Aaaannnd... it's over

As a high school teacher, I started to feel the end of summer creeping up on me in that last week of July. Inservice will start on Tuesday for me: a week of meetings where teachers prepare themselves physially, spiritually, and emotionally for the new year. I've never been very far from the school during the summer months, but something about going back full time makes the end of the season so final and tangible that I'm not sure I'm ready to deal with it. I am incredibly excited to meet my new students and to see what new relationships form this year. It's my second year teaching, so I'm also super pumped to walk into that building on the first day with at least an inkling of knowing what I'm doing.


So now that it's August, it is really final. Did I do it? Did I live up to my summer to-do list and enjoy every minute of my 2.5 month paid vacation? I think so. I may have missed a few items along the way, but on the whole, it was a very enjoyable time and I'm happy everything worked out the way it did.

I spent a lot of time in this space this summer: my teeny tiny "studio." At the time, it was really just half of our bedroom. It has since been taken down and stuff into various boxes. We're moving apartments in just a week! ...And guess what the guest room is going to be? (a studio/office/guestroom)

My little library of sewing books got taken over with library books for a time.

Here is my dress form, whom I have named Lucy, wearing one of my favorite sale purchases from Target. Sometimes if I have nothing I'm currently making, I will put a random dress on Lucy so she doesn't feel too naked.

And of course, further down the bookcase, a mess of fabric and slightly organized patterns. See that cute pink and yellow floral off to the side? It was a beautiful flannel I bought at Hancock's that I envisioned making into a beautiful fall Wiksten top. However, I cut my pieces bigger than I should have, expecting to do french seams, which I couldn't make work.

It's all in the way you look at these sewing "failures." If I was trying to make a slightly loose-fitting tova dress to wear with leggings and boots this fall, I didn't meet my goal. But if I was trying to make a billowy, never-wear-in-public house dress/muu-muu, I was incredibly successful.

My sewing machine is a brother. As in, when it acts a little fidgety, I exclaim, "oh brother!" My serger, however, needs a name. 

Here are the library books that didn't make it into the bookcase. I didn't read half of them, but this stack made me feel pretty scholarly, so of course I took a grainy iphone photo.

If these pictures indicate anything, my main activities this summer were sewing and reading. Specifically, Agatha Christie, George R.R. Martin, and Douglas Adams for fun, and lots of stuff on Revelation and reading the Bible as Lit for work. 

I'm on the last book of Game of Thrones, and I'm not going to lie, I'm a little scared to finish it. When I do, it will be years until I read the next one. And he's got two or three more to write, I believe. I have never read a series that is so current that it's not completed yet! I'm not sure how I'm going to cope.

I hope your summer has also included lots of library trips and days inside crafting! Or maybe I hope that you had more days outside than I did. I am, admittedly, still really pale.