Happy Sunday friends! I hope you all had a nice weekend.  Yesterday was Husband’s birthday.  I made him a special birthday dinner of baked chicken (coated in spicy breadcrumbs, yummm), Parmesan and spinach orzo, and a cake! Side note, I have not baked a cake in forever, so it came out dry and the frosting was a little runny.  Honestly, it was kind of a disaster.  But I tried ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I also stitched this for husband’s birthday.

This is probably the quickest embroidery project I’ve completed. I started it Friday night and finished it just in time for Husband’s Birthday.  I worked on it as we participated in a live virtual trivia night with our close friends (most are in Texas, but two are in Argentina right now).  We did pretty well!  It was so much fun being able to catch up with our friends and enjoy some trivia.  The perfect tonic for homesickness.

Husband admitted he’d been eyeing this project as I worked on it.  He’s really into octopuses*, squid, and other nautical creatures, which is why I picked this project for him!  I purchased it from PopLush Embroidery as part of her Stay Home and Sew series.  The stitch guide recommended split stitch, but honestly, I suck at split stitch. So I decided to go with stem stitch instead for the body and a larger chain stitch for the tentacles.  I’m pretty happy with it, and best of all, Husband is too!

I also finished my Earl Grey tea wrap! I need to block it today and work on the tassels. I hope to have pictures by next weekend!

Speaking of weekends, I’ve been noticing a trend as quarantine becomes more routine.  It usually starts off great – I’m happy it’s the weekend, and I keep busy with an Italian or drum lesson. But as I continue into the weekend and I don’t have anywhere to go, my mind starts wandering. And because Husband and I and all of our loved ones are thankfully healthy, safe, and secure, I either start worrying about work (I have that one ~~special project~~ where my brain helpfully reminds me of all the mistakes I’ve made on it, and/or Choose Your Own Adventure style of ways it can fail), or I start thinking about the things I want to do but can’t because of quarantine. It leaves me with a nervous energy and an increasing level of self-loathing.   So I’ve decided that when I hit this phase of the weekend, it’s time to direct my energy to something physical. I’ve decided to pick one small house project each weekend – something manageable instead of daunting, but something that can make me feel accomplished and keep my mind off of WAYS I HAVE FAILED PART THIRTY-SIX or PLACES I HAVEN’T VISITED YET AND NOW CAN’T FOR AN INTERMINABLE AMOUNT OF TIME.

Exhibit A: I become an Onion headline.

When we moved in, I picked a section of the cabinets to store the tupperware, but it quickly became unsustainable and was on my house to-do list for months….but I never found the motivation to tackle it on our weekends.  Last weekend I finally decided to move the tupperware to the Lazy Susan and reorganized my cabinets. Success = HAPPY JENNY. THINGS ARE ORGANIZED.

Then yesterday, I started thinking about places I want to travel but CAN’T and then my brain was like, “HEY, REMEMBER YOUR CHAOS PROJECT? LET’S THINK ABOUT THAT”, so I decided to tackle our coat closet.

We’d purchased a shoe rack but never put the shoe rack together.  Finally, I took the box out yesterday and put the shoe rack together. It took all of 30 minutes, my friends.  And the box had been sitting there since February.  ONLY GOD CAN JUDGE ME.

Anyway, look!  Exhibit B: SHOE RACK ::guitar solo::

Yayyyy! Organized closet! HAPPY JENNY.

I’m not sure what next weekend’s project will be.  I think it depends how well my chaos project goes this week.  The more sadness, anguish, and despair = the larger the project.

Speaking of, I should probably get up off this couch. But before I go, here’s another Apollo side-eye picture. This time, he was denied the opportunity of stealing our pop tarts.

I hope you all have a great Sunday!

*This seems inherently wrong to me, but Google informs me it’s more correct than octopi. Also, spell check is highlighting “octopi” as being spelled incorrectly, so there’s that. I guess we learn something new everyday.