I can’t believe that August is here, which means we are officially in the Last Month of Summer. What! How did that happen?
I’m sure it will blow by, because that’s what summer does. When you’re in the middle of it, it seems like you have all the time in the world…until that morning when you wake up and you realize it’s Labor Day weekend and autumn is knocking on the door.
Anyway, here’s how we spent the first week of August –
I got it in my head that I wanted to make another Moleskine planner hack. So I headed to Staples and picked up a notebook and got to measuring and drawing. I don’t really know what made me want to do this – actually, yes I do. Back in February (I think? It might have been January…) I ordered a Day Designer. I really love the look of it, I love the planning pages… it’s a great planner. It’s in a daily format, though, which I wasn’t really sure I would use.
As it turns out, I don’t use it. I’m just not into the daily planner pages. I do love the planner itself, but for as much as it costs, and for as little as I use it, it just isn’t the planner for me. For now, anyway.
I noticed that Emily Ley is soon releasing a weekly version of the Simplified Planner but I’m not 100% in love with the layout so I thought I would just give another DIY notebook transformation another try.
As it turns out, I don’t 100% love this one. So I won’t be sharing it. And that means I am temporarily planner-less until I can figure out a better solution.
I’ll keep you posted!
Then, this happened on Tuesday.
For some couponers, this isn’t a great trip but for me? It was super because it’s the most I’ve ever saved on groceries. And by groceries, I mean more than just food. I bought paper products (toilet paper, to be exact), breakfasts, lunches and dinner for nine days, snacks and personal hygiene stuff like deodorant and toothpaste and even some vitamins (in fact, I got two packages of vitamins for free!). I got quite a few free things on this trip, actually. It was awesome!
On Tuesday I was also prepping for a get-together I was participating in on Wednesday – a toddler “busy bag” exchange.
What is a busy bag? A busy bag is a little bag of activities that’s geared toward keeping toddlers busy. I bet you couldn’t guess that based on the title. Check out the inspiration on Pinterest to see what I mean – toddler busy bag ideas.
Anyway, I got together with fourteen other moms who all brought an activity, which meant that when you left, you took home fourteen different activities (fifteen, including your own) for your toddler’s busy bag. This exchange was great!
My contribution was interlocking felt rings with alternating velcro and button closures. I put them together Tuesday night. I have a huge bag of miscellaneous buttons so it was great to use some for this project and clear out a little bit of my stash.
Ezra’s favorite activity – so far – is a little dog search & find pouch. The mama who made these took some beads and a few little dog plastic figures (not all were dogs. Some pouches were flowers, some were cats, and so on) and put them all together in a pouch that she sewed from some scrap fabric and clear plastic. The result is a little activity where the child pushes the beads around to find the hidden objects. She attached a laminated photo of the hidden objects so you remember what you’re looking for, and the objects vary in size to make it a little challenging. So clever!
In case you didn’t see it, I recently wrote about how I’m going to start tweaking how I do things in my shop. I brainstormed a lot this week how that would translate to the things I knit and sell. I’m working right now on building up a few packages of things new mamas might need, which brought me back to knitting soakers. I haven’t knit a soaker in a year. I know it’s been exactly one year because last July was my last large order of soakers that I fulfilled for a mom co-op (wherein I knit over 50 soakers over the course of a few weeks) and I put the needles down at the end of that and never wanted to see a soaker ever again.
Until this week when I remembered this beautiful 100% wool Araucania yarn I had sitting in my stash. It’s a super bulky weight and I’ve never knit a soaker in that weight before so I thought I would give it a go.
I love how it turned out.
I cast this on for a “small,” which should fit 0-3 month but I think it knit up more like a medium which is 3-6 months. I was hoping to use up the entire skein but I have a little leftover. I should have cast on a medium.
I also have decided that knitting soakers in super bulky weight is far better than worsted. It goes by SO fast. I knit this soaker over the course of two days, using just the hours at naptime, which means I finished this in about 6 hours. Not too shabby!
Our weekend was pretty good. It was quiet Friday evening and Saturday morning, but Saturday afternoon we hit up Goettafest, which is always a treat. If you aren’t familiar with goetta, you need to remedy that ASAP. It’s delicious.
What I love about Goettafest is how creative the food vendors get. There were some old favorites there (goetta melt anyone?!) but some new ones I had never tried before – like goetta mac n cheese?!?!?!?! Why had I never thought of that?
From the top left, we have –
- Goetta fried rice
- Goetta mac n cheese
- Goetta balls (which was basically like a hushpuppy with a piece of goetta in the center, topped with powdered sugar)
- Goetta brownie – the crown jewel and the reason I go to goettafest!! This year they were a little more fudgelike than normal; traditionally they taste identical to a no bake cookie. It’s like a salty/sweet snack. So good.
The festival was so crowded this year – definitely more crowded than in the past. It was actually a little overwhelming, but I’m glad we went.
No links this time around since I’m just posting to catch up. Hope you had a great week!
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