Springy yard, springy hat!

Maybe the morning after a night of rain isn't the best time to take pictures of flowers in the yard - they get a little slumped over, but I wanted to get a picture of my poppy "field" (ok, small patch is probably a better description) before they were all gone.  

I've always wanted poppies, but for years it seemed like it wasn't going to be in the stars for me - I tried them from seed, from plants, from bigger plants - never worked!  In my last house, I had squirrels that would eat the big kiwi-looking buds!  aaargh!  There's a house on my way home from work with an amazing yard - and tons of orange poppies!  I stopped one day when the lady was in the yard, just to tell her how pretty it all was, and before I knew it she'd filled a bunch of pots with divisions of all kinds of stuff and filled the back of my truck!  A perfect stranger!  She kept saying, "do you have some of this?"  "here, take some of this!"  it was amazing!  So anyway - she gave me poppies and they have been thriving for several years now!!  Oh they make me so happy!  All this rain has made everything look great.  My false indigo is doing better than ever!

And my irises, which also sometimes refuse to bloom, are incredible!

In addition to flowers blooming, a spring hat appeared almost overnight!  When the Adrienne Vittadini yarn was being marked down all over the place, I got in on the deal with my friend Emily (because I can't stand for someone to get stuff that I didn't!  my stash is filled with childish jealousy-driven purchases!)  and decided that this yellow cotton blend would be perfect for a spring Meret (because Sam's Meret was soo great!)  And by gum it is! 

 Although I suppose I don't wear a ton of hats in the spring (and according to Emily, I don't wear hats ever - but she's just trying to make me question my queue of like 50 hats, and I'm not going to! ;) but if I want to wear a hat in the spring, this cotton will be perfect!  I love how the size turned out, even though I was kind of winging it.  The pattern says to do an extra lace repeat to make it slouchier (and that's what Sam did, and I loved the shape of hers) so I did that, but I also did a full repeat for the first row, though it was supposed to be only the top part - I didn't read ahead, and by the time I realized it it was too late - it'd be ridiculous to rip back since it wasn't' going to affect anything adversely, or make it turn into something other than a hat in the end.  I love it!

And you know my obsessive love of farm fresh eggs?  It's still raging. 

 I constantly have at least two dozen in my fridge because I get them from a guy at work who somehow farms, AND works as a grain merchant!  It's amazingly convenient because he just comes to my office and says "do you need any eggs?"  and I tell him that's a stupid question, because I think he knows I'll buy all he's got!  and I typically do.  We had breakfast burritos for dinner last night because I brought home two cartons and had eggs on the brain!  I've also been craving soft boiled eggs like my mom used to make - she was so good at whacking to top off with a spoon and scooping it out with one little swoosh around the edge.  I put some eggs in to hard boil this morning and tried to time one for soft (according to my Joy of Cooking instructions and everything) but I was a little short of quite done and the whites were still a little loose, which is pretty gross.  having to pop it in the microwave for 20 seconds after you scoop it out isn't at all cool, but it worked.  I'm on a hunt down for egg cups now (I'm sure you could see that coming!) so I spent forever this morning looking through ebay and etsy - nothing yet, but I will find the perfect specimen and will try, to some probably not very aggressive extent, to keep it from becoming another collection.  ;)  I can see this becoming the replacement obsession for vintage S&P shakers though, which I've forbid myself from purchasing because I can see that there'd be no climbing out of that spiral once I started!  You know, if they didn't want me to collect stuff, they shouldn't have made it so darn cute!