This week I'm on vacation on the lovely shore of Emerald Isle. But because I love my work, the Boutique is still open with new yarns everyday and I'm still talking to customers via email. So I'm away but still checking in. Each day I'll be posting a few pictures from the vacation, especially the yarny inspiration.
Today was a beach all-day sort of day. Lounging, soaking, and strolling.
This week I'm on vacation on the lovely shore of Emerald Isle. But because I love my work, the Boutique is still open with new yarns everyday and I'm still talking to customers via email. So I'm away but still checking in. Each day I'll be posting a few pictures from the vacation, especially the yarny inspiration.
Today (Saturday) we got up early and drove the 8 hours to the coast of North Carolina. We stopped at a…colorful fruit stand, unpacked in our gorgeous beach house and hit the beach
View from the living room
Beach
house at sunset
In our family, jam is more than just a sweet topping for your toast. It's a little jar of spring sunshine – preserved for the whole year. It's memory and taste and love.
Jay's Grandma Mary made jars and jars of jam every year – strawberry, raspberry, boysenberry (after her trips to Oregon). You always knew to take a few jars from the freezer when you ran out.
Knowing how my husband loved Grandma's jam, I asked her to teach me and she scoffed – “It's just the Sure-Jell recipe that comes in the box, read it yourself!”
Grandma was straight like that and that's why we loved her.
When she passed away last October, I knew that this would be the year that I got serious about jam. I bought a few boxes of Sure-Jell and waited for the first strawberries.
They appeared last weekend and I got to work.
Washing
Topping
Mashing
Adding the sugar (4 cups)
And pouring.
I'm particularly smitten with the jewel-y pink in the quilted jars – so beautiful!
The jam turned out perfectly, just like Grandma's!
PS. Really, if you want to make it, get a box of Sure-Jell and read it yourself (it's the freezer recipe)!
I've tried to write this post for weeks.
I can't figure out how to say it in a way that conveys the big-ness for me and for Blonde Chicken Boutique. This is a huge, scary, exciting step, but it's just so hard to express.
So, how about I just say it:
June 30th is my last day working in an office, for an employer.
July 1st, I wake up to…Blonde Chicken Boutique!
I'll be a full-time fiber artist, yarnie, fiberista, spinster – whatever we're calling it that week – it'll be my full-time job!
Even though I handed in my resignation a month ago, it still feels crazy and new and exciting!
This will allow me to do SO many new things with BCB, things you've asked me to do and things I've been waiting to do. More craft shows, more in-person lessons, more yarn!
As I transition into this new role, I'll be sharing more and more about the business-side of BCB: what systems I use, how I decided to go full-time, all sorts of stuff! I know only some of you might be interested in that, so instead of bore the blog readers, I'll be writing about it in a little newsletter-y thing. Sign up here if you want to learn more biz-stuff.
Thanks for helping me make all of this possible!
I love the changing season and I love to celebrate each of them with their own fresh, local food, flora and yarn-y inspirations. Each season I make a little list of the pleasures I want to soak in. I call them manifestos, but they're really just love letters to the season.
Reading Havi's list of things-to-do-before-she-dies, I realized that these seasonal lists are my own little things-to-do-before-the-moment-passes. And goodness! Spring is nearly gone without a proper love letter.
I hope to keep listing these, every Thursday, as a reminder to soak it in over the weekend (and as a mid-week cheer-up).
This week, Spring is feeling like a great time for:
I did a few of these things last weekend, I'll be sharing them with you soon!
What do you like to do to celebrate Spring?