I promised that I’d check back in by the end of January, so here I am! I apologize for the long absence—I was finishing up my last two classes for my master’s degree, and with the start of the school year and all the craziness that accompanies getting three non-driving teenagers to their practices, rehearsals, lessons, and games I knew I wasn’t going to have any time for much else. I hope your autumns were lovely, and I hope this winter isn’t treating any of you too shabbily.
So, yeah…master’s degree officially completed, and I even have the physical diploma to prove it! I am not teaching full-time; in fact, I’m just subbing a couple times a week at my kids’ schools because the process of pursuing my master’s degree really opened my eyes to the enormity of what I do in our home each day, and how important that work is. I’ve always been a huge champion for full-time homemaking, but somewhere along the way I lost sight of my enthusiasm for the endeavor and thought my family would be better served by extra funds. Unfortunately, to have me working full-time outside the home meant a whole lot more unexpected expenses that I hadn’t thought to include in my budget workings, while at the same time cutting down on my time to provide a lot of the domestic labor and relationship-building that is the key to our family being able to survive on one income and have our children feel loved and supported. It was a very eye-opening experience and it has me scrutinizing the thought process that led me to believe that we’d be better off with me working. I’m trying to be more intentional regarding the media I consume because I was heavily influenced by various discontent voices throughout the pandemic, and I regret many of the decisions I made as a result of listening to them. It just goes to show that being an adult doesn’t mean you’ve figured everything out, eh?
So, I’m home again and trying to figure out how to go forward from here. I’d like to pivot with my master’s degree into some sort of creative education sphere, but I’m stumped as to how to make that happen. I am also eyeballs deep in parenting at the moment, so all of those aspirations might just wait until my empty nest phase, which is slated to begin in just four and a half years. Such a bittersweet milestone on the horizon! My life has been kids, kids, kids for almost twenty years now—I foresee considerable difficulties with adjusting to an empty nest existence! Goodness am I glad to have found Michael early on and dedicated everything to building our family. It’s been such a great journey.
I want to blog more because I enjoy it, it doubly serves as a record of what we’re up to throughout the years, and it’s been AMAZING to spend time in the craft room again! However, I’m incredibly without direction at the moment—my back injury improved immensely over the course of my master’s degree program due to the adoption of a yoga routine—so resuming my pre-pandemic levels of craftiness might not be feasible, as I was crafting so much back then largely because I was literally incapable of doing much else around the house due my severe muscle atrophy. Please have patience with me as I figure out healthy levels of housekeeping versus creativity! (The age-old dilemma, yes?) I wholeheartedly believe in the importance of consistently including creative endeavors in one’s schedule to maintain sanity and an enthusiasm for life, but too much of a good thing can create other problems if you’re irresponsible about it!
Happy January, and I hope you’re finding time for some creativity every day during these cold months ahead. I’m looking forward to writing more and hope to give you more posts soon!
(Note: I wrote this yesterday [Sunday] because my weekdays are super busy and I’ve no time for blogging on Monday mornings.)
I came across the Happy Homemaker Monday link-up last autumn and earmarked it as something I wanted to do once I got done with grad school because I’m still a homemaker at heart who loves to make my home comfy and beautiful. I love reading through Sandra’s thoughts and her enthusiasm for taking care of her home and family, and it’s hard to find blogs like that these days. So here’s my first, of hopefully many, Happy Homemaker Monday posts:
The Weather:
We have some lovely summers here in the Pacific Northwest, and we are in the middle of some great weather right now. It was pretty warm last week, so this little bit of cooling is welcome. It will make our afternoon activities much more bearable.
As I Look Outside My Window:
We are “allowing” the garden “to lie fallow” this year because I was too busy with school to get out into it during the spring, but it’s making me a little squirrelly to see it be so fraggly. The kids have their weeding chores and the weeds are slowing being eradicated, so that’s good. I just have to keep telling myself that this is a not gardening year. ((shudder))
I did go buy some basil plants and a tomato plant because it’s just not summer if there’s not basil and tomatoes in my garden. I now visit them every evening after Michael and I get back from our after dinner walk. Makes me happy.
I missed the window for harvesting my lavender. I was going to try my hand at making lavender wands this year, but alas. Oh well, it’s still very pretty to look at.
I love our super shaded front porch so much. The kids and I have been spending a lot of time out there eating ice cream, drinking drinks, working on hand projects…it’s a great little spot that doesn’t get sunbaked and is hidden from the view of people walking by on the street.
Right Now I Am:
Waiting for my Lime Curd Bars with Coconut Crust to cool on the counter so I can bring them to church for our “Linger Longer” after meetings are done. Michael is giving one of the talks in sacrament meeting today, too, so I’m thinking about ways to make it better.
Thinking & Pondering:
Renaissance’s birthday party
How to explain/teach goal-setting to teenagers
I’d like to throw a Mother/Daughter Halloween tea this autumn
How in the world will I organize Rachel’s bedroom after I gut it this week?
Do I just quilt the Patriotic baby quilt on my regular machine, or do I go forward with cleaning off my cutting table to make way for the Big Boy sewing machine with the super throat that I bought last summer? I think a cutting table clean-off would require gutting the craft room, and I can’t gut more than one room at a time or my house will burst into flames and weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. The kids’ bedrooms are the priority right now, so I think I have to quilt on my regular machine, which I’m not very excited about.
Listening to:
My main man, Claude Debussy, as I try to keep the energy chill in the house on this beautiful summer morning.
How Am I Feeling:
Last week was a huge disruption to my routine, as most holidays are, and I still feel a little off-kilter. Sleep hasn’t been great for various reasons. I’m hoping this all evens out in the upcoming week. I’m excited about the improvements I’m making in the house. I wish it wasn’t such hard work, but it is definitely worth it.
On the Breakfast Plate:
I used to be much cooler, breakfast-wise. Now it’s just a protein bar, pills, and caffeinated water before yoga, followed by a protein shake after yoga. Renaissance makes me an egg sandwich on the mornings that we work out together.
On the Lunch Plate:
I still hate lunch. Dumb lunch, interrupting my work flow. However, I’ve been grilling up a few chicken breasts every other day so the kids can add chicken to whatever they’re eating and up their protein intake. I’ve been noticing that they are ingesting very carb-heavy meals and I’m trying to curb that tendency.
On the Dinner Plate:
(Sunday) Michael will make tacos tonight!
What I’m Wearing:
My favorite pink gingham shirtwaist dress, which I wear to death and will eventually need to reverse engineer to recreate a million more.
Hopefully nothing; I like to keep my television watching to bad weather days. I did binge-watch some Clarkson’s Farm last week when I wasn’t feeling well.
On the Menu:
I meal plan on Saturday mornings, so my plan started a couple of days ago:
Saturday: Italian Sloppy Joes
Sunday: Tacos
Monday: Spaghetti, Green Beans, Caesar Salad, French Bread
Tuesday: North Carolina Pulled Pork (new recipe!), Corn on the cob, Broccoli Slaw
Friday: Cedar Plank Salmon, Baby Potatoes, Caesar Salad, Rolls
Looking Around the House:
We’re in the midst of decluttering the kids’ bedrooms. I’m pretty much finished with Emily’s and Nathaniel’s room, but some of their stuff is randomly strewn about the house. Everything’s messy after a year of grad school, but this summer is the antidote to that messiness and we’ll crawl out from underneath the weight of the clutter by the time school starts back up.
To-Do List This Week, beyond the obvious laundry and like:
Start gutting and deep cleaning Rachel’s room. Oh, this is going to be a BIG job.
Move forward with plans for Renaissance’s birthday party
Go to the DOL and renew Renaissance’s driver’s permit
Driving practice sessions for both Renaissance and Rachel
Maybe plant some seeds in the garden for autumn crops?
Get graduation cards and thank you cards sent out
Devotional:
I’m experimenting with a new spiritual practice of choosing a word each week and pondering on what that word means to me, character-wise and in practical application. This week’s word is “energy.” I’ll report on what I came up with next week.
This last week’s word was “sunshine,” and I didn’t spend a lot of time with it because I was feeling crummy. But I do love that it’s a word that describes something tangible and also can be applied as a positive adjective.
What does it mean to me to embrace sunshine in my life?
Physically: Getting as much of it as I can during these summer months and being oh-so-grateful for it because I know I’ll miss it dearly come January, February, and March. Being careful with it because too much of a good thing can be very harmful indeed.
Emotionally: Making the choice to look on the bright side of things. The last few years have been an interesting experiment of watching people become what they fixate upon. I am more and more convinced that focusing on the negative just breeds more negativity in one’s life. You don’t have to scream about all the bad things in the world all the time in order to change them. Better to stay calm, be cheerful and cordial, strive to make things beautiful and lovely, AND work the proper channels to fix what’s wrong. Screaming doesn’t help things, but writing letters, voting, and contributing funds to important causes does. Better to do those things quietly and live your daily life gracefully so you can be a bringer of sunshine to yourself and those around you, rather than making people dread interacting with you and avoiding the causes you’re passionate about because you’ve soured them towards them with your ranting and seething. I accomplish much more positive change when I’m calm, collected, and cheerful, and our home is such a lovely sanctuary from the stress of the world when Mama is content. My husband and children deserve a safe place to land each evening.
Well, that’s everything. What a delightful exercise in noticing what’s going on around me and contemplating my actions for the upcoming week. I enjoyed writing this post! I wish you all a beautiful and productive week ahead!
Years upon years ago, I discovered the Houseworks Holiday Plan, which would later be renamed the House & Holiday Plan. It was originally published on the OrganizedChristmas website, which has since shut down. Since I’d printed out all of the schedules, checklists, and printables in 2011, I was still okay to continue with my tradition of following the plan each autumn, which I’ve attempted to do every year.
I’ve never completed the entire plan. I think I’ve been attempting to complete it since 2005 or 2006, and I’ve never made it all the way through because there was no way to complete those room-specific decluttering and cleaning tasks in the one week allotments when you’ve got four children and you’re dealing with back-to-school activities. I was thinking on this predicament during one of my planning periods during the last week of teaching school this year and realized I could just start the plan earlier and schedule extra time for decluttering the kids’ bedrooms. Don’t you just hate it when you have such a simple idea that really should have occurred to you, like, a DECADE ago?!?! Ugh.
The house is destroyed, which was the expectation after spending a year studying and student teaching, so at least things aren’t worse than originally planned. Regardless, there’s a lot of work to do to get things back in shape around here. I hit the “go” button on the House & Holiday Plan this last week and will use the extra time to get things reorganized over the summer. I’ve allocated two weeks to each kid bedroom, my bedroom, and the craft room for a total of ten weeks of decluttering, deep cleaning, organizing and, hopefully, a little redecorating and prettying up.
I started with Nathaniel’s and Emily’s shared bedroom this week because: 1) It’s got the most stuff in it, and 2) We never did a thorough clean out/declutter when Emily went off to college in the fall because she decided at the last minute to live on-campus and I actually packed up her stuff while she was at class before dropping it off that evening. Yeah, I packed up my kid in less than twenty-four hours. (Last summer was super stressful!!) I was too busy to deal with the leftovers and it’s been waiting for me for almost an entire year to get back to it. Well baby, I’M BACK FOR IT.
I like to completely gut a room when I’m doing a deep clean–take out every last thing, physically touch everything à la Marie Kondo and decide if it’s going to be kept, donated, or thrown away. This means that my living room is currently holding every physical possession of Nathaniel’s and Emily’s. So, another mess in order to deal with the original mess. *mirthless chuckle*
But, man, does it feel good to empty out an engorged room, rearrange the furniture, deep clean that sucker, and then judiciously bring things back in. *satisfied sigh*
So that’s what I’m up to right now, and I plan to come back next Friday/weekend and show you some pictures of something organized. I do much better when I have deadlines, so there it is–let’s get a bedroom put back together and prettified.
The weather has done its thing where it finally shifts from dragged-out summer to definitely autumn, and that always puts me into a reflective mood. Another year is beginning its spiral towards completion, while at the same time being in full-on chaotic upswing due to the steady hum of a new school year and the holiday season sneaking up behind us. It’s a weird little time in the calendar year: A constant pull between calming down and ramping up.
I’ve not posted much this year. I made a decision, many years ago, to not post while feeling overly emotional or snarky, and every time I’ve broken that rule, I’ve regretted it. So I heeded the wisdom of a lesson learned the hard way, multiple times, and kept myself to myself and focused on my children. It seems to be the most winning of strategies when I’m working through difficult phases of life. We had a quiet spring, a quiet summer, and were ready and refreshed to tackle what autumn had in store for us, and wow, autumn has not held back on amazing moments. I’m so glad we were in prime form to go with its energetic current of events.
But then the rain (mercifully) started up this morning, and I decided to take a pause on this Friday and still myself after so much rushing. The kids are doing so good right no; it’s so great to watch them blossom. That blossoming comes with a lot of driving them around and last-minute schedule changes, but remember how two years ago there was nothing for them to go to? This frenzy is evidence of life being lived. I’m so grateful that we’re in this moment of time, moving on from what was a very difficult couple of years.
I don’t write a lot here because I’m not creating a whole lot of stuff these days. I don’t know what to write about to you all anymore. I struggled with this same conundrum years ago when I shifted out of homeschooling–what do you write about on a homeschooling blog when you’re not homeschooling anymore? I tried to morph into a homemaking blog, but readers abandoned me in droves, so I packed it up and called it good. Thankfully, I was getting going with the crafty stuff, and that created this blog. But here we are again, with no crafting happening, and me wondering about what to write about now?
I am busy with my children. I am busy with cooking, laundry, and cleaning. There are blogs enough out there that talk about those topics, and they’re not really topics I feel like I have much to write about–we all need to eat, we all need to not be naked, and we need to keep ourselves and our homes clean enough to stay healthy. It’s not a calling in life–it’s just life, regardless of your relationship and parental status. Everyone eats, everyone wears clothes, everyone cleans. I don’t know how to craft essays about those topics that will make us feel better about them.
But maybe I’ll try. It’s nice to have a written record to read in future years. (I go back and read through my homeschooling blog once or twice a year because I dearly love reminding myself of the cute things the Brookelets were doing during their elementary years!)
And maybe I’ll find time to craft again in the future, but it’s not looking like my time will open up anytime soon. I knit a little when I watch TV, and I have a knitting bag in the van for when I’m waiting to pick up kids, but it’s slow progress and nothing like when I was actively trying to create content for this blog and Instagram. (It’s so nice to take a break!) Most of my favorite craft bloggers admit they now have teams helping them produce content, and I refuse to try to keep up with it all. We have so many quilts in our house, and the kids no longer want new winter hats each year–there’s just no demand in our home for most of what I craft anymore, and that’s ok…it was fun while it was desired. What is needed from me right now are the basics and the logistics and they are all-time-consuming. We are making hay while the sun shines on these awesome teenage years!
It’s a great time of parenthood, and I do not resent how much of my time it is taking to help my kids flourish. This is what we’ve been working towards all these years and it is Go Time now. All the preparation, all the lessons, all the learning…it’s all coming into play as they start taking their very own footsteps out into the world and start showing up for themselves at the things they’re choosing to continue…and I am the woman behind the curtain, making sure they show up on time in a clean, healthy, and calm state. It’s just so much fun to watch it all come together in these precious moments.
So that’s what’s going on here, and I’ll share what I’m comfortable sharing when I have the time, but it’s hardcore busy around these parts right now, and I have very little knitting to show for it.
I hope you are all having a fantastic autumn season (spring for you southern hemisphere folks!) and I wish you a beautiful season of joy and contentment to help refill our precariously-drained wells after so many years of isolation and suffering. Enjoy living life again!
Oh my goodness, I will never forget this year and a lot of those memories will revolve around all the face mask sewing I’ve done…and have yet to do. It occurred to me last week, given that my kids are slated to return to school in the autumn for 2-4 days a week, depending on what school they attend, that I need to get my behind in gear in regards to mask production. I’ve done some mathing and decided that I need to sew up fifty-two masks to comfortably outfit my family of six.
Here’s my reasoning:
#1: I’ve been out in public, wearing my mask like a good girl, and I’ve noticed that those things can get pretty damp, if not downright soggy, after 3-4 hours, so I’m going to send my kids to school with two masks each day and instruct them to swap them out at lunch. Soggy masks are hot and make your skin itch, yuck. So, two masks for each day scheduled for on-campus learning per child = 4-8 masks per kid.
#2: I’m planning on doing a massive “mask washing” day once a week because I prize my sanity. You should wash your mask after each wearing, which means more masks because of the once-a-week laundry schedule. (Note to self: Set up a mask bucket to hold used masks in the laundry room.)
#3: We’ve had the problem of the kids forgetting to bring a mask with them when we go places and having to drive back home to get their masks, so I want a full family set of masks in each vehicle.
#4: I want a full family set of masks set up by the front door for all the reasons I can’t think of, and to serve as a replacement set for the inevitable losing of masks.
All in all, it works out to fifty-two masks, split amongst the six of us in their specific ways. Ughhhhhh. But we had a fun time having a family fabric pull in the craft room:
I broke down and bought the Creative Grids mask template, and it is awesome, I love it so much. I was able to cut out all my family’s fabrics lickety-split and I’m almost done cutting out the linings when I find myself with free time. If you’ve got lots of masks to make, it’s a good investment. (And an 18mm rotary cutter…)
Requests to sew masks for others are starting to trickle in, and I imagine that they’ll increase as we get closer to the start of school, but I’m saying no to them all until I get my family’s masks done. I keep telling myself that that is the sane thing to do, but it still makes me sad to decline. But it’d be terrible for me to say I’ll make them and then not get them done and those families having to scramble at the last minute to find masks for school. I’m only one woman, and my first priority is my own family members. It is my hope to make some extras to sell/give away later, but we’ll have to see how the rest of the summer shapes up for that aspiration. Summer vacation with nowhere to go and most things closed is really testing my patience as a parent…sigh. Some things you get through, and some things you just get dragged through until they’re done…
…like sewing face masks. 😉 (Tula Pink Fairy Dust and rainbow top-stitching makes it a whole lot more fun to do, though. Highly recommended.)
(And if I get these masks done and my school district decides to follow in San Diego’s footsteps and cancel anyway, I. will. not. be. O. K.)
