Amanda Takes Off...

You Bought...

Mint Oreos?

Why?

Good Man doesn't like mint. It's not a very common flavor in Korea. He manages mint toothpaste but the rest of it? Not so much.

I guess he didn't realize that the green tinting of the cream indicated "mint."

I can't wait to try these peppers. They're so big and they're just starting to turn red.

Turning

These plants were some of the last to flower, and now they're out of control!

A Peck of Peppers

We've also been getting a lot of peppers from my CSA, so I strung them up (along with a few of my peppers) to dry.

Drying

Since my Thai basil was flowering, I decided to whack it all down and make some Thai basil pesto. I cut down the flowers and brightened up our kitchen, using a recycled spaghetti sauce jar as a vase. Simple, indeed, but free!

Thai Basil

Five or six years ago I bought a cute little dress at Marshall's for $5. It just fit at the time. Hey, it's only $5. Who cares if you size out of it soon? I used to wear it as shown below, or with a shirt over it for work.

$5 Dress

The dress no longer fits. While I was decluttering my closet last night, I came across it. I loved this dress and didn't want to get rid of it, but realistically I knew that even if I lost weight, I wouldn't wear it with spaghetti straps any longer. I'd most likely wear a top over it.

Inspired by New Dress a Day, I decided to turn the dress into a skirt, which was always my favorite part of it.

Cutting Off the Top

First I cup off the top of the dress above the waist. I couldn't unpick the seam because it was serged. So I just cut the top off close to the serged seam. I cut straight across the zipper as well (I used kitchen shears for this, not my good sewing scissors).

Bias Tape

I considered making the skirt shorter, but the top and the skirt were serged together. Since my sewing machine is still in Minnesota, I decided that I'd use the serged part as the waist. (If I'd made a shorter skirt, I would've had to find a way to prevent fraying—the serger had already done that for me.)

I ran over to Joann's and picked up extra-wide double fold bias tape and some black thread (which, shockingly enough, I didn't have in my stash). It cost less than $5.

I folded one quarter of the bias tape over the serged fabric (sort of tucking it into the bias tape fold) and folded the rest over the top. I then pinned it and hand-sewed the bias tape into place to form a waistband.

Hook and Eye Closure

Since I'd cut the zipper clear across, I had to find a way to keep it stopped. I did some fancy fingerwork, folding the bias fabric over to cover the very top of the zipper. I then added a hook-and-eye closure I had in my stash.

I was done in about 3 hrs; I really need my machine back.

The waistband was a little uneven since I did it all by hand, but considering my sewing skills, it would've been a little uneven with a machine, so let's go with it.

High-Waist

I can tuck a shirt in and wear it like an empire-waist dress, as it was originally made.

Hidden-Waist

Or I can leave the shirt over the skirt.

Either way, I think it looks great! I'm so excited to have this skirt in rotation.

Last night Good Man and I went bowling again.

Good Man's ball bounced out of the gutter and struck a pin four times last night. I know that if you follow the rules, these pins don't count. But I gave them to him.

The one time my ball bounced out of the gutter, it went between the two pins I needed to get. Dammit.

I am more convinced than ever than the lanes are not very well kept. Last night, after both of our balls were stuck in the return for the third time in as many games (and there were other times we had to bowl with the other person's ball to get our own balls to come back up), I finally asked to be moved. The guy was very friendly about it and moved me, but we lost a lot of time waiting for the poor mechanic to run back to lane 29 to get our balls out of the return.

At our first location, we were stuck next to a group of teens who kept screaming obscenities at each other when they were up. Yeah, kids, you look like idiots.

At the second location, the teenagers next to us (two couples) spent most of the time draped all over each other. Neither of the girls understood bowling etiquette and one scampered up, lobbed her ball with a resounding thud then squealed while watching it go down the lane just as I was about to release my ball, completely throwing me off.

Once I realized what they were doing, I'd wait a good, long time for them to finally bowl. And just when I thought it was safe, one of the girls would untangle herself from her boyfriend, flounce up, lob her ball again, and squeal.

Fortunately, they left after only two games. Unfortunately, those two games took them forever since they were more interesting in rolling around on top of each other in the chairs than in bowling.

No matter, Good Man and I had a good time. I didn't score anything near 139 this time, but I averaged 92 over eight games, with three above-100 games of 111, 106, and 105. Good Man averaged 98 and his above-100s were 103, 132 (!) and 106. He won four games and I won four games.

So it's been four weeks since my last garden update.

The same coworker took care of my plants while we were in Florida and did a good job. However, before we left, the cosmos, marigolds, and poppies up and died. I staked my pepper plants before I left, which helped them when we had some strong storms.

I also realized that my biggest pepper plants were getting just a fraction more of light each day, so I rearranged things to move the smaller plants. They shot up in size. Next year, the peppers will all go on the brightest side of the deck and the herbs will all go on the other side.

Before we get to the mostly good, let's go over the "What the Heck Is That?" portion of our garden tour.

The hitchhiker plant became covered overnight in some whitish covering. It looked like bird poop with black lines in it. Seen from the underside of the leaves, they looked almost like seeds or eggs. I did find what appears to be a spider, as well.

What the Heck Is That?

About a third of the leaves were covered. Since it looked ugly (as in these-things-will-hatch-and-destroy-your-garden-in-minutes ugly), I whacked them all off and trashed them.

The basil is mostly doing fine, as is the sesame.

Basil

Sesame Leaves

The dill is happily seeding along.

Dill

The peppers are doing OK. Most appear to be doing fine, but there's a tiny whitish spot near the stem of several. If I take them off the plant when they're firm but not red, they seem fine. If I leave them to ripen, they rot.

The peppers are really spicy. We had one with a samgyeopsal dinner several nights ago and Good Man yelled, "Ah! A-bomb!"

Peppers

Long Greens

The mint is flowering and I really need to whack it down.

Mint

The basils are out of control. I have got to make a huge batch of pesto and freeze it, because they're all flowering and the leaves are going to taste bitter soon.

Sweet Basil

Thai Basil