the busyness

after nagging roy to set-up a new blog, here i am five months later with my first post.

what do i do with all my time?  i think i'm a pretty productive lady and i get it from my grandma durtschi.

she did everything.  with five young kids at home she graduated nursing school as valedictorian.  a blurb on the program read, 'Gloria Durtschi.. Valedictorian.. Always raises class curve.. Knits her own clothes.. Delightful.'  and that about sums it up.  she could do anything.  make chocolates, knit, crochet, sew wedding dresses, make porcelain dolls..  and when my grandpa was too busy to build a rock retaining wall for the backyard- she told him to leave the recipe for the cement mortar mix and she'd build it herself.  and she did, a 75 foot rock wall.  add rock mortar to her list of talents.

my busyness doesn't sound near as cool as my grandma's.  but when i'm not cleaning (to keep my sanity), doing laundry, grocery shopping, working full time, being single mom, or playing with my babes, .. i'm slowly learning to sew.  it's my dream to make awesome things on my sewing machine.  my obstacles are that i'm a total beginner and a perfectionist.  i can totally relate to this girl, i think we could be besties.  i can't see myself spending any amount of time on something, for it to come out substandard and have me feeling like it was a complete waste of time and money.  but i came to the conclusion that the only way i'm going to learn is by practicing, and making mistakes.

my friend angela is super crafty and got me started making a busy book/quiet book for the kids.  (a quiet book is something crazy mormon moms make for their kids to keep them occupied and quiet for church/appointments/in the car/etc)  it's been a blast thinking of ideas and putting it together.  they are pretty time consuming so it's no wonder no one sells them on etsy.  here are some of my finished and pages in progress:

some of the things like snapping, tying, and braiding are a little too hard for jack right now.  he mainly loves the i-spy rocket page so i think i'll do another one of those.  i remember seeing kids at church with these and always wanted one, so if my kids don't love it at least i've fulfilled my childhood dreams.  hopefully after i import my mom next month for a week or so, i can get back to sewing some more pages.  more to come!