Category: miscellaneous

Busy!

Anna

trees and a dirt driveway, with long shadows from a low, morning sun

I don’t quite understand how we get so busy in the summers. Although it feels like a running joke with some of my friends that “we’ll be less busy once it’s autumn” — and then autumn hits, and we’re twice as busy, and then it’s the HOLIDAY season, and now it’s spring and we’re rushing to get everything ready for summer, and whoops an entire year has slipped by. But summer does feel especially chaotic.

A few years ago, we bought a pop-up camper, and we spent the next two summers camping almost every other week. Last summer, I decided we had to stay home more, so I could work on the gardens and spend more time doing… not camping. Now our new-used car can’t pull the camper, and it turns out most of the magic is lost for me when we have to tent it. We had a couple of camping trips in May and one later this month, but we’re just sort of doing our normal thing most of the time.

Part of it is that we’re just busier in general. We’ve made extra homeschool friends over the past year, with groups that have weekly meetups, so that usually takes up two or more days a week. And the girls are getting more interested in other activities again. We had done gymnastics/dance when they were younger, but I decided to take a year off, going into the 2019 fall season. And then covid, which ruled out activities for quite a while. Frankly, I was happier avoiding all that as long as the girls weren’t overly interested. But it’s all creeping back now! So we have several summer evening activities on the calendar now, and who knows what autumn will bring.

After a week of running around, I’m looking forward to staying home and tidying today. Has anybody ever figured out how the house can get so messy if we’re always out and about? I have a lot of decluttering to do (luckily I can hide boxes away in a room for now), but I can’t even contemplate it until our living spaces feel more sane. It’s a happy chaos, at least!

Storage Room

Anna1 Comment

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!