Whew! April is HERE and we are happily enjoying its beauty and all the work that it brings our way. Children prance about in the sunlight, there’s Easter and General Conference preparations to take care of, and there’s beginning to be a bit of “school will be ending” energy in the kids’ activities, despite there being a good two months of attendance left. There’s just something about the beginning of April; it’s peak spring and looking-to-the-future vibes. I love it!
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The band was involved in a big bunch of parades over the weekend, so there was a lot of prep work for that. Band Boosters pack lunches for all the kids and chaperones, which requires a bit of logistical tap-dancing, but we got ‘er done. Rachel also got to be in the parade this year—she pushed the wheelchair of one of the band students. As luck would have it, that student plays percussion, just like Nathaniel, and the two of them were placed next to each other in the parade formation so I was able to get photos of both Rachel and Nathaniel together in a parade! I never thought that would happen. (I’m not going to post those photos because there’s a whole bunch of other kids from the school in the shot and I would not like it if other parents posted pictures of my kids in public spaces on the internet.)
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I was looking through old photos of the kids doing gardening and Easter prep work throughout the years and feeling all the feels from those days. What a blessing it has been to be able to easily share their childhood moments with family through the blog and through social media. It was not part of my plan to have lived so far away from family while my kids were growing up, but at least there was an easy way to keep in touch. I’m so thankful for blogging and social media in that regard, and more grateful on top of that when I consider all the great opportunities that have come into my life because of the blog, namely, the opportunity to collaborate with Fat Quarter Shop, Blank Quilting, and the other businesses that I’ve teamed up with to promote quilting and knitting projects.
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I’ve been on Instagram for over eleven years now. Who would have thought that little free photo-sharing app would turn into what it’s now become? The online world has changed so much over the years, and I’m a little sad to say that I’ve found it increasingly difficult to keep up with the pace. The pressure to stay relevant and adapt to new trends can sometimes overshadow the joy of creating. More and more I find myself wondering if I want to keep participating in a rat race where the rules keep changing without any notification or warning. Somber thoughts for such a beautiful time of year, but there you go…
I’m grateful that the end of the grayest month of the year opens the doors for the most hopeful month of the year. We made it, folks! It only gets brighter and greener from here! Whew!
Piscis Project, which I only just gifted to Rachel over the weekend and still haven’t taken pictures of…
Quesnel survived her kidney infection, thanks to our consistent administration of antibiotics twice a day, which is not a task for the faint-hearted
Nathaniel received a Superior rating on the xylophone at Solo Competition
Rachel celebrated her 17th birthday
Nathaniel was awarded the “Rookie of the Year” award for Auto class, which is a CTE award given to freshmen
I managed, with help from other band parents (obviously), to distribute, collect, and award both the Band Senior Scholarship Essay competition and the Annual Headphone Fundraiser Raffle.
Cherry Twilight socks (secret knitting = no pics!)
Midnight Lark socks (secret knitting = no pics!)
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Plans for March:
Quilting the King David’s Crown Quilt, perhaps finishing it altogether
Star Climber Scrap Quilt progress
Cherry Twilight sock progress
Midnight Lark sock progress
Garden preparations
Track Season
Michael’s birthday
Prom prep (Rachel is still deciding whether or not she wants me to sew her dress)
Easter Sacrament Meeting Program prep
Maybe some Easter celebration prep, if time allows
As much as I love to see the door hit February in the butt as it exits the room, I will miss the quieter pace of the last two months of winter hibernation. The sun is shining more and more each day, I actually hear birdsong when I venture outside, and I know that the activities of spring will soon start crowding out my time set aside for crafting. I struggle with this transition every year, trying to figure out how to spend as much time as possible on so many activities that I love for various reasons. Thankfully, I live on the wet side of Washington State, so we are still in for some seriously rainy weather, so darn, I guess I’ll just have to stay inside on those days and catch up on my stitching!
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.
Recovery from surgery is going much, much better. I think I may be able to pull off a somewhat “normal” amount of activity this week. I’ve made the choice to stop taking Tylenol for my post-op pain because I think we’re getting close to the end and any amount of pain is a signal that I’m doing too much and that I should slow down rather than pop a pain reliever and keep going at the same pace. I know it’s a wise decision, but ugh. But hey…we are definitely getting to the end of this!
I am doing laundry pretty regularly now, but I can’t lift the full baskets of clothes. It’s not much of an issue most days because there’s almost always someone else in the house with me.
Cleaning
Cleaning is still a little difficult for me, so I’m keeping an eagle eye on the kids’ chores and not letting them get away with doing half-hearted jobs. I don’t think I’m anyone’s favorite parent right now.
Caring
I’m just trying to get back in the swing of making all the meals regularly because hungry people are grumpy people. There’s also a lot of office work to catch up on, so I expect to spend a lot of time on that this week.
Creativity
I am going to try my hardest to get some actual sewing done this week. The fabric for the band fundraiser table runners is here and I’ve pre-washed it all and am in the middle of cutting it to size. I’m a little optimistic that I might get these done quickly.
I need to really, really get knitting on the secret Christmas knitting project(s). Eek!
Gardening
The tomatoes. Oh, the tomatoes. The green ones are ripening on the counter, so that’s good. We’ll be using a lot of the pureed pumpkin this week, which makes me pleased. I’m hoping we’ll get the garden cleaned out this upcoming weekend, too.
Celebrating
Happy Halloween Week! The kids have costumes, I bought candy, and there are pumpkins for carving, but I don’t know if they’ll get carved at all. There is ONE carved pumpkin, so everything’s ok in a minimalist fashion.
Community
Pep Band potluck this week
The work continues to get ready for the band fundraiser
Ward Choir sheet music is arriving on schedule
I still need to find a pianist(s) for our Christmas program
I need to schedule the special musical performances for November and December
Top priorities this 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
Last week’s decision to have little goals to work towards each day was a great success! I felt like I was going to be physically ill at the end of Monday and Tuesday from the effort, but by Wednesday I could do each thing each day with relative ease. Unfortunately, I caught a cold from one of the kids and the symptoms began manifesting on Thursday evening, so I didn’t get much more done after that point. I felt much better by this last Monday and have been slowly ramping up efforts yet again. It’s nice to actually do stuff again!
Cooking
This week’s meal plan:
Monday: Pizza (Michael)
Tuesday: Corn & Zucchini Soup, Whole Wheat Rolls
Wednesday: Beef & Pumpkin Stew that turned out terrible, so I converted it into a Beef & Pumpkin Curry that was more than decent
Thursday: Pork & Tomatillo Stew
Friday: TBD
Saturday: Marry Me Pasta, Salad
Sunday: TBD
Clothing
Just trying to get strong enough to handle doing laundry again. The goal is one load a day and I’ve met that goal once thus far this week.
Cleaning
Cleaning is still a little strenuous for me, so I’m doing light tidying. The kids don’t like that I’m noticing messes now and I’m coherent enough to keep on top of them to clean up after themselves. They’re good kids, but geez, if they aren’t going to be nagged to clean, they are not going to do it. I could worry unnecessarily about this, but I was the same way when I was their ages, and I got my act together at some point. I’ll just keep nagging and hope they sort themselves out in the future.
Caring
When I was cutting up garden vegetables for freezing, I took the time to dice up some of the green peppers, and added some onion and garlic to the bag so Michael could have a ready-to-go bag of diced veggies for when he makes roasted potatoes for breakfast on the weekends. It’s a little thing, but I hope it makes him feel loved. He hates chopping things because his hands are better suited for brute strength activities and not so much for fine motor things like dicing vegetables.
Creativity
I did not finish a penguin block last week because I got sick. I also realized that I’ve been having a hard time with this quilt because I’m making it out of flannel, which I’m not enjoying piecing with at all. I’d like to sit down and calculate whether or not it’s feasible to finish this quilt before Christmas decorating season this year—if it’s not feasible I might move onto something else for the time being.
Oh…I will need to move onto something else for a little while. The decorations for the band’s big fundraiser are looking more than tired and we’ve decided to replace the table runners this year, which I’ll be sewing up. I ordered the fabric today, so I don’t know when it will get here, but I’ll start working on those once the fabric arrives.
I also need to keep going on the secret Christmas knitting. I was supposed to be 50% done with one project last weekend, but I’m only at the 25% mark. Eek. I do have a fabulous excuse, but still…I like to finish my projects no matter what.
Gardening
There was a Freeze Warning issued yesterday and I made the decision to just harvest everything in the garden, ripe or not, seeing that it’s the end of October and true freezes can legitimately start happening now. I had hoped to focus on getting caught up on office type things this week, but Mother Nature forced my hand and I’ve been processing produce for storage. Mostly chopping and freezing things because canning feels like it would be too much at the moment. I think I will try to can up some Green Tomato Mincemeat tomorrow, though. I’ve read good things about the recipe, and there’s a lot of green tomatoes sitting on my counter. I’m absolutely chuffed over the garden’s output this year. It’s easily my best year of gardening ever; I just wish I had been strong enough to can a lot of the veggies because that’s one of my goals in life. I aspire to have the pantry full of jewel-toned jars of homemade yumminess lining the walls. It’s always such a beautiful sight.
See that huge zucchini in the box? It yielded twenty-two cups of shredded zucchini! That’s a lot of future zucchini bread!
Celebrating
The girls are helping with the church Halloween party and Renaissance cut down my corn stalks after we harvested the corn and she’s planning to tie them up nice so they can be placed on the front porch as decorations. Rachel ordered herself a costume from Amazon and Nathaniel has come up with the laziest costume that will still work for him, so we’re covered on costumes. Yay, Halloween. Should probably buy some candy to hand out.
Community
Ward Choir: We’re changing our meeting time and I’m meeting with my pianist this week to discuss Christmas music. I was not able to attend our last/first rehearsal because I wasn’t feeling well, so a friend ran the rehearsal, for which I’m very thankful. I am really hoping to be done with feeling poorly and get these Christmas rehearsals going!
Band Boosters: We had another fundraiser planning meeting this week and made a lot of decisions. So much work to do! Music programs in our schools do not happen on their own, folks! I am thisclose to creating vinyl lettering for my van’s rear window that has a Venmo QR code for people to donate to for the band. People donate to bachelorette parties, why not music in our schools? I truly wonder if that would work…?
Top priorities this week:
Processing the garden harvest. Ren and I have ploughed through a lot of it already, but still need to figure out what to do with the tomatoes that are over-ripe, under-ripe, and green. We also need to puree a pumpkin, and I want to oven-roast the green cherry tomatoes to have on-hand for adding a handful to soups for extra flavor, etc.
Ward Choir logistics.
Band Booster everythings.
Walks. They stopped happening while I was feeling unwell, so I need to get back in the habit.
Secret Christmas knitting, because I’m behind on it, but also because it forces me to take a break during the day and I can feel that I’m sometimes a little more tired than I should be due to the harvest processing.
I wish you all a happy and productive week! It’s so nice how good you feel when you’re able to dig in and just get some work done! Ren and I worked hard this morning in the kitchen and while we were eating lunch she sighed and said, “It’s just a good day. I did work that matters and that I like doing, and I’m eating a lunch that tastes good. That’s a good day.” I just looked at her and felt so proud. She gets it. Life is a lot of work, but a lot of the work is really enjoyable if you let it be enjoyable. Hopefully this beautiful time of year brings you numerous opportunities to enjoy the work that’s being asked of you!
Alright friends, we are gearing up for the true craziness of graduation and end-of-school season. I’m a little jealous of my Utah friends who are already done with their kids’ school year, just as I’m only really beginning to get going with the end of ours. At least all the work is comprised of good things, right? It’s busy, and busy isn’t a bad thing.
Cooking
This week’s meal plan:
Monday: Memorial Day BBQ
Tuesday: Orange Chicken bowls
Wednesday: Pork burritos
Thursday: Leftovers/Something easy
Friday: BBQ Chicken
Saturday: BBQ, etc.
Sunday: Warm Goat Cheese and Chicken Salad
Clothing
Just keep trying to get on top of the laundry
Tailor Rachel’s new church dresses, if I can find the time
Go through bag of boy clothes that I found in closet and see if they’ll fit Nathaniel
Rotate out cold weather wardrobes, if I can find the time
Make sure everyone has clothes for graduation
Check fit of Ren’s recital dress, make plans for tailoring if needed
Cleaning
Clean oven
Clean pantry
Clean toaster (Let’s be honest, this is the only one that has a shot at being completed this week!)
Caring
Try to do more drives with Emily, but the schedule is super tight this week
Caring will be accomplished simply by making sure everyone is fed and showing up to things on-time this week
Creativity
I’d like to be 25% done with Renaissance’s graduation quilt by the end of the week.
I need to start working on the bunting for her grad party decorations
I’m learning how to make graduation leis as well, and would like to finish three of them to hand out at graduation next week.
Gardening
Goodness, am I glad we did all that work over the weekend. Good job, Memorial Day Weekend Brooke Family!
Need to plant the berries in containers
Need to plant corn and beans. I might throw pumpkins into the same patch to test out the whole “Three Sisters” idea. Kids are onboard to find out if it truly works.
Need to play front porch containers.
Lawn feeding
Celebrating
Renaissance will get a lot of opportunities to wear her graduation cap and gown throughout the next week. I didn’t realize how many different things she was going to be doing in that getup. I’ll have to stay on top of steaming/ironing the gown so it doesn’t look wrinkly.
I need to do a lot of ordering of supplies for the grad party.
Get creative work done now so I can free up time to work on food later.
Taskify food preparation
Submit rental orders
Respond to people who have offered to lend supplies
Get recital program squared away
Community
I’m about to have another calling in the next week or two, whenever they officially call me, and I’ll need to organize that. I’m going to ease into that calling rather slowly because I am monstrously busy right now. I should have told them I could launch into the calling following Ren’s grad party and to hold off until that date, but I wasn’t thinking at that moment. Sigh.
I need to get June’s hymns squared away and posted
I have new ministering sisters and assignments and I need to make contact and figure all that out
Band Boosters follow-ups
Check on available water bottles for graduation
Top priorities this week:
Graduation & recital clothing
Graduation quilt progress
Party decorations & ordering progress
Planting last of plants in garden
June’s hymns
Alright, off I go to do all the things! I wish you a productive week as well.
Oh my goodness, summer school registration is cutthroat in our district. I arrived thirty minutes before the doors opened to the counseling center and the line was almost going out of the front door of the school. I was successful in securing Nathaniel a spot in the classes he’ll take over the summer to open up the rest of his schedule to accommodate four years of band in high school. Whew!
This week has felt like it’s been all about Nathaniel! He came down with something Monday night and has spent the entire week just hanging out with a 103-104˚F fever. I ended up taking him to the pediatrician on Wednesday because he was looking really awful, even for being sick, and they tested him for a ton of stuff. All the rapid tests came back negative, so we’re waiting on cultures. This has been a rough illness. I made Michael stay home from work on Friday so someone could be with the boy while I was at work because I was worried about him. Thankfully, his fever broke on Friday and he was feeling a lot better, so he could join the marching band in their last parade of the year on Saturday.
Gardening
I put in a huge day in the garden on Monday and cleared the weeds out of two big areas of the garden. This made my back extremely unhappy for a few days, but it was worth it. I also planted a few of my started seeds—zucchini, summer squash, slicing cucumbers, pickling cucumbers, cilantro and a lot of marigolds—and direct sowed some bush green beans, more cabbage than we’ll ever need, zinnias, cosmos and some more sunflowers that the slugs already ate. Clearing out weeds helped me find a number of slugs so I could send them to their eternal torment of an afterlife.
It’s so fun to see things coming up and blooming! The peas are doing well, the nasturtiums are definitely coming along, and the radishes and lettuces are starting to gain some steam. The carrots are slow starting and slugs keep getting my sunflower sprouts, so I’m keeping an eye on those crops.
Clothing
Some laundry has been done, but not the amount needed to truly make a difference. I did wash Rachel’s choir dress, so it’s ready for whenever she needs it.
Cleaning
I did a good job on getting the kitchen reset and the girls have been doing a pretty good job at maintaining it.
I’ve addressed and mailed about half of Renaissance’s graduation party invitations. I really hope people remember to RSVP. It’s so nerve-wracking to depend on RSVPs. I once received zero RSVPs for one of my kids’ birthday parties, so I made plans to do something else so my child didn’t have to wait around at home for no one to show up. I left a note on our door that said we’d received zero RSVPs and so we had made other plans, and came home to wrapped gifts left on our doorstep. I know I was in the right with my actions, but I still feel terrible about it. It’s not hard to RSVP, DO IT. I even made it super simple and put a QR code on the invite. I am still terrified that I’ll get three RSVPs and then eighty people will show up. I think this will be a situation where I will definitely have to phone around two weeks before the party and nail down the RSVPs myself because food-wise I could be in a lot of trouble if I don’t have a definite head count. People just always make you feel so pushy and high-strung when you do that, but what else should they expect? Ugh, this is one of my soapbox topics. Just RSVP, people. The same day you get the invitation. We all have our calendars on our phones, so we already know whether we’re available or not. Yes or no, I don’t care; I just need to know how many people I need to feed. RSVPs save the sanity of the hostess. Be kind to the hostess.
I’ve almost got the menu planned out; I just need to check in Ren to see how involved she wants to be with food prep so I can decide on the desserts. When you have an aspiring pastry chef in your family, their involvement greatly influences what you offer for desserts at a gathering.
Decoration plans are good and supplies should be arriving soon. I need to come up with some activities as well, mostly to keep people’s younger children occupied. Space might be at a premium, though, so judicious planning is needed.
Community
I don’t like to publish where my kids are going to be ahead of time because that seems unsafe, so another thing we had on our plates this past week was the Rhododendron Parade. It’s quite the drive from where we are and we invite our middle school’s eighth graders to also participate so they can see what all the fun is about in the hopes that they’ll continue with band in high school, which meant, for the only time ever, Nathaniel marched in a parade in the same band as Renaissance.
In years past the eighth graders have also gotten to wear a high school marching band uniform, but the decision was made in the days leading up to parade that we were going to stop doing that this year, so my hopes of a picture of Nathaniel and Renaissance in matching uniforms together was dashed. Sigh. Our little school district is growing rapidly and it costs $22 to dry clean each used uniform at the end of the year, which hasn’t been that big of an expense in years past, but we had forty eighth graders this year, which would have added $880 to the bill and that’s a pretty big expense for such a small amount of wear.
Luckily, though, we decided to open up the “Band Gear” store to the eighth graders ahead of their freshman year so they can have band swag before the football games start in the autumn, and we were able to deliver their new band gear to them at the rehearsal prior to the parade, so many of them were wearing those items, my son included. Adorable.
I really enjoy being involved with our band program and am so thankful that the booster president approached me at tip-off two years ago to see if I’d be interested in helping out. It’s been a great way for our family to spend time together and serve together. It’s sad to see Renaissance’s band days come to an end, but we still have four more years of Nathaniel in band! And I’ll be dragging our family along for the ride the entire time because I was elected to be the band booster president this next school year. Get ready for even more band booster craziness, y’all!
We have a big end-of-the-school-year BBQ at a nearby park after the parade, and I was able to get some really photos of the kids and even one of Michael while we were there:
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It was a good and busy week, thankfully, and I hope to keep pushing forward and getting everything put back together in the house. There’s so many good things coming up in the weeks ahead! What an exciting phase of life! See you next week!
That Crafty Cara 