family

Winter solstice

December 21, 2017 Marie Leave a Comment

Oh, my heart! ♥ Tonight, for Solstice, we strung up apples, oranges, and cranberries to hang on the tree out front. It was absolutely everything I hoped for, as far as a project to do with the Little Mr. I’ve never given him a needle and thread to just play with, so I wasn’t entirely sure if he would have the concept down or even be able to get the chunky needle through the cranberries, but he went to town. Well, as much as a 3 year old has the patience for it, anyway. But he seemed to love the project, and we trudged out to the cold, dark yard to hang them on the tree.

I think this might end up being a yearly Solstice tradition for us.

A little garden after all

May 29, 2017 Marie Leave a Comment

So we put a garden out after all. I told myself multiple times that I wasn’t doing it this year. It’s too much to manage with the kid and work and everything else. And then, when it came down to it, Mother’s Day – our usual planting weekend – came and went and things felt off. It didn’t feel right not having a garden. I mentioned as much to the Mr, and with a knowing sigh he just kind of looked at me and said “I’ll get the boxes out of the garage.”

We broke up the dirt in the old spots where the boxes used to be, and then stacked the extras on top to make them deeper this year. Well, the guys did – I sat on the porch drinking a beer :) Today we visited Lowes to buy plenty of potting soil to replenish the nutrients in the soil that we’ve neglected the last two years, along with plants since we didn’t plan on a garden to get seeds started. 3 tomatoes, 2 peppers, an eggplant, kale, and zucchini. I bought some herbs from one of the local school fundraisers, which were half dead by the time I planted them, but I’m hoping they come back now that they’ve got some proper soil to grow in. We planted carrots and radishes, too, just so Declan can watch something grow from seed out there. We potted some Strawberries on Sunday, too – I don’t generally have much luck with them, but Declan LOVES to eat berries so we’re trying them yet again. Raspberries are growing, too, and I’m determined this year to actually use my HopTop for at least one small batch of something boozy.

We bought a new grill this weekend, invited the stepson and his family up (that’s the grandbaby with the big pretty eyes – still weird that I’m 32 and a grandma), and made some damn delicious chicken thighs on it. I tried to gussy up the patio a bit to make it cozy, though the birds just poop everywhere so most of the pretty things are temporary items. Tablecloth that can be washed, items that get brought inside after we’re done, etc. How on earth do people keep outdoor furniture clean?! I feel like every time I want to use the table I have to wash the whole thing down – there’s no popping outside and just hanging out back there. Maybe because our patio is covered so the dust just collects without any rain to wash it off? I don’t even know. I’m working on finding some cute things to hang up on the side of the house to decorate a bit more. Maybe a cute wood wall hanging/sign painted to look like a barn quilt square? Hmmmm…

The zoo, 2017 edition

May 20, 2017 Marie Leave a Comment

The Little Mr is REALLY into the zoo these days. We went last week, over Mother’s Day weekend, and it was SO crowded that we didn’t really get to see much. We have a season membership, so no worries – we would just come back another day. Well, today was that day. He begged us to go back to the zoo, so off we went. This time to pet the goats, see the kangaroos (on the other side of the zoo, where we didn’t go the week prior), and pause for a quick little photo op. That sass with the hand on his hip is ALL ME, haha.

The best kind of family heirloom

April 4, 2017 Marie Leave a Comment

This quilt was, I’m confident, 100% hand stitched from start to finish. Do you see that detail on the dresden blocks? ♥ This heirloom was made by a great-great aunt, who gave it to my grandfather, who then passed it onto me. Would you believe that at one point he was going to sell it? But the dealer told him no one would want it because it was orange! Are you kidding me?! Who cares what color it is – it’s a family-made quilt! It’s priceless!!!! And now it’s mine! ♥ ♥ ♥

Sew and trim, this and that

February 25, 2017 Marie Leave a Comment

I’ve discovered, by way of an app on my phone (BreakFree, if you’re interested) that I spend a LOT of time on my phone. Tons. So much that I’m really afraid to admit the number, to be honest. It’s that bad. It’s no wonder I feel so distracted all the time, unable to focus, and so stressed. The app tells you how many times you’ve unlocked your phone as well as how many minutes (or, in my case, hours) you’ve been using your phone that day and then it categorizes you: green, yellow, or red. In the months and months that I’ve had that app on my phone and hadn’t really used it, I had only managed to achieve green once, yellow a handful of times, and red the rest of the times.

So, late this week I decided enough was enough and I needed a change. Lent is coming up, and while I’m not religious I do admire the idea of doing without and/or improving upon oneself for 40 days. I got a bit of an early start at it, but my phone has been removed of Facebook and Google+ and I’ve made a point to not take my phone everywhere I go, to not sit and mindlessly scroll, and to generally stop being buried in a screen out of habit. I’m on my 3rd day in and so far, so good. I can already tell a change in my happiness level, though the kid has been quite angry about me not letting him play games on my phone. He gets a lot of screen time at Nana’s, so really I’m doing us both a favor, right?

I’m really hoping this new no procrastinating on my phone thing revives my blogging. I’m fairly confident that posting to social media so often has killed this – I always think about how I need to blog, but then I never can think of what to write since I’ve already talked about it elsewhere.

I learned something new a week or two ago – paper piecing! That “twenty” above is going on the back of my picnic quilt – I have fabric ordered for the backing, but I’m splitting the backing to have “twenty seventeen” on it to show the year I completed the quilt. I thought I was being pretty clever with that, but man was the “s” incredibly time consuming. All those little itty bitty pieces to help form the curve… good grief. Sew, trim, sew, trim, sew, trim over and over and over again. That quilt is temporarily on hold while I wait for the backing to arrive in the mail, and in the meantime I snatched up a charm pack from Missouri Star Quilt Co from their flash sale (Rainy Day – I think I paid $2.25 or so, which was a huge steal!) that is transforming into a star for a baby quilt for a coworker. As I write, I have the whole thing pieced together but I won’t be able to take a photo of the top until tomorrow. The whole thing has gone together incredibly quickly, which was the whole point of ordering the charm packs – I thought maybe having pre-cut fabric would make the whole project go much smoother, and I’m so thrilled I was right. Because let me tell you – crafting at all these days is a challenge with a rambunctious boy all up in your crafting space, unspooling thread everywhere or snatching pieces of fabric and running off.

I also signed up for a quilting subscription box through FatQuarterShop.com, as one does when you’re distracted and stressed and performing the mom version of retail therapy (i.e. all the online shopping because taking your kid to a store to browse yarn or fabric sounds like a nightmare more than heavenly). My box arrived but I haven’t really had a chance to look through it and compare prices – the box is supposed to be more retail value than what it costs so I want to see if that ends up being true. I have a feeling I’ll end up canceling it after a few boxes like I have every other subscription box I’ve tried, though. In my experience, subscription boxes are fun for a short while, but eventually you end up with too much stuff. Things you don’t have time for, things you won’t ever actually use, things you already have and then feel guilt about the environmental impact of buying things you don’t need…

Let’s see…… what else? Declan started school earlier this month. I didn’t actually realize it was school- it was labeled as an “explore and play” group, but it turns out it’s quite preschool-like. It’s taken him this whole month to stop crying and clinging when he gets dropped off, but I think he’s getting the hang of it now. He can tell me some of his classmates names, and what they learned about that day and what book they read… but you ask him if he’s made any friends? “Ummmmm Miss Crystal and Miss Robin,” he answers. Ahhh yes, my only child would much rather be around the adults than the other children.