Sunday, Sunday, Sunday.

I got out in the yard today after doing some more research about what to plant for a Florida Fall Garden, and planted some pole bean seeds and some lettuce seeds that I've had good luck with  in the past.  I will get some tomatoes, cucumbers and herbs next week.  I don't really want to plant those from seeds.  I've never had much luck with beans but I think I've been trying to plant them too late in the spring so it gets too hot for them pretty fast.  Who knew.   I am going to go online and order some seed catalogs tonight to peruse. 

Kaleigh and I are going to put together two more raised beds, one for herbs (a small one), and one for tomatoes.  It's just laziness that we haven't done it yet. 

My pots of lavendar and basil are looking a little wilty and stemmy, but I'm going to try to cut them back and see if that helps any. 

Mom is back in the hospital again, I am having some really awful anxiety about it.  How much can a body take?  (I'm talking about mom's body.)

I puttered around the house, did a little laundry, washed dishes, organized a few things, but did little else today.  I really needed that.  Cari called this morning and said that her mom said Kaleigh can come over today, which truly irritated me.  I'm doing all the driving (two trips each time one of them wants to go to the other's house), and HER mom says it's okay.  Isn't that nice of her?  Who asked me?  I want to do things I WANT TO DO sometimes. 

I think I'll go read and make dinner.

Embracing the Amie. . .

At the beginning of the year, I made a commitment to embrace the Amie.  To stop fighting who I am and be more accepting of myself.  How am I doing?  Well. . . I"m not.  It's fall, a new school year, and I'm thinking a lot lately that I'm not doing a very good job of it, which is making me a stressed out, unsatisfied, restless person.  I feel a little overwhelmed by the enormity of doing this, so I'm doing nothing, which is very stressfull to me.

So I have decided to embrace my mid-life crisis (my sustainability obsession), and just accept it.  I've already made a lot of changes, so I will continue to do those, and add small things until I feel I'm there.  So to start off my new attitude, I'm going to make a little list of the things I've already done.

• I made raised beds and planted a small garden
• Made a compost bin and started REALLY composting
• Made reusable lunch bags (to replace plastic zip-lock bags)
• Recycled men's shirts to make plaid quilts
• Made cloth napkins
• Turned the airconditioning up a few degrees (saving me substantially on my electric bill)
• Line dry laundry (sometimes--not really consistently)
• Make laundry detergent
• Make dishwasher soap
• Make salad dressing (more for taste than anything else)
• Make brownie mix
• Make makeup remover

I've also decided that I need to do ONE SMALL THING at a time, and when I get a handle on that, then I can do another small thing.  Hopefully this will keep me from feeling so overwhelmed with the work of it, since I really only have to work on one thing at a time. 

On that note, my one small thing for now is going to be making sure to use reusable bags, although I need to find a pattern and MAKE some fabric bags.  I'm not sure the reusable bags (that are plastic) from the store are much better than the cheapy plastic bags. 

And. . . because I'm an overachiever, I'm going to  be working on my next small thing too, which is going to be planting a fall garden.  More tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, and herbs.  Right now I'm doing research (mostly consisting of looking pretty gardens up on Pinterest--lol), so I really won't work on that for a week or two yet. 

Will check in again soon.

I'm Back. . .

Well, I'm back.  My life has been crazy chaos for a few months, but things are going to settle down now, so I will make a commitment to write more.  It means a lot to me to write, it certainly has gotten me through some difficult times in my life as well as documented how I felt during great times, so I will make a real effort.

I have decided to re-start my quilting business, but I feel myself being pulled into more environmentally friendly practices (my hippie-ness rears it's head again!).  For example, I bought several men's plaid shirts at Goodwill, washed them (of course!), and cut them up to make baby quilts.  Out of the six shirts I bought (for a total of less than $7), I have so far made three adorable baby quilts in different patterns, two of them are pictured below.  

Of course, they aren't quilted yet, but they will be soon.  I've been doing a lot of projects lately--reusable lunch bags, lots of quilts, baby doll diapers for my classroom, and I've made a couple of sets of really nice cloth napkins from large tablecloths that I found at Goodwill also.  I really like the idea of upcycling stuff. 

Kaleigh gets home from her vacation this morning--I'm going to pick her up at the airport in about 40 minutes.  I've really missed her, and I know Lucy has too.  Here she is looking forlornly out the window, waiting for her mommy to come home. 

I really enjoyed my daughter in law's visit with my granddaughters--it was lovely. 

Aren't they gorgeous?  I wish I had some makeup on, but oh well.  I love the picture of Bianca, she doesn't look at all possessed in this picture (not that she IS possessed, but she usually looks like it in pictures).  She is definitely gorgeous. 

I've been super-busy getting my classroom ready for the new year, my assistant and I have made a lot of changes this year, and hopefully they will help things settle down a little--this year's group seems so YOUNG!  

Well, I better go pick up my baby from the airport--will check back in soon. 





Business and Dropping My Basket. . .

Kaleigh and I have been tossing around an idea to re-start my quilting business.  She could be a big help for me and we could do well, I think.  I'm not sure that she fully understands how much work it will be, but I'm embracing the idea.  We need to think about changing our sewing room arrangement to make things a little easier. 

Today I spent a lovely (no sarcasm) three hours at the bookstore while Kaleigh and her friend Cari went to the mall and shopped.  I thought three hours was going to be a VERY long time, but I was actually a few minutes late in picking them up.  I walked around the bookstore and found a bunch of books about omesteadng and sustainability, and several quilting magazines, went into the cafe and bought myself a $1.50 cup of coffee and sat and read for 2 1/2 hours.  It was lovely.  I took notes whenever I thought of something i wanted to blog about, or do in my classroom, or quilt, or anything I thought of to tell K about for the business.  Apparently I needed that.

I've been in a weird state of anxiety for the last few days.  Financially, I am having a rough time, and I've been trying to make a plan to resolve the issue, so I made some phone calls yesterday, and things are looking better.  I always love a plan of action.  I kind of call this anxiety "dropping my basket".  Where I'm not nutty enough to need mental help, but just enough to make me a little uncomfortable.  Anyway, I'm glad it's over, now I'm having another idea spurt. 

I've been working like crazy on my Grandmother's Flower Garden Quilt, and the top is almost done.  I only have to add a blue row to the bottom, then the borders, then I'm ready to start the hand quilting.  REALLY looking forward to that!  I have missed hand quilting.  It used to be my best friend.  Hand piecing the top has provided me wonderful side effect that I will ned for the hand quilting.  A quilter's callous.  Now I don't have to do dishes anymore because I need that callous to hand quilt.  It's ugly, but there's nothing more fabulous to a quilter. 

I have plans to make another raised bed for herbs.  I have them in pots right now, but I want to let them get bigger, so I want to move them into a bed.  I also want to plant some more cherry tomatoes and maybe even some plum tomatoes.  We had some nachos last night--made by Kaleigh--with some of our heirloom Mr. Stripey tomatoes.  They were so good!  They are green and orange, with red stripes through the inside.  Yummy!  Can't wait to get more.

Holiday Weekends. . .

Holiday weekends--who doesn't love them?  There is just nothing like having an extra day to do whatever you want.  Kaleigh has been at a friends for two nights, so I've had some really quiet "me time".  I think I needed it.  I ran a few errands, and worked on my quilt, made some plans,and just generally sat with my thoughts for awhile.  Very nice.  I've been thinking about some changes I want to make in my life, and this is difficult for me.  Last night I made some roasted vegetables for my dinner, they were really good, I think I should eat that kind of thing more often. 

I've decided to move some things around the house, mainly in my bedroom.  I need to clean out my closet, and move a chair in there.  Get rid of some clothes, and generally organize stuff.  Wow, I'm even boring myself. 

I think I'll cook a nice meatloaf and mashed potatoes today for Kaleigh and me.  Also, I need to go to the fabric store and get some yellow 30's reproduction fabric for my quilt.  Kaleigh will want to go with me to get that, and maybe we can stop at the bookstore for a frappe. 

Musings on Friday. . . and Books

I know, I know.  Weird for me to blog on Friday, but I'm feeling it, and I'm not one to go against my feelings.  It's rest time in my classroom, and the Winnie the Pooh theme is playing in the background (one of my all-time favorites), and I'm just inspired. 

I've finished a couple of books over the last few weeks and I want to talk about them.  the first is called The Dirty Life, by Kristin Kimball, about a big city writer who was writing an article (and thinking about a book) about sustainable living, and she goes to meet an organic farmer, falls in love with him, and moves to the country to help him run his organic, whole food farming co-op.  VERY interesting.  I highly recommend it--it's very entertaining, and real.  A true story. 

I'm now reading the new Sookie Stackhouse book, which is not very good.  I keep forgetting who the characters are, and it seems like a lot of nothing going on.  Not a true story.

I'm also reading a new sustainability book called Little House in the Suburbs by Deanna Caswell and Daisy Siskins.  I AM LOVING THIS BOOK!  Just what I want to read.  They are living a sustainable (within reason) life in the suburbs, and are full of practical advice on how to do it.  If you have any interest in this subject, I think this is a super-worthwhile book.  I am just never going to go "off the grid" and live without electricity or have a huge farm or anything like that, so this is exactly what I want to know.  A true story.

This weekend I'm going to relax.  Maybe clean my closet out.  Who knows.

My assistant, Mrs. Jones was out for a week, and I don't think I was EVER so glad to see anybody in my whole life.  My class was out of sorts the whole week.  We are back to our regular routine. 

Working diligently on my quilt.  I think I have about seven blocks completed, and several started--it looks AWESOME!! 

I took the posterboard "bodies" down from the wall in my classroom this week, always a sad day for me.  My classroom looks naked now.  Will work on ideas to fill up my big board this weekend. 

Playing with an idea. . .

I am seriously thinking of opening up my blog to the universe--how can I know if I have anything of interest to say for the masses if they never see it?  The one thing that stops me is... let's face it, we all know my stalker will be all over this.  I have so enjoyed the abjurring (sp?) that I'm finding it hard to think of opening myself up to this.  Of course, I know she monitors my facebook account carefully, but that is different, as this is so PERSONAL.

I've been destressing (which is not easy these days) by hand piecing a Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt.  So far I have four completed blocks put together, and several partial blocks.  Pictures below.  Not sure if this is really helping my stress, but I enjoy it.  It will probably take me a year to finish.

Whenever my life feels a little out of control, I kind of return to simple, quiet things that I love to settle myself down.  Quilting, reading, working in my garden, etc. always work.  The sale of my quilting machine apparently is not going to go through, after screwing around with this woman since January!  JANUARY!  This is May, for god's sake.  Financially, this is bad for me, and Kaleigh and I have been planning what to do with this extra room, so that's out the window too.  Maybe I should just start up my quilting business again.  Will think about this. 

Work is crazy, as usual.  I keep asking myself if I'm EVER going to feel like I've got it all together.  Like I can relax.  Add to that, I have to start thinking about going back and finishing my Master's Degree, and I'm having trouble with that, since it doesn't really mean a raise or promotion or anything.  It will make me more marketable somewhere else if my life comes to that.  I really can't imagine adding one more thing to my day, though.

Tomorrow is Mother's Day.  I guess I'll go to bed early and read awhile, and get up early and putter around for awhile before we go have dinner with Mom and the fam.  I need to go to the store tonight and get the stuff I need to cook for tomorrow.