Sewing Again

School changes for the boys coming up this week!  Since we have opted to have Squiddle remain an online student, one of the roughly 25% of grades K-1 in his school to do so, he's started with a new teacher today.  At least we got his testing finished last week!

And Jazzy starts school on Wednesday.  This is a calculated risk - I can help Squiddle with math and reading, etcetera, but I cannot help Jazzy speak better.  He needs professionals.  His class size will be small (5 or so), with daily temperature checks.  I haven't been able to confirm whether or not he will have to wear a mask on the bus (some sources said yes, others, no) so I may end up as a chauffeur.  Regardless, he does have to have masks for school (they will practice putting them on and off, if nothing else), so over the weekend I pulled out my box of bright/kid's fabrics, and he picked out five.  So I cut and sewed and he now has five flannel-lined masks all his own.

And since Jazzy got masks, Squiddle gets masks too!  So he picked out six fabrics and I cut those yesterday and am sewing them today.  I suppose next will be Wonderful Husband's turn.

Also!  Yesterday we all went out and got our flu shots.  I barely felt the needle go in, but Jazzy was wailing after his was done, so I took him to the toy and candy aisles while Wonderful Husband and then Squiddle got theirs done.  Everybody got a candy bar (and a lot of praise) as a reward for suffering through immunization.

The Last Midnight

 You know you're a grown-up when you find yourself in the parking lot of the grocery store, sobbing uncontrollably at the death of a Supreme Court Justice.

May Ruth Bader Ginsburg's memory ever be a blessing.

And f*ck Mitch Hypocrite McConnell.  The Republican party makes me want to sing.  Specifically a verse or two from Into The Woods: "You're all liars and thieves, like his father, like his son will be too.  Oh, why bother?  You'll just do what you do. It's the last midnight."

Ugly September Skies

 I lost all my spoons for a while.  They're starting to come back.  Long may they stay!

Though my sister says we here in Washington state currently have the worst air quality in the entire country, I personally doubt it.  Though there is a persistent haze here in Gig Harbor (and we're nowhere near the 500-acre 50% contained Sumner fire), the worst sky I've seen has been a faint yellow tinge.  My friends in the California Bay Area have Martian skies!  Not to mention the fact that last week's heat wave got Woodland Hills, CA (where Costume College is held) to a record 121 Fahrenheit!

Oh, but don't worry.  The Cheeto-in-Chief says that climate change isn't real and Californians just need to rake their forest floors better.

(Pardon me for not disguising my disgust.)

Squiddle seems to be doing well at remote learning, though it's frequently a case of gently nudging him away from video and game screens, and back to his schoolwork.  His school is supposed to open back up for kindergarten and first grade students at the end of this month, but we've already opted to continue on with online learning for him.  For Jazzy, we do not have that choice - I can help Squiddle with his schooling, but I cannot help Jazzy learn to speak better.  So we take a risk, but as small a one as we can manage.

Both boys went to the dentist (a new-to-them dentist!) for the first time in a year.  Squiddle got a referral to an orthodontist (one of his adult incisors is coming in twisted) and Jazzy got what they called a "happy visit" meaning a see-our-office-isn't-scary-maybe-next-time-you'll-let-us-examine-your-teeth visit.  At least (sitting on my lap, with the bribe of a toy dangling over his head) he let the dentist look at his teeth with the mirror, and did not throw a fit....

I have finished another quilt top and have it hung in the closet, waiting for me to shift gears to quilting.  This one, I did matching pillowcases and binding, so I'm not worrying about finding the fabric when the time comes.  Meantime, of course, I've moved on to another project I pulled from my stack of them in the garage: a long-overdue Minecraft quilt for Wonderful Husband.

I've also watched the first three episodes of Victorian Farm on Youtube. :)  Interesting stuff, even if they're clearly not 24/7 immersed in the way the narrator would lead you to believe.

1st Day of School

 I haven't gone on my walk this morning because it's been so blustery the last couple days!  All night, too.  We've had at least three power outages in the last twenty-four hours.  Possibly more, because I know there was at least one overnight.  So I'm a touch stressed, and woke up with knots between my shoulderblades and at the base of my skull, and am hence taking today easy.  Except for the part where it's Squiddle's first day of school!

The wind knocked down eight apples from the trees, so I collected them and turned them (and a softening apple from the fruit bowl, as well as another one that Jazzy only ate a quarter of) into applesauce last night.  A little lemon juice, a little sugar, and it's very tasty.

Well, brief post, but it's now just about time to get the boys up!

Counting... Ah-Ah-Ah!

 As I walk my laps around the block in the morning, I count things.  What lap I'm on (5 laps make 2 miles).  How many bunnies I've seen (least: 5; most: 30).  How many squirrels (record: 3).  How many doves (record: also 3).  Anything unusual (that one time I saw a pair of quail who quickly ducked into the brush).  How many times I've heard that rooster off in the distance crow.

I count houses (25 in the tract).  I count cars.  I count who has a large outbuilding behind their house (5).  I wonder, judgmental as all get out, how in a tract with two and three car garages, there are only three homes including us that don't have (usually multiple) cars left out in their driveways.  It's not quite as bad as it was in Anaheim, where we quite literally had people think we weren't home because our cars were in the garage not the driveway, but still!  I guess most people, even here, use their garages for storage and workshops, not car parking.

Squiddle starts school on Tuesday.  We've got his desk and a side table set up in his bedroom, and we'll see how a more intensive schooling schedule over Zoom will go, compared to this last spring.  We've been working with him on lessons most days over the summer - writing a sentence, doing some math or maps pages in his first grade workbook from Costco, going through a stack of vocabulary flashcards, reading books or pages from the workbook, and we're fairly sure he's ready.  Well, save for maybe the reading comprehension... he's been having a bit of trouble with those workbook pages.

But since he's going to need at least light supervision, I'm going to need to be at home, even after Jazzy starts developmental preschool again (2 days a week) on the 21st.  No more thrift stores for me for quite a while!  So I went on a brief jaunt up to Port Orchard on Friday, as a last huzzah.  I found nothing at St. Vincent de Paul, got only what was on my list at Joann Fabrics, but actually found some things at Goodwill: ten canning jars ($2), which I haven't seen at a thrift store in months, another mirror for my wall of mirrors ($1.40), four quilting stencils ($4), and a quilt top ($2).

Gardening-wise, my tomatoes are finally starting to come ripe!  Yum-yum.  I took half a dozen over to my parents' yesterday, along with a few zucchini and some of the radishes whose growth has been stunted due to living in the shade of the zucchini.  As for the inevitable sneaky monster zucchini, the chickens have realized they're most tasty.  So, win!  And yesterday I also finally finished putting the weed-suppressant circles around the new fruit trees and blueberry plants, and weighting them down with a thick layer of mulch.  Hooray for a slightly tidier garden!

A week of leisure

 Chickoletta was delivered to his new owner last week, who seemed quite happy that Chickoletta was (a) in such good condition, and (b) quite docile during the transfer.  Though given that in the week since, I've noticed a lot fewer shed feathers in the chicken tractor, I have to wonder if Chickoletta was in fact a bit of a bully, or if having six chickens in the 4'x8' space was simply a bit of overcrowding?

Wonderful Husband has taken this week off, since it's the last week before Squiddle (remotely) starts school.  We went to the Point Defiance Zoo on Tuesday, which had timed entry tickets, direction flow arrows on the ground, and required everyone over the age of five to wear masks.  Despite the play area and the goat feeding station being closed, a good time was had by all.  At the exit, we bought Jazzy a 6' corn snake toy, and Squiddle a small Lego-esque elephant to build.

Yesterday, we drove up to the Olympic Game Farm, since Wonderful Husband had never been.  We drove through, feeding slices of bread to llamas, yaks, bears (behind fences), deer, buffalo, and reindeer.  We were ignored by the elk and zebras, as well as by the predator animals (lions, tigers, wolves, and probably a few others that were hiding from view).  Not as many bunnies roamed the grounds as in previous visits, but there were still plenty of peafowl about.

After the game farm, we sought out some lunch and as it was right by a quilt shop (which is apparently closing later this month), I popped in and found some fabrics which will become the boys' Christmas quilts.  Then we drove up to Marymere Falls and did that brief hike.  Not as crowded as last time!  But by the time we got home and dinner finished... well, we all ate after 8pm.  Long day!