Goodbye summer

Oh that hobby of mine
We had a great weekend. We hiked around the Buntzen Lake and Sara walked majority of the way. She loves walking in the woods, hoping over roots and most of all she loves walking uphill 😉
We kept her focused by singing silly songs and just letting her stop and throw rocks into the water. At the far beach she jumped off the dock and swam with Jason, they had a fantastic time.
I talked with Sara about her dollhouse and we are thinking of adding another shoe rack. It would have a large bedroom for all the kids and a dream playroom. With just two play sets to buy this should not be that expensive. Of course I would do the lighting in better way, already built into the ceiling.
It is time to decide about next year at H&R Block. I’m thinking of working four days a week three hours each morning plus Saturday, which would make 20 hours. That will give me about $2200 of extra income that would be spent going to visit mom.
The lovely photo above is a beautiful house made by a NZ artist. I would love to learn true woodworking techniques, oh so much. Maybe one day I will have time to create to my heart’s content.

Summer mode
Last two weekends we really stepped it up and did “no work, only family fun” weekends. We visited Capilano reservoir, Grouse Mountain and the Bridal Falls water park.
Sara loves hiking in the woods, she wants to walk uphill over roots. She is like a mountain goat. So we will try hiking around Buntzen Lake next weekend. She loved this year’s visit to the water slides, she went down the middle level slides all by herself, she is so comfortable in the water. Now we have a dilemma what classes to sign her up for in the fall. I still don’t know how is her daycare/ preschool fees going to work, so I don’t want to go overboard with classes. Swimming, ceramics and maybe skating or skiing.
Jason has one more week of work left, I have two, unfortunately. Summer is coming to a very quick close and I will have to decide about H&R Block course and work schedule for the spring. On top of that there is still about 28 hours of professional development classes. Just crazy fall is ahead of us.
But it’s still summer and we try to embrace the heat wave of 30C everyday. Sara plays with her doll house everyday, I installed new lights in each room, so now she can turn the lights on and off and she loves it. She said that she needs a TV for her house with a remote control, just like we have. I’m trying to stay away from unnecessary purchases, but I might get it for her for passing the next swimming level or something. I might just start slowly buying some Christmas presents, because in four months it will be Christmas. Holy, that is such a crazy thought. Ok, summer, it is still summer 🙂

So much stuff done ;)))
Oh some very productive weeks we had. The main floor trim is done, now the bedroom trims. On Saturday morning I got into the sewing zone and made the two cushion covers, one even with a hidden zipper. To finish this fun I need to sand the rocker and paint it, that has to be done outside, because the paint is very very stinky. Hmmm, maybe a birthday present to myself 😉
I saw this incredible quilt pattern and it has to be made for Sara 🙂 plus the advantage is it uses all my scraps, cheap, beautiful project that will use up some of my fabric stash so I can buy some more :)))))
I have a lot of the cushion fabric left so some table cloth will be ready for the outdoor table and I’m thinking of roman blind for the downstairs,hmmmm. But now sleep 🙂

My office is clean, I can tell, because there is a desk there again. I came across way too many “want to make something like this” pages lately, but this monkey backpack is just so adorable. Maybe I should send some of these pics to my mom for a Christmas gift inspiration for Sara.
I started to speak Czech to Sara a bit, we have our little chat before she goes to bed and she now knows that my nickname was little poo 🙂 so so far she knows; prďola, bobek, dobrou noc, sladké sny. How handy :)))
The kitchen painting will be done this weekend, I hope, so the spotless blinds can go back and then it will be the living room trim. The idiots doing the patio resurfacing are nowhere to be seen and all our furniture is in the garage and in the living room, fantastic. So I need to coordinate the painting of the patio door frame, because I can see Sara walking in the paint 😉
It looks like we will do an epic camping trip to Oregon Coast this summer with Sean and possibly Saira and Mark and Julie. Even just Sean will be fine, Sara FaceTime with Ben and she just wants to go to his house. We will do it for Jason’s birthday. His present will be going to the Seattle Coffee place in Lynwood and meeting his espresso heroes in person :))) He will of course get his pressurized port a filter and maybe some other goodie.
Our garden has been a little neglected, but tomorrow morning there will be 4 hours of weeding, strawberry moving, more veggie seeding and I need to do some community hours as well. I was looking at the calendar and Sara’s swimming will be starting in just over two weeks, OMG.
I have three or four sewing projects in mind (and fabric ready), but the drive is missing. I’m finally feeling like 80% at least so there is an energy for projects to go around.
I almost forgot, this is an amazing site
http://papermatrix.wordpress.com/
And I so want to try to make some of their stuff, I gave myself an excuse to make them for my infant class to decorate the place a bit.
Well, that’s it for now, it’s time to prepare stuff for Sara to make a crazy hat for today’s school parade ;)))

My inner OCD is happy, but my office still brings angst into my heart 😉
We had a first truly summer feeling weekend and it was just packed. All the promises of organizing the office had vanished way too quickly, but Sara had fun and we spent some time with friends and as a family, so that is the most important thing.
I’m feeling a bit better and I hope this trend will continue. I’m so tempted to take some time off, but the money is more than needed so “tough up girl” 🙂
Monday and another crazy week is ahead, I have yet another workshop to attend, luckily this one is in PM. Bathrooms need some cleaning, my office, let’s not even mention it, and the trims in the kitchen are still only half painted…
Oh well, let’s get this week started

So tired, so happy, but my office and all my craft stuff needs to be organized. I don’t know how to fix my storage problem, maybe I just have way too many supplies 😉 no that can’t be. Sara was super happy when she came home from grandma’s house and she jumped for joy when she saw her new room and the dollhouse. She said that this is her favorite day ever :))))) So sweet
I gave her some of the marvelous food my mom made from the modeling clay, it is so beautiful that I’m almost afraid for her to play with it.
My body hurts, the muscles around my right shoulder feel like being on fire and freezing a the same time, but it was so worth it ;). We haven’t spent much time or money improving our house since we moved in four years ago. I fixed all the dents in the walls, painted them and finally started the painting of all the window trims, they are blindingly white now. Jason transformed our garage into a super cool and the most efficient garage ever, we suddenly can find our stuff without searching and moving everything out of the way.
I can hear Sara upstairs playing in her room talking away, making up stories… I love that sound, I love her imagination.
Last Thursday she decided to wear a dress my mom made for her a year ago. She was so stoked when she showed everybody and her teachers commented how pretty she looked.
It’s seven thirty and I feel like falling asleep while standing, but we had a great weekend and we accomplished what we set up to do :))) hurray

Today was the day Sara decided to wear a dress for the first time in years. She showed everybody and was very pleased with the reaction she got. I showed her some pretty dresses on Hanna Andersson’s web site and she liked couple of the striped play dresses. I saw a pillowcase dress and decided to make her one myself, since it’s sleeveless and super easy. I just have to find a fabric for it, maybe I can buy a little piece of super soft cotton in one of those fabulous designs I saw in Fabricana…
Now I must concentrate on the painting project thou, I will take pics of the progress and I. An’t wait to admire the new room of hers. Two more sleeps and crazy weekend is upon us 😉 yupiiii