To say this post – this project – is a long time coming is… a bit of an understatement.
On November 3, 2019, I ordered the Purl Soho Advent Calendar Kit. A month later, I set a 2020 goal to complete it before December. “Two goals have dovetailed beautifully with this initiative:” I wrote, “wanting to spend less time on screens, and wanting to complete our new Advent calendar! After years of admiring this DIY calendar kit, I finally bit the bullet and purchased it. With many pieces, intricate details, and the need to learn new skills, I anticipate it will be a year-long project that will keep my hands busy in the evenings and on weekends, as well as produce a beautiful heirloom for our family!”
Keep my hands busy? Check. Beautiful heirloom for our family? Check. Year-long project? Hahahahahaha.
In June 2020, I reported in on the progress I’d made: almost none. All I had done at that point was open the box early in the year and quickly close it back up, wildly intimidated. From my brief peek at the instructions, I was under the impression that the whole project involved machine sewing, when in reality (and with thanks to kind encouragement from reader Carly, who completed the same kit and clued me in!), only the pockets required a machine.
With this realization, in August 2020, things took a major upward swing! While we were visiting John’s parents in Connecticut, I completed five whole ornaments under the tutelage of my wonderful mother-in-law. Once I got the hang of it, I was quickly sewing up a storm at nap times and in the evenings, but I honestly don’t know if I would ever have gotten started if she hadn’t been at my side. Thank you, Jean!!
I completed four more ornaments in September, and three more in October, then progress fell off a cliff when first-trimester nausea and tiredness hit in November and December (looking at you, Annie).
In 2021, I set a yearly goal of “prioritizing memory keeping,” an umbrella which included finishing the Advent calendar. And then, with a newborn and an Achilles injury and houseguests for six continuous weeks and kindergarten, I did not complete a single stitch until October, when I pulled the kit back out and embroidered the pocket numbers in cheery red floss. When we returned to Connecticut for Christmas, my angel mother-in-law gathered the pocket strips and sewed them together on her machine.
Friends, this was the first time this project felt like A Thing instead of a random collection of felt items. And it felt sooooooooo good!
Thus we arrive at the present year. In 2022, I learned from the pitfalls of my 2021 goals and got a little more strategic with my creative projects. Determined to finish the various projects I had underway and not have my efforts be scattered across all of them at once, I assigned each to a quarter. Finishing the Advent calendar got assigned to Q4, so I didn’t worry about picking it back up until October.
When fall rolled around, I opened my pretty pink box back up and got to work sewing sequins around the edge of the tree. Painstaking, but satisfying! In November, I sewed the tree to the backer and sewed on the hanging pole. And that (drumroll, please), meant that on the 1st of December in the year of our Lord 2022, I hung an actual Advent calendar on our actual wall that I had made with my own two actual hands. Praise and hallelujah and bless it to the heavens!
Was I finished with this project, though? No, dear reader, I was not finished: I still had six final ornaments to sew. I was bound and determined to complete them before Christmas, though, and so all month have been chipping away at them little by little. As of this writing, I have one more to sew, and I’m confident I can complete it before December 24th :)
Here we are: $98*, two and a half years, a little sweat equity from my mother-in-law, much encouragement from John and my children, and countless hours of detailed sewing later, we have a bonafide family heirloom. It is glorious. I love it. June and Shep have delighted in pinning the ornaments on one-by-one each day this month. It has secured a spot on the top-five list of things I’d save in a fire, assuming my family and pets have made it out safely.
The other day, as she watched me add beads to a tiny snowman, June asked which child I would lend the calendar to when they were older.** And wow, what a way to bring things full circle: the reason I was inspired to undertake this project in the first place is because my family had a very similar felt Christmas tree Advent calendar growing up. It was a mainstay in our front hallway throughout every December of my childhood; nothing was better than the days when it was my turn to pin the ornament on the tree. I hoped my children might feel the same way about this one, and early signs indicate that they just might. All those hours of sewing? Worth it, worth it, worth it.
I’m not sure if my two-and-half-year saga will encourage a single reader to pick up this kit, but I’d do it again in a heartbeat. Once I got over my initial fear, the directions really were quite easy to follow – it all just takes a bit of time. In fact, I got so comfortable that I ended up free-styling about half the ornaments. The directions call for you to make two of each type of ornament (two stars, two candy canes, etc.), but I liked the idea of each ornament being distinct. Plus, I wanted to translate some of the ornaments from my family’s calendar growing up, and include a few more Christian symbols in the mix, too. Once I had the basic know-how for making the ornaments, it was easy enough to make new patterns and sew my own designs. For those curious, our one-of-a-kind calendar includes a heart, letter, present, cross, ice skate, holly, angel, drum, crown, shepherd’s crook, and snowman along with Purl’s standard shapes.
Friends, thank you for coming along on this journey! If you have any questions about this kit, I’d be happy to answer! I hope this post might encourage you to take on your own creative project, knowing that no matter how long it takes, it will likely be worth it in the end. It most definitely has been for me. xo!
*I purchased the kit for $98 (minus a 10% off coupon for signing up for the email list) in 2019. Somehow, the price has swollen to $175 in 3 years?!? It is currently 25% off on the website (if the promotion isn’t active when you’re reading this, be sure to sign up to get the email discount). They also offer the option of buying the pattern and gathering your own supplies (which they kindly list for you). I think this could be a great option, but if you go this route do NOT skimp on the felt – I’d order it from Purl, because it is extremely high-quality, vibrantly-colored, and makes or breaks the project!
**Of course, I told her that I would be so happy to make her a calendar of her own when she was older. To which she responded that I should make sure to give myself plenty of time, because this one took me a few years (LOL). We agreed I’d start on each child’s when they left for college.
By now, most of you are probably aware that our tenth-anniversary trip was rerouted at the last minute. With a hurricane bearing down on Bermuda, we booked new flights and accommodations less than 24 hours (!) before departing for Mexico (!) in a grand pivot. Though it was a stressful few days leading up to the trip, it all worked out wonderfully: for our scrambling, we were rewarded with five days of relaxing, enjoying each other’s company, reminiscing, and casting vision for our next ten years of marriage in our own mini marriage summit. It was a true gift. I’d love to tell you about it and share a few photos today!
Before we get to the fun, though, let’s do a brief recap of the stress, ha. Those may look like two happy faces on an airplane to paradise, and they were, but in the week leading up this moment things weren’t quite so happy. About a week before we were due to depart, we began watching the weather (as one does). John also began tracking the weather on various websites and apps (as he does, amateur weatherman that he is). And what did we see? A hurricane headed straight for Bermuda. No worries, we thought: surely the track will change in the next seven days. So every day we checked, and every day… it remained resolutely headed for our island. Five days out… four days out… three days out… still headed straight for Bermuda.
We began to feel more and more nervous. At some point, one of us suggested something about how maybe we should consider alternative options…? To which the other probably said something like, no way! Really? No, we probably don’t need to. Nah…….. but the track continued to not change, and the hour of our departure inched ever closer.
About 48 hours out, we agreed that continuing with our trip to Bermuda was not a viable option for us. The hurricane was scheduled to directly hit the island the day before our departure back to the U.S., and we felt we couldn’t risk getting stuck on the island for days with no power or water and our kids back home. We considered postponing the trip, but agreed we’d rather go forward with a trip of some sort since we had both taken the time off work and my parents had cleared their schedules to watch our kids.
(Side note: We had purchased travel insurance, since we were traveling in hurricane season. However, Bermuda needed to be under a hurricane watch or warning for our insurance to activate. This was challenging, since the hurricane was supposed to hit toward the end of our trip, and watches/warnings are generally only issued 24-48 hours before landfall. We had to make the decision to rebook our flight and accommodations before knowing we would receive a reimbursement for our Bermuda itinerary, which was unnerving, financially.)
With that decision made, John dove into research mode and began obsessively searching for a new destination: somewhere warm, a short and easy plane flight away, and not in a hurricane’s path. Though he considered many destinations, including domestic options, he quickly narrowed in on Mexico, and then Banyan Tree Mayakoba. I wish I could tell you all the details and what about it stuck out to him – it was not on our radar at all before this week – but he handled all of the research and most of the decision-making. I glanced at a few photos before giving it my thumbs up and hopping on the phone to book our room.
And then 24 hours later, we were there! We drove the two hours to Charlotte, then hopped on a 2.5-hour flight to Cancun. (Everything everyone says about flying sans-children being its own vacation is entirely true. Though we were still winding down from the stress and adrenaline of changing our plans and getting out the door, just sitting in the airport reading a magazine and not managing little people was incredibly relaxing!)
But of course, that was only our first taste of what was to come. After making our way through the bewildering gauntlet of taxi drivers at the airport door, we found the driver we’d booked through the resort and made the 40-minute drive to Mayakoba.
The view from the lobby in the main building. Cello is off to the left and breakfast was served to the right.
Once we stepped on property, we never stepped off until we headed back to the airport. We might have done things differently if we had had more time to plan, but we didn’t feel like we were missing anything by staying in place. Mayakoba is a beautiful and unique property. It’s a large natural preserve of mangrove forest set next to the ocean, with canal waterways crisscrossing the property. The rooms are spread out around the acreage, with some at the main building in the heart of the jungle and others near the ocean (our room was on the beach – an oceanfront veranda pool suite). Our room came with bikes to move around the expansive property and our rate included breakfast, too.
It also included fresh salsa, guacamole, and lime-y margaritas as we signed our check-in paperwork, which is a very direct route to my heart.
The margaritas may have made the cost go down easier, too. Because of course, this trip was a splurge – though one we had planned for, saved for, and felt incredibly grateful to experience. The view from our room alone was an embarrassment of riches.
The funny thing about our grand pivot was that in the end, we actually got a more luxurious vacation than we had originally planned: Bermuda is just a generally expensive locale, and we were already planning to splurge there. When we rerouted our budget to Mexico, a much less expensive location, it went further. We soaked up every minute. There are lots of things our money has to go to, but when John and I think about the money we get to spend, there are few things more worthy of celebrating than ten years of marriage to a best friend.
At top is the pool at the Sands Beach Club, close to our room. Below is the pool at the main building.
After exploring our room, we headed out to the beach. We swam in the ocean. We took a dip in our pool. We lounged by the resort pool. We rode bikes around the property. We had more chips and guacamole and margaritas.
It turned out it was totally fine that we hadn’t made any reservations or plans: we were perfectly happy to spend our days with no agenda, moving from one body of water to another.
We anchored our days with big breakfasts at the buffet in the main building and with dinner at one of the restaurants on-property. That buffet, man. We actually had the option each day of a plated breakfast at the beach restaurant near us or the buffet breakfast, and once we had the buffet we never sampled the plated breakfast, ha!
Walking to dinner the first night at the Sands Beach Club
For dinner, the concierge helped us make reservations for the first three nights when we arrived, and then we returned to our favorite on the fourth and final night. We had our choice of times and locations throughout our stay: we were lucky that we were traveling in something of the off-season (September – December and January are their busiest months), so nothing ever felt crowded. In fact, we were often the only couple at the resort pool. Most of the other guests were attending a luxury travel conference, and were in seminars or off-property during the day.
We tried almost all of the on-property restaurants throughout our stay. We had dinner the first night at the Sands Beach Club, a beachfront spot a short walk from our room, which specialized in seafood and local Yucatan flavors.
The second night we ate at Cello, an open-air Italian restaurant in the main property. Cello overlooked the canal that flowed through the main building, and it was so beautiful to watch the boat moving in and out lit by lanterns and candles.
This photo of Saffron is the only one that’s not mine – my photos just didn’t capture the magic!
Our third and fourth nights we ate at Saffron – it was so magical that we immediately knew we needed to return for our final dinner. Built on floating docks over the water, it was an experience.
The Thai food was delicious, yes, but everything from how we were greeted, to the service, to the setting, was just so special. Probably the most magical dining experience we’ve ever had.
This is as good a time as any to mention the service: it was phenomenal – from top to bottom – throughout our stay. The entire staff was so warm and kind, professional, quick to help with anything we needed and eager to make our stay wonderful, especially when they heard it was our anniversary.
One other element I need to mention that added to the magic: our favorite way to move around the resort was actually via the canals, in a boat that ferried us between the beach club and the main property via mangrove-draped canals. For free! We took the boat to and from dinner every evening and it was so lovely.
I mentioned that we didn’t go off-property, and that’s true, but we did have a few adventures on-property.
We rode our bikes on miles of path, we ducked down into a small cenote in the jungle (not one open for swimming), we tried to get close to the little racooon-like animals (coatis!) all over the property, we visited the village center shared with neighboring resorts, and we rented hydro bikes one afternoon for a guided tour through the canals. It was just the two of us and our guide, who told us all about his work as a free diver mapping the hundreds of Riviera Maya cenotes. The water was crystal clear and John was thrilled to see a crocodile.
In addition to these adventures, eating, and relaxing, we had one other priority: our marriage summit. As soon as we decided we were going on this trip, I knew I wanted to use some of our time away to reflect on the past ten years together, and vision cast and dream for the next ten. John and I have realized that our happiness in marriage is fueled in part by gratitude for what we have as well as our shared passion for looking forward with excitement and intention. I knew this was a chance to indulge in both that we could not pass up.
Our summit was nothing fancy, but it was a delight: the quality of the experience was directly related to the conversation and our desire to engage in it, not anything complicated we had planned. To prepare, I spent some time brainstorming a few questions before we left. I wrote each question at the top of a page in a thin notebook; we carried it with us around the resort.
We tackled 2-3 questions a day, while lounging by the pool or the beach or at a meal. Sometimes I’d sit and write while we talked, and sometimes I’d read the question and then we’d talk about it while we waded in the ocean or swam in the pool (and then I’d capture some of what we talked about on the page once we were dry). Some questions were fairly simple to answer, while others generated more than an hour of discussion.
An important note: these questions were designed to help us celebrate God’s goodness in our last ten years of marriage. We were not using this time to problem-solve or give constructive criticism or workshop an issue. Those things are important, and all have their place in our life together, but this was not it, ha. This was meant to be a joy.
I loosely grouped the questions into past, present, and future. Here are some of the questions we used:
THE PAST — What are some of our favorite adventures, trips, meals, and moments from the last 10 years? — Where have we seen God be gracious to us? — What are our keys to a happy marriage?
THE PRESENT — What are our family core values? Our mission statement?
THE FUTURE — What milestones will we mark in the next 10 years? — What adventures do we want to have in the next 10 years? — How do we want to be generous in the next 10 years? — What do we want to be part of our weekly, monthly, or annual rhythms?
The questions that ended up being our favorites to discuss were the keys to our happy marriage and the ways we want to be generous in our life together. I know everyone’s personalities and relationships are different, but I highly recommend trying something like this if you can create time away on a milestone anniversary. The questions themselves and the conversation they generated were wonderful, but just layering them into our days added such a unique and memorable element to our trip. I am so grateful.
And there you have it! A marvelous way to mark a truly marvelous decade of marriage. The decade itself would have been enough, but we are so grateful to have been able to mark it in this way. If you have any questions about our trip or summit or anything else, I’d be happy to help! Thank you, as always, for coming along for the ride!
This is the fourth and final post in my working part-time as a mom series! If you need to catch up, start here:
Part One: Background on my work history and some reasons (or not) for shortening my work week Part Two: Why we chose me over my husband, why we chose going part-time over other solutions, and the financial impact Part Three: My role, negotiation, and how I structure my time at work
In the first post, I shared a bit about my intentions for how I would spend my extra time outside of work. I wrote that I did not want to add more tasks to my plate, but that this change was largely about shifting the timing of tasks (from evenings/weekends to the workweek) versus adding new tasks or responsibilities. I also planned to prioritize digital tasks, because they are the most opaque and thus least likely to teach my children something, and tasks that are complicated with the ages of our children.
Almost five months in, I would say I’ve hewed pretty well to these hopes. In looking back over what I’ve accomplished in this season of Fridays (which is easy, because you know I love me some good record keeping), a few things have surprised me:
— I knew that grocery shopping would be a constant every week, but I thought cleaning out my email inbox would be, too. (Not getting to email zero, but just responding to anything that came in in the last few days that needed a response.) That has flat-out not happened at all. I also have yet to work on a blog post on a Friday (!), something I definitely thought would happen.
— I have gone to Trader Joe’s WAY more than I expected, ha. Though I love TJ’s, it’s just far-enough out of the way as to be inconvenient. I would go 2-3 times a year, usually when another errand took me past its cheerful doors. My Friday flexibility, however, combined with John’s discovery of this Instagram account, has me going there far more often. This has been fun on the food front but likely not as fun for our budget or my use of time.
— The category that seems to have expanded the most is social connection – the time I’ve spent with and for friends has exceeded my expectations, even though I planned for it to increase. This has been a joy, but has also required me to adjust my expectations for how my time will be spent and what else I’ll be able to get done.
— I’ve also generally had to adjust my expectations for how much I can get done in six hours. I know – I knew – that six hours is not that long, but I am constantly overestimating my capacity for a given Friday. It feels like I get a lot less done than I do on a six-hour workday, and I think that’s because my work days are extremely efficient – I’m basically just sitting in one place and pounding things out (and I’m also very good after all these years at planning my time blocks and estimating what I’ll be able to accomplish). On Fridays, I’m gathering supplies, driving places, moving around our house. That in-between time adds up!
Shall we take a look at a few representative Fridays? Let’s do it.
An August Friday — An hour of physical therapy — Grocery shopped + unloaded groceries — Stopped by school to drop meds and forms — Visited the Ferguson showroom to look at kitchen lighting — Updated our kitchen plan doc and sent it to Callie — Emailed a copy of my Sunday service to an Islander who had asked for it — Finally purchased the Atlantic subscription I promised my Dad’s for his Father’s Day gift (in my defense, this took longer because I had to call customer service – but a great example of a simple task that I just never seemed to get around to!) — Registered for mother-daughter camp weekend
A September Friday — Played tennis with John (this was a treat!) — Dropped a package at UPS — Unloaded and loaded dishwasher — Met with our cabinet painter to finalize details and sent a follow-up email to our other kitchen contractor — Grocery shopped and unloaded groceries — Changed the sheets on our bed and the kids’ beds — Scheduled various appointments — Picked kids up from an early release day and went to the pool with friends
Another September Friday — Picked up meals at Donovan’s Dish — Delivered a meal to friends with a new baby — Delivered a meal to friends who had just moved into a new house — Eye appointment — Picked up supplies from a coworker — Picked up clothing at the tailors — Dropped a package at UPS — Picked up specialty cat food — Dropped our expired car seat in the Target collection bin — Messaged our community group to plan the food for our next dinner
An October Friday — Went to the book fair at June’s school — Doctor appointment — Brunch with Lisa and Kristin — Picked up a necklace repair — Picked up diapers and a prescription at Target — Grocery shopped and unloaded groceries — Paid credit cards — Photographed and offered several things for sale on our Buy Nothing group — Packed up coats for a coat drive
A November Friday — Dropped car for inspection — Took Annie to a play place with a friend then brought her to school — Trader Joe’s — Made a donation drop off — Grocery shopped and unloaded groceries — Called to ask a question about our dental insurance — Updated my Christmas gift spreadsheet and made some more decisions — Texted our babysitter about upcoming dates — Found a new date for a rescheduled phone call with a friend — Attended Shep’s parent-teacher conference — Met up with a friend from church to walk and chat about an upcoming program
A December Friday — Walked with a neighborhood friend who asked to pick my brain about starting a blog — Caught up on text messages — Met with a friend who’s asked me to edit her new product — Wrote a thank you note — Dropped packages at UPS and USPS — Returned books to the library and picked up holds — Picked up an item from a friend’s house — Trader Joe’s — Grocery shopped and unloaded groceries — Made our end-of-year celebration dinner reservation — Posted my monthly Instagram Stories update — Ordered Yoto cards
Whether you look at these lists and think, I wish my Fridays looked more like that, or you look at them and think, heck no, I’ll keep earning money, thank you, I hope what you take away is a little more appreciation for all that you do to live a thoughtful life and care for others. I have no doubt your own list would be long, too, and that at least some of it is squeezed into less-than-ideal pockets of time.
Friends, thank you for being thoughtful and caring here in this series, and generous and interested, too. It means so much to me. Whatever stage of your career you find yourself in, and whatever plans you have for the future, I hope you took something away from this conversation! Grateful for you. xo
Over 13+ years of working in the creative industry, I have amassed some extraordinarily talented friends – many of whom I’ve shared right here with you all over the years. It is a joy to watch them do what they do and get to cheer them on along the way! And today, I have the extra delight of sharing a giveaway from one of my favorite duos, the gals behind Persnickety Gifts.
They’re smart, they’re funny, and they speak straight to the heart of the “pretty good mom” with their done-for-you stockings and other holiday baskets. If you love the idea of shopping small, curating thoughtful gifts, and creating everyday magic for your littles, but don’t have the patience, know-how, bandwidth, and/or desire to make it happen, this is for you!
Their done-for-you stockings couldn’t be easier: you choose your child’s age and gender on their website, and they send you a neatly-packaged bundle of goodies ready to tuck into their stocking on Christmas Eve. No paying shipping from 15 retailers or breaking down 15 boxes – just handpicked delights from small and lovable businesses. (And no weird surprises, either – you can see everything that will be included right in the listing!)
So fun, yes? And lucky for us, Persnickety was kind enough to let me give away one done-for-you stocking! Just leave a comment here with the gift you’re most excited to give this holiday, and which stocking bundle you’d choose (age + gender – and of course, you don’t have to follow their recommendations! I got Shep the 5-7 bundle even though he’s 4.). Consider following Persnickety on Instagram or signing up for their newsletter for a little holiday magic throughout the year, if you’d like.
I’ll choose a winner on Friday! If you’re too excited to wait, go ahead and use code EMILY for free shipping on any order :)
Before we go, let’s talk about the grown-ups for a moment. Do grown-ups get stockings in your house, too? If so, here are a few of my favorite ideas, some of which will be appearing in my own house this Christmas morning…
