Congratulations on making it through the first full week of February, y’all! We had a lot of snow around here—nothing that really stuck until today—and some late starts to the school days, which were appreciated because no one really wants to leave the house when it’s cold out anyways, right? No all-out snow days, though. Sigh.
Top priorities this past week:
Vet appointment for Quesnel
Rachel’s birthday
Valentine’s Day
Getting the quilting going on the King David’s Crown quilt
Caring
I was able to get Quesnel in for a vet appointment on Wednesday and it turns out that she had a kidney infection. It also turns out that vet bills are ridiculously expensive. But we now have a kitty that is acting more like her usual self after three days of antibiotics. Poor thing, she was so miserable.
Celebrating
I really didn’t do much work on Rachel’s birthday or Valentine’s Day. I think they’re as taken care of as they can be until a day or two beforehand. Gotta love all the last-minute work that can’t be done ahead of time, eh?
Creating
The King David’s Crown is not only basted, but the quilt also has its basic foundational quilting complete, BUT my quilting stencils are STILL NOT HERE YET. They sat at their post office of origin all week and finally moved yesterday across the country to Montana. I imagine the earliest they’ll get to me is Monday afternoon, but with how slow this is all going I’d gamble on them not arriving until Tuesday.
It turns out that I can baste a twin-sized quilt in thirty-five minutes. That was not the case the last time I attempted that sort of thing. Thank you, Yoga. [insert weird Gen Z hand-heart motion here]
I finished the Stripey Christmas socks! They are in the process of having their ends woven in and then they’ll go have a tub-tub and I’ll be able to show them to you!
I started BOTH the Midnight Lark socks and the Cherry Twilight socks this week. The Midnight Lark socks are my “waiting for kids” van knitting project, so they’ll come along at a slower rate than the Cherry Twilight socks because those are in the house and will be worked on whenever I have downtime at home.
Highlights of the Week
Nathaniel did Solo Competition today on the xylophone and received a Superior rating! That’s pretty awesome for a freshman!
Rachel had a big choir concert this week and it went really well.
I basted a quilt in thirty-five minutes! It was basically an intense thirty-five minutes yoga practice, and I was worn out afterwards, but still, I DID THAT.
Had lunch with a friend and it raised my spirits immensely. Friends are good.
Lowlights
I cannot escape weirdos sitting behind me at choir concerts, apparently. The couple sitting in front of us smelled of weed so badly it gave me a splitting headache, and the family sitting behind us was very adjacent to drunk, smelled like it, and didn’t shut up the entire concert, even breaking into song when the choirs sang familiar tunes. Whoever was sitting directly behind me also tapped their toe on my chair about a sixteenth of a beat off from the music, not only driving me crazy but also jarring my back the entire time. I could not get out of that venue fast enough once the concert was finished. I need to come up with some sort of mindfulness practice or something to help me get through these nightmares of concerts because this kind of occurrence is now the norm and it’s destroying my enjoyment of the concerts, which is not how I want that part of this chapter of life to go.
Poor Quesnel being sick. But she’s lots better now.
All in all, it was a lovely week—it’s always nice to put the final stitches into a knitting project, I was thankful to be granted more snuggles on the couch with Quesnel, and there are few things more perfect than drinking white chocolate peppermint herbal tea with your kids while you all watch the snow fall outside the kitchen windows. It was a week full of simple joys—Nathaniel’s Superior rating was a welcome development, and a simple lunch with a friend went way too long due to meaningful conversation. I hope the slow mornings keep coming, that the snowflakes keep falling, and the smiles keep happening.
Oh, and for those quilting stencils to get here faster…
Happy Monday! Happy February! I don’t know if you can wish anyone a happy Monday or a happy February, but here I am, trying to inject some semblance of cheer into the grayest part of the year! I found an image on the internet last week that I absolutely loved from Pippi Post, and I have been quoting it to myself over and over again ever since:
There’s a lot of stuff going on right now that is upsetting for people, it’s February and we haven’t seen the sun in months, and almost everyone I know is recovering from some bout of illness. We’re all tired and we’re all overwhelmed, so prioritizing joy is a good idea right now. I’ve been trying to avoid being a grump and it really is weird how you can just choose to be optimistic if you really put your mind to it.
Something that brings me joy is figuring out my week ahead, so here we are with a Crafting a Plan post! Enjoy!
Friday: Chicken-Tomatillo Soup with Chipotle Chiles
Saturday: TBD
Sunday: TBD
Clothing
I am so caught up with laundry! It is exhilarating! I actually have time to work on rotating our wardrobes at the moment, so there’s a big upheaval with the warm and cold weather clothing. I read a fantastic book about decluttering over Christmas Break and am applying the principles to my wardrobe as I work through the rotating.
Cleaning
I’m trying to do some decluttering and it’s going pretty good. The book I read is called Decluttering at the Speed of Life: Winning Your Never-Ending Battle with Stuff, by Dana K. White, and it’s got a completely sane approach to dealing with decluttering that does not involve dumping out an entire anything and spending hours at a time on the process à la Marie Kondo. I’ve gone through the front entrance of the house, the dining room, and I’m slowly working on the craft room. All the background thought that goes into the process makes the upkeep of the cleaned area much easier, so those areas of my house are looking really good, even weeks later. Very good book, highly recommended.
Caring
Haircuts for Michael & Nathaniel
I need to make a vet appointment for Quesnel. She’s not looking like she’s feeling very well.
I need to keep an eye on spring sports registration for Nathaniel.
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Creativity
King David’s Crown is assembled and awaiting basting. I decided that I wanted to quilt it nicely, so I’ve ordered some quilting stencils and the company has taken forever to ship them to me. They should arrive on Thursday, despite having ordered them last weekend. Hmph.
I started working on my scrappy Star Climber quilt last week and I am loving it! What a great pattern for using up scraps! Love, love, love. I’m planning on this one taking all year to complete so that I don’t have to rush it. I really enjoy working with the Woven Star foundation papers* and I think I’ve picked out a great color palette for this quilt that will use up a lot of scraps from particularly overflowing scrap bins. My schedule for this quilt calls for me to complete eight blocks in February, and I’ve finished four thus far. Another two are in-progress right now and I’m hoping to have them done by the end of this week.
It’s quite possible that I could finish the Christmas Stripey socks this week. I’ve made it to the toe decreases, so there’s not a lot of work left on them.
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Celebrating
Emily just celebrated her 21st birthday. I think you’re officially old when your kids start turning 21.
Next up is Rachel’s birthday. How in the world is she almost seventeen years old?!?! Nathaniel mentioned that her next birthday will allow her to vote. That was not on my radar. These kids just went and grew up on me when I wasn’t looking.
Michael and I aren’t up for a big night out on Valentine’s Day so we’re planning a family Mario Kart tournament for that evening. Depending on how into it the kids are, there could be some cute things happening. If the cute things don’t happen, whatever; we’ll still have fun and eat tasty treats.
Michael’s birthday is on the horizon, but I’m not quite into planning mode for that yet.
Same with Nathaniel.
Easter IS on my mind because I’m trying to get the Easter Program together for church. I’ve got my rough draft written up and submitted for approval, so we’ll see how much the bishopric likes it. I’d also like to do some planning in regards to Easter dinner; the kind of planning that will repeat itself every year and make my life easier.
Community
Ren and I will be performing the special musical number in church this week because I couldn’t find anyone else to do it. We are becoming very good at throwing pieces together at the last minute! So we’ll need to figure out some rehearsal time during the week.
Track down some flute music for Ren for the Easter Program.
Compose an ending/reprise for my arrangement of “As Bread is Broken” for the choir.
Pick up raffle tickets I had printed for band boosters.
Check in on the t-shirts we’re having printed for the band’s Disney trip
Top priorities this week:
Vet appointment for Quesnel
Rachel’s birthday
Valentine’s Day
Getting the quilting going on the King David’s Crown quilt
I wish you a happy first week of February! We’re getting some snow right now and I’m really hoping it translates into a legit snow day tomorrow so we can just bum around and drink cocoa all day. I’m reeeeeally hoping for that. May you get your snow wishes granted as well, if that’s your jam.
We’ve hit the third Friday of 2025 and it’s starting to feel like we’ve truly left the holiday season behind us and that we’re heading into a new, fresh year. I am really looking forward to this three-day weekend ahead of us, and really, really looking forward to the end of the kids’ semester at the end of next week with its FOUR-DAY weekend. Yay for extra days off of school during the darkest days of the year!
Top priorities this past week:
Progress on the King David’s Crown quilt
Finish the Piscis Project
Progress on the Stripey Christmas Socks
King David’s Crown Quilt
It’s coming along. The pattern will be released to the public in mid-March*, so you would think I have lots of time to work on this, but photos need to be submitted to Fat Quarter Shop ahead of that release date, so I’m needing to work at a faster pace to meet that deadline. The requirement is only one block to show, but I never want to do just one block so I’m doing a legit quilt at breakneck speed. My goal was to be done with 75% of my blocks this Wednesday and I was very, very far behind on that goal on Tuesday, but somehow managed to bend the space-time continuum over the next two days and I’m actually caught up on my self-imposed schedule as of last night. Woo hoo!
It’s a cool-looking block so I wanted to make a full quilt from it because it’s a little off the beaten path for me. I’m really loving the Creative Grids Starburst 30-degree ruler* that goes along with the pattern, and I have plans to re-use this specialty ruler to make all sorts of projects in the future. I’m addicted to Creative Grids specialty rulers. It’s intense.
I figure I’ll be working on this quilt for at least another four weeks, so get comfortable with looking at these fabrics. At least they’re super pretty, right? They’re a handful of prints from the Cali & Co. fabric collection by Corey Yoder.* I really wanted to make the multicolored-on-white flower dot fabric work in some capacity in this quilt, but it just wasn’t mocking up well so I went with the cherries for my background print instead because they are stinkin’ adorable. I love, love, love the periwinkle/cornflower blue of the lighter blue print I’m using and decided to incorporate that and some navy to make a subtly patriotic quilt for the summer months. I’m loving how it’s turning out.
Helpful Hint with this one: Prioritize the skinny tip of the triangle fabric pieces when you’re cutting the fabric and piecing the foundational units of the blocks. Don’t worry about the wide part of the triangle fabric pieces because you’ll be trimming those off. It’s all about the skinny tips on this one.
Piscis Project
I can’t tell you much about this because it’s a gift for someone. It is completed and it’s cute and I’ll show it to you once it is given to the recipient. It’s a small thing, so don’t get too excited about it.
Stripey Christmas Socks
A lot of knitting happened on these this week due to Rachel having two home matches this week and that’s when I’ve been knitting on them. I also knit on them a bit before Nathaniel’s band concert this week as well. I am past the heel and firmly into the foot section! And it’d be a lot more fun for you to read about if I could remember to take a picture of them while I’m working on them…hee hee.
Highlights
I found out at our Band Boosters meeting that we raised an extra $2000 more than we originally thought because the Square app stopped logging donations and purchases at a certain time during the Evening of Jazz and it wasn’t deposited into our account until the next morning. Whew! I was seriously bummed at the end of EOJ because our profit seemed really low for the amount of donations we had this time.
Lunch with friends is always a nice thing
Getting caught up on the King David’s Crown quilt! Didn’t think that would happen!
A friend’s daughter started her mission on Monday! She’s doing at-home MTC right now and it’s fun to hear the updates on that situation each day. So excited for you, Abbie!
We hosted our Potluck Club this past week. I decided this month’s dinner would have a “Winter Wonderland” theme and it went really well! If you’ve been thinking about organizing your friends to have dinner together once a month, just ask! It’s been such a good thing in our lives these past few months!
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Lowlights
I am struggling with my points on the King David’s Crown blocks. I think I’ve figured it all out, but geez…
Enjoy your long weekend if you get to have it! I hope you find some time for some craftiness, warm socks, and hot beverages!
*Affiliate links: I receive a small commission at no cost to you should you purchase from these retailers after clicking through on the link
Life is absolutely crazy right now with the upcoming band fundraiser, the church Christmas program, and plain old Christmas. I sat down at the end of November and planned out my crafty schedule for December, but have been only been able to put a pittance of effort into my projects because all the Christmas music is getting in the way! Maybe I need to call December a wash every year because Christmas music will always be a huge part of my Decembers?
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I did get some time to work on the Sew Many Stars Quilt last week, which ultimately led to disappointment when I realized that the batting I had for it wasn’t large enough. So I’m waiting on a bigger batting to arrive in the mail, and it’s supposedly going to get here tomorrow. Fingers are crossed that there can be a couple of hours I can squeeze out of the remainder of this week to do a little bit of work.
Not enough batting border for quilting!
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My original schedule had me possibly finishing this quilt by Christmas Eve, but with no label, which I’d get to in the week after Christmas, but I do not know what to expect from this project at all anymore since losing out on the last week’s sewing time. We shall see…
A task I took on with a frown, To stitch table runners all brown, For the band fundraiser—oh dear! But I’d rather sew Christmas cheer, And can’t wait ’til these projects wind down!
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You have a lot of time to think when you’re doing boring sewing, and sometimes my brain comes up with haphazard limericks. Happily enough, the band fundraiser table runners are close to being completed—I’ve sewn up thirteen of the fifteen as of this morning—and I am that much closer to diving into Christmas sewing!
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I’ll have to take a day or two to do some deep thinking and organizing for my church’s Christmas Sacrament Program and a newly-taken-on public music performance near a local Giving Machine, but after that it’s all the Christmas sewing, all the time!
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I hope your seasonal sewing wishes are coming true! See you next week with, hopefully, something extra fun to show you!
As the band moms and I gear up for the super duper important band fundraiser that will take place in December, multiple comments were made about how the decorations last year were “looking a little tired.” To be fair, they were metallic mesh that had been stored in smashed up positions throughout most of the last three years, only to be brought out to breathe for one evening in December. The tiredness made sense.
The kicker about decorations for a fundraiser is that any money you spend on decorations comes out of the proceeds you earn from the fundraiser; so, even though I loves me an excuse to go wild with decorating, I’ve been very hesitant to upgrade the decor in any meaningful fashion in order to keep the Band Booster coffers filled. However, when multiple people make the same observation that your decorations look just plain sad, you gotta listen and figure something out.
We decided that we’d replace the table runners this year, but keep the mason jars with the sticks and worry about upgrading those next year. Seeing that sewing is my jam, I volunteered for the uncontested honor of sewing up the table runners.
I had a very smart moment and looked for 108-inch wide quilt backing fabric first because you can get six 15-inch wide table runners from one width of it, rather than only two or three from the regular 45-inch wide fabric. AND(!), 45-inch wide fabric costs about twelve dollars a yard, and 108-inch wide fabric costs only slightly more at about twenty dollars a yard. Winning!
That’s what I’m up to this week: Sewing table runners. It’s very boring sewing, but I’m optimistic that it will look nice at the event. I’m hoping to be done by early next week and that I can then devote my attention to some fun Christmas sewing!
The autumn sunshine is perfect right now and accentuates any fabric hanging from my ironing board. It may be boring sewing, but it certainly makes my heart happy to walk into my craft room each morning and be greeted by golden backlit fabric draped and waiting for me. I absolutely love it in this space and feel so much gratitude that I get to spend time doing what I love.
It’s November, and right on schedule, it’s raining like crazy today. It’s pretty rain at this point—the brightness of the colorful leaves creates an impressionistic feel to the landscape, so at least we have that.
Top priorities this past week:
Halloween celebrating & traditions
Band Fundraiser Table Runners
Scheduling special musical performances for November
Finding a pianist for the Christmas program
Make some headway on the secret Christmas knitting
Rest when I’m tired or hurting
Celebrating
Halloween was fun this year. Not a lot of fuss, but Renaissance and I did manage to create our traditional chili in pumpkin bread bowls, which I wasn’t too sure was going to happen. She invited her friends over for another Halloween feast before Trick or Treating started, despite that they’re all adults now that don’t do Trick or Treating, and they hung out afterwards playing video games together and taking breaks to hunt down Rachel and Nathaniel in the neighborhood to jump scare them with light sabers. As one does…
I was a little sad going into Halloween this year because Ren and her friends have grown up and I was worried about Rachel and Nathaniel not having a group to go Trick or Treating with, but they put the word out that we live in a great neighborhood for Trick or Treating and some of their friends decided to come on over to do that here. It was nice. I love the chaos of having a gaggle of teenagers in my house on Halloween night. Absolutely love it—peak motherhood aspirations there.
So Halloween is over, and with that comes Christmas. I absolutely turned on Christmas music this morning as I worked in the craft room!
And spare me your “Christmas shouldn’t start before Thanksgiving” sentiments: I’m Canadian; I grew up with Thanksgiving taking place in early October, so my internal Christmas countdown was programmed in childhood to start once Halloween was over and I’m not going to reset it ever because more time in Christmas Town is AWESOME. I take the requisite days off from Christmas prep to do a proper job on American Thanksgiving, and we are very grateful people who are capable of exuding a thankful attitude even while decorating for Christmas. I know, it may be shocking that such people exist, but we do! Everything is OK, gratitude will continue to exist in our home despite the appearance of red and green before Thanksgiving. If you’re a person who doesn’t do Christmas until after American Thanksgiving, cool. You do you. But do not come in here demanding that the only correct way to celebrate the holidays is how you do it. Because that is blatantly incorrect.
And further more, how do you think Christmas music happens? Do you think musicians wait until after American Thanksgiving to start practicing that stuff? Of course they don’t! Big preparations take time, and there is not a lot of time between American Thanksgiving and Christmas. Sorry/not sorry to pop your bubble on this concept, but many musicians start practicing their Christmas music in October, even September. I started planning and purchasing Christmas sheet music in August. That’s how Christmas music happens—that far in advance. Just be thankful (hey, there’s that gratitude word!) that there are people who want to shower others with so much Christmas cheer that they’ll voluntarily give up their time very early on in order to prepare for Christmas, rather than pointing fingers and snidely alluding that the Early Christmas Cheer people are materialistic gimme pigs. We’re actually spending more time in service to others by getting the Christmas Town Express going early, and that’s…decidedly unmaterialistic, right?
/soapbox (I’m so tired of this argument that, really, shouldn’t even exist.)
Creating
I have found time to start working on the Band Fundraiser table runners this week. I’ve got most of the fabric cut up and I’ve ironed what I have on-hand and have done the first round of sewing on one (1) table runner. I hope the future organizers of this event don’t get tired of the table runners and get rid of them in a few years. They’re turning out quite nice and could potentially last for years if they’re treated well.
I made a little bit of progress on the secret Christmas knitting, too.
Community
I am hitting some major walls with church music. I shall remain optimistic through this weekend and if things don’t sort themselves out I’m going to have to alter my plans. Once again, but for a different crowd this time, how do you think Christmas music happens? A big part of that is people being willing to be a part of church choir. If you’ve ever wondered about joining your church’s choir, stop wondering and just do it. We’re desperate for you. DESPERATE.
Healing
I’m almost there, I can feel it. I yo-yo back and forth between overdoing it and needing to take time to rest from the overdoing, which is always a good sign that points towards a “nearing full recovery” kind of thing. I’m glad I wrote about it this time around so I can look back and see the glacial pace and know that it’s completely normal. Six weeks of inactivity is a really long time. You don’t think it is when people throw that timeline around, but laying around for that long is mind-numbingly boring. I guess I should be thankful that I’m feeling like bursting my prison right as Christmas Season begins. What a glorious reward!
Highlights
Halloween was noisy and fun. I love hosting all these kids at our house.
I made a beautiful pumpkin soup this week that was so delicious.
The best idea came to me at church: At the end of each month, sit down with your spouse and schedule all your weekly date nights for the entire next month. So simple, but it’s literally never occurred to me. When I approached Michael with the idea, he improved it by saying we could align our four dates each month with the four goal-setting areas of the Church’s youth program in order to expand our horizons a little more. So, a date night dedicated to 1) Spiritual, 2) Intellectual, 3) Physical, and 4) Social pursuits each month. In months with five Fridays we’ll have a family date, which are the most expensive dates of them all, but you know, kids deserve some fun times out with their parents, too.
Lowlights
Renaissance got her car stuck in the mud when she went out with friends to a haunted house this last week. Thankfully, Michael came to her rescue. Where would we be without good dads?
I don’t know what it is about summer that makes it difficult to stick to a schedule. Is it the lack of places to be, the pull to dawdle and “waste” time, the fact that I have large chunks of time to work on things without being interrupted, or the heat? All of them? None of them? Perhaps we will never know. Regardless, I have time in my schedule to write two blog posts a week this summer, and I often find myself so busy with other things that I choose to do the other things rather than sit down and write. It won’t hurt much in the long run, but I do enjoy re-reading posts and I’m robbing myself of that future pleasure by putting off the writing each week!
Rather than write a regular end-of-the-week kind of post, I figure I’ll do one big swooping review of summer thus far…
Cooking
I’m doing my best to cook things using stuff from the garden, but we had a ton of leftovers after Renaissance’s graduation party, so we ate leftover for 2-3 weeks. Now that we’ve worked through the leftovers, there’s been more garden cooking. The herbs are really starting to come into their own, so I need to remember that they’re available to use!
Renaissance baked up a ton of stuff for her party, and then made some really cute patriotic cookie arrangements for the Fourth of July.
Clothing
One of my goals is to teach the girls some basic clothing sewing over the summer so they can have a better understanding of how clothing fits them and also because it’s a great skill to know. I just taught Rachel her first lesson today and she seems to understand it pretty good.
Cleaning
Graduation party cleanup is taking forever because I bought serving items that need to be assimilated into our household and it turns out our household is pretty full of pretty serving ware already. I think we’ve officially gotten to the point where we need to do a major house purge. Makes sense; the kids have all graduated to new levels of childhood/adulthood, and the life we are currently living is very different from how things were three to four years ago. I don’t know if I should do a full-on Marie Kondo-esque purge, or just attend to the most troublesome spots and make do…I’m leaning towards the latter because I just don’t want to deal with too much. I feel like I can’t handle a Marie Kondo purge this summer.
I did institute a new thing: Catch-up Fridays: For two hours each Friday afternoon I work on the most overdue tasks on my to-do list app. I finally framed up some prints I bought last autumn and was even set to hang them up, but someone walked off with my nails and picture hanging supplies so I’m stuck until I go on my errand run next week and buy some new nails. Hmph. I think Catch-up Fridays will help me feel way more productive by the end of the summer. Crossing those severely overdue tasks off the to-do list just feels so satisfying!
Caring
The girls cannot find jobs. I have them applying to a bunch everyday and they don’t get any kind of responses from the companies. Emily’s been invited to two interviews that didn’t result in anything, and Ren and Rachel have been on one interview each that didn’t pan out either. A lot of people are saying that teens are having a hard time finding jobs because minimum wage pay is so high here in Washington that adults are staying in minimum wage jobs instead of moving up the career ladder and opening the minimum wage jobs back up for the kids. Maybe that’s what it is, I don’t know. I just know that between college tuition rates being out of control and my teens having a hard time finding any kind of employment, post-high school education is becoming very difficult to fund. Ren is hoping that once she turns eighteen next month she’ll be a better job candidate. Fingers crossed.
Creativity
I altered a flower girl dress for a friend and it went well. Now that it’s done I’m trying to learn tambour beading. It turns out that setting up a slate frame takes forever, so I’m stuck on that step until I’m done with it. And then I don’t know what I’m going to bead after, so I feel like I’m flailing at the moment.
My creativity mojo is kind of non-existent at the moment. My instinct is to freak out when that happens, but I’ve had bouts of no creative mojo and I know all will be eventually be well. It’s just a supremely uncomfortable feeling. I feel like I can’t commit to anything because I’m really anxious about the future and whether or not I’ll actually have time to work on projects. And I have completed quite a few really big projects this year already, so maybe I just need a rest. It’s feeling pretty good to be cleaning up the house and working in the garden, which are both areas I had to neglect over the last two years while I did my master’s degree, so maybe this summer will just be about straightening all the home and garden stuff out?
Also, I was just called to be our ward’s new choir director and I feel like I’m not entirely on top of that just yet. We’ve had a couple rehearsals and we’re working on the newly-released hymns, and I kind of resent that my choir pieces have essentially been chosen for me with all these new hymns coming out and needing to be performed before they can be used as congregational hymns. I need to find time to work on my own piano and vocal practice so I can pitch in some more with church music, but…the fire isn’t there right now. Music just feels so stale right now; just more of the same things I’ve been doing for twenty years. It will be nice when this heavy cloud begins to lift.
Gardening
The garden is a source of joy for me this season. I’ve been really good about consistently maintaining it and the effort is definitely being repaid in terms of produce, flowers and beauty. I harvested the last of the lettuce this week and tore out the spent pea plants. The Napa cabbages are almost ready to harvest, the mini carrots are also getting close to picking, and the rhubarb keeps producing. The squashes are all starting to vine and bloom, which is exciting! I have some corn plants popping up, and my peppers, tomatillos and tomatoes are blossoming a ton as well. There’s a lot of potential brewing in that little space in the backyard!
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I planted green beans and winter squash in the newly-vacated pea plant bed this morning, and planted random sunflowers in any blank spaces that I felt needed something growing in them. Sunflowers have had a tough year contending with the slugs, as the slugs love newly-sprouted sunflower greens. I’m thinking about getting my starter trays out again and starting the rest of my sunflower seeds so that I can put them in once they’re bristly enough to deter slugs and then I can have a plethora of sunflowers for autumn color. I also want to start some broccoli.
The nasturtiums are blooming so wonderfully, the Shasta daisies are starting to bloom, the marigolds are growing leaps and bounds, and the aforementioned herbs are scattered throughout and give off the best scents when you brush by them. Rachel harvested the French Lavender this morning and we’ll make wreaths from them this week for the doors. I love the smell of lavender wafting through the house!
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Celebrating
The Fourth of July came and went. I made patriotic Jell-O and it was wolfed down in a matter of hours. It’s so good! Nom, nom, nom.
As far as celebrating summer goes, we’ve not done much. Maybe I should come up with some ideas.
Community
Renaissance and Nathaniel signed up to be in the orchestra for a production of “Guys & Dolls.” I’m worried that it’s too much for Nathaniel’s ability at this point. Renaissance is straining to keep up, as she’s playing three different instruments for it. I’m hoping that this is a “sweet spot” of difficulty for her that has her coming back for more when it’s all over, and not a “that almost killed me and I’m never doing it again” kind of difficulty that turns her off of musical accompaniment in the future.
Ward Choir is still in its infant days. As always, we have way more women than men, so I think I’m going to have to morph into recruitment mode and stalk dudes, which I really just don’t want to do. Maybe I’ll wait until school starts? Summer is often so hit and miss with families going on vacation anyways. We’ll just plough through new hymns throughout the summer and it’ll be enough. We’ll set our sights on making choir magic in the fall?
I want to start some sort of social group that meets once a month or so. A couples’ potluck group, or a creative women’s group, or something. Or just invite some ladies over one evening. I’m feeling the loss of all the regular socializing at school events and I’m feeling pretty isolated. I feel like friends are a necessary ingredient to an enjoyable summer. Every season, really, but this season–without its enforced socializing that school throws at us in autumn, winter and spring–needs shared laughter and sweet drinks in the sunshine with favorite friends.
Maybe everything is in a “nearly ripe” stage at the moment, and after all the hustle and bustle of school’s end, graduation and Ren’s recital, normal feels a little flat in comparison? I may be feeling a little off-kilter, but the weather is beautiful and we do get a lot of free time for reading, naps, and daydreaming, which ain’t that bad. There’s a couple of things planned in August that should be fun, so I’ll just keep showing up and cleaning up the cobwebs that have formed in the past couple of years and hopefully feel better for it. I would really like the Creative Mojo to come back, though. It’s so unsettling when I’m not up for creativity. It will return, I know that. Maybe I’ll read some more on the hammock in the next week. Chill out some more.
Best wishes to you as you go about your summer experiences and memory-making!
While I am very pleased that I didn’t throw Renaissance’s graduation party until two weeks after graduation, I also feel like our summer vacation didn’t really get to start until now after the party is finished because we were so busy with putting the party together. I spent this past week trying to summon up the will to do anything and then just gave up because I figured it was my body’s way of taking a break after many, many months of non-stop activity. All good things, of course, but it’s been a lot and recovery is an important part of the wellness cycle. I’m hoping I slowed down enough and rested enough that I’ll be good to go for the rest of the summer.
I have missed my little weekly posts to begin and end each week, and I’m hoping I can get back into a routine that includes writing them. The past six weeks were really busy! Here’s the plan for the next week, as we really sink into our true summer schedule:
Wednesday: Cheeseburgers (Because Rachel has been asking for them repeatedly), Shaved Summer Squash & Peas,
Thursday: Hot Dogs, 4th of July Jell-O, etc.
Friday: Ribs, Potato Salad, Corn on the Cob
Saturday: French Bread Pizza, Caesar Salad
Sunday: Panzanella
Clothing
Laundry is pretty caught up on the daily stuff; I still need to fold and figure out some of the other season stuff and do a wardrobe rotation to make sure all the cold weather clothing has been put away and all the summer clothing is out and in use.
I’m altering a flower girl dress for a friend’s daughter and it’s going pretty good thus far. I’ve basted all my alterations into the dress and the girl came over today to make sure everything was fitting correctly before I put in legit stitches, and it looks really good! I just took the very top of the side seam in a little too far and it’s going to rub her underarm too much, so I’ll let the alteration a wee bit there. Time to get going with permanent stitching!
Cleaning
Finish cleaning up the graduation party, which will require:
Decluttering and cleaning the pantry so I can find space to put the new chafing dishes and drink dispensers that I purchased for the grad party.
Let’s be honest here, those two things would be absolutely amazing to accomplish in just one week, so I’m going to keep it at two items on this list.
Caring
Driving lessons for Emily & Rachel, scheduled and everything
Spelling lessons for Rachel & Nathaniel, because that’s what we do in the summer
I’m teaching the lesson tomorrow for Family Home Evening and I’ll be walking the kids through the “Getting Things Done” filing system. I’ve come up with a great way to help them keep track of their incoming mail and schedule their stuff and keep track of their chores. I’ll write a post in a few months if it actually works well.
I need to find out more about the Fife & Drum Corps that I want Renaissance and Nathaniel to join.
Creativity
Much of my creativity time will be taken up by the flower girl dress alterations. I’m glad I’m doing it, but it also reminds of why I generally say no to these requests—I don’t have a lot of creative time and I’d like to use it for myself. No regrets on this particular commission, but it’s a good reminder.
I will be teaching all three girls the basics of garment sewing this summer with the end goal of Rachel being capable of stitching her own homecoming dress. I’m excited about this prospect because…
I am going to be learning a new skill over the next couple of months that should take my dressmaking abilities to new heights: Tambour Beading. Tools arrive today and I’ve made a promise to myself I won’t start playing with them until I’m done with the flower girl dress, so hopefully I can speed through the alterations this week so that I actually get to start learning how to do this beading technique ASAP. I am SO EXCITED!
I need to check in on the various quilt blocks I sent out into the world for Ren’s Signature Graduation Quilt. There were a handful of last-minute cancellations on attending her party as well, so I might reach out and see if they want quilt blocks to sign.
I need a Crafting-in-the-Van project because summer music lessons will be starting up this week or next. Obvious options include: Smitten Quilt, Beehive Embroidery, Roses Hexagon EPP Quilt, and the Star Spangled Diamonds Quilt (I think this is too big for van crafting, though). My heart wants a new project, preferably embroidery and/or historical costuming-related. I am really not in a quilty mood right now, or knitting, either.
Gardening
It is looking so beautiful. I am so glad for every hour I’ve spent out there to get it ready this year because the view is absolutely worth it. I take a thirty minute break every morning after I wake up the kids to sit in the backyard and watch the birds flit about and feel the sun on my face. I love summer mornings.
Keep harvesting the peas, which are coming fast right now. The peas I planted on President’s Day weekend are massively producing, and also starting to fade a bit. The peas I planted near St. Patrick’s Day are ramping up production and will take us through a few more weeks I think. It was a good experiment with those dates. The peas I planted in April haven’t amounted to much at all. I’m not sure if I’ll get any pods off of them.
The lettuces and spinach are producing marvelously right now, but we also have so much cut lettuce left over from Ren’s graduation party that we’re not using the garden lettuces at all. Hopefully we can plough through all the leafy greens before everything goes bad or bolts.
Everything else is in the growing/maturing stages: Zucchini, Summer Squash, Tomatoes, Roma Tomatoes, Cherry Tomatoes, Eggplant, Tomatillos, Hot Peppers, Sweet Peppers, Bush Beans, and lots of herbs.
There’s also some corn coming up, along with some pumpkins. I’m really excited for these two crops. Corn is always fun to grow, and I bought a purple variety this year. Hopefully it’s tasty. And pumpkins are just delightful.
Celebrating
Still cleaning up graduation stuff, but it’s coming along
Happy Canada Day today! I don’t do anything for it anymore because I have a lot to do for the Fourth of July, but I still like to wish people a happy Canada Day when it rolls around.
Fourth of July Jell-O preparations will commence tomorrow. I need to make sure we actually have everything we need, but that’s also something that can be remedied the day of if need be.
Pioneer Day is coming up and I’m not sure if we’re doing anything for it. Church is having a potluck or something and I think I saw something about a pie-making contest, which I’ll need to mention to the girls because they will absolutely commit.
Renaissance’s eighteenth birthday is coming up in a little over a month. No idea what we’re doing, should probably get on that.
Community
Ward Choir is on my mind as we get it started up. I like to have them perform once a month, so we’ll be hitting the rehearsals hard. I’d also like to start figuring out the Christmas program ASAP so I can get music ordered and have everything ready to go in September/October, depending on the difficulty of the pieces.
Hymns have not been chosen for July because sacrament meeting topics weren’t chosen when I was looking yesterday. A reminder text was sent.
Need to do July contacting with ministering sisters. My two companions are both moving out of state this week, so I’m also waiting to hear who my new companions will be. I’ve asked for it to be my own daughters, so we’ll see, I guess.
I have a couple of books about decorating and entertaining that I like to read from time to time, and I just read the summer chapter from The Collected Cottage and I’m all revved up to do some summer entertaining, but I don’t know what to do. That beautiful chapter just makes me want to have friends over and enjoy the beautiful weather while we can, but it’s a leap to invite new people over and everyone is so busy with travel and houseguests during the summer. I guess I just need a mentality of “Just keep asking until someone says yes?”
I’m sure there’s Band Booster stuff I should have my eye on, but I gave myself the last week off and am uninformed at the moment. I’ll have to reacquaint myself and start touching base with the other band moms.
Top priorities this week:
Finish cleaning up the graduation party, which will require:
Decluttering and cleaning the pantry so I can find space to put the new chafing dishes and drink dispensers that I purchased for the grad party.
Flower girl dress alterations.
Fourth of July preparations. Mmmmm, Jell-O.
Ward Choir prep.
It’s the time of year for enjoying the weather, and thankfully, I’m solar-powered so the sunshine helps me get loads of stuff done. Happy North American Country Day that you celebrate, if that pertains to you, and I’ll talk to you again soon!
This week was full of fun activities—the end of year film festival for Rachel, Nathaniel’s final middle school band concert, and the senior honors night for Renaissance. It’s so much fun to see the culmination of everyone’s hard work at the end of the year, and, in Ren’s case, at the end of her K-12 school career.
Top priorities this week:
Graduation & recital clothing
Graduation quilt progress
Party decorations & ordering progress
Planting last of plants in garden
June’s hymns
Celebrate
Graduation party preparations are going well. My credit card fraud department gave me a call this week to make sure my card hadn’t been stolen because I’m ordering large quantities of things from businesses that I don’t normally do business with, so that was a funny little moment. We will have shelter from the weather and ways to keep the food warm. Excellent party prepping.
I made a lot of progress on the signature quilt as well; all pieces have their top and bottom borders. I’ve had a number of requests to mail blocks to people who will be unable to attend the party, and I need to get those out in the mail. I ordered more of the white fabric because I think I’m going to have to either make a bigger quilt or incorporate some signatures blocks into the backing, which is an awesome “problem” to have. It’s so nice that people want to share their good memories and well wishes with Renaissance. She’s such a kind soul.
We went to a graduation party for Renaissance’s friend Riley on Saturday. We’re really there! Graduation things are happening! It was such a nice event; there were all sorts of band families there and lots of great people who are involved with the school in some fashion. Riley’s mother, Chrissy, has been involved with everything forever and wow, does that ever create a fantastic village for your kid when you do that. Good food, good friends, and the best picture wall I’ve ever seen done. It was lovely.
Gardening
I haven’t planted my remaining plants in the garden yet because budgetary constraints dictated that I wait until next week to purchase the planting containers and extra potting soil. It’ll be fine. Nathaniel is so pleased that we’re going to have raspberries and Rachel is really looking forward to her strawberries. It makes me so happy to stoke their interests in gardening; it’s such a great hobby and skill to develop for their adult years.
It’s rained a lot this week, so the plants are well-watered and I haven’t been out to check on anything too much. From my kitchen window it doesn’t look like the slugs have been getting to anything, so I’m optimistic that we got the majority of them killed whilst weeding over Memorial Day weekend. Fingers crossed!
Community
I haven’t touched anything church music this week, which is OK because I always post a month’s hymns through the next month’s Fast Sunday, so we’re fine. I’ll get June’s hymns finalized and posted during church on Sunday.
Highlights
Nathaniel’s concert was so great. I am just so impressed with our music programs in our school district. Proud to be a part of it all. Nathaniel had a big part in one of the songs they played where it looked like his arms weren’t even connected to his body because he was drumming so fast. So proud of him.
Renaissance participated in the elementary school walk through this week where the seniors go to their old elementary schools in their caps and gowns and parade about and talk to their old teachers, which I think is the cutest idea ever. Since she didn’t attend elementary school here she decided to go to the elementary school where she volunteered and read to children last year, so some of the teachers knew her anyway. It was even topped off with the PE parachute being brought out for the seniors to play with one last time. Because honestly, gym parachute was peak elementary school enjoyment. What a fun week for her.
At the Honors Award Ceremony Renaissance was awarded cords for a high GPA and having 50+ hours of community service, and she received her stole for National Honor Society. A wonderful surprise that evening was the announcement that she’d been awarded two $1,000 scholarships from our community’s scholarship foundation! Those scholarships will cover her expenses for her first quarter of pastry school! We are so grateful for our community’s contribution to her post-high school education, and proud of her for doing all the work to earn those awards.
Renaissance will be playing her flute during Baccalaureate next week, and so she was flipping through our church’s hymn book and all the flute books for church and asking me if specific hymns were LDS-oriented only or if they were well-known in other denominations, and it was nice way to spend an hour together. I was pressing quilt blocks and making my guesses and she was confirming with some internet research, and we learned a lot about different songs, some that I would have guessed were only known to the LDS church and then we’d find out that it’s been around since the 1600s and we’d laugh at our silliness. I’ve missed doing church music stuff with my kids—I’m proud of their work in the school bands and choirs, but church music was where they started and I’ve always enjoyed doing that with them. We figured out which hymns would be recognizable to people of other Christian faiths as well and she created her program from those choices.
Lowlights
I have a smattering of ant bites on my left wrist and hand from a Memorial Day gardening mishap and they have swelled up angry and red and they’ve itched and ached all week long. I look like I have some sort of communicable disease.
Rachel asked that her final film project NOT be shown at the film festival. She was heartbroken over how all it shook out. She loves making films, but this was a group project gone sour. Thankfully, her teacher respected her wishes and didn’t show the film.
The five-year-old dishwasher developed a hole in one of its hoses and leaked all over the kitchen and ruined the wood floor we had installed just a few years ago from when the fridge developed a leak and ruined the wood floors. This is bad for three reasons: 1) The floor is warped and absolutely ruined, 2) We’re hesitant to make another claim on our homeowner’s insurance and risk our rates going through the roof, and 3) Our family must handwash the dishes until the replacement dishwasher shows up next week, and a family of six creates a lot of dirty dishes. It’s been a moderate source of stress. One of my work arounds has been to have whoever is on dish duty to start working while I prepare dinner. I like the results so much that I may keep this arrangement going in the future. *silver linings*
Another week done and dusted! Oh, next week will see me on the verge of tears pretty much every day…I’m so proud of my girl, but so sad that her little childhood is ending. I have absolutely loved being a mama to these sweet people. I’m excited to see where adulthood will take them, but do I ever miss pigtails and brown paper bag puppets. There will be new cool things! I just don’t know what they are yet, and that’s ok.
