Are We There Yet?

My countdown widget tells me that I've got fewer than 21 hours before I'm officially on Summer Vacation. I've got to tell you that it can't possibly come soon enough. Not only have the kids this year been exceptionally trying (like the creepy twerp who spent his entire ride today tying the seat belts into knots) but it's just plain ole' hot. I'm tempted to take a thermometer on the bus with me but somehow I suspect that verification that it's 100+ degrees would be disheartening to say the least. Now, in knitterly terms, how hot is it? Almost too hot to knit with linen for Pete's sake. Your hands get really sticky and the yarn just won't glide smoothly along the way you need it to.

What's all this doing to the Mimosa (ravelry link) that I'm working on? Well, I can't count any more and have to keep ripping back a row or five because I can't even figure out where I've gone wrong. I had hoped to be done with the border chart by the end of the week and it's just not going to happen. I spend my days knitting in between trips and my nights correcting the mistakes I made during the day. Oh well. I might be able to make up some time once I'm not captaining the cheese wagon seven and a half hours out of the day.

In other news, we're putting in a front garden bed. It's kind of a learning curve for me. I had a pretty decent little garden in Ontario but stuff that works in zone 4 or 5 will probably be deeply unhappy here in zone 9. Take Bleeding Hearts (Dicentra) for example; They're one of my favourite plants but they like moist, rich, well shaded soil. They're probably not going to do really well in our southern exposure, full sun from about 11:30 to sunset, sand/clay soil. It's all good though . . . Year round Canna Lilies will be nice. And more roses!