2 weeks of Spring Break before Spring Break

So today our State governor "soft" cancelled school for the next 2 weeks due to the Covid-19 virus epedmic.  And while I like the time away from disruptive students, I'm concerned about how to help keep my own children occupied.

So what better thing to do than blog.  Here we go.

Next Round Finished...Finally

Thanks to my son for holding so still so I could take the picture.

Who was so crazy as to sign up to complete an entire quilt in 6 weeks?  Oh, that's right--me.  So, that didn't happen.  But I'm not giving up.

Life may have been crazy overly exhausting for the last month, but I've finally completed the "baby section" of my Starstruck Quilt.  My favorite part of this round is the small gray "tulips" as my 4 year old calls them, or "cats" as my 2 year old calls them.

On a silly note, after 10 years, I truly made my craft room into a craft room...by dropping all my pins on the floor!  Thank Heavens, I only have a handful of pins at this time.  Still, I wouldn't go in there barefoot for awhile.

This month has been crazy, and finding moments to work on my quilt has been difficult.  But I'm happy with the progress and look forward to starting the next round of my quilt.  That is right after I'm done baking rolls, making jigglers, and winning our family's "key lime pie" bake off today.  ;)

Being Kind to Myself. It's Harder Than I Think It Should Be

 After the Fall General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, I felt like one of the messages for me was to be kinder to myself.  I know that what I think I should do and what I actually can do are not always the same...so why do I make myself feel guilty when the two don't match?

My "craft room" after I cleaned up.  Yikes!

For example, knowing that I was behind on my Quilt Along, I came home ON TIME rather than 2 hours late from school and decided to sit down and work on the wall hanging section of the quilt.  I knew that I should be able to complete the whole thing in 2 hours before I needed to pick up the kiddos from daycare. But then reality hit.  I needed to move the laundry from my craft room (notice I
didn't say fold), find my sewing machine in the storage room, and then locate my scissors, and don't forget to look for the pins that were for some reason up on a book shelf in the living room.  Then I needed to vacuum up that spider, and search for my seam ripper.  And once I got everything together, it was time to pick up the kids.  I just couldn't do what I wanted.  It's wasn't can versus should, it was can't versus should--and it left me feeling awful.

I wish I had a magical story to tell here and how a fairy godmother came and made everything alright and I finished the quilt wall hanging on time, and cooked a gourmet dinner, and had a spotless house, and folded that laundry, and created the perfect lesson plan for the next day.  But that's a lie.

I know that I have a hard time balancing all of the good and better things in my life, and that it's difficult to choose what's best.  Some days I can do it all, some days I feel like I should do it all, and some days I fall apart and cry because none of it happened at all. 

The point of this ramble is that I accomplished something.  And that may not be much to you, but it makes me happy.  It makes me proud.  And I did it just for me.

So, this is me celebrating what I can do.







I can make flying geese using a no waste method.










I can create perfect half-square triangles.










I can learn a new quilt block called the "switch and flip".









I can find time to finish the wall hanging section of my quilt.

I can acknowledge that my family comes first, and my job come shortly after that--but I am important!

I can understand that while I may not be able to grade tests coherently after 10 pm, I apparently have no problem quilting after 10 pm.

I can apologize because I am NOT a social person while quilting.  (Sorry, Nate.)

I can enjoy hot cocoa and quilting at the same time.

I can finish what I started out to do without feeling guilty about the time it took.

I can do hard things.

Cutting Out Fabric or Grading Tests...which is worse?

I am behind on my Quilt Along.  But then again, I am behind on grading the last unit's tests.  So, which one gets accomplished tonight...that's right, the one that's about me.  (See, it can be all about me sometimes.)

After two long nights of parent teacher conferences last week, I thought I'd tackle the dreaded cutting out of the quilt fabric.  Honestly, I'm glad to get it all done in one fell swoop...but I still don't enjoy doing it. 

So, after ironing all 22 fat quarters and 8 1/2 yards of background fabric, the designing began.  The question became where do I place all of the colors.  I want to eventually place this in my room (after we paint, and get new carpet, and remodel a dozen other things first).  That means the gray needs to be more prevalent.  And each of the strawberry fabrics has a LOT of pink--which is not my husband's favorite.  Fortunately,  he gave me the go ahead to make this quilt however I would like.  (I love you, honey!)   Two hours of digital coloring and I ended up with this.

It's not a perfect digital drawing, because I'm pretty sure there is a better software out there than my scrap-booking program.  But the kids were at day care, I had the day off of school, so I'll take what I can get.

Saturday dawned with the need to go food shopping, clean the house, take the kids to practice for their Primary Program, basketball game, family reunions, grade those darn tests.  But, nope.  I did very little of it.  (Primary Program, basketball game, feeding the kids.  You know, the essentials.)  I spent the day cutting out fabric.  And I mean the WHOLE DAY.  Eight hours!  Yikes!  But I felt like I got to know my fabric better (how do you do?) and could figure out how the quilt was going to be assembled.  Plus my mind was reviewing rigid transformations, linear algebra, and other geometric transformations with each cut.  (What?  You don't do higher mathematics in your head while quilting?)





 This is my favorite print!  It will be the center star on my quilt.












Look how cute the dragonflies are on my background fabric!






Saturday evening I got interrupted by having to watch a family night movie with my family and my sister's family (Hurray! Welcome back to Utah!), so it took until tonight to finish cutting up the remaining pieces.  But it's done!  And here's the proof!

It's late.  But the cutting out of fabric is done.  Not a lot of scraps left over, so no mistakes?!?!?  Look for a post again soon about the wall hanging section and baby quilt section.

The next project

My master's degree is finished!  Hurray!  So after a mostly peaceful summer of doing absolutely nothing, it was nice to get back into teaching and having a schedule.  It's also been nice to say

"Yes!"

instead of "No" all the time.  My latest "yes" was to myself.  I was browsing Facebook and came across this beautiful quilt.

http://www.happyquiltingmelissa.com/p/quilt-longs.html

 I loved the colors and I loved the design, and I thought "why not?"  I mean, it's not like I have 2 sets of quilt blocks from my first ever Block of the Month clubs over 15 years ago that are still not assembled or my first quilt from my mother-in-law's Quilt Guild classes from 3 years ago that I haven't finished yet.  And I'm a working mom who teaches full time then runs after four munchkins.  But "why not?"

So, ready or not, here I go.

Last night I bought my fabric at Quilt's Etc.  I loved the colors and I think the strawberries add a fun detail.

Have you ever started something because you wanted to, and not because you had to?

Happy New Year 2019

Ya, so that whole Instant Pot thing didn't work so well.  Good intentions and all that...

How do you like the new theme of the blog?

I am excited about the new Sunday School curriculum for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints called "Come, Follow Me".  We will be studying the New Testament this year.  There's a ton of ideas that I have...but honestly, I'm not going to blog about them very much, if at all.

This year, my New Year's resolution is to FOLLOW THROUGH and FINISH things.  I've already finished repairing Sammy's pop up book and Carter's beanie babies (things I've put off for weeks and years, respectively).  But the big thing is finishing my master's degree.  My final project is due March 1st.  Wish me luck!

Instagating an Instant Pot

Wife, mother of 4, middle school teacher, graduate student, and somewhere in there is just me, Jen.  On a typical weeknight, I have about an hour to actually decide what I want to fix for dinner, cook it, eat it, and clean up before it's on to homework for kids, bedtime for husband and kids, and homework for me.  Do I really need to state that I don't have a lot of time to cook the way that I dreamed about as a teenager?

I'm always looking  for quick, healthy, recipes that my children will eat and that actually taste good.  My mother gave me an Instant Pot for Christmas, and I'm willing to try it.  But I'm going to need some accountability, or it will end up sitting on a shelf in kitchen waiting for that once-in-awhile recipe (Sunday Roast in a Slow Cooker, for example).  So, I made a Pinterest Board with my sister-in-laws to see what they've tried and get new ideas.  And I'm going to blog once a week about my adventure.  (52 posts instead of 365.  Seems reasonable...right?)

Welcome to 2018.