i have to say...

doing the work

"There are two kinds of people in this world: those who focus on what they want, always desiring it and never attaining it, and those who focus on what it takes to obtain what they want.  The latter do the work, delay gratification, make sacrifices, and ultimately get the rewards of their work."

from the book Boundaries in Marriage

I have lots of work ahead of me, I can tell.

There are times in a marriage, when things seem to come to a head.  The old ways of doing things are not working and inevitably, you start peering at the other person, wondering what their problem is. To be honest, my hubs and I are in this place.

No, we are not separating or anything like that, it is just that the day to day seems a little bit, shall we say, rough. Like a whole bunch of work is required to make this ship sail.

This is the part of marriage that can feel so weighty and hard.

I have a notebook that I write in on most days and lately it is filled with marriage advice from the book above and also with scriptures that are helping to keep me focused.

My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.  But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.

James 1:2-4

It is when life is weighty and hard that God is really at work.

Doing my 30-Day Shred yesterday I realized that some of the things the trainer was saying are applicable to what I am dealing with right now:

No pain, no gain.

If you can't feel the stress and your breathing isn't hard, you aren't making progress.

Don't wimp out.

Just two more.  You may feel like you are dying right now, but just give me two more.

Just two more. 

That feels like my mantra lately.  And I know it will be for a while. Old habits die hard, as they say, and it is going to take to work to get rid of them.

Don't quite know why I am sharing this today. I like to keep my blog a bit more upbeat.  I do know that I wouldn't mind your prayers.  I also know that lots of people feel this way and I want you to know you are not alone.  Every marriage has it's ups and downs, and being on the downslope is scary.  Changing is scary.  Humility is scary.

But if you stick with the work that it takes to make necessary changes, things will look brighter soon.  Very soon.

Let's all hang in there!

day one...

...of the 30-Day Shred.

And I am dying!

Inspired by Emily, I decided to give it a try it in order to build my strength.  I went into it with the mistaken idea that since I already run and take Karate, I could probably start at Level 2.

Not!

Level One kicked my butt---which is what it is supposed to do!

Tomorrow I am going to feel this, for sure.  Not looking forward to it.  I do, however, look forward to being a little more toned.  You know, having 5 kids does things to your body that are not so nice.  I want to change some of that.

The picture above is my progress on some reusable snack bags.  Aren't they cute?

They are presently in the trash.

The bags are probably the simplest of things to make, but I ruined four in a row.  Four. In. A. Row. At that point I gave up and looked forward to the next time I would visit my sewing machine. 

Today.

I am going to sew some reusable snack bags and not ruin one.

Really, I am.

one for you and one for me

On Friday we had an impromptu sleepover for the boy's friends--eight of them! (all teenagers)--and their dads came over on Saturday morning to play Airsoft.  I need to say that we are very blessed to have wonderful friends for our kids. Not one problem came up with all of those crazy, hungry boys in our house.  They are all polite, kind, helpful and very active!

On Saturday morning the dads came over to join the boys in a game of Airsoft so that meant that Aubry and I had some crafting time together.  She saw the tutorial for Monica's Poochie Bag sitting on my sewing table and wanted to make them based on the cuteness of the print-out.  My girl has taste!

These little bags are simple and fun to make (I am thinking these would be cute gift bags!) and Aubry did all of the sewing on hers using her Hello Kitty sewing machine. I helped with the placement of fabric and the pinning, but she did the rest.  She proudly toted it to the park on Sunday to show her friends.

I used the brand-new Happy Campers collection, which is so cute, and Aubry used Michael Miller's Sweets.  She is crazy about those ice-cream cones and sprinkles.

What about you?  Are you working on anything crafty?

shop notes: happy campers by american jane!

Just listing in my shop: Happy Campers by American Jane for Moda.  These prints are sweet and fun, and the colors are perfect.  This is just the beginning of the great stuff that will be arriving for fall over the next couple of months.  I can't wait!

Have a great weekend!

if you give my girl some fabric...

...she's going to want to borrow the stapler.

My crafty girl decided that she wanted to turn her bed into a clubhouse and, of course, turned to the scrap fabric pile.  I told her to go for it, not really sure what she was going to come up with. I imagined a much smaller project, but her idea was of grander proportions.  When she came to tell me she was done, I was quite surprised to find that this was ready to be hung:

It's huge! We used a very large number of tacks to make sure that her enclosure didn't end up on top of her in the middle of the night and, quite surprisingly, it is still hanging.

As you can see, she feels quite accomplished after this project.

Here is a close-up of her careful stapling skills:

I am thinking that buying a second stapler is a good idea, because I am sure the one we have will suffer the fate of the paper-cutting scissors: they can never be found when I need them, which is every single day.

Yes, my girl needs her own stapler.

Have a happy weekend!

you have to check out these giveaways!

If you love beautiful fabric--for free--you need to visit Sandi Henderson's and Tanya's Whelan's blogs today.  Both are giving away fat-quarter sets of their upcoming lines.  I am looking forward to both of these lines.  Sandi's Meadowsweet in the Pear colorway is simply stunning, and, as you may know, Tanya is my favorite designer and I would ask for her autograph if I ever met her.  Really, I would.  She is that cool.

Here is some of the lovely Meadowsweet:

And Miss Dolce in all of her glory:

It's hard to get better than these two!

So go leave a comment now!  I signed up too, but I have both of these lines ordered in full for my shop and will have plenty of my own fabric to play with (these lines will be heading to stores in November).

Best of luck to you all!

welcome, autumn!

Summer decided to make a grand exit with rain most of the day, hail for 30 minutes straight and a light dusting of snow on the mountains behind our house. This morning is the first one that I was compelled to turn on the heater.

Really, it all feels rather nice.

You know what autumn brings: caramel apples, brilliant leaves, the wearing of cardigans, planning for Christmas (for me, planning for a Christmas wedding), and hot chocolate.  In fact yesterday we broke out the hot chocolate and sipped before finishing our afternoon school work.  It always tastes better when you should be doing something more responsible, you know!

The weather this week looks rather unimpressive, but the weekend promises sunshine and warm temps.  That will be a good time to tour the mountains and see the changing aspens.

Welcome, Autumn. 

You sure are beautiful!

32:22

That was my 5K time.

I was hoping for a little faster time (anything under 30 minutes) but my goal was to finish without any walking breaks and I accomplished that just fine.

The race was held at a high-school so lots of teenagers participated.  While I was stretching and doing a walking warm-up prior to the race, some of the kids appeared to be running warm-up 5K's.  I don't think I had that kind of energy even when I was their age! 

At the starting line I was immediately passed up by almost everyone, except the walkers, but about halfway through I caught up with a number of people who couldn't keep their pace.  That has been my biggest lesson learned so far in running:  I can't sprint at the beginning because I will lose my energy too early.  Let me tell you, that is harder to practice in a race than it is during a morning run.  It is quite discouraging to be passed up by so many people.  I had to force myself to run slowly, and if I hadn't I would have been walking the last part, I am sure of it!

This weekend my running partner and I are going to work on picking up our pace and adding some distance to our run.  It feels great to have met my goal and to now be passing it.  Yeah!

I was able to work up to a 5K using the Couch-to-5K program.  I highly recommend it to anyone--including non-athletic types, like me--who want to do something challenging.  My husband and my oldest daughter are very athletic, motivated types who excel at most physical things, so I felt silly at first since I couldn't just run the whole like they could.  What can I say, I am not a "knock-yourself-out" kind of gal!  But now I am so glad I did it.

And you know what?

I can actually say these four words about myself:

I AM A RUNNER!

oh deer!

Years ago, when my hubs and I were dreaming of living and raising our kids somewhere other than Southern California, we would imagine what it would be like to live a slower pace and find, say, deer in the yard on occasion.  Ah, that seemed like heaven.

Fast forward to Colorado, many years later, and we are living a slower pace and we have deer in our yard all the time.

A few things you may not know about deer are that they love to feast on plants of any kind, they are really aggressive about it, and once they find your plants, they don't forget where they are from year to year.  Also, there is very little you can do about them visiting you.

For a while I had beautiful rose bushes growing in front of our kitchen window, but now they are wimpy-looking with yellowish leaves and stunted growth.  The deer did this.  Next year they will be replaced with something they like less.  Apparently roses are like candy to them.

I came down to cut fabric the other day and found this deer munching on our aspen trees in the backyard.  After taking his picture, I knocked on the window, loudly moved the blinds up and down and finally opened the window and yelled at him.  He just sat there and looked at me as if I was PMS'ing or something like that.  All he did was move to another tree and start munching again.

Not sure what my point is here, just wanted you to know that having deer in the yard isn't as cool as you might think, unless they bring their babies and that is just cute, cute, cute.

Have a happy weekend!

i am...

...procrastinating dealing with these apples.  must make applesauce!

...probably running a 5K on Saturday.

...loving the color of my new shoes.

...helping aubry raise a small family of butterflies.

...practicing karate everyday for my upcoming brown belt test.  why are all my katas getting mixed up in my head???  

...tired of thunderstorms.

...ready for new fabric to arrive since my shop is looking a bit sparse.

...debating on whether or not i should attend quilt market in october.  is it worth the expense?

...enjoying aubry's choice of shoes to wear for schooltime.

...thankful for my a.m. running partner.  it seems  faster to the finish when we chat the whole time.

what are you up to?