Friday bullets, Nov. 9, 2018

It has felt like a very busy week, but the weekend does not have a lot scheduled, so perhaps we can regroup.

• Today we took a little jaunt to Iowa, and visited the Mississippi River Museum in Dubuque. (Also a museum with a great, family friendly membership policy.) I meet my brother and sister-in-law halfway when we trade children, so I thought it might be fun to actually do something instead of meet and turn around. It wasn't along visit, but since we bought the membership when we were there last summer, it made sense to get another visit in. We pretty much had the museum to ourselves.
• This also meant that we had the ray tank nearly to ourselves, and we spent a lot of time there. Some of those sting rays seem super interested in people, and were acting as though they wanted to be lightly petted. I love visiting museums on slow days. 
• As I mentioned earlier, we've gotten a lot of comments recently about exactly what our family is. This was particularly bad at the Museum of Science and Industry last Tuesday. Today, someone asked me if I was with this group, and indicated my children. "Yes, they are my children," I replied. "All of them?" she continued. "Yes, all of them," I answered, my smile tightening a wee bit more. "Oh," she said, and dropped it. It was a relief to just be accepted... eventually.
• I'm not sure our dinner table conversation is normal. Last week, the topic of conversation was discussing what life would be like if we had forks that extended out of our elbows, and last night's conversation involved what it would be like if cats had celebrity human faces. I'm not making this up.
• I am so stressed about this barn getting finished I can barely think straight.
• I bottled my very first batch of kombucha. It is cherry flavored, and I might have let it sit a day or two too long. It is verging on the edge of vinegar, but I like it. I'll know to test this next batch a little bit sooner. 
• We have two new temporary residents here at Bittersweet Farm.

Pretty cute, aren't they? This is what happens when your oldest volunteers three days a week in the clinic of a local animal shelter. I'm actually surprised it took this long for animals to be brought home. These two tiny kittens are fosters, so will not be here indefinitely. 

• D. feels neglected, and I was informed that he hasn't appeared on the blog in a while. So, I will tell you that his cello is going extremely well, and he's working on one of the simpler Bach cello suites. He is also enjoying his French tutoring a lot, and I'm afraid that the day is quickly approaching where he will be more fluent than I (if fluent is even close to how to describe how I speak French.) Practice will do that for you.