Friday bullets, June 19, 2020

I'll dive right in.

• Things are starting up again and I have things on the calendar. This feels both good and odd. I keep forgetting to check the calendar. Plus, my calendar runs out at the end of the month, so anything past that is scrawled inside the back cover. I suppose I need to do something about this because it doesn't seem like a practical system. 
• After being back at riding lessons for two weeks and Horse Power for one, I'm realizing that it doesn't take too long to become lazy and out of shape. I'm pooped. 
• Every day since her first riding lesson, G. has asked, "When will it be Tuesday again?" I think she loved her lesson a lot.
• Y. is deeply involved in the Warriors book series. She has spent most of the past week curled up on a couch with her nose in a book. Sometimes I find her silently crying because something sad has happened to one of the cats in the book she is reading. It is a gift to have learned to read well enough that she is so fully invested in the characters.
• K. took a brief break from his endless Lego building to try a new medium... wood and hammer and nails. He decided he wanted to try and build a chair. He told M. what wood he wanted cut and where, and M. used the power tools for him. Here is his final product.

At dinner he was asking J. if he (J.) had hinges because he had other ideas he was contemplating.

• TM is currently working on learning the Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven.
• D. had a great work review for his job at the library. That's the good news. The bad news is that it seems our library is having significant budget issues so he won't have a job starting at the end of August because there is no money to pay him.
• As well as wanting babydoll sheep, I really think we need to add lion head rabbits to the farm.
• For everyone who is posting about what a shame losing the Aunt Jemima image is, please do even a cursory amount of fact-checking. And you also seem to need to do some research and learning on why the image is so damaging. I'll help. Read this article on The Mammy Caricature.
• I love being able to eat outside with everyone. In fact, we actually have more room for everyone on the porch than we do in the dining room.
• As I was driving around this past week, I passed a house with books on the front lawn with a sign saying they were free. Well, who can drive by that? Not me, certainly. I actually picked up quite a few interesting ones. As they are non-fiction, I'm sure you'll be hearing about them as I work my way through them.
• J. is making plans for building the tack room in the barn. I am very excited.
• The garden is doing really well. We've had lots of lettuce for salads, escarole for an entree, and still have lots of chard, kale, and arugula that needs to be eaten. I grew a variety of kale that has very large, flat leaves. I think it will be perfect for making kale chips. We might actually have enough for everyone for once.
• The tent sleepover party turned into a three night tent sleepover party. K. actually did four, sleeping by himself in the tent the last night. His sisters had decided that sleeping in their beds sounded like a very appealing idea.
• We were going to celebrate D.'s birthday tomorrow since it is his birthday. But he wants to go to another protest with B., so I think we'll postpone his dinner to sometime next week. J. and I may take advantage of the change and go out to dinner for our anniversary, which is Monday, instead. June is like that around here.
• It happens very rarely these days, but every so often I come across a child who needs a family that makes my heart constrict and my breath catch. There is a fourteen year old girl whose adoption is being disrupted, and it is kind of killing me. But, we are in no place to add another. There is literally no room for another person in this house. And that makes me a little bit sad.
• TM put some purple streaks in L.'s hair today. She'd been wanting some color for quite some time now, and she is happy with it. I didn't get a picture this evening because my phone was dead. I'll have to try to remember to get one tomorrow.
• With the library back to checking things out, we are now happily watching season 2 of The Great British Baking Show. 

And with that, I'm going to say goodnight. Have a good weekend everyone.