Catching Up

This has been one of the longest and shortest summers of my life. So much has happened but it feels as if only a couple of weeks have passed. My 7-year-old is headed back to school at the end of this week and I realized that the whole summer is almost gone and I haven't updated the blog once. It's disappointing whenever I let that happen, though this year I've had much better reasons for letting it slide than usual. Among the less important reasons is spinning. I've done a lot of spinning this year and here are just a few pictures of progress.

All Spun Up BFL/Silk

All Spun Up Merino

Freckle Face Fibers BFL

I have an embarrassing amount of yarn that has been done for weeks and never photographed. There's also a lot of knitting that I've finished, only some of which has been photographed but there's no room for the pictures in this post. Those will have to wait for another day.

The last several months we've been adjusting to the new town, which has been especially difficult for our daughter, Paige. She had a lot of challenging experiences this year. She had to move out of the only home she'd ever lived in, and into a new home in a new town. She had to change schools in the middle of the year (not an easy thing for any first grader) and make new friends while trying to hobble around in a cast on account of breaking her leg during the same week we moved. It has taken her a long time to adjust and even though a lot of time has passed since the move, she still misses her old school.

Thankfully, living in a small town isn't all bad. A week or so before school was out, her class had a field trip to the fire department. Unfortunately, the morning of the field trip Paige woke up sick and ended up not being able to go. A day or two later my husband was talking to a lady he works with (who also happens to be the wife of the fire chief) and he told her about Paige not being able to go on the field trip. She told him she'd talk to her husband and see if he could do anything. My husband figured they might be able to arrange a time when we could take her to the fire department to see the trucks and talk to the firemen. The fire department ended up going out of their way to give her an unforgettable experience. They brought a fire engine to our house to pick her up, took her and her dad for a ride around town and then to the fire department where they showed her around and talked to her about fire safety and then (again in the fire engine) brought her home. You don't often find that sort of kindness in a larger community.

They made a fairly crummy year much, much better...

As did this little angel.

This is Allie. Allie is the reason I've taken this year off from dyeing fiber and doing Etsy. (I'm glad I made that choice early on in the pregnancy because it saved me from a lot of unnecessary stress.) The pregnancy was long and complicated and I'm glad it's done with and that she's here now and healthy. I'm really enjoying having a baby in the house again and I'm currently trying to find where the new balance is now with two children instead of one. It's not as easy as some people make it look.

Now that we've had a little time to adjust to having a baby in the house again, we're looking at our next big project (and hopefully the last one for this year) which is buying our next home. We finally found a home we really like in the right price range and if all goes well, it should close near the end of September. I've been going through everything we have and giving away or throwing out everything that we don't want to take to the new house, as well as organizing everything so that packing and unpacking should be much easier this time around. I'm looking forward to this next move so much. Once we're in the new house and all settled, I'm going to return my focus to the dye pots (which I have missed very much) and re-opening my Etsy shop, hopefully as a full time endeavor.

I'm excited about re-opening the shop and have been brainstorming a lot. There are things which I'd like to do a little differently and new things I'd like to try. I'm looking forward to the next few months of work and will keep updating the blog on any new progress.