Ordinary Time

I spent all day talking about weaving and the Fine Line Creative Arts Center in the Fine Line booth and the Fiber and Fabric Craft Festival today. I've pretty much used up all my words, so you get pictures.  These are pictures of the moon that L. took a while back that I never shared. The rest of the garden around the pond that I finished. It has been the sum total of my gardening in the past couple of weeks.  Y. braided Buddy's mane. Timmy and Kaspian are good enough on their halters now that they got to go in the rotational grazing pen. And loved it. And pictures K. took on his way home from work tonight.

Last night, J. and I went to see Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band in their Land of Hope and Dreams concert. This was a huge bucket item list for J., and was made possible thanks to TM and JH buying him the tickets. I got to go because it's not as much fun to go to a concert by yourself.  I enjoyed the concert and was glad I was able to go. I need to also say that I did not fall asleep. My children will be relieved to hear that. I also need to explain that statement even though I will not be able to use the story as one of my ultimate 'two truths and a lie' statements. You see, in my early 20's, before J. and I were married, we, along with my future sister-in-law, went to see the Violent Femmes and Elvis Costello. I never got to Elvis Costello because I fell asleep during the Violent Femmes. True story. I'm very good at sleeping. I don't think I've been to a concert since until last night. You can now understand my children's concern that there mig...

You know that I am always going on and on about the importance of reading to your children. I am 100% certain that this one thing alone builds a scaffolding for later learning that cannot be replicated in other ways. Still, I am always happy to come across articles and research supporting the benefits of reading out loud to children. In this particular article, the research suggests that it also supports social skills .  What I found interesting was the fact that there were benefits whether or not parents stopped to ask questions about the content. I'm not sure if these questions were to confirm comprehension or ask leading (or perhaps not leading) questions regarding the plot. It still confirmed my suspicion that children are capable of gaining a great amount of benefit just from listening. I think sometimes parents make things too complicated when really they just need to read the story.  Another study I would love to see done involved reading to older children... even high ...

I've been doing things, really. I have all 900+ ends threaded on the loom. I have drafted and made a skirt and T-shirt, and am now working on drafting a pattern for a peasant blouse. There are over 600 hexagons sitting in a bag waiting for me to start playing around with them to see how they'll fit together in a quilt. I have a sweater cast on knitting needles. And for none of these things do I have pictures to of which to share with you.  Here is what I do have. The beginnings of my real hardanger project.  And Timmy the sheep who I sheared yesterday.  I was able to completely shear Timmy in less time than it took to only halfway shear Fred. My hunches were correct. Fred's wool is so thick, stretchy, and full of lanolin that he is really hard to shear. Plus, his wool is black and his skin is black. For anyone who has knitted with black yarn, you know exactly how difficult it is to see what you're doing. I also sheared Timmy in a different way so that I had better angle...

As a parent to adopted children of color, I have learned that listening to the voices of adoptees and to the voices of Asians has helped me understand what my children may experience. Sometimes it is hard because what those voices tell us isn't always what we want to hear. We like to be the good guys in the story, but we also need to hear where we (or the majority culture) has fallen short. It is humbling, but necessary in order for me to be the best parent I can to my children.  This is also true for people with disabilities. I feel fortunate that I had a friend with another mom when I had two young children. This friend also happened to use a wheelchair due to childhood polio and was a disability advocate. I learned a lot from her and I am grateful for both her friendship and my education. I also know now that I should not have put the onus of education my clueless self on her, but should have also worked to educate myself. But you don't know what you don't know.  Which b...

Today the plan was to get the rest of the sheep sheared, or technically rooed because we didn't think any shears would be involved. Well, the best laid plans and all that. We decided to start with Fred because he is the biggest and I knew he has the thickest wool, so it seemed wise to start with him.  As of this afternoon, we now have one and a half sheep sheared. I think the wiser course of action would have been to practice some more with the smaller sheep and save Fred for last. I remember last year the shearer being really surprised at how difficult it was to shear Fred, so I knew it wouldn't be a walk in the park. But good gravy that sheep has incredible think, sproingy, and greasy wool! By the end of both mine and Fred's patience, I was able to trim the blanket (the wool on his back and sides that I will save to process), and had started on the britch which didn't need to be quite so careful with because it was going to go to the garden for mulch. But we were both...