Finally Some Nice Weather

This has been a very rainy and cool spring. All our plants in the garden are behind. Photos from years past show up on my phone with peonies in full bloom and flower arrangements with them and lilacs. Not this year.

Our lilacs are in bloom now and peonies have a couple more weeks to go. Today is the first day I haven't worn a wool sweater in the past couple of weeks.

The other day I made a bunch of mesh bags that I like to use at the grocery store instead of bringing my vegetables home in those thin plastic bags. I have an old screen that went with our old gazebo on the deck. I don't think we ever used it because we head inside at the first sign of mosquitoes.

I cut the mesh into 16" wide by 15" tall pieces, making sure the stretchiest part is on the width:

 I folded them in half on the long side and zigzagged (5mm width, 1.5mm length) along the bottom and up the side.

That's it! They only weigh 4g so there's not a lot of additional weight to your weighed produce. Bags with drawstrings, zippers, toggles, and other closures just add weight which you pay for.

They're so thin I carry a bunch of them in the side pocket of my purse so they're handy when I'm shopping. I know my little contribution won't solve the problem of how we dispose of our garbage but at least I feel like I'm doing something for the cause by minimizing the number of plastic bags we bring into the house.

I gave all those bags away last week but whipped up more today.

I also purchased reusable straws on Amazon. The package came with 2 of everything: long metal straight straws, long metal bent straws, long silicone fat straws, and long silicone skinny straws.  I like the silicone straws when sipping something that is very cold. There are also two cleaning brushes and two drawstring bags. I keep one bag with a selection of straws and the cleaner in the bottom of my purse, ready to use whenever I need to. So far I have remembered to remove the straw before throwing the container away.

I'm very excited about a new opportunity that has come my way. I will be stitching samples for a well-known folk artist who has rendered many of her designs for punch needle. Now she's charting a lot of her designs for cross-stitch and needs stitchers for the photographs that will accompany the chart with the credit given to the stitcher. I await my first assignment. I hope it arrives before next Tuesday as Skip and I will be heading off on a road trip for the rest of the week.