Embrace the Ordinary (vol. 10) :: We Don't Do Homeschool Uniforms. Ahem.

It's ok that it was 10 am and this little girl wasn't dressed yet.  She was singing along with her brother's +9 addition facts and in that moment, everything was right with the world.  

Homeschooling doesn't come in a neat little package around here.  (Heck, it's clothing optional for 1/3 of us...)  But most days, I'm willing to ignore the clutter, the chaos, and the lack of clothing because things have been going surprisingly well.  I wrote last week that it's a busy, exhausting, full-time job.  That it still is.  But we've all been keeping a positive attitude, making good progress, and (mostly) enjoying each others' company.   And that is the measure of success right now.  

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"...there is something holy, something divine hidden in the most ordinary

situations, and it is up to each on of you to discover it."

Passionately Loving the World, St. Josemaria Escriva

Linking up with the lovely Gina at Someday (hopefully) They'll be Saints where today she chats about active toddlers and grinding coffee beans - two things I imagine unite many moms in spirit :) 

Weekend Projects

Here's a quick Sunday night show and tell of my projects from this weekend - they were small, but I felt quite pleased upon their completion.   I'm so energized by craftiness and such, and I enjoy sharing it with you!  (It's better than sharing some of the other stuff I did this weekend, like hollering at folks to stop tracking mud through the kitchen ;)  

The first (and awesomest) involved lined pants.  Perhaps, like me, you have sons that are hard on their clothes.  And yet, you love them (your sons, I mean), and want them to be warm and stuff on cold days.  So you buy them lined pants.  They (the pants, I mean) are well loved and well worn until they develop a hole in the outer layer.  I'm sure you would agree, that a hole in lined pants is worse than a hole in ordinary single-layer pants.  For after the advent of the hole, you no longer have regular old warm double-layer pants, what you have is an entire leg's worth of storage space in between said layers.  Do you have any idea what you'll find in those pant legs after a boy wears lined-pants-with-hole for just one day???  Wowsa.  It's a lot of stuff.  And some of it is rather bizarre.   Grape stems, anyone?

Today I was about to trash two pairs of lined pants that had gaping holes in the knees.  If you're thinking of doing the same, stop!   Turn them into summer shorts!  Yay!  That's what I did today.  I cut the legs just above the holes, cut out the linings, and hemmed the bottoms.  Voila!  (betchya didn't know I could speak French!)   

Top left : gaping holes = pits of despair.  Bottom right: lady bug I found on the floor of my sewing room :)

photo on the right shows that I was very sloppy cutting out the linings, but I wanted it done quickly,
and it doesn't really matter what it looks like on the inside.  does it?!

My other project for the weekend was breathing a little new life into Sally's tired out wardrobe.  Meet Sally:

Sometimes she has clothes on and sometimes she doesn't
and sometimes Ruth calls her Sally Ocho, but no one really knows why...

I had a little free time to fool around with hook and yarn and made up a couple hats for the girls' baby doll.  And since Clare received a baby doll bottle for her birthday, Sally needed some bibs for feeding time.  So... I happily obliged in that regard too!  

I love small and easy weekend projects.   Projects with quick results help balance out ot other projects that are time and labor intensive, like crocheting an entire blanket...or raising children, for that matter :)

Did you do any fun projects over the weekend?