What I've Been Up To Lately

  I haven't posted as much lately. What have I been doing? Well, as you may know if you've been reading the blog, Ken, the girls, and I are taking a trip to England this summer. That has meant some planning and shopping. (We needed new suitcases. Our old ones are too heavy or the wrong sized to be allowed on flights these days, at least not without extra fees.) Ken and I had to get new passports since ours expired years ago. The girls have never had passports, so they had to get them too. We took our own pictures to save some money, which meant using an online program to size the heads right, etc. Emma handled that and she did a good job. But we then had 'the background is too dark' and 'there is too much glare on the eye glasses'. Emma and I had to retake our pictures a few more times. She eventually gave in and had hers redone at the store where we were getting them printed because we just couldn't cut the glare. So we were back and forth to the post office about the passports several times. It seemed like every time we went there was something else to deal with. I even had to go get a copy of our marriage certificate because my name had been different on my last passport! I got the old one in 1985 and I had gotten married since then. I had to go back to the town we used to live in to get it, and it still only had my maiden name on it because it was just where we had taken out the license. We used it, and it turned out to be ok, (I still use my maiden name. I just added Ken's last name.), and we all finally got our passports.

Yay!

Unfortunately it has also meant alot of time spent trying to straighten out some booking mistakes. (Talk about impossible.) My sister in law booked the flights, and she spelled my maiden name wrong, listed one of the girls as 'Mrs.', and left out Ken's middle name. These days everything has to be so precise because of the TSA. Every name on the flight list has to match the names on the passports exactly. In the end Ken's sister who is treating us to the trip, (Not the one who booked it.) just paid an outrageous fee to have everything fixed, even though we notified the airline of the mistakes within 24 hours, as was the rule. Just a tip: Be very careful if you insist on using GoTo Gate to book your flights!
  Anyway, other than that I have been trying to keep up with the yard, and the garden.

There's a lot of stray stuff growing. I put pepper and cucumber seeds out amongst the corn. I have to wait until some of the stuff is up a bit more to see what it's going to be, since I don't now what the pepper plants look like when they start. The pile of sticks in the foreground is what's left of a mulberry tree that 'mysteriously' died a few years ago. (My demon neighbors are no doubt the culprits, as they poisoned my huge rose bush to death a few years before. Anything they think is too close to their property is in peril. I keep moving myself...) I planted a tomato plant in the middle of it. I know a lady who planted one in a dead stump one year and it went crazy with tomatoes.)

...but the tomatoes are going nowhere fast. Most of the ones I set out have died.The potted ones aren't doing much at all.

That one on the right looks pretty shot.

 But there are at least three that are trying.

I bought some horseradish.

I thought I might as well. It was cheap and for a good cause, (It was a yard sale to benefit Hospice.), and we like horseradish.

Most of the mulberries are ripe and I'm supposed to make cobbler. It's almost as good as raspberry cobbler, and the berries are right here in my yard. I haven't found a good source of black raspberries yet.

When I was a kid we had red and black raspberries growing at the back of our garden. There weren't many bushes though, so Mom used to go raspberry picking for the black ones. (They're the best.) She made jelly out of them. When Emma was little we had some growing in our yard, but not much. Dad found a good patch somewhere and used to go pick them for her and bring them by the bucket full. People don't seem to like the black ones as much as the red for some reason,and it's not very often you see the black ones for sale at the grocery store.Although, I've noticed lately that there is a lot more black raspberry stuff being offered. The stores have ice cream, and the local ice cream place even has it in soft serve.

And I've been making dollhouse scale rugs...

That's a penny to show size.

That's a tiny braided rug. I couldn't find the other tiny one.

Found it. That's the first one on the right, lost rug on the left.

One of these days I'll get around to putting them up for sale.
And I've been working on a tiny paper clay doll. I love working with paper clay. It seems I can get so many more details in without squashing out what I've already done than I can with polymer clay. I made this doll  with holes for stringing the parts.

The parts need sanding.

For the last one I was making, (As yet unfinished.), I used wire loops and they have rusted!

For size reference, that's a small coffee mug he's leaning against.

I really liked how he was turning out too.

I see him as sort of a Pierrot, 

I don't know what I can do about his rusty joints.
  I have also been yard saling and thrift store shopping. I haven't been having to drop Ken off at work as much lately, since Fuzzy has a girlfriend who drives him around. Normally I had to take Ken to work to have the van to take Fuzz to work. When I drop Ken off I stop at Goodwill, which is in the same shopping center as Ken's place of work, and Salvation Army, which is down the street. In upcoming posts I'll be showing you some of the things I've found lately.