my pink life, mi vida rosada

 Well, life.  It continues on.   The goods, the bads, the highs, the lows: they all keep coming.  There has been some good progress on my make 9 goals for the year.   There has been some progress on using previously acquired fabric.  There has been some fabric shopping, too, although I did make it two months with my only fabric purchase being specifically for a ring bear outfit for my "baby."   Ready for a photo dump?  Here it comes! Flower girl dresses, Geranium pattern by Made-by-Rae fit check, upcycle from a house-coat, Geranium pattern by Rae Hoekstra Another fit check, Geranium  upcycle bow tie (I'll have to look for the pattern) face mask self drafted baby bubble, back self drafted baby bubble, front "Mimi's boy" suspender shorts, Sewing for Boys  book Jade and Flashback Skinny Tee s "Mimi's Boy" suspender shorts, Sewing for Boys  book Biography day costume, to be Maria Mitchell, first woman to see a comet, cir...

 Well.  What a season. Christmas has come and gone, the New Year is well underway, and I'm only just now settling in to cleaning up and cleaning out and declaring the intentions for the new year. Make no mistake, I'm working on the intentions already....just taking my time to really clarify what, exactly, it is that I'm trying to work towards this year.  In the project realm, that includes updating my "Make-Nine" list -- nine projects to focus on for the year. In 2021, I accomplished 7 of the 9, which included the extremely large project of reupholstering a love seat that we inherited from my Grandmother.  Please enjoy the before (yellow) and after (teal).  It was a big project, it is not perfect, but it is DONE.  Will it survive another 50 years of constant use?  Probably not.  But is sure looks nicer in my living room now than it did before! Over the past several years, I've worked hard to finish up long abandoned projects. In 2021, I carted aro...

 Well, I guess it's been a minute.... School has started, routines are forming, Covid numbers are falling (and hopefully continuing to decline? Or at least stay lower for a good long while?).... Here's life around here, lately: The girls are back in school full time.  We were planning to go back to public this year, but in our lovely red state that disallowed mask mandates, we were having a hard time feeling comfortable with the Covid risks and lack of school based precautions.  Very last minute, we enquired about space/possibility of the girls attending a private school, and very last minute, that became our plan.  The girls are VERY happy to be in the classroom with non-mom teachers, peers, friends to play with, "specials" throughout the day....They don't mind wearing their masks all the time indoors, eating lunch and snacks outdoors, and one has even survived a week of "connected learning" when a classmate tested positive.   "The baby" start...

 Summer is on the way out (just the vacation part, not the weather) and we are making plans for our children to return to in-person school, even though our state has a law disallowing schools to mandate mask wearing and the children are all too young currently to be vaccinated against Covid-19.   Hubby and I are still caught up in a cycle of miscommunication, too-high expectations of each other, misunderstandings, and on and on, and it is exhausting.  I'm doing my best to let his unawareness (or un-caring-ness?) of the ways that his actions and words affect me roll off of me and not affect my interactions with our children, or my parents, or my siblings, or my friends...but it is hard, and an uphill battle.  I'm scheduled to see a therapist (new to me, we'll see if she is a good fit) in a couple of weeks, and I'm very hopeful that I will learn some new communication techniques and see our situation more clearly over time.   I'm scheduled for a medical ...

 Today is the anniversary of my husband's mom's death.   My mother in law's death.  My children's grandmother's death. This year (plus some) has been a very difficult year, punctuated by difficult emotions, fights with my husband, lots of sadness, and a few really high highlights (usually totally unrelated to all of the difficult emotions, fights with my husband, and sadness).  Briefly, this morning, we mentioned (I mentioned?) to the children that today is the anniversary of Mimi's death.  My five year old: "What is an anniversary?" Later this afternoon, we'll tell stories about Mimi to help them remember her, even though they spent very little time with her.  They were 6, 4, and 2 when she went to heaven, and our visits to Chile and her visits to us here were few.   I have wondered, too many times to count, over the course of the past year (plus some), whether the difficulty, and sadness, and fighting were a poor expression of our grief....

 The month is off to a hopeful end, for me.   We had a *mostly* stress free family photo session with our long-time family photographer, this time in a blooming peach orchard.  I've only seen a few sneak peeks so far, but I'm always impressed with the shots our photographer captures.  I managed to finish sewing the girls' dresses and an outfit for myself, too!  I decided that "the baby" should wear a nicer shirt than the tee I sewed for him, so bought him a snazzy little button down.  I swear he looks older than 3 in the pictures...maybe I need to put him back in jon jons and rompers for another summer (ha!  he probably wouldn't let me this summer, even though last summer he only wanted to wear bubbles!).  Each of these dresses has a sash that matches the collar/cuff fabric, also. And of course, there is lots of mess in the background.   My top matched the Peanut; my skirt matched Miss Middle. Hubby and I took a weekend away to cele...