Black Thumb

I have never been good at keeping things alive. Plants, I mean. I've done a pretty decent job keeping my kiddo alive. That's got to be harder than growing some little vegetables, right?

A few weeks ago a friend gave me two yellow squash plants and two green squash plants. After an entire week without killing them, I figured I had the hang of it and should expand my little garden.

I picked up some seeds at Lowe's and got to work. I had my husband tear out the decorative (but half-dead) plants along the border of our back patio and fill it with a mix of topsoil and Miracle-Gro. I planted 3 rows of bush beans and 4 sugar baby watermelons. I added cilantro and oregano to my herb garden which already included chives and a pathetic shrub of basil. I also started some artichoke seeds in a pot indoors.

I got so excited when my little beans started sprouting tiny green shoots that I went back to Lowe's and bought tomatoes, jalapeño, cucumber, corn and sweet potatoes. This is when I realized that some of these plants get very large and there is no way they are going to fit in my tiny 3x8 garden. Maybe I jumped into this too fast. Ok, not "maybe." Definitely.

I'm no down-home, farmer's daughter. Growing up, the only time I spent in the garden was when my dad forced my sister and I to help weed the flower beds (I hated it because of all the bees). I've only ever mowed the grass twice. Once, when I was a teenager and my father made me. I cried the whole time. The second time was for a friend who had just had surgery. Her front yard is maybe 100 square feet and she has an electric mower. I was afraid the entire time that I would run over the extension cord, electrocute myself and instead of coming home to a beautiful lawn, my friend would find me sprawled out all black and crispy.

Obviously I survived. I can't promise the same for the garden though.

Out of Nowhere

Not often am I surprised by something. I almost always know when my husband has something up his sleeves and I can usually guess what he's bought me for gifts. Maybe he is just bad at keeping secrets but he did pull off a pretty good surprise when he proposed. I'm still in shock that he and my friends were able to pull that off. But other than that, I can't think of the last time I was really surprised by something. Until yesterday.

You already heard how I threw a little fit because I had missed the deadline for the CKC Matchy Matchy Easter contest. We won't rehash that. So you can imagine how surprised I was to get a message from Robin Hill of Create Kids Couture telling me that I had won the contest. I was a little confused and thought that maybe my lack of sleep was causing me to hallucinate. Did I really win? Did I deserve to win? Had I been wrong about the deadline the whole time? Where had I seen that anyway?

I was truly surprised and knock-my-socks-off, pee-in-my-pants happy. It's not about the prize, although I'm looking forward to 12 new patterns from the Pattern of the Month Club. And while, at first, I thought it was about recognition and validation for this crazy, unexpected path my life has taken, it's not even about that. It's that when I was giving up and at a very low point I heard God whisper, "Don't you remember that I have a plan and a purpose for you? Don't you remember that I long to bless you and give your the desires of your heart?" Yes, yes. I know these things. Time after time God reaffirms his promises to me - I just need to get them through my thick head.

(UPDATE: I had, in fact, been correct in my original thinking that I had missed the deadline but Robin and the others at Create Kids Couture realized it the next day and announced an additional winner to make it fair).

Sew-Along Fail and Other Mishaps

I need to admit something to you - my first sew-along was pretty much a disaster. Three days in we received the sad news that my husband's grandfather had passed away. We were looking at spending about a week traveling to Ohio for the funeral and to spend time with family. In the midst of packing and making travel arrangements I remembered my poor little sew-along skirt and how sad and lonely it would be if it was left out of the sew-along. I may have cheated a bit and sewn the rest of it up all at once but can you blame me? Look at how sweet it turned out.

But even though my first sew-along was a fail, it doesn't compare to my next disaster - the CKC Matchy Matchy Easter Contest. I had been planning to enter the contest since the beginning of the month when it was announced. I ordered the perfect fabric, found the right pattern and starting cutting out the 50 or so pieces to put the dress together. I thought I'd have plenty of time to finish it when we got back from Ohio but I completely underestimated how much our lives would be thrown off track. I stayed up late Saturday night finishing the dress and let me tell you, you know you have a good husband when he is willing to roll hem and gather 10 yards of ruffle at 11 PM the night before Easter. We finished the dress around midnight and planned to take pictures for the contest the next morning - that's where things fell apart. 

Serena's Stripwork Double Layer Dress. Dress by Dandelion & Daffodil.
Pattern by Create Kids Couture. 

My 1 year old is teething you see. At 3 months the pediatrician told us that he had never seen a baby teething as aggressively as our little chica. Here we are at 13 months and my daughter has 12 teeth and 4 more just taking their time. To further complicate matters, she got her canine teeth before her molars! All this means my baby girl is fussy, defiant, cranky and refusing sleep. We are a tired bunch. I'm pretty sure it's been almost 2 years since I've had a full night's sleep. Even in utero my girl kept me from sleeping. At first it was nausea. Whomever named it "morning sickness" must've been a man because it was "all-the-stinking-time sickness." After that subsided, I had middle of the night hunger pangs. Then it was the kicking and tumbling and elbow jabbing and for the last three months of my pregnancy my gal had almost constant hiccups. 

So Easter morning came and went and so did my sanity. Pictures took a back burner to church, lunch with family and naptime. I pouted a bit when my daughter wouldn't cooperate for pictures - okay I pouted a lot - and ruined a perfectly good afternoon. By the time I was able to find a good picture, edit it and post it to the contest album I realized I was a full 12 hours past the deadline. I will spare you the details of the pity party I threw myself for the next 2 hours but it wasn't pretty. In fact, it was ugly, soul baring, and even a little scary. As a mom, I question every decision I make - is it the right one for my daughter, my family, my marriage. Am I giving my family everything they need from me and am I loving them like they deserve? I realized that my own selfish desires for something as small as a sewing contest had impacted my family's day because it had put me in a bad mood. 

This is convicting y'all (I'm from the South. We say "y'all.") The whole reason I gave up my profession to stay home with my daughter was so that I can be there for her. I need to focus on that right now and take a step back from the less important things. 

If you are a parent who works (inside or outside the home), how do you find balance?