My poor blog has been taking an unintended nap.  My own computer time  has grown scarce as my kids spend more time on it for school and life has been so busy.  I finished my yoga training, there has been 6 birthdays in our family, and we’re preparing for our move.  We have found a house in the Manassas, VA area and are getting excited.  It is hard to stay focused on what needs to be done here and now to get ready instead of filling my pinterest boards with dreams of fireplace makeovers and chicken coops, but there is a yard sale to prepare for, cleaning to do,

and a piano to fix.

Our piano is old.  Like over 100 years old.  Over the past year several of the keys have stopped working.  One by one we lost crucial notes in the Middle C octave.  My kids have been practicing on Logan’s little electric keyboard.  I felt like Christmas was ruined– well, not ruined, just not quite what it should have been.  So, the decision was made to not put the poor thing through another cross country move.

I started taking pictures of it for craigslist.

And, well, one thing led to another.

We watched a youtube video.

We got our screw drivers and wood glue.  Brenna wielded the camera.

We unscrewed and glued and screwed.  We oohed and ahhed at the amazing mechanics.

The whole house rang with piano strings strummed with guitar picks.

It was TOTALLY AWESOME!!!

Barry even joined in a bit later to help with the finishing touches.  We put new felt pads under the keys that needed them and put the whole thing back together.

Pianos are a mechanical miracle– all those moving parts that sound and feel just right.  I have loved the piano my whole life, but now I love it even more.  I feel so empowered to have fixed my own, lovely, amazing, old piano.  Granted, it does need a good tuning.

We’ll have to tackle that when we all get to Virginia.

(What do you think about painted pianos?  yellow? white? turquoise?)

A couple of weekends ago I framed up a spider mum print for a bridal shower because I just couldn’t find anything to buy that I really liked the idea of buying.

Once I did that I wanted one for myself.

I also had this amazing letterpress print of the Salt Lake Temple waiting for a frame.

So, this weekend I took a trip to Ikea, framed some prints, and spruced up my mantle and the top of the amoire in my entryway.

The slipcover for my wingback chair has been nearly done for months.  I just need to add ties to the back opening.  Do you think I can get it done this week to show you all?  I hope so.  I have a sweater I need to finish for Eva before she outgrows it.  Maybe I’ll have to save that project for next week when Barry and I travel.

We’re going on a house hunting trip to Washington D.C.  We’re moving there in July.  Have I mentioned that here yet?  Do you think there is such thing as a rental house within a reasonable commute of the Pentagon that will have a big yard, lots of trees, allow us have a dog and chickens, fit 2 parents and 6 kids, and be within our budget?  How do I go about finding such a place?  My main method of house hunting has been craigslist.  That’s how we found a house here in Colorado.  There’s got to be a better way.  A property management company?  A realtor?  Advice anyone?

I got to spend a lot of time finishing up my fabric printing for my wing back chair slip-cover on Saturday.

Here’s a few details on how I go about doing this:

I carve my stamps on Soft-Kut printing blocks from Dick Blick.  They cut so smoothly and hold all the detail too.  Once I get my design carved I cut it out with an exacto-knife, round down the edges with my carving tools and then use plain old double stick tape to attach it to a piece of plexiglass.  (I just get a big sheet of plexiglass from Home Depot and cut it down with a utility knife.  I’m not going for perfection, so it’s okay if my edges are a little wonky sometimes.)

I use Versatex screen printing ink with permafix added so I don’t have to do any heat setting to make it permanent.  To get it the right consistency I just add a little water.

I put an old towel down on my drafting table to be a cushion for my stamps to sink into when I print and to catch any prints that go over the edges of my fabric.  Someday I’d like to have a table with batting and canvas stretched over it for fabric printing, but this works for now.

The fabric I’m using is just a big canvas drop cloth from Home Depot that I pre-washed.  It’s quite a bit coarser canvas than the one I used to recover my rocking chair right before Eva was born.  I think I got that drop cloth at Lowe’s.  I prefer the Lowe’s drop cloth, but didn’t realize there was a difference until I had washed the Home Depot one and couldn’t return it.  I would get a lot clearer prints on a less coarse fabric, but I like the character.  It’s handmade, right?

Can you imagine it all fitted and sewn into a lovely slip cover for my sad old chair?

There’s light at the end of the tunnel of this project!  It felt so liberating to have it all cleaned up.  I can’t wait to show you my finished chair!

Today Barry and I had a conversation about the difference between messy and dirty.  You see– I have these voices in my mind that tell me that in order to be the “true mom” my house needs to be clean and orderly at all times.

This is a problem.

For starters, being tidy is not natural to me, never has been.   Also I like to make things.  Actually, to put that better I need to make things.  Making things makes a mess.  And then there are the children– the SIX children that live here and NEVER LEAVE.  They read books and leave them places.  They build legos and leave them places.  They make block towers, and take off socks, and draw pictures and cut paper, and heaven forbid– they EAT, which leads to dirty dishes.

Orderly at all times in this house is completely unrealistic– and unnecessary.  DUH!   Messy is one thing.  Blocks don’t take long to pick up, dishes get washed and used again, books get reshelved.  Neat and orderly can only be a reality around 10 pm when kids are in bed.  As long as our house isn’t DIRTY, as long as bathrooms are sanitary, dust is kept reasonably at bay and floors are unstickified on a regular basis it’s all  okay.

TAKE THAT NASTY VOICES OF PERFECTIONISM!  Dirty = bad, but a little mess never hurt anyone.  (Well, not permanently.  Stepping on a lego is pretty painful.)

It does take a little effort to keep on top of the dirtiness, though.  Here’s what works for me:  The house is divided into 6 zones (not a new concept, but such a good one) and we work on a different one each day of the week.  I have the Home Routines app on my iPhone, but I never use it.  I just make a list in the morning of what I want done in the day’s zone on some random piece of paper I find, have each of the 3 older kids pick 2 chores, do 2 chores myself with little kid help, and that’s it.  We don’t live in pristine conditions, but nothing is gross.

Today the entryway got freshened up.  The stairs vacuumed, the front porch swept, etc. etc.  Logan got the chore everyone wanted.  He got to freshen up the entryway chalkboard.

When we put up all of my new school room shelves I decided I needed rainbow quilts in the wall space above the desks since my books are arranged in color order.  What I had in mind for one side was this quilt from Purl.  I drew up a pattern to fit my wall and raided my scrap bin.  My mom also sent me a box of her scraps and I bought a few more.

This is my first time piecing curves, so it’s far from perfect.  My seam allowances on my rainbow ended up a smudge less than 1/4″, so my top came out a bit ripply.  I could have ripped it apart and started over, I guess, but I’m more into getting things done  than I am into perfection.  I just made good use of my iron and quilted concentric circles to remedy the waviness.

I like it on my wall.  It is bright and cheery.

Who knows when I’ll get to making something to hang above the other desk…

It seems I get to February every year and NEED to rearrange the school room.  (You can see past iterations of here.)  This year I needed more shelves so there weren’t boxes full of books to pull out and dig through constantly for school.  I also needed more work surface so that Brenna could spend more of her time downstairs with the rest of us.

We also needed more desk space so that kids weren’t constantly distracting each other, poking each other, spilling milk on notebooks, you know, the things that happen when they are all working around the kitchen table.  I certainly love the IDEA of harmoniously working around the kitchen table, but it just wasn’t my reality.  Now one child can be at the computer desk working on Khan Academy math, one can be doing English at a desk, another can be writing about history at the other desk, and the little boys can go back and forth from the block building table in the school room, to the art room table where they cut and tape to their hearts’ content.

It took a couple of trips to Ikea to get all that we needed.  We’ve got some Billy bookcases and wall shelves, some Vika table tops, and Jules chairs.  (I wasn’t present on the chair acquisition trip.  I would have insisted on a red chair rather than a black one, but oh well.  That’s what Jonah wanted.)

Can I tell you how much I love it that the books on these shelves are arranged by color?  I love it!  It makes me smile, and surprisingly my kids keep putting them back that way too.  It also makes me really want to make some mini versions of this color wheel quilt to put in those spaces above the desks.  Wouldn’t that be perfect?  and fun?  and beautiful?  Other decorations I have on the brain are pillows like these for the couch.  I’d need to learn to crochet, though.  Oh, and some time and energy.

I’ve made the bottom shelves for the littles– board books on the bottom, and a smattering of paperbacks (which I rotate from the stash) propped up with little tension curtain rods.  Other low shelves have a toy basket for sweet Eva, and some trays of wooden blocks and cars.

So, with the shelves coming in here, the piano had to move to the living room…

I still need to get art hung in here.  I also need to help my poor worn out furniture.  The cabinet doors have been broken and fixed one too many times.  They just need to be replaced.

My frayed striped wing back chair has seen better days.  I’m hoping I can get a washable slipcover made from this fabric I designed.  This year.  Sometime.

And so, with the piano moving in here, shelves had to be moved up to my room.

I’m loving how the shelves warm up my room and give us makeshift night stands.  I want to paint the cabinet doors brownish black to match my new dresser.  The pictures above our bed need to be rearranged still, and I’d really like to add a nice Boise Temple picture up there too.

Oh, Ikea, how would we live without you?  I’ve had this dresser in the master plan since before we moved here.  I love its smooth opening drawers, and how it looks with my Karl Blosfeldt prints above it.

While we’re at this home tour of sorts I’ll show you the entryway and stairs.

I really want to create a better gallery wall of family photos along the stairs and make new silhouettes of the kids now that we have a new one added to the crew.  I’d also love to add this letterpress print of the Salt Lake temple.

Well, that was a brain dump.  I’ve had all of this on my mind so much as I stare at my walls and move around my house everyday it’s nice to have it in writing and photos.  We’ll see how long I just dream these things up and what actually gets done.

Here’s Eva’s corner in my room– full of things that could each be a blog post in and of themselves.

There’s the new Moses basket I designed that will be my next baby gear sewing pattern (the SweetPod Sleep Spot maybe?), new handknit booties and hat for a fresh head and toes…

the newborn diapers all freshly washed and waiting…

a newly slip-covered rocking chair and a hexagon stripe quilt…

On Monday I had contractions every 10 minutes ALL DAY LONG– from about 7:30 in the morning until 9:30 or so at night.  While I could tell that it wasn’t quite the real thing yet I also felt like it could turn very real any second.  I was on a roller coaster of thought and emotion.  I wasn’t ready!  I need this one last week!  My shelves and refrigerator were empty– so a major grocery shopping trip was accomplished and eased some of the unready feelings.  We braved the new Ikea to buy that new dresser we really needed when the last baby was born so we could have a place to keep clothes and blankies.  I think my body was just trying to tell me to get with it, stop dilly-dallying.  There will be a baby coming next week, or the next.  My days with Hunter as the baby are numbered– as are my days of needing help rolling over in bed.

Last night, as the sky looked like this:

I relished in the wonderful day I had swimming with my kids and stocked my freezer with 3 pans of Chicken Enchiladas.  Today is Lasagna day.

And I’m feeling ready– with each day a little more.

Welcome to Brenna’s room!  11 year old girl heaven complete with a (recently shingled) dollhouse, a non-pink quilt, and lots of dragon pictures and keep-out signs on the door.

Yep, I’m finally posting about Brenna’s new bed.  I’ve referenced it several times– that it was in the plans, that it was in the works, that it was in her room… The thing is, I have been blessed with a daughter with the same room-keeping-tidy skills as I have (next to none) and so getting good pictures of her new bed in her room has been a little tricky.  We accomplished the mission today– and I learned that I’m not fun when I just nag and point out every last little thing on the carpet.  (Note to self– I really need to work on that and cut her some slack.  She knows just as well as I do that I’m just as messy as she is.  The thing is, there isn’t anyone living here to boss me around.  I just need to remember that no matter who you are it’s not fun to be bossed around.)

Anyway, we got the free plans for this bed from Ana White.  Her website is a pretty amazing and extensive resource for building your own furniture.  The plans we used are right here.  Barry did about 99% of the work with a little help from Brenna reading over the cut list, holding pieces steady as he drilled, and sanding.  Brenna picked the paint color and the two of us did most of the priming and painting.

You can see that the end near the ladder is missing the bottom brace to keep the legs square because the original plan was to build the big book case, but once we got it up in her room and were figuring out exactly how furniture needed to be arranged we realized that it would be either the book case or the doll house, we couldn’t fit both.  Quite naturally, the doll house won.  It is plenty sturdy and stable as it is– and so convenient to wheel the doll house table in and out the open legs.

She already had a desk, so we didn’t need to build one.  It fits just perfectly under her bed and she loves to hang out there and draw, sort sea shells, read, type…  Her desk has actually gotten a lot more use.  I think it must be that everything seems more fun when it’s in a fort.

We made a couple of pillow cases that match her quilt and some cute throw pillows.  I was having fun making yo-yos from scraps, so there’s the rectangular pillow with lots of yo-yos and the round one (which I made using this pattern from Cluck-Cluck Sew) with little yo-yos in the center.

Now here’s how she really made her bed–

with all her loves– her baby blanket, the monster Jonah designed and helped make her this past Christmas, Julie (the doll I made a couple of years ago), and Buttercup (the teddy I made her a LONG time ago).

Now to get a crib and dresser and rocking chair crammed into that little room.

Did I tell you IKEA is opening here this week?

A while back I told you I’d show you the new art work and rearranging I’ve done in our family room.  I did show you my new pillows, framed quotes, and my mantel.  Here’s the rest of it.

You can see what it used to look like here.   We moved the piano into this room and moved the big kid drawing table into my art room.  This has worked much better for the flow of our days.  Every morning we gather after breakfast with some singing and a prayer.  With the piano in near my desk, sewing machine, and spinning chair it was often a tradition that caused me more stress than pleasure.  Someone (read Logan) was always spinning in my chair, turning on my sewing machine, crashing into things, climbing on furniture not intended to be climbed on, being completely distracted by a book.  We haven’t eliminated the book distraction with this set-up, but there is no spinning chair or sewing machine.  Much better.

I splurged on some new alphabet art I’ve long been wanting.  I love Ida Pearle’s paper cut illustrations and thought the alphabet cards would fit well in our learning space.

I also gifted myself this wooden laser cut alphabet from bookhou.

Inspired by this homeschool space I found some fun field guide posters.  We use the bird one quite a lot.  Ian has been really interested in the human body, so I thought the skeletal system poster would be fitting for us now too.  Someday I think I’d like to add a small one with some more color — leaves or mushrooms or backyard bugs.  Or maybe a colorful embroidered alphabet sampler.  Something colorful, anyway.

I spruced up the curtains that hide the deep shelves crammed with extra school stuff and a couple of toy baskets with some patchwork stripes.  They make me happy.

Here’s another view of the old piano.  Every time we’ve moved the movers are incredulous.  It is in pretty sad shape, but it works pretty well, I think it’s pretty, and it’s ours.  Barry wants to paint it this summer.  I’m not sure how I feel about that.  It could be fun, but I also like that it is big and dark to balance our big and dark couch on the other side of the room.   I don’t know what color I’d want either.  I think maybe I’ll paint the bench and see what I think from there.

So, there you have it– our everything room.  Always a work in progress.

Today my plan was to post about our super-duper-nature-journal-making-and-using home school group activity that I was scheduled to host, but it had to be canceled because poor Ian threw up 4 times last night (in the toilet! hooray!) and it was 40 degrees with thunder and hail outside.  So on to plan B.

Since I posted about our new magnet board I’ve actually had quite a few people e-mail me with questions about our job chart.  You must understand that I am not a very good housekeeper.  I am completely organizationally challenged, inconsistent, and naturally a slob.  I love things to be neat and organized, to be clean and sparkly, but making myself do actual cleaning and organizing has been one of my life long struggles.  Fortunately I married a saint who has self discipline in spades.  I have improved on my house keeping skills a lot since we got married and I’ve matured and realized how much I really do like order, but I’ve certainly got a long way to go.

First off– it’s just a magnetic dry-erase board.  I used printable magnet sheets I found at Office Max to print the words on which I designed with Pages, our desktop publishing program on our Mac.

Any system we have to keep our house in order around here has to be really simple.  There are a few things the kids are expected to do every morning– get dressed, make beds, and pick up clothes and toys off of their floors.  I have to reiterate these expectations on a near daily basis.  That and the rule NO READING BEFORE BREAKFAST.  Every morning the 3 big kids work together to unload the dishwasher and then as the day goes on everyone rinses and loads their own dishes.  The dishwasher, not the sink or counter, is the dirty dish receptacle.

A couple of times a day (at roughly 12 and 4) we do a “clean up” where everyone works as hard as they can for 10 minutes to pick up and tidy the main floor rooms of the house.  This helps me relax a bit about the inevitable mess of having 5 kids home all day because I know they’ll help get it under control.

Then evening rolls around and that is where the job chart comes in.  The kids rotate helping with dinner clean-up on weekdays.  The dinner chores are the only ones on the chart that consistently get done.  Laundry is on there, but it is just one of those battles I haven’t figured out how to fight quite yet.  (I did try Jessica’s once a week laundry day thing for about 4 weeks, but I just couldn’t do ALL the laundry a family of 7 produces, do school, and make meals in one day.  I have yet to find something I can really stay on top of.)

On Saturdays Barry helps the kids really clean their rooms before anyone can go downstairs in morning and the bathroom chores rotate between kids each week.  So, whoever has mirrors cleans all the mirrors in all the bathrooms, whoever has toilets cleans all 3 toilets (and the surrounding floor), and the counters person does all the sinks and counters in all 3 bathrooms.  Sometimes I’ll make a list of chores that REALLY need to be done in addition to those and we all work on those too.  Vacuuming just gets done when it looks like we need to (which is a few times a week in the main rooms because we have a big dog who SHEDS).  Our sliding glass door is covered in fingerprints and dog-nose prints more often than not.  We’re lucky if dusting gets done once a month.

This helps us get all the necessities done for health and basic decluttering, but our house is by no means spic and span.  I seriously could spend hours everyday cleaning, but I don’t want to, and I really don’t think I need to.  There will be a season when I’ll miss all the mess makers and won’t even remember the mess.  Right now I’m just striving for peace and order, with as little effort as possible.

And I try really, really hard not to compare myself and my home to my friend’s who are obsessively neat and clean with perfectly arranged living rooms and decorated walls.

I usually feel pretty good about where I’m at.