my pink life, mi vida rosada

I present to you: Miss middle, jumping with joy at finding soup in her stocking.  In our family, if you are naughty, Santa brings you soup instead of coal.  She got lucky that Santa didn't decide to pour the soup into the stocking, but rather chose to leave the soup in its own container. She also got lucky that Santa brought her toys AND soup, rather than just soup, because she is often naughty.  The thought of soup in her stocking had caused much worry and many tears over the past month or so, because she really does make naughty choices quite a lot. Also partially pictured: the loveseat (yellowish) and a grey chair, both mentioned later in this post.  Well, the excitement is over and the busy-ness of solo-parenting is taking over.  I'm crossing my fingers that the busy-ness will overshadow the loneliness and the feeling of sadness from the husband leaving mid-day Christmas day to travel to visit his family in Chile again, to be there for the first New Year's c...

 I just deleted a personal pity party (you are welcome!) and all that's left is this list, punctuated by some poorly lit pictures (and some disappeared as I was trying to move them into their correct places).   For a few days, I managed to put my phone down and not spend much time on social media.  Instead, I focused on advancing a variety of sewing projects.  1. The flying geese quilt is finished.  I think of it as "flight behavior," but I haven't made so many quilts that I need to name them.  I *did* go back and zig-zag the opposite direction for each of the nine columns.  I am more confident that it will survive what will likely turn into frequent washing.  I was able to bind the quilt with a large amount of leftover bias tape from making baby blankets for "the baby" three years ago, combined with a little bit of the same fabrics used in the quilt (but not cut on the bias). This quilt contains a variety of scrap fabrics that are meaningful...

 (Also, can I just state here that I wish this wasn't part 12 already, and that the original "stay safe at home" campaign in MARCH had been effective?  I mean, I'm an introvert, and I like to stay home, but GEE WHIZ I'm ready to be ALONE in my house or wandering through a store already?) We spent the week of Thanksgiving at the family beach house.  We managed 3 days of school -- two sort of "normal" homeschool days and one field trip.  We went to the swamp and got up close to the pitcher plants and the venus fly traps.  We've been learning about plants off and on throughout the fall, so this was a fun way to sneak an extra plant category into our science learning -- we'll be reading about them a little for follow-up over this week (and writing about them and drawing them and so on).  Did you know that Venus fly traps are very small?  The average size we saw was about the size of my thumbnail. Perhaps you can see them better if you zoom in? It was...

 Well, Halloween has come and gone....but it was a fun one.  Different, for sure, but fun.  We *DID* trick or treat -- probably the first "normal" thing that we've done in a long time.  I turned a mermaid tail blanket into a dress for Miss Middle to wear; she dressed up as her favorite imaginary play character.  No one could tell who she was, but she would proudly announce her name and the adults, who probably generally don't know who kids are dressing up as "these days" would exclaim things like, "of course!" and "that's the best _____ costume I've ever seen!"  Miss Middle was very pleased.  Peanut decided to dress up as a flower.  I acquired green pants and green shirt, and she decorated a hat as a flower.  I think she did a lovely job.   And "the baby" dressed up as a black cat.  He figured out pretty quickly that it was easier to ride in the stroller and let big sisters bring him candy for his bucket.  I loved that m...

 Well, here we are, most of the way through October.   I have *finally* gotten started on a new sewing project.  Of course, it was not on ANY of my lists of things that should/need to be done....But of course, it totally makes sense for me to start a quilt. (No, no it doesn't.  It doesn't make any sense at all.  And quilting is NOT my forte -- I've made a couple, but people who really spend a lot of time cutting up fabric and sewing it back together again with lovely tiny little perfect quarter inch seams would definitely agree with me that it makes absolutely NO SENSE for me to be trying a quilt.  Again.) So I've made a whole bunch of flying geese, and I'm in the process of trimming them down and sewing them in pairs.  Then I'll lay them out and figure out which pairs I want to attach to each other, and start in on that.  But so far....I've learned (confirmed) that my ability to sew a quarter inch seam is lacking.  I've also learned tha...

 The homeschool life is suiting me well, I believe! The kids are starting to sleep just a tiny bit later, until nearly 7, which feels HUGE considering we were trying to walk out the door at 7 last year.  We're doing about 1.5 hours of focused ELA and Math work each (weekday) morning, plus plenty of science and social studies reading/conversation/experience outside of our classroom.  The best part?  (Aside from the hugs and high fives during the day, of course!) We can very easily take our "school" on the road!  We spent last week learning at the beach, with grandparents and cousins and sweet hubby working from "home."  I want my kids to be able to safely return to "real" school -- but I am definitely loving the flexibility of being able to pack up the school work and do it wherever we want to be.  I have made some progress on the project room cleanout, and Goodwill has received many donations of items that will hopefully be useful to somebody else. I r...

 Well.  Not a lot has been accomplished.  We are sort-of on a schedule. We are sort-of getting used to it. We are sort-of doing better about eating real food.  We are sort-of getting the house cleaned up.  We are sort-of trying to get back into a happier place....but it is slow going and still feels extremely monotonous.   I took the kids shoe shopping this morning, at a local boutique.  They now have closed-toe shoes for the fall/winter season.  It feels like a success.  A very, teeny, tiny, itsy little success.  The girls are no longer enrolled in virtual school.  We'll be a homeschool family this year -- so along with my making my own clothes and cooking from scratch (sometimes)....I'm feeling very stereotypical.   In good news, Miss Middle is starting to speak some Spanish with me.  Some of her schoolwork is in Spanish, so that is helping.  Peanut has always known more Spanish that Miss Middle; we did a ...

 Well, I've probably joined the statistic of how many extra people are experiencing anxiety and depression.  The truth is that most of my days look basically the same, and there are very few stand-out events to look forward to, especially considering that my family is not ready to re-join the world of restaurant goers and birthday party attendees and in person grocery shoppers quite yet.  It feels extra lonely these days, as I've done an extra poor job of staying in touch with some of my dearest friends and lack so much contact with more casual, but still apparently important to my mental well-being, acquaintances.  I've started making an effort to get back in touch with some of the people who help keep me grounded, and I've started the process of finding a counselor to talk to about some of the recent goings-on, and "school" starts next Monday for my kids (virtual, but it will put us back on a schedule), and I'm hopeful that we are going to turn a corner ...

Well, the sewing/creating inspiration has been low and slow.  After the last good bit of making, I retreated into a "the mess is overwhelming so I won't do anything at all" sort of funk....and I'm only barely beginning to try to get myself out of it. I *did* make some bathing suit bottoms, hacking the Avery leggings pattern .  They are wonderful to wear -- a little longer than the "boy short" bathing suit bottoms I have recently bought from Target, and very comfortable.  They require less of two things I don't love -- less sunscreen and less shaving. They match the swim shirt I made, using the Jade pattern .  I also made two bathing suit tops, beginning with the Hyacinth free bralette  by OhhhLulu, and a pair of traditionally shaped bathing suit bottoms using the Stevie Knickers pattern .  Combined with a top or two from Old Navy and a swim shirt from Lands End, I have quite the mix-and-match set of bathing suits to meet all my different swimming/beac...

Sweet hubby is home and finished with his quarantine and we are REUNITED at last.  And all of the things I was fairly certain would happen have already started to happen -- tantrums and testing and re-educating him about how our family works and how the children have grown and changed in the nearly three months he was away.... Since last time I wrote, I've finished two extremely wearable pairs of Rose shorts and two lovely, lightweight, breezy-but-polished-looking Gemma tops, and one swim shirt using the Jade pattern.  I've acquired a huge stack of extra fabrics to make more things, both for myself and for my children, and also lost a lot of time to being away from home while sweet hubby did his two weeks of quarantine at our house. We'll soon spend time on family vacation, too, so not much time in the sewing room for me....but I'm trying to make smart use of the time I do have (when I'm not procrastinating, of course). I'm hopeful that some bathing suit b...

My mother in law went to heaven on May 6. Sweet hubby *might* make it home on May 23, just in time to start two weeks of self-isolation while the kids and I vacate the house. #MeMadeMay has spurred my making back into action, though it still ebbs and flows. Just today I finally sewed the buttons on the Beatrix top mentioned in my last post.  That floral knit did, indeed, become the skirt of a dress.  The sleeveless Jade top earned me an instagram shout-out by Rae Hoekstra , herself.  I wore a new Cleo skirt today.  And I sewed up a muslin for Rose shorts, and then I made a pattern alteration and sewed up a new muslin.  And I also stress-ordered some more fabric, and I printed the Gemma pattern, and in my brain it makes total sense for me to be making so many things, but in reality it probably is a misplaced coping mechanism.  Certainly it would be better for me to be doing things like mopping the kitchen floor or cleaning the toilets during na...

Sweet hubby is still away. His mom is still alive, but also still declining.  There is no way to gauge how much longer she will be alive.  There is no real way to understand whether her prognosis is different because of Covid-19 closing all of the clinics or whether her cancer was so advanced by the time they found it that it is a small mercy she is not also trying to undergo invasive treatment for a losing battle. I miss him. The kids miss him. His CAT misses him. The chickens probably miss him, too.  I'm sure they would at least appreciate having a clean coop again, but that is something that is just a little bit too far out of my wheelhouse right now. Nearly two weeks ago, my parents and I decided it was time to join each other's "social distancing" bubbles.  IT WAS THE BEST CHOICE.  It is so, so, so nice to be able to spend time with them in person.  It is SO NICE to let them watch the kids play outside while I cook supper. It is WINNING to ha...

It's April 15.  The airline sweet hubby will fly home on is not offering international flights until May. He left home on March 13. That's a pretty long time to be apart. It will be followed by a two week quarantine, almost certainly, unless he's (or we've?) already had the Covid-19 before he returns. I miss my parents and my brother and sister. I miss my friends. I miss having my kids at school most days. I miss being able to take five minutes to regroup when my kids are driving me nuts. I miss sharing the cooking and cleaning with another adult. I miss walking through the grocery store and target and all the other stores, too. I miss so many things. My circle group through church met on Zoom tonight and we talked about what we've lost, what we've kept, and what we've gained.  I've gained trust in my kids' abilities. I've gained confidence in my own abilities. I've gained deeper relationships with my kids. It's st...

Well, that escalated quickly. Tuessday, March 10 seems like a lifetime ago, when in reality was only 20 days ago. Sweet hubby's mom had been in the hospital for a couple of days; the economy was starting to tank, schools were on the brink of being canceled, rumors of everything shutting down for "social distancing" were rampant.... And now, here we are....Fully two weeks distanced, and no end in sight. Sweet hubby in Chile, where his mom has, indeed, been diagnosed with a pancreatic tumor, but cannot receive follow-up diagnosis nor treatment (other than pain medication) because of clinics closing after Covid-19 exposures. Sweet hubby in Chile, recovering from his own hospital adventure when he was diagnosed with diverticulitis.  Sweet hubby in Chile for at least another two weeks, as long as airlines will still fly him home to the states after two more weeks go by. I am here, at the house, with the three small children.  Peanut, Miss Middle, and "the baby....

It's March!  And life sure is marching right along, going by with so many things that my to-do list keeps getting pushed aside.  I hope that I am focusing on the people who are so important to me, although I do admit sometimes feeling frustrated that the projects I want to be working on are taking a back-seat.  The love seat continues to wait.  Smaller projects are coming out of the woodwork -- I sometimes think "I don't have anything to work on" but the reality is that my list of small projects has grown so long that it feels overwhelming, and to even begin thinking of the big project (loveseat) makes me resort to unproductive habits (thanks, internet and social media).  In trying to use up the scraps from my elephant shirt, I managed to cut the fronts and backs for two tees for the girls.  Not enough for sleeves, though....and then as I was putting the tank tops together, I had the thought...."what if I put a geranium ruffle on these?"  A...

Currently on the embroidery machine: a swimsuit for my 2 year old niece, getting a precious little monogram, so she and my girls can all "match" at the pool and the beach this summer. I don't know why it sometimes takes me so incredibly long to get things monogrammed -- for my own kids, I've got so many of their monograms pre-set and it really doesn't take that long or that much effort to hoop the items.  I bought the bathing suits on clearance at the end of last summer, and while there is really no reason to be monogramming them *today,* today it is.  I'm avoiding cutting in to the red and white bird knit, making myself another Jade tee.  I need to just go ahead and do it -- but for some reason the monogramming came first today. Another "just get it done already" project that did actually get done: finishing these little dresses that my mom started for me and my sister, when we were small.  Do they even still sell dresses in this form?  I...

Well, I guess I found some more projects that aren't the love seat.  Funny how new projects creep their way into the plans when you take a trip to the fabric store for one color thread for that little monogram on the new dresses for family pictures and end up walking through the whole entire store for more than an hour.  I'm sure it only happens to me, right? I knew I wanted to monogram the girls' dresses for our upcoming family pictures, and I knew I wanted to use mint-green for the monograms....and then all of a sudden, the blue thread just looked better....So I bought the blue.  Too bad for my wallet that the blue is almost the same as a blue I already had at home. Also....I'd been struggling with what outfit I want "the baby" to wear for the family pictures....church clothes?  Play clothes?  The girls' dresses are sort of in the "fancy play-clothes" category -- they will be put in drawers, not hung up (church/special occasion clothes ha...