Betsy's Fixing Day

I had "This is Betsy" as a little girl and loved it.  She's a sweet little girl who looks like me and does silly things like put her pants on her head.  Gunilla Wolde wrote lots of books and my Dad has been finding them for me to add to my collection.  

Betsy gathers up some broken things and decides to have a fixing day.  She carefully does all of the work that needs to be done, and then helps baby brother, who smashes his finger with the hammer while Betsy is not paying attention.  

See how she lays out the paper so she doesn't make a mess?  I love Betsy.

This is my kind of book.  Simple, sweet, hard work, happy ending.  

What are your childhood favorites?

On Being Late

RT @CharlieDaniels: Being late is your way of telling somebody their time is not worth as much as your's


My nephew re-tweeted this months ago and it bugs me. (And not just because of that extra apostrophe. What is that?)


Mostly I hate thinking that punctual people are thinking this about me. I try to be on time. I really do. I do not succeed. I can never decide if this failing is:

1. worth doing something about.
2. within my power to change.

Here are some reasons for this.  

• Kids.  I remember going to Anna's first doctor's appointment (late) and thinking "Surely they build in extra time for baby's first appointment.  Could they possibly expect anyone to get to the baby's VERY FIRST APPOINTMENT on time?  I suppose, though, if I had a better handle on time, I would start getting everyone ready sooner, and then maybe we would be on time to things.  It's not all their fault, but they do make it harder.  
• Orientation in Space and Time.  I don't orient myself well.  I don't know where I am in a town, or in a building, or how much time has passed.  I don't mean for this to be an excuse, it just seems to me to be a part of my brain.  I am good with languages and words.  I am not good with spatial concepts.  I do not know if that spaghetti will fit into that tupperware.  Just because something is harder, doesn't mean I don't need to figure out how to do it, but maybe I just want punctual people to know that it doesn't come naturally, knowing how much time something will take or how much time has passed, and I don't mean it as an insult.
• Fitting in too much.  I was thinking of this yesterday, as I tried to get to my doctor's appointment on time.  The kiddos were already at the farm, so I had no kid excuse.  I was ready, and I thought "It takes 20 minutes to get to town, so I need to leave at 9:40.  At 9:36 I was in the kitchen, ready.  I thought "I can unload the dishwasher!"  I did that, and it was 9:39.  I thought "I can reload the dishwasher!"  (Only breakfast dishes).  Then it was 9:40 and I left the house feeling all happy and proud.  But then it was 10:03 when I got to the doctor's office and I felt completely confused.  How could this possibly have gone wrong?  Are punctual people just better at leaving a cushion?  I always want to fill the cushion with activity, so that I don't waste any time.  Is the key to being punctual not caring about wasting time? 
• Time is flexible.  In my mind, "around 3" means "hopefully the clock will still say 3, or at least before 4:30". I think that punctual people have an entirely different idea of time.  For example, I have learned that when my friend Sara says that they will be here around 3, she could actually mean 2:45!  It's stunning.  I am completely in awe of that.  And that's after a long long drive.  It just seems absolutely out of the realm of possibility.  

So how do you do it, punctual people?  And I'm sorry and I promise that I don't think my time is more valuable than your's (Ha!).  My time is just so slippery!

Pattern Weights

I really hate pinning.  It takes too much time.  I like to just get to the sewing.  

I saw this idea for Pattern Weights on SewFearless a few months ago and started asking MJL to pick up some washers for me the next time he was at a farmer store.  

 Anna was very disappointed that I didn't use all different ribbons, but I have tons of this ribbon from Jeanette, and I didn't want to dig around for more.  I just wanted to get it done.  

Wrapping ribbon around them took about 10 minutes, and now I don't have to pin patterns anymore!  Yippee!  

Summer Schedule

I work better if I have a schedule.  I know it won't work like this 90% of the time, because there are all sorts of other things, but just making and posting a schedule helps me to sort through the days in my mind (and hopefully remember about meals and stuff).  Here's the goal for this summer:

Summer 2013 Schedule

6:30 -- Up, Shower, Dress

7:00 -- Breakfast, prep day, internet, kids breakfast

8:00 -- Kids up, dress, eat.

8:30 -- Outside Prayer/Bible time

9:15 -- Work Garden/Play outside

11:15 -- Make lunch and lunches, eat and deliver

12:30 -- naps K and J, A read and math and free time.

2:30 -- Up and pool clothes

3:00 -- Swim

6:00 -- Home and dinner/dinners

7:00 -- Chores and piano

8:00 -- Play outside

9:00 -- Kids Bed

10:30 -- Bed 

I'm curious--how do you order your days?  Any time management tips for the chronically surprised-by-the-passage-of-time?

Summer 2013 List!

So let's look at Spring--

Spring 2013

1.   Renew Driver's License!

2.  Make a 13 list before the year is half over.

3.  Put the binding on my quilt for the couch.

4.  Make Lydia a blanket.

5.  Make Abby a blanket.

6.  Finish dumb required Library Class and enroll in Summer class.

7.  Finish moving photos to new albums.

8.  Choose patience and gentleness. I'm working on it, anyway.

9.  Plant vegetable garden. 

10.  Plant flowers.

11.  Play outside whenever possible.

12.  Sew with my aunts-Anna's 4H project.

13.  Run away with the kiddos.

14.  Go shopping with Katrina.

15.  Make a baby gift (or just be honest with myself and buy one)

16.  Something to the college nieces and nephews.  I missed this-why is college over so early?  I feel bad, but I'm hoping just crossing it off will help me to LET IT GO.

17.  Get enough sleep.

18.  Don't "work" on Sundays.

19.  Tidy up office.

20.  Have fun at Easter.  Don't worry about any of it.  

Not too bad.  I don't feel bad about that.   I like not working on Sundays, and I've been good about getting to bed on time (of course, crushing fatigue from sickness helps with that-but even before!  Except for those weeks when I stayed up crazy late to finish my class...oops...

I think the biggest and best thing was tidying up my craft room/studio/office and trying hard to take nap time for myself.  And playing outside in the mornings has been good for all of us.  I'm really hoping next week  I feel good and back to normal.  Harvest is here!  No time for being lazy  being sick.  

Summer 2013

1.  Keep moving photos to new albums
2.  Finish Abby's blanket
3.  All the 4H everything and the Fair
4.  Run away with the kiddos.  Nope, that still never happened.
5.  Get rid of my Gall Bladder.
6.  Swim swim swim   Sad.  We didn't even use up our one book of passes this year.  
7.  Take more videos of cute kids.   I did take a few more videos, but not as many as I would like.  
8.  Finish LIBR 857.
9.  Rearrange Library at School.   I'm STILL waiting on the shelves I was supposed to get this summer!
10.  Think about the future of photo albums and best use of time.  

Only 10 things!  That means loads of time for spontaneous projects.  Or making gatorade, more likely.  

Happy Summer!

Bliggity Blogs

It sounds like Feedly is the new blog reader of choice, now that everybody's favorite is kicking the bucket.  My question is-where do I put it?  I have everything now on my iGoogle page, which will go away in November.  Any ideas?  Technology changes annoy me and make me feel like an old lady.

I want some new blogs to read!  Who are your favorite strangers?  

I like to read these:  

Conversion Diary
More Jennifer Fulwiler

Clover Lane
CRAFT:

I really need some more new craft blogs. but I'm open to any suggestions.  I cleaned my blogs all out a few Lents ago but now that I'm trying to spend more time sitting around, I could read more.  What do you like?

Lydia's quilt

Sure, I was really sick but I'm home now and that's all boring hospital blah blah blah wouldn't you rather see something pretty?

Here's Lydia's quilt!  It was a very simple strip quilt with just long stripes of different fabrics so it went together really quickly, which is the only way I have time to do anything.

I'm so pleased with the way it came out, I think the colors are beautiful.  

And for the back I used some of the left over green with this magenta and it may be a strange color combo but I love it.  

And here's the sweet graduate with her youngest cousin.  :)  

(I have a ridiculous amount of help and so I took a long nap this morning and I'm squandering the afternoon nap time when I should be working on my class...sigh...I'll get back to work now.  Thanks for all of the prayers and if you see me get cranky about feeling bad PLEASE remind me how blessed I am to have all this help.)