A New Basket for Potholder Loops!

My mom gave me this lovely basket to keep my potholder loops in -- it's much nicer than having them scattered randomly around the chair. Hoops likes it too. She quickly deposited her orange scrunchy into the basket for safe keeping.



Later, she re discovered it as if it were a long lost friend. Sometimes I suppose there are advantages to having virtually no attention span.

Also pictured here is the adorable cell phone sleeping bag that Laurie knitted for me. It's my prize for winning her movie title contest.



Speaking of contests...

(coming soon!)

Fungus Among Us

Merri and I went mushroom hunting last weekend, but only found one sad little morel that had seen better days; the prior weekend, I found quite a few more, and they were SO delicious! Lenore tried not to gag as I was cooking them -- not a big fan of mushrooms, that Lenore. We found lots of other mushroom growth, but opted not to sample. Here's just one example of some we did not eat.



After fungus hunting, we decided to check out the native wildflowers in one of my favorite little pockets of wonder, Trout Park Nature Preserve. I promised I'd post this picture of me trying to capture the blooming May Apples.



I was moderately successful. The May Apple colonies at Trout Park are hundreds of years old. I look forward to wandering through this place every spring.






Here are a couple more natives: Jack in the pulpit and red trillium.


I liked the way these were all lined up.

I Want to Talk About Fungus, But First...This!

Odie's new bike! It's a Victory Hammer, and even though my new bike gets better gas mileage, this is indeed a SWEET RIDE! See more images here. In case you're wondering, the color is called "Solid Nuclear Sunset." Ooo la la! Somebody's going to need a new potholder cuz he's gonna be such HOT STUFF on two wheels. And I am totally telling mom!

Grape Hyacinth

These were inspired by this year's grape hyacinth crop...which, sadly, is already fading. Hence the need for purple and blue sky potholders. Lilly of the valley is now creeping across my back yard garden along with the ever-invading creeping Charlie, which I am not trying to stop because it smells so good when I mow and it's more interesting to me than grass (which doesn't grow very well under the maple tree anyhoo.)


And you never know when you might need to clarify some beer! From About.com: Creeping Charlie "...was one of the principal plants used by the early Saxons to clarify their beers, before hops had been introduced, the leaves being steeped in the hot liquor. Hence the names it has also borne; Alehoof and Tunhoof. It not only improved the flavour and keeping qualities of the beer, but rendered it clearer." Great on info, not so great on the grammar, that About.com. If that weren't enough, botanical.com reported the creeping stuff as being "diuretic, astringent, tonic and gently stimulant. Useful in kidney diseases and for indigestion." No wonder my squirrels are so robust!



Here's another glamor shot of my new bike...


I'm slowly getting it pimped out -- still need to add a computer, toe clips and perhaps a canopy with a fringe.

Shocks...Pegs...Lucky!

Behold my new bike!! It's posed in the very location where, moments later, my dad would catch a delicious bass (really!). I won't be taking it off any sweet jumps, but we spent the weekend riding up and down the increasingly bumpy bike trail. Though it's quite a bit heavier than my sleek road bike, it's a lot more comfortable, so I think in the long run, I'll probably ride it a lot more. That brings me up to 5 bikes, so I might need to have a sale. For those of you who would enjoy reliving the Napoleon Dynamite references via "lego vision," see below. :)



Here's the real scene -- the lego version is pretty true to form except for the weird explosion at the end. What's up with THAT?



In other news, I threw caution to the wind and planted some tomatoes, even though it could technically still frost. I held back on the flowers only because the creeping charlie or whatever it's called has taken over the rock garden, and I ran out of time. I'll have to garden in short blocks of time because I can't kneel on my knee yet, and the bending over like a linebacker thing has seriously pissed off my hamstrings.

Schließlich!

Ich nahm meine abschließende Prüfung heute auf Deutsch. I think it went OK -- Lenore helped me a lot with vocabulary drills. The whole class was disappointing though, because the teacher spoke English 99% of the time, and we very rarely actually practiced speaking German in class. Kind of stupid. I'll probably sign up for 3rd semester though, because it's still better than doing nothing I suppose. Here are Lenore's favorite vocabulary words (which means I won't forget them!)

Glucklich (imagine a little umlaut over the u)
Ausgezeichnet!
Kaputtmachen
Neugierig

Tonight we will go to Dairy Queen! And now I'll have more time to watch Netflix and make a few more potholders. I feel another contest coming on...

Future Black Belt

This has nothing to do with anything, I just thought it was hilarious. I love that at three, she has such a fine sense of indignation! Something tells me she has older brothers.