Daybook in shades of sunshine, laundry, and yarn

Outside my window the sky is blue again. We had another welcome cool breezy day yesterday and today we're back to fairly warm and sunny. It's a perfect day to spend in the garden, albeit a garden like mine which is looking more and more like a jungle. The willow whispers, the roses are in full bloom, and all is well with the world.

I am thinking how lucky I am to have my peace regularly shattered by lively healthy children (no, really). :)

I am thankful ...for the smell of garlic from the vegetable patch mingling with the warm-grass smell of a summer garden ...for the busy working of children making dens and playing hospitals ...for the joy of cold fresh clean water.

In the kitchen a batch of peanut butter bar is just hard enough to cut up. We made it this morning for after our lunch: garlicky olives, hummus, rocket salad right out of the garden, pitta, red pepper sticks, and cherry tomatoes.

I am wearing a long stripy swishy hippy skirt; blue, yellow, green and red. A purple vest. Lightweight deep rust/orange cardigan.

I am creating a pixie hood cardigan and a pair of sparkly leaf mittens. I also have a hat and a Low Tide cardigan to get on with, and then a stripy cat. I have had lots of requests for knitting recently!

I am going to the post office today, to the museum tomorrow, no really special plans right now. Just the usual magic. :)

I am wondering why my camera doesn't want to upload photographs to the computer today. It's very annoying. I have new roving to feed my spinning habit and I can't show anyone!

I am reading, well, nothing again. Unless you count The Mysterious Benedict Society series with Jenna. :) I just finished Inferno, which I found I liked more or less as much as his other books (ie not terribly much). His tone is didactic and repetitive, and assumes a total lack of culture on the part of the reader. Yes I *have* realised that the reference is to Dante's Inferno, and if I hadn't I certainly would after about the thirtieth time you've explained it to me. In fact, I've READ Dante's inferno. Way to assume that nobody else ever has, though. ;)

I am hoping that all the big squishy yarn parcels I'm about to go and mail arrive safely. :)

I am learning to spin with my wheel. I am really getting the hang of it now, and can actually treadle and draft at the same time. ;) My yarn is still pretty uneven, but I'm very proud of it. And I figured out plying without anyone to show me how. *grins*

Around the house the living room is strewn with silk scarves and blankets from the field hospital which had two little patients in it five minutes ago. The kitchen is still just my favourite room, and I'm so enjoying the clean open space (there's nothing like getting rid of units that have been repainted and cleaned and lived-with for at least twenty years to make a place look clean and fresh). The table has a pile of roving on it, just unpacked and photographed from the post delivery.

Upstairs I have new laundry hampers (oh the small things in life!) and so far it's helping me feel a bit less like I'm drowning in laundry. The load-per-person-per-week system was working very well, but meant more sorting to get things into the machine. Now they each have a small basket. When it's full, it gets washed and folded right out of the tumble drier or off the line back into the basket, taken upstairs, and put away so that the hamper is empty and ready to use again. :) It's also keeping the children's bedroom floor laundry-free. So far. I give it another month. ;)

One of my favourite things is the buzz of mastering a new skill!

A peek into my week:








Simple Woman's Daybook