Ordinary Time

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 ...

When we were in Michigan last month, I binge read the first book in a new (to me) mystery series, A Case of Mice and Murder. The series is called The Trials of Gabriel Ward, with Gabriel Ward being a barrister at the Inns of Court (and very reluctant detective) in early 20th century London.  It was a clever plot, but it was the character and evolution of Gabriel Ward that I found most interesting. Today he would probably be considered autistic. He is extremely intelligent, has various rituals that help to keep him centered, and finds much of human emotion in others to be challenging. Over the course of the books, while he does not change his character, he finds ways to broaden his life to include a few other people in it. He is also just a charming character.  Today I finished the second (A Case of Life and Limb) and went to put the third on hold only to discover that it won't be published until January. Alas. Which brings me to my other bookish news. I took a friends advice a...

Y. has been taking Japanese for seven years, six of those with a private tutor. (And if you want to learn a language without moving to a different country, having a private tutor is the way to go ) She is pretty conversant and loves learning languages. Her tutor had told her about a Japanese Festival which was happening this weekend in Skokie and Y. was interested in going.  One of the downsides of having moved to the far western suburbs of the Chicago area is the lack of diversity. I'm still not quite comfortable with the monochromatic-ness of where we live, especially since we have children of color. (I need to explain that by far western suburbs I do not mean Naperville which isn't quite as far west as we are. We have to drive a half hour east to get to the Asian and Indian markets in Naperville. I am very thankful for them.) It takes effort to find cultural mirrors.  All this to say, J. and Y. had a lovely time at the festival this afternoon. They saw dancers and musicians...

So it seems everyone is okay with me blathering on about whatever happens to flit through my mind, so I'll keep going with that.  Today was one of the days that L. worked so I needed to drive her. It's about a 25 minute trip one way. (She is a deckhand for the paddlewheel river boat on the Fox River .) This also meant I would need to pick her up. I worked in the studio after lunch for a while, checked the time, and realized I needed to leave to collect L. G. wanted to ride along, so we both got in the car and headed for the river.  As I'm pulling into the parking lot next to the boat, I glance at the clock and notice it's showing an hour earlier than I think it is. My first thought is to wonder why I didn't remember that we hadn't changed the car clock when daylight savings began. That didn't seem to make much sense, so checked my phone. Yes, I was an hour early. No, I don't know how that happened.  There was no way I was going to drive home only to turn...