Episode 6: In Which the Garden Gets the Better of Me
Or, to use the modern day vernacular, EPIC. GARDEN. FAIL.
Episode 5: Updates All Around
Or, In Which I Blather On and On….
“It is something to know what to do with ourselves when we are beset, and the knowledge of this way of the will is so far the secret of a happy life, that it is well worth imparting to the children. Are you cross? Change your thought. Are you tired of trying? Change your thoughts. Are you craving for things you are not to have? Change your thoughts; there is a power within you, your own Will, which will enable you to turn your attention from thoughts that make you unhappy and wrong, to thoughts that make you happy and right. And this is the exceedingly simple way in which the Will acts.” -Charlotte Mason
Around the Garden: June
Take II on this one. I explain within the movie. As a little hint, at one point Steve popped his head out to see what was going on and Seraphina told him, “Sshhhhh Daddy! Mommy is making a movie and only I’m allowed to interrupt it!”
Summer Solstice
We had pancakes topped with a berry sauce for breakfast and filled the house with flowers. Seraphina picked out pretty pink candles for the table We made a sun catcher from flowers that we dried during the spring. I gave them the book Sing a Song of Seasons:: A Nature Poem for Each Day of the Year, not because it’s a gift-giving occasion in our house, but because I wanted it anyway and just thought it would add to our celebration. Its really one of the most beautiful books I’ve ever seen.
A Rainy Morning Walk and Talk Through My Kitchen Garden
Or, “Why My Shoes Look Like This”, because apparently I don’t have enough sense to go put on rain boots.
Also known as, “Why I Ended Up Serving My Kids Pickles in the Car for Breakfast on the way to Church”
It’s like Wild Kingdom around here. I failed to mention that later in the same day of the believed mountain lion sighting, the bear that plagued us all through last summer made an appearance, much larger than before, but just as comfortable as ever in our front yard.
Also, Mairi’s friend is the sister of a band member, not the brother. It’s just that I hit my head a lot and say silly things sometimes.
Matchy-matchy for Father’s Day dinner. Hey look, I actually put on rain boots! I made us these linen dresses sometime back in November. The discolored dots are raindrops!
On My Needles
My second set of videos are now live! Yes, I said set, because it’s in two parts again. It seems that my camera only likes to record for just over 20 minutes, but based on my first two attempts, I seem to like to talk for approximately 24 minutes. So I’m either going to have to learn to talk faster or to say less!
A long-time blog reader told me that watching these videos is like imagining a character in a book and then meeting that character and being totally surprised. The really funny thing is that it’s the same for me! How I look, how I sound, my style of speech… all totally strange and interesting to me. Really? That’s me?? If didn’t have the experience of recording it, I don’t know that I would believe it!
Show notes down below….
My poor trashed garden….
Patterns:
The Mini Wrap by Fox & Folk
Isis Tailcoat (because I misspoke twice for goodness sake) by Kari-Helene Rane
The No Frills Cardigan by PetiteKnits
Thrysos Yoked Blouse by Teresa Gregorio
A New Direction
I’m including my first, two part, podcast here today. As I ease back into this space, I think I’m going to be working with both traditional blogging and, the very new to me, video log. I explain my reasons for this in the video. It’s really all just an experiment and I’m not at all sure where it’s going to go!
In the part that was accidentally cut I talked about subjects I’ll be covering in the future…things like knitting, sewing, intentional wardrobe planning, homeschooling, home and garden tours, homemaking, and really anything that strikes my fancy! I hope you will take the time to join me.
Around the Garden: May 2019
Let’s just pretend that it hasn’t been nearly a year since I last posted, shall we? I’ll try to explain some day. Here is a little video that I made the other day.
Yarn Along June
I’ve been puttering my way through reading lately. Picking something up, putting it down. Just looking at the pictures. Reading a paragraph or a page or two and then skipping ahead a hundred pages. Some books lend themselves better to this than others. Cookbooks for example. Some knitting and sewing books. Or this one: Carl and Karin Larsson: Creators of the Swedish Style. So many pretty pictures to look at! And short captions to read to kind of get the gist of it all. I did read the whole of the chapter devoted exclusively to Karin and found it very interesting. Also, there is a child’s dress (designed by Karin, of course!) featured in several of Carl’s paintings, that I totally wish to recreate for Seraphina.
I read around two-thirds of Soulful Simplicity by Courtney Carver before it had to be returned to the library. I’d like to finish it some day. This is Home: the Art of Simple Living is my current putter, but I’m not finding it as exciting as I had hoped. The photo on the cover is probably my favorite.
I’m all sorts of flitty and flighty these days. There are reasons of course. Since my concussion, back in March, I’ve struggled with reading leading to headaches. It’s getting better. Much better than it was, surely, but I’m not quite back to normal and I haven’t yet found my usual groove. Also, the book supply has been spotty since Steve has been unemployed. He used to drive by the library every day on his long ride home from work. I would order books on-line and they would just magically show up with him when he arrived home. It was a good system. Perhaps it was a little too easy, we generally had 30-40 books out at any given time and sometimes upwards of 65! Now trips to the library are rare. We have a grand total of three books out at the moment. Often by the time we finally pick up a book, it’s nearly time for it to be returned.
My knitting has been much the same. Usually I knit my way through much of the day, during car rides, while talking on the phone, as I teach… but my brain is still struggling to coordinate multiple things at once. And more often then not I still find myself dropping my knitting back in my lap after only a stitch or two so that I can concentrate on whatever else is going on. I’ve made some serious strides with this in the last couple of weeks and I’m hoping to find that I’m back to my old self soon.
In the month of May I finally worked in all the ends on the twin sized blanket that I crocheted for Seraphine, I knitted a tie for Iain to wear for his senior photos, I made a bonnet for a friends baby, and I photographed not a one of them. I discovered that mice had made a stash of quinoa in the scrap blanket that I’ve been knitting on sporadically for the last several years and I decided that it’s time to get it finished up, out of that work basket and in use. I’ve been putting in some work on that and inviting others to do the same. It will be a generous full-queen size when all is said and done and I probably have nine or ten inches worth of length to go. And just two days ago I decided that I would really like the option of wearing the blue sweater that I had been working on, before I started bopping all over the place, to Iain’s graduation next week. So for the time being I’m concentrating on that and sort of nervously knitting away.