Not-So-Hot Girl Summer

 Hi! It's August! Time flies when all you're doing is sitting around in your nice pajamas and messing with yarn.

A commenter on the last post wanted to know the ONE NEAT TRICK to make your tomato plants not look spindly and pathetic. What I learned from somewhere on the internet this past spring is that when you transplant your seedlings (or, in my case, the plants I bought from the farmers market), you dig a shallow, foot-long trench and then lay the first 10-12 inches of your tomato plant right in it and cover it with dirt. 

That's right, just bury that stem, even if you are covering up some of the bottom leaves. Apparently, the entire length of the buried stem is capable of growing roots, so the plant establishes a much better root system that can take in more nutrients and water.

IT WORKED

That's probably the most (the only?) useful thing anyone will have learned from reading my 16 (SIXTEEN) years' worth of blogging. YOU'RE WELCOME.

My recovery is progressing along in fits and starts, and yay I no longer have tubes coming out of my body, because those were really freaking me out. I'm doing my fun little post-mastectomy exercise routines I found on YouTube and walking to the store and running up the stairs so I can pretend I'm getting some aerobic exercise. Olympics, here I come!

I've also been pulling out all my yarn and strewing it everywhere, in an attempt to figure out what to make with it. The yarn situation could explain why I haven't blogged in 3 weeks, since I hate sitting at a messy desk and what do you know?

Yarn-covered desk

MORE yarn on desk

It's interfering with my muse, is what it is.

But I am working on socks (because, as always, WINTER IS COMING) and also my latest fave: the Stephen West Botanic Shawl. Now, Stephen West usually designs super-complicated, enormous patterns that take a lot of effort and brain power, so I have never knit anything of his, even though he is a very popular designer with the knitting community. 

I'm a lazy knitter, is what I'm saying.

But this particular pattern happens to be simple, so I ponied up the money and bought the pattern and now I can carelessly say things like "Oh, I'm just working on my Stephen West shawl" like all the cool knitters do.

I'm a Stephen West knitter now

Let's see, what else have I been doing?

I've canned some peach jam

I've eaten my weight in these things, OMG, SO GOOD

I've also managed to cement my new 60-is-the-new-80 status by acquiring a handy little shopping cart to pull to the stores with me, since it's been too hard to tote a full bag of groceries over my shoulder lately:

Isn't it cunning? I LOVE IT

So really, that's all I've got for you: gardening, knitting, canning, pulling my little cart to the grocery store. It's been my Old Lady Summer, and I must say, I am ROCKING that vibe. But I'm returning to work this week, so I guess this weird little time-travel interlude of the past few months will have to come to an end.

I mean, unless I'm stuck here. Which, truth to tell, certainly wouldn't be the worst of all possible worlds...