Rainy Days & London Fog (Tarts)

Here we are at the Labor Day weekend, firmly entrenched in September. School has begun and the weather was cool and rainy for most of the last week, with that lovely wet pavement smell that makes you reach for a hoodie. Well, hello there, autumn, it’s nice to see you peeking around the corner. If I remember correctly, we’ll cycle through at least one more round of warm weather before the Pacific Northwest truly heads into its Hoa Hoa Hoa aesthetic.

There was some progress on various projects this week, but I think the girls and I caught a mild virus for 3-4 days that made us feel lethargic and headache-y. It’s one thing when I’m the only one feeling sluggish, and it’s a completely different thing when, one by one, all three of us experience the exact same symptoms in a cascading course of events. I used my sluggish days to work on the House & Holiday Plan because I could just sit in a chair and putter around my office desk and actually achieve something productive in spite of the raging headache I had.

Rachel’s Graduation Quilt

I did work on this for one 45-minute work session this week. My knee was twinging just a little bit afterwards. I’m going to experiment with this a little bit more in the next couple of weeks and see if it’s healing or needs some extra help. I once had “unexplained” hip pain that seemed to have come out of nowhere and I was getting really worried about it until a friend pointed out, four days later, that I’d slammed the side door of the van shut on myself at one of my kids’ sports practices, could that have been where it started? So I’m wondering if I did something to my knee and have just forgotten about it. Because it is getting better, as long as I respect it.

In-progress pic of foundation pieced quilt blocks.

But yeah, the pencil crayon tips of the quilt blocks are trimmed now. Yay.

Husband Christmas Socks

I finished knitting the heel flap! Time to turn the heel and then get into the wonky business of knitting the gusset. AND THEN it’s a much easier knit because the pattern is only knit on the top half of the foot and it’s just normal stockinette on the sole. Goes faster once we reach that stage.

Back-to-School

The Boy is back in the school building. It seems to be going fine. I already had to run a forgotten thing down to the school when it was forgotten at home, but I’ve decided to mentally give two free passes for that sort of thing per semester, so it’s acceptable.

Back-to-Home

Renaissance’s summer break BEGAN this past week, so she has no classes for almost the entire month of September. She asked me to help her plan a personal curriculum to work on during her break so she can practice some of the things she’d like to be better at. This week’s theme was flavor combinations and she has been baking up a storm all week making (tea-free) London Fog Custard Tarts, Lemon-Peach Almond Cupcakes, and Coconut Lime Tres Leches cake. I think the London Fog Tarts are one of my most favorite things that she’s ever made, OH MY GOODNESS they were so tasty.

London Fog Custard Tarts with caramel, earl grey whipped cream and a sprinkle of lavender buds on top.

House & Holiday Plan

Um, this thing has taken on a life of its own!

I didn’t expect such an enthusiastic response to my post about it, but online friends and IRL friends are clambering onto the wagon and it just brings me so much joy to be able to talk about this fun little obsession with so many people.

It’s weird; I can see the traffic that’s coming in on that post, but there’s not a lot of tangible signs that it’s popular, but then while I was at church today multiple women stopped me to gush about how much they love the idea of getting going with holiday cleaning and planning right now, and then they told me what they were up to in their homes for the past week.

I am very inspired by all the work these ladies are getting done in their own homes! And talking about Christmas prep in the halls between classes?! Yes, please! Always more of that!

Loving the Rain

We had some amazing days of rain this last week and it was lovely. You forget how awesome a drizzly day is until one finally shows up after weeks and weeks of sunshine. As luck would have it, that was also the day Renaissance was figuring out her London Fog flavor proportions, so the girls and I really leaned into the whole cozy-tea-while-watching-the-rain aesthetic and it was perfection.

Rain tapping on the windows, something delicious coming out of the oven, warm mugs in our hands while we laughed over something Rachel was enthusiastically over-explaining…it was a very good September afternoon.

A knitting mug full of London Fog tea with frothed milk on top, next to a bottle of Torani Lavender syrup

As much as I loved that rain, I do kindly request that it holds off until November, though. There’s a lot of fun outdoor stuff that I’d like to do in September and October, and it’s way more enjoyable when the sun is shining.

Please, Mother Nature, give us pleasant autumn weather. Just keep the rain tucked away for a little while longer…