Well That Escalated Quickly

Snow in November is usually somewhat surprising--at least, snow that sticks is. I can only remember a few times where we had heavy snow accumulate and hang around this early but I think this past weekend takes the cake.

It all started Thursday with some cute little flurries flying around. They were sweet and I watched them fly around for a bit and then I went back to work and forgot all about it.

Things settled down after awhile, and then I came home from work and was making dinner as Charlotte kept exclaiming "snow!! Wow, mommy, look at all that snow!" and when I looked out the window it was white. By the time dinner was over, there was enough to build a snowman and shovel--which she and Chad did both.

Then Friday happened, and things got a little out of hand.

Charlotte was so excited she could hardly stand it--this girl loves her some snow. She couldn't wait to use to her sled, so we did the only thing that made sense during a blizzard at dark: took her on a sled ride up to the corner deli to get ice cream.

I feel like I should be wishing you all a Merry Christmas, or Happy-middle-of-January, but no. Happy Not Yet Thanksgiving...

~Stacy

Rusty

I've been feeling a bit rusty lately--as in, mentally creaky. Like, you can probably hear the gears of my brain turning as I attempt to think really hard or complete a task. Particularly the gears responsible for memory, focus and any kind of technical skill.

If you read this blog, chances are you actually know me in real life because a grand total of about five people read this blog and I am likely related to all of them. But in case you did not know this, I recently went back to work part-time.

When I was pregnant with Charlotte, I was working full-time (and then some) as an HR Director for a non-profit. I had planned on going back to work part-time after my maternity leave was up, but after just a few weeks home with my new baby I tearfully told Chad that we had to find a way for me to stay home with her. So we did, and thus my maternity leave went from an expected three months to almost three years.

During that time, I still worked as an independent consultant for the same organization. Thankfully their Executive Director (my boss) is an incredible person who allowed me to keep my foot in the door and work for them as a consultant, rather than just telling me to take a hike :) So while I have been working these past three years, I've not actually been anyone's employee. I've had no office, no co-workers, no space separate from the one I live in to physically go. I worked here and there, between naps and story times, after her bedtime, and at random points during the week where I could squeeze it in.

Somewhere along the way I started getting antsy. Over the winter it was especially noticeable, likely due to the hellish winter that went on for 74 months and almost took my little remaining sanity with it when it finally left in May. I was feeling out of balance in a way that I knew I had to do something about, but wasn't sure what. Charlotte had become a bit more independent, I was feeling stuck in a rut, and I was really starting to miss interaction with adults and having a group of peers and co-workers around me for longer than an hour here and there when I had a meeting to go to. Sure, I run into other adults every day but typically it's in a setting where those adults are also with their child(ren) and our conversations are inevitably about said child(ren).

So on a cold winter day in January my boss called to ask if I'd be willing to come back to the office one day a week. I could not say yes fast enough. I started in February, found that I was enjoying it a great deal, and now another day has been added to my schedule. My contract as a consultant ended in May, and as of last week I am back at my old job two days per week as an actual employee--with an office, an email address, phone extension and space completely separate from my home.

It's a unique situation to jump back in to your same job that you left three years ago. First of all, the organization moved office buildings about two years ago--to a different city and everything--so there was a lot right off the bat that was unfamiliar. Little things, like where the silverware drawer in the kitchen is or how they work their new fancy coffeemaker, are new to me. There are so many new faces. I used to know everyone's name, and now at least five times a day I am introducing myself to someone I've never met--sometimes employees who have been there over a year or two. I used to know everyone's job title, phone extension, work site. Now I have to check a list for everything. Passwords to all of the websites I need to access? I don't know a one. I have a list of login information that's six pages long and I have to refer to it every time I work.

They have a new fax machine, new copier, new mail filing system, new phones. It's all foreign. They have different people who do different jobs, some jobs that didn't even exist last time I was there and some completely altered and reassigned.

I filled out new hire paperwork, something I used to administer before, and had to ask an embarrassing amount of questions. Where should I sign? What forms do you need back? Who should I turn this into? I used to answer those questions and now I'm the asker.

I feel like the new kid, but then again I have more history overall at the agency than many of the people there. I just don't have the recent history.

So I'm rusty. Creaky. But so glad to working these forgotten gears in my brain again. It's a good thing--for all of us.

Camping or Glamping, Either Way I Love These

I have a board on Pinterest called "If I Camped" and it's full of pictures of vintage RV's (I'm particularly drawn to Airstreams) with 40s/50s colors inside and out (think lots of red, white, aqua, pink, and chrome).  This brand of camping is gaining popularity, sometimes called "glamping", and even sparked a fabric line last summer by Mary Jane Butters for Moda. I love everything about it and I would definitely camp more if I could get my hands on one of these:

(click on photo for source)

But if I had one, I would use it for far more than just camping (and let's be honest, I would barely use it for camping). I would love to use mine as a mobile fabric boutique, traveling around in the spring and summer to shows and events as sort of a fabric pop up shop. Then the rest of the year I'd park it somewhere and use it for fun (maybe even camping!). Someday, someday. 

In the meantime, dream with me. Which one would you pick?

My favorite is the green and white one with the red bunting across the top labeled "Constance." Love it.

~Stacy

Lately (This is a Long One)

I've been neglecting my little blog lately. I don't want to neglect it; I love this blog. Even if only my mom and grandma read it I still love it because it holds a lot of stories and photos from the past two years that I want to hold onto. It's my space to share the things that make me happy. I make a point not to blog about negative things--not because they don't happen, but because they aren't really the things I want to reflect on at the end of the day. This is a place I can come when I'm feeling unmotivated, stressed, overwhelmed or down and after looking at a few posts I almost always feel energized again, at least a little bit.

I've overextended myself in the past few months, admittedly, and totally by my own doing. I created my crafting website, which was fun and a new creative venture for me. The purpose of that was to keep the sewing/business related posts separate so I could draw an audience to that alone without having my personal life and photos shared with it. I started offering sewing and quilting classes and before I directed potential customers to my business site I wanted to make sure it was just that: a business site.

It's been going well--readers are showing up and I've been getting a positive response. And it gives me an outlet to still share all of my sewing related projects to a group of readers who are truly interested. But after awhile I noticed that I felt less and less motivated to make and share projects. It started feeling the way I never hoped it would: like an obligation. I don't do well with obligations. As soon as I feel like something is obligated I immediately don't want to do it. I lose interest and motivation very, very quickly. I found myself halfheartedly making projects, or worse--starting them and leaving them unfinished on the table, lacking the drive to finish them.

I never want to feel obligated to be creative, or feel like I have to make something if my heart isn't in it. I've discovered that I really enjoy teaching sewing lessons and thankfully, so far at least, I've gotten a very positive response. My class offerings are growing and I'm getting contacted about private lessons more and more. It's a good feeling, but in order to keep going with it I need to want to do it. If I lose the motivation to make things then how can I successfully motivate others to want to learn? I want to want to be creative, otherwise it loses its purpose entirely.

There are enough obligations in life. There are obligations we all have: laundry, grocery shopping, cleaning, cooking, blah blah blah. In mine in particular, I have a two year old who is my primary daily employer (I can't call her an obligation; she's way better than that). After that comes my HR consulting work--I have a contract that requires certain duties and a set amount of hours every month. They deserve this, but they also deserve quality. Quality doesn't come when you're overtired and stressed out. After that comes my hobby job--teaching sewing lessons. I say "hobby job" because while it is a job and a real business I also feel like it's a hobby since I have fun with it and get to talk about my favorite hobby to people who pay me money to do so. Not a bad gig.

In between all of that comes the things that I enjoy just for the sake of them: photography, blogging, and yes, sewing. But I came to an important conclusion this week when I found myself with free time and zero desire to sew: something has to give. And that something is going to be my crafting blog, for the time being. I made this decision five days ago. I've been in a sewing slump for five weeks. Since making the decision, I've finished two abandoned projects and started on another. I've decided I want to learn embroidery and I've practiced learning new quilting techniques. My motivation is coming back and in feeling less obligated to make and share new things all the time for the sake of my crafting site I've unlocked my mojo. I feel like I'll be a better teacher to those who want to sew. I feel interested in it again in a way I haven't for awhile now. Feeling so unmotivated made me question if this teaching venture was the right decision; now I'm not questioning that anymore. I was my own problem all along :)

This is a long and meandering post, so if you're actually still reading it and haven't fallen asleep--thank you. And if you are interested in learning how to sew or quilt (or know someone who is), I'd love to hear from you. Email bluebaycottage@gmail.com. And thanks for listening.

So without further ado, here is a sampling of what's been going on over the past week or so.

First, we got flu shots. I told her what we were doing and she waited patiently at the CVS Minute Clinic while reading her "magazine"--aka a Fisher Price catalog featuring The Little People. She took it like a champ and only cried for a minute and solidly earned herself a treat, shown on the right.

Last weekend she went on her second camping trip. This time she slept in a tent (!) and went with Chad, my dad and my brother. And Izzy, my parents' dog. She was pretty much in heaven and loved everything about her trip. It didn't hurt that they had the best camping weather ever.

I stayed behind and enjoyed a bit of solitude (and a nasty cold). I had a wild evening alone watching The Big Bang Theory reruns and making a play mat/village for Charlotte's random Little People stuff. Who knows what I might have done if left alone for a second evening. There might have been something really crazy going on, like baking a dozen cupcakes or reorganizing a closet. Here's said play mat:

I used a yard of fabric then cut green felt for the road and sewed it on, then stitched yellow lines onto the felt to make lanes. The pond is a piece of blue felt that I fused to the fabric with fusible web. When she's done playing we can toss all the toy pieces into a basket and fold up the mat--easy clean up!

When the campers got home we had ice cream. Superman ice cream, to be specific.

The rest of last week the girl and I spent it trying to get rid of our colds (mostly successfully, though we shared it with Chad so now he's enjoying our generosity).

It's strange how quickly summer has disappeared. Now when we take our post-dinner bike rides to the beach we can only stay for a little while before it's dark. The ice cream stand there is closed for the season which makes the end of summer very real (I feel my seasons in terms of ice cream accessibility). 

The leaves are starting to explode with color. I think this upcoming week or next will be prime time to catch them in all of their colorful glory and I have my camera ready and waiting. 

Happy October.

~Stacy

Tea Parties and a Farewell to August

So in my last post I mentioned that we repainted Charlotte's room and set up her new "big girl" bed, with crossed fingers and lots of hoping that the transition out of the crib would go much more smoothly than our last attempt. Well, wish granted. She loves her bed and has slept wonderfully without any trouble all week. Phew!

In celebration of this accomplishment, and since her room will now have some more space in it without a twin bed and a crib, we bought her a small table and chairs set to put in there. Her best friend has one in her room and she's been asking for a "tea party table" for awhile now. We told her it was coming a few days before it arrived (probably not the best idea, but she was as patient as she could be). It arrived on Thursday and she was so excited she had a hard time formulating a sentence. She pretty much just clapped and shrieked "Excited!" when she saw what it was. She makes my day. :)

Needless to say there's been a lot of tea time over here.

My contribution to the tea party? A gigantic cup of coffee. I'm not a tea drinker ;)

On a totally unrelated note, today is the last day of August. What the heck summer, where did you go??  Today also happens to be Chad's 10th high school reunion, which we are attending in spirit only since he's up against a pretty intense deadline to finish a huge school assignment by Monday. He's working on his prospectus for his research proposal (don't fall asleep, that's the most technical thing I'll say in this post) and he has an important phone meeting about it tomorrow. This is all prep stuff he has to get done before we leave for our trip in less than two weeks. So instead of having a night out to meet up with old friends we are hanging out here...ah well, there are worse things. Like my 10th reunion last year, which was really pretty terrible. Nothing bad or dramatic happened, it wasn't that. It was just thrown together at the last minute at a dumpy bar and about twelve people showed up. We left by 9 and went to the movies and out for coffee. That was definitely the highlight of the evening and I don't even remember what movie we saw.

Speaking of high school, the first high school football game was last night. I sometimes forget how loud it can be with a stadium literally in our back yard, but it's a good kind of loud. I like hearing the marching band and the cheering, and smelling that delicious fall woodsmoke smell from all the fire pits, lined all up and down just about every backyard on our street where people gather to watch the game through the fence.

Goodbye August. You were a good one.

Have a fabulous holiday weekend!

~Stacy

Some Greatness

As the final week of August begins and the month comes to a close, here's a look at the past week. It was a good one. But with pretend grocery stores, a visit from an awesome friend, and a bedroom overhaul where can you go wrong?

Let's start with the pretend grocery store. I had a moment of weakness and found a toy that I wanted to play with just as much as Charlotte did, so it came home with us. I'm she's pretty thrilled about it.

 It has a conveyor belt, scanner, working cash register with calculator, play money, and a credit card machine. Factor in the play food she already owns and homemade grocery bag and we're all set for a long time of pretend shopping. :)

On Saturday our best friend from college, Adam, visited from Pittsburgh. He brought two fabulous things. Thing one:

You might be looking at those and thinking "my, what delicious looking donuts!", but you would only be half right. Why half? Because these, my friends, are cronuts. A doughnut meets a croissant and then has delicious icing and cinnamon on top and some more delicious icing in the middle. I ate half of one and almost passed out from the sugar intensity but they are good.

And thing two:

Adam brought her a cat piano, which she loves. Clearly.

So about that bedroom overhaul...we decided to buy Charlotte an official "big girl bed" (a twin bed), since the whole plan of taking down the side of her crib and converting it to a toddler bed was an epic failure. For the past several weeks she's been sleeping in a regular twin bed at my parents' house when she visits and loves it, and she's been telling us she wants one for home. So we decided to get one, put it in her room with her crib, and transition her that way. I think it will work much better--I hope.

Anyway, I let her decide on a new paint color since we never repainted that room when she was born. It was already a neutral yellow so we left it. But it's been six years since that room has had fresh paint and it was time. So I asked her a couple weeks ago and almost before the question was out of my mouth she said "pink!". So pink it is. I found a light pink color, appropriately named "Ballerina", since she wants to be a ballerina right now. I repainted the trim a fresh white, and the ceiling (I cannot emphasize enough how much I hate painting ceilings. Well, painting anything really but I save a special hatred for ceilings). I'll show more detailed before/after pics later but here's a sneak peek:

Another exciting thing? Pigtails. That's right, this girl's hair is finally ready for them!

And some other random goodies, like finding her here:

Me: "What are you up to over there?"

Her: "Just sewin' Mommy."

You know, like it was the most obvious and normal thing for a two year old to be doing. :)

Love her.

Enjoy your last bit of August!

~Stacy

Slow Down

I need a pause button during the week, something that will let me slow down the time a bit. Don't we all? It would be nice.

There's been a lot of work and progress made on setting up my new site that will become my sewing/crafting website. I'm excited about it, but it's not quite ready to go "live" yet. Hopefully in the next week or two I'll be ready to share it. Once that's ready and I can clear a few more work related things off my list I'll be able to blog a little more regularly here as well. And take pictures again. I've pretty much only used my iPhone camera the past couple of weeks and I miss going off and practicing photography with my real camera.

This week we've played dress-up. A lot. She's got a thing for tutus right now, and it all started with these:

Yep, baby ballerina slippers. She calls them her "rina shoes" and last week when she was wearing them   and I asked her what she wanted to do that day she replied "go shopping for a tutu?" So I dug through her clothes and pulled out these two tutu skirts Chad's sister bought her and a Rapunzel costume that came with her doll she got for Christmas. Behold:

My hydrangeas are almost there, just a few more days:

This girl got to go to the zoo with her aunt and uncle, and scored a new stuffed monkey:

And I found this at a garage sale and had to get it:

And yesterday we made the switch over to a toddler bed. She's super excited about her "big girl bed" but the transition is going to take some time...because as excited as she was about having a big girl bed, she was even more excited about her newfound freedom. We only have one night and one nap down with the new bed setup and it's been challenging. But hopefully by this time next week I will be able to report some decent progress. Hopefully.

One area I did make some progress in was painting. Not the out of control, "let's paint the whole house" painting we did last year but just painting one little wall in our bedroom. It's the only wall in the whole house that hasn't been repainted at least once since moving in almost 7 years ago. We painted one accent wall a deep red, which was a nice color but not one that I ever really cared for on a wall...it was just so dark, and when you have a very small space to begin with dark is not the way to go. So last week I pulled out some leftover light-colored, neutral paint out from the basement and repainted.

And finished. Due to the angle I took the photo it appears as if a supernova is directly outside the window. It is much brighter in here but not supernova bright. I didn't realize how much the dark color was weighing down the whole room; painting the wall was like turning on a permanent lamp. Ahh, light and bright. Just the way I like it.

And that's all. Excuse me while I got make a pot of coffee to help out with the lack of sleep, courtesy of the big girl bed and the "big girl" herself.

~Stacy