On the second day of Christmas; Life in the time of Corona part 14

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 celebration without their mom/wife.  I'm sure, on some level, that he wishes I had chosen to pack up the kids and travel with him.  However, the logistics of Covid-"safe" travel and three children ages 3, 5, and 7 simply do not add up.  It was a task of choosing the least bad arrangement, rather than a good arrangement, at least in my mind, and my preference would have been for no travel at all.  My opinion seemed to count for very little in that conversation, and here I am, roughly 24 hours into solo-parenting for about three weeks, should this trip go as planned and not morph into the nightmare that the March trip turned into. (He went to Chile to see his mother in the hospital just as things were shutting down for the beginnings of the pandemic here, and was there while the borders were closed, while his mother received a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, and died from lack of ability to receive treatment since everything there  shut down due to the pandemic.  Instead of being away for the scheduled one week trip to see his mom in the hospital, he was there for nearly three months and also lost his mom.  Grief is a cruel master.)

I have spent a few minutes (very, very few) reflecting on my "Make 9" list from 2020.  I set some beautiful intentions for myself, to help push me into sewing more things for myself and learning some new-to-me skills and/or to simply convince myself to start a few projects I'd already started.  There were some beautiful successes in enhancing my wardrobe: plenty of Jade tees, a couple of pairs of Rose shorts, a Beatrix blouse with buttons, and several Isla dresses.  I'd like to say a special thanks to Rae Hoekstra, who does not know me, for writing her blog so many years ago and gradually hooking me in to her patterns, convincing me that even I could sew my own clothes.  "The baby" has a completed quiet book, finished just in time to not need to take him anywhere that he needed to stay quietly occupied. And a scrap quilt was started and finished -- but not the quilt that was started at the beginning of 2020.  There were some big misses, too: namely, all of the "home" items that were on the list.  For several years, "recover the loveseat" has been one of my most present goals, and for many years, "recover the loveseat" has gone unattempted, unstarted, unscheduled.  It is actually a huge frustration for me.  I have the fabric, I have the extra batting, I have piping/welting cord, I have coordinating thread, a slew of appropriate tools....I was probably planning to start it "next" in March when the hubby had his adventure in Chile and the first round of solo-parenting set in, followed by change after change in plans, and weeks and weeks spent away from home, and ill will towards each other that makes this a non-ideal time for beginning a project that will require his assistance to complete.  Also?  It is a daunting task -- there is something about the size of the job that is giving me pause, more than the three armchairs that we've recovered in preparation/trying to learn what we are doing.  And recovering the love seat is a pre-cursor to recovering the dining room chairs: the leftover fabric from the love seat (and the grey chairs before it) will become the new fabric for the dining room chairs.  I refuse to re-cover the dining room chairs first, just in case I somehow use up too much of the fabric purchased several years ago for the love seat.  Another home project that simply didn't happen: new curtains for the kitchen. 

 

2020 also contained plenty of un-planned sewing.  One of the biggest surprises to myself was the bathing suits: the series of shorts, tops, and a long-sleeve  swim shirt that combine with other (store bought) swimsuit pieces as a sort of mix-and-match set to cover most of my swimwear needs and preferences.  I didn't make piles and piles of masks, like I know some people did, but I did sew up enough for my immediate family to have several each.  And somehow, along the way, I sort of challenged myself to see if I could make all of my clothes instead of buying new (the big exceptions are jeans and bras).  This occasionally extends to the kids, but is mostly just self imposed on myself. To clarify, I have no problem wearing the clothes that I already owned; I've simply drastically changed the way I shop for myself from buying clothes ready made  to buying fabric and making them myself. 

Here is my current list, heading into Make 9 2021:

1.  Sew pants with a zipper
2.  Sew a jacket/hoodie with a zipper
3.  Reupholster the love seat
4.  Recover the dining room chairs
5.  Make another scrap quilt
6.  Sew running clothes (leggings and sports bras)
7.  Hand stitch an embroidery sampler
8.  Learn to use the serger 
9.  Finish the pink and yellow crotched blanket

Do you have goals/intentions/resolutions for the New Year?  I also have health/wellness/mental wellbeing goals in mind, but haven't settled on them quite yet.