I was happy to comply.  Any suggestion to make planning a meal easier is good, so we've now declared Wednesday to be Pasta Night. 

Tonight's pasta sauce started with part of the tomato sauce from the weekend.  I sauted about 1/4 cup of chopped garlic in olive oil.  One chopped onion, a couple of chopped carrots, 2 ribs of celery and a green pepper were added

then I added the tomato sauce and simmered it on low while I trimmed the red roses and filled both the green bins (about an hour or a little longer).

We had chicken apple sausages in the fridge, so I split and cooked those, which were then served on top of the pasta and sauce.  A green salad, some steamed green beans from the garden and a fresh baguette with garlic butter completed the meal.

The verdict on leaving the tomato skins on?  Meh.  I wasn't happy with this version of sauce.  Italian tomatoes have tough skins that don't disintegrate during cooking.  They are also just a little bitter and the sauce would have been better without them. The next batches will be mushed before cooking.

A few hours over very low heat, and they've cooked down to about half that volume.  I put a bit over a gallon of sauce in the fridge to chill overnight.  Later this week I'll freeze part of the sauce in pints; the rest will be made into marinara for dinner this week.

This is an experiment of sorts.  Normally I use my fancy Italian tomato musher (I think it's actually called a tomato press) to crush the tomatoes and separate the seeds and skins from the juice and pulp.  It's messy and I don't like losing any bit of fresh tomato goodness.  I recently read a report that many of the good cancer fighting antioxidants in tomatoes are in the skins, so I decided to try one batch of sauce made with the skins on (and seeds too, because I'm too lazy to scoop the seeds out without losing the pulp).  I'm anxious to see if the resulting sauce is acceptable.

So, welcome August.  I'm looking forward to some pleasant times with you.  In that spirit, a few Random Things:

• Check out Twist Collective 's premier issue, just available today!   Autumn is my favorite season, in large part because I am all about the sweaters (yet another reason Summer is not my friend: I've never liked summer clothes!) and cables and tweeds and socks.  This issue is just packed full of designs that make me salivate.
• We're awash in tomatoes!  I took a whole basket of heirloom tomatoes to a favorite restaurant because there's no way we can use these in the next 3 or 4 days.  I kept the Italian sauce tomatoes and it looks like I'll be making sauce this weekend.

• Tomorrow is Fremont's Festival of the Arts, and I'll be there looking for Mother Goose and her eggs at 1O a.m. sharp!  A local musician and friend is performing at 10, another couple of friends are performing at 2:30.  Love it!
• I finished the stealth project!  It's blocked too, but I haven't found a good way to display it.  Here's a sneak peak, taken while it was all pinned out and blocking:

I've felt really low energy and resentful about almost everything since May, to the point where nothing much was getting done, other than what has to get done.  The 3 weeks of excessive heat before mid-July was a major cause, especially when we usually don't have that much heat all summer.  Smoky air from the fires around us activated my usually-controlled allergies which made breathing a real luxury.  The smoke also makes my eyes burn, and at the request of health agency officials we've also taken our exercise down a couple of notches.  

The past week and weekend were much cooler, weather-wise, and I amazed myself.  I accomplished things.  I worked on my to-do list (it's long, and unfinished still), I made food, I knitted.  It was wonderful. Cooler weather also means that the roses are blooming and the blooms aren't crisp within hours of opening.

First, the food.  I harvested mostly tomatoes this week, and there are a lot of them.  I gave up on the currant tomatoes about 1/2 way, but they'll get picked soon.

Clockwise, from the Panhandle:  Roma, Green Grape, Garden Peach, Donatella (just above Garden Peach) and Black Krim.  The Currant tomatoes are in the separate basket.  I'm getting this many tomatoes (some different varieties) every day!

We went to the Farmer's Market, to round out the veggies for the week, and bought some beautiful peaches, brussels sprouts, onions, lettuce and okra.  I took our purchases home, and started prepping for the week. 

I made coleslaw, sauerkraut salad and carrot-raisin-pineapple salad.  I made muffins for breakfast and cupcakes and chocolate zucchini cake for desserts.  I made fresh vegetable soup - sort of a minestrone without the pasta and beans - from the less than stellar vegetables bought at the previous  Farmer's Market.

It's wonderful.  All we have to do for dinner is cook the meat or meat-substitute, choose a salad or 2, and perhaps cook another veggie.  If it's hot, we're good to go with the grill.

Next, the to-do list.  Mine is long and involved and sometimes more of a wish list than a to-do list.

1. I finished the laundry, including the blanket and comforter which are now packed up until Autumn.
2. The ironing is done.  Complete.  Finis.  This is the first time since before Christmas 2006 that the ironing board has not been resident in the front room.  I also used the wonderful ironing board cover purchased at Stitches West, and it is as good as advertised.  (25 shirts, 8 pants, 6 skirts, 3 jackets!)
   
3. Bags of clothes and things for St. Vincent de Paul are now there, not in my front room.
4. The dining room table has been cleared off, the front dining room table has been cleared, and the great dining room table move will commence shortly.  I switched tables in March for Passover dinner.

The knitting continues.  I finished the first sock of a pair:

Monkey sock; yarn is OnLine Holiday, I think.  The second sock has been cast on and the first pattern repeat is complete.

There is other knitting.  I have a couple of "stealth" projects that are almost complete, and progress is being made on the projects started earlier this summer.  Of course, startitis continues, and a couple more projects have been started.  That's a good thing! 

There's an 8-ball zucchini, some green beans, the first ripe tomatoes, plums, apricots, the last figs, thyme, oregano and African Blue basil (my favorite for flavor and appearance).

There will be another crop of figs in a few weeks; the fruits are already growing.  That's one of the things I love about fig trees.  They have several small crops of fruit over the course of a summer.  And, they have these wonderful deeply lobed leaves.

The heat wave of the past week has pretty much finished the apricot and plums for the year.  They're falling off the trees faster than I can pick them (which means the skunks and raccoons are very well fed, thankyouverymuch!) and aren't as sweet and flavorful as in years when the cooler weather allows them to ripen more slowly.  That affects the apricots more than the plums.

The apples are getting bigger and more apple-y looking and the pomegranates are growing too.  I love harvesting those, because it usually means the hot weather is behind us and the rains will begin soon.

On a slightly sad note, we (well, Mr. Ken really) cut down the peach tree.  It was a white peach (which in itself is rather disappointing - white peaches are wonderful eaten out of hand, and useless for any type of preserving), and hadn't really been healthy since we've lived here.  I've sprayed and doctored, and nothing helped.  The 3 weeks of hot weather finally did it in.  It was dead and dry all the way to the roots.  Next year I'll plant a grafted peach or nectarine or both, some place different in the yard.  And now I'll make plans to use that space differently.

2.  The garden continues to produce like mad, and now the tomatoes are joining the parade.  I've been getting tomatoes on the vine at the grocery, and they're good.  I had forgotten how good a tomato grown in your own yard, still warm from the sun and perfectly ripe tastes.  It's almost a different fruit entirely!

3.  Knitting continues, and so does startitis.  I'm enjoying it, and will forge on with the projects that hold my interest, if all of them don't.  No real downside, as all the yarn is from stash so far.  

4.  Finishing continues too.  Latest finished item is a pair - two, count 'em - of socks.  Nice to have new socks when Autumn finally arrives and brings cool nights and mornings.

The yarn is Ditto, in shades of warm browns and a bit of dark red, size 1 Crystal Palace bamboo needles, standard 3 x 1 rib.  The cuff is 8 inches long, the foot about 9 inches long, and there's lot of yarn left in each skein.

5.  A rant:  What has happened to Knitter's Magazine?  Why so many designs by the Knitter's Design Team?  Aren't other designers submitting good designs to them?  The last couple of issues have reminded me of the awful "created by loving hands at home" that so many crafts suffered from in the 60s and 70s, and not the artistic handcrafted look that's been the highlight of the past 15 or so years.

There's 1 design in the summer issue that I'm interested in knitting as is and perhaps a couple I might modify a bit (the Deborah Newton plaid sweater is fine, but should be longer and perhaps have long sleeves; ditto the Kahlo inspired sweater - it's quite cheerful but needs real sleeves) and that's the afghan knit of sock yarn.  I might even make that from stash if I have enough coordinating yarn, otherwise I see an order from KnitPicks, Herscher's, Webs or Elann in my future.

6.  Our air quality is just awful.  The photo on July 4 was the last time the sky was clear and blue; since then, the weather patterns have shifted and the smoke plume from fires north of us is keeping the sky gray and dull.  We've had spare the air warnings all week - 6 days this summer so far, and last summer we had only 2 all summer - and my allergies are majorly tweaked.

7.  It's hot.  Saturday and Sunday were in the mid-90s, but the nights cooled off and the fans cooled the house at night.  Monday it was 100*, Tuesday 102* and today it was 98*. At night the temperature drops to about 67*, much warmer than the average 55* or so.  The house is only cooling to about 74* each night, and that's with our double thick walls and extra ceiling insulation.   This is the third week of hot weather we've had since May, and I'm really getting tired of it. 

Aside from the spare the air days (on which we're asked not to drive and not to use charcoal in the barbie) we've also been flex alerted.  That means power use is near the maximum, and black-outs and brown-outs are possible.

8.  I'm grumpy - can you tell?  The heat, the allergies, the smoke...I'm so ready for the rainy season to arrive!  Last night after the sun set, I trimmed one geranium that had grown to gargantuan proportions.  It took less than 15 minutes and I was soaked with sweat.  Not my idea of fun.  The flowers are suffering, the cats are miserable in the afternoon, and I'm not sleeping well.   

9.  Good news:  there's a new fast food dining emporium in town, and it's good.  It deserves a better introduction than this grumpiness, so I'll post about it later in the week. 

Friday we stayed home and puttered around.  I replanted one of the raised beds with lettuce, romaine, peppers and one more tomato, and harvested the first tomatoes, more beans, figs, plums, apricots and herbs.  I knitted and we watched a few fireworks from the patio.  

This was a departure from July 4ths past.  Mr. Ken is quite a good photographer, and loves to capture fireworks.  Usually we head up to Alameda and he photographs the Jack London Square fireworks, but this year he decided we'd stay home and be close to the water hoses if another wild fire or fireworks fire broke out near us.  It's been a scary summer already, fire-wise.

Saturday Joan and I knitted while Mr. Ken and Will waxed their new-to-them gorgeous plum-purple PT Cruiser.  How nice to have knitting-with-a-friend time!  There was even some finishing of knitting objects:

This is W, from Knitty.  It's knitted from very well-aged stash yarn - I don't remember when I bought it, but probably the first year or so I knitted, so 1994 or there abouts.  The yarn is Mink Cancun, from Anglotexti in Mexico, and is an acrylic-cotton blend.  W used 3 skeins, or about 550 yards.  I added borders to the neckline and armholes, and created a front and a back.  It was an easy knit - 2 weeks for the 2 pieces, and almost that long for the borders!  It's also the first item I've knitted that Mr. Ken volunteered an opinion for - and he likes it!

Sunday while Mr. Ken put in a full day of Niles Canyon Railway volunteering, I puttered some more.  A little shopping, a little cleaning, and then more knitting-with-friends!  Joan and Roseann came over, and we knitted for several hours.  No photos; I seem to have camnesia anytime there are other knitters present!

Mr. Ken, Joan and Will went off to more Will's daughter, Kathryn, to her new apartment, and I made dinner (well, mostly - Mr. Ken grilled the burgers when they got back).  We ate, we laughed and the Yankees won.  It was a lovely ending to a lovey weekend!

See the bright blue sky?  There are about 340 wild fires still burning in CA, but that's down from the 1400 of last Friday, and the wind has shifted so the air is much cleaner.

And Happy Birthday to FullHouse, who is 4 today!

Happy 2nd Birthday to Clawdette! 

Short of leaving them on doorsteps in the middle of the night, I'm pulling out all my recipes for the trusty ones that  people really like.  Sunday night we had dinner with Joan and Will, Will's mom and her husband of 3 weeks, the new husband's grandson and his bride of a month and Will's daughter.  I made Chocolate Zucchini Cake for dessert, and it was very well received.  (Joan - Shirley asked me to have you email this to her.)  It was suggested that this is good enough to enter in the Zucchini Festival Cooking Contest, but I'm never sure about wanting to subject myself to that much scrutiny.

Here's the recipe, because I think good recipes are meant to be shared (and because I thought my copy was lost forever - it was hiding in my favorite Italian cookbook, Cooking From An Italian Garden).

I'll start with the original recipe, then I'll list the changes I always make. 

Chocolate Zucchini Cake (from the San Jose Mercury-News, September 6, 1989, no attribution)

• 1/2 cup soft butter
• 1 3/4 cups sugar
• 1/2 cup cooking oil
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 4 Tablespoons cocoa
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 cups peeled, grated zucchini, drained in a colander
• 1 6-oz. package of miniature semi-sweet chocolate chips

Cream together the butter, sugar, oil, eggs, sour cream and vanilla.  Then stir in remaining ingredients, except the zucchini and chocolate chips. 

Fold in zucchini.  Pour into greased cake pan, 13 x 9 x 2.  Sprinkle chocolate chips over top.  Bake at 325* for 40 to 45 minutes.  Do not preheat oven.

Now, for the changes:

1. 6 Tablespoons cocoa at least - what can I say?  I like chocolate!
2. 1 teaspoon of each of the spices
3. I never peel the zucchini, and use at least 3 cups of grated zucchini
4. 1 teaspoon of baking powder
5. Milk or Imo can be used instead of sour cream
6. Everything than can be is non-fat or low-fat, and I use Nucoa margarine (from habit, because it's parve and I used to keep kosher)
   
7. I prefer vanilla powder, so that's what I use
8. I've used white flour, unbleached flour and whole wheat flour - they all work just fine

We live closer to the Sonoma fires than the ones in Monterey and Gilroy, about 20 miles inland as the crow flies.  For several days now, we've not seen the sun because it's obscured by smoke from these fires.  Our normally blue sky has a yellow-ish cast.  The air smells and tastes like smoke; there's soot or ash in a fine coating on plants and lawn furniture.

This is the hills behind us, about 1/4 mile away.  It looks foggy, but it's really smoke.

Same hills, about 1/2 mile away, taken about 10 days ago.  See the incredibly blue sky?  (And see the hills covered in dead grass?) 

We're in a "drought condition" according to those who know these things.  Our rainy season stopped fairly abruptly in early March instead of gradually dwindling to nothing in May, and we received only about half our average annual rainfall for this rain year (July 1 to June 30).  What we need now is a good drenching rain.  That will cleanse the air, provide some relief for firefighters, wet the trees and and the tinder dry grasses that are the cause of many of the wildfires: dry grass and dry lightning  is a very bad combination indeed.

Weather guessers say we have a chance for thunderstorms this weekend.  That would be wonderful and unusual.  It rarely rains here from May to October, just when the rest of the country is getting most of the annual rainfall. 

Here's what I harvested tonight for dinner:

Across the top is the lettuce that bolted in the heat, the (supposedly) small 8-ball zucchini, and 3 types of beans - Romano (Italian flat) green beans, pea pods, and Blue Lake pole beans. We had the lettuce as a salad, and the Blue Lake green beans tonight.  The zucchini is destined to become (at least some of it) Chocolate Zucchini Bread and the other items will be eaten in the next couple of days.

I have learned a lesson this year:  Don't mix pole beans and tomatoes in the same raised bed!  Here's what it looks like now:

The beans have climbed to the tops of the poles, and are now climbing on the tomato cages and each other!  In the past, I've grown only bush beans, so this is new to me.  Next year, they get a bed of their own with a big trellis.

This bed has tomatoes, Italian Romano beans, eggplant, pea pods.  The tomato plants are covered in baby tomatoes, and a few are starting to turn color.

Look at the corn!  There are little ears on each plant, which means we might actually grow a little corn this year.  There are also tomatoes, parsley and herbs - most noticeably the African Blue basil right in front - in this bed.  

There are no photos of raised beds 4 and 5 today.  Bed 4 is being replanted now that the first crop of lettuce is done, and the chard plants have been moved to Bed 5 with the cucumbers, black eyed peas and yellow wax beans planted from seed a couple of weeks ago.  It's not terribly photogenic right now, but will look good next week.

Knitting continues.  Massive startitis is still the order of the day, but it's my knitting and that's what I'm enjoying now.  I found another pattern in an older VK that I want to knit, but need to rummage in the attic for the yarn - it has several colors, and I think I can sub stash yarn for all of them.  Photos soon. 

The patio is nearly clean, but look at that yard!  It's a mess, but it's big and I love being able to look out and see the trees and plants.  That's the back half of Mr. Ken's shop on the right.

Most nights from April to November Mr. Ken grills our dinner.  We eat outside by candlelight and it's wonderful. If we get too cold, we make a fire in the firepit and stay toasty warm.

Before dinner we have cocktails and snacks here.  I antiqued that table - it was shiny brass, and that just wasn't the look I wanted.  We watch TV out here too.  We really do live on the patio when it's hot.

We store our patio dishes and such in these Rubbermaid cabinets.  They are meant for garden tools, so I cut shelves for glassware and placemats and dishes.

  Dishes, acrylic glassware, placemat and such for out door use.  It's so nice to have dishes readily available, even though they are taken in to be washed.  

It's been a warm week, and the weekend is predicted to be hot hot hot, so the patio will be our favorite spot for the next few evenings. 

1.  The last couple of days I've realized that a case of the blahs has had me in its grip for part of April and most of May.  I didn't get a lot done, I was grumpy and grouchy, and it was hard to get started on anything.  My energy level was lower than it's been in years too.  We had very hot weather, which always gives me the blahs; we had cooler than normal weather too.  At any rate, this weekend everything started looking normal and rosy, I had energy to burn, I got things done and I'm happier for it.

2.  My knitting UFOs and other UFFOs have not gotten as badly out of control as I feared - yet!  Now that the blahs are gone, I'm feeling a serious case of startitis coming on.  As was pointed out in KnitTalk, startitis can be defined as Hatikah , which is Hebrew for Hope.  That's how I'm viewing startitis this time around.  I even started and finished the knitting on W from Knitty in May!

3.  I'm an introvert and I need quiet and solitude to recharge my batteries.  I know this, and yet there are times when I want to be social and life gives me chances to do things and be with people and my social batteries get completely drained.  (Interestingly enough, at least to me, the last time I did the Myers-Briggs assessment, my scores had changed a bit.  I'm still INFJ, but my scores in most areas are very close.  Only 2 points separate Extrovert and Introvert, Thinking and Feeling, and Judging and Perceiving.  Sensing and Intuition, however, are very clear and separated by 16 points.)

4.  Joan came over today and we spent some time on the back porch, knitting and chatting.  She checked out the raised beds, and says I need to post photos because they've grown a lot since she last saw them perhaps a month ago.  Noted, and I will do that this week.

5.  Back to UFOs: if you'd asked, I would have said there were at least 40 of them and probably more.  I counted and there are actually fewer than 30!  If I can get really busy this week, I might be able to get 4 or 5 more off the list!  The knitting is done and only finishing remains on them; in fact, Kenobi just needs to have the sleeves set in!  That would be really good!

6.  We've had our first salads from the garden already, and our first zucchini (Roly Poly or Eight Ball variety).  This week I'll need to pick Romano (Italian) beans, and snow peas (again).  Tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers are setting fruit, and the corn is almost 3 feet tall.  I still want to plant pumpkins and gourds, and there's still time for that.  

7.  This crop of lettuce and chard will be finished this week.  I'm going to replant that raised bed with New Zealand spinach, lettuce, carrots, radishes and herbs.  We will need to buy lettuces at the Farmer's Market for a few weeks, but that's OK.

8.  Going through yarn in the attic was a surprise in several ways.  I found yarn that I'd forgotten about (even though it's on my 14 page spreadsheet) and found enough of several yarns to make sweaters that just rose to the top of my list.  In fact, I found enough of 21 different yarns to make 1 sweater (West Side Raglan from Oat Couture) which may make it my next mindless commute and open mic project.  It's the sort of thing I wear for work year round, with slacks or skirts, with or without a jacket.  And it would be a great use for some of the "interesting" yarn I bought with no clear plan in mind.  The pattern is long sleeved, but short sleeves or 3/4 sleeves would be easy to do as well.   And it would certainly showcase the "interesting" yarn.

9.  I also found enough of the specified yarn (!) for several patterns just earmarked.  Based on a couple of blog entries by Bonne Marie Burns of ChicKnits, I revisited several issues of Vogue Knitting, from about 2001 to 2004.  What a treasure trove!  Not only was the Shirley Paden sweater Bonne Marie did on my list (but the turtleneck and pullover aspects had me convinced it would never work), but now I know how to convert it into something I'll actually wear.  There are several other wonderful sweaters in the 2 issues I chose to work with for now, and I'll highlight those in the next few entries.

10.  Notice the wonderful clips holding W together?  They're little hair clips from the Dollar Tree, 24 for a buck (I think that's right, it might be 48).  Whatever!  It's a lot cheaper than the special ones sold in knitting stores and catalogs.  I'm finally learning to embrace my inner thriftyness!  (I'd like to take credit for this, but Ann of SheepShots found and blogged this several months ago.)

One item on the list - certainly not the most pressing or important - was to replace all the antique brass finished door hardware (doorknobs and deadbolts and such) with polished brass. 

(Yes, I know brushed nickel is the current Look, but I don't like brushed nickel and I do like polished brass, and I'm not planning on selling the house anytime soon.)

Anyway, that's the item Mr. Ken decided to tackle first, only he decided to start by replacing the hinges on the side door, which is the one we prefer to use.  When he finished replacing the hinges, it was late and dark and the french doors were just off-kilter enough that once we wrestled them closed and locked, we stopped using them until we could fix the problem.  (Actually, we had to stop using them.  Somehow, the latch no longer lined up enough to keep the door closed, and the deadbolt was broken in this upgrade as well.)

Fast forward to this afternoon.  I came in to a wonderful clean house (thank you Emma and Arturo!) and a note which said "we couldn't get the front door to lock so it's closed but still open".  I checked the front door, which we never use, and it was locked and OK.  Then I noticed the chair up against the side door.  It was holding the door closed, because they hadn't been able to wrestle the lock back into place!

Fortunately, we had a lockset purchased months ago when this project was started.  I did get the deadbolt  replaced and functional so the house is secure.  Tomorrow I'm going to attempt to re-align the one door that's most out of alignment and then replace the handleset.  Of course, the keys won't match the others, but that's a minor issue. 

At the moment I'm happy enough.  Replacing the deadbolt was easy peasy once I remembered to use the long funny screw-like things and not the long screws.  And most important, the deadbolt no longer requires a key to open it from the inside.  

This honey-do list is working really well. 

1. The first hot, sweet, milky sip of tea in the morning.  I've been cycling through different teas for a few weeks, and while I am developing some favorites, I like most of them.  And while I'm at it, what was I "saving" all those teas for?  I had a box of tea bought in London the last time I was there - 10 years ago? - that I finally opened and really enjoyed!

2.  Walking in the back door at the end of a long day, and knowing by the clean smell of the house that the housekeepers have been in and tidied the place and cleaned the bathrooms.  

3.  The first bud on a new plant, and the delightful anticipation until it opens into its full glory.  All that potential coming from dirt!

4.  Sleeping cats.  Need I say more?  They aren't getting into mischief, and cats sleep so hard - they're totally oblivious, and they have such cute little snores.

5.  Turning the heel on a sock is just magic.  Suddenly this tube looks like a sock, and the numbers all work and it's perfect.

6.  The look on Mr. Ken's face as he works on rebuilding the motor for his sports car: intense, alive, connected and interested.  I can still remember when it took the same amount of concentration for him to remember the names of his cats.

7.  Finishing a row of lace knitting (or is it knitted lace - I forget the distinction) without making an error, zoning out, or anything else that makes me tink back 400 stitches to fix.

8.  Getting real mail.  Not a bill, or something to occupant, or even a catalog (and I do love catalogs).  A thank you note from my niece, a quick little note from my 97-year old grandmother, a card from a friend - these things make my week!

9.   Caramels, especially really chewy ones covered in dark chocolate.  Dark chocolate in general...

10. Watching moms and their children, especially little babies.  I've never been a mom, but there's something about a helpless infant that brings out the mom in me, and those moments are very intimate and wonderful to see. 

This may be a regular Thursday thing!

1.  Opening the door and walking into our home every night.  Sometimes it's a mess, and as long as cats and I live here it will never be decorator-perfect, but it's home.  It's my refuge from the world, and the place this introvert goes to recharge her social batteries. 

2.  Driving through the small town where we live.  Yes, I know it's really a district of a somewhat charmless suburb, but it's small and isolated enough from the rest of the city that it reminds me of visiting my grandmother in the tiny west Texas town where she still lives.

3.  Picking dinner - at least part of it - from my garden.  

I've been so fixated on getting tomatoes to set blooms that I sort of totally missed the Rond De Nice zucchini that were ripening already.

4.  Telstar by The Ventures.  I realize that The Ventures were just inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and I rediscovered this old favorite last summer.  I can't get motivated for my weight training sessions without playing Telstar at top volume all the way to the weight studio.

Heck, let's list just about anything by The Ventures.  At our wedding not yet 8 years ago,  Mr.  Ken walked down the aisle to Walk, Don't Run by The Ventures.  It was the most moving challenge I've ever seen and I was reduced to tears just watching him.  Someday I'll tell the back story that this bit of joy deserves.

5. 

Cat stories with happy endings:  Rachel and Digit, Rae and Floozie, Barb and Edward to name a few.  I'm such a mushball that these stories make me cry, no matter where I am when  I read them.

6.  Waking next to Mr. Ken gives me such a rush of joy that sometimes I'm almost frightened by it.  I am so lucky, and I know it.  He's an inspiration and a wonderful man, a good friend and a  truly kind person.

7.  Walking on the beach just before, or maybe during, a winter storm.  The sky is leaden, the ocean is almost the same, the wind is blowing and the beach is deserted.  The smell is salty and raw, primeval.  No one else is about and the tide pools are full of starfish.  When it's stormy dolphins frolic next to the beach, and whales can often be seen near shore as they migrate to Baja Mexico.

8.  Scents:  Roses and jasmine in the evening.  Citrus blossoms in the morning.  Lime slices in gin and tonic. 

9.  Knitting socks.  Knitting sweaters.  Knitting swatches.  Startitis.  Having a yarn stash larger than some yarn stores so I can always find something to knit.  Teaching myself to knit and knowing no fear of difficult patterns.  Going to  Stitches West  to see what's new.  That first glimpse of the market every year just about takes my breath away.

10.  Color.  I love color.  

11.  Old fashioned stationary and envelopes for writing letters.  My grandmother is 97, and she loves getting mail.  I keep a collection of cards and paper for letters, and send them to people I love.  My ex-mother-in-law is a wonderful woman, and even though her son and  I have been divorced for 14 years, she still has a letter I wrote to her stuck on her refrigerator with a magnet.

12.  Live music gives me chills.  We live in a fairly artsy area, and local restaurants have live music by local artists 3 or 4 nights weekly.   There are 2 local open mics, and occasional concerts.  I love a good orchestra, and can be transported to another plane by a live musical or concert - remember The Boss last month?

13.  My collection of books, mostly mysteries.  They transport me to another world and let me try on other lives.  Words written by Rex Stout, Agatha Christie, Dick Francis, and a host of others.

14.  Reading or knitting on the patio when it's just warm enough outside and the air is so soft that you doze between paragraphs or stitches.

15.  Listening to baseball on the radio - preferably a transistor radio - while working in the vegetable garden in the summer.  Baseball is the perfect summer game:  it doesn't move too fast, and once you understand the game you don't need to watch it to know what's happening. 

16.  A well-build and well-insulated house makes me smile.  It's over 100* today (thank goodness that's rare for us - 78* is the average summer high) but it's 78* in the house - without any sort of air conditioning.  Cross-ventilation and window fans keep it pleasant. 

It's 8 am now and I'm exhausted!

So far today this is what I've done:

• Planted an apple tree
  
• Dug up six blackberry roots
• Folded a load of laundry, and put it away
• Changed the sheets on our bed
• Washed a load of black laundry
• Scooped all 4 litter boxes
• Moved 2 boxes of decluttered items into the front room, ready for delivery
• Made breakfast and a pot of tea
  
• Sat with Sweetie to watch Perry Mason, which was pre-empted by some religious show