Geeks and Gardens

This was another house productivity weekend.  We've been trying to schedule them regularly to try and get everything to a good manageable baseline.  So we are focusing on things like organizing the bedrooms, basement, and maintaining the yard.

This weekend we focused on maintaining the flower beds that frame the house.  We had 7 cubic yards of red cedar mulch delivered a little before 8am Saturday.  First we weeded all the beds, then I mowed the lawn, and we started spreading out mulch.  It felt like hours and hours or shoveling and moving wheelbarrows full of mulch throughout the yard, but eventually we had a nice think layer of mulch framing the whole house.  It looks so much nicer than the weeds!

 

This is one of the four large flower beds.  I should have taken before photos... oops.

After the flower beds were done, we did some work to our tiny backyard. Weeding, mulching, and tearing out a broken water feature put in by the previous owners.  It now looks pretty cute back there and will be a nice place to set up the kiddie pool... which I may end up doing this afternoon since it is so hot!

We also did some rearranging of the exercise nook of the basement and made room for a weight machine my parents gave to us. 

The munchkin spent a lot of his time running around the yard, playing with shovels, and getting dirty. By the end of the day he was a very tired kiddo.

Sunday, Micah, the Munchkin and I headed down to Hartford for Connecticon for the day.  It was our first time.  They call themselves a multi-genre pop culture convention.  I'd say they were like an anime con with a really heavy gaming focus.  We actually spent the majority of the day in the gaming room.   Played Ticket to Ride- which is really fun and I want to get a copy of, and Micah entered and won an 8 person Magic the Gathering Tournament.

 

The gaming room was huge- this is just the tables for card games- further to the right were round tables for board games, and then in the back were round tables partitioned with pipe and drape for table top role play gaming.

While Micah was doing his tournament, the muchkin and I wandered the dealer's room and the artists tables... then just wandered the halls and people watched.  This was an awesome con for watching cosplayers, and I really want to make costumes for all of us for Arisia this year.

 

Link!

After the con we headed into West Hartford for dinner at Max Burger.  I had a delicious housemade veggie burger on a tasty gluten free bun with a side of sweet potato fries.  yum!

This morning was spent in court... and I'm off to a client meeting in a few minutes.  

Yet another naptime post

The munchkin is once again asleep on my lap after nursing... so its time to blog.

Yesterday we celebrated the fourth of July by going outlet shopping.  The guys needed work shirts and Michelle has lost weight so needed to replace some summer essentials like capris and tank tops. I ended up with a new summer nightgown and a pair of running leggings. The baby was nice enough to nap the whole way home.

We had Duncan and Laurel over for a little BBQ in the late afternoon.

 

Vegetarian baked beans, a "smartdog", German potato salad, corn, and pesto pasta salad.

 

The munchkin liked the beans.

I ended up going to bed pretty early since the baby was ready to sleep and I've been dealing with headaches the last couple of days.  I think it is because I've been trying to break my caffeine habit.

Today I've been having a simple day at home.  I got up early to get some work done in the office.  I got some household stuff done and I've been working on some writing due in court in a couple weeks.  All in all a pretty good day.  I am looking forward to a yoga class this evening.

In the mail today was an adorable pair of fleece shorts I order for the munchkin from Emotibums

These shorts are so cute.  They appear to be really well made.  I'll have more to say once they have been put to the test a bit more, but so far I really like them.

Washing wool

I finished knitting a pair of shorties last night and had a couple that were in need of a wash so I thought it might be fun to document how I wash our wool.  This is just the way I do it, and it works for us... so here goes.

 

I use Eucalan wool wash (I like the Eucalyptus scent) and add a little extra lanolin since we use our wool as diaper covers.  Eucalan is great since it has lanolin already in the wash and you don't have to rinse it out.  Less agitation mess less chance of felting.

 

Fill up the sink with tepid water.  For these woolies I'm doing two capfuls of Eucalan to the whole sink.

 

Take a small dollop of lanolin 

 

Add super hot water!

 

Whisk until it dissolves

 

Slowly pour into the sink while swirling the woolies around to distribute it evenly

 

Lay flat to dry.

Here are the new shorties I finished last night.  One ball of knitpicks- Chroma

I'm having a bit of a moral dilemma now with the wool and my recent decision to go vegan.  I think going into the future I will carefully research where I purchase my wool from.. trying to go to local farms if possible and focusing on ethically produced wool.  I don't think I could give it up completely. It works too well and I really enjoy knitting with it.  I'm not sure if there is a more vegan friendly option for the lanolin though. hmm....  Though I bought this lanolin when the munchkin was born and I still have most of the bottle so it may last a long time.