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Homegrown National Park, A Hopeful Perspective
Be the change that you want to see in the world.-Arleen Lorrance I saw that quote on a bumper sticker about 34 years ago, and it has stuck with me ever since. I like it because its message implies that we have more power than we think on this planet with 8 billion people. Clearly…
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Free Rugby Striped Toddler Blanket Crochet Pattern
When my son was little, he was a Linus. He went everywhere with his favorite “Yucky Blankie.” Yucky started out as a nice white cotton blanket, but with love, ended up as a dingy, knotted ball of string. Once, I washed him (yes, him) and accidentally forgot to remove something red from the washer beforehand.…
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The Best Way to Eat Strawberries
Did I make you look with that clickbaity title? My apologies, but I think that I have a hack that will make the click worth it. Obviously, the best way to eat strawberries is when they are ripe and freshly picked from the garden, so the title of this article really should have been “The…
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The Arrow Stitch Crochet Blanket
The Footprints in the Sand poem always makes me cry. Someone left a copy in my hospital room after I gave birth to my first child, and with all of the happiness and hormones flowing, I sobbed at the poem’s reminder of those who have carried us through tough times and whom we often take…
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Rabbit Resistant Plants in My Garden
When my mother read Peter Rabbit to me as a child, I remember being terrified by Mr. McGregor. I can still remember the suspense of not knowing if Peter would evade Mr. McGregor’s menacing rake and escape from the garden. The thought of Mrs. McGregor putting little Peter, like his father, in a pie had…
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Making Crochet Pleats to Shape a Beach Tote
When I first learned about The Marshmallow Test, I wondered if I would have passed. If you aren’t familiar with it, the test involves giving a child the choice between eating a marshmallow now or having the self-control to wait for a short period of time thereby earning two marshmallows. My initial understanding was that…
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How to Pick an Avocado without Black Spots Inside
My blood work from my last doctor’s appointment showed that I had high triglycerides and higher than normal levels of the bad cholesterol, LDL, and my blood sugar levels put me in the pre-diabetic range. Not great, right? And since I still have a lot of gardening and crocheting that I want to do, I…
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How to Keep Multiple Strands of Yarn from Tangling
Normally my husband’s metal music makes me want to live in separate homes, but I had to laugh when I heard the lyrics to the Body Count song “Institutionalized 2014.” And before you judge me, no I do not condone the misogyny or xenophobia, but Ice-T’s frustration over his forgotten password was hilarious. If you…
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The Give a Dog a Bone Crochet Dog Bowl Mat
George Bernard Shaw wrote in his “Maxims for Revolutionists” that “He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches.” For some reason, that particular maxim has been repeated throughout the years as if it were fact. It bothers me. For the record, Shaw also wrote that “The vilest abortionist is he who attempts to mould a…
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A Flowering Shrub for Shade, the Tuff Stuff™ Red Mountain Hydrangea
Don’t be a quitter. I’m not sure who said that first, but Vince Lombardi’s version of “Winners never quit, and quitters never win” is baked into American culture. As far as aphorisms go, it sums up a lot about what’s needed to succeed in everyday life, but taken too literally, it eliminates the possibility of…
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