a few of my favorite things

not any crisp apple strudels or packages tied up with string...but!

my first ghost eggplant! i wondered if the plant was only going to have cute little purple flowers..and then die. but it has produced! yaaaaay

another flowering hedge

free [!] gladiolas from trader joe's

unbeknownst to most.. trader joe's is in fact a good place to find single men in their 20s-30s. they follow my sister around every trip

stray kitten with a beard

momma frankie is a bit scrawny looking

um kind of angry family. perhaps cos they want a home and a matching poppa frank?

fruit pickin

too lazy to reupload these pics.

mattituck wedding

leah booked us a quartet gig in mattituck, a very small hamlet in the town of riverhead. it was a multicultural wedding with a sunset indian service and we played for the sunset traditional african service. the view from the yard was AMAZING and i really really wished we could have stayed for the food and dancing. but alas we were only paid for 2 hours.

cocktail hour tables

ceremony setup

chairs again with better lighting

how does an engineer fix droopy tomatoes?

with zipties!

and nails. and stakes.

basically... my tomato cages kept falling over and the weight of tomatoes broke off quite a few branches.

sad tomatoes.

after several searches online about expensive expandable cages and trellises, i thought um i could totally build something better.

and well im not sure its better but my fix was definitely cheap and easy. i bought $.97 stakes, found my container of 600 zipties, and a box of outdoor wood nails. theyre not pretty, but so far, quite functional. buuut now i have a nasty blister...and unbroken tomato plants!

kittehs

exorcist kitteh moves in for the kill

stray momma frankette and her kittens with mittens [through the kitchen window screen]

damn kids these days... GET OFF MY YARD!!!

oh hai. you napping here too?

another dress and silly skirt

reusing an "easy mccalls" dress pattern, i made a quick sundress. this time i used the right kind of fabric on the top and close to the right on the bottom. i say "close to" cos knit fabrics are really fucking hard to sew and the zipper makes weird bulges and waves in the side. also, the pattern i believe calls for about 2x too much fabric for each layer and the resulting dress is a bit unflattering. i remembered this fact however, after painstakingly ruching two rows and then threading 1/2" elastic between the rows, i FINALLY fitted the skirt to the top and then sewed it on.

also after fighting the zipper, i made a quick tie-belt with the remaining fabric from my random yard of fabric.com quilting cotton. the sis and i decided pockets were mostly unflattering on this type of dress and a belt would be preferable.

i also made a skirt out of some of the magenta knit and shiny red tulle that was on $.95 discount from fabric.com. due to my lofty ambitions and meager talents, the contrasting color waistband was an afterthought. and before i serged off the weird edges...looked like a cheerleading trainwreck.

perhaps ill wear it to a random winter party [?] or a ballroom dance event. the length and hem really are even but are being blown sideways by the fan.

dindin delicioso

the sis [aka the laundry fairy] cooks dinner for me almost every night of the week. which is greatly appreciated since i dont feel like doing anything after an eye-gougingly tedious day at work and a quick trip to the gym.

tonight was asian [insert type of mild white fish here] packets-soy, garlic, pepper flakes, baby bok choi from the j king's farmers market, and scallions.

with a side of homemade beef and bok choi dumplings

followed up with an ice cream bar and half a pluot [also from j kings] since only 1.5 fit in my lunch...instead of the 2 i had intended. a pluot is half apricot/half plum. purple on the inside, not fuzzy, and sweet with a teeeeny tiny apricot-sized pit. they have very odd looking skin, kind of a shiny mottled pear with bad acne scars. sounds appetizing eh? well it gets better. when you turn it around, like most stone fruit, a pluot has a buttcrack.

my mature years and microsoft paint skills says it looks like a dino-buttcrack. blah blah dinos dont have butts cos theyre reptiles and they have tails but TOO DAMN BAD.

fireworks

as it turns out, fireworks shows are quite common in long island. the terryville volunteer fire department recently had their annual festival/carnival and fireworks show. after watching the village fireworks on the 4th from the relative safety of our porch... i watched these through the screen in one of the roomie's rooms [yeeea.] while trying to comfort the terrified frank. we were close enough to this display that i could feel the boom and the echo, smell the sulfur, and vaguely hear the "oohs" and "ahhs".

also as it turns out.. even with a long exposure it is hard to hold a camera steady and get a clear shot through a window screen. who wouldathunk...

quick dress & garden 17

dress i made while watching america's got talent [amer HAS..but i digress] and SVU

this shot def makes the fabric [some kind of nylon/cotton knit] look like swimsuit material

second harvest! my zucchini is starting to go nuts and the cucumber has 12 or so cornichon sized cucumbers.

plattduetsche festival

plattdeutsche in franklin square. the fest was a fundraiser for the "old folk's" home next door.

fries and a brat with kraut which i asked specifically not for... but it was rinsed so not actually so bad

amazing potato pancakes dripping with grease that we waited almost an hour for. but so fucking worth it. and i drank an entire hefeweizen while in line. my only beer at bierfest. and not out of a boot. ::le sigh::

creepy garden gnomes. i would have bought one for the jardin..but they were $14 and plastic. PLASTIC. WHO MAKES FRIKKIN PLASTIC GARDEN GNOMES?!

suspenders to hold up your lederhosen and cute floral dresses

part of the parade of long island german clubs? [un]fortunatly we missed the crowning of this year's miss plattduetsche.

angry looking kids doing traditional bavarian dances

more garden results

from L-R: a pot of dirt [thai basil seeds], regular basil, baby strawberries

gigantor mothra in the garden. WAH TAHHH

tomatoes with a nice view of the house

eggplant flower. still waiting for an actual eggplant to spring forth...

i bought brussels sprouts on a whim. there are 6. hopefully they will produce 6 massive stalks of brussels sprouts.

baby bell pepper! [not babybel cheese in the cute red wax wrapper]

the first recognizable zucchini [of many to come]!

the ABCs

A is for artichokes, grilled over an open flame, full of carcinogens and deliciousness

B is for beeping buttons on a turning movement counter

C is for clouds in great neck, ny right before they opened up with rain

and...

S is for homesewed skirt that was declared "a nice first attempt."
damn.

completed quilt

I FINALLY FINISHED A QUILT!

i started this back in february...

it even has a backing [flannel], some legit quilting holding the batting in, and a binding!

and it folds very nicely into a square.

grilled banana pepper

grilled banana pepper
you are so good to eat
just a little spicy
but just a little sweet

fin.