Seeing as I am stuck at home for a little while longer more quilting will be done – and I’m working on more soft page books for Melanie’s special needs kids at her reading groups at the library.
Some have said that I am dealing with not leaving for our vacation on time very well- but remember we are retired! We can pretty much leave when we want especially with a camper. We do have to be back in early November for scheduled doctor appointments but we will still have plenty of time away. We had very few reservations made and the first night we did have a place reserved but we let them know why we had to cancel and they refunded us so that was good and they didn’t have to because it was less than 48 hours warning. We well wait to cancel or change the dates on another one and see when we can leave that one is further away on the calendar so we have time to fix that one yet. We don’t make many reservations very far out in advance as we like to kind of plan as we go and if we feel like we need a reservation we make them on the road from the phone or computer. We have at times totally changed direction of where we intended to travel to if we suddenly get a heat wave or see that all we will have is rain.
I worked on Fall Harvest on Friday night and finished this side and started back in the middle working my way out last night – I guess I will get started on that 7th row of baskets after all if we are delayed long. I imagine I will be working on this a little bit for Slow Sunday Stitching with Kathy today and Cynthia at Quilting is More Fun than Housework.
The cowl grew a little bit and is 13 inches long now – it would be double that if I hadn’t unraveled as many times as I did!! If I actually finish this while we are traveling I might pick up more yarn and start another with a different stitch to practice.
The soft pages I am working on – some of the supplies are at Melanie’s and some are here – she has a piece of light blue that we can stick the clouds on and write the words on – this is just on paper so I can hand it off to her and she will know what I was doing with it. I’m going to stitch the windows and tires down on the car and maybe make a couple more and then she can take it from there and decide how she wants to use them and the next one over is supposed to be scoops of ice cream that can be stuck on a cone – I’m not sure if I like it and not sure what will happen with that one.
I had run out of time to dry herbs and had left the rosemary to grow but seeing as I had time after all I went down to the almost bare garden yesterday afternoon and cut a lot of rosemary to dry – it will be done some time late today and I can get it in a jar to use this winter – I have a small jar that I had processed last year that I put in my spice drawer in the camper kitchen to use – I had so much of both oregano and rosemary last year that I was drying herbs all last summer and this year I barely did any. I will pull the tomato plants out today as well instead of just leaving them to die in the garden – I had barely any tomatoes this year – I either got a hold of bad plants or combination of too dry to start with and then too wet – but I gave up on them and didn’t do anything with them and barely got a dozen or so from the plants.
You just have to go with the flow! At least you aren’t restricted to a time line, and you’re making very good use of your extra time at home.
yes it is nice to not have a day you must leave by and to come home. I’m glad I have things at home here to work on so I could just continue with routine while we wait
Did you say where you are going this year? I remember the year I saw you near Durango during aspen color time.
Colorado and Wyoming – we do love the aspen color!
I have had no luck with my tomato plants this year either. I need to start drying out my herbs too.
It is nice to have the freedom to change your travel plans depending on the weather conditions.
Love the cowl.
I wonder what was with the tomatoes this year, I haven’t heard anyone raving about them!
Yes changing plans is great if you can – who wants to camp two weeks in rain if you can drive in another direction!
I think you’re doing well on your crochet project, at least you’ve sure added quite a few rows since the last post. Sounds like you have plenty to keep you occupied while you wait to get that a/c issue fixed. Those little books are a great idea; the little rain cloud is very cute!
yes I’ve got plenty to occupy my time and it was going to be between 95-97 our first 3 days of travel anyhow so I am not missing that heat for sure – it is hot enough here at home although I wish I would have checked the porch out earlier in the evening – I went outside about 9:30 to shut the camper door (has a screen of course) – we had left it open with a fan on while we were doing a little bit in their earlier in the day and hadn’t shut it and it was so pleasant out there a light breeze I just had to sit and enjoy my porch for awhile and listen to the frogs! even though it was mid 80’s it was so nice with the breeze and darkness.
At least you are retired so the change of plans doesn’t matter that much. You also don’t depend on planes or hotels. I hope your A/C can be fixed quickly. In the meantime enjoy your quilting.
thanks Cathie – so glad we didn’t have the whole trip planned down to the minute!
It’s a good thing that the A/C broke at home! Hope it’s fixed soon and you can be on your way. In the meantime, it looks like you are making good use of the extra quilting time.
yes it would have been awful to get to the first campsite when it was 95 outside and not have the A/C work – we drive gradually to our areas of interest – who wants to put in 12 hour days behind the wheel if you do not need to so we plan to take 3 to 5 days to get to the mountains and acclimatize gradually to elevation changes.
Well sounds like you have been busy with your unexpected extra time and making good use of it… that is good 🙂 I hope you can find someone to fix the a/c early in the week on your RV! I love your crocheting… looks lovely and perfect too! Kathi
we hope so too – and will be checking on that first thing in the morning. The crochet is going a little better now that I have gotten more comfortable with long needle
It is so nice to be retired and be able to be more flexible in making plans! I love that about retirement, too! Glad you’re finding plenty to keep busy with, but hope it doesn’t take too long to figure out and fix the problem. The stitch/ pattern on your cowl looks great to me – very even! Do you have any trouble with making the stitches too tight? I do that when I’m knitting, but don’t know if that can be a problem with crocheting.
so far the stitches have not been tight – generally with crochet I tend to make the first row too loose and then need to redo. I am getting comfortable with the long needle it was a little hard at first to get used to holding it. I think I will need to take a class in reading patterns too and how to do this in the round which a lot of patterns in crochet now use just like knitting
Love seeing the progress on your basket quilt!
Bummer about the tomatoes this year 🙁
the basket quilt has moved much faster than I ever thought it would – only a month and it is 3/4’s done
You travel the same way that Tom and I do by the seat of our pants. It really is a fun way to travel and quite easy to do with today’s smart phones. Don’t you love the smell of fresh herbs. I have a rosemary plant near the front door that I am always running my hand over. I cut my flat leaf parsley this week to dry. Must be the season!
the rosemary smells great! yes travel this way is nice – no set plans just a general idea of what we want to see we will just mosey along and drive only 4-5 hours when we are on the road – there has been a few times over the years when we find a nice place and spend 3 or 4 days there and then only drive 3 hours further before we set up a new camp as there is tons more stuff to see
It’s really nice that you have such flexibility in your schedule for traveling. It must take some of the anxiety out of being delayed for a bit. Your quilt is coming right along and is so pretty. I too didn’t get very many tomatoes. I never thought about drying my herbs in the dehydrator (DUH!), but I will now! Thanks for the inspiration.
What a nuisance the ac packing up, but thankfully you can be comfortable while it’s fixed! Hope you are off soon.
just glad we hadn’t already started the trip!!
Your cowl is looking great and so is your quilting. I hope your AC gets fixed tomorrow and you can start on your adventure soon. Your rosemary looks so pretty, I have it too and my other herbs are really growing this year. My two tomato plants were a dud this year also, they just grew but didn’t set very many tomatoes. I’m still stitching on my Herfordshire quilt today and hope you have fun stitching too.
I really doubt the A/C in the camper will be fixed that fast – would be nice but I doubt it. Hopefully by the end of the week though would be nice. Sounds like a lot of us didn’t have luck with tomatoes this year
Our summer holiday plans for previous years and the next few are governed by getting home in time for my annual mammogram and MRI, all very necessary as a BC survivor. Like you, being retired, we can work around these dates. Enjoy your camping trip, surely you will be heading away soon.
Mike and I both have regular doctor visits – I have autoimmune diseases and need regular blood work checks and Mike has high blood pressure – we go around doctor appointments which are pretty much every 4 months for me and six months for him