My, How Time Flies

In mid-February of 2010 I posted this at my old blog address. It took me awhile to get going on the hand quilting, but by the end of March I was definitely at it. Now it is nearing the end of another March in another year, and I'm still . . . not . . . did you think I was going to say "done?" I'm still not even half way done.

Hand quilting does take awhile, but not a year. Unless you put it away for an entire summer and don't work on it once. Unless when you finally pull it back out again you feel that somehow it will finish itself if you just leave it in your sunroom long enough. Unless you largely ignore it even on the week you took off work to work on it.

Sigh.

The past few mornings I've been working diligently on it. I figure that one really nice thing I could do for my family during my Lenten mornings would be to get the gargantuan quilting frame out of the sunroom by the time we really want to be able to spend a lot of time in that room. The yard is a swamp now, but in a month it will be beautiful and I know that we'll want to spend some time in the sunroom with the windows open. I'd like to have a few friends over to tea in that room, but it's a little hard to have a conversation with someone with eight and a half feet of quilting frame at about eye level. The boy is interested in watching the birds eat from the feeders, and that's the best place for a little guys to see them. Even my husband has been using that room to work on sermons.

So my fingers will continue to trudge along, stitch by stitch, trying to get this silly thing done and out of that room. Mornings, evenings, weekends. I know Zach will be happy when it's done. And so will I.

In other news, my yard is filled with birds enjoying the feeders, including these house finches.

House finches are not natives in this area of the country. They were brought from the Western US to the East Coast as pets and eventually enough of them escaped to produce a viable wild population. So their range includes both the coasts and a ways inland, but you won't typically find them in the middle of the continent. Eventually, I imagine, the two populations will meet somewhere in Nebraska and think, "Hey, you look familiar!"

Besides quilting, which is a fine indoor activity for an adult, today we've been finger painting.

That, my friends, is a look of supreme concentration. In a matter of minutes, the boy produced five lovely works of art. If only I could be so productive in my creative efforts! Of course, they do all look strikingly similar, and quite a bit like his palette at the end of the session.

Incidentally, if you want to be transported instantly back to childhood, the smell of fingerpaints will do it. Smells just like elementary school.

So the rain and sleet come down outside, but inside our little brick house it is warm and full of color, and we can hear the birds singing.

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Straw into Gold

Guess who's putting on their bright spring plumage?

That's right. Goldfinches.

Fun fact: birds that are sexually divergent (meaning that the males and females do not look alike—think cardinals, goldfinches, house finches, etc.) tend to be birds that must attract a new mate every season, while those that look the same (like Canada geese) tend to mate long-term (though not necessarily "for life" because if someone way better flew along, Mr. or Mrs. Goose may just fly the coop and hook up with a new long-term mate).

We're the lucky bystanders in this yearly search for a mate. Songbirds, which tend to be sexually divergent, use their beautiful songs to attract new mates. If they were more monogamous, spring would be far less cheerful because they would have no reason to sing!

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Storing Fresh-Baked Bread

Would you believe it if I told you that this is the best way to store fresh-baked bread after you've cut into it?

Just put the cut side down on a non-porous surface, like a cutting board, plate, or your countertop. This keeps the outside crispy (if you put it in a plastic bag, the moisture from the bread will redistribute and make your crust soggier) and the inside from drying out. But it is short-term storage for bread that is really meant to be eaten within 24 hours.

I thought is was strange that Artisan Breads in Five Minutes a Day had you make such small loaves, but it makes sense. If you want fresh bread every day, you need to bake it every day. And when you do that, you don't want lots of leftovers unless you have a recipe that calls for day-old bread (and there are many such recipes in that book). So if we eat half a loaf at breakfast, we store it like this until lunch or dinner when we finish the loaf.

Then there's new, fresh bread the next day. I'm loving this process, and I'm not a big baker at all. I encourage you to check the book out and start making yourself and your family fresh bread. It's so much better than storebought or even bakerybought!

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Movie Night

How do you prepare your house for 7 or 8 men to come over, watch The Fighter, and consume pizza, chips, energy drinks, and cigars? You don't do the same things you'd do if you were preparing for, say, a bridal shower or a family get-together. You still clean the bathroom, but maybe you skip dusting the living room. You still vacuum, but maybe you skip underneath the dining room table. None of those guys will notice.

Wink.

There's one thing, though, that you must tackle. The basement. You've let it go because no one goes down there except the people who live in your house. It's littered with trains and cars and blocks. It's peppered with tiny bits of popcorn from movies past. It's piled with DVDs you never put away after watching. Oh, and there's the small matter of the aquarium.

Ugh.

But to make you feel better, it has been six days since you cleaned out the kitchen and it is still clean because you've kept up with it all week.

Yes.

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Signs of Spring

I know this is old news to you southerners, but look at these . . .

The first floral harbingers of spring have sprung! And other early risers are showing as well . . .

Birds are filling the air with their beautiful songs, bathing in the melted snow in the bird bath, and enjoying my feeders. I got to walk to the library with my son today because the sidewalks were finally clear of snow and ice. The boy got to swing and play on the slide at the park. The windows are open so we can finally get some fresh air in this old house.

And I have the pattern and fabric for my Easter dress this year! The pattern was a gift from Mom via eBay and the fabric I've had since last spring but never used because the right pattern hadn't come along yet.

Can't wait to get started on this beauty!

I'll be making view 1 with this lovely fabric . . .

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1930s Dress, 1930s Frugality

Q: What do you get when you take $3 of thrift store fabric and add thread and a zipper from the stash, contrasting fabric from a de-stashing friend, and a vintage mail order pattern and buttons from a kind relative who stalks estate sales?

A: You get one of my favorite dresses yet!



This photo was taken in the kitchen, because I think
this dress looks just a bit like I should be wearing it while
waiting tables at The Whistlestop Cafe from Fried Green Tomatoes.


The pattern is Marian Martin 9327 and it is so simple. Super fast construction, super comfortable fit, super flattering length. I just love this dress!

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Fresh Bread

I pulled this out of the oven at 7:30 this morning. It was a bit mishapen and I need to add a bit more flour next time, but it was fresh, warm, homemade bread made of just four ingredients and took me all of 5 minutes of hands-on work to make. Sound like something you'd like for yourself? Check out Artisan Breads in Five Minutes a Day and see how easy it is.

Add some homemade strawberry jam and a cup of coffee, and you have breakfast, my friend. No preservatives, no wondering if that guy who prepared your food washed his hands first, no waiting in line at the coffeeshop, and way cheaper than packaged or prepared foods. Just flour, water, yeast, and salt plus strawberries and sugar. Bonus: your house smells like fresh-baked bread. So, so good.

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Cleaning Out a Cluttered Life

Daylight Savings time has never completely made sense to me. Just when it's getting light enough in the morning to make me want to get out of bed earlier we switch our clocks and it's dark for an extra hour in the morning! But I do love those summer evenings when it's light until 9pm, so I suppose we must start working our way toward that. Yesterday I felt completely befuddled every time I looked at the clock all afternoon and evening. How can it be dinnertime and still so light? How is it that I'm not hungry and we didn't have dinner until after 8 o'clock?

This morning I was in the dark far longer than the past few mornings of getting up at 6am. But when the sun rose on the first morning it has been clear enough in the sky to see the sunrise rather than just a steadily lightening blanket of gray clouds, I was happy to be in the sunroom reading the Gospel of Matthew rather than snoring away upstairs. To feel the sun coming through the (dirty) windows was a blessing. To be in a sunny kitchen while making coffee was a blessing. And it was a blessing to be in a very clean kitchen and remember the weekend.

Gloriously well-ordered and a little room to spare (what a concept).

Thursday evening my mother came into town and Sunday morning she headed back home. In the time she was here she did every scrap of laundry in our house (which was a lot). Probably 8-10 loads. Washed, dried, and folded, and partially put away (that's my job, which is why it's still not totally done). Also, she helped me clean out and organize the hall cupboard, which had become the go-to place for stashing miscellaneous stuff that was sitting on the dining room table before someone came over to our house. And, best of all, she helped me completely clean out every cupboard and every drawer in the kitchen. We scrubbed every shelf, every door, and every handle. We put stuff aside for Goodwill. We washed seldom used vases and glasses that had gathered dust. We organized and reorganized.

Because I moved the waffle iron to somewhere accessible, I used it this morning to make actual waffles.
I think it's the third time I've used it since we got it eleven years ago.

There is nothing quite like spring cleaning and in the five years we've lived in this house, I'd never gutted the contents of the kitchen and started from scratch. It was just what was needed. There are still a few small jobs to do, and I hope to make them part of my early mornings this week. This morning I cleaned out the coffee maker. I have to take some boxes and bags to Goodwill this week. I love getting a nice big chunk of needless stuff out of my house. I'd like to get to the point where it's not necessary as often because that would mean I was no longer buying needless stuff!

Remember the green and white stuff from up here? Some of it is going to Goodwill,
some of it will house succulents in the sunroom this spring, and some of it has been
moved to other cupboards. What's up here now are mostly serving pieces I actually use.

Last year I read about some people doing the 40 Days, 40 Bags challenge for Lent. In case you're unfamiliar with it, it is an exercise in getting rid of material things that you don't need so that others can use them and so that you can have fewer things to occupy your time and energy, thus allowing you to focus more of those resources (time and energy) on the things of God. I don't know if I could get forty bags, but with clothes Calvin has outgrown and stuff from the kitchen I already have at least six and there have only really been five days in Lent so far (Sundays aren't counted).

Mom removed about 500 plastic grocery store bags from this cupboard. She also
removed about 10 reusable grocery store bags we had bought but almost never use
because they were buried in this very high cupboard. Mom took the plastic bags to
recycle and we put the reusable ones in the car trunk. Duh.

If you spend an inordinate amount of time cleaning, organizing, and figuring out how to store your stuff, maybe it's time to start getting some of it off your back. Just make sure you police your buying for the next year so it doesn't just get replaced with more unnecessary stuff! If you have trouble parting with things (even things you don't like, which you keep because they were gifts) you need to do your decluttering with a firm friend or relative who isn't so emotionally attached to the stuff. He or she can help you see past the sentiment to the reality that you seriously don't need 50 coffee mugs or 300 pairs of shoes or every single scrap of construction paper that passed through your children's grubby paws.
If you're anything like me, you love the feeling of a well-ordered, uncluttered home. It takes work to make it like that, and even more, I fear, to keep it that way! Spring is the time to do it so plan that spring cleaning weekend today!

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Modern or Vintage?

What do you think? Is this dress and jacket a modern or vintage pattern?

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A Textured March

I took this photo in early March, 2009.

For the past two weeks, I've been working with these fabrics.



And even though this March is far more gray and white than brown and blue, I feel sure the brown and blue is coming soon. Even it snowed today, I feel sure that it will rain soon. Even though everything is filthy everywhere, I feel sure that soon it will be new again.

Because that's how it always is. And God is faithful.

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