Washington State – That Crafty Cara

I mentioned, in Friday’s post, that we were experiencing some rain and that I was hoping for more rain that wouldn’t knock out the power so I could have more time to sew on the Penguin Party quilt.

I got half of my wish.

Saturday was a really big sports day for the kids with Nathaniel running in the League Cross Country meet and Rachel participating in the Unified Bowling Tournament. We left the house at 6:30 am and didn’t get back until after 3:00pm, all while battling pouring rain and gusts of wind that had us literally leaning forward over our toes to stay upright. I tried to talk our family out of going to the church Halloween party that night on account of the weather, but everyone thought I was being overly anxious and pooh-poohed my concerns.

The Brookelets in their costumes for the 2025 church Halloween party: Two witches and a pink party boy — *Nathaniel asked Rachel to help him come up with a costume fifteen minutes before we left, so she outfitted him with odds-and-ends from her camp counselor costume trunk!*

Our power went out around 5:00pm. The power was still on at the church, and teaser photos on social media showed the promise of a banger of a party, so the fam insisted we head out to enjoy it. The road into town was a warzone of leaves and downed tree limbs that elicited quite a few gasps from us as we drove by, and the drive home treated us to a traffic backup on the highway as the police diverted us around an accident that was in the midst of towing a car out of the ditch. The rain continued on, the wind gusts picked up and our entire area lost power around 10:00pm.

Black light photo of teenage boy from church Halloween party

Power still wasn’t on in the morning, so Michael went into Super Generator Man mode and had us set up by 5:30am with all the extension cords our hearts could desire. Each year he invests in another piece of “Power Outage Kit” to make our lives a little easier during power outages and this year’s investment was a very nice, very long extension cord that he snaked through my second floor craft room window so that I could still sew and iron to my heart’s content AND supplies power to the internet router. True love, right there. All the bases covered with one simple extension cord!

Extension cord running into a craft room during a power outage in order to power sewing machines and irons

Unfortunately, I didn’t do any sewing because I was simply too tired from all the running around the day before, the stress of the power outage, and the lack of sleep from how loud the rain and wind were throughout the night. So, yes, I got half of my wish and I really could have gotten my full wish had I not been exhausted. I guess, in the future, I also need to hope for the energy to sew…silly me!

Smitten English-paper-pieced quilt illuminated by the glow of a fire during a power outage during a windstorm in Washington State

We Brookes decided to power through the last bit of our goal to watch all the Harry Potter movies before Halloween, and so we did that once we found out that the church didn’t have power and services were cancelled. It was a very chill day. I got out my Christmas Alphabet embroidery sampler at one point, but the mental load of trying to work on it was also too much so I just put it away and rested.

Power came on around 4:30pm for us, while our friends were without power until late this morning. I’ve been running around attempting to catch chores and the like back up to pre-storm conditions and restocking our groceries. So, no sewing over the weekend AT ALL. Oh well.

Looking ahead for the week:

I’m hoping to make A LOT of progress on the Penguin quilt. Maybe even to the point of ignoring all my other projects-in-progress. Ride the wave of motivation, right?

I’ve made a lot of progress on the Christmas Alphabet Embroidery Sampler in recent weeks, but might set it aside in favor of working on the Penguin quilt. If I can stand, I’ll work on the Penguin quilt. If standing is difficult/my back is hurting, I’ll work on the embroidery sampler.

I am tiring of my Peppermint Blossoms EPP quilt, mostly because I’m wishing I’d worked on an autumn/Halloween project over the last couple of months. I’m wondering if having different, seasonal, EPP projects in-progress might work best for my interest cycles in the future? Or maybe I’m not as in love with Peppermint Blossoms as I thought I’d be and it should be scaled back to a smaller finished project? Or maybe I’ve been working on it for two years with very little progress and I’m just fed up with it? Thinking on those ideas at the moment.

It is so weird that this is the last week of October. Next week is the doorway to the Christmas season, y’all! (I’m a Christmas junkie; it starts on November 2nd for me.) It doesn’t even really feel like it’s time for Halloween yet, how can we already be nearly at Thanksgiving and Christmas, too?!?!

So, yes, our family made it safely to Washington almost two weeks ago. We rolled into town just as the fireworks for the Fourth of July started going off, and it felt like the state was welcoming us with gusto. (And added the much-appreciated side effect of lighting up the heavily-treed highway that was tough to navigate…but the cats weren’t big fans of the fireworks and may have peed…a lot…in their carriers.)

We signed the papers for our Washington home the next morning and officially had the keys by lunch. My aunt made a beeline for us and helped us unload our truck and trailer, and our ward helped us finish the huge task later that evening. We’ve been screeching, “Where is the [insert a million different items here]?!?!” ever since.

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20180713_131255 Where we’re living is *lovely.* It’s a little removed from Suburbia-proper, but only by a little bit, so running to the grocery store/Costco/Home Depot takes minutes, and the drive is lush and green and has a crazy spectacular view of Mt. Rainier the entire way. Sometimes I have to sit and wait for the dairy’s cows to cross the road to get to their next milking, and there’s rivers, and hydrangea, and four different types of purple or pink flowers in bloom by the roadsides right now (Fireweed, Sweet Pea, Foxglove, and a plant that looks like Butterfly Bush) and I just…get so happy to see familiar plants again. I figured out plants in Utah, but these are what I grew up with and can name without thinking because my dad taught them to me when I was in preschool.

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We’ve had family over TWICE in one week for dinner, which is crazy amazing and as fun as you’d expect, and we get to attend a family wedding this weekend because we don’t live fourteen hours away anymore.

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The house is bigger than our last house, which I’m loving a lot–six people in our old house got old about six years ago, so the extra space is much-appreciated by all of our family’s members. Unfortunately, though, this house is painted in a very warm and earthy color palette, and I lean toward the cool and ocean-inspired color palette. And the ceilings are painted the same color as the walls…the same, sand-brown light-absorbing color…even the twenty-feet-up ceilings in the front room. Yep, I gotta paint ’em all…and that sand-brown color is just dark enough to warrant two coats of primer every. time.

So I’m busy for the rest of the month, and probably for most of August as well.

But it’s OK, because at the end of all the painting my kids will all have bedrooms with fully-finished walls painted the colors of their choosing, and everything will be just as lovely inside as it is outside.

We went and got our library cards today, which really does make you feel like you truly “belong” in your town. And I forgot to turn on Google Maps for the drive home, but it didn’t matter because I got home just fine, with no special mental gymnastics. I pulled up to this house in this new state without help, and my kids clambered out of the van like they always do, helped by dumping our purchases onto the kitchen table before running off to binge-read their library books like they always do, and in that moment it was clear: This house in Washington is now our home.

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Probably still a bit of time before Happy Crafting Times can recommence, but with each newly-unpacked box and newly-painted wall, I’m getting closer to reopening the fun conversations I get to have with my crafty friends! I’ve missed you!