Ordinary Time

Sometimes when you are learning something (or even after you have learned something) not everything you try actually works out. That was certainly the story of me and my loom this week. I had mentioned that I wanted to weave some napkins. I was first going to use cotton, but remembered that I had picked up some linen that was super discounted and decided to use that instead. I didn't bother to test the fiber to see if it would make a decent warp. I was so enamored of my plan that I was sure it would work out. In my head the napkins were going to be so pretty. One thing I did do correctly was to opt to do a sample before committing to a full warp which was yards long. My sample warp was just a couple yards long and give inches wide. While it took a few hours to get it measured, threaded, and wound on, that was nothing compared to how long it would have taken for the full warp.  This afternoon I sat down at the loom to begin weaving my sample. I was excited because I was going to be

Normally January doesn't feel as though it flies by, but this year it certainly did. I could kind of use another week of January, which is a statement I never thought I would ever utter... or write. G. and L. are at a middle school lock-in at our church. I was a little surprised that they both wanted to go as socializing with people they don't know extremely well isn't always their thing. I hope they have a good time. We will probably have a day of grouchy children tomorrow as a result. J. and I took some grief from P. when she discovered they were going to the whole event. I am somewhat aware of this, but it seems we never let any of the older children attend a lock-in for the whole night. The grouchy children the next day was our excuse. Once again, it seems our standards have fallen significantly, at least in the eyes of our older children. It turns out that one of the litter mates of A.'s cat, Juniper, had a placement fall through and he needed a home. A. now has tw

It seems I own this business, but based on the last two months you wouldn't know it. I just seem to have some very large hay burners in the backyard. I think it is time to begin to be a little more proactive. Before the nightmare that was December hit, I had been working with a couple of different people to create a leadership development program based on equine facilitated learning principles that I could share with corporations for training purposes. During December, I had some homework to begin writing the text for a more corporate based website that would explain what horses could offer. Well, that didn't happen. It also didn't happen in January because my mental equilibrium was still recovering. It's now nearly February, I and think I need to get that website going. To do that, I will need text to hand off to my IT guy (aka MC, my son-in-law.) Not being one to let a good blog post go to waste, I will kill two birds with one stone and begin the process here. In the

  This was my view from the pasture when I went out to get the hay nets this morning. Beautiful, isn't it? It snowed lightly most of the day, but the temperature was hovering around freezing, so it wasn't actually that cold. It's kind of the perfect winter day in my book. No snow day for anyone, though. J. went to work and we did school. Afterwards quite a few people headed outside to enjoy it. K. and Y. built a wall of what was going to be a snow fort. The snow was pretty heavy and by the time they had rolled two (enormous) snowballs, they realized they couldn't stack them. I'll try to remember to get a picture of it tomorrow. We are heading into our last few days of January, which means we are heading into the last few days of my completely cleared calendar. I think everyone else but me is ready to go out and do things again. I would be more than happy to continue to have lots of free time to fill. I'm good at filling my free time. But, I guess I will begin to

One of the reasons that I didn't have much to show yesterday was that I spent most of my free time reading a book I had become engrossed in. Having spent most of last year in somewhat of a reading slump, this was a pleasant change of pace.  What was the book? The City & The City by China Miéville. On my library copy it is listed as science fiction, but that seems a stretch to me. There is also a murder mystery as part of the story, but that was not the part I found most interesting. It was the setting of the boom that I find myself thinking about long after I finished the book.  The book is set in the current time period and the rest of the world is not any different from our real one. But the specific city (cities?) where the story happens is what makes it interesting. It is a city, or cities, which occupy the same geographical space, but part of them belong to one and part of them belong to the other. It's just divided in half like post war Be Berlin was, but the borders

I've done quite a bit of reading this week, but not a whole lot of other things. I did finish weaving the trial warp I put on my new loom. I did end up finding a yarn to use as weft that I ended up liking. Here it is. Other than take it off the loom I haven't done a thing with it. I still need to hem the ends, wash it, then trim the threads that are sticking out. I think I will use it as a table runner. I have been trying to decide what project to weave next. I want it to be somewhat familiar so I can use it to continue to get used to the loom. But one of the things I like about weaving is that the end product is useful. To that end I think I'm going to weave some napkins that will match this runner. I know I don't have anything which will remotely coordinate, so that's what I'm in the planning stages for. I also worked a little on combing some of that wool I spent the fall during. It's not going to comb itself, that's for sure! I'm about halfway thr