Randomday Delayed - With Bananathon

I have been neglecting my blog, so I thought I'd do a catch-up for everyone with a Randomday post.

We went to Camp Morrow for 1st OPC Family Camp.  Daniel had to be on a red-eye flight early Saturday, so I drove him and Peter back after the Talent Show (at which a highly-amusing version of Telephone/Clue/Charades had speaker Larry Wilson trying to inform Mr. Southgate that a clown was killed on the volleyball court with a cinnamon roll).  He caught his flight and has just finished up his first day of classes in his sophomore year at Grove City College.

Of course one of the grand highlights of Family Camp is the annual Bananathon.  It happens to be the only event I have pictures for, too.

Secundus was a team captain this year, with Tertia on his team.  Here is the pre-contest strategy session.  Daniel and Quarta were on the other two teams, so no matter who won, we had at least one kid to cheer for.

 Turns out that even if the bananaholder is on his school's swim team, having to wear a life vest as a handicap slows him down enough that he might as well have stayed in his canoe.  There followed in close and dizzying succession the other events after the banana hand-off... splashketball, frisbee toss, pudding/bubblegum race, three-legged race, and the race to the flagpole with the banana being tossed from hand to hand.

 Secundus' team was victorious after he ate the banana (which was frozen) and gave a whistle.

Mrs. McConnell even found banana trophies... pretty cool!

Back home and after a full weekend to try to recover, I have ratatouille in the oven along with some chicken kebabs.  What do they have in common?  They are both ways to use up zucchini!  I didn't even come close with the double batch of zucchini brownies I took to family camp.  There are still 11 zucchini on the countertop.

I just checked on Daniel's plum wine in the cellar.  It has this little airlock contraption on the carboy to let carbon dioxide escape without letting in oxygen.  Before family camp, it was releasing a bubble precisely every 17 seconds.  It has slowed down now to once every 36 seconds.  I have no idea what this means though.

"The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak."
                                   -- Hans Hofmann

August updates

Here's where it stands on my design wall at this moment.  I am seaming one of the looong unwieldy seams of my scrappy Country Stars quilt, and the three diagonal rows at the upper left corner are the only ones left.  It's totally do-able to finish this top, even today, if I just kicked into gear.  But I just haven't kicked into gear.  I'm tired, sore, discouraged about the state of the house and the rapidly oncoming school year (which will be much tougher than last year as I won't have my own designated classroom anymore but will have to itinerate), and a bit lonely.  I think some therapeutic sewing will be in order, just as soon as I can clear time for it.  I have really enjoyed this project with all the pretty reds and the scrappy fabrics. I hope I can take a big picture of it as a finished top later this week.

I'm not going to update my stash report this week because there has been nothing new in or out.  I decided not to attempt to calculate yardage of that big bin of scraps from the estate sale -- it will just get morphed in with my existing scrap bins as I have time, and I look forward to the treasure hunt that that will feel like.

It's also past time to report on my July goals and set some new crafty goals for August. 

These were my goals for July:

1. Finish the brown socks. done!
2. Machine quilt the Farmer's Wife Quilt, or at least reach a midway point.  Ha! Not done!
3. The knitting bag project.  Nope.
4. Finish the Country Stars top. Almost.  It would be done if I weren't such a loser.

Bonus points: I spun every day of the Tour de Fleece.
I entered three quilts in the Clark County Fair.

 

Maybe my bonus projects can offset the ones I didn't finish!

 

Goals for August:

1. Mount and begin quilting the Farmer's Wife quilt.  I want each little block to be beautifully quilted, so this will be a longer-term project.
2. Complete Country Stars top.
3. randomly chosen from my list of 2013 goals: #4, the 3/4 bag kit.
4. Finish the Rosalind sweater.

Bonus points available for making that silly bowling-style knitting bag, sewing multiple boxer shorts for the menfolk, finishing any other knitting project, or finishing a few hand-applique blocks.  And a big bonus point for getting my sewing area neatly organized enough that I would be willing to photograph it.

I was picking a few more plums from the tree this morning, when I turned around and there were 5 large zucchini that had crept up on me.  It was a little like a scene from Hitchcock's The Birds.