Conjunctions
I’ve been spring cleaning and nesting at the same time, and have been getting a lot done, slowly: cleaning out the flower garden, raking the yard, redoing some of the vegetable garden fencing, washing windows (it is so nice to have windows that are easy to wash), cleaning light fixtures, polishing furniture, cleaning underneath everything, and making a batch of homemade liquid laundry detergent (with the fels naphtha/Zote/Ivory soap-based recipe that can be found all over the internet).
I was cleaning the light fixture and ceiling fan blades in the kitchen right after I made the laundry detergent, and found that the detergent worked very well for cleaning the dust and grease off those (which I took down before scrubbing). For windows, I usually put a little dishwashing soap in warm water–I started this doing because most of our inside window grime is made of food. It did finally occur to me that dishwashing liquid is actually designed to leave glass shiny and unstreaked, so it should be expected to work well on windows.
Also, I persuaded MFH to photograph and part with some of his T-shirts from high school and college, and I used some of them to make myself long maternity shirts. With the warmer weather, I had zero shirts that fit. I cut and pieced them to make two shirts, and then just lengthened another. It turned out to be time well spent, because I found an XL maternity shirt at a rummage sale this weekend, and even that is several inches too short (and is just as shapeless as the maternity shirts that I threw together without a pattern). I always get enormous at the end of pregnancy, and I might still have as much as five weeks to go.
The children have been living outside a lot more. StrongBaby is very interested in all the wheeled toys–from the trucks to the scooters to his big sister’s roller skates. He persisted long enough with the roller skates that he started to get the hang of it; he’s so short that the falls didn’t bother him much. OLC has become very interested in nature, and is observing a lot outdoors this year. TLG has started to learn to cook.