Labor Exchange

This has been my look at work all summer.  We are mandated to wear a surgical mask at all times and a face shield when providing direct patient care.  We are not required to cover our hair but it was encouraged.  My vanity drives me to wear a sugical cap every day because the shield is not fun to wear all the time and I do take it off when I'm not with a patient.  Sliding that elastic band on and off my head really does a number on my hair but I don't have to worry about it if my hair is covered.  My face shield has a big chunk of foam to distance the clear plastic from my face and that foam irritates my skin, so the cap creates a barrier between it and my forehead.  Humidity in that shield is an issue and I find the cotton cap absorbs some of the moisture.  I forgot my cap at home recently and had a downright rain forest along my hairline all that day.  Needless to say, I have continued sewing and selling more surgical caps when I find the time and thereby slowly culling the herd that is my fabric stash

I work with a gal who is my "crochet friend".  She is to crochet what I am to knitting and I love having someone to "talk yarn" with!  Her grandparents are in an assisted living and she approached me about a sewing commission.  She wanted to donate a bunch of surgical caps to the staff of their facility and would provide the fabric if I did the sewing.  She crochets commissions all the time and is very much aware and appreciative of the hours and labor that go into handmade things so we hemmed and hawed over the price while I got on with the sewing.

I had a stroke of genius and instead of paying me with money, I proposed she pay with labor for an even trade.  I provided her the materials, in this case some linen yarn I bought years ago in Finland, and a pattern idea for a farmer's market bag.  She is ridiculously skilled and knows all about gauge and yardage and I gave her free license to choose a different pattern and use her best judgement as to what would look best with the two colors.

Here is the final bag!  I absolutely love it!  It is resting on the vintage Martha blue upholstered swivel chair that once lived in the upstairs bedroom of my grandpa Maynerd's house.  My sister delivered it to me a few weeks ago.  It matches my new sewing room perfectly but I still have some rearranging/organizing to do before I find it's final resting place.  I loved this chair as a kid and I'm so happy to be the proud owner of it now.

No only did Bree deliver that bag to me, but also 6 balls of Kauni yarn!  Someone in her crochet group had given it to her and she doesn't work with wool much and didn't know what to do with it so she gave it to  me!  I asked her if she was aware of the "street value" of such a payload and offered to pay her, but she just gave it to me!  Red letter day!

Speaking of yarn acquisitions, I have been buying up yarn strays at Saver's.  I officially have a problem if I am buying it second hand.  What kind of monster would abandon Cascade and Rowan?  Not me!

It is cooling off around here but what a lovely summer we had despite the Covid pandemic.  I so enjoyed the garden this year.  Here is a little friend on my cucumber trellis.

This was the best year we've ever had for tomatoes.  We enjoyed ours on BLT's, baked as au gratins, by the bowlful on salads, sliced on burgers, etc.  I canned pints and pints of sauce and marinara from our garden and shopping bags of them sent over from Dave's parents.  We haven't pulled the plants up yet and we're still enjoying the slowly reddening leftover fruit and I've enjoyed the hard green ones seasoned, breaded with corn meal and fried.  Delish.

This little monkey loves being outside!  I am definitely an indoor A/C girl but I am happy he loves the outdoors.  I love the outdoors too but not the heat and humidity.  Marek definitely takes after his dad.  We have his kiddie pool from last summer and he loves playing in the water.  We spent many afternoons painting the patio with water.  He's such a little boy because he loves playing in the dirt and grass.  Lots of baths after playing outside.

Here he is playing in his grandpa's tomato orchard.  Dave's parents know how to grow tomatoes!  They plant 12 plants every year and tend them all summer pounding in stakes and tying up the vines.  They grow over 6 feet tall and the tiny seedlings become robust vines the diameter of a silver dollar.  I always think of Jack and the beanstalk when we go to pick tomatoes.

I had to go and buy a garden colander at the Asian supermarket.  Every time we went out to the garden, there was something to be picked and brought in.  Now that the season is ending, I feel like we didn't eat enough cucumbers or zucchini.  We had so much to eat and still had plenty to give away and share with others.

We had great pickle cucumber results with the trellis frames we put up this year.  Dave's parents had two cucumber plants and had them coming out of their ears!  Here is just one evening's pickling haul.  We have quarts and quarts of pickles downstairs.  I use my mother in law's pickle brine recipe that was shared with her by a neighbor:  

1 quart white vinegar

1 pint water

4 c. sugar

1/2 c. pickling salt

Pack jars with onion slices, garlic cloves, dill sprigs and cucumbers.  Pour hot brine over packed jars leaving 1/2 inch head space.  Process in hot water bath for 20 minutes.

My dear friend Brenda puts jalapeno slices in her jars for a lovely bit of heat.  I am not familiar enough with jalapenos so I add 1/4 tsp dried red pepper flakes per quart or 1/8 tsp per pint.  Num num.

It is always amazing to me that an absolute PILE of produce can be shoved into a handful of jars and preserved.

We have a ridiculous amount of pickles downstairs but they are delightful.  Dave and I fight over the last few when we crack open a pint and my nieces and nephews love them so we'll have plenty to give away.  I used up all our jars this summer and I never thought canning jars would be at a shortage.  Fleet Farm couldn't keep them on the shelves due to "unprecedented demand" because of the pandemic.  I'm glad to see a revival of these home arts/skills but not under these circumstances.  I suppose people are not working as much and we've seen interruptions in the food supply chains so people are growing and preserving their own food.  I don't want to be all doom and gloom but we are entering flu season and here in Minnesota, our positive cases have been 900+ for almost 2 weeks.  I worry we are seeing another surge...

 

Back to a more cheerful subject...the boy.  He LOVES the water!  We visited my sister for a social distancing get together when my mom came up for the weekend.  I think this will go on our Christmas card this year!

He proceeded to get filthy dirty like a little boy in summer!

He loves water!  Whether he is playing outside in the paddling pool or sprinkler or indoors in the bathtub or bathroom sink, he loves playing in water!

I've given Marek 3 quarantine haircuts and am quite proud of them!  Salons are open now but he won't keep a mask on so I prefer to just keep him home and do it here.  I would never even attempt to cut Dave's hair but the boy's has turned out pretty well.

I came home one day to find this "artwork" inside the closet of the play room.  They are washable markers on flat paint because I never painted the inside of the closet.  I couldn't wash it off but we'll keep it as a time capsule.  Just like you leave growth marks on the wall, we'll leave this art here.  I secured the rest of the markers though.

We've enjoyed walks as a family again now that the heat isn't oppressive.  Poor Lopi can't tolerate a walk in the humid heat and she loves nothing more than a good walk.  We saw these green acorns developing on the branches of an oak tree on our street.  Soon the squirrels will be busy hiding them.

 I'm thrilled to report we have asparagus coming up in our long grass area of the yard.  Back in May we planted some roots I picked up at Menards.  Apparently they like well drained sandy kind of soil and we have buckets of that on the shores of the pond.  Nothing really happened with them and we kind of forgot about them.  Dave noticed these fronds thinking they were dill at first.  We have asparagus coming and will be able to pick it and eat it next summer!

I put up my fall decorations up including my Fall/Halloween kitchen towels.  I love cooking in this cool weather.  Here is bread rising in a bowl covered by my Edgar Allen Poe towel next to the warmth of the crockpot.  We light a candle on the table when we all get to eat together as a family for a subtle sense of occasion.

 Have I mentioned how much I love this boy?  We're trying to get pregnant again with no luck.  Every month is a great disappointment but secretly I feel a twinge of relief.  I know we'll be signing up for twice the responsibility and less sleep and free time and disposable income.  I worry about lifting a toddler while pregnant and pumping and trying to corral an out of control child.  But I also know another baby will be worth it.  Marek is certainly worth it every single day.  I love you, kid.

I am now working 12 hours shifts.  This started back in April and then work was interrupted and school was cancelled and Dave was home all summer.  I'm finally getting back on track with my schedule and getting myself and Marek and Lopi all up and squared away for the day and out the door.  Every day is beat the clock and I work long days but I love every day that we are all home together as a family.  We enjoy breakfast together with coffee, juice, eggs and some sort of home made specialty.  Dave's sister gave us a dozen of her glorious home produced eggs.  Some day I'd like to have chickens here.  Note the double yolk!

Look at this beautiful boy napping!  I just can't look at him enough!  He tears at my heart strings and my ovaries!  That being said, I absolutely LOVE naptime and bedtime!  He is the light of my life but he is also an enormous drain on my energy.  He is worth it though.

I don't know why I am on such a hat kick, but I have been.  I suppose because they are fast and portable projects.  This is a copycat pattern of The Hat I saw all over the place last season.  I bought this yarn at Prairie Yarns in Fargo when we were in town for my grandma Helen's funeral last year.  I don't know what to think about the pom pom.  I don't like yarn pom poms and my attempts to make them have been sloppy and would fall apart in a slight breeze.  These fake fur ones are fun and come in all kinds of colors but they are ginormous and really floppy on the hat.  The jury's still out.

 I knit two of these Llama Una hats because I was so pleased with the pattern.  It also helped that I had a bunch of DK weight scrap yarn sitting around with no earmarked purpose.

 

 This one is Gopher colors of course.  I think I made wrist warmers for my sister out of the burgundy.  Dave says this hat is too feminine and that I should wear it on game day.  OK.

 

 Even though naptime and bedtime means Mommy free time, he doesn't always go right to sleep.  The last time we went home to my parents' house, we brought the video baby monitor and set it up on the table next to the playpen where he sleeps when we're away from home.  He was in a new place and a different bed we looked over and see this on the baby monitor receiver.  You can't do anything but laugh.  Naughty boy!

I don't know how else to say this other than, "VOTE!"  Dave and I voted last week via in person absentee ballot.  Use your voice and VOTE!  I have loved Stephen Colbert since back when I was a single lady in Iowa.  He is doing the Lord's work, quite literally.  Check out his Better Know A Ballot site to find information about where and how you can vote in your state.  No excuses!  Get out there and vote!