40 THINGS BEFORE I TURN 40

I feel like these kinds of lists are cliche and cheese-y, but I've decided to embrace this cheese.  Cliche or not, goal lists motivate me and bring me a sense of joy. 

In April of 2020, I will turn 40.  Starting this list now means that I will have a year and three quarters to get these things done. 

1 / Resort vacation with Brian

2 / 40th birthday celebration trip with friends

3 / Overnight away with Brian

4/ Stay in a pretty and modern airbnb rental or a boutique hotel

5 / Start scheduling and planning regular monthly dates with Brian

6 / Sponsor a child through Compassion International

7 / Donate blood five times

 8 / Secret gift project #1

 9 / Secret gift project #2

10 / Secret gift project #3

11 / Secret gift project #4

12 / Secret gift project #5

13 / Go tubing down a river

14 / Do an escape room

15 / Attend Jazz in June

16 / Attend a Killigans St. Patty's show

17 / Take a class or workshop to learn something crafty (maybe with a friend)

18 /  Get my ears pierced - again

19 / Watch a meteor shower

20 / Go to a movie by myself

21 / Consistently work on crossword puzzles - again

22 / Reread Jane Austen's six major novels

23 / Reread the New Testament

24 / Complete a third round of The 100 Day Project

25 / Apply for the Project Life Creative Team - again

26 / Sew a piece of clothing for myself

27 / Sew a piece of clothing for Maggie

28 / Go to the dentist every three months

29 / Redo the flowerbed in the front of our house

30 / Finish painting the upstairs interior

31 / Get estimates for new flooring and kitchen remodel

32 / Have a good chunk of money saved for house remodeling projects

33 / Makeover Maggie's room

34 / Makeover Sam and Eli's room

35 / Own the "Like Forever" poster that I've wanted for like forever

36 / Write a book

37 / Own the Knotten standing desk from IKEA

38 / 75 hours of work and writing time (summer 2019)

39 / Go on an overnight writing retreat

40 / Decide how I want to spend my actual 40th birthday

With a list like this, I feel like life is going to be good and fun in the time between now and 40.

And about number 36... it is the one thing that feels scary to include, but I'm doing it.  And I have plans to write a separate post with more thoughts on writing a book. 

Here we go! 

100 DAY PROJECT UPDATE

I am participating in #the100dayproject by completing paper collages and sharing on Instagram using the hashtag #100daysofpaperandpaste.  My first post on this topic can be found here.  

A quarter of the way into this project and I think starting it may very well be the best decision I've made in a while.  

I'm in love.  I love the process.  I love the color and paper play.  I'm ready to embrace the title "artist" again.  In making and taking time to create art again, I feel more like myself.  

This all sounds grand - and it is! - but it isn't coming super easily, either.  Some days, yes.  But many days, there is a real struggle before there is art.  The struggle comes, in part, through the constraints of the project - both real and self imposed. 

I feel constrained by the colors I can find in the resources at my disposal.  In all of the magazines I've perused for color, pink, orange and yellow are hard to come by.  And they are my faves.  I can find little bits, but no full-page swaths of color like are readily available for black, grey and blue.  

I feel constrained by the paper itself.  I have this desire to be expressive with my strokes of color and this feels somewhat impossible with cut out paper.  Perhaps I just haven't thought through this or played around with this enough.  

I feel constrained by the color palette, style and overall "collection" that I've began.  I realize this is silly.  It's my project.  I can take it any direction I please.  Still, I feel pulled to make each piece fit in with the others.  

Related to that, I would love to go through this first set of pieces hanging on my bedroom wall and pull out about 8 of them.  Doing so would make me much happier with the overall look of the collection.  For now, I'm resisting this temptation.  

But all of this struggle gets back to the point of the project, right?  Doing something for 100 days means that there will be days that I produce things I don't like and days that end with true gems.  Doing something for 100 days means learning new things, slowly but surely.  

I am tempted to turn this into a four phase project - each phase consisting of 25 days and creating its own collection.  Doing so would help me to feel like there was room to take things in a new direction - new colors, new shapes, new themes -  while sticking to the same medium.  

Conversely, I am tempted to force myself to push through.  I wonder if doing so would lead to "better" pieces as time passed.  

For now, I'm undecided.  And I have a couple days left to ponder.  So, stay tuned for an update - or just follow along on Instagram to see if number 26 is drastically different from her predecessors.  

100 Days of Paper and Paste

The 100 Day Project by Elle Luna starts again on April 4th.

The official hashtag for the project is #the100dayproject.  Participants are challenged to do something (usually something creative, but really anything goes) for 100 consecutive days and to share on Instagram with both that hashtag and one of their own creation - specific to the project they are completing.  

I attempted this a couple years ago with #100daysofgodtime, but only made it to Day 17.  Errrrr.  That's not very far.

A guest at my house recently complimented the artwork on my walls.  I thanked her and then made my standard reply - "I used to spend a lot of my time doing art before the little people arrived."  This conversation ran through my head again and again in the days that followed.  Something about my answer was just sort of stuck on repeat in my brain.

Eventually, I was able to connect a few meaningful dots.  I thought about the effort I've put into reading this year - both the fact that I've completed 13 books despite feeling like I had "no time to read" and also the way I've felt so much more like "me" in the few months since I've once again been reading religiously.  It took me longer than it probably should have, but I finally figured out that art was another area that I could reclaim.

I can make art one of "my things" again.  I can bring back that part of myself.  I can enjoy it.  I can NURTURE this part of my nature.  There may not be much time, but there is time.  Even if I can only work on it in five minute bursts, I can still work on it.

As you likely have guessed, my hashtag is #100daysofpaperandpaste.  I'm ready to give it a real go.

My plan for the project is this:

• create 1 "paper and paste" collage each day for 100 days
• share on Instagram
• tape to our bedroom wall

And that's it, for now.  I imagine a theme or two might develop over the course of the 100 days - either color or subject matter or both.  And I will likely spend some time thinking about those things in the time between now and the project start date.  But, I'm really just looking forward to doing art again - and to keeping the plan simple.  

DAILY CHECKLISTS

I've created and used daily checklists several times in the three and a half years since becoming a mama.  I'm sure they would have been helpful in my pre-mamahood days, too but I had quite a bit of disposable time in those days and rarely fought to fit in the things that I needed or wanted to accomplish.

After a several month hiatus, I started a new checklist in August.  As always seems to be the case, my daily checklist included a mixture of self-care items, household chores and things that I like to do daily just to help me feel like an accomplished human being.  I wrote more about my big goals for a daily checklist in this post.

There are two big differences between this list and ones that I've created in the past.

1.  Checklists are recreated monthly.  

In the past, I would type up a list and print several copies with the plan to use it indefinitely.  This didn't leave room for new, short term projects or for changes in priorities.

For each of the past three months, I have written a new checklist at the beginning of the month.  While many things remain the same from month to month, I've also added and removed or altered a few things each month to keep the checklist relevant.

2.  Checklists are made and kept inside my daily planner.    

This one simple change has helped me to stay on track more consistently than I have in the past.  Previously, my checklist would be on a separate piece of paper that could (and would) easily get lost in the paper shuffle around the house.

Now that I have it in the same place as all of my other daily and weekly planning - in a book that I use for several purposes each day - it is difficult to ignore or forget and hard to misplace.

This month's list includes flossing, taking my vitamin, making my bed, putting the dishes away in the morning, putting the laundry away in the morning, doing a daily devotion, having a plan for dinner (which usually reminds me to set out meat to thaw or other prep steps to take early in the day), getting Brian's coffee ready for the next morning, running a load of laundry before bed, starting the dishwasher before bed and making some sort of forward progress on the blog.

Other things that have been included in the past couple months: reading, writing, 10,000 step goal, making progress on the blog move.

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My list is set up in a general morning to night order.  On days when I am on my game, I have the first seven or eight things done by mid-morning.  The last few usually aren't accomplished until just before bed.

I use Get To Work Book as my planner / calendar.  I have the July 2015 to June 2016 edition which is no longer in stock, but the January to December 2016 edition is currently shipping.

LOVE WHERE YOU LIVE

Two of my fellow Becky Higgins Creative Team members are hosting an online class / workshop all about documenting where you live.  It is a four week class that begins this week.  It is not about capturing or magazine or Pinterest worthy shots of your home.  It is about recording where and how you live your daily life.

I often capture bits of our home in the background of photos or take zoomed in shots of the "pretty bits" for blog post headers.  But I have never done a full-on house wide photo shoot or taken the time to write out the stories of where we live.

Our house is always in flux.  From the toys that are spread daily on the floor to the photos on the walls.  I am looking forward to capturing how we live right now and putting a time stamp on this moment.

Part of what appealed to me about this class is that there is no set format for documenting.  It seems like so many scrapbooking workshops are designed around the plan to create a mini-album.  Mini-albums are just not my thing.  I like having all of my documenting in one place and I prefer the pocket-style layout.  Accordingly, I will add whatever I create for this class right into our current family Project Life album.

You can read a lot more about Love Where You Live and register for the class here.  There is certainly no obligation here, but if you decide to register for the course, I would love it if you would let them know that I sent you when you register - just enter "brooke petermann" at checkout.

HALF SQUARE TRIANGLE QUILT

This quilt is one hundred percent me.  It has been a few months since I finished it and it still brings me great, great joy every time I see it.  I can't quite believe that I made it.  I am so happy with the color palette, the mix and match binding, the mismatched corners, the size and - really - just everything about it.

Here's a brief rundown of how it came to be:

I found a few tutorials for making half square triangles that made them seem very doable - despite my minimal piecing experience.  I decided that I could make it happen and then searched through Pinterest board upon Pinterest board for color and layout ideas.

I spent a ton of time mocking up color combinations on various fabric websites.  Then, I scrapped the idea of buying the "perfect" palette because I was afraid of purchasing fabric online without being able to see the colors with my own eyes.

I decided to just go to one fabric store and buy the best combination I could create from their inventory.  My store of choice didn't have a ton of solid cotton options, but that yellow is like my dreamboat color and I love the way it plays with all the other colors.  I chose that first and then just mixed and matched until I came up with seven colors that all worked together - my very own version of the rainbow (very decidedly without any purple, as that is my least favorite color).

I love the beginnings of projects, so I went home and immediately started cutting.  My squares were roughly eight and a half inches.  I am not a perfectionist and measuring things causes my blood pressure to rise, so they were not exactly eight and a half inches.  But I was okay with that because I already knew this about myself.  I also knew that I would be as happy with a final product with misalignments and angles other than 90 degrees as I would with one with perfectly matched corners.

Each of my kind-of-sort-of squares was paired up with another square of a contrasting color, I folded the pair on the diagonal and then ironed that fold to give myself a line (roughly) from corner to corner.  I used that pressed line as my guide and sewed a quarter inch seam on each side of the line, then cut on the fold line to give me two, identical half square triangle blocks.  (If that paragraph was confusing, this might help.)

I made it through this phase really quickly and started sewing the blocks into long strips, each made up of nine squares.  I got through most of this step and then my sewing machine got all jammed up and (despite much trial and error) I couldn't get it going again.  It sat in the basement, unused, for several weeks and then I spent an hour fighting with it one day until it magically worked.  I don't know what the issue was, but was able to complete the rest of the quilt without it jamming again.

Once I got back to it, I finished things pretty quickly.  I bought light weight batting and light grey yardage of wide cotton fabric that was big enough to cover the back of the quilt without requiring piecing.  I pin basted the layers together and started quilting.

I quilted straight-ish (but not straight) down the rows, using the seams where the strips met as guides for keeping the quilt lines from getting too crazy.  The quilting lines are purposefully uneven - some only a couple centimeters apart and others a couple inches apart.  Besides choosing fabric, quilting is my favorite step of the process.  I love how it brings the fabric to life and makes it magically look like a "real quilt" instead of just a flat piece of fabric.

I didn't put a ton of time into making things perfect (as seems to be the theme of this story), but generally evened up the edges and squared the corners.  And it was time for binding.  I dig binding that is made up of multiple fabrics, so that's what I did.  I used a combination of dark grey fabric with white polka dots and some left over fabric from the quilt front.  I machine sewed the binding onto the quilt.

I did not pre-wash my fabric, so the whole thing crinkled up when I ran it through the wash after it was done.  This is totally a personal preference, but I love that look.  To me, it feels worn-in and well-loved.

And that's the story of my second completed quilt.  It's definitely my favorite so far and it's hard to imagine topping it, but I hope that I will do just that.

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If you've been intimidated by triangles, I highly recommend this method since it doesn't actually require you to cut any triangles.  And, if you're intimidated by any of the quilting steps, might I suggest YouTube?  It's my secret weapon for trying new things.

I MADE A QUILT

I made a quilt.  I made a quilt.  I made a quilt.  I'm lingering in the land of disbelief and I'm cozy-ing up under it every chance I get.  

From start to finish - from forty strips of fabric to figuring out the binding - I made a quilt!

It is 47 inches by 42 inches.  Not a conventional size, but just the size that happened.  I think you could call it a large lap quilt.  I tried looking up the standard size of a lap quilt, but it seems that there is no standard, just a range of dimensions that will comfortably cover an adult's lap while sitting.  That's exactly what I've been using it for.  It wouldn't really work for a stretched-out nap on the couch, but I tend to spend a lot of time curled up or cross-legged in the corner of the couch and my quilt works perfectly to cover my legs.  

There are flaws everywhere - little things that I imagine (hope!) will improve as my sewing skills improve.    And, thankfully, I could care less.  I love, love, love it and love the flaws that are just a part of this learning process. 

I also made a few huge mistakes - some that I took the time to correct and others that I left.  I could see how quilting could be the art of a perfectionist.  This is one of those crafts where "perfect" is easy to see and where being fussy is celebrated.  I fall far on the other side of perfectionism and my quilt shows it.  I call it character and am 100% okay with the flaws - big and small.  

The most obvious mistake (and one that I chose not to correct) was the error of quilting from both ends.  Before I started the quilting step, I did a bit of internet searching to see if I needed to start quilting in the middle.  It seemed logical that I should, but the internet told me I didn't have to.  So, I started on one of the ends.  That would have likely turned out great, except that at some point I decided to also start from the other end.  Pressure from quilting each end pushed the quilt top together and resulted in a big bubble of fabric in the middle of my quilt.  

Oops.  I could have put my trusty seam-ripper to good use and pulled out one side or the other, but instead just stitched right over the mess in the middle and called it good.  As mentioned above, I'm an imperfectionist.  It works out well in cases such as this.  I chose to view this big oops as "character" built into my quilt and called it good.  

Some of the character was intentionally added.  I used a variety of thread colors - white, navy and aqua. Sometimes, I used the same color in both the top (needle) thread and bottom (bobbin) thread and other times I used two different colors at once.  I also had fun making a patchwork binding and like that it adds extra color, contrast and unexpected pattern.

Planning for quilt number two is in the works.  I have a general color palette worked out and think I will attempt triangles.  I'm not good at letting Brian surprise me with birthday gifts, so I asked him for a gift card to the fabric store and will officially get going on my second quilt after I use it.  My birthday isn't until the end of the month, though, so I have a few weeks to wait.     

SPRING CAPSULE WARDROBE 2015

With each seasonal capsule wardrobe, I aim to have just 33 items in my closet.  That number came from here and, although 33 is an arbitrary number, I've found that it works for me.  

For my spring wardrobe, I ended up with 29.  

I have no shopping trips planned, but there are a few specific things that I think would be nice additions.  I would like a new pair of ballet flats, a pair of shorter denim shorts, and perhaps another tank or tshirt.  So, I'm calling this wardrobe complete, but if I find a few more things to buy in the next month or two, I will do so.  

My final counts look like this:

4 pairs of shoes, 3 dresses, 5 tanks, 2 t's, 2 long sleeve t's, 2 long sleeve (but light weight) button ups, 2 sweatshirts, 2 pairs (of identical) jeans, 1 pair of leggings, 2 pairs of athletic shorts, 3 pairs of casual shorts, 1 pair of dressy shorts.

Spring weather in Nebraska is unpredictable.  The ten day forecast includes highs that range from low fifties to high seventies.  Varying weather means that I need a variety of clothing types.  I tried to keep things fairly well balanced between warm weather and cool weather options.  I ended up leaning slightly heavily in favor of warm weather options.  This is my optimistic and warm-weather-loving self shining through.  

The chambray and the buffalo plaid buttoned shirts were the only new purchases for this wardrobe.  Nine pieces are carry-overs from my winter wardrobe and the rest were purchased for previous spring and summer seasons and were pulled from storage.  

I am down to four medium-sized totes of clothing storage.  Two totes are my general "other season" clothing that I am saving for potential use later in the year.  One tote is full of shoes and boots.  The last one has maternity clothes.  Getting rid of the unused clothes gets a bit easier with each go around and paring things down leaves me with just the clothes that I really like and wear fairly often.  It has been a while since I've gone through my extra shoe collection.  For some reason, I have a hard time parting with shoes even if they haven't been worn for a long time.  The maternity box is staying for a hopeful third round of use sometime in the future. 

If you haven't tried a capsule wardrobe, I'm here to tell you that it's great and that I definitely recommend giving it a try.  If my magic 33 number scares you, ignore it.  There is no need to pare down to a certain number.  The big idea is just to keep the items that you love, that can work together and that are appropriate for the season in your closet.   

Having fewer items in my closet makes my mornings easier.  Fewer choices make for easier "what to wear" decision making.  Building my wardrobes seasonally makes it pretty easy to just turn off the part of my brain that would otherwise be looking for a new shirt every time I went to Target.  This is also beneficial to the budget.  And, perhaps the biggest benefit, I really only have to think about my clothing four times a year and can otherwise direct my energy to the rest of life.  I'm all for that.    

QUILTING IN 2015, PART TWO

The alternate title for this post is "Progress That Doesn't Look Like Progress."  I'm making headway into this new hobby of mine, but it might not look like it from a bystander's point of view.  

Quilt top number one has been folded up and stored away.  I had about two thirds of my desired size pieced together before I decided I should step away from it for a while.  As should be anticipated when one doesn't really know what they are doing and (gasp!) doesn't measure before cutting and piecing, things were getting a bit wonky.  

I was starting to get overwhelmed with the idea of trying to figure out how to match up all of my various pieces and make the edges straight.  I have faith that I will be able to pick it up and make something of it in the future, but that wasn't going to happen with my current skills or knowledge.  Related: I pre-ordered this book and hope that it will help with this specific quilt and also with my general wish to make "unconventional" quilts.  

So, I'm on to take two.  

This time, I am using a "jelly roll" instead of traditional yardage.  In case you're not in the know: a jelly roll is made up of forty 2½" x 44" strips of fabric.  This was a smart move for this girl that wants to quilt, but doesn't like to measure and is, therefore, afraid to cut.  Since purchasing this jelly roll, I have learned that there are more pre-cut fabric options and I can assure you that I will put them to use in the future.   

Quilt try number two is well underway.  It is made up of solids from the Kona Cotton 2013 Summer Palette.  It's a bit rainbow-y and a little heavy on the cool colors for my taste, but it is also happy and fun.  I considered buying an additional jelly roll of whites and creams to offset some of the bright colors, but decided I didn't really want to invest more money into this venture until I felt more confident that I could come up with a finished product.  

I'm generally a very money conscious person, but somehow I got started on this quilting adventure without giving the money side of it any forethought.  As it turns out, fabric is not free and my income is limited.  I'm not really sure what that means for my future with quilting, except it maybe means that I won't be "all in."  And that's probably okay because I have plenty of other hobbies and projects to keep me entertained and using the creative part of my brain.  

I only have six strips left to finish the quilt top.  Once that's done, I'm considering cutting it into thirds and flipping the middle section length-wise.  That would break up the long strips of color and make for some fun color-blocking instead.  I haven't decided if I'm brave enough to tackle cutting into it or not. 

And then, it will be onto making my quilt sandwich and starting the actual quilting process.  I'm excited to get there and to watch these pieces of fabric become a real life quilt.    

LOVE LETTERS TO MY BOYS

This is year number three for my annual Valentine love letters to the kids.

In the past, I've shared what I've written here, but I decided to keep them private this year.  I printed them out and added them to their respective baby books.  This is the first year that I've printed them out, but now that I've done it I'm anxious to go back and print out the past letters, too.  

I love this little tradition.  It encourages me to write to them in a different voice than what I generally use in my Project Life journaling or even in their baby books.  Thinking of the letters as "love letters" helps me to write to them about all the ways that I love them and all of their awesome, lovable qualities.  

I also love that it takes only a quick sit at the computer and requires no supplies.  Quick and easy are always winners.  

Wishing you a happy and love-filled Valentine weekend.  

PS: Year one.  Year two Sam.  Year two Eli.  

WORKING FROM HOME - SIX MONTHS IN

I've been doing the full time mama thing for half a year, now.  

Along with being a full time mama, I'm juggling several side gigs and ambitions.  I titled this post "working from home," but I'm never quite sure if that is what I'm really doing or not.  

I'm putting in the time.  I'm blogging.  I'm building my workshop business.  I'm selling things in my shop.  I'm fulfilling my role on the Project Life Creative Team.  I'm committed to all of these things and I'm not doing any of it "just for fun."  

Still, I have trouble viewing this conglomeration of work-related activities as a "job."    

I want to get there.  I want to take all of this more seriously and to approach it with greater dedication and some degree of strategy.  But there is this giant issue looming.  It's called time management.

The idea of time management related to this non-job of mine is kind of a joke.  Some weeks I have it all together and other weeks are more like disasters.  There are too many variables.  There is too little structure.  The constants in my life are an almost-three-year-old and an almost-one-year-old.  Let's just say they are unpredictable.  

If I really want to be more committed to this creative career path, I need to build some hours of work time into my daily or weekly schedule.  Hours to work away from the house or, at least, away from the boys.  To be honest, I'm not sure if that's what I want.  I wanted to stay home with my kiddos because I wanted to spend more time with them.  I love that my variety of side gigs act as an outlet for my creative side and for all of the parts of me that are "me as me" vs. "me as mama."  But I also like that I can fit them into the minutes and occasional hours that I have available without taking away time from my role as mom.

On the flip side of all of this, I feel like I am continually getting better at all of my creative roles.  I feel like I have been more honest in my writing and shared more valuable content over the last six months than I have in previous months and years.  My Project Life pages feel happy and true to my design aesthetic.  Overall, things are just coming together a lot easier than they used to and feel like they are headed in the direction that I want them to go.  

Not only has my work improved over the past six months, but I have also become much more efficient.  Working among the chaos of life at home has forced me to figure out ways to get things done in the windows of time that are available.  

To sum this all up, "working from home" is going about as well as can be expected when one has their hands full with kids and isn't really sure how seriously she wants to take this "work" stuff anyway. 

LIVING ROOM PHOTO PROJECT

A few weeks after the rest of the holiday decor was stashed away, I finally replaced the "Merry Christmas" photo display on our living room wall.

Using the "A Beautiful Mess" app on my phone, I edited 18 recent family snapshots.  I cropped each image into a circle and then added a one word text overlay.  I stuck with a palette of warm colors, leaning a bit heavily toward pink, since that is my favorite. 

The frames are 5x7 clip frames (similar) with chipboard backs that "matte" the 4x6 photos.  

This is actually a repeat project, as I did the exact same thing a year ago.  When I completed that first set of 18, I was very pregnant with Eli and had intentions of updating the photos a few times through the year so that I could include some baby photos in the mix.  The weeks and months passed and that never happened.

When I pulled out the holiday decorations, I took down last year's photos and replaced them with the wood and white text photos that spell out Merry Christmas.  The photos that hung on the wall through all of 2014, found new homes in our holiday album.  

Most of the photos that I used are snapshots from the past few weeks.  A few are a bit older.  The one of Sam in his Halloween costume is the oldest.  I like having these snapshots of our life on our wall and I like that they tell a more personal and more real story than professional photos would.  

Unless I should find myself so motivated later in the year, I think I will leave these up for all of 2015.  When the "Merry Christmas" photos come out late next fall, I will add these to our holiday album.  

And so, a tradition begins.  

I'm curious.  Do you hang snapshots in your home?  Or do you stick to "portrait" type photos?  We have a mixture at our house, but the snapshots definitely have the winning percentage.

QUILTING IN 2015, PART ONE

This is part one of what I hope will be a nice, long story.  It is about those tiny baby steps and missteps that are known as "getting started."  There is an almost overwhelming learning curve stretched out ahead of me, but the only way to take it is step by step.  And so, I am stepping.    

At this point, I feel like anyone who knows anything about sewing would laugh at what I've put together and at the way I've put it together.  I really have no idea what I'm doing, but I'm doing it and I trust that the doing will eventually lead to an understanding and knowledge of a better way or maybe even the proper way.

I learned to code and build my blog in much the same way.  I just went for it and through trial and error things improved and came together over time.  My success in blog site building gives me confidence that trial and error (and perseverance) will turn me into a decent quilter sometime in the next few years.  

My goal is for this first project to end up as a twin-sized quilt for Sam's bed.  The dimensions of a twin comforter are 65" by 87".  Currently, I'm at approximately 65" by 30" and I'm starting to wonder if I will have enough fabric to complete the quilt top.  I am crossing my fingers and adding bits of scrap fabric here and there to stretch things out.

Cutting, measuring and making things straight are not my strong suits.  I started this quilting adventure with the decision to cut and stitch without measuring or worrying particularly about straight lines.  I am really just going for it and will add or subtract at the end to make it fit the desired dimensions - assuming I have enough fabric to get there.    

So far, the "crazy quilt" route feels like a good decision.  I'm just cutting and piecing without a plan and things are coming together in a way that I like.  This method is allowing me all the fun without the frustration that I would feel if I were to spend a lot of time with the tedium of precise cuts and measurements.  

Since I am building as I go, I get to jump in and out of each "stage" of creating my quilt top.  I cut and pin.  I stitch.  I press.  I lay it out next to what's already stitched together and see where it might fit.  I rearrange things and recut and add a strip here or there, going back to stitch this, cut that and press a seam here or there.  Again, I don't really know how one is supposed to quilt.  I imagine that maybe you are supposed to spend a few hours cutting followed by a block of stitching-things-together time, followed by a good pressing session.  (Or maybe that's not how it goes.  I have no idea.)  In any case, I'm totally enjoying my own mess of a method and slowly the pieces are adding up to a quilt top.  

I'm so excited to be up and running with this new creative outlet.  I'm anxious to see what "Quilting in 2016: Part One" looks like and looking forward to all the steps between now and then. 

WINTER CAPSULE WARDROBE

Capsule wardrobe #4 - here we go.  

I follow Courtney Carver's Project333 Plan, which means that each wardrobe is limited to 33 items with a plan to exclusively wear those items for three months before creating a new 33 piece wardrobe for the next three months.  

In the past, I have only pared down to 33 items once or twice a year.  For 2015, I'm going to try following the plan more diligently.  

Here's what my wardrobe consists of for January through March:

1-12: shirts shown above

13-18 : shoes (boots x 2, tennis shoes x 2, boat shoes, silver flats)

19-24: pants (skinny jeans x 2, boot cut jeans X 2, dress pants, black leggings)

25-28: shirts (grey v-neck t-shirt, navy t-shirt, black sweater, navy long-sleeve burnout)  

29: winter coat

30: zip up hooded sweatshirt (need to purchase)

31-33: yet to be determined

I came up a few items short, but I'm okay with that.  Our clothing budget is tapped out for the month and I'm really not sure what I need to round out this wardrobe.  Over the next few weeks I will try to get a feel for what is "missing" from the list and will probably do some shopping in early February.  If possible, I would love for those items to be transitional pieces that could also fit into the spring wardrobe.  

It is both amusing and amazing to me that I wasn't able to fill this wardrobe with the full 33 pieces.  It seems like I should have 50 plus pieces that I want to include and difficulty paring it down to only 33.  Instead, reaching 30 required some shopping and still left me unsure of what else to add.

While the number 33 is totally arbitrary, I fully appreciate having that number.  Obviously, it is the spirit of the project - having a limited number of clothing that I really like and actually wear in my closet - that I am ultimately interested in.  But, having a set number is very helpful in keeping me in line with that spirit.  Without a given number, I can imagine that I would be spend unnecessary time trying to decide exactly what number of items would constitute a capsule wardrobe.  

PS: If you love the idea of creating a capsule wardrobe, but would like some guidance in getting started, I would love to recommend the Dress With Less Microcourse by Courtney Carver.  

Have you tried a capsule wardrobe?  Do you love it?  Do you miss living with a closet full of clothing choices?

A NEW CHALLENGE

I've been thinking a lot about the coming year.  

I've been thinking about where I want to focus my time and attention.  I've been thinking about what areas of my life are already humming and which ones need a bit of a tune-up.  I've been thinking about the things that make me feel energized and plotting ways to get more of them into my life.

One thing I keep coming back to is the need for a new creative outlet and a new creative challenge.  Or, perhaps, both of those things rolled up into one new project.  

I well remember the hours that I poured into Project Life in 2012.  It was new to me and kept my brain creatively challenged even during the hours that I wasn't actively working on my album.  I hungrily studied the work of others - anxious to see how they composed their pages, what journaling they included, how they managed to make their albums cohesive and so on.  The layouts took a lot of time, too, as I endeavored to make them both pretty and purposeful. 

In 2013, I had the system down - the journaling and the photo printing - but I was anxious to work on the aesthetic side of my album.  Again, especially those first few months, I spent a lot of time figuring out ways to put my own aesthetic spin on the project.  

This year, I finally found my documenting voice.  I have this project down.  Not just the systems of it, but also the style.  I know what I like.  I know how to make a page that I like without taking hours upon hours to get it done.  I love my albums and I love the time that I spend putting them together.  

But.  

The challenge is gone.

I've beat it.

What does that mean?  It means that I'm ready to tackle something new.  

I'm so excited to be back in the beginning stages of a creative pursuit.  It's the "new love" phase, where everything is a possibility and I devour any and every little tidbit of information that might help me figure this thing out.

This beginning phase is always frustrating (which I'm sure I'll have more to write about in the coming months) because there are too many unknowns.  But each irk and each error add up to an understanding and a level of expertise.  

I am excited for this specific project, but I am also just feeling good - in a content kind of way - with the idea of being back to the beginning of something.

PS: This does not mean that I am done with Project Life.  Project Life is an important and permanent part of my life.  It is simply being delegated to an "I got that" role in the little world of my creative endeavors.  

ADVENT CALENDAR USING PROJECT LIFE CARDS

I have been looking forward to creating an Advent calendar ever since I became a mama, but the whole concept of Christmas was pretty far out of Sam's grasp the past few years.  This year, things will be different.  He is really paying attention to everything going on around him and is starting to assimilate the information that he is taking in.  

So, this is the year for our family's first Advent calendar.  

I have seen so many pretty Advent calendars show up in my Pinterest feed over the last month.  Although I was anxious to make one of my own, I didn't know exactly what I was going to do until a flash of inspiration hit me last Thursday.  

We had an IKEA SPONTAN magnetic board in our basement just waiting to find a home and I have gobs of Project Life cards in my scrapbook pile.  I brought the two together (plus some printer ink and magnets) and our Advent calendar was born.    

The journaling cards are a mixture of patterns in pink, yellow, blue, black and white from Sunshine and Midnight kits plus several We R Memory Keepers Captured Cardstock Cards.  

I arranged and rearranged the cards on the board until I came up with a color scheme and order that felt nice and balanced.  Then, I made a 3x4 jpeg file for each number.  I imported the jpegs into a Word document, four at a time and hit "print."  I used washi tape to affix the cards to the paper, in approximately the right place and ran the cardstock through the printer one more time.  

Each day, we will move the big magnet (shown on the bottom of the magnet board) to cover that day's number. 

Beyond that, I haven't figured out exactly how we will celebrate each day.  Sam is really into the "Happy Birthday" song, cake and candles.  So, I think I will gear our Advent focus toward the celebration of Jesus' birthday on the 25th.  I also think consistency and repetition will be key.  

To note: the SPONTAN board that I used was purchased in 2010 or 2011 and has different dimensions than the one that is currently for sale on the IKEA website. 

"REMEMBERING TIME"

I have started a new little evening ritual with Sam that I am really enjoying. 

Each evening, before bed, we have "remembering time."  Sometimes, we remember while he splashes in the tub, sometimes before we read and sometimes just before prayers and lights out. 

I start with the first moment I see him in the morning and verbally run through a list of all the things that we did during the day.  I've been leaving out the time outs and trying to use this as a time to focus on the good bits - pointing out when he was funny or kind and remembering the moments where we had fun together. 

He is pretty passive throughout my monologue, but gives me a smile here and there and is definitely paying attention.

So far, this has been a fun new way to bond with him and a way to teach him some new vocabulary about the things that he has experienced throughout the day.  It will be fun to see how it develops and evolves over time and if he will become a more active participant as his speech continues to improve. 

LISTING SEPTEMBER

I am almost to the end of my listing challenge and am totally digging this project.

My goals for the 30 Days of Lists included: having fun, learning a bit more about myself, connecting with other list makers, considering topics that I otherwise don't spend a lot of time thinking about, making happy pages and completing my pages without spending any moo-la. 

Before the challenge began, I underestimated the networking and connection side of this project.  The #30Lists hashtag is making its way around the web.  It is fun to see how different people complete the same challenge with such varying lists and a diversity of documenting methods.  I have found several new people to follow on Instagram and have really enjoyed comparing and contrasting my lists to other participants in this challenge.  I have been amazed at both the similarities and differences between my lists and those written by others. 

I am using pages from an 8.5 x 11 lined journal, a couple magazines, a glue stick, scissors, a fat Sharpie and a pen to create my pages.  Other than the use of color, these pages feel like a pretty big divergence from my usual documenting style.  While I like the straight lines of my Project Life pages, completing these lists in a more free-form style has been good for my creativity.  It is nice to work on a different kind of project and use some new materials. 

Before September 1, I created all of the titles for my lists and imagined quiet time in the mornings ahead where I would sit down to write out my list for the given day.  Well, quiet mornings with time to write lists are not often found around here.  Instead, I often worked on two or three lists at a time - as I found time throughout the week and just posted them to Instagram on the appropriate day (or a day or two late). 

This has been a really fun project and I look forward to joining the #30Lists group again next March! 

ORGANIZING - RIGHT NOW

A month ago, I felt like I was being pulled in too many directions.  Every area of my life felt like it was lagging a bit behind a general level of "okay" and far behind an A grade. 

Take out full time employment and add in a daily checklist and things are starting to improve in my little world. 

I have an abundance of organizational ideas and plans swimming around my brain with hopes of future implementation.  But, for now, my life is coming together with one tool: a daily checklist. 

My list:

• is doable, but requires effort and time to complete.  A checklist of more tasks than I could reasonably accomplish in a day would leave me feeling that I failed.  Every day.  That doesn't sound like a recipe for success.  A checklist that I could knock off in an hour wouldn't be much of a challenge and would likely mean that I wasn't getting a lot done in a day.  It's all about finding that happy medium.
• includes a few specific tasks as well as several items that are open to interpretation.  A cookie cutter list would only work on the random day when the specific items on the list needed to be done.
• includes Brian, Sam and Eli.  They're my people.  Doing something with and for each of them, each day means I am doing my job. 
• includes self-care.  Keeping me happy and healthy is important, too.
• has only three fill-in-the-blank lines.  This prevents me from over scheduling my days and helps me to prioritize my extra to-do items.

I want to use these first few months of being a stay-at-home mom as a jumping off point for some good habits.  It is much easier for me to start something new when I feel like there has been a clean break in my world. 

Creating this checklist and working through it each day equal good habit number one.  And each day it is helping me baby step toward a house, a schedule, a budget and a set of priorities with less frazzle and more intention. 

And - clearly - pink highlighters make everything more fun.