Feeling lazy

With a string of holidays lined up, I have been just puttering around ... not doing much of anything and a lot of nothing.

We have had a few nice sunny days and that kind of weather lures me outside.

I had plants that needed re-potting and a bit of weeding and trimming of bushes

The little carp streamer has been dancing in the breezes outside my front door.
This one I selected is less fancy than some of the dyed fabrics. The eyes are just fused with big blanket stitches around the border and the tail has also been turned with large stitches.

I wanted to get some pictures of traditional carp streamers flying and the best place for that is a nearby school ground but with school out for Golden week, they may have been taken down early.

I do have a set of traditional carp in my cupboard but since that door is so hard to put back in place, I have hesitated to take them out. When the kids were small we set up a tall bamboo pole topped with a set of wheels that rotated in the wind and a long banner at the top. The big carp was for the father and the smaller ones for the sons.

The newspaper had a picture of a wide field of carp being flown in Tohoku, one for each child lost in the earthquake and tsunami. Tanya had better luck finding carp streamers to photograph. Look here!

The iris outside the front gate didn't bloom last year but seem to be making up for lost time.

This picture is a bit washed out as the tips of the petals are a soft purple.

he lilies are getting ready for a show and this year there are a lot of volunteers as well.

The gardenia is setting out plenty of buds but it is looking a bit sad because of the leaves that had a caterpillar attack in the fall.



Nikko has gone into her mega-shedding mode ...
The one where the under hair comes out in big fluffy tufts.
I'm sure it was kicked off by my heavy cleaning attack on Tuesday, running the vacuum and dusting and polishing all over the house.

I should take her out in today's breeze and give her a work-over but she really hates being brushed or combed. I recall with longing, my Mom's dog, Kimberly, who used to throw herself in front of the vacuum cleaner to get a going over before you could do the floors. Nikko has issues with the vacuum too. Now she leaves the room when it comes out but several years ago she escaped to another floor entirely until called down after the offending item was safely put away.

 The mola is moving slowly. It is rather strange with the dark green in the edge rather than the lighter one. The light has a slight print and I wanted it to show more but neither really shows up as planned.

Rather than take it all apart and start over, I will keep at it. Can I blame the turtle for being slow?

Tomorrow the choir is gathering to attend the funeral of the mother of our long-time organist. Because of the long string of holidays there will be no choir practice in the evening.
We are working on the music for "choir Sunday", coming next month. These pieces make me feel like I have been doing verbal push-ups. There is a challenge to memorize  the pieces, and for most music, that is easy for me ... but these pieces are challenging just looking at the music and sometimes I have to decide if I will be watching the notes or the words because they are racing by so fast I can't see both. I had better do some of those push-ups at home. (not as easy as quilting while watching TV).