Babies and blog breaks

Oh hello there, blog thing. One of my latest makes was met with a “That’s cute, maybe you should blog about it.” Apparently 8+ years of marriage has made us better at communicating because I distinctly remember these types of remarks causing major blow ups in our early years… So huzzah for growth! And for gentle reminders from mostly monosyllabic males.

Speaking of growth… There’s a new wind blowing around here. Little Chinook was born mid June and he’s been making everything a bit more complicated and a LOT more delightful, as babies are wont to do.

The cuteness! The messy hair! The terrible photo quality! Part of the Great Blog Stall of Spring/Summer 2018 is the fact that my beloved Canon is refusing to turn on…. and I just haven’t had a chance to have it fixed.

Another, rather large part, has been my health – the  previously alluded to bronchitis took a toll and a really long time to recover fully from. I was finally finding my feet (and my voice, and a rhythm that worked) when the baby was born. Now that I’m almost 3 months post-partum things are starting to make a bit more sense again. That 4th trimester is no joke!

The last, and exciting, thing that’s been keeping me off blogging is just a question of seasons of creativity. I took advantage of a free Craftsy Unlimited (now Bluprint, I think?) trial during the kids’ spring break. Watching a few sewing class tutorials jump-started a season of intense learning and seeking to improve my garment sewing skills. This was further pushed along by a flurry of sewing blog reading, sewist instagram following, discovery of several indie pattern companies, and MORE sewing blog reading during the hazy first weeks post-partum where all I want to do is sit, read and nurse the baby. (Pour la petite histoire, as we say in French, I read Lawrence in Arabia after Sirrocco’s birth, and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and a few other foodie books after Mistral’s.) The upshot of all of this is that I’ve completed 5 Oliver+S garments, 2 Brindille&Twig as well as a few other things, in the last 2 months.

We’ve done lots of consuming and are back to creating, baby! (I feel like this is something that Tsh Oxenrider talks about a lot… I like the idea. For instance, I’m sitting here and writing this BEFORE getting on Insta this morning, since I want to get it done!) And part of creating is writing about it, because I like writing. I don’t really miss much from high school, and even University, but one thing I do miss is how I was surrounded by other writers. (C, R, since you claim to read this page, I’m looking at you! And many others…) Blogging is not quite the short stories my friends wrote, or the poetry that I wrote, but it’s putting down thoughts in words, and it feels right.

Love,
Belligerence&Chocolate

Written anything lately? I’d love to read it.