We spent what we hope was a responsibly safe 4th of July with my parents. We kind of have made our own little “bubble” and see few people but each other up close and within breathing distance. Everyone in my family is getting really good at cleaning…even the littles. And we stayed up WAAAAY too late shooting big fireworks and chasing fireflies.
So Sunday morning, after the 4th of July, I found myself awake with PB with the rest of the house was snoozing. So PB and I raided the fridge to make breakfast. Being good hearty Midwestern folk I made a well rounded country breakfast. I turned leftover baked potato into hash browns, used up the last of the sausage gravy, cooked off some thick sliced bacon and fried a perfect medium egg in butter.
Restrictions here in Kansas are easing despite our cases of COVID still rising. I have opted for my family to err on the side of caution so we are largely doing the same routines we did during Shelter in Place. However, my kids and I really needed to shake things up so we decided to do that carefully. We loaded up the van and spend a quiet weekend at my parents house as a “vacation”.
We opted not to interact with other extended family or public spaces. We played in the yard and around the house with lots of trips around town in my dad’s golf cart to get some wind in our hair and dust on our boots (or bare feet in Jellybean’s case).
One evening we stopped to say hey to the local high school’s chickens. They are definitely missing their kids! We rolled up to their “coup” after they had been put up for the night to protect them from predators. They came RUNNING to us. So the kids and I talked to them and threw in some fresh grass and chicken feed. It was quiet and simple and a nice way to spend time as a family.
Note: These chickens are most certainly well cared for despite schools being closed since March. They are fed, watered and set to graze daily by the ag teacher and her family. They even collect the eggs and hand out to local families in need. No animals were harmed in the making of this blog post 🙂
Y’all….I did a thing. I almost single handedly moved 4 tons of landscaping rock. I definitely way over ordered from the quary but my neighbors were delighted to take about one ton of it for their fire pit area.
Now the hubs did help me here and there but I can proudly say this was my baby. I finished the big bed pictured above, our rose garden and the driveway lining. Everything is now cohesive and hopefully weed free at least for a little while. And boy is my back sore!
I’m already scheming on how to jazz up the large bed. I’m thinking a standing planter for seasonal flowers that can stand high sun and maybe a hanging bird feeder. PB REALLY likes to watch and talk to birds lately. I think it would be neat to have a feeder out the dining room window she could watch.
Today I will regale you with my yard work adventures from last weekend. We have a large landscaping bed off the south side of our house. It’s out of sight and out of mind and long neglected. Well, bring on a global pandemic and I decided I needed to be outside and away from kids! The area looked like this to start.
I raked, scooped, shoveled and pulled weeds for a solid three hours. The bed at one point had a wooden mulch layer but I scooped that out as well, no thank you termites! I managed to get down to a pretty nice even dirt layer. I did use a quick spray of weed and grass killer to discourage new growth. My next plan is to call a local quarry and get some rock delivered. I want nay NEED low maintenance ground cover. I do plan to roll out and stake down some weed barrier before the rocks.
I could barely move my arms and legs the next day (or two) because I moved a metric poop ton of debris! I filled two trash bins and five large yard bags with junk. I probably should have left the sanitation workers a tip…
Anyone else out there sprucing up their yarns or gardens in this time of #stayhome?
Jellybean looked at me this week and said “we should make cookies”. And I said why not! So here is more gratuitous quarantine baking content.
We made pretty standard cookies except for Jellybean insisted on adding the whole bag of chocolate chips. He then put fork marks in them like peanut butter cookies because why not? He also squished the completely flat. So we have very nice and crisp cookies.
They lasted all of 3 days. But to be fair I only baked 1/2 the dough and froze the other half or another baking day. I hope future Rachelle enjoys the work of past Rachelle, lol.
You guys, I have a dying FO this week! The weather turned a little nicer so I sneaked outside on a break from work and took photos of our Easter dying attempt.
The tie dye turned out very nicely! It was very muted compared to the yarn but I’m guessing that is the difference between a plant fiber and an animal fiber. I have zero idea of what we will do with this fabric as it literally just tiny remnants. But Jellybean was really pleased with this “art” and that might just be enough for me!
I think the yarn made a very lovely variegated skein! As predicted we have white/undyed spots for sure. But it’s not a bad first attempt. I have not yet re-washed this skein to see if I am going to have any dye loss. I will for sure do that before working this up into a project. I 1000% percent do not trust my dyeing skills…lol.
I think this looks really nice skeined up even! This skein was a partial leftover so its around maybe 50-60 grams? I’m not sure what I would even want to do with this once I’m safe the dye won’t run on me. But all the value of spending time with Jellybean and forgetting about the state of the world for an afternoon was well worth it. Even if I never knit this!
I just couldn’t quite bring myself to waste the leftover Easter egg dye. And we are all still “sheltering in place” here in the State of Kansas so why not try a new craft? I dashed down to my stash and pulled some muslin scraps and some white Cascade sock yarn and started soaking both in a vinegar and water bath.
Once they were soaked we lightly rinsed them and laid them out. Jellybean helped me add rubber bands to the fabric. And then we waited until PB went down for her nap because I know better than to mix messy stain inducing crafts with a 23rd month old!
Jellybean was in charge of the colors and the placement of the dye. We had discussions of the color wheel and complimentary and contrasting colors. We make sure to turn our work and get the dye every where. (Thank god for plastic wrap!)
I then took the helm for the yarn dyeing. I took the skein and lowered sections into each of the five colors. Jellybean got to be in charge of pushing the skeins down with spoons. We totally on a scientific basis decided to let them soak for 7 minutes. I did zero research before starting this project. We literally just winged it and did what felt appropriate.
After the timer went off we pulled it out onto a pan. Then carefully under Jellybean’s watch we used the remaining liquid to blend the color sections. It was harder than expected and we ended up using some paper towels in the middle to catch the dye liquid form ruining other sections as it ran. We weren’t 100% successful but close enough for these novices.
We definitely have some white sections left on the yarn as it was hard to get complete coverage using solo cups and just pouring liquid over the yarn. I heat set this yarn and fabric in the microwave for 3 min and left to dry.
They are both still hanging fully dry in my basement as life took over. I’ll try to see if Jellybean is interested in helping do a FO photo shoot this week. I mean….we’ve got nowhere to go!
I have joined millions of people across the country and the world and I’m officially working from home. I have my work laptop and my personal computer all nestled into our junk room/pantry/office space. I am lucky to be a) allowed to work from home b) have a job that will at least let me be a little productive during this physical distancing. I had to grab an old backpack and make a “bug out bag” and grab all my notebooks and manuals before leaving my work space. It was very surreal.
I decided to join others who are flashing their temporary work spaces. I still have to supervise four staff from this spot and make sure that we still keep the local government wheels moving. I’m honestly a little scared and I’m sure we are going to find many obstacles. But we are in this together and nothing lasts forever. Let’s do this!!
Today’s post is just a little cheer to share you my blog friends. Because we surely could all use a little more happy in our life right now. PB got out of her bath and let me brush her curls. (That is a rare feat with her having her own opinions about her hair at two years old.)
She has the most amazingly curly blonde curls and they are just so crazy and perfect. I love her more than anything the world.
Meanwhile….social distancing and no school for the next few weeks has my basement like….
Somewhere in that chaos is the remote control to the TV and a milk cup that is souring as we speak. I’m heading in guys…wish me luck!
I recently took a vacation day form work and sent the family to their respective schools, daycare, and work so that I could have a project day.
I did “adult” and run a few errands to pick up some birthday presents, get fixings for the Easter Bunny and did the normal bank, pharmacy, grocery store stops. BUT, when I got home I did some non-knitting crafting.
I caught up the notes in both kids baby books and added the missing photos. I am pretty sure I was 6 months behind on PB’s book and over a year behind on Jellybean’s. I’m not sure if either kid will every appreciate having a book. But I will be glad when I’m old and grey to flip back through and remember all the sweet and not so sweet moments.
I also took some time with the photos on my phone to get them sorted. I backed them up to my Shutterfly account and caught up the pages I’m missing for my electronic scrapbook pages. I use Project Life ap on my phone to make pages and just print 8×8 pages to keep in books. I’m easily 5 months behind on those. I grabbed a notebook and made a to-do list of the pages I was missing to help it feel less daunting.
At the end of the day I did not accomplish everything I wanted to do. But I made a sizeable dent and it feels good not to be drowning in so many “to-dos” that always seem to make the bottom of the priority list.
My Tangled Yarn Knitting Adventures 