UT: A Progress Report

This is not our first shot an unaccompanied tour. Last time Husband was in Iraq, Boy and I in India. That set-up had its own challenges, not least of which that was after, er, R&R number two, I was pregnant, working full time, parenting a toddler solo and, oh yeah, in India.

This UT is completely different, and more akin to those faced by most Foreign Service families. One spouse is employed in a warzone, the other is managing the rest of life divorced from OpenNet and any other resources that keep you connected to the Department. As an employee, I've watched my bidding season come and go, and unless someone can churn up a FS position at the closest passport agency (which I'd happily take), I'll likely watch the next come and go as well. We have no idea what resources Boy will need in school next year, so we are in no position to say whether we can go overseas again or whether we can both work full-time in Washington. There are a lot of question marks still, a theme of recent times.

So, three months in, with the first R&R halfway over, where are we? I am still on LWOP, Husband is still assigned to Afghanistan. His professional life is in flux, due to the crossroads of drawdown and tragedy, and therefore has some unanticipated stressors. I miss my work and colleagues. I miss seeing adults. I don't miss the panicked rush to find childcare or the always marriage-enhancing game of Who Is More Important  at Work Today? when the kids are suddenly sick. I don't miss the chaos of getting two kids to separate schools for their ten hour days, then taking separate cars to pick them up so we can get both of them in the narrow window between the end of the work day and the end of their school hours. I don't miss taking phone calls from Washington while trying to dress a screaming, exhausted toddler for bedtime. I don't miss the guilt when we explain that no, both of us can't be at a 6:00 a.m. event because someone has to feed our children, dress them, and get them to school.

On the flip side, at home I'm on all the time. No adult comes to rescue me (except for some awesome aunts*). No one takes duty calls. Boy wakes up by 5:30 (before 5:00 for the past week), and because Girl sleeps later and naps, she doesn't go down until 7:30 or even 8:00 some nights. I put in 14 hour days of full-on parenting more often than not, and follow them up with dishes and laundry. The extent of my adult interaction is some local family members (oh thank Jeebus*) and the great people at the gym. Coincidentally, I'm at the gym A LOT. Well, a lot for me. They have a daycare there and I lose weight. Everyone wins.

I've mastered ___________ to the extent it will ever be mastered. [Choices: Grocery shopping with two kids; Cleaning the house with two kids; Mowing the lawn with two kids; All of the above.]

I quickly learned that the only way to slow the inevitable losing of my mind was to insist that the children help with everything they can. Boy helps with laundry. Girl helps unload the dishwasher. Both dust. Boy cleans up his Legos every night. Girl helps put away toys in the playroom. Boy buckles himself into his carseat. They can both feed the pets. Boy lets the dog in and out. These are little things, but they make me feel like it is slightly less all on me.

I fill out paperwork and add Boy to waitlist after waitlist. Socialization groups, behavioral therapy, IEPs. We're waiting.

Denver was the right choice for us, and a blog post is evolving in my mind reviewing Denver for families. That said, this is the first time I've lived in America, but not in DC or New York, so my friends seem so close and far at the same time. Luckily I jet to my college reunion in a few days. Thanks to Husband for holding down the fort. I want to see my people.

Oh, and I pierced my nose. Sorry, Dad! It won't stay in forever, just for LWOP. Promise.

*When we made the decision not to go to Washington, we flirted with the idea of Portland or Austin. Thankfully flirting was all it was, because without the family that's here I would have been up a sad, frustrating creek. And all our stuff would still be in boxes.

Like a Boss

Wow. Three weeks, no blogging. This isn't good, but our brand of groundhog day is unlikely to be particularly thrilling reading material, so maybe it's best. If you don't have anything interesting to say, don't say anything at all.*

This post is full of Foreign Service Top Tips. I bet you are super excited.

We've been settling in and we were doing alright--our behavior management plan is making life so much better for Boy and me--until a week ago. We had already received our license-plate-free cars and on Wednesday last we were eagerly anticipating our HHE, scheduled to arrive at our doorstep between 8:00 and 10:00 a.m. I received a call from the driver, saying they had another delivery and wouldn't be at our house until noon or so. I asked if there would be sufficient time for a full unpack and in response received the typical, "Oh? You wanted a full unpack?"

NOTE FOR FS NEWBIES: When in America, insist on your full unpack. The companies receive a lot of taxpayer dollars to do it for you, and will often try to wiggle out of it.

So I decide to continue tidying to prepare for the avalanche, hurricane, other weather-disaster-related metaphor of stuff that was about to rain down on us (see what I did there?).  And I promptly fell down the stairs and destroyed my tailbone. I took one car for emissions testing and the garage door wouldn't close and Boy had a huge meltdown at the testing station and my butt really hurt and at one point I might have sat in the driver's seat, slammed my hands repeatedly against the steering wheel and screamed, "I hate my life!" Might have.

Our stuff arrived at....drumroll please...at 4:30 p.m. and was unpacked the next day. Once it was unpacked, it was clear that our 1890 sq. ft. house was not equipped to handle all our crap. I despaired for another day.

The village descended. My stepmom flew in from Washington and her sister and brother-in-law who live just a mile from my house became Team Awesome, sorting and tossing and organizing. There was even a margarita in there. I had to choose between Percocet and the margarita, and I chose the latter. More satisfying. In order to make my life easier, I ordered a storage container from 1-800-Packrat, which is now sitting in my driveway and holding all of the stuff that will go on Craigslist or in a yard sale. Super cheap, totally worth it. Consider this a Foreign Service Downsizing HHE Processing Top Tip.

Monday was the Like a Boss day. Emissions testing, VIN verification, registration of two cars? Driver's license? Nailed it. Taxes? Done. Paid. (If you have household staff, like we did for the first 6 months of 2012, you pay a lot come April 15.) Rental car? Returned. IN THE SNOW. LIKE A BOSS. Computer desk? Assembled.

Only Foreign Service Officers and their families might appreciate the atrociousness of international relocation, but its awfulness cannot be overstated.

Tuesday was also successful, though not as much in the conquering of Bureaucratic Forces Designed to Make Citizens Cry. I made it to the gym and did a good lower body/upper body workout. (No sitting though, so in order do bench presses from the balance ball, I had to flop somewhat fishlike on it. Trainer was amused.) Then I showered (! I know!) and took Girl to an affordable, well-reviewed preschool to secure the remaining spot for September enrollment. It's only for three half-days a week, and she pouted the whole way home because she wanted to go to preschool right then (there were bunnies, so can't blame her), but it's a win. It's two blocks from Boy's future school, which we will tour this morning if I can successfully cover up the fact that he's been up coughing all night long.

I'll cover the impossibility of securing an appointment with a behavioral psychologist in our network (at least a three month wait unless I go to the pediatric psych ER and get him admitted), the near miss for our family in Kandahar, Boston, and all things glum some other time. For now, our life is mundane, but each task conquered is a task conquered, so I'll take it.

Oh, also got a haircut for the first time in six months and a dye job to deal with this gray hair. LIKE A BOSS.

*Never stopped me before.

Falling Short

Boy opened the front door yesterday to throw out his apple core, "so the bugs can eat it," and I added a compost pile to my growing list of domestic aspirations. Like many Washingtonians, I strive to overachieve, and though I fall short regularly and spectacularly, I cannot stop pinning DIY detergents and fabric organizers and memory books.

When Husband and I were debating how best to handle this massive shift to one stay-at-home parent, he told me that I needed to direct his ambition. That he was going to be ambitious was a given, but I had to tell him whether I wanted him to have career ambition or stay-at-home-dad ambition. I am similar, and so I strive to can, and sew, and generally make a home.

I haven't added "grow kale" to my list, but I figure with a sleeve of tattoos and at least one bird-print dress, I'm one pin away from growing some in a repurposed crate. I know my children will eye a kale smoothie with intense skepticism, as would I, but it seems to be what I should be aiming for, so aim I shall.

It would be great if I could pretend that's not how this ambition works, that I'm not competitive with myself and the world, but that would be a lie and you all would know it, so let's just dispense with such notions now.

Stepping back from the Service is harder than I thought it would be. I squeezed in a few precious minutes to read the Washington Post the other day, and as I read "Secretary Kerry" over and over again it hit me that the Department moves on without me. His first day was my last, and that was just one of many changes that will surely come. I know when I return the software will be different, the procedures will be different, and--possibly--immigration and nationality law in itself could be different. My friends and colleagues will be promoted over me. We are an intensely competitive service, staffed with people who genuinely like their work and each other, but who all aspire to superstar status. I am that way by nature, but I've had to step back for my kids. Even if Boy were your average child, I can't work 14 hour days with two small kids at home and a husband with a full-time job. So I end up in a life were I spend most of my day giving not-quite-enough at the office, and the rest of it giving not-nearly-enough at home. It's tough on your soul.

I'm hoping to enjoy this break from paid employment, however long it will be, as a break from the pressure and competition and, in my case, the omnipresent sense of inadequacy. I am still me, though, and as I finished re-upholstering our dining room chairs, I put out a cloth and called the kids over to paint embroidery hoops for Girl's room (pictures will soon explain). I whipped up some pumpkin bread this morning, and after the kids wake up from their nap, my mom and I will caravan to the other side of the city to pick up some great mid-century modern vintage vinyl chairs for my porch. I joined the local food co-op this morning, I bought kids chalk for their new chalkboard wall, and I even took a shower. It sounds great, right? I'm somewhat productive, I'm nesting, and I'm even clean.

All I can think is I haven't planted any kale and I haven't been anybody's staff assistant. And so my list keeps growing, passing aspirational and approaching delusional, as I calculate not how I can have it all, but how I can do it all. I'm still hoping that some day, in some way, I'll finally walk on water.

Being Half of Something

Praise Jeebus, I have internet. My eyes and fingertips were near death following a few weeks of ferocious iPhone-ing. As of today I had used 90% of my monthly data allowance (with two weeks to go), mostly Facetiming Husband, who is in Fakistan, aka Indianastan, aka Fake Afghanistan. Hashtag FirstWorldProblems HashtagOhMyGodThisIsntTwitterStopHashtagging.

We bought a house. I signed a lot of documents, twice. They didn't like my finely-honed squiggle of a signature, so I had to write out my full name, and Husband's Full Name by My Full Name as Attorney-in-Fact, about a million times. Still easier than getting my TSP password. HashtagFedProblems HashtagStopIt.

Observations about Denver: WHERE HAVE ALL THE CYNICS GONE. East Coasters please come visit. Also: seriously, they talk about the powder on the radio. The local weather has a segment just for skiing conditions. I'm fairly certain a genuine Mountain Man was driving the luggage truck when we arrived at the airport. Pony sightings: zero, but I still have high hopes. Unlike Mumbai, there are no cattle in the street, but there are cattle in every other advertisement. These people love their beer.

Observations about being a homeowner: Window coverings are hugely expensive and you'll have never seen the price tag coming. Your happiest day will not be closing, but the day internet is installed. Buying a loft bed for your son to preserve usable space in his small room is smart. Adding a slide (yes, really) to it negates the space savings. Don't worry, he can slide into the closet (yes, really). Even if you are just putting up a swatch of paint to test the color, put tape on your moulding.

Observations about the SAHM transition: I almost can't think about my career right now. It's like a break up with someone you love intensely, but you know you can't make it work. Put the blinders on and move forward, lest you become overwhelmed with self-doubt. I'll tackle the Having It All and Doing It All and Being It All or Being Half of Something another day.

Observations about The Children: They both speak with Estonglish grammar, meaning slightly Yoda-like. I thought Girl couldn't count, but turns out she just can't count in English (well, she can, but she starts with five and can only get to eight). She'll easily do an üks, kaks, kolm, neli, viis, kuus, seitse, kümme. Yes, Estonian speakers, she does all that in a perfect Estonian accent, but she still skips eight and nine because they make no freaking sense. Even Girl knows this.

Observations about the Menagerie: Out of the clink and pretty well adjusted. The cats are troopers and expert travelers, and the dog is just too dog-like to get overworked about being in a new place.

As I tackle the main project here, which is Boy, I'll share some of the highs and lows and what works and what doesn't, but I'm trying to do so in a way that protects his privacy. I hope against hope that someday the outbursts and pugilism and mood swings will be unrecognizable behaviors, but I don't want him to stumble across this a few years down the road and think for half a second that I only focused on what's wrong. There's a lot right with him, and I will share that too. That is a narrow and difficult line to walk, but with time I will figure it out.

Onward.

Emotional Escrow...

...financial escrow.

Life is nuts right now, so let's throw a bunch of stuff at the wall, shall we?

First things first: Ankara. Digger's post over at Life After Jerusalem has gone a bit viral on Facebook, and deservedly so. She nails something that saddens me now and pained me (and others) throughout the Benghazi hullaballoo. For those of us in the field, the safety of American employees is not a higher priority than that of our local staff (in some respects Ambassador aside, for obvious reasons). We're all one team and--as is true in places that experience suicide bombings on regular places--security guards are often the first line of defense, and the most likely victims. Mourn Mustafa Akarsu, please.

Onto less important things: We beat a cash offer and are under contract. At our broker's urging, we wrote a letter explaining what that house would mean to us, and the seller supposedly liked it enough to go through the expense and time of closing on a very-much-so-not-cash deal.

TSP denied our loan for cash for down payment, etc. DENIED. And then, in that very TSP way, the only explanation online was a non-explanation. They sent the real explanation to our address on record, which will of course arrive long after we've left. You can call and ask, but you have to have your PIN, which we do not. This is not the same as your internet password, which we do have but can never lose, as that too will only be sent to your address on record. Why is it harder to get into your TSP account than it is to buy a gun?

At any rate, I'm hoping the problem was that I faxed the app multiple times, as I didn't get a confirmation sheet. This is my hunch, as an hour after it stated we were rejected, a second, newer message said we were in process. If that is the case, I'll bet you $50 they deducted the $50 application fee for each faxed application.

We have assignment notifications, but not orders. I may have to cost-construct to Denver, since as an employee on LWOP I'm assigned to Washington, though once I'm on LWOP, I'm entitled to ISMA as an EFM for all intents and purposes. Don't know! No one knows! This may actually be the first time this has happened (tandem, curtail, one to LWOP not-in-DC, other to Afghanistan, things to ship under both names, kids in there somewhere).

Boy was a bit distraught today packing up his Legos in order to prepare for packout. He doesn't want to leave Estonia. But just in case we're going to make him leave anyway, he put together a Polyvore with his ideal bedroom.

And somewhere, in all of this, I have moments of extreme sadness. I never thought I'd want to stay home with the kids (oomph, that sounds awful). It never occurred to me to do so until fairly recently, and even then it was appealing because it is just so difficult to help Boy from the office. Right now I plan to come back on duty, but we are open to the possibility that--should life work better in the U.S., should Boy do better with a parent home--we'll have to figure out how to make this change permanent. Chances are I'd end up working and Husband would stay home, at least for a while, but I don't know what I'll do for a living if I don't do this.

But! One step at a time. My suitcase is packed so it doesn't end up in a sea shipment, and it's filled with cardigans and knit jersey and leggings. Not a blazer in sight.

An Accounting of 2012

The personal ledger:

Three trips to America.

One breast cancer scare.

One surgery (see above).

One non-surgical trip under general (Boy's tube removal).

Somehow only one trip to another foreign country (unheard of, really--2011 saw 5 in four short months).

Two hospitalizations (one for Boy and one for Girl).

Two teacher conferences. 

Five sessions with a behavioral therapist.

About a million question marks.

Twelve resolutions. Let's see how I did, shall we?

1. Sleep at least one night a week. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

2. Have a tough conversation or twenty. Ugh. Still hate to disappoint people and internalize every conflict. Yea for me!

3. Learn to garden. Um, no.

4. And then I will can it. Canning equipment still unopened.

5. Spend more date nights humoring my husband. What date nights? I have watched more of his movies when we hang out at home, I think. He will probably disagree.

6. Make academic goals for Boy. Yes, but turns out book-learning ain't the problem. Except in the way that it is. More on that later.

7. The dreaded baby books. HAHAHAHAHAHA.

8. Spend more time moving, and less time sitting. Well, I ran three races, including a half marathon. I was a no show for two others. Somehow I have ended the year a few pounds heavier than when I started, but I largely blame earlier snow and ice and a very festive series of holiday/birthday celebrations.

9. Make a financial plan and stick to it. Mostly.

10. Read more from our bookshelf. Well, not really, BUT I did read more on Kindle and I've indulged in more previously-unread classics (also via Kindle). Bookshelf still untouched.

11. Be a better emailer. HAHAHAHAHA.

12. Celebrate milestones on time. Hmmm. No.

So that's what, a 2.5 out of 12?

I'll post renewed optimism tomorrow. For tonight, Husband and I have already opened a bottle of bubbly, as we know we won't make it to midnight. Last year we were hanging with Digger and the Mrs. This year it's just the four of us. 

Head vana aasta lõppu, as the Estonians say! We'll cover the uut aasta tomorrow. Until then, I hope you are ending your 2012 wiser, healthier, and happier than when it started and even if you aren't, there's a fresh start tomorrow. Drink a lot, don't drive, have fun, and see you in 2013.

The Foreign Service Kitchen

I like Estonia. I do. There isn't much to complain about, other than 6 hours a day of dingy not-darkness in the winter (I would not call it sunlight)  and ice and snow falling from the tops of buildings onto unsuspecting pedestrians below. The people are polite, emergency services are diligent, the democracy is healthy and transparent.

So this isn't a complaint, but merely an observation: if you asked any Foreign Service family anywhere in the world what they miss most about the U.S., some liars might say "family," "friends," or "The Jersey Shore." All the honest folk would say: Mexican food, specifically Tex Mex. (To be fair, the many people stationed in Mexico would probably not say that.) Depending where you are, that answer could be expanded to: Tex Mex and Chinese takeout or Tex Mex, Chinese takeout, and brunch. Or, if you are me: Tex Mex, Chinese takeout, brunch, and sandwiches.

Estonia has many positives, but so far the restaurant scene is not one of them. There are some very good ones, to be sure, but they aren't cheap. There are a handful of reliably delicious mid-range places and you can get some mean pancakes (read: crepes), but there is not a ton of variety. Tel Aviv had some amazing restaurants of all types of food--a perk of being an immigrant culture--although the fantastic Mexican restaurant burned down. Seoul had some quality offerings, but tentacles always seemed to appear on my plate, no matter what type of food I was eating. Mumbai had killer street food (I actually don't mean that literally....street food is so piping hot that it killed most things. Restaurants were more dangerous.) and some fantastic upscale restaurants. Kuala Lumpur is worth a tour for the food alone. But Tallinn is Baltic, which means there is no love for spices and somehow herring is always on the menu.

Girl has just weaned herself from a bottle and about a month ago started rejecting all purees. A year ago yesterday, we had Boy's tonsils out, and the surgery combined with a two-and-a-half year old's palette ("No like it!") resulted in significant weight loss and much fretting. Now he has a voracious appetite and is an adventurous foodie. I have growing kids and I'm not too keen on putting a bunch of preservatives in their little bodies.

Also, I work and come home about 45 minutes before Girl taps out for the night.

So if you combine those three things, I have a bit of a Parenting Challenge on my hands: the lack of local options, the need to actually nourish growing children, little time.

Foreign Service families get creative. People make their own beer, yogurt, mozzarella. They grow their own vegetables and occasionally pluck their own chickens. I've recently acquired canning supplies and a bunch of gardening equipment, and I'm eagerly awaiting the spring (ha! summer) thaw.

There will be salsa. Lots of it. My pressure cooker already helps me make refried beans and anyone can shred chicken, but local salsa is suspiciously reminiscent of tomato sauce. I cannot live that way.

Last weekend I made pumpkin cinnamon rolls. Every weekend usually sees pancakes and some sort of fruity bread. Last night I cooked up some killer potatoes au gratin and some very sad turkey burgers.

My late grandmothers would laugh if they heard me suggest any of that is roughing it. One was a farmer's wife and the other the daughter of a baker from The Old Country. One waited for my uncle and Pop Pop to finish skinning squirrels so she could cook them up (I'll never forget that meal). But as a child of the 80s, I saw potatoes au gratin come from a box and cinnamon rolls come from a tube. Doing things from scratch is a new idea for me.

I've started dabbling in freezer cooking, but I can never find a full day to prep and cook without a small child hugging my leg. I'm playing with ideas and since I know you are waiting eagerly to find out how I feed a family of hungry kids with early bedtimes during the week, I'll let you know what I come up with. I am open to suggestions.

(And no, Husband is no help on this: he literally has spent weeks at a time subsisting on beer, beef jerky, and chips, and as a result is a bit apathetic about what happens in the kitchen. Damn his metabolism.)

The Hipster in the Mirror?

The Washington Post featured an opinion on the trend of "new domesticity," and I read it with interest and more than a little self-recognition. I've been gone from the U.S. for so long, and when I've been back I've been overwhelmed by children and language learning, that I didn't realize this was a new thing. I thought I was just uniquely useless until recently, the first to get eaten by a lion, the first one to be voted off the island. Turns out, this may have been brewing for a generation or two.

There are many Categoried Peoples claiming this trend of old-fashioned self-reliance: feminists, hipsters, libertarians, conspiracy theorists, People Currently Occupying Wall Street. A friend on the Facepage suggested this might even be our reaction to what we perceive as the imminent collapse of economies and governments. That thought is depressing, but I'd be lying if I didn't admit that that crosses my mind more than occasionally these days. Not enough to buy automatic weapons and circle my wagons, but enough that I think I'd better have some flexibility.

So why am I sitting in a room with a sewing machine, a serger, stacks of fabric, a box of knitting needles, a box of yarn, and a whole lot of glue, when five years ago I considered making a salad to be cooking? A few reasons, I think.

1) I am a serial hobbyist (see description on left). I like having something I'm interested in. In Tel Aviv, I had a personal trainer and ran a lot. In New York, I earned my black belt and spent about 6 nights a week at my Tae Kwon Do school. In college, I had theater. In middle school and high school I had horses.

I'd still love to do TKD, and I'd more than love to go back to riding, but as a working mom I don't get a lot of time at home. So home-based hobbies are particularly appealing.

2) Related to the working mom thing: I like my job, I really do, and I can't complain about my income. I know I am providing for my children, and they will thank me when they don't have to take out the equivalent of a large mortgage to go to college. But with two of us working all day, I feel like no one is making our home a home. That's mighty subjective, I know, but in my mind the amount of love and thought I put into a cable about Social Security, I wish I could put into dinner. It makes me happy that I made the blanket covering Girl as she sleeps. It's a little sloppy and a completely amateur effort, but it's full of love.

3) Nesting: I didn't get to nest when I was expecting Boy. We were in a one bedroom corporate apartment in Falls Church. When I returned stateside from India, I was 20 weeks pregnant with Girl. A few days later, I learned we were not having a boy (despite all Husband's claims that in no way does his family make girls...except for that one that obviously carried him) and I immediately set about imagining her nursery. A proper nursery! There was the issue of curtains, sheets, crib skirts, etc., ignoring the fact that I knew she would sleep with us for at least the first few months. The obvious solution was to buy a sewing machine. Check.

4) Self-reliance. I hate the idea that I went through all the trouble of college, grad school, and a career just to be totally useless when it comes to basic survival skills. I am slowly reversing that.

5) The environment. Do I really need salsa package in Idaho with ingredients from Mexico through a New York distribution center sent to Frankfurt and then Estonia? Probably no.

So there we are. There are other reasons I've developed an obsession with being Suzy Homemaker, but those are the biggies. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to return to purling my purls and knitting my knits.

(Seriously...it's Christmas present making time.)

Signs Something is Amiss...

...include, but are not limited to, my declaration that a room is too messy even for me. I mean, really, that's a pretty high threshold. (Actually, it's not that high a threshold, but those who lived with me up to and including the age of 21 refuse to believe I could have been reformed.) The playroom was beyond a disaster. It was nearly impossible to open the baby gate to get into it, and everyone--adults, preschoolers, crawling infants--would stumble over something two seconds upon entering the room. The many many Ikea storage pieces were jammed with unorganized crap. I felt overwhelmed and vaguely claustrophobic, so this morning I passed the Mom Baton to Husband, who handled both children with aplomb while I organized. I touched every toy in that place (which is a lot) and organized them by type, creating labels for cars, airplanes, blocks, costumes, animals, and, of course, rockets. I threw out many things, including (gasp) some old artwork. Boy was home from school for many months post-kicking-outtage, and made many creations each day. I also stored the ride toys--too small for Boy, too big for Girl--in the sauna.

Sauna? you ask, incredulous. Yes, sauna. Of course we have a sauna. This is Estonia, after all. It's now filled with toys.

At any rate, Boy helped put his toys away before dinner tonight. He very seriously pointed out the labels on each of the bucket-drawer contraptions and informed me where each toy should go. The goal is to get him to do this in the ten minutes before dinner so that we don't start every day in complete chaos. Considering that Girl is now crawling and actively seeking out every choke-able item in a room, this has taken on new urgency.

Speaking of. I tried to get some photos of La Jefe crawling. She kept stopping and starting, and it took a few clicks to figure out why. Five awesome points to the first person who can identify the reason. Pardon any fuzziness, her claw marks on her tummy (self-inflicted), etc.

A Place for Everything

When we first moved into our current place, Husband stealthily set up a Man Room when I wasn't looking. He kindly started referring to it as his room. When I asked what my room was, he said the kitchen.

Wrong answer.

He rectified this by setting up a sewing area for me in our finished basement. I bought a $99 Singer Simple in August, popped in the instructional DVD, and taught myself to thread the damn thing. Once I tamed the bobbin beast, I was addicted. I tried knitting once, and sadly discovered that I do not have the skill or patience to become A Knitter. But sewing...that I can do, or at least attempt it.

My sewing table sprouted piles. My sewing kit overflowed. Girl arrived two days before Christmas, and as I unwrapped presents on Christmas morning, I was a little sad to find that Husband had bought me a serger (a serger! so indulgent). I thought I'd never have time to sew again.

Turns out, we were blessed with a champion sleeper. A couple months in, and she was mostly sleeping through the night and, more importantly, going to bed by seven or so at the latest. I had my sewing time back. My list of fantasy projects was becoming a list of achievable projects. Very exciting.

Sadly, in the post-second baby mayhem, my sewing area had devolved into this:

It was a mess of unfinished projects and sewing materials. Please note the very sharp scissors within a toddler's reach.

I still hadn't learned to use my serger, but instead was treating it as a storage place for rosettes I had made while watching Modern Family. The fabric on the left is part of the Started-But-Not-Finished category of projects.

Another incomplete project (was theoretically going to be a set of five minute hand puppets). Oh yes, sad face.

This week I finally got it together. I removed the clutter from the actual workspace.

I hit up Goodwill for a bunch of inexpensive baskets to contain supplies.

I put the rosettes, along with trims and some homemade bias tape, in a basket just within reach from my sewing machine.

And I folded and stashed my ever-growing supply of fabric.

I learned the basics of the serger and am now furiously stitching away on a couple projects, with a whole host of ideas waiting in the wings.

With a government furlough on the horizon, there's a good chance I'm going to have a lot of time on my hands and very little spending money. Perfect time to start whittling away at that fabric stash.