Pendleton + the Raccoon

Pendleton decided to go swimming today (or rather, Megan tossed him into the birdbath) in order to fully appreciate the last day of summer.

He walked around and around the birdbath until he discovered the raccoon. Now they are best friends. And isn't that just lovely?

Happy Labor Day!

Saturday's Harvest

The neighboring farmer told my parents on Saturday that he was done harvesting his field of green beans and that we were welcome to come pick whatever we wanted. Forrest took this offer very seriously and proceeded to pick (with my reluctant help) an entire five gallon bucket full of the things. 

The other field along the house is full of a much sweeter crop: raspberries. Though we had to pay for them (the injustice!), we walked on over to purchase half a flat of those as well. 

We ate some of the raspberries right away and steamed + froze the entire bucket of green beans. That is a lot of green bean snapping.. although I will admit that Forrest did the bulk of the work while I painted my fingernails.

I'd say that with the entire year's worth of green beans and at least a few days supply of raspberries at our fingertips, we are doing pretty well for ourselves these days, um.. agriculturally.

And as I'm never one to end a random post without a picture of our favorite pup, I took this rather Phantom-esque picture of the masked Jasper after I found him lying in some dust in the garage. He shook most of it off before I could take the photo..

Also, Jasper is not a fan of raw green beans, but did proceed to catch, chew, and spit out every single green bean end that I snapped and threw to him. He's a very trusting dog.

Marseilles

Marseilles, France was our port of call on this cruise, but on the day we flew in, we took a cab straight to the port and didn't have a chance to experience anything in the city. We purposefully booked our return flight to England for later in the evening after we docked back in Marseilles so that we would have a chance to do some last-minute sightseeing. 

Marseille is the second largest city in France (Paris being number one of course). It is an incredibly beautiful place. I forgot how beautiful it was until I was going through these pictures and I kept gasping with delight at the wonderful blue water and all of the pretty white buildings.

We wandered around the town for a little bit and then decided that the one thing we had to do with our limited hours was take a cheesy little train/car (petit train) up to the very tippy top of the tallest point in Marseilles to see Notre-Dame de la Garde which is a basilica that was built on top of the remains of an ancient fort. You can see the church from basically anywhere in the city. It kind of taunts you to come visit.

Also, the price of the train was reasonable. They are on a constant rotation. They drop you off and pick you up and it's much more convenient than waiting in the hot sun for an even hotter and crowded bus. Especially if you happen to be on a time crunch.

The ride up was fun. We got a ton of gorgeous views of the Mediterranean. You can even see our cruise ship down there in the picture below! Although I couldn't tell you which one it actually is..

That view.

The basilica was very nice. It was free (which was very nice) and it had the best views of Marseilles.

After our little train adventure, we wandered around a little more and paid a million euro to eat at McDonald's because we spent all our money on a cruise. But they do have express lanes in McDonald's in France and they have kiosks where you can order your food electronically. Also, they are always in very old and fancy buildings. I think America should get on that. Not that I eat at McDonald's or anything.. 

We headed back to the lovely train station to catch a bus to the airport. 

Then we landed a couple of hours later in rainy England where it was at least 20 degrees colder and I froze and lost my tan a few weeks later.

And that is the (slightly anticlimactic?) end of our cruise! It only took me ten months to blog it all down.

Here are the other installments if you are so interested:

We get ready to cruise!

We visit Barcelona and I take too many pictures for one post

Next we cruise to Palma de Mallorca

Then we see the Holy Grail in Valencia

And we melt in Rome

And then cap it all off with Genoa

I will next be diving into the millions of pictures that I took in Scotland when we stayed in fancy old mansions and a castle and camped on the Isle of Skye and I am EXCITED. These pictures are all I have been thinking about for a long time!

sometimes I don't know what to write about

I have been feeling very uninspired around these parts lately. It has been very quiet and I have cleaned out my sock drawer. Other than that, I can't think of anything of consequence really to write about. Not that my socks are of much consequence anyway?

Summer has pretty much abandoned us reminding me that fall is almost here which reminds me once again that we are still here.

Am I the only one over here crying for summer to stay? Don't leave! I didn't get to wear shorts enough! I don't care about pumpkin flavored anything, all I want is more of your bountiful summer produce and a popsicle or two. 

But it's gone. You can tell when the wind blows. It's a fall breeze a-blowin'.

We've had a few partially cloudy almost 70 days and then we've had a lot of horribly balmy with zero sun days. I have never really experienced those before. This is not Seattle humidity, this is Alabama in the middle of summer humidity. But it's so confusing because there is no sun! I'm too cold if I wear shorts, too hot if I wear pants. I drip sweat if I do any type of light aerobic activity but I shiver unless I have a blanket when I sit still. The temperature changes by about 15 degrees when the sun peeks through but my confused body does not really appreciate all of this no sun but so muggy you'll die with air-conditioning business.

Anyway

I've been knitting again!

I kind of took a break for a while mostly on accident, because, you know, summer and traveling, but also because my hands were tired and I made way too much last October-February. This post didn't really do what I did any justice. In Novemberish, I started a pair of cabled socks that I had planned to use as a Christmas present. But when I was working on the second sock, I noticed that my finger kept falling asleep. Strange right? I guess it was because of the way I was holding the needles and cutting off my circulation and probably because I was knitting for like six hours a day or more, whatever. So I stopped knitting them because it's really weird to not be able to feel your fingertip (but I can feel it now!). And I started or finished some other project and forgot about the lonely sock.

Then a few weeks ago, I heard a small voice coming from my knitting basket. "Finish me," it cried, "finish me so you'll stop feeling guilty about everything in your life" and then that dang half-finished sock wouldn't shut up so I gave in and now I have a pair of socks and some owl mittens. 

And you know what? It feels good to be creating again. It feels good to be done with a project I started eight months ago.

But then I remembered that knitting just makes me want to make everything. So I have two or three finished projects and 37 more that I found on Pinterest while still working on those two or three. It's a really vicious cycle and I wouldn't recommend it unless your husband really likes it when you spend lots and lots of money on wool. Mine sure does.

So now, I knit.

I still haven't accepted in my heart that summer is ending but I'll keep knitting so that I have something to wear in the fall.