Some run-on sentences, food, more food, and stuff…

Wow hey, how’s it going?  Things have been kind of nutso around here!  Mainly, my camera broke a week before a huge freelance photography job was due, my buddy Alex saved me by loaning me hers for several days, and I was able to get the work done (barely), plus another photo job, but had also managed to pile too much on my plate in general for the last couple weeks, so I’m basically behind on all of it.

My hat test knitters are being very patient with my delayed responses to their emails; I have high hopes that the first issue of my new club is going out on Monday as scheduled, but fear that it may be late.  I want to submit a design idea to a publication with a deadline later this week, but doubt that will happen at this rate.  Blergh.  But, I keep looking ahead to the light at the end of the tunnel… photography jobs turned in soon, club released, hat pattern set finished, maybe actually get wedding invites sent out one of these days…

But hey, a couple rad things… I’ve been eating bits of food from the yard for the last couple weeks!  Yum!  Two weeks ago were the first ripe strawberries (below), and then 4 or 5 more since then (though they seem to be getting smaller with every one).

Today I ate my 3rd ripe cherry tomato – ohmygod tomatoes fresh from the garden are the best tasting things in the world!  I would seriously rather eat those cherry tomatoes than candy or chocolate or ice cream or cookies…….. Can’t wait till more start ripening!  And it’s looking like once the big tomatoes finally start ripening, they’ll probably ripen one after another all around the same time – since I’m the only tomato lover in our house, I may be experimenting with making salsa or pasta sauce or other things I’ve never made before…

The cucumbers are the only things that aren’t looking so well.  (These photos above and below were taken almost 2 weeks ago, by the way.)  The leaves are getting more discolored, and when I talked to the woman at the nursery she said it sounded like maybe I was overwatering, but I fear that maybe I’m actually underwatering, since I don’t have any kind of irrigation system and just water with a hose… I just don’t know.  I got some kind of organic spray she recommended for pests and diseases and stuff, but I can’t tell if it’s helping at all.

Moving on to something else exciting… Pete has finally started a new project he’d been planning for awhile – metalheadpete.com is now a Portland restaurant review blog!  Description from his about page:  i am a metalhead. i love cheap veggie food, which is one of many reasons I love living in PDX. but i find that food review sites consistently don’t tell me what i want to know about it: does it have a cheap veggie option? i am also a lacto-ovo vegetarian, not a true vegan (although i eat vegan food and like it).  in my book, a cheap veggie options means that my significant other and I can go there, and spend $10 on food and be reasonably full. That’s $10 on FOOD, not drinks. so there you have it.

I got him all set up with a wordpress blog (still needs some tweaking, but it functions), and contributed all the photos (and will add more to the photo-less reviews once I take them), and he already has 11 reviews up!  Many more in the works, too – it’s making going out to eat more fun, now that we’re always analyzing ways to get the most food for the cheapest total, taking photos, ranking it, etc.  And all the reviews are categorized by location – quadrant, then street – for easy browsing… so far, it’s almost all southeast, but as we do more, they’ll expand further I’m sure.

And then, in between crazy workyness, I’ve been starting and preparing to start some big wedding-related craft projects.  These are all assorted doilies and vintage lace I’ve collected from thrift stores (and a few from Knittn’ Kitten) throughout the last couple months:

I’m thinking I’m going to plan another make-a-long, and I’ll spend the whole 24 hours working on my dress and other related things, since I feel like that’s the only way I’ll be able to squeeze it in.  I’m thinking September 18th – you in?!  (for the make-a-long, making anything you want, not wedding stuff, of course!)

And I seriously owe you a photo-of-the-day post… it’s been so long, actually, that I may split it up into a couple, later this week I hope!  First, you’ll be seeing my first next generation club ebook soon!  In fact, if you want to see sneaky peeks while I work on the designs, just follow me on twitter!