Monday Musings--31 October

Right now...it is about 5 a.m.  I am up early, as Gemma was in our room and went into a pretty fitful sleep this morning.  Like her brother Adrian, she can get very vocal and active when she is dreaming, and me, I have trouble getting back to sleep.  So 4:15 was wake-up time this morning.  Not a good start for Monday...I tend to function poorly at my age on only 5 hours of sleep.

This weekend...was busy in a good way, but not without a few rough spots.  My mom has a pretty bad infection under her gums, and on Saturday she was feeling miserable and unable to drive herself to the dentist, who agreed to see her outside of office hours.  She was feeling nauseated and dizzy and short of breath, and we had no way of knowing whether it was due to the infection or a reaction to the antibiotic.  She was already doing much better yesterday, thank God, but it had us concerned, to say the least.

On Saturday morning I showered and packaged up a few things for the post office, answered some email and put a pot of soup on to simmer all day.  I made butter and got everyone bathed, since we were going to the vigil Mass.  After Mass, we grabbed a couple of pizzas and went home. Before bed, Una sat on my bed and read to me from the most recent pages of the story she is writing, and I finished weaving in the ends on her cardigan.

Sundays when we are home are usually so fruitful, and yesterday certainly was.  Since there is no school and no housekeeping, I get a lot of crafting done.  I washed and blocked Una's cardigan, and then began the big job of making Gemma a feather comforter.  Bret and I have had this German comforter (really just a big sack of feathers) travelling around with us for the last 26 years, since we found it in the hayloft of an abandoned barn in Germany, when we were on one of our little motorcycle jaunts.  He managed to squeeze all the air out of it and get the thing onto his bike.

.  Gemma will no longer use a sleep-sack, and her blankets were woefully thin, and I turn the heat way down low at night to save money on propane.  She is still in a crib, and will likely remain there for a while longer, as the room currently has little space for a twin bed.  Anyway, I bought some very tightly woven muslin, washed it in hot water and this morning cut it to size, double-stitched it all around, stuffed it with feathers and then stitched it into twelve puffy sections.  It is perfect, and I no longer worry about Gemma being cold at night!  Now I just need to make a pretty cover for it, with a matching pillowcase...

I also worked on something for the Etsy shop, baked cupcakes for today, ripped back one of the too-short sleeves on Gabriel's sweater and got it onto needles and wound up a couple of skeins of Knit Picks "Swish" in Truffle, a nice, rich brown, for Adrian's sweater-to-be.  I think I may knit him a Henley like Sebastian's--it was a nice pattern to work with and knit up quickly.

Some plans for this week:  well, we aren't going to have much of a Halloween celebration this year.  First off, I am just really busy with Christmas-related stuff and the Etsy shop, and secondly, I have never felt very comfortable with Halloween.  I waver back and forth on the topic, giving in to the children.  We don't Trick-Or-Treat, and gruesome costumes are out of the question, but I just don't like this whole celebration of what's dark and creepy.  Kids--at least mine, and me too as a child--love to be spooked, and Halloween just seems to have more appeal to the kids than All Saints Day.  But I really need to stop wavering and make a final decision about it.

Besides Halloween today, we have Mass for All Saints Day tomorrow, a visit to our very local cemetery (I can see it from my workroom windows)  for All Souls Day, and, God willing, the beginning of framing on the KY house.


If i find some time for myself, I want to...well, in all fairness, I consider all the time I get to knit or work on Etsy creations, time taken for myself, and I think I have been doing a lot of that lately.  Being creative never feels like work to me; it is always an outlet and a pleasure.

I am grateful for...warm feather beds, sweet friends I have never met, my mother feeling better.

Some prayer intentions for this week:  for my family's health, for everyone's safety on the framing of the house, and that all goes well and quickly; for Max to return (our farm dog has been gone for three days now...I don't feel particularly hopeful, but just maybe...); for a special intention so close to my heart, I cannot put down the words here...

Something that makes me smile:  Gemma looking at this beloved book (I think I had a copy of it as a child) and pointing to each naughty baby, saying, "Dis baby naughty, naughty, naughty!" over and over again;
her running about chasing feathers on the breeze yesterday as we filled her comforter outside (I felt like Frau Holle!); Dominic and Gemma jostling one another for positions on my lap during rosary (oh, how I will miss this when they are too big!); Una's passion for reading and writing, and this, passed on to by Mary this morning (Thank you, Mary!):

  As always, please feel free to join in with your own Musings.  You can grab the header image for your post and link back here; if you wish, leave a comment with a link to your post.  I wish you a happy, productive week!