Some garden success....

Okay, I guess I do have to say I like fresh green beans (the frozen ones do get a bit tiresome, especially when it's the end of the bag and they're a little freezer-burned-ish)

When I got home from shopping, I checked my garden. And I found these:



Enough of the French fingerling beans that were ready, to make a serving. So I'm baking a potato (that's one form of potato that still tastes "normal" to me without salt - I put either sour cream or plain Greek yogurt on it and maybe a little grated cheese....) and I will have the beans and maybe some cherries or blueberries for dinner.. I had a big salad for lunch and a cherry Danish (my "free" pastry - and they make their Danish with more of  a puff-type pastry than the heavier yeasted dough some places do, so it was a treat).


I did find "instant" mashed potatoes that were without added sodium at the store. I bought a small packet to try to see if they can be made to taste okay to me. I might try adding the chipotle blend that I now use on corn; that might be interesting. (I really do not have a problem with instant mashed potatoes. I know a lot of "foodies" do but I don't.  No, they are not the same as the from-scratch kind but I really don't mind eating them and they are a help when you're busy. And you can put them in things like soups and they work up quickly.)

Incidentally, I don't miss fries or potato chips. I was never a big fan of either one. (I miss pretzels more, and popcorn with salt on it. Though I am considering trying smoked paprika on popcorn; that might be good.)

I found copies of a couple knitting magazines, and the new Quilty. When I first read it, I thought it was horribly twee - all the little sidebar jokes and "Spooly" the mascot, and I thought "I am so not in the age demographic for this" but I admit the magazine has grown on me a lot, and I like the patterns they have. And I enjoy Ebony Love's columns on longarm quilting - it is interesting to see the professional quilter's perspective on things, and also her discussion of how she does her longarm quilting. 

I also decided, by virtue of seeing a pretty novelty yarn - yes, I know I wasn't buying any more but this is very specifically designated for a project - what I will make with my "Sea Ponies" pattern. For my birthday, one of my Ravelry friends sent me a copy of the Sea Ponies pattern (that's a thing on Ravelry, and a thing I like: you can buy patterns for someone, either off a wishlist they might have or just buy them a pattern you think they might like, and it is sent to them. I've done it a few times when one of my friends was going through a rough patch, or one one of their birthdays....)

Anyway. I had originally thought of doing a Derpified Sea Pony, but I kind of wanted to make one I HADN'T made in Pony form yet. And I didn't want to do any of the Mane Six, and I couldn't think of any of the popular background ponies that I wanted a Sea Pony of. (Okay, I briefly toyed with the idea of a Flufflepuff sea pony - Flufflepuff is cute, until you read about her origins and the function she seems to serve in the stories some fans write - and after I learned about "greentext" or whatever it's called, I was like, Meh, no Flufflepuff for me now.) But then I thought of one of the Pony minifigs I have, who has (AFAIK) never appeared on the show but is nevertheless a very pretty pony - she is called Cherry Spices and is a dark brown unicorn with light green eyes and a pinkish/reddish/purplish mane.

Here it is:



I think - because like many of these novelty yarns it has a certain inherent flimsiness - I'm going to crochet "spiral curls" (like those "bookworm" bookmarks that were the rage when I was a kid) and use that as the hair, rather than just individual strands. I figure since Cherry Spices doesn't seem to exist as an actual show-pony, I can play around and not worry overmuch about verisimilitude.

I also found some cute cherry-shaped buttons; I'm going to sew one on to her as a cutie mark even though the Sea Ponies apparently don't have cutie marks, per se.

(I know a lot of people who were fans of the earlier cartoon, where the Sea Ponies actually existed, kind of loved to hate on them and their "Shoo-be-doo, shoop-shoo-be-do" songs, but I don't really have any history with the earlier incarnations, so I'm happy to make my own sea pony. And any way, the pattern designer commented that they are "strangely comforting to hold" and I tend to be all about things that are comforting to hold.)

I might still make a Derpy version if I like how Cherry Spices comes out. I think I still have enough grey and yellow yarn left over, so that would use up scraps.