This Mothers Day is special... Ok... so this project would have happened anyway and this is just convenient timing, but I have a COUNTERTOP!!! WOOOOO!!!!!!
First, the formwork. My husband and a friend put this together in preparation for the concrete. 

As you can imagine, having the form in correctly is paramount to a successful pour - especially since it's done in place. It could have been a collapse catastrophe, but I have a smart and good man who did a great job. There is some cage wire on the floor there that serves as reinforcement.

 And this is the concrete counter with the form removed and cook top in place. The hole under the window is a small wash sink for food prep on the way to the pot. The two bowl sink is behind the camera on the other side - not cast yet. 
And a baby picture for those who are craving one. She's almost 8 weeks, loves her hand-crocheted tam (hehehe shameless plug) and is growing super fast. Everyone's healthy and happy.  She's starting to squeak over there so I have to run and snuggle her up or some such thing...
That sounds a lot better than saying I need to go clean an icky buttocks doesn't it? ha! 
Happy Mothers Day everybody

Turns out taking care of a baby takes a lot of time... I can crochet all day, but getting photos taken and typing and such are tough at the moment. 
Wonderful people keep sending cards and gifts. @armnatmom sent an awesome package the other day. I really wanted to photograph the outfit on Seren, but I can't quite get it together with the camera and happy baby etc.
So she's growing fast and I'm still working hard, but I'm afraid I'm afk for a bit longer until one of those baby slings I've been promised turns up. 
O&U
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So I'm back to working hard as usual of course. We had company for the last week off and on - everyone wanted to see the new baby of course. She's doing great and gaining weight and I'm learning how to do lots of things with one hand lol...
By the way, if anyone has any advice/experience to offer regarding cloth diapers, I'm all ears. I haven't switched yet, but I have most of the supplies. She's tiny - 5 lbs, 8 oz as of yesterday so I had to order tiny size diaper covers off the interwebs... beats paying gas prices for sure!

So I'm making lots of hats right now. It's something easy to do while I take care of her and it's fun.  They're on the Etsy site of course. 
The garden is awesome thanks to the early spring.  My Egyptian walking onions are doing their thing... They're awesome. They grow baby onions on the tops of the adult onions and then when they get heavy, they tump over and root - spreading the onion patch rapidly.  The best thing to do in my opinion is to pull the tops once your patch is the size you want it and you have tasty green onions that have never touched dirt - no need to scrub! 

This is what the tops look like. 

Gotta run for now. I'll be back making the rounds as soon as I have hands free again. Kidlet wants the foods again lol...
Onward and upward
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  Winter is apparently not happening so we've been working on the gardens.  I make trips to the pine tree at the park on the corner to grab straw to amend my soil.  Husband harvested the leeks and carrots we grew over the winter today and planted some okra.  I bought some Japanese yams at the Asian grocery and he's put them in water to drop slips we can plant.  Japanese yams taste and cook like sweet potatoes, but they have purple skin and a nice, sweet, buttery yellowish flesh.  
This is what carrots should look like. Those uniform orange things at the grocery are a joke! These are the carrots that grew from volunteer seeds over winter. We usually scatter a bunch of seeds and let nature make the rest of the plan. The flavor is as wonderful as the color!
Tonight, we're having chicken soup with garden fresh leeks and carrots.  If I even knew where to buy carrots like this at a store, I would never pay the premium price. These leeks may be thinner than the ones at the grocery (we have too much clay in the soil still), but the flavor is far superior!

This is the top of the hat.  I'm not using a pattern - just crocheting as I please as I go so there won't be any repeat hats. I get bored too easily to make the same hat over and over. I have a kid size hat now and I'm about to make a husband size hat.  He wants one with a bigger top - more traditional tam style. I like em kind of close fitting so I can slide one on and forget about it all day. 
In other news? Still fat.  Nothing like thinking it could be any day to make the days creep by super slow eh?  C'est la vie... More time to perfect my crocheting lol...
Today I started sketches for my next project - another departure from the normal, but still familiar territory.  Monkey on the way. 
Onward and upward
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Last night was glorious!  Right now my job is mostly to sit on the couch and try to get fat.  I haven't gained a pound in almost a month so for the last however many days I have left, I'm working hard on eating a bunch.  So...
I found some pork tenderloin on sale and got some Japanese yams at the Asian grocery. Husband roasted it all on the grill and fed me until I could barely move. I rarely eat ice cream and don't really like it much usually, but I'm aiming for calorically dense foods with protein so I got some almond, pistachio ice cream (since it was a flavor I've never had) and stuffed myself on that too. I haven't eaten so much in longer than I can remember.  

Then, the storm came. As we don't have tv and don't pay much attention to the local news, we had no real idea that a storm was headed our way. Facebook was the only warning we had lol... All of a sudden, there was lightning rolling up and down the ridge and the sound of hail! 

Husband went out to storm watch and after a bit, I joined him. There was 3" hail and lots of rain and wind drama. At one point we heard tornado type sounds... but just as we were deciding where we were going to hide from a tornado, it seemed to pass. We just got the good show.  It was great! I get giddy during lighting/tornado storms.
I grew up in Alabama - kind of in tornado country.  We didn't get tornadoes every year, but everyone has at least a couple good tornado stories where I'm from.  They don't scare me. You just make the best plan you can and cross your fingers or pray or whatever you do...

So while we're standing there, a recent conversation comes to mind. I have a pretty good repoir with the local post office. I send a lot of packages lol... (nothing liquid, fragile, perishable, or potentially hazardous).  I was sending something recently and chatted a bit with the guy as I filled out my customs forms.  He's a vet and we both live in Oak Ridge, TN (the Secret City) and the sirens had gone off earlier that day. It was just the monthly test, but some people always get spooked when they don't expect the test.  I grew up near an area with lots of missile silos and when I was young, there were chemical weapons being destroyed within range of my house.  We had a nice chat about living near sirens... We're in a zone where that pretty much means just kiss your arse goodbye.  While I generally prefer a higher level of illusory safety, it's also kind of a nice reminder that all safety is an illusion.  You can live in the safest weather zone in the world behind all the walls you want, but that doesn't protect you from the fact that you live in the world. No matter how safe you feel on a daily basis, every time you even get in a car, you're gambling.  Living under sirens just reminds me a little more often that every day could be it.... and that's ok. I like keeping acquainted with my mortality. It's not a depressing thing... it's a reminder that every day that catastrophe doesn't get me is a good day  

My father, @C_L_O_G  was apparently playing on the streets of New Orleans at 4:30 this morning... Reminds me of those ads that ask if you know where your kids are at 3 AM lol... I wonder who was safer - me in storm zone or him on the streets of NOLA hahaha


Onward and upward
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