Crafting On

The act of creating, in one form or another, preserves my sanity amongst the chaos of life. This explains why I always have more than one project going at a time as well as why my housework tends to fall behind. I enjoy seeing what others are working on and keeping calm with, too. What are you creating? What is keeping you going? Snap a picture or two, post it on your blog, on Instagram #craftingon and/or Flickr and then share it with the rest of us by leaving your link below.


As I mentioned last week I am working on knitting up some play food for Baby F. The first two priorities were a doughnut (his request) and a fried egg. If you have been following me on IG you already know we are getting chickens AKA: my inspiration for knitting the egg. 😊

What are you working on? Happy creating!

An InLinkz Link-up

Crafting On

Wild and Free (as they were always meant to be)!

I am loving this place we live in. We have neighbors come and visit us every few days just to introduce themselves and tell us some of the history of this old home. It was originally built by a general in the civil war. He even made the bricks for it himself in his kiln.

Yesterday as the children and I were outside enjoying the warm weather a neighbor drove up and delivered some very exciting news. He pointed to the bushes at the back of our property (that I had not yet noticed) and said, "I heard you like canning. Well, those are blueberry bushes over there. If you go clean them up a bit you'll get a decent yield from them this year. Make sure you get to them before the birds though!" I couldn't believe my ears! The kids and I ran right over and sure enough they were blueberry bushes. We set to work cleaning them up and now all we can do is wait and pray. Blueberries are Little L's favorite fruit so if they really do produce some this year he will be on cloud nine. Oh and did I mention this used to be a certified organic farm?! They stopped working the land a few years ago but everything is still in pristine shape.

Something else exciting on our land is a beautiful stream that opens up to a creek. I have a feeling most of our summer days will be spent here - well, once we get the tick situation under control. We have collectively had 16 ticks on us in the one month we have been living here. 😧

My children spend most of their days outside and who could blame them for wanting to do so?! It makes my heart feel so full when I see them all running around wild and free. They needed this. We all needed this.

Somebody pinch me please - I must be dreaming!

Wild and Free (as they were always meant to be)!

Crafting On

The act of creating, in one form or another, preserves my sanity amongst the chaos of life. This explains why I always have more than one project going at a time as well as why my housework tends to fall behind. I enjoy seeing what others are working on and keeping calm with, too. What are you creating? What is keeping you going? Snap a picture or two, post it on your blog, on Instagram #craftingon and/or Flickr and then share it with the rest of us by leaving your link below.
Well, I *though* I would be able to finish C's Camilla sweater in time for her party last week but unfortunately I ran out of yarn right near the finish! So now it sits and waits for another skein to arrive. In the meantime I am thinking about knitting some playfood for Baby F. He loves to play chef but all our play food is in storage.

What are you working on? Happy creating!

An InLinkz Link-up

Crafting On

Celebrating my sweet {C} Peacekeeper

We gave C a real birthday celebration last week - exactly one month after her birthday. This sweet girl of mine has incredible self control opting to wait and open most of her presents at her party instead of on her actual birthday (while we were on the road trip). This year she requested a Samantha/Victorian themed party. She gave me the details on how she wanted it to be from one of her favorite books. We did it all as she wished - minus ruining her ice cream with salt (we figured she wouldn't want that part of the book to happen 😉 ). I think she was pleased with how it all turned out.

The nine year change seems to be hitting a year late but never you mind that - she has the biggest heart I know. She is constantly looking for ways to serve others. We nicknamed her our dear little peacekeeper a couple of years back - always finding ways to end quarrels and bring peace and happiness back to everyone involved. What would we do without her? This girl is going to change this world. You just wait and see!

p.s. Rav notes on her birthday sweater here. She hasn't taken it off since she got it!

Celebrating my sweet {C} Peacekeeper

Crafting On

The act of creating, in one form or another, preserves my sanity amongst the chaos of life. This explains why I always have more than one project going at a time as well as why my housework tends to fall behind. I enjoy seeing what others are working on and keeping calm with, too. What are you creating? What is keeping you going? Snap a picture or two, post it on your blog, on Instagram #craftingon and/or Flickr and then share it with the rest of us by leaving your link below.


Working on the second sleeve of C's Camilla sweater. I am finally nearing the finish line on this one, which is a good thing because I plan to gift it to her Friday. Yikes! We are hoping to have her real birthday celebration then (to make up for the one on the road trip). Although looking at the sweater now I feel like maybe I should add one or two more repeats of the fan pattern. I already added about four extra. It just looks so short. Decisions, decisions.

What are you working on? Happy creating!

An InLinkz Link-up

Crafting On

Our Long Journey

Our route drawn on a map (with a set of activities behind it) that I printed off for each of the children

Mountain Home, ID
 
We were at a truck stop - look at all that trash 😢

Utah
 
Learning how to pump gas

Wyoming
 

Nebraska
 

Iowa
Chicago Whole Foods

Illinois
 
Celebrating C's birthday in a shady motel on the outskirts of Chicago (eeek!) Her birthday fell towards the end of our road trip. We actually arrived at our house in Pennsylvania the next day. We really pushed it that last day so I didn't have the chance to snap any pics in Ohio or Pennsylvania.

Indiana 

I know I wrote bit and shared photos over on Instagram about our trip but I thought I would share some here, too. As you can see by the route drawn on the kids' map - we landed in Pennsylvania! Close to both of our families and beautiful farms. I am still waiting on the deposit check from our Oregon place (was told it should come sometime in June) so I still can not share the whys or how we came to the decision to move all the way back across the country but it will all come in due time. I'm sorry for being so cryptic about it all.

Our trip was relatively smooth and I actually enjoyed it. I say that with surprise because I honestly do not like driving, it makes me so anxious and nervous being behind the wheel while carrying such precious cargo. However I had to drive the van the whole trip while Kevin and K were in a small U-Haul. We kept in touch from vehicle to vehicle via walkie-talkies. I think I only had two mild panic attacks during some bad weather (one, of course, being in the Blue Mountains of Oregon at night as the rain pounded down on us). I survived and conquered road trip driving but am happy to have Kevin back behind the wheel while I knit and tend to the kids.

There were quite a few sanity savers and budget helpers I found to get the children through the trip. I will do a separate post about them very soon since I know road trip season is coming up and some of these things might be helpful to all of you as well.

I can not wait to share details about the house and land we are on! We are just renting for the moment (as we needed something to live in before we moved out here) but there are beautiful farmhouses on lots of land and very reasonably priced all over this area.We will begin house hunting soon but for now we are recuperating from all our troubles in Oregon and enjoying our simple farm life that we had always dreamed about.

Our Long Journey