Ordinary Time

I think it must be a very tough season for families right now based on the number of conversations I've had with quite a few parents. Some families are really struggling right now. When I communicate with them, I can tell they're struggling and feeling scared and probably more than a little hopeless as well. I've been in that spot more than once and it is not a comfortable place to be. I get it. But having been in that spot, I've learned a few things. I learned them the extremely hard way, but I learned them all the same. This is about one of those hard lessons that can be difficult to communicate with parents.  Desperate parents are desperate for a reason. Their child (or children) is struggling, and that struggle often comes out as less than desirable behaviors. Constantly navigating hard or scary behaviors can throw the entire family into chaos. Everyone is on edge, probably fatigued, grumpy, angry, and usually scared out of their wits, though that emotion isn't ...

We celebrated K.'s birthday tonight. How on earth can this child be twenty already?? We love you very, very much!!

Always in late spring I feel starved for color. Whole there are a few things blooming (thank you, forsythia), it is still pretty a monotone of brown things outside. This explains my newest weaving project. My loom had been empty too long, and I decided I just wanted to weave something pretty. I went through my stash of weaving yarn and found somethings that will satisfy my need for pretty and colorful.  It was those variegated skeins on the right that I needed to work with. I'm now working on planning the color changes and doing all the number things, then I will be set to start measuring the warp. It will be a throw... or maybe two depending on how the amount of yarn holds out.  One of the reasons why my loom was empty for so long is that I am consumed with my English paper piecing project. I have a lot of little octagons basted, so I decided I could start playing with them to find a design. (I think playing with hundreds of little pieces of color is one of the biggest draws ...

Today was sheep shearing day. More accurately, it was E. learns to shear sheep day. I hired the shearer who came last spring to come and teach me how to shear, with the idea that she would help me learn on one, then I would shear the other three over the next couple of weeks. At its most basic, this is exactly what happened. I'll start with the sheep I sheared.  First a before picture. Pay close attention to Kaspian, the sheep in the middle. He is the one I ended up learning on.  The skin side, which is also the projected, clean side, of Kaspian's fleece. And the naked boy after being sheared. It gives you some idea about how much wool the sheep grow.  But what about the other three? We'll, it turns out they won't need to be sheared. I'm thrilled! Shetland sheep are considered a primitive breed, which means that they maintain genetic traits that more domesticated breeds no long have. Among these traits is the one that creates a break in the wool so that the sheep ef...

And we protested. Some of us went to downtown Chicago, some of us went to out smaller, local protest. J. and I both wore out Melt the ICE hats (there were quite a few). The wind was cold and wicked, so wearing a wool hat was good in a couple of ways.  Our local protest: It's harder to see numbers because this protest stretched for nearly a mile.  And the Chicago protest. It is good to protest inhumane policies. It is good to stand with others who also believe current policies are inhumane. My favorite sign from today, which I didn't get a picture of, was: Peace is not Quiet.  We can stand up, we can make noise, we can speak goodness to evil, we can protest peacefully, but what none of us can do right now is be quiet. 

I think we've all settled back into our routine after I had been gone for a bit. I think I've even readjusted my sleep schedule. The end of the semester for those taking college classes is starting to loom, which means there was a lot of studying around the house today. L. gamified the process by creating on the computer a spinning wheel which listed everything that needed to be done and for how long as well as adding in some fun things. Thus, a totally randomized schedule was produced. I don't think at 16 I would have thought of that. I bought some strawberries at the store this week because they were on sale, and this morning I opened the refrigerator to discover chocolate covered strawberries that Y. had made. We had them for dessert tonight. We don't live in walking distance of anything, so it is extremely rare to have someone ring out doorbell. It actually kind of disturbed people because it happens so infrequently. Today it rang and everyone looked at me as if to ...