Oh wow! A new post!

im·pe·tus/ˈimpitəs/

Noun:	The force or energy or momentum with which a body moves. The force that makes something happen or happen more quickly: “the crisis provided the impetus for change”.
Synonyms:	impulse – momentum – incentive – stimulus – impulsion

Sorry I’ve been AWOL.  I’m writing a book (about music & singing) and that has been taking up all of my impetus to write. Knitting *is* taking place – I need to take pictures of a bunch of things in progress & finished and yarn……..plus I have writing ideas for here backing up from the last few months. Heck I haven’t even written about Whitney Houston’s death or Etta James’….I won’t hardly even mention India….

OH NO!  I’ve got “blogstipation“!  nyuk nyuk nyuk. But one lucky thing about that is the CURE:

MORE FIBER!  Yay!!!!! Hmmmmm….let’s see who’s having a sale online?……

I’m part of a local KAL for the Color Affection shawl by Veera Välimäki. I was supposed to cast on on Wednesday, October 18th, but I still haven’t cast on yet; I didn’t have the right size needle.  I went to the LYS today and got the right one…..and 2 magazines and 2 skeins of yarn for another project. So much for my yarn diet…… Hopefully cast on will happen tomorrow. It’s just that the weather’s so nice & I’m tryna finish 2 other things and I still need to do the podcast…well, you get the idea. There WILL be pictures……and yarn crimes…..and a new giveaway…..did I mention I’m writing music for a CD to go with the book?

Madame Crazypants – that’s me!

I have another post ready that is a major digression into a reality tv show. I’ll publish that in a day or two.  Happy knitting!

A lack of gardening

So the weather is kind of unusually cool right now – 85 degrees and low humidity instead of the usual 95+ degrees and air like soup – and I’m feeling the need to garden.  Last year, my garden was SO pretty and beautiful it could have been on the cover of Organic Gardening magazine…that is until 20+ days 100 degree days hit.  My garden went from comely to crunchy, and I’m still not over it. 

I put in a few annuals out front (not nearly enough of them so it’s truly pathetic looking) and I bought a few plants – a couple of tomatoes, squash and  pepper plants – but I never got them into the ground so they’ve all died from neglect.  The cover crop of annual ryegrass that Bill planted last fall has made it all the way thru its growth cycle and is looking tacky as hell (“Welcome to the ‘White Trash Homestead’!”). However, a few  volunteer plants have sprung up: 4 cherry tomato plants and a watermelon vine.  I’ve done a little weeding and watering and maybe I’ll feed them and mulch them before we go away.  It would be nice to have a few home grown things….or I may do what I’ve said I’d do every year and have not – which is to plant cool season veggies in August and September.  There’s still time for them to mature and I hear they do better than in the spring.  I always want to do it, but since my gardening year begins in mid-February, I’m usually all “gardened out” by mid-July.  It could happen….just maybe.

And of course, the only serious pruning/de-vining thing I did in early spring was to do damage control on the poison oak on the giant pine trees in the back. It’s quite a job and I can never seem to completely eradicate it. I do my best to pull down the vines that have worked themselves way into the bark of the trees and get as much as I can out of the ground, as well as severing all the connections I can find between roots and vines. It worked rather well – I won’t have to do it next year maybe, but lots of other things need doing:  the vinca round the patio is tryna take over (wish my camera was working -it’s quite a sight), there are a number of weed trees that have sprouted up in various places that need grubbing out, there are vines growing over a couple of windows, and the maple tree in the back is almost dead and needs to be taken down.  The blackberry and black raspberry bushes are turning into quite a hedgerow along the back fence; heck, maybe we’ll even get to eat some this year.  I can’t hardly even see the Mock Orange bush that’s back there.

Who knows if I’ll even do any of it?  On days like today, it seems overwhelming.  Especially since I need to get ready to sing at a funeral later today.  I’m honored to be asked, but it is a sad task.