Laura Aspinall

Days of Summer #10

Took a little break to do some mundane chores, some socializing, and maybe a day or two when the most I did was read. Its summer, these things happen. But I”m back people! THIS week I have been on FIRE. Its not surprising, I’ve hit the tipping point-less vacation ahead of me than what’s behind me. This always spawns a frenzy of productivity.

Last week I bought a dresser at a thrift store with wobbly legs and some pretty nasty yellow-brown  varnish. After a lot of sanding, some white wash, three coats of poly, and a little minor leg surgery, I had something not too shabby.

Today I made ravioli. From scratch. Yup. I know, sounds daunting, but using my sweet ravioli plaque, it was fairly easy. This was a gift from my lovely friend and co-worker, Angela, and I love it. I foresee much ravioli in my future.

Days of Summer #9 (aka Bamboo: Don’t Do It)

This weekend was slated for bamboo removal. A few years back our neighbors planted this stuff along their side of the fence line, a few years later they took it all out. But too late! It had already migrated to our side of the fence line. And their it remained, growing, growing, growing, until Saturday.

It should be noted that it really didn’t look like a lot of bamboo while it was standing vertically, maybe a 7 foot by 3 foot swathe, at most. How hard could it be to remove?  Once Bryan chainsawed (yes, you read that correctly, average garden shears or pruners were no match for this stuff) it down, it took up the whole of our backyard and most of our weekend. And then the real work began, stripping the stalks of all their little off shoots. I had decided that if I were going to be inadvertently growing bamboo, at least I could get some useful garden stakes out of this. And if that weren’t enough, pickaxing out all the roots. I was fortunate enough to escape pickax duty.

Raw material

End product

Days of Summer #8

More mornings in the garden since my last post. One would think I own thirty acres or that my garden is insanely complicated to maintain given the numbers of hours I log in it. Our garden is nice and all (there’s actually a full blog devoted to it coming up, should I ever get it finished), but I wouldn’t call it spectacular. But time consuming, yes, I would call it that. Maybe I’m doing it wrong….

Yesterday afternoon neighbor-friend-brother’s college buddy (it appears I don’t have any  just plain neighbors), Sierra came over and we cut  mats for some artwork work she plans on hanging in her living room. My favorite part of the whole project was Sierra showing up wheeling her suitcase behind her. I heard the clunk-clunk of suitcase wheels on the driveway before I saw her, it was a tad confusing before I realized what was going on. Rather ingenious way to transport six 18″x 14″ frames Sierra Bradley, rather ingenious. Sierra also had the brilliant idea to use a book of illustrations she had for her artwork- sort of thinking maybe she’s the one that should have a blog with all her bright ideas…Especially as  I flubbed one of the mats and then ran out of mat-board. She was very gracious about it though and will be returning to finish the project. But the one’s we did finish I think came out rather nicely.

This one was chosen given its proximity to my last name. Good choice, Bradley.