my pink life, mi vida rosada

 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...