Ordinary Time

This morning when I headed outside to feed the horses, it was 10° F (-12° C) with a wind chill of -3. It's not really the weather one wants to see in March. Tomorrow night I fly to Arizona to spend the weekend with my mom. I always look forward to this trip which often has the added perk of warm weather to tide me over until spring finally arrives here.  So there's warm and there's hot. It seems the Southwest is going to be having a heat wave while I'm there, with temperatures around 102° F (39° C). While I know that the first few days will feel lovely after that ten degrees business, I also know that by the afternoon it won't exactly be sit outside and read weather. I'm not really complaining. I grew up there and know that 102° in March is actually pretty manageable. But it does seem a bit extreme to experience a hundred degree temperature difference in 48 hours (if you start at that wind chill figure.) I will say that it is better than pouring rain which has a...

I am so close to being done with the making the actual skirt I have been drafting the pattern for. Here's what I have done. The front: Notice the fly zipper. I have made so many fly zipper over the past two weeks. I think I all paid off because I'm happy with this one. The front has pockets with a nice lining.  This is the back. You can tell where I left off sewing today. I'm finishing the seams where the yoke connects to the panels which is why this hasn't been pressed yet. It will lie flat once I do that.  The back also has went pockets which I drafted to fit my phone. Here is the pile of 14 (!) pattern pieces I had to draft in order to make this skirt. I'm not sure I realized how involved my first drafting project actually was. That's probably for the best.  Tomorrow I'll finish the yoke, see the side seams together, do the waistband, and then hem it. It shouldn't be too hard to finish. I would love to be able to pack it for my trip to Arizona to visi...

If you are a fan of Elizabeth Peter's Amelia Peabody series, I have another series to recommend to you! Last week I was browsing the library's new book shelf and grabbed a mystery that looked vaguely interesting. It was the first in a series, so I assumed it was a new series.  I've been reading a lot (that would be a lot even in terms of my own voracious reading habits,), but I have also been very quick to put down a book that is not holding my interest. (I'm up to nine books on my 'did not finish' tally so far, and that's just for the past two and a half months.) I had just set aside three books in a row, so decided to start the mystery that I had grabbed.  I ended up loving it, reading it in just two or three days. At the end of the book there was the beginning of the next book in the series. This was thrilling because I didn't have to wait for it, it was already here! I did a quick catalog search and discovered that the first book was not as new as I ...

Yesterday I wasn't feel well, so took myself to bed, because catching up on sleep is usually my cure all. It continued to prove true because I was fine thus morning. Then this evening, J. and I had planned to go out to dinner since we couldn't actually remember the last time we had done that. I wanted a good hamburger, so we headed to one of three small downtown areas east of us along the Fox River.  Well, when you don't get out much, I guess you become unaware of events. Events such as the weekend before St. Patrick's Day. It took us a minute to figure out why parking was proving to be so difficult. When we did find a spot, the loud people wearing kelly green were our clue. We made it to the restaurant we were heading to, which was a pub type place. I opened the door and the noise, the crowd, and the overwhelming amount of green made me close it again and said no.  [This is not an age thing. I have never ever enjoyed loud and crowded restaurants even in my 20's.] W...

In my continuing effort to be 'the fun mom' thus spring break, there were some people who wanted to take a trip to Kline Creek Farm near us because I had seen there were lambs. This farm raises Cotswold sheep, an endangered breed. (I would love to add some Cotswolds to our flock, but I'm afraid with current accomodations we are full up.) It's still fun to go visit lambs, though, even if they aren't ours.  Five lambs had been born so far, two who were old enough to be with the other ewes, and a set of triplets that were pretty recent I think. There are a lot of pictures because I had a couple of photographers who were smitten. If you live in the area, you should go visit them.

This is one of those posts that I start writing, stop, reread, delete, pause, rewrite, stop, reread, pause, over and over. When this happens, it is usually because either I'm still sorting through the ideas or because I feel really strongly about something and there is a log jam of words. Or both. I have a feeling that this post falls in the 'or both' category. We'll see if I actually get anything coherent written.  Really, this is addressed to parents of trans children. (Children here meaning that the people in question are the children, whether grown or not, of the parents I am addressing. English can be awkward.) For those who are struggling, I get it. This probably wasn't on your bingo card of expectations when your new baby was handed to you. The world has changed and what we understand about science has changed, so instead of hiding people have the freedom to not fit in Western society's molds . It can throw you for a bit of a loop at first. The question t...