We live about 20 houses away from a train track, trains come through 4 or 5 times each day. It's a residential neighborhood, so you can hear them sounding the whistle when it's still a ways off. And every time Ivy hears the whistle she yells "the train, we gotta go see the train" and I have to put down whatever I am doing and run outside with her. No matter what. A few days ago we had this conversation:
Ivy--the train! The train is coomminnng, hurry!
Me--Ivy, you're naked!
Ivy--but I can't miss it!
I managed to throw a towel around her as she headed out the door... There've been a few times when I had to throw on some pants. Fortunately everyone was dressed today
We made it down the street in time to wave to the driver, which really thrilled her.
My backyard is still a disaster, no lawn, no plants except for weeds. But the front looks good. We put in all of this, it was just grass when we moved in. The lawn looks pretty awful, though. We need a few days of rain, not these brief spatters we've been getting.
There are nasturtiums, sunflowers, zinnias, pansies and over to the side are herbs--sage, rosemary, lavender, yarrow and a few others. For someone who wears a lot of black, I enjoy plenty of color in my garden.
This is our neighbor a few houses down. Aren't those hollyhocks wonderful? I am going to see if he will let me have a few plants, he said they spread like crazy.
Recently some other neighbors, who have a daughter Ivy's age, invited both girls over to play on the slip-n-slide. I came over as well and sat and chatted, but nearly the whole time I was thinking "oh, I could be home sewing, I have so much I am working on" and I enjoyed visiting, but was secretly a bit glad when it was time for them to eat so I could get back home and finish up some projects. I'm finding I am getting more and more anti-social. I used to go out once a week to a local Stitch-n-Bitch, but as I stopped knitting so much and working on more sewing projects I stopped going because I wasn't doing much handwork. I used to go out once a week to just sit and read for a few hours and I've stopped doing that as well. I am enjoying what I do, but am turning into quite the hermit.