J.U.I.C.E. and Thoughts on Finishing

The younger boy has a little cold again so we are doing what we can to get fluids into him. He was drinking a sippy cup and my husband asked what was in it. In order to not get the older one all excited about the potential for him to drink juice instead of milk at dinner I spelled it out, "J.U.I.C.E." instead of saying the word.

The older kid yelled out, "Hey! I can spell! You just spelled 'juice'!"

Ugh, perhaps we will need a new secret language. Our days of getting away with private conversation just ended. Gee that was soon.

I managed to finish a shawl (ravelry link) made from handspun yarn. It is very satisfying to have a project completed. I'm on the verge of thinking I'll try to finish my signature quilt in time for a quilt show in October. That would be a big push, but I'm so eager to have more finished projects.

Wish me luck!

Oh, and if you are on ravelry and want to find little old me, my username is 'Quiltotaku'.

Why is there not a version of ravelry for quilters? That would be the bee's knees.

I'm alive....and other good news (like the Happy Mother's Day Poop)

Not sure I have ever been away from my blog for this long before.

Over the last two weeks I pick up the most forceful flu bug I can remember running into. It gave me a really hard time, but I'm on top of it now with a lot of help from my doctor.

Creatively I've been sort of in a sleep state since that energy is the first to go when I don't have my health. I did a bit of spinning before I got sick so you can check that out above on my drop spindle.

The good news is that the rest of the family has already had this thing and weather is starting to warm up a bit, so it's looking more and more like perhaps Spring is going to finally be here.

I have been lusting after this book called Basket from Cloth, by Yoko Saito. Una shows off her copy here as well as some awesome quilting she has been up to.

I've also been loving the colors Jan is working with over at Be Mused.

Oh and finally, even though I was super sick on Mother's Day I still got the best present in the world. Our 20 month old decided on his own that he wanted to poop in the potty like our older kid - and he actually did it! Not that the days of diapers are quite over yet, but I can see a glimmer of hope now.

Spring has sprung....and what I learned from sleep talkers

There is always a weekend in spring in which our family plants the garden.

We have the obligatory heirloom tomato plants and this year we are expanding to also add some pepper plants. Not just any pepper plants - no, we are planting Padron Peppers. 90% of them are mild, but watch out for the last 10%. It's an exciting game of Russian Roulette when you eat them.

Hm, I wonder how that will go over with the kids...

Anyhow, the other night I was tucking in our baby (still a baby! not 2 yet!!) and he was saying actual words in is sleep. This is the first time I have heard him say English words while he was dreaming. Before this, he was just talking in baby talk.

So adorable to see how his brain develops, and makes me feel honored to teach him about language and communication.

I think he was dreaming of toys from what I can gather.

I've also been spending my weekends learning how to dye fiber for making yarn. It's been really fun and interesting but I have 1 more class in the series before it's over. We'll see if I can successfully make anything out of it.