Running Stitch

I was looking back over my posts and I feel like I’ve been leaving you hanging, remember that post where I was all Vampires! Buffy! Guess where I am?

Wah’s road quilt…on the road

Yeah me either, till I stumbled upon it yesterday, anyway, several weeks ago now, we traveled again to Forks. In conversations with Lady J who had briefly hoped to meet me there, so that I would be the only thirty year old vampire watcher around, I said that I found Forks a little over twilighted.

The once rural logging town, still a pleasure to drive to,is a little bit, bedazzled. I’m happy for the sleepy town, and the general store (my favorite!) where I bought new! fabric! this year too. Because, hello awesome.

The park was just as awesome, to break up our hour drive from port Angeles and back but I was a little saddened by the fame and fortune stores.

cowboy undies…soon

Still, happy that forks is prospering in a time when so many old logging towns are in the PNW are not.

argggh pirate fabric from forks general store

I’m conflicted. Happy for them, and their jobs, saddened a little for poor me. I’ll probably live. As long as they don’t do anything weird with the general store.

Look it’s a playmat! and a quilt!

We did get to try out Wah’s roadmap quilt, he is so very, very happy that it is bedtime.

Speaking of roadmaps and leaving you hanging tomorrow I’ll show you my major accomplishment from this weekends sewing fest!

Last Saturday the Stitch family experienced some firsts. These very happy stitch boys when fishing, ON A BOAT MOM! with their dad and Uncle for the first time.

Leaving Mama alone. For the whole day, for the first time.

A grand time was had by all. Obviously! And thus begins a new era in The Burrow history, an era where the boys leave for the day and I sew to my hearts content without making peanut butter and sandwiches or stopping sword fights or rescuing the cat.

Although, Ironically enough the cat managed to fall of the roof Saturday. No one was chasing her, or loving her to hard. But she managed to injure her leg on the one day where she should have been soaking up the peace. She is still limping but seems in good spirits (the purring……)

I crossed off three projects this weekend, and I started and finished a few new ones ( like pants for the boys and some spruced up shirts). The best part of the whole weekend was that I wasn’t pressured to get things done, or sending the boys to friends or grandparents so I could finish some deadline. Instead, I worked but they had a great time, doing something they both have talked about incessantly since.

So far the only downside? If you wake your sons up at 5:30am on Saturday to go fishing, then they wake up at 5:30am on Sunday, asking to go fishing, and Monday, and Tuesday….

I spent Saturday in Sewing bliss, and I caught a few moments of the same on Sunday as well. The leaves are falling here at the Burrow and the tea cups are warm and lovely to wrap your hands around. And I find myself almost ready to fire up the woodstove. Almost ready.

My sewing room and the boys room, both on the top floor of The Burrow, stay toasty warm, especially in the summer, which isn’t great, but come fall, winter an spring? It’s perfect.

I spent Saturday ensconced in movies and my projects. Friday, I mailed off the final installment of the Running Round Robin. Juls block was the last to come my way.

And I struggled with like all the others. The challenge in the Round Robin is trying to figure out what works, and the theme of the piece. I chose what I considered to be upside down ‘Nike” swooshes. Juls’ goal to race Boston, coupled by her choice of the number 261 made me feel that the ‘just do it’ swoosh was the way to go.

I of course flipped them, so that they also resembled leaves, of growth and at the center is the 261 that Mia added to the mix. The bloom.

Juls requested the white border, to finish the quilt off in a sort of ‘bib number’ way. I balked at first, but then what she wanted, really guided me to my part in the piece.

I’ve been so happy with this Running Round Robin, lots of fun with friends.

So what did I do with the rest of my Saturday? Lots!

Running Log
1 mile walk.

Progress!

Well somewhat. I started doing pilates again today as well. Toning my core, in addition to sitting up straight and stretching. I’m feeling better, I find myself limping a bit as if my left leg is no longer strong enough to carry my body? I don’t know it’s weird but I walked one mile concentrating on my even gait and keep my stomach in and standing up straight. Boring but good.

Someday running!

Speaking of that. The leaves are falling, the t-shirts are ordered and the two week countdown has begun.

This year the stitch boys are in on the action, Moo drew all the turtles on this year’s numbers. And his brother sang the itsy bitsy spider over and over….which was nice.

Speaking of that other boy and our afternoons together.

They are full of blackberries and walks.

Making cookies, and eating cookies and playing in the flour on the counter, everyone’s favorite pass time.

“But I would like free cookies because I am free years old.”

They are sprinkled with kitty love, and kitty respite and a lot of kitty hiding, and administering medicine?

Lily had to have antibiotics recently I think this is where the ‘dino tail’ medicine came from.

With all the ‘love’ this kitty gets she sure keeps on ticking.

He still insists on ‘calling’ his brother on the computer, while Moo is at kindergarten “yes we can!” he shouts when I say that we can not call brother at school. How crazy is it that our kids think that way that the video phone is a reality for them?

He sings to himself, and plays with his trains (oh the island of sodor how you have served us these faithful years) and tells himself “you are a good boy, you are not a naughty boy, naughty boys are berry disappointing”

He doesn’t like the bus, ‘it is berry woud” but he likes when his brother comes home. He spends quite a bit of time by this window watching for the bus that will bring brudder back to him. One on one time is apparently okay when it’s with the kitty but after awhile you need your brother.

As much as I’ve talked about finding balance here, this school year has been a juggling act for me. First I was completely thrown by afternoon kindergarten.

It just never occurred to me that Moo wouldn’t go to morning kindergarten, or that I wouldn’t have two mornings a week free to work (or as it turns out go to physical therapy ).

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall

It took some adjusting on my part. I expected the chaos of starting school, but not the added chaos of having to be home for the bus in the middle of the day. Twice.

When I came back from thisisnevergoingtowork mountain. And was cruising down the other side into aha! land, I realized that I would have four hours at least twice a week with just my oldest boy. Which is rare.

this way or that way? I love it!

I looked forward to that new time with my little Wah as a getting to know him, but I expected that alone time. I did not expect the scheduled mornings with just Moo. And his maps.

pirate map and cowboy embroidery inspired by his drawing

But it turns out to have been perfect. Just what this mama needed to help ease the transition to big boy school, some one on one time with my oldest stitch.

this is my favorite picture and next destined for embroidery
(wild wild west map)

The days are already becoming shorter, the sun on the clothesline is dipping behind the house before dinner. On these Indian Summer days when the warmth outside is somehow cooler even though the thermometer says 80, yet the towels on the line, don’t dry.

There is a frantic frenziness of fall. Of gathering the last of the summer crops. On the porch this evening the last of Henry’s bounty are drying in the dehydrator. The last of the blackberries from our yard are canned or frozen for later canning (oh the joy of winter canning!).

The peas, zucchinis and pumpkins are still ripening at will on the vine, the cherry tomatoes are fresh for the plucking, and dehydrating and eating. And its seems there is so much gathering, gathering, gathering to do this season.

Still there is the final pesto batch to make, if we can stop eating the basil, and the pumpkin butter. And the quilts. The evenings are cooler the nights dipping into the 40s, just right for quilting.

And I have a pile to do, as always. An overdue, oh so overdue baby quilt, two round robins, a fancy that bit me and of course one of my favorite ongoing quilt projects, perfect for fall quilting, slugs and all.

And as the night closes in earlier each night the boys are easier to convince to crawl under quilts and close eyes. As they slumber dreaming of kindergarten and Stuart Little, I stitch away.

The lack of Running is getting me down. I’m committed to healing and working up to be healthy! and stronger! and yada yada yada…..

I keep reminding myself that I was in serious pain before I started treatment. That the pain is not from treatment (even though it feels like it), that the pain is soreness not sharp pain. That I am getting better, even though the process is slow and painful and did I mention not fast?

It’s fall, and the leaves are beginning to change. The sun is still warm but the air is crispy and I want to be running. It’s my favorite time of year, and I want to be run run running. And quilt quilt quilting. But we’ll get to that later because this is a whiny not running post.

sigh.

The Turtledash is three weeks away. I made peace with not running it a while ago. But I love the fall running…..

peace, right.

The pain in my hip is almost completely gone, the tingling in my leg almost completely gone, my foot is still a little numb. Maybe instead of seeing MF for massages next week, I might be stepping out for a short three miler.

Probably not. Focus on the goal. Health! No Pain.

We come to the close of the third week of Kindergarten, the second week of preschool and the beginning of the baby birds’ exodus from the nest. Or The Burrow.

The rhythm of The Burrow has changed, again. As it does, often. Naturally in fact. Just as the season change, life inside this leaking castle changes. It ebbs and flows as boys grow, as we move from picking the last of the blackberries, to scrambling to pull the last of the carrots, and pluck the final basket of apples. Eagerly anticipating when we can bring home the pumpkins that are getting fat in the garden.

Changes always come with a price. This woebegone boy misses his playmate. And I’m constantly being asked “is brother here?” “where is brother?”"is he coming home today?” Those four hours are just as hard on him as me.

We are slowly filling in the holes that brother leaves in our day, picking blackberries, playing trains, making cookies and practicing being ‘a man’ (mostly this involves standing on chairs….also the games my boys come up with!)

And of course exercising our rights as the only boy home….spending quality time with the cat.

Teaching her her shapes.