Guys, I may have lost my sew-jo last year for various reasons, but it is back big time now. I have so much to say, but I’m gonna ease myself back into blogging with a few snapshots of what I’ve been doing.
Working on this and that:
I instagrammed a couple of videos while I was working on the above clamshells, so go look for those if you’re wondering how these go together. 
Sent Diabolical Jane to Stitched in Color to be longarmed. Thrilled with the results!
These are Paleo!
What? your caveman ancestors didn’t have chocolate cupcakes? well someone’s did. The cookbook said so. Anyway, they’re delicious and if you are eating healthy but getting desperate for a treat, check out My Paleo Patisserie. Everything I’ve made from it has been good.
I washed dried and folded like a million yards of fabric. I had decided to freshen up my stash and there was no going back. Then I donated half of it to my local crafty thrift shop because I have too much. OK maybe a quarter donated. But there’s more to wash.
Parenting! Oh the parenting. Everyone’s back to homeschooling now and I am so glad. The school schedules were just not good for me.
Looking for a farm. Yes, I want to farm. really bad. But we have to come to terms with what we can afford and figure out where that’s going to be and it’s a really huge decision, so for now the talk is still all hypothetical.
Chicken farming: I may not have land yet, but you don’t need much space for chickens. We have been eating exclusively our own chicken for a couple of years, and added egg birds last fall. We love our chickens but they are definitely not pets; the kids are understanding where our food comes from and the animals that will become our food live a good life, and that means a lot to me.
So there’s a little snapshot of where I’ve been! Back soon!
I have been Not Sewing, Like for months now. I have been reading, lots and lots, and thinking. Reading new cookbooks, health books, history books, farming books. Sociology and education. My Amazon order history is astounding and there’s still 215 items “saved for later.” I started to wonder if I was having a mid-life crisis, but those seem to be more superficial; revolving around stuff like missing your youth and buying expensive cars. Which is nowhere on my radar. Plus, my grandma just turned 98 and is in good health so I don’t really feel like I’m at mid-life yet. a 2/5 life crisis? Then one day the term came to me; it’s an existential crisis. As in, I was really not satisfied with how a lot of things were going and I had to learn and figure out how to change all this. How I eat and how I feed my family. The sad realization that every food company, even those making “healthy” products, is looking to make a profit, not to make people healthy. I’ve been not satisfied with how we manage our money and how we’re educating our kids. Family relationships and how I spend my days, all reevaluated. And then there’s the fact that we moved to rural Appalachian Pennsylvania and though we love so many things about living here, there are a few things about the community that make us feel like we’re swimming in the wrong pond. But we keep moving and moving and never really find the right pond. It’s time to “Be the Change,” I think. Should be no problem, right?
Well we bought a house! It is not a farm, so I’m tucking away that dream, for the moment. But it’s wonderful. It’s old. I feel so at home.
The view. I don’t have my own land but open land is all around me. I’ve realized over the years that I have a constant, almost subconscious feeling of unease when I look out my window and can’t see out into the distance. Conversely, now that I can look out across the valley to where field meets mountain and mountain meets the sky, I feel peaceful.
The studio. It needs some plaster work first, but the old summer kitchen, upstairs and down, will be for me and my business. More peace. And for now, there is a downstairs office where I can set up all my things. 
And the living spaces… I am so happy. It is cozy and comfortable and there’s enough room for all of us to spread out. It’s hard for 6 introverts to live together in a modern house with an open floor plan. We need a closed floor plan. Separate spaces where we can retreat and be ourselves, not feel assaulted by whatever noise the others are making, but still with gathering places where we can come together. It’s perfect.
Jessie Aller 