Jane of All Trades: I'm Baaaa-aack! (with lattice frames for the porch)

So hey all you out there in blogland! It's been awhile <cough>. Yeah, like about two years of while. What can I say? Life got busy! The biggest project of my life came along and my husband and I welcomed our daughter into the world in April of 2013. Since then I've become a stay-at-home mom and a college adjunct professor instead of a full-time high school teacher. For the most part I LOVE my new life. Hanging out with my daughter every day is a luxury that I feel so lucky to take advantage of. She's the light of our lives, and watching her grow up is amazing. Sometimes I do miss the excitement of planning lessons with my teaching team and taking part in the high school culture, but I definitely don't miss the stress and emotional drain of teaching high school. I never realized how intense of a life it was until I stepped away.

So how about all of those trades that my blog title refers to? They're still around. I've learned to take advantage of naptime to feed the "maker" part of my personality (yes, I only recently realized it had a name. See this Wikipedia page for more info and find out if you have it, too!) The baby monitor has been my savior because I can toodle around in the garage and barn and still listen for a waking baby.

My most recent project to get completed was putting lattice frames under the porch to clean up the view and keep my dog from sleeping in the mud under there (sorry, Luca!). It took me ages to get done, mostly because other things kept taking up my time instead, but thankfully I finished before this fall so we can stain the whole shebang once it's less humid outside. The porch connecting our house and garage is such a nice place to sit and enjoy a beautiful evening, I can't believe the previous home-owners didn't take better care of it. Hopefully giving it a good wash and stain this fall will make it perk right up.