Friday’s pieces 06/09

1. If you read my day in the life post, you’ll know that Noah and I went to the Naples Zoo on Monday. It’s a pretty small zoo, but nice. This alpaca’s (I think? I was laughing too hard to read the sign!) haircut was pretty amazing. There were also llamas (who weren’t wearing red pajamas or pearls).
2. Saturday afternoon, we went to lunch at a friend’s house. After a wonderful meal, we played the board game Pandemic, which is probably our favorite. If you’ve never tried it, I highly recommend it! That put us in the mood for board games, and we played Carcassonne that evening. I won, too, which never happens. In case you’re interested, some of our other favorites are the expansion of Pandemic, Lost Cities, Agricola, and Settlers of Catan. Yes, we’re nerds.
3. Have you ever had one of those weeks when you’ve been so busy that you haven’t gotten anything done? Or things you planned to do took significantly longer than anticipated? I have been spending a huge amount of time booking (or trying to book) places to stay for our Scotland trip. We don’t usually plan our trips very far in advance, but for this one, that habit is coming back to bite us in the rear. We may be sleeping in the car a couple of nights!
4. You guys, I built Noah a tepee, which is now taking up a corner of his room. More about that next week.
5. I was reading a couple of non-fiction books at the beginning of this week, which are great, but seriously, I love fiction. Especially for that time right before turning off the light to go to sleep. I felt a little overwhelmed this week, so I really wanted a book that was like a hug (don’t you just love those kinds of books?). I was drawn to a L.M. Montgomery book that I have read several times. But really, can you ever read her books too many times? They are just so delightful!
6. One of the lights for our bathroom is behind the door on the outside, so you can only see it when the door is closed. Every time I go in the bathroom and close the door, I hear little running feet, a pause, a click, and the light comes on. I say “Thank you”, he says “Yeh wek”, and runs back to whatever he was doing. It’s so cute!
7. Do you guys love YouTube? Do you remember to look up how to do things on there? I seem to always forget about it until I’m already frustrated or have wasted a bunch of time unsuccessfully googling something. In the past, I used it to learn to tie a bow tie, Tim learned how to cut my hair, and I used it for the armhole binding and zipper on my Easter dress. I use it for Pilates and baby animal videos when I can’t get Noah to calm down (#lifehack). It is an excellent resource, and I need to remind myself to look up videos at the beginning of projects (see #8 below).
8. The last paper pieced block I made had only one seam to sew with the paper, but this one has two. I couldn’t figure out how to do it, but after many tears, 2 hours, and multiple YouTube videos, I finally figured it out (hooray!). Now that I know how to do it, it’s actually pretty easy. This is the summer sampler block 4, and I skipped block 3 with the intent of going back, and I’m glad I did. That one has a significantly more complicated paper piecing, and I probably would have given up on the whole project! You can see my several (5) ruined blocks and the 3 successful ones. I think I was the most frustrated about wasting fabric, especially since I can’t just run to the store to get more.

   

9. We are going to a dinner at a friend’s house this evening to welcome a couple new families to our neighborhood. I’m making confetti cupcakes from one of my gorgeous cookbooks, Seriously Delish! That link even has a picture of the cupcakes I’m making. Though they’ll be nowhere that beautiful, let’s be realistic. Can I say again how much I love the military family and how we support one another?
10. Any weekend plans? Tim is working all weekend (boo), so I hope to get some good sewing done (yay?). Then there’s a pool party on Sunday. How fun is that? I hope whatever you do is loads of fun!