Beaded Embroidery – That Crafty Cara

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:

Cooking

This week’s meal plan:

Monday: Chicken Shawarma (Emily), Cherry Tomato Salad w/ Burrata & Pesto
Tuesday: Grilled Chicken, Cantaloupe Soup, Grape Salad, Breadsticks
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!

I cannot believe that it is still the month of May. So much has been going this month that is seems like it’s been two months in one. What a busy, fun time of year!

Top priorities this past week:

Get grad party invitations out
Get Christmas tree down
Garden
Cleaning
Laundry

Celebrate

Graduation party invitations are almost all mailed or delivered, yay!

The Christmas trees are officially dismantled and stored away until November. For future reference, Future Cara, it only took an hour to take down the giant Christmas tree, so stop dragging your feet about it in the future. And also, Future Cara, you are freakishly busy from January through May for the next four years, so take down the Christmas stuff before the New Year. Just do yourself that favor. Please.

Garden

It’s radish season! I need to spend some quality time with my mandoline slicer in the next weeks. We’ve not eaten a lot of radishes as a family, but boy howdy are my kids going to get some exposure in coming days! I purposely planted a purple variety in the hopes that it will make Rachel happier about eating them.

One of my big plans for the Memorial Day weekend is to get the garden and yard cleaned up and we spent a big chunk of yesterday doing that. There’s still so much work to do, but we got a lot of the worst of it done so I’m hoping that tomorrow’s work will see it through to the end of everything.

There are so many signs of potential in the garden right now from the little bits of work that we’ve been doing up until now. It’s so exciting to watch spring burst onto the scene. I really, really love seasons and how everything changes and has signs about new parts of life on the horizon. There’s so much excitement in nature!

Cleaning

Prom preparation messes have been cleaned up. I also ordered a storage box for fancy hair accessories so we can store them out of the way during most of the year and be able to find them easily when the next dance rolls around. Ren and Rachel have amassed a beautiful collection of formal hair accessories over the years, and it’d be a shame to lose them.

Prom dress construction has almost been cleaned up. I just need to clean up the leftover fabrics and I’m dreading opening the tote bins of apparel fabric and potentially finding out there’s no room for the prom dress scraps. I’m making myself write that down because it’s such a silly reason to be avoiding a task, and hopefully, by writing it out and acknowledging how ridiculous it is, I’ll be extra motivated to just bite the bullet and get this rather simple task done.

My back was hurting a lot this week from overdoing it in my Tuesday workout, so I didn’t get a lot more cleaning done. I traded off for getting a lot of office work and grad party planning done.

Clothing

I made a little bit of a dent in the looming folding pile. It’s nice to reclaim the space that’s been storing the laundry bins of clean clothes .

Highlights

Nathaniel had his last Cross Country meet this week. All season long he has consistently run his 2 miles in 15:55-16:05 minutes. All season long. After his last race he quickly logged on to the website that reports their times and a look of disbelief and then joyful surprise crossed his face: Somehow, even after having to take a week off of practices due to being sick all last week, he shaved off an entire minute and finished his race with a time of 14:55! He was a very happy boy for the rest of the evening.

Renaissance had her final band concert and it was such a great evening. She had a solo in jazz band, the entire concert was fun and upbeat and sincerely impressive with the music each group was playing, and then we had a reception afterwards with cake and treats and a tear-inducing slideshow of the seniors throughout their band years. I really, really love being a band mom and I’ve really enjoyed all these years of helping her make music with her friends. It is incredibly sad that this part of her life is over. I think the only thing that keeps me from being downright depressed about is seeing how excited she is to begin the next phase of her life and her pastry chef training.

Emily and I went out for lunch on Thursday and had a great conversation about her future plans. I don’t want to get my hopes up too much too early, but it feels like she’s starting to get to the end of working through some of the hang-ups that have been plaguing her for the past couple of years and is getting ready to surge forward into adulthood. Sometimes you just need a little extra time to sort stuff out, right? It’s scary to allow that time to take place, but we might be getting to the end of the tunnel. At any rate, she seems to be less anxious about things, which is such a relief. The high schoolers that were in the thick of it during COVID have really struggled with a lot of stuff ever since. Perhaps normalcy is starting to catch back up with them finally?

On Wednesday, when my back was twinging the worst, I gave myself permission to go down a research rabbit hole, partly because I was in too much pain to think logically and partly in the hopes that doing crafty research would help me relax and send the message to my muscles that they could also relax. I spent multiple hours tracking down as much information as I could about bead embroidery and beaded embellishments because I want to continue making formal dresses, but I’m finding that even if you make a gorgeous dress it often needs a little dose of embellishment to truly make it sing, and I think the skill of bead embroidery would be absolutely fantastic to fill that void. I’m thinking about dedicating time over the next year to learning the skill so I can apply it to next year’s prom dresses.

Lowlights

Wednesday’s back pain. Totally did it to myself because I was enjoying my workout on Tuesday and decided to go for far too long in it. Consistency and moderation win the race, not frenzied extremes. This is a battle I fight in my soul on a daily basis.
I hit a flock of baby birds with my van as I was driving to work on Friday. Not my best Disney Princess moment.

It was a really good week, despite the few setbacks. This really is a lovely time of year and I’m excited for what’s coming our way in the upcoming weeks! End of school year is exciting, exhausting, and fun.