After a lengthy week

Forgive me friends, as I have written blog posts almost daily in my head every day of this week, yet never quite made it to the computer before bed to post them.  It's kind of ridiculous really, but needless to say, here I am with much to say after a busy week and countless unpublished blog posts with an extraordinarily long conglomeration of them all.  Sit back folks... If it makes you feel better, I made a special playlist in iTunes labeled "blogging mix" and am currently enjoying it just to stay focused.

So this past week was a busy one and I enjoyed it for the most part.  I worked a lot as well as had a staff meeting on my day off, so much of my week was spent thinking of or being at work.  I decided to take a small break from sewing for the moment to revisit a crochet project I began last year before Christmas (I know, I know) and never got very far with because I'm not too great with patterns.  It's one of those free patterns you can pick up in a craft aisle near the yarn and originally I picked it up hoping to learn how to felt.  It's for a cute purse that you crochet and then felt and it is supposedly intermediate level.  Guys, I have to tell you, I have been crocheting for around  15 years now.  My sister taught me as our grandmother had taught her years ago and since then we have been quite a pair of blanket/scarf/cozy making machines since then.  Neither of us were ever taught how to read patterns or really what the names of the stitches we were making were, but we could make some pretty stuff.  Also, once Beth had given me a 20 minute tutorial on how to start a chain and then do a couple of stitches, I was off and we never did another lesson really.  Well imagine my surprise when I learned a couple nights ago after my third unsuccessful attempt at this stupid pattern that for the past 15 years I have been crocheting a specialty "crab" stitch as my normal crochet method and really hadn't ever done a proper crochet stitch.  That's why my things always looked so weird.  Anyways, lesson learned and after about 10 minutes worth of youtube videos and Evan making fun of me I angrily relearned how to crochet.  (And yes, I checked the blanket Beth made me years ago, my sister crochets perfectly, I am the stupid head who taught myself differently apparently)  So anyways, that being said, I have spent the past several nights sitting and watching movies with Evan while crocheting and trying to figure out this pattern.  Frustrating as it is, it's still fun.

I also spent a huge portion of this last week looking up recipes for homemade cleaners/soaps/shampoos and cleansing our house of the really bad toxic cleaners and such.  I began this a week or so ago with the baking soda shampoo/apple cider vinegar rinse, but now we are completely using homemade dish-washing detergent (for the machine and the sink), laundry detergent, hand soap, face wash, shampoo, conditioner, all purpose cleaner, and floor cleaner.  I think the best part of it all is that it all smells so good!  Tonight I took a peppermint bath with my newly mixed peppermint shampoo and almond soap and it was heavenly.  Evan and Ryder have been really helpful and encouraging with it all (actually Evan has been super supportive and has amazed me with how awesomely helpful he's been through all of this)  and we made the laundry soap together as a family (Ryder just watched) but it was fun.  A lot more fun than grocery shopping and artlessly buying something off the shelves while Ryder gets cranky because she is bored and stuff into a cart seat.  All of these benefits aside, I think the biggest thing that made me feel good about this and my entire project this summer is that I have influenced my sister to make some huge changes too.
Some background: My sister is my best friend in the world.  Seriously.  We are eight years apart, but we couldn't be closer.  When I look back at my life, so much has been shaped by my sister and so many things that could've been really hard growing up were made so much easier by  having her in my life guiding me and being there for me.  So when she called me Friday and said that we were going to be big old hippies together (never fear, I'm not really going to do dreads and we will always bathe and smell nice) I was amazed that I could give her something as meaningful as what she has given me in the past.  Long story short, very sad circumstances along with kind of scary new fears have arisen in Beth's home having to do with illnesses that could have been environmentally caused.  Beth decided to take matters in her own hands and have a green non toxic home to try and remove some likely factors.  She has joined my ranks as a make your own green cleaner soldier and is pretty happy with the results.  I hope she doesn't mind me sharing about her on here, but I was really excited for her and it made my heart burst when she said, "I couldn't have done it without you doing it too!"  Ah, I love my sister and that's that.

So anyways, after a maudlin middle section I will finish up this extremely long post with a little story about this afternoon.  After a long morning of playing in the sprinkler with her cousins at Memaw's house, Ryder was tired, but still not tired enough to take a nap.  I kept finding her just sitting at the top of the stairs quietly talking to her favorite puppy dog hand puppets (Meh-Meh's as she calls them), so finally I gave up hoping for a nap time today and decided we would play outside some more with the new sidewalk chalk and bubbles we got at Target today (on clearance in the dollar section -- so worth it and not breaking the bank).  We spent two hours just sitting on the front steps of the house blowing bubbles and practicing drawing stars and hearts.  It was magical.  It was so hot and muggy it felt like a sauna, and we were so dirty from playing in the field earlier that we were just as earthy as we could be.  The only sounds were of the birds chirping around us and flying away from the squirrels in the trees right next to the house.  Every once in a while I could hear our neighbor sawing wood in his wood shop and it was a soft buzz followed by comforting plops as the wood would fall to the ground.  After a bit Ryder stood up and asked for me to get her bike out so she could ride it.  I complied thinking that she would just push off the ground with her feet or simply hide the chalk in the seat for later as she usually does (she hasn't ever been successful at riding her trike by herself), but she just sat on it, put her feet on the pedals and rode her trike for the very first time by herself as if it was the most natural thing in the world.  It was awesome!  The she figured out how to ride it backwards and spent 20 minutes just riding it up and down the drive way.  After a particularly fast ride down the driveway she got off and ran to me yelling, "Mommy that was fun!"

I'll leave you with that for tonight.  May you have sweet dreams full of memories of hot summer days full of sprinklers, bubbles, and bikes.