Sizzling In So. Cal!!!!

You know it is going to be a hot mother chicken when at 8:30 in the morning you hear the a/c click on!!  Summer has arrived late, but with a BANG!  Yesterday, the only place to be was in the pool.  We were invited to go swimming next door and Noah had a ball!  I had to wait until the sun began to go down to work in my garden.,  I cleaned out the beds, and planted some more radishes.  This is what I harvested last night.

I removed yet another squash  plant to make room to plant some more things.  I have all the makings for salsa in my garden this summer.  My strawberries are delicious, but they rarely make in indoors, as I eat them while I am out working in the garden, warm and sweet from the sun.  After I brought in my daily haul, I was ready for a dip in the pool.

Mr. G went to watch his softball team play.  He has missed almost the entire season due to his nerve problem.  Poor guy.  So I had the whole evening all to myself. I swam laps, and floated on my neonoodle.  Then  I sat on the steps and watched the sun go down.  It was such a gorgeous evening!

See that white spot on my knee.  The dreaded vitiligo is spreading all over now!  Grrrrrr.  I sat for a good 30 minutes, watching the sun set, and the sky put on a show.  It changed from steel blue, to a beautiful purple.

The crescent moon and north star lit up the sky.  It was just SO pretty!

Eventually, I had to get out.  : (

My favorite towel from our last trip to HAWAII, and my cover up waiting, I got out of the pool and went into the house to work on this.

After studying several tutorials, and reading and memorizing crochet shorthand, and doing a few sampler stitches, I made this.

My very first garden flower granny square!!!  Woo-Hoo.  I did it!  I READ A PATTERN!!!!   Don't look too closely, or you can spot my mistakes.  I realized later that I skipped some of the spokes on the yellow wheel.  Oh shoot!  But now I know how.  And soon I am going to tackle that blanket again.  I also realized that the reason mine didn't look like the one on the blog I was trying to duplicate, was that she wrote her directions in UK terminology. Our US terms are not the same.  Now I know!!! 
Also....my neighbor Jane got her gigi hill order and is letting me keep her bag on wheels to show people before my party.  IT IS BEAUTIFUL!!!

Come to my gigi hill party on July 29th to see the rest of this line of great oil cloth bags!  I will be serving a Chinese Chicken Salad and Summer Pasta Salad for dinner.  Come eat, visit and check out gigi hill!
Now I have to go get my suit on because two more darling Lil' Dumplin's are coming to swim with us.  
So I leave you with this.  My favorite summer flowers would have to be Gardenias.  The scent is heavenly.  It brings me straight back to 1975, when I worked at Placentia Family Restaurant, and my favorite customers brought me bags of this fragrant summer flower.  I wore them as a corsage, and I floated them in water in my bedroom, and I can still see their faces today when I snip my gardenias and bring them inside to savor the scent!  Happy Summer all!!!