Finally!  After three nights of staying up until 2am, midnight, and midnight again…I am done.  I sped read through it…Chris is jealous because I finished it tonight and he needs one more night.  :-p  

It was great and now I can spend the rest of the week trying to catch up on sleep!

I am content!  Really - I have felt so great these last couple of days.  Got a bedtime routine for Quinn that seems to be working - 8:22pm night before and 7:45pm tonight.  I told Chris this evening that I don’t want anything.  I don’t have that feeling of “if I only had this I would be happy”.   These simple things I have done lately have brought me so much joy.  Some of the simple things:

 - the joy of making something with my hands

 - a trip to the library to find treasures there

 - the excitement of sitting outside and watching a storm approach with the kids.  The sounds, smells and sensations - it was so cool.

 - the joy of good routine…cleaning in the morning while the kids either help or play nearby, making dinner and washing dishes during Quinn’s nap so I don’t have to do it later, a 4:30pm or 5pm bath to refresh tired and cranky kids….

I am tired, but my heart is happy.  A good feeling.  With that a refreshing shower and Harry Potter are calling!  Have a great weekend! 

We went to the library on Friday and Tyler and I got library cards!  This is part of my quest to cut down on our own consumerism a bit.  We can make toys and we can BORROW books instead of buying them.  We already have stacks of books lying around the house because we haven’t the shelf space to shelve them.   It bothered me that Tyler thought the only place books could be found was the bookstore.  In fact, he is so used to the train table and Barnes and Noble that he asked me where the train table was at the library.

It has been years, ok, a decade or more since I was at a public library.  It was so cool!  The children’s section was great and Tyler really enjoyed looking through the books and picking some out.  In fast, I was in the nonfiction trying to talk him into a book on roads and another on trains.  He kept telling me no and then pulled this construction one off the opposite shelf which was way more his speed.  He has enjoyed reading the “new” books in the evening with Daddy.  I figure we will go back every other week at least to renew our stash.

I also walked out with a cookbook I had been thinking about buying.  How nice to have two weeks to peruse the recipes instead of 20 minutes.  And I can always go and just copy the recipes I like if I decide I don’t want to buy the book.

It was a fantastic adventure!  I am really glad we went.  Next time, we are going to ride the bus there and back.  I am also going to try to add a little more public transportation into our lives.   We will see how it goes, but Tyler has been wanting to “get on a bus lately”.  We will give it a shot.

Oh, and they have started construction on a NEW library in MY meighborhood - it is literally LESS than one mile from our house!!  I am really excited about that.   Good stuff people, good stuff!

So a while back I wanted curtains for our now Master Bedroom. I found the fabric and bought it without checking the price - it couldn’t be THAT much. Um, the total was over $200 (gulp!) So my Mom made the curtains and they were wonderful. So it was worth it.

Fast forward to yesterday when the June Cleaver in me was doing lots of cleaning. So I decide to wash the comforter..it has a lot of cat hair on it. So I do that AND wash it. Not until lay it on the bed do I wonder…crap, did I shrink this?

Fleeting thought. THen I grad those expensive curtains and wash them in cold. And then you guessed it..I DRY them. I am all about wash and wear these days. Yeah, I shrunk the hell out of those puppies - like 7 inches. They look weird hung up.

I didn’t beat myself up though. I just figure I will slap a stripe of black fabric across the bottom. What can I do? I am not going to waste tears over it…live and learn..or maybe never learn..but they are curtains…and my daughter was still awake so I was focused on that.

But really, the lesson is that I just can’t have nice things because I haven’t the presence of mind to care for them like I should… {sigh}

The crafty side of me has been released or awaken anyway. I have been wanting to make more toys in front of Tyler so he can see that toys are not ONLY bought at a store - we can make toys right here at the house.

It came out really well and allowed me to learn a few new knitting techniques. I am planning lots more animals and eventually a rug that is a huge farm with a creek running through it.

A lofty goal, but c’mon - I can totally do it! I just knit a pig!!!

Oh, and remember that robe/jacket I was going to make for the wedding? It never happened, but it is still on the dockett. I do want to make that for myself - it is sooo awesome.

Oh, and I did finish the scarf…I will post a pic of that tomorrow. I am going to make a hat with the purple veregated yarn as well. Fun stuff!!

Okay, another amazing thing Quinn does - she will be in the middle of a room, plant her feet and just stand up.  She needs to assistance from innatimate objects - she has her own power and will stand up wherever she wants to.  I caught a bit of it on video…

Just like her brother, Quinn is loving books.  I remember this phase with Tyler when you gave him a few books in his carseat and he would “read” them while we were driving to our destination.  She is growing up so fast!