TOMORROW is the day

Well, about five months ago, I set two goals for myself.

To thread my sewing machine before my 43rd birthday

To have a sewing project to work on at the April craft day

 

I made the first goal, and tomorrow is the second. While I've threaded the machine, I don't feel like I know what to do tomorrow. Don't have a pattern idea. Don't know what to pack. It's just an unnatural thing for me - to be taking a sewing project (or hopes of one) to craft day.

 

I am very hopeful that in the next few months I'll embrace sewing for my home. I am very excited about it. But right now, there is a crazy nerve center inside me going all haywire. I feel very foreign in my actions!

 

 

So tomorrow's the day. A BIG day. I have some fabric. One that will match my dining room, one my bedroom. I have no idea what I'm going with it, but I have it. :-) It's up to my community of sewers and crafters to take me the rest of the way on this journey! And an amazing community of ladies they are. I am SO thankful and Blessed to have them in my life!

 

I hope they are prepared for tomorrow. For the laughs. For the frustration. For the not-sew-perfect sewing! I'm going in with an open mind. Let's hope something useful comes out the other end! BRING IT ON. 

mmm. Vacation? I think not...

I have realized an issue for stay-at-home-moms. It's called "a day off".

Back when I was in management and working out of the home, I would take vacation days to just stay home alone and relax. Watch movies, garden, whatever. Now, being part time, and home much of the time, I don't feel the right to do that. EVER. I'm not sure why this is in my head, because it's certainly nothing my husband has ever said to me. But in my mind, I don't work full time (HAH! Just keeping UP with our home and lives is full time, let alone on top of part time teaching!), so I don't need/deserve days off? I am not sure why! This is crazy thinking!

I am tired. Been teaching 3-4 days a week for the last month, after back to back vacations, and trying to clean out the flower beds and gardens now that the snow has melted. The house is not at the level I'd like, and I am TIRED. Nights are baseball games, and weekends are FULL - all the way through June. I would love to take a day and read on the deck with a jar of sun tea.

But I'm a freakish type A person. I have a list a mile long in my head - of things to do in the house, AND in the yard. It never ends.

But I do think I need to schedule myself a vacation day. A true vacation day. Take a motorcycle ride, or read in the hammock, or go garage sale hopping... something just for me.

Teaching today. Maybe at lunch I'll write up my to-do list, so it is more manageable than a looming list in my head, and then I'll schedule myself that vacation day. :-)

spring, beautiful spring...oh how we've been waiting for you!

We still had snow coming down on April 22nd. HEAVY snow. Not just flurries. Luckily, the ground was warm, and it didn't stay.

I'm not sure why I had such a hard time feeling cooped up this spring. There were days that I needed to stand on the deck in the snow just to breathe in fresh air. The winter dragged on so long..... And when we started getting more snow on the 22nd of Aprill it just sent me over the edge.....

But TODAY, spring came back. Temperatures in high sixties.... beautiful sun.... a warm breeze. It was amazing.

I got home from school at 3:30, and Ken and I walked down to the local establishment for burgers and drinks, then walked down to the high school and enjoyed a beautiful night of baseball. THe warm breezes, the great company.

And then home, to a house with clean air. doors and windows open. pure heaven.

thank you spring, for coming back. We've missed you dearly.

Celebrating my husband

Today my husband turned 49 years old. I was very thankful to be able to spend the entire day with him, as we both had the day off. I made all of his requests for the day - which included bacon and eggs for breakfast, BLTs for lunch, and chili for dinner. (He's a pretty low-maintenance kind of guy.)

For his cake, I wanted to do something special. He has mentioned more than once a spice cake with peanut butter frosting - something he had as a child. So I googled some recipes and made him "a fancy cake" (the description of my 15 yr old son - as I made a two layer round that I put on our cake plate). And it turned out ok.

It's fun to just hang out - and celebrate not only who he is, but who he is to our family. We met almost 20 years ago, and I couldn't imagine life without him.

Living with this old soul.....

I am an old soul. I always have been, and hopefully always will be. I enjoy canning, and baking bread, and hanging laundry out to dry, and other things. I always joke I was born in the wrong century.

I was very excited to have my dear friend coming over this Saturday. Visiting from out of town, we had planned a day of knitting, crocheting, and possibly sewing. She is a very accomplished yarner, and I've always admired that. I dabble with it - but want to do more - and the plan for the day was for her to bring some fun patterns and teach me a few things. The entire day was filled with lots of coffee, too much laughing, and awesome success.

We started out with learning the cable knit stitch.... SO excited to learn it - and happy to be able to pick it up. In making our wrist cuffs, she also taught me how to make ribbing. But the cable really intrigued me. And I'm so excited to have that in my repoitoire now! My wrist cuff in progress:

My stitches are pretty uneven, but that will come with practice!

 

We also started a crocheted mitten - mine a little pointy. Forgot to take a picture of that. But it might be a whole blog on its own....

 

And then, she pushed me to dig out my sewing machine. I've got a little personal goal. To have it threaded by my 43rd birthday (Wednesday), and to have a sewing project to work on at craft day at church on April 30th. I didn't want to dig it out. We were having such a nice day... you see, there is a little history between my sewing machine and myself...

 

I used to know a little about sewing. Not a lot, but enough to hem, or mend, or sew a pillow or valance. And then, one day, 7 or 8 years ago, my thread started bunching up. And I got frustrated. So much, that for 7 or 8 years, that sewing machine collected dust. So I was NOT looking forward to digging it out and trying...

 

But Sarah kept pushing me on. And we did.

 

We started by getting to know my sewing machine.

 

 

We threaded. And it wasn't easy. It wasn't on the first try. It took awhile to remember. And those DIAGRAMS. They are USELESS. But we did it.

 





SUCCESS!

And then. We loaded the bobbin. And we tried to stitch. And we were successful. Not on the first try. (The first try bunched up like the last time.) But we kept playing with it, and IT WORKED.

So now it's time to dig out some more fabric scraps (hoping I have something down there), and keep playing around a bit. And then - I have to figure out what I'm going to sew on the 30th. I'm still a little scared. It's a big step for a non-sewer. But I'll get there. I have a whole crew of ladies at church willing and excited to help me learn.

Not too bad for a mid-life crisis, eh?

Just "visiting"...

I've posted before about the need to bring back the old days of "visiting", when weekends were spent visiting friends and relatives, face-to-face, catching up on our busy lives.

We were able to do just that on our return trip from vacation.

We left New York state, and drove to Mansfield, OH. The following day we got an early start, and then spent the morning/early afternoon visiting with my brother-in-law and his family. It was a wonderful visit. We went out for lunch, got a tour of the yard, and even got to hear the neices play the piano for us. It was a relaxed, impromptu chance to visit....

From there we made it back to WI, within 3 hours of home. But we didn't head directly home. We stopped at a dear friend's house, where her chef husband made us a wonderful breakfast, we were serenaded by their daughter on her viola, and we were able to not only catch up, but make some additional dates to get together!

These two visits, allowing us face time with those we love, were just good for the soul. Don't do it enough. Need to do it more!

Hall of Fame Tour - days 4-7!

Having been unplugged for four days - a little catch up! Ended up aborting our plans for Buffalo when we woke up on Tuesday to snow. We headed directly to Cooperstown. I got the pleasure of driving the last leg of the trip, off the interstate, through the winding mountain roads in WHITE OUT snow conditions. It was a long ride... But we made it, safe and sound.

Our time in NY state was riddled with snow off an on until Thursday, when the sun came out and stayed out - getting the temps into the upper forties. Warm enough that the son decided to wear shorts and a tshirt. Yup. Wasn't QUITE that warm. :-)

Loved Cooperstown - a picturesque little town - very Norman Rockwell. Great restaurants, stores, and architecture. I can't wait to get home and upload pictures. It was just beautiful. The HOF there was by far the best we toured also.

I will post some pix and a more descriptive blog once we are home. Two more days... Two more days.

Hall of Fame Tour 2013 day three

Left Canton this morning, stopping at the local Harley dealer, around 9:30am. Arrived in Cleveland, at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, by 10:45am. Beautiful place - ended up staying there until after 3! Loved all of the exhibits, although we found some people notably missing... nothing on Roy Orbison, Buddy Holly, and a few others. But we know that they rotate inventory... so all is good.

The trip from Cleveland to Buffalo was noted with lots of vineyards on both sides of the highway and intermittent snow (yuk)... Great directions to the hotel, where we are now relaxing and planning tomorrow's excursions.

Night all.