May Madness

 I'm gonna throw a bunch of photos at you.

May has been super busy and I think The Daily Drizzle is finally fizzling out. Another of my favorite Iris above with the Bearded Iris close behind. That will be the end until next year.

  My friend from Kyoto sent me some special items for my birthday earlier this month.
She is getting to be an awesome airplane spotter.
 She found a keychain of the Torii Gates which was one of my favorite sites in Kyoto.

 My sis sent me a Marimeko plate. Also, the cute dish towel on the left.

I had to have a huge talk with myself. I've been hoarding pretty dish towels lately because a certain someone in the household doesn't understand kitchen rules. I made myself put it out anyway. And I ended up shout-ing it, as there are already scorch marks and tumeric from our curried chicken. (le sigh)

I made two more Clothesline bowls for easy peasy gifts and they were well received.

 This was my birthday/anniversary dinner. Yummy. Steamed clams on zucchini noodles. I think I need a spiralizer after all. Super delicious. Just a savory wine sauce instead of a cream sauce.

My iphone isn't great at capturing Mt. Hood in the distance. Lots of snow this year.

  I then "Gave" myself another gift of clumping bamboo. My friend, Teresa, mentioned she had five varieties and I penciled her into my birthday week off.

If you've ever had the joy of dividing bamboo... I took a sharp shovel with me and got a teeny bit of four of her varieties. The black bamboo would have needed a pick ax. ...and maybe very strong young men.

Nearby her is an old favorite restaurant of mine (and hers). My hubby and I came on the very first warm and sunny day and ate our dinners.
The sliding doors were open to the dappled shade along the Sandy River (very high this year).

My hubs had the famous chicken and dumplings. Which I can no longer eat (flour). My dinner was very tasty too. For the life of me, writing this, I can't recall what I ate.

I got to some of my weeding during my week off, but there is still lots to do.
Below are three medium sized blueberry plants. It has been so soggy that this section had to wait until the ground dried out a bit. Maybe in a week or two.

Right to the left of the weedy area is a section that looks all pretty in it's new barkdust coat.

The other morning, I awoke to this pretty picture out my bedroom window.
The Stearman got pulled out for some air.
The pink early morning air with my lovely Weigelia in front

Part of my birthday week was volunteering for Junk Refunk. A local business owner that is an Annie Sloan stockist put it on. Cheryl has previously done two street markets in town and brought a lot of people (and their money) into Canbyland. She needed some help so I volunteered.

I had forgotten how much I love volunteering. With my job, it's nearly impossible to commit to anything except getting through the long work days.
 
This one vendor, who is local, makes these awesome crowns. Because I was The Most Awesome Volunteer - ever-.

I have some escalating family problems, one in crisis mode. I also have one of the four clerks MIA for an indefinite time at work. Overtime will be the norm as if it wasn't already.

I am going to unblog for a while. I'll still be on Instagram more frequently (RocketGirl50). If you want to see my photos, that's a good place right now. I am seriously time challenged right now.

Trying to find time for sewing and unleashing my creative juices just got harder. If I do find a chance to make anything, I will try to blog just because I like the documentation and my notes.

Next week, I'll be visiting DD in Alaska, so I may have another go at blogging by iphone. Or, not. Photos seem to be more permanent on the blog (as a storage solution). We'll see how it goes.

We plan to go halibut fishing out of Homer and also a flight seeing trip around Denali. I'm especially looking forward to  Denali as this has been an awesome snow year up there as well.


Keep well and have a delicious summer.