Something Old, Something New

Today, Brian and I celebrate our 13th wedding anniversary.

2014

2001

It's amazing how many months of planning went into our wedding and yet I remember so few of the details.  I  know I followed the tradition pulled from an Old English rhyme:

Something old, 

Something new, 

Something borrowed,

Something blue.

My something old was a family Bible that I carried with my bouquet.

My wedding dress was new.  Though I bought it used on Ebay and it fit so perfectly I didn't have to have it altered, my mom remembers that it arrived with the tags still attached. I also wore new shoes and a new tiara.

I borrowed a string of pearls to wear.

Though my wedding color was periwinkle blue,  I cannot remember what I carried of that color. My bridesmaids had blue ribbons hanging from their bouquets, but I think my ribbons were all white.

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We've been doing some sprucing up and changing in our home this summer and unconsciously following that same Old English rhyme.

I read The Nesting Place: It Doesn't Have to Be Perfect to Be Beautiful by Myquillen Smith early in the summer and was inspired to rethink how I think about my house.  One chapter asks you to determine the purpose of a particular room and treat it accordingly. Many people gather in our dining room throughout the year whether it is for dinner, a playdate, a birthday party, or craft day, but our dining room is also our school room. That room needs to be pretty yet functional.

To serve both purposes, I set up a new area designated our Nature Corner.  I shopped around for a side table and found and old one for $5 at a thrift store.  Brian sanded off the glossy brown paint  and I re-painted it a shade of blue and replaced the drawer pull.

I put a tray on the tabletop where the kids can display leaves, rocks, or seashells and included two vases for branches, flowers, and twigs.

The bottom shelf houses our nature guides and animal books.

The table adds beauty to our dining room while contributing to its functionality. I anticipate this being a wonderful asset to the room!

And remember one of the chairs I painted blue for our living room?  I felt like it needed a little something more so I borrowed a pillow idea I saw on my friend  Joanne's blog.

I cut and stitched the little birds while binge-watching seasons of Downton Abbey, then sewed a pillow slipcover using this tutorial.

It adds a lot of color (including more blue) and a little quirk to the living room.

2 Felted Sweaters

Last spring, I met a friend for dinner.  It was a chilly evening and as we sipped our soup, she mentioned that she was wearing a pair of socks she made from a felted thrift store sweater.   She said she had a few more felted sweaters in a bag in her van if I wanted them.  I drove home dreaming of cozy socks and yet when I attempted to make a pair of socks with this tutorial, my clumsy brain got confused with the pattern and my clumsy fingers cut it out the wrong way. 

I turned my mess into two pairs of leg warmers for my girls instead. 

I love leg warmers, but I've never figured out their practicality.  When it's warm enough for skirts, it's too warm for leg warmers and when they need to bundle up and get cozy, the leg warmers are covered by jeans that hide the intricacies of the knit pattern.  Why not wear boring old socks instead?  Someone help me here.  How do you wear leg warmers?

With the leftover sweater pieces, I cut out a bunch of wool hearts with plans to make a bunch of  heart applique shirts with this tutorial as Christmas gifts.  I made three sets of t-shirts for three sets of sisters.  One pair of girls was my own. 

I {heart} those faces!

Linking up with Joanne today:

Making a List and Checking It Twice

Okay.  So Christmas is over, but around the New Year, we all start making new lists.  To-do lists.  Book lists. Grocery lists.  School lists.  Resolutions lists? 

I stopped making resolutions because resolutions seemed doomed to fail.  Instead, I like goals. The word goal indicates that I'm working toward something, even if I don't quite get there.  

Today I'm looking back on some of the goals I made at the the beginning of 2013.  Most I completed.  Some I didn't and a few I'm still working on.  Next Wednesday, I'll post a fresh list of goals for 2014. 

Goals For 2013 (in semi-particular order):

• Print 10-15 baby pictures of Alaine to include in her photo album  Thanks to a great Walgreens deal, I accomplished this early in the year.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Attempt some of the ideas on my Winter Pinterest Board (a few pictures of my projects here)
  
  
• Work on the walls
  
  1. Have the 3 boys paint pieces of abstract art for their bedroom wall
  
  
  
  
  2. Make a large photo poster for our living room wall
  
  
  
  
  
  3. Update some of our  frames with more current photos
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Finish moving our books from boxes to shelves
  
  
  
  
  
• Learn to change the oil in van...and maybe the wiper blades, too  Never learned how to do either one, but I'll be rolling this goal over into 2014. I did learn to operate a chainsaw.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Potty train Alaine I hadn't intended to work on this until spring, but some things in life don't wait! I shared a few details here. I shared in that same post that the only problem we were having was that we were not able to night train at the same time as day train like we had done with our first four kids.  I need not have worried.  Within another week or so, Alaine asked to start wearing undies at night, too, and she hasn't looked back!  For the first time in over ten years, we stopped buying diapers. 
  
  
  
  
• Spring clean the house using this plan  I scrapped this altogether because I found myself cleaning things just to check them off a list and feeling guilty if I missed a day.  Instead, I stuck to my regular light cleaning routine and did more heavy duty cleaning if we were expecting company.
  
  
• Run a 5K!  I ran a 2 mile race as a warm-up and then I complete 4 other 5Ks here, here, here and here!
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
• Work with the kids on responsibility and finishing tasks to completion This is still a work in progress, but once we formulated a plan, the kids began to take more responsibility for their own work, plus they learned a lot of new skills-- laundry, changing light bulbs, washing the car, taking out the trash-- in the process!  
  
  

• Compile the kids' portfolios for their school records Compiling the portfolios was easier this time as I kept up with our records all year long.  We had a bunch of friends (5 moms, 10 kids) over to review everyone's portfolios for our umbrella school... and then I breathed a sigh of relief.
  
• Finish the e-book I'm writing by the first week of June You can still access my free reading guide for families here.  Good reading doesn't need to stop when summer is over!
  
  
  
  
  
• Plan our 2013-2014 school year  I shared my curriculum choices here, here, and here.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Give The Dress  a radical new design for fall I did it!  I remade The Dress in April and I redesigned it once again in September, but I also started to face the reality that I'm tired of that dress now.
  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
• Finish the preparation for my October blog series, 31 Days, 31 Printables  Click on button below to access the entire series.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Do a  push-up (I've never had the upper body strength to do even 1!) and hold a plank for 60 seconds I still can't do a push-up, but I took the 30 Day Plank Challenge in November.  I got stuck on Day 22 (holding a plank for 180 seconds), but I try again every few days and I'm almost there.  A 160 second plank still far surpasses my goal! 
  
  
  
• Have a date night with Brian (at home or out) once a month  Whether we were able to go out or had to improvise at home, we had more than 12 dates in 2013!
  

• Continue to find ways to welcome people into our home  We had guests over at least a couple of times a month.  That included birthday parties, dinner guests, play dates, an Easter egg dyeing event, 2 Survivor viewing parties, a Mother's Day dinner, school review group, a Thanksgiving party, a New Years' Eve game night, and a before-Christmas visit from these 2 cuties.
  
  
  
  
  

Do you set goals at the start of a  new year?  Do you write them down or keep them informally?  Next Wednesday, I'll share my goal list for 2014!

The Dress: a new look for autumn

The Dress is back for fall!  Actually, we've moved on to The Dress 2  since the original was getting worn.  Wearing the same dress for 2 years will do that!

(A quick background: my sister-in-law sent Alaine a hand-me-down dress in the summer of 2011.  I changed it up a bit and extended its wear into fall and winter, too.  By then I was on a roll!  I refashion it for spring  and summer 2012.  By now Alaine had been wearing the same dress for a year so I added a ruffle at the bottom to give it length  for fall.  We skipped winter, but The Dress got yet another new look for spring 2013! My sister-in-law sent along the same dress in a bigger size-- she has two girls!-- so now we're ready to work with that one.)

For fall 2013, I wanted something a little more unique.  I hate to admit that I'm getting a little tired of looking at the same dress.  This time, instead of adding length, I took some off to make The Dress more of a tunic length. 

The flower embellishment was droopy and tended to fold inward so I sewed a matching button in its center to keep the petals open. 

I stitched a brightly colored sash to go around the waist and attached 2  loops to hold it in place on the sides
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My model didn't want her photo shoot to end so as I proceeded to fold laundry instead, she sprawled out on the floor and looked up at me with a winning grin.  I couldn't resist.  The photo is slightly blurry, but it's priceless!

Summer Sewing

Though much of our summer was filled with baking and reading, I also took a few minutes to slip in some sewing.  I'm a mediocre seamstress, especially when it comes to machine sewing but I enjoy tinkering and seeing a finished result.  

For the second summer in a row, I've made Christmas ornaments in July.  I find that I'm more inspired and less stressed if I work on fun, non-essential Christmas projects during the summer rather than wait until after Thanksgiving when I have many other things claiming my time. I took my design from an idea in Craft-a-Day: 365 Simple Handmade Projects {affiliate link}.  I love the slightly non-traditional colors and would love to incorporate more turquoise into my Christmas decorating. 

I also handstitched a few Kawaii key chains.  I'm using the icecream cone ring for myself, but I don't have plans for the others yet. Giveaway, anyone?

Though I don't have the courage to make clothing from scratch, I enjoyed changing a maxi dress into a maxi skirt. 



I used this tutorial as my inspiration, though I did not follow her instructions exactly. 

I also altered a few too-big shirts using this tutorial.  The instructions say you can alter jeans in the same way, but I've not been brave enough to attempt that. 

Do you sew?  Have you made anything this summer? 

Goal Check In

We finished up our school year on Friday morning and celebrated by having friends over for a visit in the afternoon.  I was surprised by how lost I felt when it sank in that we were done our structured schooling until August.  Though we have reasons for taking a summer break, it's still an adjustment. Instead of letting it get me down, Brian encouraged me to take a breath of fresh air, enjoy the weekend, and begin a new week with new ideas for the summer.  

And now?  Now it's Monday and we are beginning a new routine and finding a new normal for the coming days.  I thought today would be a good day to review the goals I made at the beginning of the year and evaluate my progress. 

Goals for 2013

Short-term Goals:

• Learn to change the oil in van...and maybe the wiper blades, too Not yet
  
  
• Redesign The Dress for spring   (see photos of The Spring Dress here)
  
  
• Spring clean the house using this plan  I scrapped this altogether because I found myself cleaning things just to check them off a list and feeling guilty if I missed a day.  Instead, I stuck to my regular light cleaning routine and did more heavy duty cleaning if we were expecting company.
  
  
• Print 10-15 baby pictures of Alaine to include in her photo album  I found a coupon code for 25 free photos.  Alaine, 2, likes to look through her album and say, "That was me as a little girl."
  
  
• Run a 5K!  (read details and see photos from my race here)
  

Longer-term Goals: 

• Work with the kids on responsibility and finishing tasks to completion   Beginning to see progress!  Plan to continue focusing on this through the summer. 
  
  
• Continue to find ways to welcome people into our home  We had guests over here, here, and here!
  
  
• Plan our 2013-2014 school year
  
  
• Have a date night with Brian (at home or out) once a month  Spring is Brian's busiest time of the year, but we managed a few at-home dates and Brian took a day off so we could manage a whole weekend away (photos here)! 
  
  

March date-- NCAA play-offs on TV and take-out dinner

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And now, I've tweaked my goals again for summer.  Though my goals for summer include a fair amount of down time and a lot of reading for pleasure (to myself and to the kids), I'm hoping to be productive, too!

 

Even Newer and More Revised Goals for 2013

Short-term Goals:

• Learn to change the oil in van...and maybe the wiper blades, too
• Run another 5K in June
• Redesign The Dress for summer (or fall?)
• Finish the e-book I'm writing by the first week of June
• Compile the kids' portfolios for their school records
• Plan our 2013-2014 school year

Longer-term Goals: 

• Work with the kids on responsibility and finishing tasks to completion
• Continue to find ways to welcome people into our home
• Have a date night with Brian (at home or out) once a month 
• Train for a 10K

Did you make goals for the year?  Have you made any progress?