4th of July Weekend

Hello!!

My employer decided to give us Friday off as observed Independence Day, so I have enjoyed a three day weekend! Matt also went back to work this week (he was off for his surgeries, and then the museum was shut down for COVID-19) so I had yesterday all to myself, and I'll have today as well!

Beautiful Bozeman, Montana

I've been plugging away at the brown baby blanket I started back when Matt had his first hip surgery in March. It's slow going, but we are at the point where it takes forty minutes to do two rows, and I have roughly eight rows of pattern left, followed by ten rows of stockinette after, and the three-ish rows of decorative edging. So it'll be some time still. I did stuff some cat toys and got those listed on Etsy last weekend, but I really need to wash another fleece so that I have stuffing for the next round of toys. I was also approached to donate toys to an animal rescue in California - which I am only just now remembering. (It was a wild week mentally.) 

Cat toys!

Friday Matt and I went for a walk, relaxed a bit, made a yummy pizza with ingredients from the garden, and started work on a small landscaping job in the backyard. It's coming along nicely - but the daily rain has kept me from finishing it. 

A friend we made on our walk.

Yesterday I set to work in the laundry room. I've had grand plans for that room for years, with drawings and hours of thought put into it, but during our walk on Friday Matt and I discussed the realities of it - do I move forward anticipating that my plans are achievable? Or do I accept that it has been roughly four years, and that plan is dead? So I headed into the room yesterday morning with that in mind - brought a notebook, pencil, and measuring tape, cataloged the inventory I already had, and made up a list of things I needed to purchase in order to put the room into some kind of order. I set to work with the materials I already had, and then after lunch I ran to the store to purchase my other requirements, and finished up what I could before Matt got home from work. He helped me run some things through the table saw, I did some quick sanding, and after a little less than eight hours of work, I had four new shelves, a hanger for my pizza peel, hooks for our grocery store bags, a freshly cleaned and reorganized fridge top/over the fridge cupboard, and plans for one more big shelf to be installed today. Matt was pretty impressed with my accomplishments - and laughed when I told him I was inspired to do it all so that I could wash a fleece in the garage today (the water to the garage washing machine has to come through the laundry room, and the door to the garage was blocked with a giant stack of stuff that I moved yesterday.) :)

Coming along nicely.

Thursday would have been Grandpa Arneson's 100th birthday. It was a difficult day, but also one filled with happy memories. I hope you all enjoy the coming week, and do something for yourself today - if you are good to yourself, you may just follow in Grandpa's footsteps and live a long and healthy life. 

Grandpa Ross Arneson, and Kirsten

Etsy Weekends - Happy 4th of July!

Whether you are celebrating the holiday with friends, family, or yourself - we hope you enjoy your patriotic national holiday. Although there are many treasures to be found on Etsy that champion the complete enjoyment of this day, I really prefer the simple pleasures. Like this beautiful candle, which is as American as Apple Pie. :)

Apple Pie Candle from RNR Candles

Etsy Weekends - Elephants on Parade

Elephants are my favorite animal. At Christmas this year I bought a carved elephant that came from Nigeria, and she made me repeat a little mantra before she let me buy it, which I have of course forgotten in the time since. It was something along the lines of "Together, Today, Tomorrow." Yeah it was really simple, very powerful at the time, and now I can't remember it. My brain is a sieve. Luckily the internet is here to save me with an inspiring quote from Chimamanda Adichie, who is a Nigerian author, and a powerful voice for our time.

"If I were not African, I wonder whether it would be clear to me that Africa is a place where the people do not need limp gifts of fish but sturdy fishing rods and fair access to the pond. I wonder whether I would realize that while African nations have a failure of leadership, they also have dynamic people with agency and voices."

All that being said, here's a really pretty carved elephant, without a half-remembered origin story.

Vintage Carved Elephant from Vintage Shop of Lucy

Happy Father's Day!

Hello everyone, and Happy Father's Day!

It's going to be a pretty quiet day around here I think, at the very least it has started off that way :) I missed posting last week, but the day got away from me, and we hadn't done much of any note for the week. I've been working on starting an Etsy shop for the Jewelry, and that has taken up most of my evening time. 

Creatively, I've been working on bracelets and bookmarks. My bag full of partially crocheted cat toy balls have been staring at me...but I should really wash another fleece for stuffing...so they will just have to stare a little longer. 

I'm still working on my photo transfer project as well. I've uploaded all of our photos into google photos so that I have access to all of our pre-cell phone photos that have just been hanging out on the computer upstairs. Matt and I also never compiled our Japan photo albums, so that is another of my long term goals. There are a few walls in this apartment that could use some Matt and Kirsten photography, so hopefully I find gold in my searches. :)

Have a wonderful week and a lovely lazy Sunday. :)