I Forgot that I Finished the Quilt Top

March 24, 2024March 25, 2024Leave a comment

Another week of March complete! There were a few reminders and calendar dates that came out this week that really drove the point home that we’re heading into the last bit of this school year. Renaissance received her cap and gown on Monday, so that big reminder that graduation is approaching is now sitting on my dining room table and I get a little hit to the emotions every time I walk by and see it. Bittersweet.

Top priorities this week:

Finish the Latte Layer Cake quilt, photograph it, and write up the various posts
PROM DRESSES
Rachel choir stuff
Garden
Office/Ward Music/Band Parents

Creativity

Layer Cake Latte Quilt: The top, as needed for the pattern debut, is complete! I still need to photograph it and write up its various social media posts for the release date.
Prom Dresses: Worthy of their own blog post because we are not off to a great start.

Caring

Renaissance and I helped Rachel out this week with her rehearsing and she says it helped. The choir concert went really well, you could hear the improvements from the last time her group performed these pieces. They’ll be leaving in a few weeks for an out-of-state competition, so it is crunch time for these kids. A little stressful for everyone right now.
Band Parents: We have a board meeting set up for tonight to deal with some overdue stuff.
Ward Music: My predecessor has it set up pretty well and pretty far out. This should be easy to jump into.

Gardening

I don’t think I got out there this week. Blame the prom dresses.

Cake, Silks & Pi(es)

March 17, 2024March 19, 2024Leave a comment

I feel like it was a really productive week, which is always nice. My little routine of writing these goals vs. outcomes weekly posts is helping me stay on-track with what I want to accomplish each week. I’m really glad I’ve reinstituted these. Not only are they keeping me focused, but I really enjoy writing them and re-reading them, like a journal. I rarely re-read my handwritten journals, so I don’t learn as much from my writing in those. Blog posts can actually be searched by keyword, for cryin’ out loud. Wonderful.

Top priorities this last week:

Michael’s birthday
Garden
WREF Scholarship application
Prom dresses
Resurrecting music practice time

Celebrating

Michael’s birthday went well, there was an adorable “Among Us wedding cake” made by Renaissance, and each of the kids remembered to get him a gift this year. We did not have steak and potatoes for dinner, as I predicted; he requested fajitas.
The potentially brewing project died a sure death this past week. I’m bummed because it would have been a cool thing to do, but I’m also relieved because it was going to take a lot of time and effort to pull off. Many lessons were learned from this experience that I can apply in the future when such a situation inevitably pops up again.

Gardening

Trellises are in my house, as are some other gardening items.
All seeds needed through the month of April have been secured.
Rhubarb is still small.
I did sow the cabbages, some alyssum, but nothing else.
My sweet peas are just barely starting to sprout! You really have to look for them, but tiny little tendrils are pushing out of the soil!

Community

Renaissance did indeed submit her application for the WREF scholarship! Oh gosh, the arrhythmias…she submitted it yesterday at 2:15pm or so, and the pop-up that came up to confirm submission stated that it was due by 4pm that day. We had planned to work on it that evening, but something came up and we moved the time to earlier, THANK GOODNESS.
Band Parent meeting went well and many things have been scheduled for this last push of the school year. I still have a few office-y things to do for that.

Creativity

At Home:
- Fat Quarter Shop upcoming quilt: Sneak peek video was posted on Friday on Instagram and I’m aware that my videography skills/software need an upgrade. I had planned to finish piecing the top on Saturday and even cleared my whole schedule for it, but some of my children decided to mutiny against their Saturday chores and much time was lost on this quilt because it went towards dialoguing and disciplining. I’m still confused as to why that day went so sideways. As it stands, I’m about 2/3 of the way done with assembling the blocks.
- Prom Dresses: The fabric for Ren’s dress has arrived and I am so in love with it. It’s GORGEOUS. The contrast fabric isn’t as flowy as I would have liked, but we’ll just have to make do because it was the only kind of silk they had that came in the color we wanted. FYI, Shantung silk is not flowy. Tell your friends.

Van Crafting Sessions™: Designing wedding shawls: Newsflash: I’ve not done this before and I’m not good at it. Yet. (#growthmindset) Time was spent wrapping my head around how to actually do this.
Resurrecting music practice sessions: Did not happen because I’ve had them scheduled for the evenings, but now that it’s light outside again we’re actually outside during that time as a family. I’ll need to figure out a different time of day for this.

It was a really, really busy week with a concert on Thursday, which was also Pi Day, so Emily made three pies and because we had three pies chilling at our house I invited Ren’s band friends over after the concert and we all ate pie until 11:15pm. Ha ha. I’m generally an introvert who really appreciates a solid sleep schedule and bedtime, but sometimes you just gotta spend some time with friends. It was a good choice, despite how tired it made me the next day.

Much Music and Considerable Clothing Commissions

March 10, 2024March 19, 2024Leave a comment

It was a week of excess; a week that seemed overwhelming in the beginning and then ended with a smorgasbord of new opportunities on top of an overfilled plate.

Community

All the music went well. The All-District Choir Concert was really, really good; it was the first time they’ve done that concert since 2016 and it really is a special event to see every single choir student in the district performing together in one space.

Wind Ensemble (High School Band) performed at the PLU Invitational on Friday and I went along as a chaperone. They did so good! It was a really enjoyable day hanging out with some of my favorite people.

Jazz Bands (both middle and high school) performed at a swing dance last night. I wasn’t feeling well, so I didn’t go. Michael took good videos and everyone sounded really good.

Clothing

There was a lot of laundry folding, but I’m still not caught up.

I thought a lot about spring, Easter and choir trip wardrobes.

But then Prom was announced and I remembered that it really is a big deal to me to make the girls’ dresses for the high school dances, so everything else has kind of gone out of the window. I almost get my wish of making 1950s spring formal dresses—Rachel is eyeing a vintage Vogue pattern from the 1940s, so close enough. Renaissance’s pattern choice is a gamble that I think is going to work out. I am really excited about both dresses. Since it’s Ren’s senior year, I’ll be making hers from really nice fabrics, and Rachel will have to make do with Casa Collection satin from JoAnn Fabric. I cannot wait for the patterns to arrive in the mail so I can start cranking out the muslins.

Creativity

The Baking Doodle Cowl pattern was finally released on Friday, and there were many nice comments about my particular test knit. Always feels good to receive a compliment.

My knitting queue has been a whirlwind of indecision this week! I spent a lot of time narrowing down a new project and decided to go with finally using a gorgeous skein of spring green laceweight yarn to make a pretty spring shawl. Then I decided it’d look great if I carried a strand of self-striping green mohair with it. I was so excited, and then, after knitting the set-up chart, decided it did not look great.

Which is fine because then I realized that we are in the years where my girls can start getting married, which was brought on by receiving an invitation to the wedding of one of Emily’s friends, which led to some deep discussions about weddings, heirlooms, and traditions, and now I feel like I need to get working on wedding shawls so I can have them already made because LDS engagements are really, really short and I know that I will not have enough time to make their wedding shawls when the time comes.

So I sat down to figure out what patterns I want to use for their shawls and inevitably came to the conclusion that I really just want to design an individual shawl for each girl that weaves together meaningful stitch patterns and symbolism that will carry special meaning for them. SO…I’m going to spend the next few Van Crafting Sessions™ researching and drafting shawl patterns. Which is pretty cool.

Gardening

I accomplished nothing, NOTHING in the garden this last week. Michael and I have started watching the series “Homegrown,” which is about transforming people’s backyards into sustainable gardening spaces, so I’m technically doing research. I learned about mushroom logs! I could grow something in the shady parts of the yard! Except that my family despises mushrooms!

Celebrating

There’s potentially a new project brewing. I won’t say more because I honestly do not know if it’s going to materialize. It would be amazing if it does, but also a ton of work. So I won’t be heartbroken if it doesn’t happen. I would regret the missed opportunity, though. More on that if it gets the green light.

Caring

After months of discussing the possibility, we finally have officially started playing a weekly campaign of Dungeons & Dragons on Monday nights. Michael and I are NOT D&Ders, but somehow all four of our kids love the game. We’ve been struggling to have Family Home Evenings for years, but suddenly it’s not difficult to gather everyone. Hopefully the trend continues.

I was subbing one day last week and one of the teachers actually asked me how our family’s new game night was going. Apparently my kids are really talking about it to anyone who will listen. Whatever works, right? Turns out it’s figuring out how to battle fantasy monsters in Steampunk Victorian England. Feel free to tell your friends.

Flare-ups Happen, It’s OK

March 1, 2024March 2, 2024Leave a comment

There’s not a lot to report for this week because I had to deal with a pain flare-up that required a visit to the emergency room early in the week and had me focused on pain management for a couple of days beyond that. The good news is that I started feeling better yesterday and even managed to tough it out and go to Renaissance and Nathaniel’s band concert, and I was even able to go into work today. Sigh. Take care of your backs, people. So many difficulties start to stem from an injury to your back.

Creativity

I always think I’m going to be able to make great strides in crafting when I’m down and out with a flare-up, but when I have to add pain meds to the mix I can’t craft at all, as crafting + pain meds never ends well. Seeing that I’m pattern testing for other people, I didn’t want to touch those projects and potentially derail them beyond repair. It’s something else when it’s only my time and materials on the line; I won’t risk others’ resources.

So I’m behind on my test knit for the Baking Doodle Cowl. It’s about 50% done. I’m planning to spend a chunk of time working on it some more over the weekend.

I haven’t touched anything else in the craft room, which is a major sad. I did receive some packages of new materials for some projects, but haven’t even opened them. Frustrating week!

Gardening

My little herb garden is now a jungle that will need some pruning over the weekend. I can’t believe how fast these plants are growing! Friendly note: Don’t be afraid to use dill. I cut the dill plant back to almost nothing last Sunday, it had replaced all that growth by Tuesday, and now on Friday it looks to be about three times larger than it was a week ago. I’ve always been so afraid to use my herb plants, but this little countertop experiment is teaching me a lot about the hardiness of these plants! The kids have been given total access to the herbs and are encouraged to decimate the plants for cooking. I’m almost to the point of wondering if we even could kill these plants through culinary usage? Could be a weird goal to set…ha ha ha.

The rhubarb is starting to unfurl legitimate leaves, so I believe I can start using it in a few weeks. I’ll make rhubarb crumbles, make some rhubarb marmalade, freeze some rhubarb for making Blubarb Jam during the summer, and I also saw a recipe on Pinterest for a vanilla rhubarb jelly that looks enticing. Which reminds me that I desperately need to clean out the pantry if I want to have any sort of room for canned goods this year. The pantry is a complete disaster. Oooh, I think I also have some sort of recipe for rhubarb-glazed pork medallions in a cookbook somewhere. I like cooking with rhubarb because it has the added bonus of deep cleaning any pot it’s cooked in. (Did you know it’s the secret ingredient in Bar Keeper’s Friend?) I started a Pinterest board for rhubarb recipes a couple of years ago if you’re looking for some rhubarb options in the coming months!

No sprouting from the sweet peas or peas that I’ve planted. I was supposed to plant another section of peas this week, so hopefully I’ll get to it over the weekend. I’m doing a big experiment with planting times and starting seeds this year, so we’re going to just keep our minds open and remain curious about how things work out with these seeds. I’d really like to establish a planting calendar that works specifically for our property, and the only way to do that is to start and experiment.

The started pansies and delphinium are doing…OK. I need to thin them out and they’re going through water really fast, which is tough to stay on top of. I had five delphinium sprouts two weeks ago, and now I only have two. I struggle to get this type of plant started. I’m going to start some more seeds over the weekend because I adore delphinium plants for their beautiful blue color and their unmatched ability to lend an “English cottage” vibe to the garden. I think I spend about $15-20 for each plant when I buy them from the nursery, so starting my own will save me a lot of money. AND they’re a perennial, so they come back every year! The last ones I had were back in Utah; I haven’t wanted to spend a chunk of cash on them here in Washington. They make me happy, so I’m reestablishing them in the garden this year.

Celebrating

I had to drop one of the parties the kids and I were thinking about doing because I really needed this last week to make progress on it, and that didn’t happen. I’ve made note of everything we were thinking of doing, and I’ll revisit it in the future. The girls still want to throw a spring tea party sometime in April or May, and that is still doable with our remaining time frame, so maybe I’ll just shift focus to that. Plans also need to be made regarding Renaissance’s graduation party, which will take place in June or July. I still have time to get going on that; I just need to remember that it’s out there so I don’t commit to anything that will conflict.

And that’s what happened this week. Some weeks don’t see a lot of forward progress, and that’s ok. The nice thing about a flare-up is that they tend to occur many weeks apart from each other, so I’m looking forward to a handful of really productive weeks!

And congratulations! We made it to March! It only gets better from here! More and more sunlight, we’ll just ignore Daylight Savings Time coming up in a bit, and more and more opportunities to be outside and enjoy the shift from cold to only slightly chilly! I hope you have a great weekend and wish you all the best as you embark upon a new, hopefully sunshine-filled month.