We Mowed

Socks #16 (or #14. Whatever): Birthday Socks!

I'm not a big one for celebrating my birthday. When I was little, most of my school friends were gone on vacation so there were no big parties. When I was a teenager, there would be this massive pool party at my parents' house the weekend around my birthday but it wasn't for my birthday, it was an exchange student thing. Which was pretty awesome and we would have a cake during that, but mostly it was the massive number of exchange students that was awesome and my birthday was incidental.

Regardless, I do use my birthday as an excuse to justify buying myself something I want. This year? Socks!

Okay, so I bought the yarn and made the socks, but the socks were my present to me so I had to, you know, knit them. Which I did. Just in the nick of time!

I thought watermelon socks were super appropriate since watermelon, summer and my birthday are all tied up together in my head. I don't know if I've really had lots of watermelons on my birthday or what, but watermelons make me think of summer by the pool. And gven that my birthday is smack in the middle of summer, I ended up associating the three.

But honestly, who wouldn't love watermelon socks, right?

This is the second pair of socks I've done an anatomical toe on. The first ones weren't tailor made for my foot, though, but rather a general anatomical toe. These though, I did math and made a chart made specifically for my toe shape and my knitting gauge. No seriously. I am that much of a sock knitting nerd right now. See?

 

But my nerdiness has paid off! The socks fit perfectly! Honestly, I might end up having to do this toe more often.

So happy (slightly early) birthday to me! Yay socks!

Nature Not in Our Yard

Dan's parents have been visiting this past week and we've tried to keep them from being too bored with the lack of excitement in our life. Entertainment has mostly consisted of pool time, but Saturday we took them to the nearby Fort Worth Nature Center and Refuge. Dan & I had never been there before, but we definitely plan on going back in the future. Lots of nature! See?

In other nature news (though this yard related) my dear mother-in-law has solved the mystery of what this plant is:

I have been trying to figure out what it is for the past two months. Now I know - it's a Pincushion Plant (Scabiosa columbaria ‘Butterfly Blue’). YAY!

In creepy (nature center) news, check this out:

It's not bark or moss or fungus... it's a mass of daddy long legs. No joke. Big ball of spiders. Apparently, this is a thing daddy long legs do. Freaky.

(I took some other pictures at the nature center that aren't posted here. To see them, meander over to my Flickr.)

Somewhat Bloom-y

Things in our yard aren't near as pretty as they were in spring. Most of the flowers have gone or are going to seed and those that aren't tend to be the smaller, shorter ones that aren't as easily visible above the tall grasses that have grown up. But we aren't going to mow yet because there should be a bunch of a pretty summer/fall blooming flower out there and I want them to bloom (and go to seed.)

But, if you look closely, there are still a few new things popping up in the yard.

Okay, you don't have to look closely for the sunflowers out there, but the others are tiny little things that you do have to look for. I really need to go out there in long pants sometime so I can do some proper tromping.

Emmett Pillow

Apparently Olive thinks Emmett makes a good pillow.

Emmett doesn't seem to mind.

Because Olive is Awesome