Tomatoes and Peppers and a Couple Old Crows

Yesterday I picked two green peppers. Two jalapeno peppers look ready too. I wonder if I have enough peppers to make hot pepper jelly; it would have to be green. If I make hot green pepper jelly, perhaps I ought to go to the farmers' market to get sweet and hot red peppers to make hot red pepper jelly. I could have green and red jelly for Christmas.

The tomatoes are ripening; perhaps I should pick them so they can finish ripening inside. For some reason, I am under the impression that it is a good idea for them to finish ripening inside. I read that somewhere but cannot remember the rationale. I really planted the jalapeno pepper plant so I could make salsa.

While I picked the green peppers yesterday, the crows scolded me. I think that they must have some young ones.

When the morning light is a little better, I will take pictures of the tomato and pepper plants.

Last night I added pictures 31-45. This morning, I labeled them.

Fifteen New Pictures Posted

I just finished labeling 15 new pictures. If the link I posted yesterday works, you can use it today. You can bookmark it because I will be adding 15 pictures at a time. That is about all that I want to do at any one time.

It appears that the link to my online picture gallery does not work. That does not surprise me. Let me know if you want I a link; I will send you one via e-mail.

During the early morning hours, we got a little rain. I debated with myself about whether or not I would walk to the healthclub. This is Thursday and my day to walk. I went back to sleep before I could make a decision, rational or not. The next thing I was aware of was Roger's waking me. He wondered if I was going to walk or not. We decided that I would go back to sleep. I thought it over for a couple seconds and decided to get up. I did not regret it. The rain had stopped; the temperature was a little cool; it felt a little damp and clammy. But, I did not regret walking first thing this morning.

Yesterday I finished making the apron smaller. Gosh but it is small. I did no stitching. Perhaps it is time to set aside my little ornaments and find something that inspires me a little more to stitch.

We checked the long range weather forecast. I am going to make focaccia Saturday. I wonder if I should put onions on top of it, maybe just rosemary and olive oil, or maybe both onions and rosemary. This just tells you how mundane my life is when the excitement is making decisions about what to do with bread that I plan to make. :-D
I plan to sprinkle a little fleur de sel on it. I used to pooh pooh the fancy grade French sea salt. But I have learned my lesson. Fleur de sel is very tasty and very flavorful. When I use it, I must remember to use it sparingly because a little goes a long way. Perhaps I just made my decision. I think there is a high probability that fleur de sel will get lost in onions.

Link to Online Picture Gallery

I have just uploaded and labeled 15 pictures. Except for the first one in MN, they are all in Scotland. We started in Glasgow and drove to nearby Troon. From there, we drove to Inverness and then to Edinburgh before going into England. Driving in the UK was quite an experience for Roger. He decided to rent a car with an automatic transmission and was very thankful he did. He had a general idea that he might not want to try a manual transmission while learning to drive on the other side. It was a good thing too because we had an "incident" in Troon.

It was garbage pick up day and the containers were out. We were trying to find our B & B and Maureen's house. It was hard to see house numbers or names so we were paying a lot of attention to that and forgot about the garbage containers. Roger drove too close to the side of the road; did I mention that these roads were a lot more narrow than the ones we are accustomed to? He scraped the side of the car against the garbage containers. The mirror snapped off. This was stressful and would remain a stressor until we returned the car.

We had made arrangements via e-mail with a lot of the places we would stay, both in the UK and on the Continent. Especially for our first night we thought we did not want to look for a place to stay on our own. The one we selected was very close to Maureen's home and that felt good to us. The woman was a lot of fun to correspond with on the internet and that made me like her a lot. When we found the B & B, no one was home. Eventually when we found Maureen, she told us that the woman had contacted her as we had told the woman where we ultimately wanted to go. The woman's husband was very ill and in one hospital; her mother or his mother was also very ill and in another hospital. The woman was quite frazzled by running between two hospitals. Maureen gave us the message the woman would not be able to keep our arrangements. We were never able to make contact with the woman, not even by e-mail when we returned home. Even now, I find myself wondering how she was and what she was doing. I gather that she never reopened the B & B.

We went into the central business district of Troon where we found the library. The librarians showed Roger a listing of B & B's. A lot could not take us but Roger did find Mrs. Sinclair. She was a little strange but she did say that she could take us. She would not have a breakfast for us in the morning, at most some toast and tea. I could see Maureen any where but near her house. She was extremely concerned that we might bang our suitcases against her walls so she would carry them upstairs for us and my but why did we have such heavy ones. She took us to a very small room with two single beds which was just fine with us. We only wanted to drop into them and sleep.

Roger chatted with Mrs. Sinclair. He is very good with elderly, crotchety people. She decided to change our room so we could have a double bed. We were fine with the original arrangement but this room did have a little more space in it. In the morning, she decided that we should have a traditional Scottish oatmeal breakfast for our first morning in Scotland. She also prepared bacon, toast, marmalade, and tea for us. Roger engaged her in a very interesting conversation. I still think she was a little strange.

Yesterday was a busy day. There was not much for me to do at the hospital so I went home early. I joined Roger when he left for an appointment. I dropped him off and went over to a nearby Jo-Ann Fabrics; I needed a couple things. When I returned for Roger, he was ready to go. That was very good timing.

The next thing I did was begin working on an apron. A friend of mine works in a grocery store. She prepares and hands out samples of products the store wants to promote. The store has aprons the food demo people wear. It is as close as they come to wearing an uniform. My friend is small, very small, really small. When I made her a couple dresses, I started with size four and made the pattern smaller. I am making one of her aprons smaller. For a long time I struggled with the thought of taking it all apart to cut it down. As soon as I bought into the idea, it went well. Yesterday I did most of the work. Today I just have a little topstitching left. I think I ought to make a pattern of what I have so that I can repeat it in the future.

Right now, I am trying to eat a little time. I am waiting to take Mooch to the vet for his vaccination updates. We need to be there in about an hour. While we are gone, Roger will vacuum the floors that I will wash when Mooch and I return. Mooch does not like the vacuum cleaner and since he will be gone, I thought it would be a good idea.

Sometime today, I will begin uploading pictures from our European Holiday in 2002 to my online picture sharing account. We took a lot of pictures; in fact, we had just gotten a digital camera for the vacation. We also got a laptop to bring with us so we could download pictures. At that time camera memory chips were small; I think the largest chip we had would hold ten pictures. We brought several chips with us. I will post a link to the pictures as soon as I have some uploaded. I will upload only a relatively small selection and it may seem like a lot.

Speaking of laptops and computers, our current laptop is more powerful than our first PC. That was quite a novelty. We got it long before internet arrived on the scene. Roger gave me a choice. I could have a vacation in Acapulco or we could get a computer. We named the computer Acapulco. The closest we have gotten to Acapulco was our cruise a year ago to Cabo San Lucas.

I was in such a hurry this morning to get to the hospital for volunteer time that I forgot to tell you to click on each of the pictures in turn. I did not resize them because there is no stitching. :-) The large pictures show the colors of the fabrics and threads much better. In the large Beatrix Potter materials picture, only the yellow thread appears washed out.

Yesterday I become side- tracked and did not show you the pictures of my new fabrics from Silkweaver and the threads that I will use to stitch my Quaker samplers. The first picture shows the fabric and threads for Beatrix Potter. I thought that the Waterlilies, Tobacco, in the center went very well with the fabric which is approximately the color of DMC 809. From Tobacco, I selected the DMC colors. The second is for Mary Wigham. The fabric is approximately the color of DMC 928. I decided to make it monochromatic and use the five colors in the family. Then I found the Waterlilies in the center of the top, Steel. It has a very subtle color variation and is more gray than the greens but I still think it works.

One of our sons worked in Saudi Arabia for a year, December 2001 through November 2002. For his vacation he wanted to meet us in Germany. He had two weeks of vacation. Roger and I went to the UK for two weeks prior to Ben's vacation. We met Ben in Frankfort and our other son, Dan, flew in from the US to join us. While Roger and I spent two weeks touring in the UK, he arranged for me to meet all of my friends in the UK. I had the opportunity to meet Christine and Clare. If I had known Riet, I am certain we would have met you too. I really am not certain how much of our pictures Christine and Clare have seen. I was just thinking that I could upload them if you are interested.