Yesterday afternoon (cutting it close), I finished a new set of fall napkins for our Thanksgiving table. I'm pleased with them as I've wanted some fall napkins for several years. I also cut out the fabric for a dress which I hope to sew today in between preparing the Thanksgiving sides. Ambitious? Yes. Thanks to my brother-in-law, the smoked turkey is already done. We also spent the day playing and talking with family, and my sister and I prepared a five- dish Indian meal-- probably more time consuming than our Thanksgiving preparations.
The beginning of this school year is throwing me curve ball after curve ball (my only excuse for not showing up here very often). I hope I learn how to hit these balls soon. At least I'm showing up every day for practice-- whether it is at work or at the kitchen table for homework each night. I love a challenge, but I haven't quite figured out how to master this school year yet.
Balance is the mantra I try to hold in my mind, and I hope that I am helping my children learn how to balance their interests and obligations, too. My son has three new endeavors: cello, after-school choir, and Taekwando. My daughter is adding Taekwando to her art, piano, and the increasing academic demands of fifth grade. Their schedules impact my schedule and vice-versa.
While I want my children to be academically successful, I also think the expectations of today's schools are sometimes unrealistic and just too much. I don't want my children sacrificing their creativity for worksheets, busy work, or multiple choice tests. I ask myself: "Do I have computers with bodies, or do I have children?" My vocal inflection on asking the previous question might equal Patrick Henry's cry: "Give me liberty or give me death!"
I remind myself that balance is important when I need to check off items on my "to-do list," but I also need to exercise. I may not have photographed or blogged about my newly formed knitting club at school, but I promise photos and a blog post after all twenty plus students get the hang of the basic knit stitch. I may not have a perfectly clean house, but I have found a few creative minutes here and there by sewing some needed p.j. pants, dyeing curtains with turmeric, and making journal covers and pillowcases for gifts.
And, I'm diligently searching for some writing time with that idea that keeps popping into my mind during moments of silence on my way to work and late at night before falling sleep. I have so much to say about education.
Because I painted my daughter's room, I also painted my son's room. Everything is EQUAL around here. He wanted dark blue instead of light blue walls. We compromised with this in-between color that reminds me of a sunny, cloudless sky. I had a little help with the painting and constant companionship from a varying audience of my son, my daughter and her friend, the cats, and the dog. We listened to my favorite stations on Pandora, NPR programs, and a few chapters about Gregor in the third book of his adventures in the Underworld.
I haven't been around the blog in a few days because I've been busy painting two bedrooms and sewing for one. My 10-year-old daughter needed an update. I had promised to re-do her room at the beginning of the summer, and since I return to work next Tuesday, I had to get busy!
Gone are the green walls, curtains, and rug that we inherited when we moved into this house about 5 years ago. Instead, we painted lavender walls and made curtains and a duvet cover based on patterns and instructions in Meg McElwee's book, Sew Liberated. We still have a few finishing touches-- organizing stuff, cleaning the closet, sewing a new sham & a seat cover for the desk hair, making fabric covered bulletin boards, and re-hanging some artwork.
We love the new look-- perfect for a tween and her dolls.
Two cups of tea, two sewing machines, two sisters, and two sewing projects.
One cat who does a little of everything: reclining on the IPad with the instructions for one of the sewing projects, sniffing the sewing machines, playing with bits of ribbon and string, batting bunches of fabric, fetching a ball, messing up my applique design.
Two hours of afternoon entertainment. All three of us were purring.
I made this small sewing machine for very small projects. My daughter put the rest of the mini-sewing kit together-- small bits of fabric, small spools of thread (the travel kit kind), small buttons, small scraps of elastic, the small strawberry from my larger strawberry pincushion, and a button shaped like a pair of scissors. Perfect for small hands. She even put together a mini knitting basket using toothpicks for the knitting needles!
We also have a large sewing project planned. After looking online at pages and pages of girl's bedroom linens and "tween" sets, we decided to design our own using the paint colors she picked out at the hardware store. Very soon, she will have a lavender and light aqua room with purple and pink accents. We plan to sew curtains, a duvet cover, and paint before school starts. The best part is that we will design, sew, and paint together.
I love that my 10 year-old daughter is still young enough to play with her dolls and old enough play an equal part in a large project. Let's add this to my Loving list.
One of my main goals for the summer is to clean out and organize the house from top to bottom. Ambitious, I know, but I have started!
Is it cheating if in the process of organizing and cleaning out my knitting stash and supplies (previously scattered in 5 different places) I decided to actually finish some projects? The first finish was my socks. Then, I wove in the ends to five washcloths, fingerless mits, and a log cabin blanket. Then, I frogged several flawed projects from my early knitting days to reclaim some nice yarn. Then, I felted (instead of frogging) a largish, circular, rug I made during Hurricane Katrina. Then, I decided to look for a good sweater pattern to knit as my first sweater: thinking of this one. Any other suggestions?
I'm definitely and hopelessly diverted, but I did gather all of my knitting supplies in one place, and I discovered a leak behind a wall (the shower?) that warped some floorboards beneath boxes full of stuff. You never know where finishing a bunch of old projects will lead. This time, weaving in ends = calling a plumber.
While my children are with their grandparents this week, I promised to send them daily photos of our cats. I think they will miss the cats more than me! This little scene happened this morning before 7:00 am. My son found this turtle last Tuesday while raking magnolia leaves with his dad. He had wanted me to take a photo of it, but it hid away before I made it outside with my camera. This morning, it visited my herb/butterfly garden, and the cats watched it scuttle around and plod away with great interest.
Lately, I have seen several back and front yard residents a little more unusual than the numerous squirrels, anoles, geckos, birds, and insects. Who knows what else is around? A large garden snake (photo below) was sunning itself in the jasmine several weeks ago. A cottontail rabbit has been munching in the garden regularly. I'll be on the look-out and try to get its photo next.
The lamp in my foyer is home to a colony of small spiders. It looks like all of Charlotte's babies drifted to this lamp in my home and decided to stay together in this one spot. I wonder if I could count them. There are so many. Guests may think I'm a terrible housekeeper, but I enjoy stopping to observe them as I walk by doing chores or gathering the mail. I could suck them up in the vacuum cleaner, but I can't think of any harm they are doing except to the small insects that get trapped in their cobwebby snares.
During the night, the light from this same lamp attracts our pale, house geckos to the outside foyer to snap up the insects-- also attracted to the light. Just think of the small dramas happening in this small space between these small creatures.
The sun was shining, thunder clapped loudly and suddenly, and large, heavy raindrops fell from the sky. When rain and sun mix, there might be a rainbow nearby!
This rainbow appeared low to the ground. It started in a neighbor's front yard across the street and arched over another neighbor's house. I ran through the house to the back windows to see where it ended.
On Facebook, I saw reports of people all over town seeing rainbows-- over a Walmart parking lot-- in another neighborhood in front of towering pine trees. With the angle of the afternoon sunlight, I suspected there were many, many rainbows all over the city depending on the vantage point of the seer. I wondered if there was one right over our home waiting to be seen by another neighbor looking out of her front window and down the street.
School is officially out for the children, and I only have today left to wrap things up in the library and with my teaching colleagues. I am looking forward to a slower pace of life not over scheduled with homework and school projects. I can't wait to read, knit, quilt, garden, cook, explore, walk, write, sit by the pool, organize and clean out. For me, and I suspect for other teachers, the beginning of summer break is a better resolution time than the new year. I am taking stock, refueling, and preparing for the next academic year and all of the challenges and opportunities it will bring.
I was staging a photo shoot of some recent, mindless knitting projects (still waiting to be finished and severed from their balls), and I realized that the items on the kitchen table were a perfect representation of our lives right now: work, homework, meals, and a little knitting, playing, or reading. I haven't been blogging much lately because May is so busy with end of school activities both for work and for my own children. My portable knitting has followed me here and there for in between times, before times, and after times. The photos below reveal what I cropped out of the frame above.
This seed-stitch washcloth was started back at the end of April for my trip to Chicago. Notice that subsequent washcloths took on a basket weave stitch and bright colors to remind me of the coming summer. The seed-stitch felt a little slow, but the basket weave keeps me going-- just one more section. The gray cat appears on the kitchen table any time and every time it looks like people are about to be around-- homework, breakfast, blogging, photo shoot, dinner, etc.
"Am I in the way?" the furry beast asks. "Why don't you rub that spot behind my ears while you do your work. I'll try very hard not to chew that pencil, but remember I'm just a cat."
Science homework: "Ready to Eat: Omnivores, Carnivores, and Herbivores."
Cat, computer, knitting, homework, book (Gregor and Prophecy of Bane by Suzanne Collins), and Maxis Dragonoid: now it's time to clear it all off and set the table for supper. What are we having? Better figure that out. . .
