It's Good to Get Away

I spent the weekend in Chicago with 17 girl friends and 2 babies. We've been friends for over 8 years since we met (thanks to this woman) online while planning our weddings. Many of us have met in real life, but this was the first large gathering of our group. None of us could figure out why it took us 8 years to have a get together. We stayed in three condos right on Lake Michigan and spent the weekend hanging out, talking, laughing, eating, drinking, taking photos, missing the friends who couldn't be there, throwing a blessingway for our two pregnant friends, nursing babies, pumping breastmilk, reading trashy magazines with a little walking thrown in just so we wouldn't feel like complete sloths. Not much sleeping happened and we were amazed no one peed in their pants with the high level of laughing, as just about all of us have one or more children.

The get together came at the right time for me. I so needed to get away from my life. I was able to relax, and read, and not worry about taking care of anyone but myself. I flew home on Sunday with my patience replenished and on a happy high from the wonderful weekend. I was ready to be with my family and return to being a mom. This was the first night I'd spent away from my family since August 2007, and even on that trip I wasn't entirely alone since I was pregnant with Agnes. It's hard for me to leave my children when they are babies, and it's not something I can really think about until their second year.

The weekend was a good reminder for me that I need me time. I usually get Saturday mornings to myself, but I think every once in a while I need more than a few hours a week to reset my buttons. Since another get together isn't going to happen for 18 months, I'm going to need to come up with some other ideas for escaping. What do you do?

7

Seven years today. Ten years in July. It seems so long ago, but it has gone by all too quickly.

I Don't Think So

Not even close...

This and That

I spent all of my free time today (aka naptime) refreshing the National Weather Service warnings and looking out the windows for funnel clouds. Not fun. The baby was asleep in her room, and there was NO WAY IN HELL I was waking her up to huddle in the hallway unless the funnel cloud was right here. Luckily, I saw nothing and now the sun is shining as if severe weather never even came through here today.

So I haven't been here for a while. I wish I had a notepad inside my head. I've written blog posts while walking at the lake, nursing the baby to sleep, cooking, sewing, watching movies, but I can't seem to write one while I'm sitting down in front of the computer. Spring is here and I'm photographing flowers and trees and grass everyday. The newness of all this green isn't old yet. Come July when it's 100 degrees outside and everything is an overgrown jungle, I'll wish for cold and brown again. We've been doing some yard work and I still want to plant a small vegetable and herb garden. I want to do raised beds, but I need to find a simple, quick, and cheap method but I keep having to return my library books before I've had a chance to read them. I also want to get rain barrels and set them up to help water this soon-to-be garden. Will wants to plant grapevines and I'd like a blackberry cane and blueberry bushes. After spending the last few months indoors, it's nice to be outside with the sun and vitamin D. Ely loves to help garden (he spent a good 30 minutes telling me the proper way to dig up dandelions because apparently I was doing it all wrong - you must use the big shovel not the small spade and listen for the pop sound) and Agnes loves to roam around in the grass picking the same dandelions and tasting them with her lips or hiding them in holes. I'm not going to talk about those holes because I've spent several years pretending not to see them.

As for sewing, I've been working on my own auction quilt. It's part of a larger classroom project, so I didn't go overboard. I based in on Erin's picnic blanket, but besides the ties I did some quilting in the ditch for stability and will put a machine sewn binding on it. I've been having some frustrations quilting lately and I'm not sure what is going on. It put me in a very bad mood last Saturday. I'll probably write up more in a later post, and maybe someone will have some ideas for me because I'm at the end of my rope, sewing perfectionist that I am.

Oh, my camera broke yesterday while I was at the zoo. One moment it was working just fine and then the next moment it locked up, had an error message, and wouldn't shoot anymore pictures. The same thing happened a couple of years ago, so it was sent off to Nikon today. Luckily I can borrow a camera from the office until mine is returned, otherwise I would have to quit my 365 project, which I'm woefully behind updating as it is. Some days I'm tired of taking pictures and looking for something new, but the idea of not being able to take a picture made me very sad.

Well, I'm off to buy matzoh and make a special dessert for tonight. Every year, I like to eat matzoh and remind myself that I'm half Jewish even if I haven't kept Passover in over 20 years. I hope to have some naturally dyed eggs and a finished picnic quilt by the end of the weekend. And, because it's hard to post without a photo I'll end with the special fruit salad my mother-in-law made for Easter dinner last year. I have no idea if it will make a repeat appearance on Sunday.

Joy

• getting to sleep in late (uh to 8am) because it's Spring Break
• having the most beautiful day outside that was just like that fabulous March of '97 day in Austin when I fell in love with the city (and with all the fresh oj and chips and salsa I consumed)
• the baby finally feeling better after 5 days of sickness
• the Heather Ross blog tour
• finding out that an Alabama Chanin workshop is coming to my city in May (but wishing I had some extra money so I could attend)
• getting the haircut that should have happened over a month ago
• eating paletas (I had tangerine; Ely had chocolate strawberry)
• playing at the park for hours, though it didn't feel that long, and having fun with the school friends who were also there
• watching my son take off on his balance bike
• watching my daughter swing and slide with complete joy on her face
• being the first person to check out the first copy of Molly Wizenberg's A Homemade Life from the library
• the husband coming home late so I can start reading A Homemade Life right away (well as soon as the kids are asleep)
• eating reuben sandwiches for dinner with leftover chocolate chip cookie tart for dessert

Mission: Impossible

My almost-4 year old son's room is, more often than not, a disaster. He has a big open floor space for playing and takes advantage of it. We've successfully resisted accumulating lots of toys over the years, but he loves legos and puzzles so his floor is often carpeted in little plastic cubes and amorphous cardboard shapes. He has shelves and 10 or so labeled bins for all the different types of toys (legos, puzzles, sound, wood, vehicles, etc), but nothing ever seems to get back into its original place. Ely also attends a Montessori preschool and he must put away his work (what they call their activity) before he can get a new work out. Yet somehow, that practice has never translated to home. Ely also loves books, which his Dad and I are thrilled about because we love books too. In fact, we put a moratorium on book buying 4 years ago because we were out of space, and also needed to remove that line item from our budget. For any holiday/special occasion that involves presents, Ely receives books as gifts and he also gets one book every month from Dolly Parton (I love Dolly and love her even more now.) So on top of the lego/puzzle carpet is a usually a secondary layer of books.

In order to combat this mess, I've been meaning to sew (oh for only about 6 months now ) some cloth bags in which to store his puzzles. Puzzles come in their own boxes, but in my house those boxes are usually destroyed then added to the recycling bin. Recently, I saw Betz's tutorial and then saw how Blair used the tutorial to make her daughter some bags for her treasures. Heather Ross also has a pattern for drawstring bags in her new book, Weekend Sewing, but I don't have a copy of the book yet. On Saturday and Sunday, I has some kid-free time and a clean sewing table so I started on my own drawstring bags.

The bags were so simple to make. Even though I'm a slow sewer, I had 5 made by the end of naptime on Sunday. I used the 13X18 inch size from the tutorial for the larger bags, then raided my remnant stash for the smaller bags. Because these were "boy" bags, I was able to finish off some favorite fabric (Alexander Henry's 2-D Zoo) as well as some blue fabric I've never been very fond of. Betz used a serger to contain the inside raw edges of her bags. I don't have a serger, but a zig zag stitch with my Janome's overlock foot made a lovely serged-like edge. That was probably my favorite part of the whole project, because I learned how to do something new with my sewing machine. Or maybe it was the post-naptime clean room, with puzzles contained in pretty drawstring bags and put away in their labeled bin. I couldn't get Ely to use all of the drawstring bags for puzzles. He promptly filled one up with "sleep friends" (aka small stuffed animals), so he could easily take them with him in the car in case his baby sister fell asleep on the way to their grandparents' house.

Is it March yet?

Why, yes! It is! I guess that means I can finally abandon the "February Funk" post that has been sitting on my computer, half written, for over 2 weeks now. February was just not my month, but that doesn't matter anymore because it's over. I have a good feeling about this month, and will be back tomorrow with a post all about March 4th.

Also - I'm not officially participating in green week, but this photo would fit perfectly! (Ignore the fact that I was outside taking pictures of snow).