Breathing Room

Oh my, that was a crazy month. So glad June is over, though it means one month of summer break is gone. Kitty Boy had marching band from 7-10 am every weekday, drumline on Mondays and Wednesdays, and parades every Saturday. Elvira had Summer Orchestra from 9-12 every day, and Girls Camp the first week of the month. Tinkerbell had swimming from 11-11:30 every day, and skating from 6-7 every Thursday. All three kids had Tae Kwon Do on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evenings. But now all we have is Tae Kwon Do, though Kitty Boy will still have band stuff on and off during July. Now "Camp Season" begins: Boy Scout camp in July, Diabetes camp in July and August, Youth Conference in August.

Sweetie has been working hard tiling the laundry room. He got about 2/3 of the room completely done, and will finish it off when I get the laundry caught up today so we can move the washer and dryer. Then we'll lay hardwood flooring in Elvira's new room so she can get all moved in before school starts. The bathroom will have to wait a little bit, but that's going to be a huge tiling job that will really tax poor Sweetie.

I've been cleaning and organizing like crazy. Got all my mending and ironing caught up, have a huge pile of old filing to shred, finished knitting a sweater and started another one, started a new moley for the next Ravelry round, sorted tons of beads from Elvira's and my collections and combined them into one, organized all my yarn, and am churning through books and audio books as I work. We've been packing in all the doctors appointments so we're all caught up before school starts.

I've gotten precious little weeding done, which I'll need to rectify ASAP. Currant season is nearly here, so I'll be making lots of jelly soon, then canning pears. I'm going to try to juice our grapes this year before the birds and wasps drain them. The kids are eating peas like crazy, and we have strawberries and raspberries now, too.

Quilting is something I've wanted to learn in earnest, and while I've made a couple of quilts over the years, I wouldn't say that I really know what I'm doing yet. I'll be starting a new quilt next week, and I'm so looking forward to it! When I was a little girl, I used to spend the night in my dad's old room at my grandparents' house in Webster. Hanging on the wall was a quilt made by one of my grandmother's sisters, Aunt Janie probably. I loved to look at all the fabrics and thought they must have all had the prettiest clothes that the pieces had come from. It wasn't until later that I realized it was probably all fabric from flour sacks during the Depression. American Quilting is starting a block-of-the-month quilt using fabrics from the 1930s, and I squeaked into one of the last spots in the group. I'll post pictures of my "surprise" blocks, as I won't know what the finished product will look like until it's actually done!

Off to pick up Kitty Boy from band and take Tinkerbell to a doctors appointment.