Jasmine in my Mind

How is it that Summertime always breezes by so fast?! June and July were our busy "go places" months... and due to scheduling stuff we knew that we'd be home for sure for most of August. So, that was the time I set aside to work on projects around the house (With the exception of painting the study that I squeezed in June... YAY! It's so pretty!) When our school curriculum arrived a week back, it sort of launched me into hyper-drive with regards to those projects. So, this week, and the next few weeks, I'll be buried in the garage, covered in stain and paint, and generally allowing the rest of my house to get slightly cluttery, and possibly irritatingly grimy. I got this chair for $10 of craigslist. I LOVED it, and I could see it perfectly done when I spotted it online. That was close to two years ago (shame). It took me a while to work up the nerve, not to mention the time to dig into it--it's my first upholstery job ever. I'm loving it, even though there's a few steps that are still making me really nervous.

If I'm being completely honest, the reason why I'm digging into the chair is because I really NEED a bookcase. Because I currently have no room to store the gobs and gobs of books we've got around here. But, I had the chair project first, so I can't do a bookcase with a clear conscience unless I do the chair first. I went to the store on Monday to buy the wood for the bookcase that I needed, and they were out. (they had plenty three or four times over on Friday when I went around to price it out, and they sold it out over the weekend!) So, I'm trying to look at this as a blessing, and I'm getting the shelves all done so I can slide them right in once the frame is done. Otherwise, I believe I'd be very irritated if I had the frame done, and the shelves weren't finished. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

This shelf wood, by the way, is from my Grandpa. It is GORGEOUS. I originally was going to try for a really cool design with iron pipe, but that ended up being WAY too expensive. So, instead I'm going to do wood, and give it a really great paint job.

Finished it's turning out something like this. Makes me happy. I'm not painting the shelves, just staining them.
Also trying to squeeze some canning projects in. I have everything I want to get done canning wise all mapped out. This week it was pickled cinnamon watermelon rind. I've never had it before, but as soon as I read the recipe, I realized I would have no mental rest until I'd tried it. I'm trying to move away from doing my standard great amounts of Jam/Peaches/Pears/Pickled Beans/Tomato Sauce/applesauce line-up, and instead focus on smaller batches of a few of those, plus a few different new things to try to add some interest and variety to our menu this year.
A MAJOR happening this week was the arrival of this long-planned-for-and-awaited lovely, gorgeous, spectacular item, who I adore with all the adoreness within me. Now Rovey is under construction to make this easier to use, and to make camping more orderly and set us up for future trips really well. I'm SO excited! **may or may not be dancing exuberantly!!** I threatened to compose a sonnet to this item--if I wasn't so busy it'd be done already. Sonnet Composition is not currently the best use of my time, sadly. I love composing Sonnets. Regardless, I am IN LOVE.
And, since I generally feel compelled to twist logic to suit my needs, it is only logical that while I'm sanding, staining, painting and doing whatever with furniture, I pull my butcher block base out of the kitchen and paint it too. Because, logically speaking, while one is waiting for paint to dry, one must have other things to paint, yes? That's what I thought. So, this is also getting painted.
The good news? There are SO many things to pray about. So, I'm using the relative monotony of sanding and painting to pray. For people I love who I know need prayer. And it occurs to me as I'm doing this that so many of the things mothers do (Folding laundry, scrubbing floors, etc.) are somewhat mindless tasks that don't require a lot of mind-power to accomplish. Perhaps this is Divinely Designed as we also have our fingers on the pulses on our families and friends, and we're good at multi-tasking. May we use not just our hands wisely, but also value the time our minds have to spend on eternal thoughts and prayers. Amen.

Side note: It is generally recommended that you don't mix up yelling at the kids and praying silently. Because yelling your prayers will make the neighbors think you're crazy.