Because I'm stressed, knitting and gardening.

 I can't seem to get anywhere calling medicare or my medical provider or anyone. Grrumble.

So I try and to some knitting for stress relief and it is just the opposite. Given that I can't do  my jewelry due to space, thanks to a friend I have dived into knitting socks again. That first pair is still doing well despite Jon running them through a hot wash and dry. It's washable wool but the label said cold wash and hang dry for best results. I was smart and hand washed them first...hoooooboy did they bleed blue! They were none the worse for going through machinery thankfully.

 Now, since I chose to do short socks because I went top down I had yarn left over. The second attempt at doing a combination with something else was a disaster. The idea was use a coordinating other yarn for the foot and use the left over stripes for the cuff and leg.

Looks okay right? Well the tension/stitch count was too small so the foot part is too tight (being a different type of yarn) and the distance from the toe to heel was too short. I had to take out the heel once because I screwed up and had just finished that to try it on. I had to take that off the needles and will be pulling that out and come up with something else. I will likely be using the dark blue that's a tougher yarn for toes and heels on future socks.

I was given a second installment of yarn from my friend. Balls of this and that, small and large, two large hanks of yarn that hadn't even been wound in a ball yet. Some tiny left overs and a huge 'frankenyarn' ball. Yes that's a word. I decided on a purple mix that is gorgeous and soft, just hope I have enough to do two complete socks.

 So that's it for my knitting adventures. Supposedly for 'relaxing'. Riiiight. 

My garden is in transition, what one grower calls 'shoulder season' going from one growing season to the next. I have plans, I have seeds, now if the weather would just cooperate. It's getting down into the 70's for days at a time and drops ten or twenty degrees at night. I successfully grew tomatoes, cucumbers, cilantro and green onions this year. Oh and a sunflower and zinnias.

First month of tomato harvest from three plants. Cucumber was one of the first ones and the two pictures here and below are only a day or two apart.

So I had a good and successful run for cucumbers maybe six total which is perfectly fine, not looking to make a salad every day for a hotel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That long cucumber was the last one I picked yesterday, The tomatoes by that time were all pulled, they were done so I have a mostly clean slate for putting in my fall/winter plants.

I'm planning on lettuce, sweet peas (sentimental favorite from mom), some large white onions, more green onions and cilantro, radishes and maybe carrots. I connected with someone in a gardening group and got a handful of strawberry runner babies. After sorting through them I was able to salvage four and planted them in some containers. After a few weeks, two never grew but the other two were doing great. This is just fine as I don't have a lot of space to grow a lot of them, I have a plastic window box planter someone else left behind but no soil to put in it but hoping to have some by next year when the strawberries will be ready to plant out.

Speaking of veggies and food crops....

We are running low on pantry and food supplies so had to pick some things from the complex donation day. This is all leftover, 'ugly', slightly rotting and close to expiring food from Trader Joes. Well I saw there were three trays of meat in their freezer and thought all three were ground turkey. Two were ground turkey and the third.... two filet mignon steaks! Wow! Price tag was $35, and we got them for free. I used one of the trays of turkey for something and the next night we had the steaks. Not top notch cooking but it was solid meat and I think I fixed mashed potatoes and made some pan gravy. It was still delicious as we don't get much in the way of solid or ground beef due to the cost.

The second tray of turkey...... not so much. Pulled that out the other day and the plastic was kind of bubbled up.... I thought It was just from it thawing in the fridge. Nope, it had gone bad and mixing it with Manwich sauce did not improve it. I thought it was just odd but had Jon try it and sure enough.... he spit it out like I did. An entire dinner down the drain and all I had was rice cooking. I dumped my last can of Rotel in it with some other spices and it turned out too spicy for me but Jon had some. 

We were able to buy some ground turkey and chicken legs that were on sale at Kroger thankfully and I know that's all fresh. Just cooked one of the turkey packs with some crushed tomatoes, some veggies and made a tasty pasta sauce with some penne regata. So now we have one last tray of turkey that we bought, some chicken legs and  I think one more pair of thighs. 

So we might have enough meat for a week of meals. We have some tuna and enough rice to feed a small village (because if we see ti on the table we grab it) but there's only so much you can do with rice without meat. I might try my hand at making refried beans as I have a three pound container of pinto beans in the cupboard. The last time we tried standard Rosarita canned beans they tasted awful. Used to be a go to for everything Mexican and it was fine so not sure if it was that batch or what but since I have the beans I'm willing to give it a try. More than enough recipes out there for doing that.

So that's my world right now, knitting and gardening and stupid paperwork I have to figure out how to wade through.