Eat More Fruits and Vegetables
There were lots of fruits and veggies this past week thanks to a trip to the farmstand and Costco. 2 Quarts of cherry tomatoes…Anyone want to guess how much they were?
Visit 24 {new} Bakeries / Coffee Shops
No new bakeries this past week but I did stick out a sisal rug and some ladies on vacation from Quebec stuffed it in their car. 😉
New Bakeries / Coffee Shops I’ve Been To This Year {That I liked}
- The Cookie Jar Pastry Shop
- Ritual Bakehouse and Patisserie
- Caramel Patisserie
- Standard Baking Co.
- Saltwater Farm Cafe
- Coffee Roasters of the Kennebunks
- Farine Bakery and Cafe
- Night Moves Bread
- Cape Porpoise Kitchen
Go On An Adventure
I have about 90% of our trip to England planned out and will be finishing up the itinerary tonight. Also, the foreign currency I ordered arrived and it was fun to see a few of the new King Charles notes in there.
Contribute to 12 Free Little Libraries. {6 town down, 6 to go}
Towns I’ve donated books to:
- Gardiner, Maine
- Nobleboro, Maine
- Kennebunk and Kennebunkport, Maine
- Cape Elizabeth, Maine
- Raymond, Maine
- Bellevue, Washington
Spend More Time At The Beach
Lucy and I didn’t make it to the beach this past week… Our local beaches have strict summer rules… Dogs need to be off the beach from 9 am – 6pm so if I don’t get all my stuff done early, we miss out. 🙁
Dogs will be allowed back on the beach during the day after tourist season ends though so we don’t have much long to go.
Read or Listen to 24 Books {7 down, 17 to go}
I didn’t listen to any new audiobooks this past week but I think I’ve found a spot for my cookbooks. Above the kitchen cabinets!! Now I just have to find the box that has the rest of them so I can have them ready to go for baking season.
Books I’ve Read or Listened To This Year:
- Grateful American: A Journey from Self to Service by Gary Sinise. 10/10
- Elizabeth The Queen: The Life of a Modern Monarch by Sally Bedell Smith 9/10
- Wait Till Next Year by Dorris Kearns Goodwin 8/10
- George VI and Elizabet:by Sally Bedell Smith 9/10
- Steve Jobs by Walter Issacson 9/10
- These Precious Days by Ann Pachett 9.5/10
- Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson
Paint
The paint has cured in my bedroom and so as soon as my friend Jen gets here we are going to hang my peel and stick wallpaper.
I am so excited!!! This is going to be the house with stuff on the walls… You know, like real people have. It’s kind of nerve racking and I hope I get it right.
As you know, I am a fan of plain walls… So this is a bit of a stretch for me. Fingers crossed it all goes well.
So far I’ve finished:
- Portrait of Joseph Roulin
- Red Boats at Argenteuil
- Regattas at Argenteuil
- Vase with Cornflowers and Poppies
- Sunflowers
- Garden Path with Chickens
- Goldfish
Hook 6 “Big” Rugs.
I didn’t hook any rugs this past week, but I did spot a beautiful slipcovered couch at the Re Store. I was about 5 minutes too late to buy it though, but still, it was a beauty.
Large Rugs I’ve Hooked This Year
- Three Roosters
- Hidden In The Garden
- Yankee Doodle
- Double Nantucket Whale Runner with the American flag
Visit 6 Greenhouses {1 down 5 to go}
No greenhouses this week, but I am looking forward to our upcoming trip to Kew Gardens. I even bought tickets to climb to the top of the great pagoda.
Grow Baby Grow
No gardening took place this past week {other than the HH mowing} but he did remove the side stairs from the deck {new ones will be built on the other side} so the fence guys can install a garden gate on that side.
Our new yard is very small and oddly shaped so it will be a bit of a design challenge. But I’m determined to bling it out with oodles of flowers and a vegetable patch but first… We need a fence.
Which should be installed next week. Finally! Lucy will be able to run around like a crazy daisy and I can start planting.
Donate to 12 Different Organizations in Maine
So Far This Year I’ve Donated To:
- Cleaning Up My Local Beach
- New Hope MidCoast {50 pairs of new socks}
- Humane Society {180 trays of cat food}
- Travis Mills Foundation
- Camp Sunshine
- Honor Flight Maine
So how are YOUR goals for 2024 coming along? I’d love to hear about them.
~Mavis
Goals I’ve Already Completed This Year
In Stock and Ready to Ship by March 15th/ March 30th Now April 15th DONE!
I finally finished up all the major wool dyeing and pattern/kit making I had hoped too. All the “extra” wool is tucked away in bins so if I run out of wool in my Etsy shop I can whip up some more bundles in a jiffy. A summer off from dyeing wool… It’s going to be pretty rad.
Tidy Up / Clean Out / Purge DONE
We cleaned the whole house, inside and out. And then we sold it. Yee-Haw!
BarnGarageClosetsDresser drawersKitchenSideboardDVD collection
suzanne says
That’s the fun of decorating. You get do overs. I personally tend to get antsy with to much stuff but I’m also a natural magpie. There’s a lot of swapping /trading between me my sisters and our daughters so that’s always fun. I’ll bet you’ll decorate your home beautifully and know when you’ve hit your limit. I also suspect you’ll be back down to a slightly more minimal decor within a few years. Maybe even in a new house ;-).
Mel says
I’m doing pretty well with my goals after several months where I kind of had to hit pause. Definitely eating better and drinking more water.
Organizing appointments for our toddler has been an ongoing task instead of what I thought would be sort of a one-time thing. But it’s going okay despite that. He still does PT but has mostly graduated from OT other than continuing some of it at home for vision. We have allergist and ENT follow ups pending, and then I need to schedule a neurology consult and everyone’s flu shots. And call Early Intervention for speech therapy since it’s taking forever to get into private speech therapy. And then he has music and is about to start gymnastics as a break from all the doctors. Once I get through all that, I need to chip away at appointments for myself.
Another goal was to celebrate more holidays, so I’m going to try to make a Christmas quiet book for our toddler over the next few months. We’ll see if I have time to get to that.
Brianna says
On the speech, as they get into therapy they will only bring your child up to what is developmentally appropriate for their age based on peers. I have a child who didn’t talk until 4 and did speech weekly until 6 and a Covid shut down, but as soon as he was meeting the speech skills for his age accurately 70% of the time it was a stop, wait and see. It was frustrating because I still had to constantly work with him and he never developed the rest of those skills. We moved states because the school system had no resources to help and the only speech pathologist, who was two counties away, never came back after Covid. He now attends a school specializing in speech/language impairment and deaf and does well, but they can only spend so much time with his speech as per his IEP, other student needs, and staffing. He is 10 and prefers ASL over speech and we have been on a private waitlist for awhile to try and get some of those missing skills. It is also good to pay attention to the shows your kid watches and listen to the dialect, phonetics, and language in those. It can confuse a child who already has a phonetic delay or impairment. We learned that the hard way and figured out certain kids shows caused regression in his speech.
Mel says
Yes, having worked in our local school system, EI is not my first choice, but there’s a speech therapist shortage, so we’re basically going that route for the initial evaluation and then going with private therapy once we get in. His speech delay is actually mostly if not entirely a motor delay, so it’s the kind of thing that would sort itself out with time anyway. We’ve done private therapy for everything else.
Beccah says
Hi Mel, sounds like you’ve got a lot on your plate. We had a really great experience using our school district’s early intervention for speech therapy. that yours is the same.
Mel says
I’m hoping it’s better than it was when I worked for them, but we mostly just need it as a stopgap until a space opens for private therapy.
Ashley Bananas says
Hi Mel, Not sure what state you’re in, but you may want to see if your school system or state offers ‘Head Start’ it can be for children with delays or other obstacles. It costs nothing to parents. It sounds like you’re doing a great job. I hope things mellow out in time.
Mel says
Yes, he would age out of Early Intervention soon, so that would become an option. It’s not full time though, so we wouldn’t save anything on childcare.
Celeste says
We have a cookbook cabinet in our kitchen that we love -favorites are on the lower shelf and others are up higher to the ceiling for when we need them.
Kari says
How much were the tomatoes???
Mavis Butterfield says
$10 a quart!
Lynda Rees Kling says
I’m in England often visiting my grandkids; why don’t you just use your bank card to take out money as you need it?
I also make sure I have money with my passport so I have money when I land…
Mavis Butterfield says
It’s always nice to land with some local currency in your pocket. 🙂
Ashley Bananas says
I’m excited to see picture of your space. It sounds like a fun remodel/revamp. I love quirky spaces as well. You dont have to be serious or stuffy with them. They can be quirky and it works!
sandy says
In case you are intertested in English wallpaper made in Benicia CA, all by hand…check out
https://bradbury.com/product-category/wallpaper/english-rose/