pa-jammy
I photographed and edited and posted this all from my phone. What can I say, I took Friday off work and didn’t want to go near my computer.
Not a super exciting fourth for us. I made pita bread and cake though, and we used some old sparklers. So yay.
Same old, same old.
Lots and lots of work.
Sewing:
Made myself another Artists Box Top out of the Liberty lawn I bought in May. Cotton lawn is by far my favorite fabric in the world. So light but crisp and easy to sew and doesn’t wrinkle horribly. Perfect for summer. Also I’m rather proud of this one because I made my own facings instead of trying to use bias tape, which I’ve never been able to find a good tutorial for using it on a v-neck.
I also made George another button down shirt for Father’s Day. I couldn’t find any more Doctor Who fabric, but I found this one covered in cocktails at a local sewing store. (I had to make an appointment to shop. I felt v important.)
And I made myself this Holyoke sundress from Cashmerette. The top ended up a little big, and I’m not super comfortable with my arms out like this, but I’ll get over it when the temp is 100. This one is made out of a linen/rayon blend.
Baking:
Bagels that looked funky but tasted good.
Dinner rolls that look and taste amazing.
Beignets from scratch!
The boys and I ate at a restaurant for the first time since March! We went to Tartine, which friends of our own. It was delightful and the food was delicious and nice to feel sorta normal.
Premier League games started up again, so now it’s even harder to get the boys to focus on summer reading.
And when they’re not watching soccer or avoiding reading, they’re playing Minecraft with their cousins, which warms my heart.
My cilantro is practically thriving.
And Ziggy is as ridiculously cute as ever. He got a new collar! And I got a lick to the face!
Until next time….
I have been thinking a lot this week. But not really posting. I’m so paranoid about being performative that I risk instead seeming uncaring to my Black friends. But really I’m trying to educate myself. Bought some books. Started reading and underlining the parts that I need to stick in my brain. Made some donations. Talking to the boys about the privilege we possess. Trying desperately to be learn how to be an anti-racist. Trying desperately not to do the wrong thing and accidentally hurt someone. Just writing this post seems self indulgent and I’m probably doing this all wrong.
But I just wanted to say something. To share where my heart is right now.
I’m reading this book.
Stocked up on summer reading for the boys with Monster and All-American Boys.
My coworker Kristine wrote this, it’s coming tomorrow.
I also did a ride on the Peloton this morning that is supposed to result in a $100 donation (for each person that rode today!) to the NAACP Legal Defense and Education fund.
Am I doing the right things? Doing enough? I don’t know. But I’ll keep my ears and my heart and my mind open.
Happy half birthday, boys! Also, this is number 150! We decided to change venue again this month, this time in front of the jasmine, which still smells sweet.
Six months til they become teenagers. Hold me.
Well that sure was a weird school year.
They were going to wear their uniforms but lost steam about halfway through. Close enough. (That yellow hoodie is definitely Linus’s quarantine uniform…)
I can’t tell if they grew much this school year but their hair definitely did! (I should have made them stand up straight for this picture. Oh well.)
First day:
It looks like I’ll be writing one post with more than a dozen words in it per month. I don’t know why I can’t motivate myself to blog more. It’s not like I’m not sitting at my computer all day, every day. (Work is busy.)
So let’s see.
Mother’s Day was great. I usually leave the house and go see a movie with Terry on Mother’s Day but that obviously wasn’t an option this year. But George got me a picnic basket full of goodies from Tartine, and I relaxed and spent the day outside (the weather was outstanding) and drank a bottle of rose that Kiki had sent me. Delightful!
And then later that week, George turned 50! George doesn’t care about birthdays as much as I do, but I tried to make it special. Dinner was from Tartine (shepherd’s pie), I got my friend Angela to bake a cake, and I got him a bottle of expensive whiskey and this portrait of Ziggy. His favorite gift (and I don’t blame him) though was the cards the boys made him.
I’ve been sewing quite a bit – some masks, of course, but also clothes. It makes me happy. I need to do separate posts on these, but I’ve made shirts, mostly. This is all leading up to me deciding which pattern I’m going to use when I sew up this length of Liberty cotton lawn I bought when a fabric store had a sale. All the heart eyes!
I’ve been enjoying my Peloton too. It is so nice to have the outlet for stress relief. Yesterday I hopped on it three different times when I was stressed out of my mind. Just a ten minute ride really helps! In five and a half weeks, I’ve done 80 rides! (I mean, yes, some of those are 5 minute warm ups or cool downs, but plenty are 45 minutes or longer!)
If you use the Peloton app, follow me! I’m…guess what…yep, pyjammy. Easy to find.
I’ve been watching all of the Marvel movies in the order suggested here, because Kiki was doing it, and it sounded fun. I realized I’d missed a couple of the movies over the years, so it was nice to get caught up. (And now the beginning of Avengers: Infinity War makes sense!) Sometimes I have it on my phone while I sew and kind of half-watch (I mean, I don’t want to sew over my finger or anything) or sometimes I have it on while I work on a puzzle. The boys watched Spiderman: Homecoming with me the other night, but otherwise it’s just me.
Speaking of the boys watching things, they were so happy last weekend to have a soccer game to watch on TV again!
Ziggy likes to watch sports too.
And he’s just generally cute.
Tomorrow is the boys’ last day of sixth grade! Last night they put on their school uniforms because they missed wearing them. So hopefully they won’t mind putting them back on for a last day of school pic!
Second monthly pic in quarantine. 😭
They wanted to do something different, so I let them take the pic in front of their soccer goal. If only that was not also in front of a chain link fence and our plastic shed. Oh, an behind the astroturf mat we have because they destroyed all of the grass. No, it’s fine. At least we have the World’s Cutest Dog Ever In The History Of Dogs in the pic.
Oops, it’s been almost two weeks since I posted. My bad!
So let’s see, what’s been going on since my last update post?
I got my Peloton last week, that’s pretty exciting. I have been doing about 45 minutes a day of classes or “scenic rides” but I am still waiting for my butt to acclimate. It’s getting better.
The boys have also been riding it, which is great. They haven’t been going outside enough, even though the weather has been pretty great.
Last week was spring break so they didn’t have any school work. So their brains rotted and oozed from their ears.
I’ve been baking a lot, still. The highlight was when King Arthur flour commented on my hot dog buns.
We got Pictionary, which was fun until SOMEONE stormed off because he didn’t think me saying “looseleaf paper” when the answer was “paper” should count.
We haven’t been watching movies as much, since we started watching Brooklyn Nine Nine. I love it, but I also miss movie nights. We’re about halfway through, I think. Maybe next week we’ll be back to movies.
My hair is long and gray. I can’t wait to cut it off. I wonder if it’ll still happen in May.
The Grand Meetup for this year (slated to be in September) was cancelled, which is sad but understandable.
I started this post three days ago. I can’t say a lot has changed since then, except my butt is getting more used to the Peloton seat.
Oops. I started this post 8 days ago. My bad!
My butt is definitely used to the Peloton seat. I’ve done 35 rides since I got it two weeks ago! Sounds impressive until you realize that includes the 5 minute cooldown rides. Anyway, who cares?
I am even closer to chopping off my ponytail myself. I long for the day I can wash my hair in five minutes.
Sunday I drove over a glass bottle and got my first flat tire in my new (I still consider it new) car. Bummer. I had another tire with a slow leak, so I figured I’d just end up replacing all the dang tires today, but I just had to get three of them repaired! (Yes, that means two tires had nails in them and one a shard of glass.) Only cost me $45 instead of the $700 I was anticipating. That was exciting!
Ziggy being cute all over the place:
Well. I’m going to just go ahead and post this now or else I never will.
I took this on time, but I mean, you know, who cares if it’s not posted on the right day? What is a day? What is time? So here you go, the 148th monthly pic. Ooh, we’re almost up to 150! I wonder if we’ll still be locked down for 150? I don’t want to think about it.
The boys are doing well. They miss their friends. They miss school. (This is unusual.) But they are handling all of this much better than I’d have expected. I used to complain about them never wanting to go anywhere. Now I’m grateful they’re homebodies.
Also, they are all the same height, despite what the picture might indicate. Just different levels of slouchiness. Getting them to take the picture is enough of a battle, forget posture.
Ha ha yeah right like day of the week matters.
Well, actually, work has been super busy (my team has been going through a lot of changes that started about a month ago) so I am grateful for a break this weekend. But I will be mostly sewing masks, like I did last weekend.
Speaking of masks, I made a tutorial for the kinds of masks I’ve been making. These are very no-frill. No filter pocket or anything. You just need fabric and ideally bias tape. Take a look.
Since my evenings have mostly been devoted to mask-making, we haven’t been watching movies as much. However, we did watch Ocean’s 11 the other night, and the boys loved it. They want to watch Ocean’s 12 next. We also started watching Community since it was added to Netflix this week.
Oh, and the boys suckered me into a game of Monopoly which lasted until well after midnight and let’s just say they know better than to ask me to play again. (Not because I won, but because THE TEARS involved with this game. Ugh.)
Lots of bread baking this week too. And I think pizza for dinner tonight.
I’m getting a Peloton delivered in a couple of weeks – not working out is doing a number on my mood. It means I’ll have to quit Orangetheory, probably, which is a bummer. Hopefully I can still swing a couple of classes a month. We’ll see. But I’m looking forward to being able to work out at home and not have to drive across town.
So I guess that’s about it for this week. Hope everyone is staying well!
The boys and I have been watching a lot of movies lately. Pretty much every evening we’ve put on something. I’ve been trying to put on some older movies, but they started out very resistant. Anything older than 2005 was a no go. But I was able to gradually sneak things in, and now they’re pretty open to even 80s movies!
So far we’ve watched:
10 things I hate about you
Princess Diaries
Princess Diaries 2
To all the boys I’ve loved before
PS I still love you
Star Wars (the new one)
Parent Trap (the Lindsay Lohan one)
Freaky Friday (ditto)
Onward
Clueless
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
School of Rock
Their favorite so far was Ferris Bueller, which is the oldest movie we’ve watched, so yay!
We also have discovered that most movies have some kind of broken family situation. Mostly dead parents, but sometimes divorced. I think the only one with a functional family is Ferris Bueller! (Well, School of Rock doesn’t really involve a family, so it doesn’t count.) Just a random observation.
I’ve also watched a few movies with just one or two boys. Like, Oliver and I watched Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, and Linus and I watched Groundhog Day.
So what’s next? Some ideas:
I’m open to ideas!
