Ordinary Time

I am very close to finishing the book, "Art Cure: The Science of How the Arts Save Lives" by Daisy Fancourt. I also need to share a few quotes with you because they touch on some of my very favorite topics: Connection, creating, and play. "We humans are an inherently social species. Throughout our evolutionary history, we have relied on others for our survival -- so much so that if we find ourselves socially isolated (and therefore vulnerable), we are biologically primed to reconnect with others. Our brains and bodies flood us with hormones, distress signals, intrusive thoughts, and feelings of depression until we take the hint and reconnect. If we ignore these urges or can't find social contact, we put ourselves at substantially heightened risk of every adverse mental illness, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, dementia, frailty, and mortality. One of the most interesting evolutionary theories for the arts I've come across is that they evolved to help us become m...

This morning J., R., and I headed down to the county courthouse to appear in court. The reason? We were request that J. and I be given guardianship of R. It sounds more eventful than it was. There was no one else in the courtroom to have their case heard, so we were called forward immediately. The judge asked some questions so he could fill out his paperwork and then we were asked to wait for copies of the official decree to be made for us. That's it. The only vaguely interesting part was that the judge recognized us from when we obtained H.'s guardianship. The whole thing took no more than fifteen minutes. Having done this twice now, it always feels a bit anticlimactic; as if there should be something more to it. It's not really something to celebrate because it means that the young adult in question is never going to experience being an independent adult. But it also feels like a relief that this particular legal hurdle has been conquered. It's a weird in-between kind...

There have been a spate of books about trad wife influencers that have been published recently. I read them, though I'm not sure I should because I find myself being incredibly annoyed even if I am enjoying the overall story. Earlier this year I read Yesteryear and this week's iteration is Everyone is Lying to You by Jo Piazza.  In the most cursory way, the trad wife influencer characters are very similar to each other, but the course of each book is vastly different. In both books this character has multiple children, homeschools, and bakes their own bread while sharing details their life with the wider world. In its barest outline it feels as though it hits a bit close to the bone. I've already written about why I am not (and never have been) a " trad wife ", so I won't go into that here. What has been causing me to grind my teeth a bit in this most recent book is the author's take on large families. Large families being six children or more. So to get ...

I came across an old post about our then most recent Harris Loan Program item we had borrowed. ( It was a taxidermied fox which sat in our front hall for several weeks .) It made me remember how much we loved checking out cool things from the Field Museum.  It also made me realize I don't hear newer homeschoolers talk about the program. This may be because we live further away from the museum, but I could imagine me (who doesn't really like to drive a lot) making the effort to go into the city because it is a cool program.  So, if you are a current homeschooling (or educator in a traditional school), the Harris Loan Program is designed to support educators. They have hundreds of artifacts or learning boxes that you can check out for free and take home for three weeks. We brought home a variety of animals as well as boxes that focused on music, math, and various other anthropological topics. They were all interesting and a fantastic hands-on learning opportunity. It is definit...

It is too hot to think much less do anything else other than care for the outdoor animals and make them as comfortable as possible. I find myself thinking of colder weather... of being chilly enough that wearing sweaters and snuggling into blankets sounds appealing. And who else is around in winter? The wild geese, of course. So for today's post, a wintery poem by Mary Oliver from her collection, Owls and Other Fantasies. Wild Geese You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body      love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and rivers. Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world off...

It's been a while since I shared any weaving on my big loom with you. That's because it has spent a great amount of time in time-out these past few months. I would start, some warp ends would break, I would fix that, restart, some warp threads would break and I would put the loom in time-out. Over and over and over. I would think I had figured out what was wrong, but then the same cycle would happen. It was frustrating.  Very frustrating.  It's probably a good thing my loom is too big to pick up and throw across the room.  I finally asked a weaving friend over to help me figure it out. She had some very good suggestions that I wasn't aware of and she loaned me her temple. What's a temple? This is: The temple is the wooden stretcher towards the bottom of the weaving. It holds the woven fabric to the correct size and prevents it from pulling in. I am hopeful that I can finish weaving this warp and get something worthwhile out of it.  My original plan was to weave two ...