Oh Gosh. I'm the Worst.

This always happens.

Every Summer, I end up taking a looooong sabbatical from blogging, totally unintentionally. At the end of May, I really should just say, "Ok, see you guys in August!" But I never think about it until it's been two months since my last post. The lack of a schedule in Summertime makes blogging a real challenge, and because I generally have less to think about in the Summer, I have less inspiration. Seriously, though. I'm back. For real.

On the long drive home from Colorado, I listened to "The Five Aspects of Woman" -- a series of lessons by Barbara Mouser on the ways that the Scriptures describe women -- on cassette tape, if you can believe those dinosaurs still exist, and was really struck by the "Mistress of the Domain" aspect (taken from Genesis 1, if you're curious). That particular teaching encouraged me to get off my butt and start exercising dominion over my condo.

So, along those lines, here are my projects for this school year:

- improve my sewing skills and start using my sewing machine more regularly, especially to bless my friends with young kids.
- make a rag rug (I love the look of knotted shag rugs, but they seem to involve an awful lot of steps!)
- remember how to knit (knitting is awesome. It's such a portable craft!)
- make liquid soap AND bar soap
- keep up with my homemade laundry detergent, which works great!
- continue to phase out chemical body-care and cleaning products and replace them with homemade versions
- use extra money to replace nonstick and aluminum pans with safe, nonreactive cookware (partly done now since I just rescued three cast-iron skillets from my parents' garage) and plastic storage products with glass

What about you, friends? What's on your project list?