A New Start
Creamie is better. And I have really enjoyed my little break. And I’m going to take another. A lot has happened in the last week and I need time to rearrange my whole life and my priorities and figure out a new routine. Last Tuesday Scott got a new job. A really great one, one that he will be really good at. One that has awesome benefits and better pay than we have had in far too many years. (Yes, years!) It is perfect for him, and he was picked out of 140 applicants in a unanimous board decision. We are so excited.
Except he is going to have a much longer commute. His commute for the past five years has been really short. Two years of a whole mile and a half roundtrip each day (including coming home for lunch) and the past two years it has been a whopping 100 yards. His office is right next door. I saw him all the time, Creamie saw him all the time, and whever I couldn’t get the TV/Printer/Computer/whatever to work right he’d run home and solve all my problems. And how his commute will be more than an hour each way. And he is going to be on a 4 days a week, 10 hour day shift. Which should mean that we’d have all Friday together, but he’ll still be finishing up some projects at his other job for the next few months and his Friday’s are already booked.
My days are going from him being gone for 8 or 8.5 hours each day to him being gone for 14 hours a day. And things need to change around here. Lots of things. So while I figure it out I’m going to continue my little break. I might have a few new projects that get finished (I have two new skirts that are finished but all my pictures look awful) or I might just repost a few things from my archives. I might post some of the Instagram* pics I’ve been taking (I have stayed on top of that 30 day goal!) and I might not post a thing. I am so grateful for this new opportunity for him, for us. It is an answer to a lot of prayers. Hopefully next year we’ll be able to move closer to his work so he doesn’t miss so much of Creamie’s life because he is in the car. Until then I am trying some new things to make my routine without him more bearable. And you can bet that means a mandatory naptime for Creamielou. Which is going to mean getting up (and going to bed) a LOT earlier. Wish me luck, I”ll be back soon, like in September. Soonish.
*If you want to follow me on instagram my username is pinksuedeshoe, or you can see all of my ig pics on flickr here.
Sick Baby
Yesterday I thought Creamie might be coming down with something. And then she woke up sobbing in the middle of the night and couldn’t be comforted. A few hours later she calmed down and went to sleep, and this morning she seemed much better.
But she’s not. She woke up from a much needed afternoon nap by running into the bathroom, and has been in and out of there all afternoon. She can’t keep anything down. I’ve put her in the tub five times today. She’s almost ready to go back to bed, and I hope that by tomorrow her little body has recovered. A lot of laundry today, and I don’t think our bathroom floor has ever been so clean. Scott has washed it six times today. Thankfully the carpet has remained unscathed. For now.
Pretty old thread
Last night I read an email from an old friend. I met her when I was 6 or 7. She was friends with my oldest brother. But she somehow wasn’t totally annoyed with this crazy blonde haired little girl. We reconnected on facebook a while ago and it is no secret that I am addicted to old things, sewing things and pink typewriters. And last night she sent me the best email in the world.
She asked me if I wanted these. She had two boxes of old wooden spools from her grandma, and a sewing book from 1949. I kind of freaked out and used way too many capital letters and exclamation points in my response. And this morning she dropped them off.
Ever since I started thrifting a few years ago I’ve been dreaming of finding a bag or a box of a drawerful of beautiful old thread. I’ve looked at them on etsy and ebay and at every antique store I’ve ever been in. But never had a good enough reason to buy them I guess.
I’m too much a thrill seeker, finding it “in the wild” at a thrift store is so exciting. Buying it on etsy is not nearly as exciting, even if the end product is the same. The thrill of falling instantly in love with something that someone else thought was trash is awesome. And then thinking how lucky you are that you found it before that other guy did is also thrilling.
[ Yeah, the pink ones are TOTALLY my favorites. I can’t make myself put them back in the box.]
Paying someone else to find it for you and then ship it to you is not nearly as exciting. Of course, now that I have two boxes of thread to play with, I will probably buy some more. I’ll add it to my obsessive collecting of things in every single color.
And then this morning Chrys made all my dreams come true. Which sounds totally cheesy, I know. But I spent a good 30 minutes stacking up different spools of thread and taking pictures of my new favorite color combos.
It has been a happy happy afternoon spent with these old beauties. And I’m sure that this is not the end of the thread photoshoots. Does that sound lame? Kind of? I don’t care. They are pretty. And old. And I can’t help myself.
This spool is my favorite. I don’t know exactly when they stopped making wooden spools, but it was a long time ago, and I had no idea that invisible thread was on the market that long ago. How cool is that? Answer: very cool.
Thanks to my brother Jared for picking some awesome friends more than 20 years ago. And a huge thank you Chrys for making today the best of the whole week. I hope you all have a good weekend.
Happiness Is…
Happiness is a a lot of things. But today, happiness is as simple as a new box of crayons.
And ruffle socks. They are by far her favorite thing to wear.
And lining things up in color order.
And then just dumping them out in a big happy pile.
And happiness is this face. I love that little lip, it always sticks out when she is concentrating.
Happiness is the big paper that Scott brings home from work. Stacks of big white paper.
Happiness is little tiny fingers, and small little hands.
Happiness is spending all day with this girl, she’s the sweetest person I know. I love you baby.
*Also, this post reminds me very much of this post from last fall… only with more colors.
My Sunday in Instagrams
I am making a goal to take at least one non blog post photo every day in August. I’ll be posting them on Instagram, as well as on flickr, and then I’ll do a sumup post at the end of August. I am working my way up to a 365 project for next year, but I need to start small. Seven days of art journal pages, one month of Instagrams, and then 365 of… something. I’m sure it will come to me. Here are a few from this evening.
You can never go wrong with warm cookies and milk. Scott had this cup (and matching plate and bowl) when he was a little boy, and it is the perfect dipping cup. Oh, and she has a pretty vigorous dipping routine, hence the blur of cookie.
We made our own ketchup tonight. I should have gone to the grocery store on Friday, but I’ve been putting it off. We had everything in the fridge for delicious grilled burgers, except ketchup. So we made our own. I don’t think the recipe we used was a keeper, but it was a fun experiment.
And then I have spent the last hour making little flannel diapers for all of Creamie’s babydolls. A little velcro (from Scott’s highschool sewing kit) and one too tiny for anything else flannel receiving blanket and I have four diapers for all her little dolls. Well, three for the baby dolls and one for the moose. That was a special request. (He is the brown blur in the corner). I’m off to eat another cookie and make a grocery list for tomorrow. Oh, and change baby diapers a million times before she falls asleep way past her bedtime. I love Sunday nights at home.
Art Journal: Back to School
I loved going to school. Loved it. While I was earning my bachelors degree I was working full time, I started work at 5 am nearly every single day I was in school. And so did Scott. Looking back I don’t know how on earth we survived. One day I hope to go back to school and earn another degree. But the second time around I hope I don’t have to start that early. Class at nine am will be plenty early enough.
I have two dreams involving more school. One is to get a PhD and teach college. The other is to take a few classes here and there and learn to be a pattern designer. There is a community college nearby that has about a million classes I’d love to take in their fashion design department. And lately that is what I’ve been thinking about. Not necessarily leaning towards, but definitely thinking about it.
I don’t know if or when one of both of them will happen, but wouldn’t it be great to have classes and a stack of books with titles like these? Sigh, August is practically here and it always makes me homesick for school. Thanks for all the encouragement and feedback on my art journals. I really should set aside more time each week to work play with these. But I’m back to sewing during my freetime this week. My 10 year highschool reunion is on Friday night and I need to make something to wear. (And when I graduated from highschool my 18 year old self would have been shocked that would be something my 28 year old self would say. And then do.) I’ll be sure to post pictures. Hope your weekend was lovely.
Art Journal: It’s Time
It’s time. Time to buy tiny pink underwears and do a lot more tiny pink laundry. I don’t imagine that it is going to go well…. I’m pretty much counting on disaster actually. (I kind of have a life view that if you expect and plan for the worst possible outcome, then you are very rarely dissappointed, and more often than not things turn out to be surprisingly wonderful.)
And that’s all I’m going to say about it. She is excited, I think she can do it. And we have one month until she starts school. On a semi related note: WHY ARE ALL TINY LITTLE UNDERWEARS COVERED WITH LICENSED CHARACTER PRINTS! Ahem, I might have to make them myself. Because I so do not buy into Disney underwear. The End.
*This little book is Creamie’s journal, it’s only about 6 maybe 7 inches square. I don’t keep a real journal about her growing up, but I’ll draw pictures and write down things she says in here. It felt like the right place to mark this milestone.
Art Journal: This Summer
Growing up my mom did a lot of preserving of fruit and vegetables. Like, a LOT. I remember long hot days in the kitchen while we canned peaches and apriocots and cherries. We did quarts and quarts of tomatoes and at least 5 kinds of jam every single year. A few years ago I bought my own canner, and I’ve done applesauce, peaches, pears and apricots and jalapeno jelly on my own at home. The fall I was pregnant with Creamie I even did 30 big jars of beef stew.
And this summer, I hope to do some more. It is so satisfying to open my pantry and see a whole shelf full of jars of beautiful food. I made strawberry jam a few weeks ago, but I have a lot of empty jars that need to be filled up before winter.
My mom found this Better Homes and Gardens Canning magazine, and I can’t wait to try out some of the recipes inside. There are things like Tomato Basil jam and vanilla pickled sweet cherries and Sundried Tomato Pesto or Tomatillo Apple Salsa. Not to mention the pictures are amazing. After I flipped through hers I went to pick up a copy for myself, but they were sold out. Thanks to my sweet friend Rose for finding one for me and picking it up!
So, do you can things? It’s not as hard as people say it is, you just have to be careful is all. And it is so satisfying to look at that row of delicious things to eat you made yourself. It makes eating out of the pantry one of my favorite parts of the winter.
Weeds and Wildflowers
As the sun was setting tonight I looked across the street to the empty field and decided I had to walk over with my camera. Ok, Camera’s. I took three. And I spent the next 20 minutes or so taking pictures of weeds and wildflowers. I am going to go back tomorrow night with Scott so I don’t have to try and do a self portrait. Because serioulsy, that is awkward. This was the best I got, mostly because my face isn’t actually in it. But, the newly blonde hair is, so there’s that.
I think this flower/weed is called Bishop’s lace, but I’m not exactly sure. I think it is among my very favorite flowers ever. It is beautiful.
This top pic was from my iphone, posted on instagram (my username is pinksuedeshoe if you use it, come find me!)
And this one was from my Instax camera. Didn’t turn out well… flash and sunsets don’t go together very well. Now I know.
I think the sun on this one makes it look like it is glowing from the inside, or like it’s going to catch on fire or something. So so pretty.
These are those giant dandelion weeds, each bloom is about 4 inches across. And full of wishes.
I took this picture over my mom’s fence this afternoon, but I thought I’d add it in here too.
I also love thistle blossoms. They are about the worst plant on earth, but so so pretty.
Anyway, it was really fun to hang out in a deserted field (the same one this house is in, a strip mall project that ran out of money or something) and shoot photos for a while. And it really made me wish I knew more about our camera. Sigh.
OK, that’s probably enough pictures of weeds for the rest of the year, but I think they are just so pretty. I hope to spend many more sunsets just looking at the beauty around me. Even if it is in a deserted stripmall project.
Art Journal: Pretty Soon
I realized this afternoon that I only have one month left with Creamie at home with me all day. She is going to start preschool this fall (I get to buy school supplies!) and then every fall for the rest of her life at home she’ll start scho0ol. I’m not sad about it, life is what it is. She is more than ready to start school. She talks about it all day everyday, and she can already recognize a handful of letters. She has been talking about going to school this fall since before she turned two. She’s ready.
I want to really enjoy this last month of having her here at home with me all the time. Because soon this time together will change. I’m not sad, I know she is going to grow up and there is nothing I can do to change it, or stop it. I am so excited for her to move forward, and learn new things and expand her little mind. But as much as we are both looking forward to the new experiences, I don’t want to miss a single part of the end of this one.
We have been taking digital photos for a long time. Our entire married life. (Though our wedding photos are all film.) And of those hundreds and thousands of photos stored on our computer (and backed up on a hard drive in the safe) I could count on one hand the number of photos we have actually printed out. Having my Instax camera has been great. I snap a picture, and it is done, printed, finished, ready to glue onto something. I don’t feel the need to edit, crop, increase saturation, fix lighting, whatever. I just capture the moment or the view and then use it. I’ve also been taking closeup photos of each one to save on the computer too. I kind of freak out about all the things in my life that aren’t saved and backed up and documented in 2 or 3 or 4 different spots, you know, just in case.
A long time ago my dad gave me a box of these magnetic poetry words. Only, I’m not a poet and I hate having things stuck to my fridge. But I’ve been using them in my art journals and I love them. These didn’t make it onto this page, but I still think they are sweet. (This is an instagram I took in the middle of my artsy time today.)
So someone asked me the other day what is the difference between a scrapbook page and an art journal page. For some people, they are the same. I have about 6 different art journals, all with different papers and pages and purposes. This particular book is more scrapbooky than the others. When I made this book I picked out about 75 of my favorite scrapbook papers from my stash and took them to OfficeMax to be bound together with chipboard covers. When I start working on a page I just look for a paper that stands out to me. This book isn’t in any kind of order. I just work on the page I think looks appealing that day, no matter what is the on the pages around it. And I don’t know if I’ll use every single page or not. That doesn’t really matter as much. I’m just writing down what I’m thinking about, and pulling everything out of my boxes of scraps that I think might look good on there. My scrapbook pages I’ve made ( I have hundreds and hundreds of them) are more about documenting events. I have a LOT more pictures, and very little writing . And they are all in plastic pages in binders, which means there is very little on those pages besides flat paper, nothing that would add much bulk to them. Anyway, I feel a lot more free to do whatever I want in my art journals, and I’m glad I have so many different kinds. Maybe tomorrow I’ll work on a different kind, who knows. Hope your Thursday is wonderful.
pinksuedeshoe 