DIY Easy Knit Kid's Winter Hat

I can't believe I'm finally feeling the urge to craft again! Hooray!

I really want to make the boys some hats and scarves for winter. I searched Pinterest and was lured by many amazing options (like the one featured below), but in the end, I decided to go with the easiest pattern available: this one. 

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Recap of Our Pacific Northwest Vacation

 

What a trip! My friend and I joke that when you travel with young children it's not a vacation--it's a "trip."

But it was fun nonetheless!

I'm so grateful that our school has a two-week Fall break. We left on Sunday afternoon and arrived in Seattle late that night. In retrospect, we should restrict our travel to within our boys' typical windows of awakeness. They are not much fun when they are tired!

We stayed in an inexpensive bungalow that we found on Airbnb. It's really nice to have separate bedrooms for each boy; it increases the likelihood that they will sleep (we bring a noise machine for each of them when we travel).

On Monday, we explored the amazing Arboretum, which I highly recommend. Then we headed over to Chihuly Garden and Glass. We had been reading a book about it in the weeks leading up to our visit, which really built our excitement about the experience. Then we couldn't resist going up in the Space Needle.

The next day, we connected with one of Matt's awesome life-long friends and took a ferry out to Kitsap Peninsula. The car ferry in and of itself was a grand adventure. Once on the island, we played at the beach (yes, Henry did end up completely naked and in the frigid water) and even spotted humpback whales frolicking in the water.

Afterwards, we swung by the University of Washington. It's one of our traditions to stop by colleges when we travel, so that Henry and Tate develop positive associations with it. Henry has decided he would rather attend a quieter university, but we had fun. We ended our night at an awesome pizza restaurant, dining next to their chickens.

On Wednesday, we drove to Portland and stayed at an amazing guesthouse on a family-run farm. We had a big adventure on Thursday, which included a visit to a neighborhood park, a bike ride around the city (we rented bikes from here), and a stop at food trucks for lunch. Yum! I also recommend this dinner place for delicious pot pies: Pacific Pies.

Even with direct flights both ways, it felt like we had to spend a lot of time traveling to and from the Pacific Northwest, in part because we squeezed in two cities that were three hours apart. The experience made us re-evaluate our plans to rent an RV and travel to Big Bend for Spring Break. I'm thinking we should go somewhere (warm!) that has more of a homebase camp kind of thing (amenities that are family-friendly?) with the opportunity for day trips. Any ideas?

We also made sure to pick up an ornament for our Christmas tree tradition!

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Finding Sanity Amidst Wedding Planning Craziness

A colleague of mine is getting married soon, and I volunteered to do something off of her to-do list in an attempt to help reduce her stress. She asked me to sew 10 gift bags for her guests. 

With any DIY project, the prospect of doing it seemed much easier than the reality. At the beginning of the project, I texted her and asked, "If I have leftover fabric, do you want me to make more than 10?" Thank goodness she said no. The project was so hard! 

She wanted the bags to be lined, which complicated the process. Also, I ran out of fabric when I was trying to make 20 straps, so we had to take a strip of leftover fabric to the store and hunt around for the same fabric. 

Then there was the part where I couldn't find a safety pin and had to get creative about how to turn 20 straps inside out. 

Then there was the fact that I wasn't following a pattern so when I got to the very last part I found myself trying to sew through things that were too thick. So I broke my sewing needle. Twice. And then the safety function kept engaging, which required me to use a screwdriver to pull apart my machine and put it back together. Every.Single.Time.

The experience reminded me of a couple sections from my wedding book: taking shortcuts on things that don't really matter and crossing off non-essential items from the to-do list. I went back to read them and found them helpful. I shared them above in case you or anyone in your life is going through the stress of wedding planning and needs a little dose of sanity. 

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The End of the Summer Gardening Season

On Saturday we ripped up all the watermelon, cucumber, and tomato plants from our front-yard garden. It's such a cathartic process to purge everything. 

We had a pretty good season. We didn't stake our tomatoes well and bought the really sprawling kind, so those didn't go as well as they could have. Our watermelon plants got aphids, but they continued to produce a ton of watermelons all summer long. Next year we'll be more intentional about which kind of tomato plants we buy, and we'll do some proactive organic stuff to head off the aphids. 

Last year, I was so spent from work that I had no energy for the fall growing season. This year I'm feeling much better. Once we get everything 100% cleared out, we'll add compost and some new soil and then plant some stuff for the fall. 

The front-yard garden is working out really well. The dogs, chickens, and pigs stay out of it. We haven't had any issues with neighborhood cats or other animals. The automatic irrigation is the best thing ever. I was really worried about installing a garden in our front yard because I was afraid that I would be overwhelmed with the work, everything would die, and our yard would look terrible. It's not much work at all (hallelujah!), we get food all season long (hooray!), and our yard looks fine even when there's nothing growing (phew!).

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Racially Integrated Schools

I'm embarrassed to say that I just now got around to listening to the This American Life episodes about the importance of racially integrating our schools called, "The Problem We All Live with" (Part One and Part Two).

Here's the synopsis:

Right now, all sorts of people are trying to rethink and reinvent education, to get poor minority kids performing as well as white kids. But there's one thing nobody tries anymore, despite lots of evidence that it works: desegregation. Nikole Hannah-Jones looks at a district that, not long ago, accidentally launched a desegregation program. First of a two-part series.

I started my career working with nearly 100% children from low-income backgrounds. At the time, I believed that the best way to bring about equity and social justice for all was to serve as many underserved children as possible. 

As I grew and evolved as an educator, however, I came to realize that homogenous schools--even high-performing ones--are a "separate but equal" strategy. And "separate but equal" can never truly be equal. 

I also realized that if we want to dismantle racism and bring about social and racial equity in our world, diverse children need to learn alongside each other. They need to learn to navigate lines of difference and to appreciate and celebrate their differences. That is why Magnolia Montessori For All is an incredibly diverse school. I feel so fortunate that my own sons get to learn from children and families that are different from our own. 

If you haven't already listened to the series (at least episode one) please do it! It's really, really good.

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Getting Back on Track with Our Finances

Matt and I spent a very long time monitoring every last penny that we had and how we spent it. There was a time when I was on maternity leave and a time when I was only working part-time, so that I could volunteer to get Montessori For All up and running. We were also trying to send Henry to Montessori school and save up money to build a house. It was a stressful period. Once we got through it, we both had full-time jobs, our mortgage was just a little more than our rent, and both our children were at a public school. 

Now that we have more money, it's easy to spend more money. Matt eats out for lunch all the time. I order stuff off Amazon. Matt goes to Target. We still have money for vacations, but we aren't saving money the way we could be.

If we keep spending our money without intention and purpose, we aren't going to maximize our savings potential. We could be investing our money rather than just piddling it away. 

I'm noticing a trend in my posts this week. It feels like I'm turning over a new leaf! I really want to get this aspect of our lives back under control and move forward really intentionally and purposefully. How should I do that? 

Step One: Evaluate Where We Currently Are

• I need to go back to our budget and update it based on our current reality. I also need to go through our credit card statements with a fine-tooth comb to see 1) if we have any unnecessary recurring expenses that we are not even aware of and 2) if there are places we can cut back. 

Step Two: Revise Our Budget

• Once we take stock of where we are, we can set goals for ourselves. We have to be honest about the fact that if we go on vacation several times a year, we will need to spend less in other areas in order to end up saving money. 

 Step Three: Track Our Progress

• I love Mint.com's capacity to let us track our spending according to our budgets on a daily basis. We need to get back into using it religiously. Maybe I'll get into the habit of using the app before I let myself go on Facebook.

This sounds like the right plan. I'm going to work on this for the next couple weeks and then implement the new plan starting on October 1st!

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Where I Am Versus Where I Want to Be

My brain is trained to focus on outcomes. When I step back and focus on the outputs, here's what I notice about my life right now:

• I'm tired all the time.
• My clothes aren't fitting well.
• I'm having trouble mustering up motivation.

With those outputs on the table, my mind then goes to the inputs. What am I doing (or not doing) that is contributing to those outcomes? 

1. I'm addicted to a TV show. While a little bit of TV can help me relax, a lot of TV makes me feel lethargic, passive, de-motivated, and tired (in part because I let myself go to bed too late to fit in one more show and in part because I'm not doing anything interesting or productive if I fill up any free time I have with television).
2. I'm not eating a good breakfast (or sometimes any breakfast). I'm not eating a consistently good lunch (or sometimes any lunch). And I'm not eating enough fruits and vegetables. One day, I ate nothing but donuts before dinner time. Seriously. (At least they were delicious donuts from my new favorite donut shop.)
3. I'm not exercising at all. Since my back injury in May, I haven't been running and I've only gone to yoga a couple of times. I hardly ever do stretches before bed.

Geez. As I write all of this out, it is crystal clear that I am missing some of the key components of a healthy life: healthy food, healthy sleep, and healthy activity. I'm surprised I'm not feeling worse!  

I write these posts every so often because I need a re-set. It's too easy to get busy and let any one (or all) of these things drop. 

I need to re-commit to the healthy habits that lay a solid foundation upon which to build my life. I commit to:

• Drinking a green smoothie every morning for breakfast (plain yogurt + spinach + frozen mango + banana + ground flax seed)
• Going to a yoga class once a week
• Stretching each night before bed
• Starting physical therapy for my back (and then getting back into the habit of running)
• Turning the light out by 10pm every night--no excuses
• Bringing fruit to work for a morning snack
• Getting back into the habit of having a salad with dinner
• Ordering a new work bag so I can comfortably fit my water bottle, snacks, etc. 
• Take vitamins every day.
• Leaving work on time each day so I can have more time to prepare my lunch for the next day in the evening

Whenever I make commitments, I try to ask myself: "What will get in my way from actually doing these things?"

• I hate making smoothies every morning. I need to find a way to make them in advance. I might try this method. I can definitely make a big batch on the weekend and freeze it for the week.
• I just need to make myself go to yoga class. That's all there is to it! I feel like my boys need me during the bedtime routine to feel like their lives are safe and complete. Maybe if I commit to leaving work on time every day, that extra time might help me feel like I am filling their buckets.
• I also just need to make myself stretch. It's not rocket science. I am going to ask Matt to help me recommit to this one (and all of these!). 
• I added "Call the doctor" to my action plan for Monday. 
• Talk to Matt about the new 10pm rule. I think he'll be on board. 
• I need to get a lunch box. I like this one. I will also need to get everything ready the day before.
• Making salads won't be hard. Now that we aren't swimming every day anymore, I have a little more time to make dinner.
• Done! I just ordered a new work bag.
• I'll take my vitamins when Matt takes his. 

I'm already feeling much better by having these next steps in place! 

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