Today is DD#2's birthday. She and a friend of hers who shares the same birthday (but is a year younger) are having a party tonight at her friend's house. I am in charge of getting the cake. Her birthday is a celebration for me, too, because this is the child I wasn't supposed to be able to have after having leukemia. But here she is, and she is healthy and beautiful, and a mother couldn't ask for much else.

We got home Tuesday afternoon, and the past two days have been a whirlwind of grocery shopping and desk-clearing. I thought it would be a good day for some photos, so I took the dogs and the camera with me this morning.

First, a shot of my foot wearing one of my new Vibram Five-Finger shoes.

I bought these the day before we left Maryland. We went to a store near my MIL's house so I could try them on. Once I had them on my feet, I did not want to take them off. Yes, they are goofy looking, but my hips have completely stopped hurting since I began wearing these. Clearly I am meant to go barefoot (or something close to it). Yesterday, DD#2 and I joined our church youth group to mow a local cemetery and I had to put my boots on to do it. By the time I got home, my hips were screaming again. As I do not want a hip replacement (or two) in my future, I will forego fashion and wear these.

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GARDEN UPDATE: My herb garden is looking especially nice this year. It must be all the rain.

I am just enchanted with my frilly columbines.

I have a bunch of columbines in my garden and I let a lot of them self-seed, like everything else. I have 20 baby lavender plants in my nursery bed in the old veggie garden next to this one, and they are all volunteers that I dug out of the gravel paths. I am hoping that one of these days I get some new, never-before-seen variety of lavender and I can name it after myself.

It's a good thing the husband has nothing to do with my herb garden, because the barely-controlled chaos would likely send him into a fit. The new veggie garden, where he spends all of his free time, is a veritable work of art. There is not a weed to be seen anywhere. This is a view looking southeast.

Here is his potato patch, of which he is very proud. He thinks we should have planted three times as much. I am reserving judgment until I see how much we get. One row is reds and the other row is Yukon Golds.

We've already eaten some of the broccoli, and it is truly amazing. I like broccoli, but I've never tasted anything like this before. The lettuce (red oakleaf) is equally amazing. I have to give a shout-out to Victory Seeds, from whom I ordered most of my seeds this year. I was amazed at how quickly things germinated and how vigorous the plants are. I will be ordering a lot more from them next year.

We're being optimistic gardeners—we put in some grapevines. They are a seedless variety called Reliance. Grapes are iffy up here on the mountain. Down in the valley they seem to do okay, but two of my friends up the road have grapes and they've really had to baby them along. I am hoping that the south-facing slope will provide a good microclimate for these, and the husband said we can wrap them in pieces of old concrete blankets to insulate them over the winter. We also have six blueberry bushes and they seem to be doing just fine.

It's now July and finally—finally!—we are supposed to get some decent weather. The forecast is for hot and dry for the next week, at least. Those poor plants need some sunshine. I didn't show you my tomato plants because they look so sad. I hit them with some Epsom salt solution yesterday in the hopes that that would help them perk up a bit. The cucumber plants are still small, and the muskmelon and canteloupe (the husband was being VERY optimistic when he bought those seedlings) are hanging on by their fingernails.

We've got plans for a greenhouse, and the husband wants to get one built before winter. It probably won't be heated, but we're going to put it out by the new garden and if it extends our growing season by a month on either side, we'll be in much better shape next year. And maybe, just maybe, we might be able to grow lettuce and spinach in there all winter.

One thing I keep hearing over and over again from people who have lived in the Flathead Valley their entire lives is that this weather is typical of how things used to be. When we moved here in 1993, it was at the beginning of a cycle of hot, dry, weather. Cool rainy springs apparently are more usual.

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KNITTING UPDATE: I didn't get as much knitting done in Maryland as I had hoped, but I got a few projects finished and that was my goal. My classes were all wonderful.

I stopped in at Camas Creek on Wednesday, and Melanie asked me if I would want to design some small projects with Mountain Colors yarn—sort of a "Montana Designer, Montana Yarn" type of thing that we could kit up and sell. I have a bunch of Mountain Colors mill ends here, so I've spent some time over the past few days swatching up stitch patterns. Variegated yarns are hard for me. I finally hit on one combo that uses one of their handpaints and a coordinating solid, but when I look at the swatch I think it really wants to be an afghan and not a scarf. This morning I lucked out and swatched up a two-row pattern using an interesting technique, and it looks like it will be perfect for a scarf pattern. I'd like to come up with one or two more, but at least I have this one and can knock out a scarf pretty quickly.

It looks like I may be heading to Kansas in November. The Yarn Barn and I are talking about a weekend full of classes, so stayed tuned. Another state to cross off my list! I've never been to Kansas.

I'm also in the process of submitting some class ideas to Camas Creek for the fall. All you local knitters—if there is a class you want me to teach, e-mail me and let me know and I'll see about scheduling something.

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TRANSCRIPTION UPDATE: It's almost ironic that now that I've finished my transcription coursework, the knitting business has picked up again. I'm not quite sure why that is, but things are certainly better income-wise than they have been over the past three years. I'm kind of torn—I could probably go back to knitting designing full-time again, but I don't want to waste the time and money I spent on the transcription training. And the bottom line is that I enjoy transcription a lot. So I've got to figure out some way to balance all of this. I am sure I can do it, it's just going to take some creativity on my part. If I could just give up sleeping I'd be golden.

Okay. Now it's time to get some work done. Today's schedule includes some pattern-writing and more swatching.