I am back on track: working outdoors and an Easter project -- super simple lace headbands

These last couple of weeks were unusual for me, first with my body, and then with problems with the house, kids and a friend. You know what they say, when it rains, it pours!!! I am optimistic that this week will go smoothly enough (life is never totally smooth, so I'll settle for smooth enough). Thank you so much for your kind words, encouragement, support and "been there" attitude. Truly, your words helped.

Over the weekend I was able to get out to the veg garden and get the potatoes planted. And my husband set out on constructing the new bed where one of our fig trees will go in early April. This is right up against the brick patio, in a sunny spot. Keeping fingers crossed that this will bring a better fig harvest! (The two fig trees are currently in pots.)

And the good weather is continuing. I spent several hours pulling weeds yesterday, moving some plants to better spots, planting a couple of new plants, and adding some river rock to the new daffodil area. I had forgotten how much I like the way daffodils looks with river rock at their base. Technically, this isn't real river rock, probably glacial rock. As we dig new areas in the yard, we set the rocks aside, to use decoratively in the landscape.

I also continued with Easter bunny work, and am now done with the baskets.

We do candy and small gifts for our kids in their baskets. My son mentioned his long-sleeved white t-shirts were wearing out. He's getting a replacement shirt, from Old Navy. No sale, no discount, bummer! But it's what he wants, so I don't feel badly about not getting a deal. I also added some packets of instant oatmeal for him to keep at his office. He doesn't always get breakfast at home, so this tides him over until lunch. (And he's got a sweet deal on lunch. The bosses bring lunch in every day!)

My daughters's biggest "need" is related to next year's university expenses. So, I'm going cheap on their baskets (spending half of what I spent on our son), and putting the other few dollars into the budget for things like bus passes. But I think they will appreciate what I've added to their baskets. They both take dance classes, and are always borrowing my mascara (I know, you're not supposed to share mascara) and face powder for recitals. Well, they each are getting their own. I discovered an inexpensive cosmetic line at Target last week -- E.L.F (eyes, lips, face). The mascara was $3 (half of what Target was charging for Cover Girl), and the face powder was $1. While I was there, I also bought myself some concealer ($1) for my very dark under-eye circles, and so far I am pleased. But also, for my daughters, after Christmas I found these bath/lotion gift sets on clearance for $1.18 each. And, there was one last thing I wanted to make for them, using sewing trim scraps. (You remember, I've been cleaning out my sewing closet this winter.)

These lace headbands.

You know, I actually bought a lace headband for myself this past fall, and spent about $4 at the mall. Driving home, I had that thought, "what was I thinking? These would be super simple to make!"

And they are -- each one taking about 20 minutes of my time.

Basically, I started with about 21-22 inches of lace for each headband. One of the lace pieces I lined with peach-colored ribbon, both to add color and stability to the thin lace. The other, made of a more substantial lace, has a trim daisy hand sewn on. I also used 1 hair ponytail holder, each, to give them elastic stretch.

I changed my mind on the trim daisy, and went with 1 hot pink one instead

I ironed the lace and ribbon smooth. Sewed the ribbon to the back side of the lightweight strip of lace.

I turned under 1 end about 3/8-inch and pressed. Then turned that under about 1/2-inch, and pressed again.

I slid the ponytail holder under this fold. Using my machine, I stitched the fold down.

Next I pressed the other end, in the same way as the first, and pinned the other half of the ponytail holder into place. I tried the headband on myself.

I was guessing at the size for my daughters. I wound up cutting about 1/2-inch off this end, and pressing 3/8-inch under, then 1/2-inch under. I slid the other side of the ponytail holder under this fold, and stitched down the fold.

Voila! Lace headbands, using sewing trim scraps for a total cost of --- FREE!

And now, the Easter baskets are filled and tucked away in a closet, freeing up the rest of my week for the more meaningful activities of Holy Week.

How about you? Do you have some things you want to get done for Easter? Have you had cooperative weather for working outside? I know it is still wintry in some places, and I'm hoping for spring to come to your area soon, too. Thanks for reading, today!

The Easter bunny starts his work, despite some obstacles

I had a nice perky, getting ready for Easter post all planned to write out yesterday. And I had the whole day set aside to get all my basket-related tasks completed. But as the day unfolded, I felt nothing like perky for quite a few hours. And I thought that maybe I could write a more helpful post, if I talked about pulling myself together, when life kept throwing me curve balls. I know that reading of other women's daily struggles really does helps me.

It was just one of those days, when I felt like I was solving one crisis after another. These weren't serious problems, but it was the repeated dealing with problems that wore me down. Truly, I felt like crying. It was that bad. I was tired, and that just skewed how I was seeing every difficulty, I am sure. I wanted to cry. I wanted a big, strong man to come along and tell me, "there, there little lady. Don't you worry your pretty little head over this. I'll take care of everything." I didn't want to have to fix one more thing.

Sometimes, I resent being so capable. If I see something needs fixing, I know that I should at least give it a serious try. I sometimes wish I were more helpless. But this is how I've been made, a capable woman. Oh, I can't fix everything. But the things that I know my mother or grandmother would have let a man take care of, I feel like eyes are on me, in our house, to at least try to fix.

It was when I was standing on a rickety ladder, under the broken downspout of the rain gutter, with icy water pouring out onto my head, shoulder and leg, as the snow was melting on the roof, that I felt the most resentment for being capable.

We have had several nights of wind, followed by rain and snow. The wind knocked the drain pipe to the gutter off in two places. And now, rapidly melting snow was pouring down the corner of the house, along the siding and up against the foundation. I had mentioned the disconnected downspout to my husband a couple of nights ago. But I knew he wouldn't get to it until the weekend.

And so, being a capable woman, it fell on me to fix this right then and there, before I went out to run my errands. I hope I did a great job and this won't come apart any time soon. I used pliers and a mallet to get that thing back together, and attached to the gutter. My hands were numb with cold when I finished, and my shoe is still drying out today. But it's fixed and I moved on.

After a change of clothes and shoes, I was in the car, running my errands, and thinking about how I respond to these difficult days. While crying would sure feel good, I get a better feeling from continuing on with the day, and ticking more items off of my to-do list. Bad days are a fixture in this life. I can't change that.  But I can trudge on, despite them. I may not be cheerful when I start in on my to-do list, on a day like yesterday. But as I get more and more done, despite a rocky start to the day, I feel my spirits cheered a little. I feel productive. The day was not lost to the problems which came about.

So, after a good pep talk, and consuming a lot of my children's Easter candy (okay, I hear your thoughts "what a bad mother, eating her kids' candy"-- let she who has not eaten any of her children's Easter, Christmas or Hallowe'en candy cast that first stone), I got to the day's tasks.

I baked the sugar cookies that I need to take to our church's coffee hour this Sunday. I did my bunny-work for the kids' Easter baskets. I got the baskets out, divided the candy, filled plastic eggs, went shopping for a couple of gifts for the baskets, then tied with ribbon, and I washed the Easter grass.

Yes, you read that right, I washed the Easter grass. We are still using the original bag of Easter grass that I bought when my son was a baby, 25 years ago. I wash it a few days before Easter, oh, about every 2 or 3 years. It's the plastic kind of grass. I think I paid about 33 cents for the whole bag of it. I've vacuumed up a fair amount of it over the years, but we still have barely enough for 3 kids' baskets.

To wash the plastic Easter grass, I place it in the basket of my salad spinner.

I add warm soapy water. Swish around with my hands for a minute.

I drain, rinse, and spin out. I transfer the grass to a colander and allow to air dry for 1 day. I'm good to go, with dust-free Easter grass. We have allergies in this house, so I am careful to keep dust to a minimum.

With making this one bag of grass stretch for 3 baskets, I have a little trick to make it look like there's more. I crumple up paper to put in the bottom of each basket. Then I top with a thin layer of the grass in each basket.

Sure, you can just go without the grass. It is an invented "need" anyway. But I like that it pushes all the contents of the basket up and makes it look more abundant.

There are some good alternatives to the plastic commercial Easter grass, should you be starting this year fresh: shredded paper is good (if you have any colorful junk mail or school flyers, run these through your paper shredder), a colorful piece of cloth from your scrapbag (just crumple it up in the bottom of the basket, like if you were lining a dog bed with a favorite blanket), or wheat grass.

To grow your own wheat grass:

Soak 1/2 cup (per basket) of hard winter wheat seeds in water overnight.
Drain and sprout in a jar on it's side for 24 hours, rinse the seeds 3 times per day.
When you can see a tiny sprout from the seeds, place the seeds on top of some potting soil in a shallow dish (about 2 to 3 inches deep, one that will fit into your Easter basket)
Give the dish and seeds a good watering, and cover the seeds with a piece of muslin to keep them from drying out).
Every morning, for 3 days, lift the covering and water the seeds.
Every evening, lift the cover and use a plant mister to mist the seeds.
After 3 days, remove the cover and water daily. Keep out of direct sunlight.
Depending on indoor temperature, wheat grass takes about 7-12 days to grow a nice bed of grass.

The bonus to using wheat grass in your Easter baskets is you can then take cuttings to add to your smoothies.


So, I did get most of my to-do's done for yesterday, even if the day wasn't one of my best. And I do feel good about that. How about you? How do you keep yourself from succumbing to horrendous pity when disasters keep popping up and you're the one who has to take care of them?


(And with regards to eating the Easter candy, in my defense, technically it's not my children's candy until it lands in their baskets, right? ☺)