The time change has thrown us for a loop. I really dread the 'Spring Forward' every year. For some reason Emily and Robbie were up bright and early yesterday, earlier than they would normally wake. But, it was like pulling teeth trying to get Mary and Katie out of bed. I started off the day feeling behind. On top of all the things I had planned, I also had the mountain of doom laundry from where we had done a down and dirty clean up in the girls' bedroom. And, the kitchen was a mess from our dishwasher just being to darn small to keep up with a family of six with me making most everything from scratch.
But, the dread slowly dissipated as we got into it. We started off with the yarn dying project as that has been on our list for awhile. That allowed us to work at the table during the various simmering and soaking times. This did not turn out quite as well as we would have liked, although I am sure there are various ways that *I* screwed up the process. The main one was probably not using enough Alum or Cream of tartar. I was trying to reduce the size of our process from the recipe that used a 4 gallon pot to a much smaller scale using one of my stew pots. But, we did the process and did see how the dye can be leeched out of natural materials. Our result was a couple of skeins of light, tea-colored yarn, which was originally bright white. So, at some level it did work.
Messing with the yarn led to Mary insisting, again, that I teach her how to knit. She has a tendency to become frustrated easily so I've been trying to hold off teaching her this. But, she insisted and really seemed motivated. So we found the some spare needles and a skein of yarn and sat down to knit. The child might just be getting it this time. She is still having some trouble holding the yarn to keep tension, but she has the basic stitch. More importantly, she is self-motivated to do this.
The next 'craft' we are going to do is make our own "lap looms" and try our hands at weaving. I made one of these in Girl Scouts many years ago and really had a lot of fun weaving little pot holder squares. I have a perfect size piece of cardboard for her to weave me some placemats we need.
The reading, writing, and 'rithmetic were accomplished. The laundry mountain didn't completely disappear but it is a more manageable pile this morning. The girls spent the long evening hours playing with their friends, teaming into pairs and making scavenger hunts for each other. Katie and her good friend taking off on the bikes every so often for a sprint down the street. Those two are so excited to be on two wheels!!
While it was still light, which seemed so strange, we sat down to a really great dinner of chicken&sausage pasta and fruit salad. We had not had strawberries in awhile and I had pulled out one of the bags from our freezer supply (last summer's harvest), the kids loved them. For the next few days we will go through a spell of them begging me for strawberries constantly. For dessert, like the fruit wasn't enough, Mary baked us a cake earlier in the afternoon. Some days I feel like we eat like kings around here, but in all honesty I probably had around $5 invested in that total meal and we fed all six of us, plus Mary's friend; and DH took the leftovers to work today.
Now to go see what we can do today...
Peace,
Amy
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