100th Post!!

100th Post!!:
Wow I can't believe I'm writing my 100th post!  It actually feels like it should be more when I look back through my posts from the past few year, which I have been doing the past couple of days.  I started this blog when I was in a haze of anxiety from a job that literally gave me nightmares and this blog was a way to channel the good things in my life and gave me something to focus on. I blame this blog and my eagerness to add posts about baking for gaining twenty odd pounds, which I'm just now getting rid of. But I also am grateful for this blog for the creative outlet it provides. I learned to bake for catharsis, I was inspired to rediscover sewing and to immerse myself in new crafts that I had never the time or ambition to take on.

Catching up:
I have a lot of things to post now since I've been adding up my finished crafts. I haven't cook many new recipes as the past two months at work have been chaotic with the Queen's Jubilee and the Olympics and it's all I can do to whip up something quick. Billy has more time at home now that he isn't commuting into London everyday. We actually go for bike rides in the countryside after work now when he had been getting home at 8 or 9 o'clock at night only to wake back up for 5:30 at his last job. I'm still not eating meat, though I did have bacon for the first time a few weeks ago, which I thoroughly regretted. We still get our veg box weekly but now we get a smaller veg and additionally a small fruit supply that's quite refreshing in the summertime.

Summertime:
Speaking of summertime… On our afternoon bike rides in the English countryside I have been nostalgic for porches and lemonade. Its only now getting hot and it feels like summer is almost over and loads of blogs are already talking about Autumn!! NOOO NOT YET! I definitely think that summer is my favourite time of the year again (it ceased being my favourite season when i managed a firework store for many years whilst in my teens and I would work for two months straight without a day off for a meagre amount of money). But it really hasn't felt like summer. Its almost the end of July and I haven't gone strawberry picking yet and I'm reading the second in the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series because I wanted to mindless summer book to get me in the mood! Billy and I are going home to Florida at the end of September, which also happens to coincide with our fourth wedding anniversary. This trip will extend our summer as its always hot in September in Florida though it is still technically hurricane season. I really just want to get a book, sip some sweet tea on the hammock in the shade of my momma's back yard. That is going to be summer for me.

Projects:

Here are some of the projects I've been working on. I crocheted a rug. Well I tried to crochet a rug. I tested out several patterns and they all start curling up when they get bigger. I wanted a really big rug but I had to stop because of the puckering. I used this pattern which looks great on a smaller rug as does most of the items Pickles create.

I have also grown a slew of herbs from seeds in the past few months. I was given seeds whilst on an assignment and I picked up a few other on my own. I have coriander, parsley, chives, dill and the plant shown is a chilli plant (which was actually in Billy's Xmas stocking that he never bothered to plant). I am also growing lettuce and have a Calamondin plant. This is the first time in my life I have grown something successfully!! I always say I have a black thumb instead of a green thumb due to all the foliage i have murdered in my life. I did the same science experiment every year in elementary school: Which one grows better: Marigolds grown in full sunlight or Marigolds grown in the dark. My Hypothesis: Marigolds need sun to create photosynthesis. (Seriously thats pretty much verbatim from what I did and needless to say it garnered me seriously average grades).

And lastly, the thing that made me giddy like a little girl: Billy bought me a darkroom!! I got a black and white enlarger with all the fixings and I am so incredibly eager to use it but alas chemicals are taking FOREVER to arrive. So until then my lovely darkroom kit is sitting in our spare bedroom. I am lucky that we have two bathrooms and the one we don't use often is large enough that we keep our bikes in there. There aren't any windows either so it will be really light tight. I set up my first darkroom in my house in Florida not long after my dad died and I would spend hours in there. I'd go in at 4pm and come out with sore eyes at 4am not knowing where the time went.

I think my 100th post may be my longest, but that's what happens when i put it off for ages!!