Ordinary Time

If you are a fan of Elizabeth Peter's Amelia Peabody series, I have another series to recommend to you! Last week I was browsing the library's new book shelf and grabbed a mystery that looked vaguely interesting. It was the first in a series, so I assumed it was a new series.  I've been reading a lot (that would be a lot even in terms of my own voracious reading habits,), but I have also been very quick to put down a book that is not holding my interest. (I'm up to nine books on my 'did not finish' tally so far, and that's just for the past two and a half months.) I had just set aside three books in a row, so decided to start the mystery that I had grabbed.  I ended up loving it, reading it in just two or three days. At the end of the book there was the beginning of the next book in the series. This was thrilling because I didn't have to wait for it, it was already here! I did a quick catalog search and discovered that the first book was not as new as I ...

Yesterday I wasn't feel well, so took myself to bed, because catching up on sleep is usually my cure all. It continued to prove true because I was fine thus morning. Then this evening, J. and I had planned to go out to dinner since we couldn't actually remember the last time we had done that. I wanted a good hamburger, so we headed to one of three small downtown areas east of us along the Fox River.  Well, when you don't get out much, I guess you become unaware of events. Events such as the weekend before St. Patrick's Day. It took us a minute to figure out why parking was proving to be so difficult. When we did find a spot, the loud people wearing kelly green were our clue. We made it to the restaurant we were heading to, which was a pub type place. I opened the door and the noise, the crowd, and the overwhelming amount of green made me close it again and said no.  [This is not an age thing. I have never ever enjoyed loud and crowded restaurants even in my 20's.] W...

In my continuing effort to be 'the fun mom' thus spring break, there were some people who wanted to take a trip to Kline Creek Farm near us because I had seen there were lambs. This farm raises Cotswold sheep, an endangered breed. (I would love to add some Cotswolds to our flock, but I'm afraid with current accomodations we are full up.) It's still fun to go visit lambs, though, even if they aren't ours.  Five lambs had been born so far, two who were old enough to be with the other ewes, and a set of triplets that were pretty recent I think. There are a lot of pictures because I had a couple of photographers who were smitten. If you live in the area, you should go visit them.

This is one of those posts that I start writing, stop, reread, delete, pause, rewrite, stop, reread, pause, over and over. When this happens, it is usually because either I'm still sorting through the ideas or because I feel really strongly about something and there is a log jam of words. Or both. I have a feeling that this post falls in the 'or both' category. We'll see if I actually get anything coherent written.  Really, this is addressed to parents of trans children. (Children here meaning that the people in question are the children, whether grown or not, of the parents I am addressing. English can be awkward.) For those who are struggling, I get it. This probably wasn't on your bingo card of expectations when your new baby was handed to you. The world has changed and what we understand about science has changed, so instead of hiding people have the freedom to not fit in Western society's molds . It can throw you for a bit of a loop at first. The question t...

I don't really have much to show this week because I haven't made much of anything. What I spent a ridiculous amount of time doing was organizing the fabric in my studio closet. It had reached that state where I had begun just to shove things on the shelf anywhere it would fit. Any order that had been there at one point was gone.  And the scraps!  I tend not to have hoarder tendencies unless it is a raw material that might be useful in the future. Fabric scraps certainly fit in this category. I realized I had more scraps than I could ever do something with and it was time to clean. By the time I was done I had one large garbage bag of actual trash, I gave one large garbage bag of decent scraps away, and I gave away one large garbage bag of decent yardage I'm never going to use. Any other scraps that were left are either cut to be added to my English paper pieced quilt I'm working on or are sorted into the bags of quilting scraps by color. (These I already had, it was ju...