Up Past My Bedtime

Good morning, my friends. As I mentioned, Mike is at a road rally with Erik and some of his friends. I've had the house to myself this weekend. He'll be home tonight, and so my momentary bohemian lifestyle will come to an end before we chat again. It's fun for a while, but I'm always glad when he comes home from these little outings. Smitty was my companion while I worked on my slow-stitching yesterday.

I expect to finish this today, and so it's even more urgent that I make up the next block for the Domestic Affairs quilt. 

When we were finished working on our slow-stitching, Smitty accompanied me on a walk around outside. The purple rhodie is covered in flowers now. Also, the grass is growing fast! Mike only just mowed it last week. He's going to have to mow again in the coming week.

The rhododendron beside the driveway is beginning to bloom. I noticed a few flowers on it yesterday.

The dogwood tree is putting on its best show just now too. It bloomed last week, and now it is beginning to leaf out.

The wisteria is doing well. We replaced the previous vine two years ago when it up and died on us. This one has yet to bloom. Just now I checked in with my friend The Google who tells me it can take anywhere from 3-5 years from planting for them to flower.

We checked on the clematis on the other side of the house. It's doing well, and so is the volunteer catnip. Smitty had a little nibble and purrnounced it deliciously energizing, with hints of cherry and mouse.

We strolled out to the vegetable garden to see if there was anything new there. I was very happy to discover one of the American Giant sunflowers had sprouted.

Here's another one!

In all, I planted 28 sunflowers in 14 different varieties. About half have sprouted already, which is very happy news.

Sadie decided to join us in our walk around. She had a little grass on the sunny side of the path.

Smitty has been advised by his dermeowtologist to avoid the sunshine. It's important to purrtect your furs.

The only other sewing I did during the day was to trace out the pattern for my "Collage" challenge. Here, I'd taped down the photograph and the plastic and used a fine point Sharpie to create a template. Only a peek for you:

When my one-hour timer went off, I was still choosing the fabrics I'm going to use. I spent a little extra time selecting the rest, and then I quit for the day.

This is my least favorite part of any collage quilt. Now that I have the fabrics selected and the pattern made, I expect I'll become completely obsessed with it.

For now, I'm obsessed and binge-watching a Netflix program. When Mike is away, I indulge my morbid fascination with true crime stories, and so I spent the rest of the evening and stayed up well past my bedtime watching Dahmer - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story. Over the past two days, I've watched eight of ten episodes. And let me just say, I knew the man was a sicko, but Ick! Gag! Gack! I'll finish it up today. Except for making up the Domestic Affairs block, there's nothing else on my agenda for the day. I'm sure the kitties and I will find something to do.

Oh yes, and I marvel at my ability to make things happen just by writing about them in a blog post. If you've read yesterday's post, you might remember when I said:

I believe we may have eradicated the California Gray Squirrels (gray diggers, as we refer to them) from the junipers where they've lived for many years. Mike has been judiciously trapping them and transporting them to a new zip code. It seems as if he's moved the entire neighborhood. As I write those words, I expect one will show up today.

Just a few hours later...

Well, you little scamp! Where have you been hiding? And while I was watching Dahmer, I could hear activity in the basement ceiling. I texted Mike who responded, "Crap!" Oh well. I guess you know this means war.

All righty then. I have some leftover oatmeal in the refrigerator. I'll heat that up in the microwave and then get on with my day.