Forty Pounds of Ground Beef, Amongst Other Things

October 18, 2026October 20, 2026Leave a comment

Monday

Nothing much to report. Regular stuff.

Tuesday

I dropped off both the Penguin Party Quilt and the Layer Cake Crepe Quilt at the quilter’s house! She’s already begun quilting the Penguin Party Quilt.

I went out donation-hunting with one of the Current Band Moms for an entire afternoon.

Michael, after years of listening to me complain that we need more Halloween decorations in our front yard so that the children will know to come to our house, surprised me and put up a bunch of Halloween decorations while I was at the church running a rehearsal that evening.

Wednesday

Nathaniel had his yearly check-up. While getting into the car to drive to the doctor’s office I received a text from the school informing me that they were in lockdown for a safety issue. “No biggie,” I thought, “my kid’s not even there.”

While sitting in the waiting room, walking Nathaniel through how to fill out his own family medical history form, I got a phone call from Renaissance, who had almost passed out at school and needed me to come pick her up because she didn’t feel well enough to drive. “I can’t do that right now because I’m at the doctor with your brother,” I explained, “but I can come get you when I’m done here.” I phoned Michael, who couldn’t help me, and then I turned to Ren’s friend’s mothers, aka the “OG Band Moms.” I had help lined up in five seconds.

The “Current Band Moms” group text started getting active. The “safety issue” at the high school was a student with a gun on a bus, threatening to shoot up the school with his buddy. Police were swarming the place. The nurse called us back for Nathaniel’s appointment. I tried to be a good mom and not be on the phone during my child’s appointment, but c’mon! Ailing adult child in one direction and potential school shooting in the other. Longest well-child appointment of my life.

Got a new text from the school as I was pulling into my driveway, saying that the threat had ended and that school would return to normal soon. I told Nathaniel to stay home until one of his friends at school called him and said things were definitely back to normal. Then I left with Ren’s buddy, Riley (son of an OG Band Mom), to drive to her school so we could pick her up and Riley could drive her car back home.

Ren’s instructor wouldn’t let her leave until she got to speak to me, so I had to go inside for a chat that made me decide to take Ren to the Emergency Room. Riley drove her car home while I drove Ren home, and then I took Ren into the Emergency Room, where we spent the rest of the day. Seriously. 11:00am-7:25pm.

Silver lining: I finished the Husband Christmas Socks.

Other good news: Kid with the gun on the bus didn’t actually have a gun. But he did make threats and was sent away for that.

Thursday

Football Game! Which meant Pep Band/Band Mom duties! Due to the homecoming game being canceled, this was now our big halftime show, PLUS the regularly-scheduled Senior Night AND Eighth Grade Night, where we invite the eighth grade band students to come play with the pep band so they can get a feel for what it will be like if they choose to continue with band in high school.

As part of this event, we host a Taco Potluck, with food assignments given out by grade level. I started up some taco meat in the crockpot, made two other crockpots of beans, and also posted a reminder on Facebook that we really needed people to send food to the potluck because we were expecting 170-190 kids at the dinner that night. (120 high school kids + up to 70 middle school kids.)

The Cross Country team had a restaurant fundraiser that day as well, so I had scheduled to have lunch with the OG Band Moms and one of their sons (not Riley). As I pulled into the parking lot I got a Facebook Messenger notification:

Hi Cara, I saw your post about needing meat for Tacos tonight. I went to our local butcher and they donated 40lbs of ground beef. I can’t cook all of this myself and I only have one crockpot. HELP!

Wait…WHAT?!

I then spent many minutes phoning the person who sent the message and getting the lay of the land, and then I went into Mission Mode to find people to get the meat, disperse it, and get it cooked. I wasn’t the best lunch attendee for the first part of the lunch, but darn it, that ground beef found places to go. (Credit is really due to one of the Current Band Moms who basically took the project over.)

So that was awesome! We ended up having ONE HUNDRED AND NINETY-TWO band students at the potluck. It was so much fun! They took up twice the amount of bleachers in the stadium and it was such a great sight!

Friday

NO. SCHOOL. (Thank you!!)

I went to the gym for the first time in WEEKS, and then I watched movies with Renaissance, who still didn’t feel well, for the rest of the day. I drifted in and out of consciousness.

Saturday

Woke up at 3:00am. Sigh. Decided to use my early start to get caught up on my Ward Activities Committee and Social Media Director callings. That kept me busy until 6:00am. I then spent the rest of the day getting stuff done around the house while Michael worked on grinding all the stumps down in the front yard. It was A LOT of work!

Sunday

8:30am warm-up call for a small women’s choir I was conducting in two sacrament meetings that day. A year ago, before all the ward boundary changes, I was choir director and we were preparing a beautiful SSA arrangement of “The Old Churchyard,” but it didn’t come to fruition. My friend remembered it a couple months ago and asked if I’d consider resurrecting it. So we got the old gang back together, and since the original singers of the song are split between two different wards now, we decided to just go ahead and perform in both of those wards. I DID try to get singers from the other ward as well, but only one panned out. It wasn’t an exclusionary decision.

But yeah, we performed in the 9:00am sacrament meeting and the 11:00am sacrament meeting.

And there was a Linger Longer after church ended, so I helped with setting that up and making sure it went smoothly.

And then there was ward choir after the Linger Longer, so I went to that. Our pianist had gone home, so I also played the piano (read: plunked out single parts because Cara is NOT a piano player) for ward choir.

And now I am home and I am very tired and I bid you adieu.

This Week’s Progress

Dropped off the Penguin Party quilt and the Layer Cake Crepe quilt at the quilter’s house.
Tended to a very sick adult child.
Finished the 2026 Husband Christmas Socks.
Dealt with forty pounds of donated ground beef and heartily fed 192 teenagers.
Pulled off a multi-ward women’s choir performance.
Helped with a very successful Linger Longer.
#absolutelyrockingit

So Much for a Breezy Homecoming

October 4, 2026October 7, 20261 Comment

This last week went COMPLETELY SIDEWAYS! Lemme break it down…

Homecoming Chaos

I woke up last Sunday thinking I had homecoming completely under control. No dresses to make or hem, only a tie and corsage to purchase, and that was already done. Dinner and photos set up. This was going to be a BREEZE.

And then I went to church.

I caught up with the other two moms of the boys going to homecoming and found out that one of the boys’ dates was gluten-sensitive. The mom who had originally volunteered to host dinner at her house declared that she was really uncomfortable with feeding someone with a gluten sensitivity, and the other mom, who was already taking the photos, was super busy that day and also not completely comfortable with the responsibility of providing a gluten-free dining experience. So I volunteered to take over. I have a handful of friends with gluten intolerances whom I have fed in the past, so I knew I could handle it.

Alright, I could host a dinner for five teenagers. The theme of the dance was something like “Nights in Rio,” so I decided we’d go with something that would be easy to make gluten-free: Mexican-ish, which I could pass off, in the most white bread of ways, as Brazilian/South American. My husband loves to grill, so he said he’d make carne asada and fajita veggies. The other moms volunteered to bring the cilantro rice and fruit platter, and the grandmother of one of the boys heard of the theme and insisted I take a strawberry horchata drink mix home with me to serve them, which I thought was the cutest thing ever. That left me to prepare the beans, taco toppings, tortillas (wheat and corn), and desserts (which Renaissance took over). Renaissance made her now-famous pumpkin spice cupcakes (not gluten-free) because Nathaniel requested them, and then she also made Brazilian brigadeiros and pineapple-coconut sorbet.

I was thinking about what it would be like to be a teenage girl who just learned that she’d be having dinner at her date’s house, and I decided I wanted to make it a little fancier for them than “dinner at home” because, c’mon, it’s HOMECOMING. I decided to keep leaning into the “Nights in Rio” theme and turn my dining room into an elegant Brazilian(ish) restaurant.

I sent out a request on my ward’s Relief Society Facebook group to borrow anything that would support my vision and my sisters in Christ did not disappoint! Linens, serving ware, lighting, florals, greenery…I had ordered a few things from Amazon to decorate with, but ended up not using any of it because my dear friends came through so generously, down to the fairy lights and LED candles! This was SUCH a fun experience, and a reminder that we are all so much better off within a loving community. These ladies were so joyfully committed to giving these dear boys of ours a beautiful homecoming experience from start to finish, and I love them even more for all their help.

So, yeah, kind of chaotic, but it all worked out in the end.

BUT WAIT, I’m not finished!

Because I said CHAOS.

In my #craftygoals post I mentioned that I almost took the Penguin Party Quilt to the quilter’s house this week, but didn’t end up getting to that task.

You know why that was?

Oh, I’ll tell you. Because, in addition to setting up this charming homecoming dinner at home idea, I’m also the president of the band boosters and homecoming means a parade and halftime performance and all the logistics that go into that. But whatever, I’m old hat at this by now.

And then Wednesday happened.

I was working on the homecoming dinner plans and getting ready to reach out to the quilter to set up a time to drop off the Penguin Party quilt, when my phone buzzed with a text. I picked up my phone and saw that it was the Band Booster Board Members’ group chat.

. Secretary: My son just told me the homecoming football game is canceled tomorrow. ???

Me: LoL if that’s true because I just can’t .

. Secretary: He said the other team canceled the rest of their season.

I’ll spare you the rest of the panicked text conversation, but yes, ten minutes later there was an all-district alert sent out stating that our homecoming football game was called off because the other team had ended their season. THE DAY BEFORE our homecoming football game, we found out the opposing football team had canceled the rest of their season.

The school district made the decision to keep the parade on the books and move all the football-game-related stuff (homecoming royalty, marching band halftime performance) to the next football game, so we adjusted a few things surrounding the parade and went to work. The next day and a half involved a lot of texts, waiting for confirmations, and a general feeling of anxiety. But it went fine! Woo hoo!

Parade? Check.

Game? Canceled.

Dinner? Check. (So good…the carne asada smelled AMAZING and I think strawberry horchata is one of my new favorite things!)

Dance? Check.

Wandering around the house on Sunday in a comatose state? Double-check.

An excellent homecoming week, despite the obvious hiccups!

Crafting

As you can guess, not a lot of time for crafting. But since the Husband Christmas Socks live in a portable knitting bag, I have managed to sneak in a few rows here and there. We’re getting into the home stretch with these, I’m so excited!

I am really pining for some time to work on Rachel’s graduation quilt, but I don’t even remember the last time I was in the craft room.

I’m looking at my calendar for the upcoming week and I don’t think I’m going to find much time to work on creative pursuits this week, either. I need to break down all the homecoming decorations and return them, and it looks like this is THE week for planning meetings and rehearsals for a bunch of other stuff. A big life takes a lot of work! See you next week…maybe I’ll have finished up the socks by then?

No pictures because I’m feeling protective of our guests and don’t want to splash other people’s kids’ photos across the internet, and because the Husband Christmas Socks are a gift.

Goodbye Halloween, Hello Christmas!

November 1, 2024November 4, 2024Leave a comment

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?

Renaissance’s High School Graduation

June 7, 2024June 8, 20241 Comment

We made it! She’s a full-fledged high school graduate!

I’m just so proud of her. She’s always been a hard worker and these past two years have seen her working harder than ever, which has been awesome to witness. She’s ready for the real world with a plan and a work ethic that will bring her success. I just love these milestone moments; these chapter endings. She’s done with being a child, which is bittersweet; but she’s got a whole blank canvas of adulthood ahead of her, which is so exciting. I am so glad to be a mother and to have done the work of mothering this sweet girl. She’s been such a joy to raise and I can’t wait to see what she does in the next chapter of her life.

Enjoying the End of Year Festivities

June 3, 2024June 4, 2024Leave a comment

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.

The Beginning of Renaissance’s Graduation Signature Quilt

May 30, 2024May 28, 2024Leave a comment

I’m a huge believer in the power of a debriefing at the end of a project, event or era. I think it’s monstrously constructive and therapeutic to take a minute to pause and reflect over the past [whatever] and feel all the feelings and think through the highlights, lowlights, and ways to improve in the future. I love reading the wisdom of those who’ve been through it before me and I love celebrating the wins.

I also love the idea of heirlooms and traditions, and I’m hoping to solidly get some things established in that category with Renaissance’s graduation party. I’ve been researching so many different ideas for her graduation party and one thing that popped up was having a signature quilt that people could sign for the graduate. I had been thinking about a book of wisdom or index cards with words of wisdom or something like that, but the problem with those is that they get tucked away in a box and rarely seen ever again, and a signature quilt could be a tangible reminder of all the great things people have to say about you and what they hope for you, left out for memory jogging and having the potential to really become a part of your early adult years and memories. And, really, HELLO—quilt.

So I started looking around for a possible pattern and stumbled across this post, which featured a quilt pattern that I’m mighty familiar with, seeing that I was one of the debut sewists for it when Fat Quarter Shop released the pattern back in 2020: The Jelly Belly Bars quilt. It’s an easy sew and it uses precuts, and that’s what I need right now.

I texted Ren and told her to choose a jelly roll from Fat Quarter Shop* and was not surprised at all when she decided to go with the Here Kitty, Kitty fabric collection by Stacey Iest Hsu*. Renaissance and Quesnel have been joined at the armpit since Quesnel joined our family almost fourteen years ago, so cat fabric makes complete sense. I’m pleased that she picked out something by Stacey Iest Hsu as well, as my kids’ childhoods have had many of her fabric collections and dolls hanging around in the background. It’s a perfectly fitting choice for an end-of-childhood memory project for my girl.

My plan is to sew up the individual blocks and have a quilt block-signing table at her graduation party. I’ve also extended the invitation to loved ones who will not be able to travel to her party to contribute a block to the quilt, whether I send them a Jolly Bar-sized (5×10-inches) piece of fabric or they cut fabric themselves. It’s been a good reception thus far!

These next few weeks are going to be an absolute flurry of graduation activities and party preparation, but I’ll try to show updates on this quilt when I get the chance!

*Affiliate link: When you click an affiliate link in one of my posts and make a purchase from that vendor, I receive a small commission at no cost to you.

Rhododendron Parade and Graduation Party Preparations

May 19, 20241 Comment

Top priorities this past week:

Summer School Registration
Garden
Laundry
Cleaning
Graduation party planning

Caring

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.

All my birthday stuff is cleaned up.

Celebrating

I took it a little easier on a few days this week just to make sure I fully recovered from the stress of the prom dress crunches.

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:

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!

Gathering Steam

April 20, 2024April 21, 2024Leave a comment

Welcome to the end of my first week back after the Big Spring Sickness of 2024! Whew, it was a nasty bug—I’ve heard that multiple people in our area required medical intervention due to it. Ugh, so much exhaustion experienced by all. All in all, though, it was a good week full of good weather and a lot of productivity.

Top priorities this past week:

Prom Dressses
Garden tasks
Driver’s licenses tasks

Creativity

Ren’s Prom Dress: I was still quite weak at the beginning of the week, so progress on Ren’s prom dress didn’t happen until Wednesday, but I put in about four hours of work and all of the basic elements of the dress (Bodice, lining, underskirt) are assembled in their basic forms and I can now move forward with attaching them to each other and doing finishing work. The end is in sight!

Rachel’s Prom Dress: I’ve not made any progress on this, which is extremely unfortunate because I was supposed to begin working on it in earnest this week. We’ll get there when we get there.

Garden

I actually used some of the rhubarb this week, which was good because it’s starting to become a behemoth of a plant! We had a lovely rhubarb/mixed fruit crumble for dessert one night. Soooo good.

I got caught up on starting seeds and direct sowing seeds! Renaissance helped me plant four different varieties of marigolds in one starting tray, and I planted sweet peppers, hot peppers, pepperoncini peppers, Big Daddy tomatoes, Roma tomatoes, slicing cucumbers, pickling cucumbers, zucchini, crookneck squash, broccoli, and cilantro in the other tray. I still have a few spots open for some more seeds in the second tray, which I might use for some herbs.

I transplanted my started pansies and delphiniums into the garden, but they’ve been struggling for weeks in their trays and I do not know what to expect from them in the future.

I direct sowed the last bit of peas, and some Bells of Ireland and Four O’ Clocks. I also went back and fortified the trellises with better staples to hold them to the ground for the peas and sweet peas.

Caring

Driver’s Licenses: Renaissance is officially a licensed driver! WOO HOO! We finally did it! I took her to the DOL on Tuesday and she’s got the paper! We are waiting for our insurance company to get back to us on adding her to our policy, and once we have that confirmation she’ll be good to go. She can’t park on campus until she has proof of insurance, so we’re waiting on that task as well. Michael is also replacing the brakes on the kids’ car this weekend so they can be extra safe.

Rachel has been studying every afternoon for her Driver’s Knowledge test this weekend. It’s a good thing I made a note to make sure she was doing this—every afternoon has found her completely forgetful of the task AND I had to intervene at one point because she was playing video games while listening to a YouTube video about driving rules and considered it as studying. Uh, no. I’ve not been her favorite person this week because I keep insisting on nitty gritty studying tactics. You’ll thank me when you pass the test, girlie.

Emily hasn’t done any practice driving because I’ve been too busy with getting caught up with life this week, but I’ve scheduled daily drives for the next six weeks to get her back up to snuff.

Regarding the bridal shower and wedding gifts, I think I’ll just return them to Amazon and then re-order them and have them delivered to the couple’s new address. I still need to text the mom and get that figured out.

Renaissance and I sat down to talk about her post-high school plans and run the numbers. She qualified for every merit and music scholarship available at the colleges, but we are just middle-class enough to not warrant any financial assistance via the FAFSA, so she was going to be on the line for $17,000-30,000 per year to attend the four-year universities she was thinking about attending. That is simply not feasible for her, so she’s going to go with her alternate plan of attending technical college and earning an associate degree in culinary & pastry arts so that she can have a marketable skill that can then help her finance her future plans. She was really torn between studying music or studying pastry, so either option was fine with her. The pastry program is good in that she can then transfer to a four-year school and earn some sort of business and/or food science degree, if she desires. I think she wants to eventually open a bakery of her own, and that she wants to work with local high school students and the community to offer educational opportunities and/or internships in culinary areas.

I’m disappointed that the money couldn’t work out for a four-year option. I entered the financials into a copy of the spreadsheet that I had made when we did this for Emily two years ago, and I was appalled to find out that one of the schools they both applied to increased their tuition by $17,000 in just two years! It’s bonkers out there, and it led to some very serious conversations with Emily this week in order to adjust her expectations for the future as well. You just can’t expect an 18-22 year old and their family to cough out or sign up for loans in the amount of $120,000 for a college education at a Division 3 school! That’s almost the cost of our first house! Gross. The technical school option will end up costing just $8,000 a year, which is a sum we can work with. And HELLO…a pastry chef in the family? That’s just cool. Ren was also wise and applied to start in January so she can spend a few more months working to save up money to pay for it all. If you know of any bakeries hiring, she’s looking!

It was a really busy week, with a lot of important things happening, and I think it’s turned out well. Hopefully this weekend sees a lot of time for sewing, weeding, and driving practice!

Well, That Was Unfortunate Timing

April 15, 2024April 15, 2024Leave a comment

Nathaniel was sick for the entirety of Spring Break, and on Saturday I woke up feeling…off. Michael took Ren to the school for Daffodil Parades so I could get my energy up and meet them at one of the later parades, but within a few hours it was very clear that I had caught Nathaniel’s bug and was out of the running for anything beyond laying on the couch and watching television through bleary eyes. And so it went for the remainder of last week. And this last weekend. And today. I am having a heck of a time with this illness.

I’m hoping the exhaustion and relentless coughing starts to fade this week because I was supposed to finish Ren’s prom dress last week and this was the week to start working on Rachel’s dress. Stress levels are high.

Cooking

This week’s meal plan:

Saturday: Chicken Shawarma
Sunday: Cheesy Ham and Potatoes for Nathaniel’s birthday
Monday: Dino Nuggets, French Fries, Mixed Vegetables
Tuesday: Crockpot Chili & Baked Potatoes
Wednesday: Cheeseburgers, Spiced Braised Rhubarb
Thursday: Crockpot Honey Chicken
Friday: Salad Bar

Clothing

Catching up after missing all of last week’s laundry.

Cleaning

Catch up, basic upkeep.

Caring

Renaissance passed her driver’s license test last week! There’s still a lot of paperwork to get her driving legally on her own, and it is a high priority this week. I am really looking forward to this development.
Rachel is taking her driver’s license knowledge test later this week, so helping her study for that.
Emily, possibly spurred on by the success of her younger sisters in the driver’s license department, has finally renewed her driving permit and is now legal to start practicing for her own driver’s license, so I imagine I need to start making time for her practicing, too.
Need to figure out a way to get the bridal shower and wedding gifts to the young woman who got married last week. I was too sick to go and she and her husband have headed back to school already.
We need to sit down with Renaissance and figure out her post-high school plans. She’s received news of the various scholarships she’s been awarded, the FAFSA is taking forever to process, and we just need to sit down and crunch numbers. Her high school is having their Decision Day soon where they celebrate kids’ post-high school plans, so it’d be good if she knew what she was doing by that date.

Creativity

Prom Dresses: I haven’t touched either of them since I got sick. So much work needs to be done this week. The extra yard of silk for Ren’s sleeves arrived safely last week, so we’re good to go there. I have two weeks’ less time to get Ren’s dress done because last night she got a text to look outside:

How cute is that?!?! Why weren’t Promposals a thing when we were young? He had good timing; we were just getting ready to have Nathaniel’s birthday cake, so he walked away from the incident with a prom date and birthday cake. On a frenzied prom dress-sewing note, though…the high school prom is two weeks before the church Spring Formal, so…I really need to sew faster.

Van Crafting Sessions™: I think I have a full schedule of music lessons this week and I have no idea what I’m going to do while I’m at them.

Gardening

The rhubarb is growing fast! Gotta start using it.
I didn’t do any planting last week, so I need to do both last week’s and this week’s planting and seed starting. We’re getting into the thick of planting season!

Celebrating

Nathaniel had his 14th birthday yesterday! I can’t believe my youngest child is starting high school next year. Where have the years gone?!?! Renaissance made him a Sherman Tank cake this year, in homage to his interest in World War 2.
Upcoming celebrations include:
- Mother’s Day, which I don’t have to do anything for
- My birthday, which I generally don’t have to do anything for
- Memorial Day, which just means grilling some hot dogs and doing yardwork
- Ren’s graduation, which is going to take a ton of work
- Father’s Day, which I will also have to do work for.

I’m going to wait a bit before I get going on anything so I can focus on prom dresses.

Community

Band Parent meeting this week, with all the requisite paperwork and follow-up that goes with it.
There’s a Ward Potluck on the calendar from the email that the bishop sent out at the beginning of the year, but I’ve not heard anything else about it since, so I’m thinking it never materialized.
There’s a Relief Society activity this week about simplifying our lives, but it’s happening at the same time as a music lesson, so I probably won’t go.
Band performance for the seniors.

Alright, a big week with a lot of catch-up and I’m not feeling that great to begin with. Wish me luck! And look at this great photo of Renaissance in the Daffodil Parade, taken by a friend of a friend:

I Dream of Muslin

March 25, 2024Leave a comment

It really is unfortunate that prom dress sewing lines up with getting the garden started. I’m still trying to figure out how to make both of them work together, with preference leaning towards the dresses because I can always come in a little late on the garden. This week will see that preference leaning towards creating the muslin for Ren’s dress, and hopefully more than that.

Cooking

This week’s meal plan:

Saturday: Beef Stew
Sunday: Cheeseburgers & Fries
Monday: Spaghetti
Tuesday: TBD
Wednesday: TBD
Thursday: TBD
Friday: TBD

Clothing

Stay on top of the laundry. I was looking at Nathaniel during church yesterday and I think he needs a new wardrobe because he grew again. I had to buy him a new pair of running shoes, two sizes larger than the last pair I bought him in JANUARY. I don’t know how he is not in constant pain with the rate at which he is growing right now. Also, he’s now wearing the same size shoes as Michael does. Maybe one of my children will actually end up taller than me.

Cleaning

Basic upkeep because of the prom dresses.

Caring

I need to buy a wedding gift and a bridal shower gift for one of Emily’s friends who is getting married in the next few weeks. It’s incredibly weird that my kids’ friends are starting to get married. Wasn’t ready for that.
Need to figure out what Emily’s plans for the next school year are so she can apply for things at the right times.
Driving practice for all three girls so maybe they can take their driver’s license tests over spring break.
Might meet a friend for lunch.
Parent Teacher Conferences this week. I don’t know if I should even bother going, especially after hearing what quite a few teachers had to say about parent teacher conferences while I was doing my student teaching—the parents whose kids are doing fine are the ones who show up and there’s little to say to them, and the parents whose kid are not doing well and who really need to talk to the teachers don’t show up at all. Conflicted.

Creativity

At Home:
- Renaissance’s Prom Dress: As I write this, I have just finished altering the pattern and cutting the first (and hopefully, only) muslin for Renaissance’s dress. That is the hardest part of the entire process, so I’m feeling good about things today. I taskified the dresses last week and, according to the schedule I have planned out, I’ll be on-track to finish on-time if I’m able to finish sewing up the bodice completely this week, which is totally doable if things go as they should. I didn’t know what to do about preparing the silks for sewing, and the internet had very conflicting information on that subject, so I just gave Silk Baron a phone call and had a lovely, candid chat with whomever answered the phone that just made my day. They convinced me to not prewash and just stick with dry cleaning the silk, and to also really consider using dress shields, so I think I’ll follow their advice on that.
- Rachel’s Prom Dress: I think we have everything we need, materials-wise, for the dress. We picked up the oh-so-pretty fabric on Saturday and had a lovely girls’ morning together. I love that bonus of sewing for the girls—we have to hang out together to do it right, and it inevitably leads to more hanging out. I have also preemptively ordered some crinolines for her so I can see ahead of time if they’ll be complimentary to the gown as I’m making it up.
Van Crafting Sessions™: Not really feeling the wedding shawls at this time. I have more time this week for van crafting, so we’ll see how I feel about stuff at the end of the week. I did feel a pull to start working on the Smitten EPP quilt in the past few days, though—I might head that direction.

Gardening

I do not have time for this! Usually I can pop in and out of the house and plant this and weed that, but with most of my time being spent on the prom dresses I’m worried about getting dirt on my hands that could potentially transfer to the dress materials. Maybe I can work to get ahead on the dresses this week and use any free time to go get stuff done in the garden.

Celebrating

Renaissance received her acceptance letters from both Pacific University and Linfield College! Now to wait for scholarship decisions. The late FAFSA has been such a headache.
Easter’s this Sunday, and I have no plans whatsoever. I don’t even know if I’ll get to the point of making plans. We have a ham and we’ll cook it. Maybe I’ll put Easter treats on the girls’ radars and they’ll take care of it.

Community

Band Festival
Choir Contest
Engagement Party for a lady at church that conflicts with something else that I hope ends up being cancelled so I can go to the party instead. Why is there always something responsible that you’re signed up to do when a party comes along? However, having been on the receiving end of RSVP back-outs because something better came along for the invited guest, I stand firmly on the hill—nay, am willing to die upon said hill—of honoring your previous appointment commitments despite how enticing a later invitation may be because it’s really rude not to.
Church Easter Brunch: I’ve signed up to bring fruit. Michael wants to sign up to bring biscuits and gravy, but I am going to leave that entire project to him, rather than commit in my name and have it potentially fall through and embarrass me.

Top priorities this week: