Building our deck

Well, I didn't realize that it has been almost 6 months since I posted anything.  Oops!  We went on a wonderful vacation, a cruise through Asia, that I will just have to skip, or post something later about it.

Right now, we have a PROJECT.  We are replacing our back porch with a small deck.  Nothing too fancy or big, but big enough to put a "real" barbeque on and a few chairs.  We've been talking about doing this for over a year, and we decided that this was THE year!  Yippee!

I have to say, I had misunderstood a major portion of this project.  I thought we were going to pay someone to build the deck! Not so..... John said he was looking forward to doing the work.  So this is our summer project!  We'll essentially work on it on Saturdays, holidays, and maybe some of the extra "vacation days" that John has coming.

Here are some photos of our back porch "before" we started.

Back porch viewed from carport.

Back porch viewed from stairs.

Notice the size of the BBQ.  It's the only size that fits!

These were taken May 25.  The work begins on May 26th!

Pinterest Testing- will lettuce continue to grow?

I know a lot of things will sprout if you just put them in water, but could I really make lettuce regrow?  I saw several pins, including this one: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/394276142348903220/
that said it was possible.

Easy to do: just cut the stump of lettuce, put in 1/2 inch of water, check water daily.

At first, the lettuce did great.  It shot up quite quickly.  In one week my lettuce looked like this:

After one week, it's grown a couple of inches, and looking pretty!

I kept changing the water every day, but the growth slowed down a little, and after 2 weeks I decided it wasn't going to work, at least this time around.  After 2 1/2 weeks, I took the following pictures, and then threw the lettuce away.

The growth has not been too bad, but do you see the rot?

Changing the water every day didn't stop it from going rotten.

The rot was all the way through.  Yuk!

 I've seen the pictures, and am quite sure it can be done.  At first, it was working, but we are talking a few inches a week, at most!  Is it really worth the trouble to do this for a month or more, and hope it doesn't rot like mine did?  Not for me.

I can see in the summer, if I plant lettuce, to just cut off the top, and let it keep growing in the ground.  This was way too much trouble for rotten lettuce.  Won't try it again in just water.

Jack-O-Lantern 2013

Over the last few years I have found how fun it is to carve Jack-)-Lanterns.  This year I decided to do something fairly easy, since I still haven't found my Dremel tool, nor bought a new one, and didn't want to spend all day carving.  So, here it is!

It's pretty cute, but not too fancy.  Since I just did it with a sharp paring knife, it only took me about an hour to carve.

I had seen a Pin telling how to preserve your pumpkin carving so it would last longer.  It states to spray a mixture of bleach and water on the inside and outside of the pumpkin daily to prevent mold.  It also suggested petroleum jelly to prevent dehydration.  I didn't do that part.

I didn't have a spray bottle available, so instead just used a sponge, wet it with a mixture of bleach and water (I did about half and half, since I was just using a little bit), and just wet the pumpkin inside and out with the sponge.  I did it almost every day, just missing the very first day I carved it and one in the middle somewhere. 

Here's what my pumpkin looks like now after 10 days:

You can see it has dehydrated a little bit, but I actually think it looks pretty cool!  The lines between the shoes and in the broom can be seen quite nicely during the day, and not just when it's dark and lit up.  The bat is getting quite small, though. :-)

I had planned on just keeping this up every day to see how long it would last, but I'm kind of tired of it, so will now be stopping my daily sponging.  I believe it did show that the bleach water helps a lot, and that means that next year I can carve my pumpkin earlier, and not have to wait until right before Halloween to have it look good on Halloween!

Here are some pumpkins from the last few years (didn't do one in 2011.):

2010 pumpkin

 

 

2012 pumpkin, haunted house

So much to talk about....

I've done a LOT since I posted last: canned 95 bottles of apricot-pineapple jam, 9 quarts of white grape juice, went on a 10 day vacation back East, (my photos are still in the camera!), etc., etc.  But yesterday I decided I wanted to graph a filet crochet chart from a photo of an old, gorgeous tablecloth.

I saw a photo of the tablecloth here: http://tarragonnthyme.blogspot.com/2011/10/crochet-table-cloth.html
"Pattypan" picked up the tablecloth at a charity store for 4 pounds.  Wow!!!

Anyway, I really loved the pattern, so decided to graph it. First, I used my own graph paper and drew out the design.  This took a couple of hours!  Longer than I thought, for sure.  Then I used my Gimp program (free program like Photoshop), and pasted in 1/4 inch graph paper.  Pasted 2 pages together, then started filling in the blocks, with "bucket fill."  For the lacet stitch, I used a pattern bucket fill instead of drawing the lines with "pencil", so it's not quite perfect, but it was a lot easier.

Here is the motif, with 4 copies:

 I may find that there was an easier way to do it, but I am pleased with the results!

Utila, Above the Water!

Most of our time in Utila was under the water, but since I want to include photos, and those are going to take a longer time to go through, I'm going to do a post of ABOVE the water, and later I'll do a post of BELOW the water.  Easier for you to read, anyway!

 Here's our first look at Honduras from the plane.  We landed in Roatan.

 

It was a very small airport.  The flights to the U.S. are only on Saturdays.

 

Then we had to take two ferries to get to Utila, then a small boat to get to the resort.  Quite a journey. Here's one of our ferries.  (There were private airplane charters available, but we didn't trust them!)

That was the larger ferry, from Roatan to Ciepa.  A smaller ferry took us to Utila.  The waves were big that day, and I got very green.

When we took it back, it was much better, BUT the sea was rough for the larger ferry.  Several little kids lost their lunch.

Here's a few photos taken around the resort.  The owner's son worked there, and he had a dog, Coco.  She is 2 years old, and loves everyone.  If we went on a walk, Coco was there!  She took naps on our porch several times.  She was really fun.

Lots of these!

The "whale" pool.

The main beach of the resort.

Main beach, looking the opposite direction.

Coco, on our porch.

See Coco?

Just a little farther from the main part of the resort, looking from the beach.

Some of the building at the resort.  The one on the left is the dining room and kitchen.

The Dive Shop!  Met our group out back at the dock every morning at 8 a.m.

Pathway in-between cabins.

Our cabin!

We had a great group!  There were 10 of us all together.  But we can't forget our dive master and boat captain!

Our last meal together.  One couple had already gone home.

Our dive master and boat captain.  They were great!

Our group on the boat.

On Sundays we went to church in the "city."  It was a small branch.  We enjoyed it very much.

Church from the street: it's on the 2nd floor.

Decorations for Mother's Day!  We each were given a little basket with Hershey's kisses.  Yum!

The "front door", after you climb about 15 stairs!

 That's all for today!  Next time it will be dive pictures!

Our own little island, Sandy Cay

It has been too long since I've written, and now that we are back from our vacation, I thought it would be good to add something about that.

We spent 8 days at Laguna Beach Resort, on Utila. (Off the coast of Honduras.) Great food, great dives, great company.  It was a slow week (in-between busy seasons), and there were only 10 in our group.  It was a great group, and we really enjoyed the time we had there.  We logged 22 dives- the most we've ever done in one week!  And we had our first night dives ever.  So fun!



After the week+ at Laguna Beach Resort, we went to our island, Sandy Cay.  We rented it for 5 nights, and had a ball.  We had to bring all our own food, so we went to the grocery store with a very detailed list.  John cooked most of the time, which was really fun for me. :-)





 This was definitely not a 5 star hotel, but it was exactly what we expected it to be.  The cabin was actually divided into two: one part was 2 bedrooms and a bathroom, the second part was the living room, a bathroom and the kitchen.   The table was outside. 







The fun part was the ocean!  We went snorkeling every day (I skipped one day, and read my book, but John went in the shallows where I could see him.)  One day we spent 3 1/2 hours and snorkeled around the whole island!  It was so much fun!









The snorkeling was as good as the diving was in Utila.  Absolutely beautiful.



But, it was kind of like camping.  Like Young Women's Camp.  There's a cabin, flush bathrooms, gas cooking, BUT there were bugs!  Flies, mosquitoes, ants and roaches.  We found that if we were out of the kitchen by sunset, we missed most of the bugs.

Sunrise: 5 a.m.  Sunset: 6:15 p.m.  Pitch dark: 6:30 p.m.

Never had to set an alarm.  Read, walked on the beach, did a puzzle, watched a movie every night on John's computer, snorkeled.

So we were camping!  But camping in paradise!  And with the one you love!  Fantastic!

New skirt!

I like bargains.  Well, maybe I should say I love bargains!  Therefore, when I have time, I like to browse through my favorite thrift store, Deseret Industries, or D.I., for short.  The kids used to say it was my favorite store!

Anyway, several weeks ago I had finished running my errands, and had nothing else on my "to do" list, so I stopped by D.I. and went through practically every isle in the whole store.  I had so much fun!  I found 2 really cute summer button front blouses.  Just what I've been looking for!  One is an "Hawaiian" type, which I love taking those on vacation, and I only had one!  I have been jealous of John, because he has about four. 

I got a couple of other little things besides the blouses, but my find of the day was some beautiful rayon type fabric.  Hawaiian style.  Gorgeous.  $3 for three yards.  Wonderful!  I picked it up!

I went home with my wonderful new blouses and material and showed them off to John.  (He really liked them!)  Then I looked through my patterns to find a good skirt pattern for my new material.  Didn't really like the choices, at least of the ones that were my size.  Sigh. 

When I visited my mom, we stopped by JoAnn's one day, and some of the patterns were $1.25.  Love those bargains!   I couldn't decide on which of two patterns would be best for my skirt, so I got them both, plus another that I just really liked!  One pattern would be super easy, no zippers, but also no pockets.  The other pattern had both a zipper and pockets. 

I decided to use the pattern with the pockets and zipper, but I altered it a little.  I still put the zipper in the back, but I also made the top back straight (instead of fitted) and put elastic in it.  That way if I gain or lose a few pounds it will still fit.

I cut out the pieces last week, and finished sewing it this week, putting on the hook and eye just a couple of hours ago.  It is really cute.  At least I think so!

In other news.....  John and I have hiked the Y twice so far this year! 

Here's my skirt:

The picture isn't the best, but you can still see what it's like.  I'm going to enjoy wearing it!