greetingarts:

So, I've been missing a lot of things lately. Missing my family at Thanksgiving because we couldn't travel, missing the kids' school activities, and missing from this blog space. Why? Because I got a job exactly one month ago. After 9+ years of not working outside the home, I finally accepted the fact that I need to financially contribute to the household, and after a few false starts, I got a wonderful job that I'm loving. It's seasonal, so I won't be working when the kids are out of school. Most days, I am still able to drop off the kids and pick them up at school, and man, that first paycheck sure felt wonderful. I get to be around books all the time, and I don't have to deal with customer service. Love!

Except for all the "missing," of course. I feel guilty about not helping out in the classrooms, I feel stressed when Rebecca's grades seem to be slipping, and I feel sad when Jessie wakes up at 4:52 a.m. to come into my bedroom because she knows I have to be at work before she starts school the next morning and is afraid I will leave the house without saying goodbye. I feel a pang every single day when I leave the kids, but I suppose we'll all get used to it. Sooner or later. I knew it was going to be hard, and a big adjustment, I just didn't think it would be such a physical feeling in the pit of my stomach every day.

Yesterday, Jessica said she'd pack me snacks for my lunch. I got a Hello Kitty container filled with goodies. Candies from her special Halloween stash, a Rice Krispie treat, crackers, and a love note. Just like the ones I write for her. Warmed and filled my heart for sure.

Now that Rebecca's in 4th grade, she gets to play an instrument - the recorder. Actually, the one she has used to be my sister's and mine, I think. Rebecca loves that it was handed down and requested a holder for it, so I finally got around to making one this afternoon.

Because it's so darn easy to work with and provides a lot of padding (and because my stash is over a foot high), I chose to work with wool blend felt. I don't think this is going to get washed very often, and hopefully it will stand up to a bit of abuse.

I cut my initial felt much wider than I knew it needed to be, using the recorder itself to measure for length. I added some extra room at the top, about an inch, doubled the whole thing, and then left enough for a flap. I cut out one big long piece, then used the machine to sew up one side of the pocket (stopping where the flap begins). Again using the recorder to make sure it would fit, I measured over three inches and sewed up the other side. I used Fiskars' scallop fabric shears to trim all the edges as a finishing touch. I bought my shears years ago on clearance at Michael's, and now it looks like they don't make them any more... I'd better treat them even more preciously than I already do!

Two buttons and a length of twisted yarn makes an easy closure, and then I printed out a nice inital "R" I found with Google image search, cut it out of felt, and hand-stitched it towards the bottom. In hindsight, it would have been *much* easier to sew the inital and buttons on before stitching up the sides, but - whatever. That would have required me to think about it and I just kind of did this one by the seat of my pants. It worked anyway.