F’s “New” Room

When I turned the guest room into our storage room, it meant I could clear a lot of boxes and other clutter from the girls’ playroom. They’ve shared a bedroom since F was a toddler, which has meant there’s been a spare room for (most of) their toys. They don’t actually play with a lot of toys anymore — just stuffed animals and doll accessories that they use with the plushies. So I was able to empty out quite a lot from the playroom.

It had already been housing a queen bed, ever since F traded the queen in for a twin (the girls used to have a twin-over-queen bunk). So once the room was tidied up and had a nice bed in it… it looked a lot like a bedroom. My plan was to keep it like that, and then, if a rare overnight guest should emerge from the woods, we could sweep away the toys and let them sleep in there. Convenient!

But F saw the room, and all her wildest dreams unfolded in front of her eyes. She loves to think and talk about what her house will be like when she grows up, and for months she’s been wishing she had a room of her own to decorate. I *had* pointed out to her (multiple times) that this could easily be achieved if she and M stopped sharing a room, but I guess that wasn’t appealing until she saw it IRL.

To be honest, I thought that if either girl were ready to start sleeping away from the main bedrooms, it would be M, who turns ten next month. F is seven and can still be quite a young seven at times, but once she’d made her mind up, that was that. Well, actually, she told me that she’d give it ten days, and if she still liked sleeping there after that time, she’d THEN start moving more of her belongings into the room. Quite sensible!

But she really wanted a dresser in the room, so I wheeled in the one from the guest (now storage) room. She wants her clothes in it, but I don’t sort between hers and M’s — they wear the same size, though not many of the same items. I told her I didn’t want that extra task (separating her clothes from M’s) added to my laundry chores, and she said SHE would take over washing and folding them because she’s “ready for more responsibility”. I’m highly skeptical, but you never know!

Luckily, “decorating” seems to mostly consist of putting things where she wants them, NOT painting over that triangle wall! I suppose it won’t last forever, but I’d be really sad to see it go.

Changing Seasons

The changing leaves are pretty, but they do make me feel anxious! They’re colorful for only such a short time, and then they fall off, and then all we have to look at are naked trees for SO many months. We’re feeling the squeeze to get our fill of warm-weather (and even cool-weather) activities before winter sets in.

We have a good circle of homeschooling friends, but they’re quite a drive from us (that’s what I get for living in the middle of nowhere). It’s mildly inconvenient during summer, but when the winter weather is bad, there’s no way we can make the trip regularly. So we met up with two other groups — closer to home — this week and actually had a great time both days. I hope we can keep that up!

Storage Room

Bedside shelf with framed art above.

Four knit socks

Whew! We had a group camping trip that fell through last week, so we took our pop-up camper up to a friend’s house for a couple of nights. We know this family through our homeschool friend-circle, and it was lovely to sit and chat while the kids ran amok out in the fields (country kids know how to have fun outside!). I came home ready to tidy!

The changing seasons — we’re already getting color on the leaves here — seems to have triggered a big nesting drive this year. I feel like I need to get the house ready for us to be stuck inside all winter long! I had a revelation while we were away: our guest room was a waste of space. I can probably count the number of times we’ve had overnight visitors on my hands, but there’s a whole ROOM dedicated to them?? And let’s be honest — junk got stashed in there most of the time, but it stressed me out to know that it wasn’t “supposed” to be in there. No more!

There’s been a queen-sized bed in the girls’ playroom for a while now (it used to be F’s, but she switched to a twin bed last winter, I think). So when we DO have a guest, the playroom can get tidied up to house them. And now the old guest room is our STORAGE ROOM. What! We have a big house, but since it’s a split-level, with the “basement” completely finished, there really isn’t a lot of room to store things. No more!

It would be great if we just didn’t have anything that we didn’t actively use, and probably half the stuff in the storage room is kid junk that does eventually need to be gone through and weeded out. But none of us are in the mood for that right now. The other half is made up of things that we DO need/want but which didn’t have a dedicated home. Camping gear, grow lights for seed-starting, musical instruments in cases, etc. Also some furniture odds and ends that I don’t want getting dusty/mousy in the barn. It felt so good to go through the house yesterday, clearing out all the problem areas from other rooms. It turns out a huge part of our clutter issue was all this stuff that needed to go SOMEwhere but didn’t belong ANYwhere. And now it’s hidden away! What a concept.

The photos: I came across the Baba Yaga hut illustration on Pinterest and clicked over to the Gorgonist’s Etsy shop. I’m in love with their style and want pretty much everything, but I limited myself to a couple of prints, a few sheets of stickers, and a pin. I thrifted the frame last week and took out the dusty, old, kitchen-themed “art” that was inside. The frame cleaned up really nicely, and I already had a mat, and I’m so happy with the way it all looks together. The photo doesn’t quite capture it, but both the wood and the print are so warm and glowy and go perfectly together.

The socks are from the Tin Can Knits Rye pattern, except I skipped the garter panel down the front. It’s a super easy worsted-weight sock pattern. The yarn was two skeins of Cascade Superwash 220 Wave, which I got on a group camping trip that WASN’T cancelled, earlier this summer. We all piled into cars and drove into Hibbing to go to the yarn store (Knitting Knight), since obv camping friends should also be knitting friends. I very quickly knit up the first pair during the trip and then took my sweet time on the second pair. I don’t want to think too much about my planned-projects list (too overwhelming), but I did get a skein of Malabrigo worsted to make another pair. They’re so quick and use so little yarn — very satisfying!

Homeschooling 9/23

We’ve been homeschooling right from the start! M is now in fifth grade (she has an October birthday, so if she were in public school, she’d be in fourth grade), and F is in second. They’re growing up too quickly!

Our schooling routine goes through phases and always leans toward unschooling (no set curriculum), but we’ve been in a good groove since this past spring and kept it up through the summer. In the morning, the girls have to do math and reading before they’re allowed any screens. Math is often Prodigy (a game), but we’ve also gone back to Khan Academy when they’ve needed extra help from me to grasp a concept. It’s nice that I can do the teaching, but then they can be fairly independent when it comes to practicing. And gamifying it makes it tolerable to them!

Reading is reading — they have to do fifteen minutes but usually go longer. We didn’t use to have a daily reading requirement, but I’ve noticed so much improvement since we started with it! Especially with F. She went from early/easy readers in January to now reading the same Warriors graphic novels as M. She also recently read The Last Firehawk (book one) and is looking forward to getting more in that series. M loves graphic novels, especially more realistic ones about girls her age or a bit older. Raina Telgemeier is one of her favorites. She had it in her head that she didn’t like fantasy, but her love of cats eventually won out, and she started reading the Warriors series. The graphic novels were first, but now she’s working on the regular books.

Everything else gets worked into our daily lives. The girls have always been intrigued by Greek myths (we’ve read a few different versions of some of the popular ones), so we’ve been reading about ancient Greece at bedtime. It seems like a funny place to jump into world history (though we have learned a bit about earlier civilizations here and there), but it works because they’re interested in it.

Other random stuff pops up from time to time. M has been mildly interested in the different quarters, and she pulled out all her coins when my mom gave her the US state quarter collecting board in the photo above. I had randomly seen something about a rare Wisconsin quarter, which piqued M’s interest in rare (and, more importantly, VALUABLE) coins, and she had to look at them all to see if she had any treasure on her hands. That has led to learning about the different markings on coins, where they’re made, and how they’re made. It’s neat to see what comes up naturally!

Summer Sewing

Three sleeveless shirts.

I’ve been doing so much clothing-sewing this summer! It’s been really satisfying. These three tank tops are from this pattern on Etsy. I’ve made some adjustments in each version I’ve sewn. I made the V-neck a bit shallower and lengthened the armholes/straps just a little. I love the fit of the body, though — loose without being boxy.

I’ve made a few trips down to the cities to go to SR Harris (a fabric warehouse — huge selection, good prices, but it’s definitely a treasure hunt) this spring/summer, and I think all of the fabrics I used in these tops came from that store. The middle tank top, which I didn’t realize I hadn’t ironed until I went to take the photo!, is a Liberty print in their cotton lawn. I didn’t expect to find that at SR Harris! The one on the left is a linen/cotton blend — my favorite of the three. And the one on the right is a patchwork of different linen fabrics I had.

Two short sleeve shirts, one with buttons.

These are probably my favorite shirts. Depends on the day! I used the bodice pattern from Sew Liberated’s Hinterland dress but lengthened and shaped the body from the darts down using the tank top pattern above. I love the combo!! The off-white one is cotton double gauze, and the one with buttons is linen. The buttons are purely decorative. I made one finished front placket but just serged the other front edge and stitched the placket side over it. Then sewed on the buttons.

Two short sleeve shirts, one with snaps.

These are from All Well’s Box Top pattern. There could not be an easier/faster top to sew up! I’ve made more than these two, but these are my favorites. My favorite thing is doing the version without sleeves but adding a cuff to the ends of the “sleeve” holes. I also like to sew up the plain pattern but then split it down the front and add a placket to each side. I did that with the red one and put snaps up the front. I didn’t take a photo, but I’ve done two long-sleeve shirts this way, out of double gauze. I call them my Baby Grandma shirts — the style is so grandma-y, but I feel like a baby wrapped up in gauze.

I’ve also made so many pairs of All Well’s Studio pants, but they’re harder to photograph. There have been a few failures here and there, and I definitely wear some items much more than others, but overall, I’ve been really happy with the results of my summer sewing! Some of my homeschool mom friends also love to sew clothes, and that’s been hugely motivating. It’s really fun to share results with people who care and who understand the work that goes into it!

Everywhere Cats

This is Beany cat, who is now officially seventeen years old! You can sort of tell that she’s on the skinny side, but only just a bit. She sure hasn’t started ACTING her age! She still goes a little crazy from time to time and tears around the house, and she still thinks it’s safe (and maybe funny?) to walk along the stair railing while I tell her to get down before she falls. And she’s still *definitely* the boss of the animals!

We have five cats, and I used to be able to say, “but two of them are outside most of the time,” except that they’re now all very much indoor cats. (The youngest one sneezed up a bot fly larva about a year ago, and that was Too Much for me, so now they have to stay indoors.) I won’t go on too much about each of them, but I will say that the fifth cat really balanced things out nicely. You don’t hear that very often! But we had three female cats (who, after a lot of turmoil between the younger two, had settled into more or less of a truce), and then our neighbor’s male cat decided he’d rather live here, thanks, and that really brought chaos into the cat community. He did settle down after we got him neutered, but it wasn’t until we got him a friend (a male kitten) that most of the wrinkles got ironed out.

This youngest cat (Bitsy) has always floated around as though the world were made for him, a little prince whom everybody loves. And it’s like the other cats went, “I guess we DO love him?” I’ve caught him snuggled up with all four of the cats at various times, and he’s seemed to make the others more accepting of one another, as well. It’s not 100%, but it’s pretty good, considering. I like to say that they went from being four random cats to a working cat colony once there were five of them.

But Beany is still the boss. She has been since I got her when she was a nine-month-old cat child. I had an older male cat already, and Beany came home and started running the place. But she’s always been good with kittens — I think it helps that she doesn’t doubt her position at the top! I really hope she’s still stealing my spot on the sofa many years from now.

Blank Slate

Many homegrown pumpkins, arranged on a bench, in front of a window.

Many small apples from a Haralson tree, in baskets.

I’ve decided to start from scratch, here on this blog. I’ve kept a blog since 2000, posting less and less… and less often as the years have gone on. I’m not into monetizing or posting sponsored content, and places like Instagram are so good for posting a quick photo and a quicker caption. But maybe, with a fresh start, I might like to start writing more again, in my own space.

I’m currently in harvest mode. We live out in the country, but my garden is modest. In fact, I had hardly any garden at all the past two years, because my daughters and I were much more interested in getting out in our new (to us) pop-up camper. All our gardens grew those summers were weeds and a few volunteer tomatoes!

This year, I put in the hours of weeding and turning and hauling up old bunny litter to add to our raised beds. Everything is a little wild and overgrown at this point in the year, but at least it’s mostly stuff that *I* put in there! We wound up with fourteen “Cornfield Pumpkins” (from Seedsavers), which are supposed to be good for carving — and I hope also eating, but we’ll see! It’s way more than we need, but it’s so satisfying to grow them.

Our apple trees are also doing their best this year. I planted them in 2018, and we had a few years where they would bloom like crazy but set no apples. Last year, I got a decent crop from the Haralson tree and a few from our Honeycrisp. This year, they’re both loaded! They’re still not very big trees, so the poor Haralson was bent nearly double under the weight of all its apples. I picked the top half of the tree a few days ago, to give it a break. There were 95 apples on just the top! They’re not 100% ripe yet, but they’re good enough for making apple sauce.

In anticipation of All These Apples, I bought myself a nice dehydrator this summer. I dried some slices yesterday (too thin, though), and today I’ve got several trays of apple sauce turning — hopefully! — into fruit leather. In the past, I’ve processed our apples by peeling and slicing them and then putting them in the freezer, but I just don’t bake with apples often enough to use them all. But fruit leather would be a nice treat!

There have been and are still a lot of other things to harvest, but apples and pumpkins are perfect for the first day of September!