An extra day

Happy Leap Day.  I hope you're enjoying your Extra Day.  It is cold and rainy here today--not exactly the weather I'd choose for an extra day, but I'll take it.  We've been busy around here.  I find myself wishing for summer days when we can all sit around the dinner table together at a reasonable dinner hour (I don't consider 4:45 or 5:30 reasonable dinner hours) and eat a meal and linger at the table instead of jumping up and darting off to the next activity.

 This week marks the performances of the elementary school's production of Annie, Jr.  Here's my not-so-little orphan July singing her solo line.  By this afternoon, she'll have three down, three more to go.

 Also starting up this week--Lenten soup suppers.  Speaking of which, I should go get started on my broccoli soup.

Quilting is never really done, is it?  I've covered most of the quilt, but I'm thinking I may go back over it again and fill in more space.  Anything really to avoid attaching the binding.  I always dread attaching the binding, and I'm always surprised at how it's not as dreadful as I feared.

 I have been reading most of your blogs on my kindle.  While the kindle is great for reading, it's not so great for typing/commenting.  One of these days--when I'm not at the back of the line for computer time, I'll leave a whole bunch of comments for you!

There is Birthday Sweater progress.  I feel confident that I can make it by March 12.  The birthday party happened last weekend, so I have no distractions.  The ribbing makes it look so very skinny!

And finally, Rob and I are celebrating our 14th wedding anniversary in grand style this year.  We're going to London at the end of April.  We are a litle bit excited.  And I'm a little bit surprised that the library is still allowing us to hijack the travel book section like this!

Works in progress

Thank you for your comments to my last post.  Your support means so much.  We've had some better days since then--and a couple of meetings with teachers, and some action plans drawn up.  And then, in spite of the extra work and action plans, we're still scratching our heads some days.  We're all works in progress, I guess.

Here's a picture that is a couple of weeks old.  I had hoped to have this quilt finished by today, but it'll be just as snuggly whenever it's finished.  I have actually finished piecing the top and bottom, and it's sandwiched and pinned (and folded up in the next picture).  I just don't know how I want to quilt it, so I'm just giving it a rest for now.

 It's hiding underneath all these papers in this picture.  I am knitting a birthday sweater for Caitlin.  I wasn't planning on doing that until last week when I heard her tell someone, "My mom always knits me a sweater for my birthday."  Oh.  Guess I'd better get on that!  I love the pattern I chose.  It's called Lavanda.  I am finding that while the actual knitting is not too complicated, there are a lot of moving parts to this one.  The pattern writer was very thorough--but that thoroughness means I'm referrring to at least three pages of instructions each row.  Maybe once I'm finished with the raglan increases I can do some knitting in front of the TV, but for now, this requires my undivided attention.

Speaking of the television, our last week or so has been very quiet.  Our TV would not turn on.  I called Samsung, and it turns there was a recall on the capacitors for our TV model, so Samsung replaced the capacitors for free.  It was cool to see the inside of the TV, and the replacement was done in less than 15 minutes.

We're having Red Velvet Cupcakes for dessert tonight.

And I'm giving blood again on Thursday.  A nice gentleman from the Red Cross called yesterday and said that there was a critical blood shortage.  I told him I'd spread the word.  You can call 1-800-RED-CROSS to find blood drives in your area.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Flip the calendar page

It's February already.  January...not nearly so "January" as in years past.  One small snowfall, no bouts of vomiting, no fever.  Just a month of back to the usual.

I've just not felt the urge to post much.  There's not much creating to show because everything is moving at a slow pace.  There's also the off-line life--which is requiring more of my attention.  This parenting gig can be so very difficult at times, and I've only today realized that the way to teach my children that hard work is necessary to achieve good results is for me to get off the sidelines, push up my sleeves, and lead by example.  No more wishing for the magic book or teacher to suddenly spark my children's desire to study hard and get good grades. 

I don't think I ever thought that parenting would involve so much second-guessing for me.  Maybe I'm making this more complicated than it needs to be.  I sometimes wonder what advice my sixty-one-year-old self would give to me now.  How can I put all this day-to-day and week-to-week drama into a bigger picture?  I know this week's spelling test isn't going to matter much for my child's future, but the way she went about preparing for it could.

 These are pretty deep thoughts for a Wednesday, but this is what I'm currently wrestling with.  My oldest is eleven--teetering on the brink of adolescence.  I want to be able to keep the big picture in front of me as we forge ahead into the thicket of the teenage years.  Frankly, I have my moments of insecurity.

So it is on that note that I leave you for today.  A mug of tea and some quiet moments of reflection may be just what I need right now.