back last fall and did not get them cut back, they are starting to climb the porch railing and are very happy. The buds and flowers are just beautiful.

We also have a bumper crop of white alpine strawberries. When they are ripe, they taste like the essence of strawberries and I think they look very pretty against my blue glass bird bath.

The real blue in my garden are the robin's eggs I found in a nest. I was afraid that I disturbed the mother too much when I pruned the tree her nest is in but when I got home from work today, Mama Robin was sitting on her nest. Unfortunately, every time I get close enough to her to take a picture, she flies off. Maybe she will stay put once she lays another egg or two and has to stay on the nest to keep the eggs warm. I think it is cool that we will get to watch the babies grow up.

Summer is here

At the end of March, I posted pictures of my garden covered in snow. I spent part of this afternoon weeding and then took some pictures of my garden today. In another couple of days, I will have roses as well. They seem to like all of the wet, cool weather as well as the fact that I did not get them cut back as far as they should have been in the fall.

Right now, the garden is full of blue and purple flowers -- the red and yellow columbines have bloomed out but the blue ones are still blooming along with lupine, chives, Russian sage, and iris. Soon I will have white, pink and red roses, yellow and orange day lilies and red hollyhocks.

We are enjoying rhubarb and asparagus from my farm shares as well as a variety of beautiful greens. I am very spoiled by all of the bounty available to me this spring and summer. Soon I will be enjoying strawberries from my garden. The one white alpine strawberry plant I planted several years ago is taking over.

Reading, Stitching, and Blogging and a really cool gift

I have been reading, knitting, and watching high school LaCrosse games rather than stitching and blogging during the past couple of months. The reading has been rather obsessive -- I keep track of the books I read each year and last year I read fewer books than I had in any of the last 5 years. This year, I set a goal to do better and so far in 2008 I have finished reading 30 books; I listened to another 10 in the car. You can see the results on my Shelfari shelf at the bottom of the blog. I really enjoyed Graceland by Chris Abani. My local library had two more of his books and I am looking forward to reading them.

I have also been knitting and have finished the back and 3/4 of one front on my Noro sweater. I made the front of the sweater a little wider than the pattern -- both to make the pattern come out even and make it easier to knit and because I want the sweater to cover my chest without strain. Now it looks like I will need one or two more balls of yarn to finish the sweater. I have also started a new pair of socks. I visited a new local yarn store, Prairie Arts and Fibers, and bought a ball of borroco sox. I have started the Roman Rib Socks from the Little Box of Socks. I also got sock yarn from the Webs Skein of the Month club this month.

I have found a way to combine knitting and reading. I am moderating the discussion of Middlesex on the Ravelry Book Club and have joined a Don Quixote summer knit and read along. I fell in love with Annie Modesitt's Corset Tank, a Dulcinea like knit along project, and fell off the stash wagon to order the Art Yarns Regal Silk to make it.

The high school LaCrosse season is over. We are making plans for summer karate, summer basketball camp, summer football camp, and, of course, summer LaCrosse. I started yoga last week and got the blood work results back from the Doctor's office. It appears that I am anemic which may explain why I have been so tired. It will be a couple weeks before I can see the Doctor, so I bought some iron supplements at the store. Hopefully I will start to feel like I have more energy if I take them.

To finish with the really cool gift, my father sent me a Hopi Kachina. It is a clown with two dogs carved by Robert Albert, Sahkomenewa. If you look closely, you can see that they are my dogs -- Cain and Abel the lab/shar pei mixes.