Soundtrack: Noah Kahan, of course, and then this song by Courtney Barnett that I had to look up and listen to after I heard it on the radio because “always getting in my own way” and “questioning all the choices that I ever made” are things I have been saying to myself quite frequently lately. (Parenting is hard, y’all.) Also “I wanna finish what I start” because I have up and started yet more projects that will more than likely wind up half-finished, in a box to collect dust for the next twenty years. (Also, this song – “pride like poison”, ooooof.)
Projects: Still trying to finish the little guy’s sweater, having missed his birthday deadline. I also started water coloring, which I am SO bad at but needed to demonstrate to a child with perfectionist tendencies that being bad at something at first is not something shameful and practice is important. So, onwards I go. And I have a stack of books and a couple of side writing projects, plus my guitar is throwing me guilty looks every time I walk past it.
Mostly, though, I fell down a rabbit hole of hand-sewing, because I fell into a rage about AI and so in protest I guess I’m going to hand sew a whole quilt because AI can’t? I’m honestly not sure what excuse I landed on, but it seemed reasonable when I started. There’s this thing called English paper piecing (or EPP), which involves using paper templates you hand baste to fabric and then hand sew the pieces together. I tried this once, years ago, but the paper templates I bought were slippery and it was just too fiddly. Two weeks ago I got my haircut and wandered into a new(ish) fabric store nearby, and found some iron-on paper templates. I bought a pack of 50, expecting them to last for months, and within a week was back buying more. It is wildly addictive, sewing these 1.5 inch hexagons, so much so that I’ve mustered quite a stack of finished ones. You sew 7 of the hexagons together to form a flower, which measure about 7.5″. If my math is correct (and that is a big IF) I need approximately 70 flowers, or 490 hexagons, to make a throw-sized quilt. I have maybe 20 flowers now completed, in varying degrees of quality. I watched a lot of online tutorials by people who sew these together using a whip stitch, but I find a mattress stitch joins the hexagons in an almost invisible manner. I had a few charm packs and some fat quarters of the “Sanctuary” fabric line by Tilda that I am using, which for reasons I can’t explain reminds me of Taylor Swift’s Folklore album, and while it would have worked better with a larger hexagon I’m rolling with what I’ve started. Progress, not perfection.
In the midst of this, school has begun. I am already deep in the weeds trying to make sure that both girls have a successful year. I have already cried multiple times, once on the phone with a vice-principal. Advocating for your kiddo is just so hard, but I learned last year that if I don’t make a fuss nothing changes. My oldest is going into 4th grade, one of my personal favorite years because I had the amazing and unparalleled Tony Waldeier as my teacher, and oh how I wish she could have had him. He read us a chapter or two of The Hobbit every day after lunch, and took us on forest walks, and talked to us like people with opinions and feelings; it was magical. He was only 58 when he died, another Vietnam vet lost too soon from cancer.
On the bright side, Ted Lasso is back, and thank goodness we pay for ad-free AppleTV because honestly the political ads are already incessant. I used to be much more political, but motherhood has been all-consuming for me. However, this year made me so mad I actually did something and wound up as a delagate to the Maine Democratic Party’s convention to elect a replacement to Platner. If you know me in real life, you know that I was livid over Platner from the get-go, and thought he should have stepped down long before he actually did. I was a big fan of Dr. Shah, and thought he would have made a wonderful senator, but alas. I think my dad would have liked Troy Jackson, at least the former logger part as Dad logged too, and so far the stuff they have dug up on Jackson pales in comparison to Platner. I guess we’ll see what shakes out of Jackson’s tree, but so far throwing a water bottle and having a lobbyist for a son doesn’t phase me much.
Meanwhile, we went camping again – this time I was insane enough to let the 9 year old bring a friend, so we were even more outnumbered than usual. The friend is lovely, and no trouble at all; the problems came from our 8-year old being the third wheel. And all the little guy wanted to do was follow them around; “I want my girls!” he would cry as they raced away from him on their bikes. Honestly, he just kills me. And then I got hives, which randomly happens to me a lot lately, and alas all the campground store had was Benadryl so I was FORCED to take a nap and leave my husband to keep the peace. Later we took the inner tubes down a short section of the Saco River, which I would do again if a) the water was higher and b) I did not have a squirmy 3 year old sitting on my lap. Said squirmy boy lost one Spiderman Croc in the river, and then threw the other one in for good measure. *sigh* Luckily, my husband was able to grab one of them and by the time I reached the take-out point, my daughter was standing there with the other shoe in her hand. Mind you, I spent the whole time in a bout of internal panic, because I grew up hearing the legend about a Native American curse on the river that each year 3 white people would die on the Saco. (My Facebook family and friends indicates I was not alone in hearing this.) I must have appeased the gods that be, because we (and all our various and sundry items) all made it out unscathed*.
And today is September, and I spent the afternoon at a surgery consult because I may or may not still have part of my gallbladder (the rest was vacated back in 2013), and I may or may not need to have what’s left removed. I have no idea the name of the surgeon I saw but he was awesome, actually had a sense of humor and thought it was hysterically funny when I told him “you know, this is completely ridiculous and all started with toenail fungus”. The original surgeon’s notes indicate he got all of it, and nothing showed up on the original ultrasound, but now there is something there that strongly resembles a gallbladder. The surgeon told me in no uncertain terms that I did not grow a new one, and that I probably did not have two, but honestly with my gene pool I think anything is possible.
*life jackets were worn by the littles, and honestly next time I will wear one myself – the current is no joke.
