Laowai

Claire is an eighth grade graduate and ready to begin high school. Our school district makes a big deal of 8th grade graduation. The kids are done with the Wilmette public schools and they move to a new multi-suburb school system. This year graduation was held in her future high school gym. A new space with a big screen that was fun to watch. It was a nice ceremony – all the kids were so happy and light. Quite a change from Bea's covid graduation that took place in a parking lot.

Some photos.

There she is crossing the stage.

Afterwards, everyone lingered outside and got lots of photos. A beautiful summer evening.

The sweetest group of friends ❤.

May is such a beautiful month. It's the time when the garden looks fresh and neat instead of overgrown and tired like it does in August. So here are a few May appreciation photos. 

I'm a member of the nasturtium appreciation club. And this year I discovered how easy it is to grow them from seed. Plus the rabbits, surprisingly, seem to leave them alone.

Very bad photo of a very charming moment. We've had lots of brief downpours lately and during one of them, two of my bunny frenemies took cover under the lawn chairs.

Those same lawn chairs are getting almost no use this summer because of these guys. Uhg – they are quite annoying. It's not like they attack you but there are so many of them! You can't move without one dumbly flying at your head or without crunching one underfoot (ick). And they seem to love to perch on the lawn chairs leaving their empty shells clinging to it. Not to mention their piercing sound that makes you crazy after sitting outside for a few minutes.

So instead of sitting outside I go inside and work on my sweater. It's coming along and I think I love merino wool!

Cleaned my sewing room – what a mess!

Quintessential May windowsill.

I made scones for Bea to take to school – along with some double cream. Yum! It's funny to hear Bea rant about this tradition. Each Friday the advisory groups (like homeroom) start the day having breakfast together. She says the majority of  people just bring a big box of Dunkin doughnuts. And she gets really sick of so many boring doughnuts and so many doughnuts going uneaten each week. A shocking waste of doughnuts! So I'm appreciative that she likes to sign up to bring breakfast a few time a year and I can make something homemade. 

Bea made this tiny model of a seafood restaurant for a Marine Biology class project. Complete with solar panels on the roof.

And another project that she did all on her own – she has loved her Marine Biology class so much – she made a book of all her dissection illustrations. She made one for herself and one for her teacher.

There she is in her happy place.

More peony appreciation.

First pea harvest!

I'm fascinated by the colors of rhubarb.

Since Claire is moving onto a new school next year – my two years of volunteering at the cafeteria have come to an end. I enjoyed the nice lunch ladies and often chatted with one woman about our gardens. She is from Greece and had never tried rhubarb. So for my last day I made tiny rhubarb jams for her and the other ladies.

I cleaned the window in my garage (so many spider webs). A pretty green view while I work on restoring other windows.

Making slow progress on one of Claire's bedroom windows.

And now we're well into June! Summer is here!

I've been participating in something called Me Made May. I've seen others doing it over the years and I thought it was time I tried it. Here's a blurb about Me Made May from it's founder:

MMM is a wardrobe challenge that helps you improve your relationship with your handmade items. It can also teach you what to make (and not make) in the future! To participate you need to wear your handmade items more often or in some way differently to how you usually get dressed. 

For me Me Made May is not about having more clothes – it's about learning to love the clothes you have made. And also it's about exploring, having fun and thinking about what you may or may not like about your handmade wardrobe.

I've been so inspired by lots of sewers – women who love color and pattern like I do. Women who have an appreciation for beautiful fabric. Women who delight in the creativity of getting dressed.

So here are all the outfits I made and posted on instagram.

One last photo of Brian photobombing me.

That's a lot of me to scroll through – hmmmm.

So what have I learned from this self-focused challenge? Well, I have more me-mades than I thought. I'm proud of how far I've come with my sewing skills – thanks to some really great pattern makers out there. I like to make dresses, but I don't really wear them in my everyday life. Not sure how to change that since jeans and simple shirts still feel most appropriate for cleaning the house and doing projects in the garden. I think I learned most about taking photos of myself and being happy with my body. A combination of taking better photographs and just being happy with the shape of me. So my first #memademay has felt fun and indulgent – a success!

Also, I should really stop buying shoes.

I've been enjoying my garden and I feel like my veggie plot is setting up to have a really good year. I put all my herbs in pots this year to make more room for extra tomato plants.

The peas are growing so fast on their new taller trellis.

I've been picking more rhubarb and made some jam.

I like composting.

One row of lettuce makes plenty of salad.

My false indigo is showing off.

I could have called this post "Cicada Update" because for the last few days that's the dominate news from my yard. We're getting two broods hatching this summer. Apparently the last time these two broods emerged together Thomas Jefferson was president. So far only one has started hatching but it has been dramatic already.

I went outside to find this a couple days ago. Oh my!

But then the next morning this same spot was even worse! The cicadas crawl out of the ground and then find a place to shed their exoskeleton. So the crusty brown leftovers are everywhere.

It sort of puts you off gardening when there are big bugs clinging everywhere. And the lawn is just crawling with them – especially under trees. No barefoot walking in the grass for a while. Even walking on the driveway I keep my eyes down to avoid the crunch underfoot. Yuck.

I find the cicadas interesting and disturbing at the same time. After they emerge from their old bodies they sit around until they have enough strength to fly into a tree. They should start singing for their mates soon and we expect it will be deafening. 

More and more I think about how this blog is all about me. In a sense it has always been me, me, me but in the early days I had so much to say about my growing girls. And there were so many opportunities to get photos of their cute little faces. Now, my head is still spinning at how fast my girls have grown but I feel less like posting the details of their lives. I guess I'm just feeling the changes and it makes me a little wistful. 

We celebrated Mother's Day with a long walk at Middlefork Savanah and I insisted on a family photo. Not sure why they are showing up so blurry. It's hard to tell in these photos but Claire is officially taller than me. Hmmmm.

Here are some photos from our hike and also from a hike at the Chicago Botanic Garden a couple weeks ago.

I finished knitting and blocked my t-shirt sweater the night before our hike. You can see it at the top. I'm happy with it.

My next sweater will be made out of this fluffy soft cotton candy merino wool. 

Here's Bea testing out our reflector oven before she went on a camping trip with her outdoor ed class. She had a really good time and go to dot some rock climbing. I'm nagging her to send me her photos so I can post them.

And here she is watching a baby bunny. 

I enjoy seeing the cute bunnies in my yard but this little stinker was inside(!) the rabbit fence I put up! 

Another bunny photo. I've been working in my garage window workshop and I can often see the bunnies out the garage window. This day she was keeping me company and taking a nap in the sunshine.

Bea has been getting to examine marine animal skulls in her marine biology class. She made these drawings at school. I think drawing a skull must be very difficult.

Here's Claire campaigning for the title of favorite daughter. Ha ha. We went shopping for a dress for her 8th grade graduation. She wanted a white one – like all her friends. She must have tried on every single dress in the mall but we found one – a really cute one. I'll be sure to post a photo when she wears it.

The end.

I've got a green and yellow theme happening. 

I finished making this bag. It's a new pattern from Helen's Closet called the Orbit Bag.

Fun to make and fun to wear!

Claire hates it when I get sentimental and tell stories about when she was little…

But I can't help it. Whenever her Spring-time birthday rolls around I think of strawberries and strawberry cake. And I think of this video where she says strawberry in her two-year-old voice. And then she is much more interested in eating the strawberries than eating her birthday pancake. Oh so sweet.

And she's still sweet.

She had her girlfriends over for a sleep-over and I made Tres Leches Icebox Cake.

For our family celebration I made this little cake with strawberries of course.

Sigh.

I made a dress that's for easy summer days when you just want to throw on something loose and comfy.

I decided to use a mash-up of two shirt patterns plus a basic skirt made out of the rest of the fabric I had. I used two Liesl and Co. patterns – the Verdun Woven T-shirt and the Geneva V-Neck Blouse. 

The fabric might look familiar – it's an IKEA duvet that I used to back a quilt. I had just enough leftover to make this dress. And I decided to dye it green so I would not match my bedding (oof).

I love the pocket detail with the stripes running perpendicular to the rest of the dress. Now I just need some hot summer days.

I've also been making progress on my striped knit t-shirt. It's great that you can try your project on for fit when you knit it from the top down. So far so good.

And one more project because I don't feel like myself unless I have too many projects brewing. I'm going to make this darling purse. Eeeek! Can't wait.

What's going on around here – not much. Mostly I'm feeling spring obsessed. Finding myself wandering outside several times a day to check on the growth of my plants. And also resuming drinking my coffee outside most mornings. 

I planted a bunch of daffodils last fall. Planting them in existing flower beds is such a drag but now it's all worth it. I feel like the photos don't capture how pretty and full they really are. I've been so happy with them.

I was so excited to get out my garden furniture and some pots last week. I think my terra-cotta pots will be OK. Fingers crossed.

I sifted a bunch of my compost and spread it in my vegetable garden.

I watched the eclipse and wished we had driven a couple hours to see the complete black-out.

This makes me smile – Mom brought me this wood poppy a couple years ago. She wrapped its roots in a wet paper towel and took it on the plane. It's very happy and look, it's about to bloom.

I divided and moved a bunch of bleeding hearts. They were on the side of the house where I could never see them. Now these little starts are right out front and they are looking strong.

More daffodils.

The rhubarb was ready to pick last week.

So I made a pie.

I use Zingerman's Just Rhubarb Rhubarb Pie recipe and I like it. You mix the rhubarb and sugar and let it sit overnight. It releases lots of juice and you cook that with corn starch.

My winter sown seeds are mostly doing well. Had to uncover them because we got temps in the mid 70s.

Went for a nice walk at Volo Bog over the weekend. Brian rode his bike and met us.

First outdoor dinner of the season.

My Service Berry is blooming.

One more photo – I thought tulips weren't supposed to last. But this tough one comes up year after year along the edge of our patio. 

Finally getting around to posting the photos from the other part of our Spring Break. On Thursday Claire and I flew from Munich to New York to meet Jennifer and Jenna. 

We spent the next day zipping around Manhattan – seeing museums and a show and doing lots of shopping.

The Little Island was windy!

A quick photo at the Friends apartment.

Time to see a show – Jennifer got tickest to The Great Gatsby. We all enjoyed the show and then after Jennifer and Jenna and Claire went to the stage door to see the performers. I was too sleepy (jet lag) so I went back to our hotel and I could see the stage door from our window.

Thanks to Jenna – Claire got the full Broadway experience. Lots of fun!

Jennifer found out that there was an exhibit about Beatrix Potter at the Morgan Library and Museum. It was the perfect thing for Easter weekend. It's a beautiful museum – I love seeing old and new architecture married together.

There are some of Beatrix Potters early drawings and and her Jemima Puddleduck below.

A quick stop at Grand Central Station.

Next we visited the Moma. 

We were getting tired at this point – vacation is exhausting!

There are the girls keeping an eye on the stage door below our hotel window.

On our last morning before flying home we had time for one more bagel breakfast and a walk in springy Central Park.

The dog park and its characters were the highlight of our morning.

Ah what a fun trip! Everything was perfect!