I'm Turning Into A Hermit - for a little while

This school term, for me, has been a wonderful one. It's the first time since I gave up homeshooling that I've been truly able to enjoy full days at home, without the responsibility of my children's education.
It's the first time in 10 years that I've not had more than one child at home with me during the day - not dashing off here to art classes, or there to French or music or sports.
I pretty much did away with all that, except for afterschool music lessons and sports - one sport per child.
Last term I had the school community newsletter to compile, but we are not doing another one until just before Christmas, so this term has been left free.

I gave up coffee group with the school mums and Playcentre for Alice (for various reasons) and decided to just relax and enjoy 10 weeks of focusing on my family, my home and pursuing arts that I have always wanted to try.

I've signed up for a two day machine-quilting class, a one day cheese making class - learning how to make camembert, cream cheese and feta - three of my favourites.

A couple of weekend's ago, Rob was digging around in the attic and found a bag full of patchwork squres. They were the squares that my family and friends made for me just before I got married. They embroidered their names on the squares and presented them to me at my bridal shower. But I've never had the skill or the time since then to put it all together. I needed to make two more squares to even it up, and somehow I just never did.

But when I saw the precious pieces of fabric in that bag, that dear friends and family had worked on, I knew that I had to get it finished before I let another year go by. There's a square in there that my Nana made for me, and she died 6 years ago, so it's priceless now.

So I've had a lot of fun designing the two squres and now I'm embroidering them.

And I've been working on getting the house in order (as I blogged last time about my bedroom), adding things to make the house more homely, like these pictures frames of our summer holiday at our family beach house.

And I've been knitting up a beanie for a birthday present for our neighbour who loves to wear them. The first one didn't turn out very well, so I pulled it out and have started a new one. It's a belated birthday present now, but he knows it's coming and his partner and I are teasing him about getting a homemade, handcrafted present. I think it scares him! LOL!  'Cause he's going to have to wear it!

And I've been thinking about new designs to put in my shop for the summer, and getting ready to sew them up and trial them to see how they go.

There are so many things that I could be doing other than this right now. Just last week the school asked for volunteers for some fundraising thing they're doing, and I did feel the slightest twinge of guilt in not jumping up to offer my help. But it didn't last long - I'm so enjoying just being a keeper at home at the moment. It's recharging my batteries, making me feel that life is slowing down a little. I know that it's going to speed  up again very soon, but for now I'm really enjoying it - living in the moment and taking this time to enjoy the little things of life.