As the temperatures rise, I find myself less and less inspired to cook. I neglect the housework until the last possible moment and spend as much time outside as possible. The kids are at an age where I’m bargaining with them on a nightly basis and promising we will be outside as soon as possible the following morning, just to get them inside so I can wash their feet, faces and hands before bed!
With this in mind, I put together this list of my favorite beautiful day meals. Meals I serve because it’s too gorgeous to stay inside at the stove or it’s just too hot to even think about eating a full meal.
Summer Steak Salad: Nothing like a beautiful afternoon to make you want to fire up the grill! This is our summer go-to date night meal.
Dippin’ Chicken Tacos: Quick and easy to eat in between water balloon fights or even poolside, this recipe is one of our family favorites.
Thai Chicken and Vegetables: I made this last night! I recently discovered a wonderful rice pasta that cooks up in about 5 minutes and the kids just gobble down. I love to eat this as left overs, cold, the next day too!
Cheddar-Stuffed Burgers: This is my husband’s pride and joy. And it just takes burger night to a fun new level with the oozy cheese in every bite. 
Sloppy Lentil Sandwiches: Sometimes, you need fast picnic-style food that isn’t for the carnivores. This is another one of my cold-leftovers-for-lunch favorites.
Creamy Quinoa and Vegetables: I fully intend to make a large batch of this on a weekly basis and bring it with us as pool-side lunches.
Peanut Butter Fondue: Another poolside option for me. I like this dip as a meal or a quick snack, but either way it’s loaded with protein and good fats, so it’s practically guilt-free… right?
So there you have my summer’s worth of go-to meals. What are your favorites? I’m going to be in need to poolside snacks in another month or so, what do you take with you for the kids to munch on during the lifeguard breaks?
And yet, even with two computers in my home, smart phones, eReaders and lightning fast internet connections, I still find myself loving the feeling of a pen in my hand as I write a card or mark in appointment in my calendar. I rarely use my phone’s calendar function, instead spending weeks every year searching for the perfect calendar to write all my notes in. My journal is simply lined, no frills, smooth pages and a flexible spine. And a teal notebook to keep track of post ideas, to-do lists, notes from phone calls and potential meal plans.
As promised, I’m sharing my finished project today. To date, this is the most complicated quilt I’ve worked on, primarily because there weren’t a whole lot of right angles. :) Once I got going, and started using the quarter inch foot, things got much better. And, I’m also proud to say that I FINALLY got the hang of binding the quilt… not only was I doing it completely wrong before, I was making it so much harder on myself!
Aside from totally loving the fabrics together, I must tell you that I’m now a Moda fabrics fan for life. The flannel is just so soft! I got to use a charm pack from the new(ish) 
I used a pattern I bought at a quilt shop and the quilt did come together pretty well, it’s slightly smaller than a regular crib quilt size, so I figure it will make a nice play blanket for the little guy while his older brothers swim or play outside this summer.
And my favorite touch? My custom tags. I had been searching for a while after seeing a post by Dana about hers, but since I don’t make entire wardrobes or sew huge amounts of items to sell, I couldn’t justify the cost. 
Over the course of the last year, we’ve talking about finding new furniture for our room. I wanted a simple farmhouse style bedroom set. I’ve looked at several Amish builders and in furniture stores, but I just didn’t want to pay their prices. Along the road, I discovered Ana White’s plans and Matt felt like he was up to the task.
Thanks to Pinterest, 
The project took about 3 weeks time to complete, although once we got down to business (big shout out to the in-laws for helping keep an eye on the kiddos!) we finished all the paint and staining in about 24 hours. I made the decorator pillows, both from patterns. The 
The dresser was in the basement of this house when we moved in as part of a 3-piece set used to store my grandmother’s fabrics and sewing nick knacks. We had painted it 2 years ago when we moved in, so the only work left was to sand it roughly and wipe stain over it. All the woodwork did get 2 full coats of polyurethane to protect it.
Anyway, I asked a friend’s mother to help me plan a baby quilt and while there, she asked me if I had a quarter inch foot for my sewing machine. Not only did I not have said foot, I did not have an understanding as to why I would need it. Just so you know… I do now. It took me days to piece together the first 15 blocks because I just couldn’t get the seaming right, but once I got my new foot, I whipped through 37 blocks in an afternoon! Amazing what such a seemingly small tool can do!
So here I am… working on putting together the last of the 82 squares. I’d like to finish it soon so I can start laying out the quilt and putting it together. Babies don’t always care how much sewing you have to get done in anticipation of their arrival!
There came a point while working with this project when I said to my husband that I just wanted it to be over with. Then, I felt like I had a handle on things and enjoyed it. That lasted about half a minute and I’m back to disliking this. I spent my hard-earned money on it, though so I will be finishing it. This week preferably. I have baby quilts to get working on!
In theory, this isn’t a challenging project, but lining up the points for the angles was just so darn hard for me! I tried different methods of laying it out and pinning it, but nothing has made this simple. My seam ripper has gotten a LOT of use in the past week 
The good news is that this project helped me make up my mind about our bedroom. It is my goal to finally get around to decorating it and making it a cozy spot this Spring. I chose this pillow kit because I loved the patterns and colors and thought that I could use them to compliment a quilt. We have a king sized bed. As I was attempting to practice some free-motion quilting yesterday afternoon, I realized that there was no way I could handle doing a quilt of that size. Then, I started calculating and decided that since I still haven’t finished piecing the top of the quilt I had planned for our queen sized bed, it would be best to not bite off more than I can chew.
However. I have found so many beautiful patterns I think that I will stick to making them in the smaller sizes and content myself with learning skills. All that to say, it’s a good thing I love throw pillows, because once I finish this one, I’m back to right angles for a while!
First thing in the morning (often before the sun is even out of bed), Sylvi wakes me up, bright eyed and bushy tailed. Sometimes, I let Matt sleep a little longer, sometimes I don’t and get him moving to work. Either way, I head straight to the kitchen and turn the coffee pot on. I get food for Sylvi and unload the dishwasher and start laundry. I read somewhere that if you spend your first hour of being awake getting your tasks done and don’t check email, you’ll find your day to be much more productive. For me, this is genius since I am a morning person. So… I leave my phone on the charger and the monitor turned off and get my tasks for the day as completed as I can by 9am. That’s the goal. I was done by 847 yesterday, 1015 today.
I go to bed with toys picked up, laundry put away and the dishwasher running. Every now and then, I skip this step and then have a grumpy start to the next day because I hate waking to a mess. When Liam was a little baby, a friend mentioned to me that I needed to learn to do my chores while he was up so that he saw that I did other things than wait on him hand and foot. Perhaps a kinder way of saying this would be to simply involve your children in the tasks. When I sweep the kitchen, both kids get out their brooms and “help”. They help me match socks and carry laundry to the bedrooms. Liam unloads the silverware from the dishwasher and both children are responsible to take their plates to the counter after meals. And if that doesn’t keep them occupied for a few minutes, I can always pull out the crayons and paper and they create for a little while.
Once I have all my tasks done… I’m free to start on the list. I make a long list of all the things I’d love to accomplish and keep at it for a week. I’ll assign things to myself in the morning and what gets done, yay! The rest goes back on the list for another time. I’m supposed to roast garlic today. We’ll see. I’m not overly enthusiastic about it. Some days, like today, I’m in the mood to do nothing extra… my house is clean, the kids are happy and I think we’ll have leftovers for supper. Every day is different!
I didn’t get much work done in the sewing arena this weekend. Instead I cleaned and organized the storage area in our basement and began tackling my crafting area. Since I’ve added a new reason to hang onto my fabric scraps, I need to figure out a better way to manage them. Anyway, I didn’t start my next project until yesterday afternoon. I had hoped to get all the pieces cut and some piecing begun before evening, but the kids had other plans for me 
For this quilted pillow pattern, there are two designs and I have all the cutting done for the hexagon pillow, but need to finish the white fabric for the triangle pillow. I’ll get there. I picked this project to work on now so I can have some practice with piecing triangles. My project after this is a baby quilt that has a lot of angles and I want to have some experience before tackling it. That nifty little Hex and More template up there is invaluable. I absolutely love it! I’m cutting 2 1/2 inch triangles and 4 1/2 inch hexagons without fear!
Last night, I attended my first Quilt Guild meeting as well. I brought my quilt for Sylvi’s bed along to show off and was glad I did because I fessed up to my sloppy method of binding it and finally got an explanation of how to do it correctly! I’m actually looking forward to binding my next quilt now! They have a challenge that is due in September and I’m thinking I may use it as an opportunity to make smaller projects using different patterns.