Friday bullets - Oct. 29, 2021

Uncle! Uncle! Uncle! Is October over yet? Please, please, please can it be over now? Wonder how our week has gone? I'm sure you don't have to wonder too hard. 

• We are still in the one good day- one bad day cycle with R. It feels never ending. I feel done in. I lost my patience quite a bit before lunch time today and it was a very good thing that J. had already planned to take the afternoon off due to the late hours he worked earlier in the week. 
• To make things even more fun and enjoyable, it seems that late October has become my own fun little traumaversary season. The only thing I can pinpoint as to the cause is five years of dealing with R.'s traumaversaries. This year has not been fun, but it has been significantly better than previous years. They were bad. Really, really bad. 
• What does it feel like? I can feel stress in every part of my body all the time. It is difficult to focus and I have no margin for, well, anything. I am exhausted yet get nothing done and it is very difficult to find joy in things. It sucks, frankly. And to top things off the weather has been dreadful so I haven't been able to ride and I have cancelled far more lessons than I have given. Catastrophic thinking is always hovering at the edge of my brain. I have been here before, though, and can tell myself that it is a bodily reaction to past trauma and that it will pass, my job is to be kind to myself and not worry too much about it. 
• Because I am having difficulty concentrating on just about anything, even reading is mostly off the table right now. But handwork? That I can do because it is automatic enough that it doesn't require too much concerted concentration and the repetitive motion is soothing. So on top of getting a good chunk done on that second sock I wrote about earlier, I've also made a pretty good dent in my spinning project. 

On bobbin filled, 

and another that is nearly filled. The third ply is going to be a black merino wool/silk top that I'm looking forward to spinning. 

I also finally pieced the back for the quilt top I made a couple of years ago. Now I just have to find a box so that I can send it off to a friend of mine who is going to long-arm quilt and finish it.

• The premier of Hayden and Her Family on PBS World is coming up in less than a month and it is starting to become a little more real. There have been a couple of news outlets that want interviews with us which is... weird. My first thought is that I need to make a hair appointment.

• I forgot to tell you about the cool books I picked up at The Art Institute last week. 

These are published by Taschen and are beautiful. There are a lot of full color pictures with much of each architects' work. There were a lot of buildings and photographs we hadn't seen. Everyone has enjoyed looking through them, and I wish we would have had them last year. The best part? They are hardcover and only $16 each. (Less with my museum membership.) For a full color, hardcover art book? That is a crazy cheap price. They also have a lot of other titles in the same format of other artists and architects. If you are going to be learning about a certain artist or architect in the future, it would be worth it to see if the publisher has a title for them.

• Y., G., L. and I did an amazingly quick blitz through a local thrift store earlier this week. Some girls had only one pair of long pants which fit and all were needing some long sleeved, warmer shirts. Be impressed when I tell you that we managed to get three girls clothes they liked (not everything they need, but it was a good start) and do the week's grocery shopping all in less than an hour and a half. P. was at home on R. duty and needed to leave by a certain time to teach a lesson at the barn where she works. It was a hard deadline and we flew.
• I washed my winter coat (one doesn't like to rush into these things) and for a small window of time it does not smell like a barn.
• J. bought me my own personal chocolate cake earlier in the week which I have been doling out to myself as needed. 
• If I happened to win the lottery (which would have to be by me catching a winning lottery ticket as it flew by me in the air), I could buy the farm next door and have an indoor arena... and disgusting weather wouldn't matter so much. Just sayin'....
• We begin learning about volcanoes in geology next week and L. is extremely excited.
• I went and picked up the side of pork I had ordered a while back. The freezer was looking extremely empty except for applesauce, so it's nice to have it filled a little bit. K. is excited because now we have bacon and I can make one of his favorite dinners, pasta with onions, bacon, and goat cheese. Y. is excited because there are two hams which mean we'll have split pea soup afterwards.

And with that, I will leave you to go back to my current obsession of watching videos about how to use a rigid heddle loom and eat chocolate cake.