Summer in the City

We have been in a state of limbo as we are bearing down on our closing date and so far have not seen the inside of the house we have lined up to rent. The tenants were supposed to be out by the end of June but they decided to squat in the house and now we are waiting for their court date for eviction. We are hoping they will leave before it comes to that though. Because of all of this its been hard to pack to move because we don't know when we are moving. This has left me feeling lost and bored as I am not sure what to do with myself in the daytime. We are about 60 percent packed and I can't work on a projects like I normally would as most things I need are harder to get to now. Every day I ask my husband to stalk the rental house to see if there has been any change.  I have been rendering lard and canning bone broth in an effort to clean out our freezer so I can defrost it. Still these types of kitchen jobs don't leave me feeling very productive or prepared.

We have been having a good time lately hanging out with friends. I feel sad as for so long it seemed that I had a hard time making friends here but now that we are preparing to leave I realize that there are a lot of people that I care about and that I want to stay connected too. I have this bucket list hanging on the fridge that I call our Summer curriculum. On it are things like, catch a tadpole, roll down a grassy hill, cook smores, or take a walk in the dark and look at the stars. We have been ticking things off in a consistent sort of way and it makes me feel like I at least have something to focus on.

I combed my littlest girls hair and for some reason it would stay up in a goofy way. She liked it and called it her unicorn hair. The toys are limited these days as most are packed into the garage. I should start taking notes of the things they ask for to keep tabs on what we really use and need. I am nervous we are not going to have enough furniture in our rental house.  At the same time also nervous we will loose the skills we have learned from our small house. how to be mostly minimalist, keeping only what we love or need. I have concerned visions in my head of rooms overflowing with toys as we won't feel so pressured to purge due to lack of space.

I am glad that it is summer though, as summer is easy to be in limbo. I don't feel guilty for falling off the wagon of my expectations for rhythm and routine. The freedom to wake each day and take it as it comes has been nice. I have been enjoying feeling like I can decide to do fun things last minute. I don't know why I didn't feel that way before but something about selling this house has helped me to let go.

Making May

I am still sewing and sewing and sewing. I am still loving it, although it makes a huge mess and I don't want to do any of my housework. I have also been trying to knit here and there. Right now I am on this self imposed knitting project where I am making all of my cotton yarn into washcloths. I am still kind of slow so each one takes me hours. I keep seeing people talk of them in the pattern places online and that they are a quick one hour project. I laugh a little at that. I am hoping to use all that I have up and then move on to little sweaters for the kids.

I had a wonderful Mothers Day with a brand new emergency dishwasher earlier in the week. I also made myself some chocolate covered strawberries. We were at Costco and they were selling these packs of them for what I thought was expensive for 6 berries. Then when we were walking through the produce isle I saw the giant strawberry container for half the price. In a stroke of genius I put it in the cart. I just used melted chocolate chips and dunked them right in. I picked some flowers from my garden and remembered how nice it is to grow my own to keep a constant supply of fresh flowers on the table. I spent a glorious three hours alone in a mostly clean house with no one to mess it up. The next day Hubbs caught us all on the couch and announced it was a Mothers Day picture. He got a few decent shots which surprised me knowing how tricky our camera is. Most of my pictures are terrible.

The weather here has been calm and warm and the windows are open from morning until we go to bed. I love the way the air feels in the spring, all green and warm and exciting. I keep thinking ahead to summer and all the fun things we should do. I have been feeling a huge sense of relief lately as I have been wrapping up some large projects that have been making me feel they are taking up my time. The garden is about to go in and then I am just going to read library books on the front lawn in the shade.

Purple and Pink and Green

Things are bursting in our garden. Every year I get handfuls of flower buds from my girls who pick them and bring them to me. I want to be mad because they are picking all my flowers but at the same time I know they are giving me them and are trying to be sweet. I take them and put them in vases scattered all through the house and then remind them not to pick things unless they ask first. The other day my oldest girl brought in almost all of the garlic greens that were growing and told me she wanted to make a salad. I let her but she didn't eat it too well and then had garlic breath. 

I am still sewing as much as I can. I have been finding a bunch of vintage patterns everywhere for cheap. I have been snatching them up, and now I have so many its making it hard to decide what to sew. I want to get this summer wardrobe wrapped up so I can work on winter clothes in a nice and lazy way. I have been making everything a couple sizes big so they can last for years to come. Recently I found this giant bag of notions at a thrift store and there were some vintage snaps in there. I have been using them and they are great because they require no sewing. They were the gems of the bag. Snaps are so much easier for the kids, and I have never been interested in sewing them on. So tedious. 

Lately all I can think about is pie. I don't know why. When I first got married I made pie all the time. There was something so domestic about it. I guess back then I didn't have all these kids and could make more pie. I made lemon meringue pie the other day. I didn't have any milk to make a cream pie so I went with lemon. I had to make it gluten free but it turned out great. I bought some organic cream that was on sale just for making a cream pie so perhaps today I might try again. Its a tough choice, chocolate cream or coconut cream. 

We needed to get out yesterday so we went to the Arbor Day festival at our local Arboretum. It was fun to gather all the pamphlets and talk to people about gardens and trees and such. While we were there we met Aqua Duck. My youngest thought he was great but my older girl wanted nothing to do with him. Afterwards she told me that she thought he was just a "quiet guy in a duck suit."

Tooth Time

We  had a first around here the other day. The oldest kid lost his first tooth. We have been waiting for that thing to come out for such a long time. Its actually the second loose tooth, the first loose tooth is still in there waiting to come out. I think he was a little nervous about it. New experiences for these kids are a little overwhelming at times. Even new foods can not be tolerated. I sometimes like to change things up and we have started eating grits. Hubby can't eat gluten or wheat (we aren't really sure which as he won't got get a legitimate test but we do know that he gets very, very sick when eating wheat). Its been a hard change but hardest on the kids. When I made the grits I choose to try to get the kids to eat them by putting chocolate chips in it. They hated it and complained that they didn't want them, that it tasted like a desert and that was bad. I tell you I might just pull my hair out over this cooking thing, it used to be so fun. Besides my broken heart at all the things I can't cook that I love like cinnamon rolls, and homemade bread, I have to deal with three very picky pallets that don't like the same things. Its impossible.

I am still sewing up a storm. I made a couple of new nightgowns for summer. They are super cute and I wish I could look that cute in one, but I fear that I would just look frumpy.  We have eggs coming out our ears but I am a little grossed out because our birds got mites, or lice or something from the wild birds that come in to eat their feed. I guess we did pretty good though, first time for an infestation in over 4 years. I just have to figure out how to be a chicken vet in some of my spare time.

Sew and So

I have been bitten by a sewing bug. I found out Hancock fabrics was going out of business and went and bought a bunch of fabric and patterns. I have also found the world of vintage patterns on Etsy. the other day I took my kids to the dentist and then afterwards I dragged them to the closest thrift store and found a bunch of patterns for 25 cents each. It felt like a jackpot because they were also vintage and complete and I didn't have to pay shipping for them online. Needless to say my housework has been falling behind because I have become determined to sew all of my girls clothes. There is such a rush when I complete a project and then see them in it. They always make the patterns look cuter than the pictures on the packaging. Now I want a fabric collection, they call it a stash. I don't have room for a stash but I want it to be filled with pretty patterns and florals, dainty prints that are pretty and sweet.  I have all these plans. Plans for things I have always wanted to do, like sew them pretty things and then use the scraps for pretty quilts. I figured that if I don't start sewing the clothes now I never will because they are still so small that its easy. Most of the time the shirts or dresses or pinafores only take one yard of fabric each, but dang fabric can be so expensive. Recently I found a stash of fabric at yet another thrift store and now that place is going to be one of my most visited stores because I will want to see if there is anything I like there since thrift stores can change so fast. They had bins and bins of rolls of fabric. I din't buy any though because I don't want to just buy it to buy it, I want to love the print. .Sometimes I look for sheets and the other day I found one set of white that is nice and sturdy that I can sew some shirts and night gowns out of. I might dye it because dyeing is so much fun. The best part is that my kids are always so receptive and sweet when I make them things. They get so excited and happy. There has been a lot of jumping for joy around here from them lately.