Status Updates on Ruined Fun and Cool Old Stuff

Reporting on life in our new home:

We spent some time ruining Rascal's fun this afternoon. We discovered that he can crawl under the deck to chase the neighbour's cat. I made this discovery one damp morning at 6am, which resulted in a lot of barking, both by Rascal and me. Luckily, he made his own way back and the cat was safe, but it was unsettling. Our landlord gave us some wooden lattice to cut and screw onto the deck, and we further secured it by pulling apart some of the slats and cutting them to fit across the spaces between each step.

Peace of mind: restored.

Fun: ruined.

In the meantime, I came across some plants on sale in the local garden shop. Last night, I planted some blueberry bushes and a wee strawberry plant in the yard. I may get a few berries this year, but they probably won't really produce for another year or two. The prospect is exciting... imagine the scones I could make!

Berry dreams: created.

I've also been hanging around a local vintage shop, giving the owner a hand with organizing stuff for the sidewalk sale she had this weekend. I really just wanted to help out, but she offered me discounts off items in the shop for my time, which I wasn't planning on using. I figured hanging around there would give me my "old cool stuff" fix without emptying my coffers and filling up my house. This changed when the hubby declared he wouldn't mind having a wooden desk for the office, and I remembered one she had in storage at the shop. A few hours of sweat equity, and it came home with us today. You can see how the hubby had been working with his monitor on top of the laser printer and the mouse on the Rubbermaid bin.

Civilized office: tentative.

Of course, after helping to haul items around at the vintage shop this afternoon after the sidewalk sale, the owner let me have a few of the things she was going to get rid of that didn't go, like these tin plates. One is a pie plate, and I'm thinking the others could be used for tarts or pies as well, unless someone has some better ideas. Regardless, I'm grateful for these pretties.

Pie plans: secured.

I also spied this Foley food mill, which I snapped up in an instant. My friend, Lisa, has one, and I've been coveting one for myself for a while. It's useful for straining seeds out of jams and for mashing up potatoes, but I really didn't know all of its uses until I found this manual for 75 ways to use a Foley mill. 

Food squishing: possible.

As I walked away from the shop this afternoon, the owner handed me these, which I think are hilarious. I think they're supposed to be for grilling sausages on a campfire (or you could use a stick, but hey, whatever). I feel like I could spend the whole summer looking for things to grill in there... maybe bananas... toasting really skinny hot dog buns... I dunno. I could write a whole other blog about the skinny-grill-thingy-possibilities.

Summer grill hilarity: eminent.

And of course, I'm back to knitting. I finished one side of the Botttoms Up Top by Alice Bell last night. It's knit in the round from the bottom up (get it?) and then you separate the stitches to knit the front, then the back. The instructions for the front and back are the same, but after finishing this side, I think I'm going to call this one the back, and make a few adjustments for the front. It's taken me weeks and weeks to get to this point, but I feel like I could get the other side finished next week, now that I'm back into the swing of things.

Knitting mojo: returned. Thank goodness.

Report submitted for your approval. Later, y'all.