So...you've got a summer cold.

Summer colds are brutal, nasty and no one wants to deal with them.  Colds are expected in winter, almost as a seasonal right of passage.  But, when something creeps up on you in the summer-time it's such an annoyance -- you just want to throw your hands up and scream.

Last Friday, I was lethargic.  I was pretty certain I was having allergy issues and too much stress from the move.  So, I took a day off from everything.

I sat in my bedroom, watching netflix the whole day through.  I went outside just to water the garden -- and look at my trees I love so much.  I figured that if I took one day to recuperate, I would be fine to keep on keeping on the rest of the weekend.

I noticed my eldest son laying down covered in a blanket that afternoon -- so I checked on him, sure enough he was with fever.  But I figured maybe he had a allergy issue also that just became a "sinus infection."  So, I went to the store, miserable and hating every single minute, and got tons of juices and drinks for he and I to just veg the rest of the evening with.

And, I got home to the youngest starting to cough and having watery eyes. Followed the next morning by my daughter just not being able to get out of bed.   So -- I called my mother:  she is coughing and hacking on the other side of the phone-line.

Well, there we go: a summer cold rears it's ugly head.

It's a miserable situation -- because it's so pretty outside, and I have a million tiny little things to do to clean out the apartment and we are all kind of stuck here waiting to be correct when we say: tomorrow I will feel fine.

We have yet to be correct -- and now we are to the point of "well, we will finish the apartment tomorrow so that we can set everything up properly after that."

It's tough for me though -- because I really want to show you all how the studio is coming along.  However, I really can't because it's really not coming along.

Here's hoping that this weekend is the last weekend of stress (now that hubby is coming home and can help with the tiny little bits remaining in the apartment).  I have about half a dozen half finished new designs -- which kind of makes me chuckle when I think about it.

Here's hoping you also have a great weekend this weekend.

~Maggie~

Behind as behind can be....

I've been moving this month.   It's long, arduous and often annoying.  

We closed on a beautiful house (with lots of new room to set-up for a studio) with an exciting old-growth property.  I have yet to set up the studio fully yet -- because the move is taking me forever -- you wouldn't think that a 3 mile move would take all month, but here we are, entering week three on having the keys.  I am about to head out with the kiddos to finish moving out of our apartment.   I hope that goes well.

But part of the problem is the timing -- I needed to get the garden in almost the moment we closed because it was so much later than we planned. Part of it is the kids just getting out of school yesterday, and hubby out training soldiers in California.  So, I have been doing the moving tiny load by tiny load mainly into the garage here at the house.

But, I think the biggest part is my excitement -- every time I go into my back yard, I find something new to enjoy, which stops me from setting everything up because I have to identify it (thank you google images for help in that process.

 

When we were first looking at the house -- we saw this blossoming.  Oooh, cherries.  But -- we didn't know what kind until they started 'ripening' a week or so ago. They are Rainier cherries -- those lovely golden and pinkish red variety. 

 

After we put the offer down, we found the tree below blossoming.  I went home and identified it as apples of some variety.  Again, we won't know until they come in, but how exciting. 

It looks like it may be a grafted tree -- with a few different varieties now. (you can see the base of the cherry tree in the background.  That sucker is huge. Oooh la la. While those are ripening, I find myself out there every evening picking ripened cherries right off the tree and having "dessert".  Bonus side effect of that dessert?  My weight is dropping like winter rain in the pacific northwest.  Maybe I will be totally thin by fall. 

 

After a bit of time tooling around, waiting to close, my husband found this beauty.  So I had to identify it.  I looked like plums -- but they were still pretty small, so I had to check.  This time I took one of the fruits and went to a nursery to check.  We were pretty sure it's Plums.  Oooh, plums, you know that's right.  Now there's the whole "what in the world am I going to do with all those plums?  Looks like gallons of sugar plums are in our future as you can see below -- how many plums are on that sucker.

 

So I went out this morning -- to check on my garden (above is a portion of it) and I bump head-long into a tree that seemed like something ornamental.  But, there are little nut type things laying on the ground -- and I HAD seen a squirrel having a field day yesterday near that tree).

So, I called my mother, as I often do and said "I think it's hazelnut, Mom -- I can't really tell until I get on google images inside, but I am pretty sure that's hazelnut scraps on the ground."

So, I look it up -- sure enough, looks like hazelnuts.  Looks also like I will be making another trip to the nursery today to get this identified -- because Mom LOVE hazelnuts.  And maybe, just maybe, I can make my own Nutella.  LOL.  Of course I am thinking about Nutella.

Makes sense why my studio isn't set up fully yet -- right?  I am pretty sure I saw some pear trees this morning, but I won't know until I get those identified also.   So exciting.

Does anyone know if that really is a hazelnut tree?  Answer in the comments :)

~Maggie~

Weather ... or Commit to a Season Already!

I have a habit of checking the weather, daily.  It's odd I know, because generally if you know the five day forecast -- you really should be okay.

But, not here.   For example, when I checked the weather yesterday morning it said today was going to be bright and sunshiny -- like go find those sunglasses you put away last September, Seattlites: You're finally going to need them.

It's pretty much the same for me though -- either I wear my sunglasses in the rain because I am obsessive about having something polarized during the fickle Pacific Northwest Weather spurts -- Or, come April or May I am buying a new pair.

This year it was kind of both -- because for whatever reason I kept breaking my mid-winter sunglasses.

But back to Seattle's fickle weather forecasts -- Yesterday it said today would be bright and sunshiny.  Today I awoke to overcast, foggy, totally confused weather.  And weather.com told me this morning that today was now going to be AM clouds / PM sun.  Sigh.

There's a bit of a nip in the air -- but it's the level of nippy where you don't know whether or not to wear a light sweater, because you will just be taking it off and putting it back on until the Sun finally burns away the clouds.  At which point, I may add, you will be wishing you could just wear a tank top without getting funny looks from people.

Wow -- what a bunch of nothing for this blog post, my bad.

Anywho -- I found this fabulous Blue Treasury just wonderful for today's weather -- so I had to have an excuse to share it.

Blue Fashion by Ilaria at IlMondodiPetra