From the garden

Last year I forgot to take a picture of the pears. They were cool, because of the way they grew on the branch, kind of in a spiral, and close to each other. This year they aren't the same, but I took some pictures, nonetheless. I also took a few of apples, figs and something bright (I don't know the name of it).

 Above, a close-up of apples, with the flash. Below, panned out, without the flash.

 I forget the name of this, but those spiky things are the seeds.

 And picked figs, inside.

Kindle and Nook, meet your cases

Hubby got me a little gift. . . a Nook Color. He's putting Android on it (thereby nulling its warranty) so that I can use it as a tablet. Last year he got me a Kindle, but I'd put off getting a case for it. I've been wanting something from Oberon Design, but there were so many choices it was hard to decide on just one. When I found out I had a Nook coming to me as well, it was a little easier and I ordered them together. The cases came yesterday:

 The left one for the Kindle is Tree of Life, in Chocolate; the right one is Roof of Heaven, in Marigold. The backs are a continuation of the scenes, but I forgot to take pictures of them.

The Nook is a little bigger than the Kindle and noticeably heavier. I'm happier to keep the Kindle for reading, and the Nook-cum-tablet for as yet unknown purposes. The cases came with two little corresponding charms (that rather match the two cases I ordered), I haven't figured out what I'm going to do with them. They're a little big to go on a charm bracelet (and pewter, besides) and I don't regularly wear necklaces anymore.

At home Hubby has been repainting our bedroom. It was originally supposed to take a week, but that was in the middle of August. Since then, it's been on the weekends here and there. This weekend we're supposed to look for white spots and do the baseboards. We've been out of our bedroom for three weekends now. Hopefully I'll have some pictures of that after we're all done.

What happened to August

It was a lost month. There's been nothing to report in new Scotches because it seems to increase snoring (is that TMI?) so I've mandated a decrease (okay, a stoppage) of drinking (and I'm sleeping better now, thank you very much).

And as to knitting, I hurt my hands lifting a big heavy box of pots and pans and couldn't knit for three weeks. And I couldn't exercise because the one time I don't take the time to stretch after working out, I pulled a hamstring. It's still not recovered.

Although my Revival sweater has been making some progress:

This is an old picture of the sleeve cap. I've actually joined the fronts, and knit the collar band two and a half times (yeah, two and a half times), and I'm ready to separate the sleeves out and knit the body. Oh, and I also soaked and blocked what I had to ensure my sleeve caps were long enough.

The biggest change though, has been Bub. Originally we'd signed him up for K12 (an online, public charter school). Then we switched to Dehesa. While this was going on, it literally took us the entire month to get shipping labels to return all of K12's curriculum and electronic equipment. And then we chanced upon an open house and threw everything out the window and decided to enroll Bub in a private, Mandarin-immersion school. It's good though, he'll get three and a half hours of Mandarin instruction every day in the language, math, science and geography, and because they said he could join their first grade class, he also gets a hour of Spanish. Add German school on Saturday mornings, and I think his schedule is full (this is without extracurriculars). We're pulling him out of Sunday Chinese school--no reason to send him to that on the weekend if he's getting it "at school".

We shall see if there's more posts in September.