Tuesday Project Roundup: Little Top, Bigger Muscles

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I had about 1.5 yards left from some block print fabric I got for a dress a few years ago and wanted something easy to throw on for Zoom calls, so I made a Grainline Willow Tank again for the first time in a long time.

Every past Willow Tank I’d made was way too tight so I re-measured and ended up going up 3 sizes. I think I look mostly the same after 7 years of lifting but if you want actual proof of progress, the measuring tape doesn’t lie–I have an extra 2 inches of muscle around my back and chest now. (Jeah, bro!)
A woman takes a mirror selfie. She's wearing a sleeveless top with horizontal stripes in bright blue and navy blue, with Tibetan style tigers scattered over the stripes.

I generally like a collar on my Zoom tops but when it’s 100 degrees out and the AC is struggling to keep up in the upstairs office, I just can’t do it. The Willow still looks put-together enough but is nice and breezy, so I might be making a few more.

The Dusty And The Scenic

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I made a lot of progress on the garage over the long weekend! I finished mudding and then sanded and even started with primer in one corner. My dad told me about “dust control” drywall compound and it was definitely worth the extra money: It’s still dusty but the particulates want to fall to the ground faster, so at least it’s not floating in the air.

My walls aren’t the smoothest in the world but they’re also not the most textured either. I can tell I got better!
Wet mud on all the drywall seams in a long garage wall

A close up of mudded and sanded walls in a corner of a garage

A built in shelf in a corner of a garage. The walls are covered with primer.

 

I took a little break from everything to go on a hike Friday afternoon up Big Cottonwood. The clouds were doing the most and it was just lovely.

Big white clouds above a mountain lake, reflected in the water

An alpine meadow with white flowers, with mountains in the background and white clouds above

Mountains seen through a grove of aspen trees, with a blue sky and whtie puffy clouds

Thursday Links

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1. I feel like I should post something patriotic for America’s 250th, so here’s Winson Hearn writing about imagining a better political future:

Cultivating political imagination is an act of hope. It reminds us that even though the institutions and centers of power in our world are currently captured by dumbass evil humans; that is not a permanent state. The future has not occurred yet. The dreams you imagine and the beliefs about how the world should be you develop based on those dreams will inform the actions you take in the future. They give you new stories to tell, new futures to paint, new invitations to extend to your neighbors.

Before January 2026, I could not imagine that thousands (millions?) of Americans would choose collective well-being over personal safety. I did not think we had it in us. That was a failure of imagination on my part, and I will never again fail to believe in that possibility, thanks to my comrades here in Minnesota. I was wrong about what was possible, and it genuinely encouraging to find out just how wrong

 

2. Also patriotic: Ellen Cushing writing about World Cup visitors discovering ranch dressing in The Atlantic: 

We like the recent wave of ranch stories because they are funny, but mostly because they make us feel good. They remind us that this country can serve as a source of delight for the rest of the world, that we can make things that feel worth taking back home and sharing.

 

3. Not patriotic at all but oddly touching? “I Work Very Hard, And I Would Like To Try Cake, By A Horse” in The Onion.

“Every day I dream about what it will be like if I get to eat cake. Here is what will happen. First, I will walk to the cake and puff my nose at it like hrrrfff to make sure it is not a snake. Then I will trot in a circle to show that I am a horse and I am large.”

Collected Memes

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It’s a short week but I’m still counting down the hours to being off for the Fourth of July weekend, so today’s collection is about as scattered as my brain feels.

 

Speaking of the holiday, I feel like this shouldn’t be so funny but I can’t stop laughing about it:
Screenshot of a post that shows paper plates in a store with "America: 1776-2026" on them. Text on the post says, "USA funeral plates being sold at walmart"

 

And speaking of America…
A mad white cat photoshopped onto a grassy background. Text says, "Touching grass isn't enough. I need bad things to happen to evil men in power."

 

But you know, we can still go on walks.
Screenshot of a tweet that says, "That which doesn't kill you makes you go on a walk

 

And make things.
A photo collage of a wizard in a sparkly pink robe driving a vintage yellow car in the sky. Text says, "POV: You pull up beside me and I'm wearing the fit I sewed last night."

 

And give ourselves the same grace as strangers? Or not! 😀

 

 

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Tuesday House Project

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All of my house projects follow the If You Give a Mouse a Cookie  model: If the second storage shelf doesn’t fit back in the new basement closet and barely fits in the garage, you think about wall shelving. If you’re going to put wall shelving in the garage, you think you should probably paint the walls first. If you want to paint the walls, you’re going to need to mud and sand and prime them. And before you can do any of that, you have to take everything OFF the shelves so you can get to the walls.

So here we are:
A garage interior with raw drywall and piles of stuff covered by drop cloths

I roped my dad into coming up and giving me a lesson in applying mud over the weekend. Turns out there are a lot of similar skills between finishing drywall and getting a smooth layer of frosting on a cake, and I’m not great at either!A corner of the garage with drywall mud applied

 

But I’m done watering my friend’s garden after today so I can get in the garage and spend some time very gradually improving for the rest of the week. Because as we all know, “Sucking at something is the first step to being sorta good at something.”

Friday Links

Karen

1. I love this: 2000-Year-Old Roman Theater Hosts World Cup Watch Party.

 

2. Caity Weaver writes about garage sales, thrift stores, and estate sales in The Atlantic. You get history and pathos and sentences like this:

“For every delightful discovery of a charmingly wacky neighborhood where one resident’s garage-door mural features an alien camouflaged among the paddles of a prickly pear cactus, and another homeowner has installed a rooftop statue of an orange pig with blue angel wings, there will be a haunting encounter with a nearly silent man hoping to sell a single button-down shirt for 50 cents. If you don’t have the stomach to witness people’s lives up close, do not ever stop at a yard sale.”

 

3. Thinking about my orange cat. 🙁

 

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Thursday Poem

Karen

Here’s one from Poetry Instagram by Lyndsay Rush, aka Mary Oliver’s Drunk Cousin. I also swear it was just April and now it’s 98 degrees and everything is going, going, going.

 

Soaking it Up
by Lyndsay Rush

Is it June already?
Honey, I swear it was just April
I swear the sun just came out and we remembered
why our ancestors worshiped it
I swear my peonies and iris and wisteria
just opened their eyes
I swear it was only yesterday that I wasn’t swearing
every time I stepped outside
But now we’re in the thick heat of it
The bare feet of it
The thudding heartbeat of it
They love to remind me that I only get 18 summers
with you
But if time is such a petty thief,
why are my arms so full?

Not Yet

Karen

Two weeks ago I impulsively filled out an adoption application for a dog, after following different rescues and thinking and pondering and deciding that yes, the house IS too lonely and I actually WAS ready.

Then we met some foster dogs a couple days after that (including Teddy Murphy, a SWEETHEART) and we went home to sleep on it…and I just missed Toby and realized that I was not, in fact, ready and perhaps I was using the dog idea to distract myself from actually processing the crushing grief of losing my best friend of 17 years.

A shaved mini aussie shepherd dog sits by a man's leg and smiles

 

At least the dog meet and greet confirmed that they’re delightful and that Doc is indeed the Dog Whisperer. Maybe someday…
A photo of dogs on a patio and two people sitting in chairs, shot from the waist down. One dog is leaning against a man's legs while another sniffs his hands. In the background another dog sits by the second person and a tiny dog peeks out behind their legs.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Fashion Pajamas

Karen

It took me a couple years to jump on the “matching set” trend but I finally sewed up some block print fabric I bought pre-tariffs into the Florence Pant (lengthened 3 inches with a 1.25 inch hem) and the Genra Shirt for a look that screams… pajamas?

A woman's full-length mirror selfie. She's wearing a matching short sleeve button-up shirt and wide pants in a navy blue block print with light blue geometric floral motifs.

I promise, these sets are all over the fashion world. There’s even a sewing pattern for both that I was inspired by, but I decided to use patterns I already had and that I knew fit (I have never been a “make a lot of muslins and tweak the fit” sewer).

A J Crew matching set in large block print on cream

A Zara matching set in pink floral on cream Looking at these FASHUN examples, I think I need to try the top tucked in and add some jewelry if I wear it out of the house?

I do like the final pieces, though–as you might expect from almost-pajamas, the whole set is ridiculously comfy. I love an Indian block print for summer; the cotton is so nice and light.