Sunny shade

There's a five-legged spider space robot who's taken up residence in my lamp.  Its needs are simple, just a sunny spot by the window and the occasional slice of cheese.  It prefers brie, but is happy with anything except cheap feta.

Cider

We made cider today.  We have two mature apple trees on the east side of our house, and they bore enough apples this year to bring out the cider press.  After three hours of washing, grinding and pressing we got six tasty gallons, plus another quart that hubby and I drank on the spot.  One gallon will go to O and E, one to G and B, and one to hubby's father who gave us the press several years ago.  I also set aside several dozen of the better apples for freezing, for future apple crisps.

About six years ago we planted about ten additional fruit trees around the property.  They have done ok, not great.  We don't exactly do any active management such as pruning, cleaning up windfall, trapping insects, etc.  So doing ok is the best we can hope for I suppose.  On those newer trees the apples this year were very wormy and mushy.  And we neglected to pick the unripe pears before they became overripe on the branch, so no love there.  Pears are persnickety when it comes to harvesting.

I won't post any pictures of my garden, as it is a huge mess of weeds.  I planted it in April and May, then my job got extra spicy crazy for the next four months and I had no time or energy to tend to anything.  We got a decent amount of tomatoes before the blight set in, and our garlic harvest was good, but everything else kinda went by the wayside.  We've had no rain for about three weeks, so when I tried digging some potatoes this afternoon my spade hit rock-hard clay soil.  But the flowers have done well, and the bees and birds and butterflies do appreciate them.

Not a clever title

I think my biggest problem with this blog thing, other than my intense innate laziness, is my intense innate introversion.  I don't like talking to people I don't know really really well.  It's not that I'm unskilled in it, I do it all the time for my job, but on a personal level I don't enjoy it.  And a blog is just too much like talking to people I don't know.  Worrying about saying the wrong thing, saying something stupid, being judged for what I say or how I look.  And that worry drives me crazy, because I would really rather not care what other people think.  And for the most part in my everyday life I don't care what people think, but social media does strange things to people.

I considered making the blog private, and just have it as a personal journal.  It's still something I may do.  But honestly, it's been so long since I've posted and my life is really not that enthralling so I doubt anyone reads it anymore.  

So, essentially, I just want to throw stuff into this blog occasionally without worry about people reading it and thinking bad things about me.  So, that's what I'll try to do.  Screw interesting topics, clever titles, witty insights and cohesive thoughts.  Ima just gonna write what I wanna write, when I wanna write it.  Do what you will, I couldn't care less.  Mostly.

Last fall I took up sewing and quilting.  Like, big time.  Got a sparkly new sewing machine.  (My old one is 30 years old and is having tension issues.)  I rearranged my sun room into a sewing room.  Started hoarding fabric, buying tools, watching YT videos, learning as much as I could.  I joined a very active quilt guild in town.  Our next meeting is tomorrow night - eek! - I've just remembered I've got to make a name tag before then.

I've sewed (sewn?) a lot of stuff over the last 10 months, including quilts, table runners, tote bags, hot pads, aprons, holiday decor, etc.  I enjoy it, but not excessively that I need to do it everyday.  Just like with my other hobbies (gardening, soap making, reading, video games, etc.) I have periods of ebb and flo.  Some days I feel like being creative and productive, other days I feel like binging Netflix.  That's just the way I am.

Anywho, today I made a thing.  Can you guess what it is?  (Why am I asking this when I've already established no one reads this blog?)

It's an ironing board!  With my quilting, I needed a larger size (24"x48") ironing board that I could keep out all the time on a table near my sewing machine.  I found a couple of YT tutorials, got my hubby to buy me a piece of plywood and trim the corners, and made it.  It was pretty easy.  The hardest part was finding 100% pure batting - I didn't have any in my stash and the local Walmart didn't carry any.  We were heading to Mankato this evening anyway, so we stopped by JoAnn's and I got some there.

So, yay for me!  I'll try it out officially tomorrow.  Right now it's very late and I should head to bed.