the man with a plan

oh, it’s been a lovely weekend . . . even though yesterday and today were a bit rainy (light, spring rain, nothing major), this afternoon and evening turned glowingly sunny. the return on the much-needed rain was plentiful—the trees are leafing-out like crazy and the plants look like they grew 6 inches over the last few days. the white pear trees are blooming, which is wreaking havoc with my allergies, but who can care?

this is the time when i could sit on my bench out back and literally watch the hostas grow.
heh, maybe i should do that for while tomorrow . . i could take my knitting and my camera out there—kinda like a hosta cam. with no bugs yet, it could be really, really nice. if you are bent that way, that is.

the rain kept me inside all day yesterday and this morning which meant lots of knitting and cooking. i turned these

into this—a spicy/tangy version of pasta é fagiole with rapini and puree of roasted peppers.

i started making this modification of the classic italian soup some years ago and we have loved it ever since. even my gram gave it her stamp of approval; she enjoyed it when i cooked it for her (another way to eat our favorite bitter greens, yay).

and of course there has also been knitting. this morning i turned this

into this while listening to the last of the newest philip roth book.

i’m liking it a lot better than i did in the first photo now, or even in my swatches. you don’t really see how pretty the overall stitch is until you get a decent length of fabric knit; it has a lot of dimension this stitch (which is why i like it). it would have even more depth if i were using a plied yarn, but this yarn has enough. and that colorway—it is truly the color of the twilight sky. my favorite time of day in summer.

then last night i got halfway down the foot of my second sock de la mer

and i think i might be able to finish it tonight, woo-hoo.
i’ve been working on my little nothing scarf, though not with the intensity i could be

i’m about a third of the way along and i think i will work more on that tonight, having put in a good day on the shawl.

i found an exciting development in the yard today (ok, maybe you don’t need to sit down or anything, but i found it exciting). let me just preface this story by saying that i love hydrangeas. in fact, when we (and by we, i mean david) tore out the nasty old scraggly hedge out front, we replaced it with a row of hydrangeas that are supposed to each grow to a six-foot diameter.

right—when pigs fly (that was a good three years ago)—but i digress. we have actually planted a number of varieties nearer the house, too. that way, once my other favorite, the tulips, are gone for the year, we have hydrangeas, which are really good.

so, we’ve been growing this one climbing hydrangea ever since we moved here; we bought it our first spring when it was just a slip of a thing.

the label on the plant promised that in no time it would be “scrambling up a tree or trellis and offer profuse blooms”.
well, we’ve been patient and all, and it has grown a lot

indeed, i think it is the main reason that trellis is still standing. but seriously, we have NOT see “profuse” blooms. we have not seen any blooms.
however, if i’m not mistaken, that is all about to change

we have a bud. a big fat juicy one, too. i’m unreasonably pleased. so far i see only one other one, but maybe there will be more.

ok, so i bet you’re wondering how that title fits in with this post so far, eh? do you want to hear something really REALLY romantic?? i bet you do.

you probably know by now that david is a very quiet man, and that we are crazy about each other (well, i’m probably just crazy, but we like each other a lot anyway). he doesn’t make a big show of doing anything, especially nice things—he just does them.

so anyway (seemingly unrelated thought coming up, but give me a minute), last fall during cleanup, he placed a spare paving stone that had been hanging around the garage for a while against the side of my dye bed. and there is stayed. i was a little concerned that it stayed there so long, because i thought it would kill the “grass”. but i kept forgetting to ask david to move it.

then today while i was out there photographing those spectacular tulips he has planted all over the place (because i like them), i notice out of the corner of my lens a juxtaposition that made my heart stop

he put it there especially for me, as a placard . . . and planted tulips nearby so that all these months later, i would discover this little shrine to us. how much do we love him??