Great OP, McUNE! I am occasionally creative, mainly with cartoons. Time for much work.
gt, nice garden. I have the brown thumb of death when it comes to plants.
{{{{picu}}}}
We’re spoiled for choice this morning! I don’t “craft” per se, but I do like to a project every now and again. Looking back on my kids’ stuff, I realize I had the most fun with them when they HAD to have a diorama done by Tuesday–that sort of thing. But I don’t just up and do it. I have always made their Halloween costumes, including a tree, a giant Lego block, a chess rook, a vampire (I made the cape–very cool and warm with blood red “silk” lining no less) and other sundry Halloweeny things. One year Daughter went as a giant trick or treat bag-that was fun to make!
I do want to learn how to quilt and make each child a quilt for when they go off on their own. I taught myself how to knit, but I only know one stitch…
Gardens, gardens, gardens!
I am now going out to take pics (on my high tech disposable camera–#1 son broke the digital in Oz. Not his fault, really. He had it in a pocket and the thing tried to do a zoom lense with no room to expand and messed it up. He thinks he bumped the on button. He feels bad about it…). Anyhoo, I will get them developed and post them here. I agree, this spring was fantastic for flowers (and weeds). We need rain BAD now, though. I don’t have double holllyhocks, but my singles are spectacular! I love the canna lilly container, btw. And your crab apple trees are wonderful. I know how much work that takes–good on you, GT, for making a beautiful space for more than just yourself to enjoy. 
No call from work, so I suppose I have a job today. I was half hoping to be called off low census. #1 son is finally asleep (no idea when he went down–oops, that makes him sound like a baby). Have a great Monday, all.
Picunurse–I :dubious: the “I should be better”. I don’t think that’s something someone gets “over”. I am sorry for your loss and understand how you can dread a certain time of year (I disliked late August already, but even more now because that’s when my sister died).
Good morning all–and thanks for a twin MMP today, McUne and GT! Nice job on both, btw.
{{{{{{Picu}}}}}}, thinking of you and had been wondering where you were.
Neither of my parents were very crafty, although if truth were to be told, my Dad was probably more skilled in sewing/knitting than my Mom. I think as my Mom was growing up, she focused all her attentions on playing first piano and later organ. And I never had even an inkling of the musical talent my Mom (and a few of my brothers) had/have. I am plugging away with my crochet projects, though. I still can’t get the tension right in them to make them not crooked. LOL I finished one scarf and it looks okay (I’ll wear it this winter, mind you), but it’s … unique in appearance shall we say. The sides are most definitely crooked!
Caffeinated, but it’s not enough this morning, for some reason. I’ve had some gjetost cheese, fruit and crackers too - good times.
Morning all.
McUne, it’s a little weird to discover as you get older that you’re a little like your mother after all, huh? My mother started teaching me how to cook and sew from a very very young age, not because those are “girlie” skills, but because she felt that those were essential things for any adult to know if they wanted to be independent. It just so happens that I really enjoy doing those things… too bad the same can’t be said for her attempts to teach me to keep a house tidy.
gt, love the garden photos! I’m going to hang onto some of those for inspiration - our garden is still in rough shape after many years of neglect by previous owners, and while I’m happy the 25% or so that we’ve cleaned up and redesigned, the remaining 75% (including the entire backyard) is in dismal shape. Seeing pretty gardens like yours gives me hope that if I stick with it, it might just turn into a very pretty space.
**{{picu}} ** I lost a cousin to suicide a little over 10 yrs ago now, and while it’s a little easier to think about her now, there are still some times when I miss her very very much. I can’t imagine how it would feel as a parent.
Can has coffee IV drip, pls? We dragged our butts home at 1am from a friend’s wedding (The Boy was in the wedding party, which means we had to stick around to the very end). Much fun was had, though there are no photos as my camera decided that it would be a good day to die. 
I seem to have a curse when it comes to weddings and cameras, though - something always goes wrong.
Sooo… it’s off to the camera store I go tomorrow, in the hopes that the extended warranty program is as good as they say it is. Sigh.
Cool toons, doggio!! I especially like the dog. What’s his/her name?
At work, caffeinated, having a salad for breakfast. It’s a mixed salad with peppers and cucumber and several lettuces and those large Chow Mein-style salad noodles. I bought it to try a dressing I got for $1 on clearance; it’s a well-known brand, not the cheap stuff. This was Classico brand (who make some very nice pasta sauces), Balsamic vinaigrette with asiago cheese. It sounded interesting, so I thought I’d try it.
After pouring it on my salad, I think I can see why it’s on clearance. It’s not that it tastes bad – actually, it’s a rather nice balsamic with a hint of cheesy flavour, like a sweet Greek feta dressing almost. Quite tasty, though I couldn’t have a lot of it. No, the problem is purely aesthetic: It’s brown. Balsamic brown to be sure, which is not unpleasant in itself, but it’s blended with asiago cheese to a creamy consistency, turning that translucent brown Balsamic vinegar into an opaque, smooth, viscous-looking brown that undoubtedly evokes imagery of muddy runoff, raw sewage, and/or diaper gravy. (Does that count as TMI?)
Yep. To the casual observer it probably looks rather disgusting. But it tastes good so I’m eating it.
Doggy - Heh. Cool 'toons. 
I had a comic strip that I liked to draw when I was a kid (around 10 or 11 years old). I drew several dozen of them, called “Busy Body” which were the misadventures of a man and his mischievous dog, but lost them when I brought them to school and some dumbass kid got all jealous and ripped them up. (He was suitably punished, but it didn’t bring the toons back. :P)
Double your pleasuere! Cool! 
I started drawing pictures at about age five and was consumed by it until about the time my daughter was born. I kinda quit then and haven’t felt the urge since. Maybe it will come back when I’m 80 like Grandma Moses. 
I learned to sew on a push pedal Singer sewing machine as a kid. My grandmother also taught me how to embroider. I made an awesome embroidered dove with olive branch and red and white striped waving banners for the back shoulder panel of my old boyfriend’s jean jacket. Last I knew (many decades ago) he had cut it out of the worn out jacket and still had it.
I like arty projects but have never had a long enough attention span to get into the scrapbooking or quilting thing. Like nooney, I’m a bit lazy.
Mr. Anachi is the gardener without peer. I live in tropical splendor. It’s lovely.
{{{{picu}}}}
Tupug
I drew cartoons back in high school sometimes, which involved Hitler doing things that he wouldn’t normally do, like baking a cake, walking around with a balloon (and putting a cheesy sad face on when someone pops it), riding a carousel, etc.
I had a hoot with it, but the artwork was teeeerrrible.
I’m up and gettin’ ready fer work, not too much longer and I gotta leave. 
doggio, that “Give the gift of consciousness” has now been printed out and hung under the coffeemaker at Archivin’ Work. 
I got the creative gene from my mom. She was a freakin’ awesome seamstress, made all of our Sunday-go-to-meeting dresses for years. I never learned how to sew on a machine (sadly) and I failed miserably at crochet (her yarny craft) but I excelled at embroidery. I have a cross-stitch piece that I’m hung up on at the moment–it’s taking me two years. I have declared that I Do Not Like Linen Cross-Stitch. Give me Aida cloth or give me headaches!
My dad was the gardener. We had a HUGE garden in the back when I was a kid. Cabbages, lettuce, radishes, potatoes, onions, corn, watermelon once (doesn’t grow well in clay soil), okra once (the spines…the spines…). I want a garden like that again one day. Especially since the birds have learned that they can eat Japanese beetles so I won’t have to pick them off the corn every day.
Back to work for me. I’m transcribing more copies of letters. Faded copies. That I have to use a magnifying glass to make out some of the words on. You know you want my job.
I have no creative talents in any way, and while I appreciate a nice garden, it’s to look at, not to work in.
I envy people that are creative or enjoy those things, because I am useless in that way.
Well, Mom is in town for 28 days.
Someone hand me a beer.
GT sorry for posting one minute ahead of you! I must say that I love your garden and I’m envious of your skills. I’m doing a small veggie garden this year and if I get a chance, I will post a couple pics before heading out.
I loved hearing all of your creative memories everyone! Your memories sparked more of my own. My mom is an amazing cook as well. She had her own catering business on the side for a while, and still does a bit by word of mouth. I wish I would have paid much more attention to learning how to cook when I grew up. Ma also made our Halloween costumes, and even a 50’s style skirt for me for a highschool dance at school. She used to make all of our birthday cakes as well, and I’ve dabbled in a bit of cake decorating, but I’m not any good yet! I need lots and lots of practice.
I need to get camping stuff ready today. We are heading out to go camping on Wednesday and won’t be back until Sunday. So looking forward to this.
Great double OP. GT, I love the daylily closeups. The colors are amazing! I’ve got a few flowers in containers on our patio (plus the tomato plant that’s about to take over!), but I’d love to do more next year. We’re talking about building a raised bed/container in front of our big living room window. We’re not supposed to put plants in the ground (community rule), but if we make a garden-size container across the whole width of the patio, well it wouldn’t be IN the ground, now would it?
I’m sorta crafty. I’m another with completely un-crafty parents so I had to find people to teach me or teach myself. I taught myself to cross-stitch in jr. high and was really into that for a long time until I burned out a couple years ago. Someone from my church taught me to knit last spring, and that feels like the perfect hobby for me - it can be as easy or as complicated as you want it (and I want it as easy as possible!) and you don’t have to constantly switch colors the way you do with cross-stitch. It’s much better as a relax-and-watch-tv hobby than x-stitch.
Weekend recap since I haven’t been back since Wednesday: the in-laws came on Friday late morning. We headed to our favorite lunch buffet - a Tibetan/Nepalese place - but it was closed. So we thought we’d try a Kurdish place… closed too. So we ended up at our favorite seafood place, which is a great little restaurant in the park where you order at the counter and they bring your food out to you at tables outside. There was a huge line (duh… we were in a park on the 4th) and between waiting in line and waiting for our food it was more than an hour before we got served, but it was a gorgeous afternoon, we were outside, and when the food finally did arrive, it made us forget about the wait. (Although next time we go, it’ll be a non-holiday! Maybe even a rainy day so there’s no one else around.)
Then we all went to the zoo, which was fun as usual. And we got to see the Amur leopards (well 2 out of the 3 of them) for the first time. They’re new to the zoo and have been in hiding for the last month. But they were out sitting high up in their trees this time. One of them was watching a bird that was flying around outside of the cage. The leopard was acting just like any cat, twitching its tail and baring its teeth at the bird. Cute!
The in-laws left earlier than expected. A friend of MIL that she hadn’t seen in >30 years showed up on Wednesday and said “I’ll be in town this weekend. Can we get together?” So instead of staying until Sunday, they left first thing on Saturday morning. So a short visit. But not bad.
After that we pretty much vegged for the rest of the weekend. And now it’s back to work and I’m still somehow tired! Where’s that IV caffeine drip?
Mindy, if you’re really badly put off by the colour of the dressing, I’ll take it off your hands. I love me that Classico balsamic dressing, enough so that the colour doesn’t really disturb me at all.
(also, your brekkie sounds much healthier than mine - I whomped down a wedding cupcake, since the bride and groom were nice enough to send us home with a box of leftovers when we left last night… mmmm… vanilla buttercream)
MBG, you have my sympathies. I can handle Mumsy Dearest for a week before I start to go a little loopy, so 28 days would be the equivalent of hell for me.
That’s a great OP. Both of them.
My Mom can hem pants, but I got all my creativeness from my Dad, who fiddles with things compulsively. So I basically taught myself how to cook and sew and weave and… well, fiddle. I just recently (last month?) told my Mom about some of the experimental lightbulb-cooking I was doing in my room, and she sighed, and said, “Well, we figured as long as you were quiet, you were happy…”
Mr. Lissar is still miserably sick, Nat and I spent the night at my parents’ place so everyone could sleep more peacefully, and I’m trying to tidy and clean because the inlaws are coming for dinner. Not that my step-MiL expects much in the way of tidiness. She keeps an immaculate house, but doesn’t expect me to be clean, and loves me anyway.
[television show Robin] Holy Helsinki Batman, there are two of them! [/Robin] OK, that may have been more funny in my head…
Anyway, I probably get the crafting thing from my as well, though my intrests tend to be much more broad. One of my biggest faults as a crafter is that I hate following patterns designed by someone else. Or maybe I’m just not good at it. The other of my big faults is that I like to do a lot of different things, so I’ll do one thing obsessively for awhile, then switch to something else.
I definately learned from my mom is crossstitch. Every year, I design and make cross stiched Christmas ornaments which I give out as or in addition to gifts. Well, OK, sometimes I end up making several years at once…in July. It all evens out, right? I’ve been doing this since 1995, when I made the first ornament for my Uncle and his fiancee. The first several years, they were the only ones for whom I made them. The list of people expanded a lot for a few years, but has decreased recently as I got tired of spending my time making things for people who didn’t appreciate them.
I also knit, but was only taught the garter stitch. I can do a lot with it, but wish I knew the rest. I tried to teach myself from a book, but they all end up looking like the garter stitch. I have no clue what I’m doing wrong. Maybe someday.
I’m thinking of trying polymer clay…I have a few ideas that I think will fit the media well, but I’ve never worked with it before, so I don’t really know.
I get the urge to dig in the dirt every March or so. But, I live in an apartment and can’t garden as there is no place to do it. We had tomatoes quite often growing up, but now that my mom lives in the middle of nowhere, she has expanded her gardening quite a bit. She has a strawberry patch, apple trees, a pear tree, a cherry tree, grape vines, tomatoes, peppers and a bunch of other stuff I don’t remember.
Ok, so I don’t have a job today! I got there and ran into my boss’(bosses’? Boss’s?) boss and told her it was low census and did she even want me to punch in. She got on the cell phone and talked to God (or someone-no idea who, probably the surgical desk person) and sent me home. I was not upset about it at all (although there will be times where I would have been–there’s something wrong with the tenses in that sentence; I just mean that if it happens again, I might not be so nice about it and all) because I want to keep an eye on #1 son today and since it’s going to torrentially rain later, Ima taka ma kidlets to see that new Pixar film. Yay!
I love the coffee cartoon, doggio–you draw well (the coffee maker looks real, anyway!). I have grand visions of what I want on paper, but the hands won’t do what the brain sees… or perhaps I should just quote Lady Catherine deBurgh: “If I had played the piano, I would have been a true proficient!”
Listened to a really great program on NPR: “The Doctor Won’t See You Now”. Very well done–if you thought the health care crisis was bad now, just wait. We have to change how we do things, but that’s another thread.
LiLi, my mother’s mantra (and mine now, too) is, “If she’s quiet, she’s probably doing something she shouldn’t be!”
Very nice OPs!
I used to be into the craft stuff, but got away from it. I used to draw quite well too, but again, got away from it. Frankly, I think I just got lazy.
My mother and her father ran a tailoring shop when she was growing up and before she left her small German hometown for a slightly larger German town. They crafted and sewed beautiful clothes and suits and everything was lined.
I did not inherit the sewing gene. I hate it. I can hem pants and stuff like that, but that’s the extent of my skill at that.
Before I moved to my current house, and actually for the first year or two in my current house, I had beautiful gardens. I lovingly tended all my plants and was always on the hunt for something new, unusual, and beautiful. The vegetable garden I had at my former house was to die for. I always had a bountiful harvest and was happy to share it with neighbors and friends.
Actually, I really miss the tiny new potatoes from my garden and all the rest of the fresh vegetables. I don’t really have a spot for a vegetable garden at this house, though. As far as flowers and plants for the current house, well, I guess I just got too busy with life in general. Also, once we got the boat, it just consumed all our free time in the spring and summer, so my gardens (and lawn!) are sadly neglected. I’d like to get going on that again, but I’m not sure it’ll happen this year.
I have always been good at cooking and baking. My mother was a good cook as well, though she tells me I’m a much better cook than she.
I just naturally picked it up, I guess and seem to instinctively know what herbs or spices will work with the meal I’m cooking, even if it’s something I’m just making up.
I used to excel at baking all kinds of cakes and cookies and made some beautiful German tortes and well. I’ve gotten away from the baking. My husband doesn’t really care too much for sweets, so I just stopped doing stuff like that.
Hugs to picu. I don’t believe someone ever really “gets over” something like your situation.
Well, it’s a training holiday here, but I’m at work. I don’t know why. It’s a beautiful day.
rigs, I’m glad #1 son made it home safely and had a good time.
I should try to work now, but I donwanna.
Two for the price of one! A nice way to start off a Monday. Beautiful flowers, gt! And you’re lucky to have such a great crafting foundation, McUne; we all need creative outlets.
My grandparents were amazing gardeners. My grandfather spent most of his time puttering around in their perfectly landscaped yard, and Grandmother was a whiz with flowers. I, alas, inherited exactly none of their gardening skills. My father also did some gardening, but his creative outlet was music. He played in a dance band in college in the early '40s, back in the old Big Band days, and he debated trying to become a concert pianist. Fortunately, he decided he didn’t have the temperament for it, which was oh so true, and went into other areas. But I went to sleep every evening when I was a kid to him playing the piano – he was particularly amazing at Beethoven sonatas. Unfortunately, he lost the ability to play in his 50s when he developed Parkinson’s, which was particularly cruel. But I still have fond memories of his awesome talents.
He started my sister and I both on music lessons very young, and while neither of us has kept up playing instruments, we both still enjoy music a lot to this day. And I passed that on to snowbunny, at least; her brother was more interested in video games. :rolleyes:
My mother, however, was 100% non-creative. When she had to draw the Pilgrim Fathers in third grade, the other students laughed at her drawing, and she never did another creative thing to this day. So I learned absolutely nothing from her. I was fortunate, however, to have a simply amazing sewing teacher in the 7th grade. In one semester, she gave me a lifetime foundation for sewing. I used to make a lot of my own clothes, and my sewing skills came in handy altering clothes for snowbunny. Unfortunately, I’m not a good teacher, so I wasn’t able to teach her sewing.
But I also started crocheting when snowbunny was a baby, and then tried knitting and embroidery; and while I finally settled on knitting as my primary creative outlet, I did teach her to cross-stitch before I stopped doing that. I must say she does far, far better work than I do, too; she’s really talented. She cross-stitched this intricate rose for her great-grandmother when she was about 11 or so, and it was one of Grandmother’s prize possessions; she’d tried to teach my sister and I embroidery as children, to no avail. So it was nice to show her that the talent still runs in the family!
Anyway, enough yammering. I’ve got piles of work to do and time’s a-wasting. Everybody have a good day, and I hope your trip to the Oregon coast is healing, picu. {{picu}}
Great double OP! I’ll have to get caught up later… work, shmerk
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