Ordinary Time

Our co-op's end of the year program is called The Evening of the Arts. The co-op is not academics-focused, but enrichment, with a lot of different types of fine arts and supplemental-type classes. This is a chance to demonstrate everything that has been learned throughout the year. Since not every class lends itself to a performance, the first half of the evening is a chance to walk around and look at displays from various classes. Two of the classes I taught fell into this category. My Creative Collaboration class displayed the board game they had created from scratch during the second semester. My Creative Writing class also had a table. Each student had written and polished at least one final piece of writing which I put together into a chap book for each student. I need to figure out a more interesting display for next year. Copies of everyone's writing do not catch the interest of passers-by even though they each represent hours of work. The art class had a large display o

Last weekend I shared the letter I wrote to the Midwest Horse Fair regarding the rather egregious merchandise some of the vendors had for sale. I'll be honest that I didn't expect much of a response. This is from years of experience writing letters pointing out how something could be made better and why the current system is wrong . [If you click on that link, it will take you to a letter I wrote to the Morton Arboretum, in regard to their family policy. It seems I got the specifics of my request granted in that they did remove the word 'family' from their membership levels. I was hoping they would go more for the spirit, though, and allow all children under 18 to be part of a larger member. Ah well.] More often than not I never receive a reply and when I do, it is one of those "We're sorry you're upset" non-apologies.  Imagine my surprise when earlier this week I did receive a reply from the horse fair. And not only did I receive a reply, it was a th

It was stupidly cold today. I put the winter coat back on and went back to wearing wool. I am 100% without a doubt done with cold weather. Spring is lost somewhere, and I wish to goodness it would just stop and ask for directions instead of wandering aimlessly.  The flowers seem to think it's spring, though. I am always ridiculously excited when I see that my little frittilary has come back.  It's not a very big plant, and its leaves do not look like tulip or daffodil leaves. They just kind of look like grass. I am always very careful to not weed near the area where I think it is for fear of pulling it up. But this year there are three little flowers on it. The third is smaller and hasn't opened up yet. You can see it midway down the right side of the plant. I first planted the bulbs three or four years ago. Then it just had one flower. It has taken all this time to work up to three.  Still, I think I would enjoy it even more if I didn't have to wear my winter coat to a

It's been a week, and considering it's only Tuesday, that tells you something. Our co-op's end of the year program is this Friday, so I've been spending what seems like every waking hour getting ready for it. Much of that time has been spent editing creative writing papers. My students are all excellent writers, but even so, editing together is a slow process. I think I'm done with that. Next up is getting the table presentations ready. It truly feels as though I haven't really stopped since last Thursday at co-op. This is definitely not my preferred mode of existence! I'm feeling the need to watch stupid television instead of reading before bed, which probably tells you all you need to know about my current amount of margin. But even in the rare crazy week, we still have teatime. I think it helps everyone to have at least one definite time in the day where everyone pauses together for a bit. We are one chapter away from finishing the book. Today Jane discov

This past Saturday, I had my final twill weaving class. I loved this class! The teacher is fantastic, and the other women in the class were wonderful people to spend three full days with. I am so happy I have found this arts studio. Here is the finished project. The whole thing. It's probably about two yard long. Here is a close up. Each square is a different twill pattern. I could now weave a whole piece of fabric in any one of them. I love that recently there have been multiple people in my life whose focus is on what a person has learned. The instructor of this class certainly falls into that category. And I learned a lot. The gamp is certainly not perfect, but I'm pretty sure I learned so much more from its imperfections. The above photo is an example. These are the two ends of the gamp. The photo on the right is of the beginning, and the photo on the left is of the end. They each show nine squares. Would you believe that both ends are showing the same weaving structure? Th

A couple of months ago I was in contact with a woman who wanted to buy a couple of baby chicks so her children could enjoy raising them for a bit but then needed a place for them to live permanently. It seemed like a good deal to me. We have fewer chickens than we used to and not having to brood chicks was an actual plus in my book. Remember, I said I would never brood chicks (or ducks ) in the house ever again.  Now, when someone says they are going to raise chicks past the cute stage, to me that says when the chicks arrive here, they will be at that awkward and unattractive teenage chicken phase where they are big enough to be outside with a little extra care. That was totally without our capabilities. The chicks were due to arrive today, so yesterday, while I was at my weaving class, J. spent a chunk of the afternoon getting some living quarters ready for them.  The chicks arrived while I was teaching a riding lesson, so when I was done, I wandered over to see our newest farm acqu

Friday J. and I took everyone to the Midwest Horse Fair up in Madison, Wisconsin for the day. The fair had been cancelled for the past two years due to Covid, so it was very exciting to be able to go again. I love the fair. First, there are just lots and lots of horses and lots and lots of people who are excited about talking about horses. There are clinics and other sessions where you can learn more about a wide variety of horse topics. There is a vendor market where you can buy horse-related items. It's awesome.  Well, I think it's awesome as do some of my children. While I wouldn't go so far as to say that some people had a miserable time, I think I'm pretty safe is saying that not everyone will desire to go back next year. The weather didn't help. On Friday it was rainy (sometimes extremely rainy) and very cold. While it didn't actually snow ( like it did the last time I was there ), it sure felt as though it was possible. Weather like that makes looking ar

This evening, this blog passed a fairly momentous benchmark of receiving two million page views. That's kind of a big number. Allow me to do some navel gazing in honor of it. I never dreamed when we began this blog in 2005 to keep friends and family updated about our first adoption that sixteen years later I would still be writing it. Who would have thought? I didn't even think I was a very good writer and happily off-loaded the blog updating to J. for the first year or so. It just goes to show that writing is truly a matter of practice.  It's also a little surprising to look back and realize just how much a part of our family this blog has become. It has chronicled the past sixteen years of family life in a way that just a photo album couldn't manage. In discussions of what happened when, it is the final arbiter of any arguments. It has recorded incredible joys as well as the lowest of lows. Today, not only does it continue to keep family members in the loop, but also

Look what arrived today! It's a lovely cardboard box, isn't it? I know you're as excited as I am about it. Actually, it is an event tent, and the box is just a little bit smaller and lighter than I was expecting, so I hope it's what I want. Having a nice-ish tent with walls means that I can plan and schedule retreats without having to worry too much about the weather. Not having any sort of roof combined with the more than sketchy weather we've been having meant I didn't want to plan something and then have to cancel due to weather. (Now, if I had that farm next door... Can you believe no one has jumped on the chance to buy it for me? Neither can I.) Anyway, this feels a little less dicey in terms of planning.  The next step? To see if we can set it up. That seems a little more challenging than purchasing the thing. 

I'm not sure how many people are aware of the analytics behind Blogger, but not only can I see how many people have viewed a given post, I can also see a list of the posts which have been looked at recently. Sometimes, a post will be on the list and have no recollection what it is about so I click on it. It's kind of fun rereading posts like that. I've been keeping this blog since April 5, 2006. (I kind of missed that anniversary, didn't I?) That means there is 16 years of writing here, and since I write nearly every day, that equals 3,817 posts (including this one). That's a lot of writing. It also means that it is unlikely that new readers are truly aware of the thousands of words that are buried in the archives here.  For fun, because I've come across several posts which have amused me, I thought I would dig out some of those posts and let them see the light of day again. There are several pretty amusing ones, even if I do say so myself. I'll give you som

It will come as no surprise to longtime readers when I say I can be somewhat insatiable when it comes to learning new things about my particular interests. This is why I can't decide if finally figuring out how to listen to podcasts is a good thing or not. It does kind of play into my particular learning compulsions. So while I muck the barn or while I am spinning, I am often listening to a podcast. Currently I am working my way through The Hidden Brain and Freakanomics. Because another of my little quirks is that I really dislike doing things out of order, I have started at the beginning of each podcast series and have been listening to them in order. So what I'm going to write about is from several years ago. Today's Freakanomics episode (today as in the episode I am currently up to) was an interview with Angela Duckworth who wrote Grit. (Which is actually a book that is on my list to read some day, but not one I have gotten to yet.) The interview was in part about goal s

I've been thinking a lot about this recently. When Jesus started his ministry, He upended a lot (nearly all?) of what the religious leaders believed was true. They had spent their lives studying the Scriptures and truly believed they were doing what God wanted. They believed so deeply that it was nearly impossible for them to hear Jesus' teachings, much less accept Him as Messiah. So much contemporary commentary paints them as being in love with power to the extent that they couldn't accept Jesus because He eroded that power. And while that was probably a piece of it — desiring power seems to be a pretty universal human foible — I'm sure there were quite a few Pharisees and Sadducees who truly believed what they were doing and teaching was what was right in the eyes of God. And they believed so much in that rightness that they planned to do away with Jesus. He threatened what they believed, they saw Him as an afront to God, and He had to go. On Palm Sunday, Jesus entere

Blogging on Good Friday always seems challenging. So couple that with the ocular migraines I've been having off and on all day, and all I have for you is links to past posts. Out of all of them, I recommend the Requiem the most. It is a beautiful piece of music which is why I continue to remind everyone of it once a year.  Requiem Friday Bullets - Good Friday Good Friday for Children

I keep my weekly meal plans in a cheap spiral notebook, with a week on each page. It's not at all high tech, nor is it particularly beautiful, but it works. This also means that when I reach the end of a notebook, I have quite a few weeks of meal records at my fingertips. When I planned this week's meals yesterday, I realized that I was at the end of the notebook and I was curious about numbers. I've always said that I don't repeat the same meal in a month, but was that really true? I decided to look. Here's how it worked out.  I had 41 weeks of meals in the this particular notebook, giving me about ten full months of meals. It seemed like a pretty decent set of data. The most frequently made meal was spaghetti, coming in at nine times in those ten months, which is just about once a month. This was spaghetti with red sauce, but it would vary between ground beef or meatballs or Italian sausage (and once there were mussels). It kind of depended on what I felt like add

Twice in two days I have read something that either takes me by surprise or kind of baffles me.  The first was Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles (who wrote A Gentleman in Moscow which became one of my all-time favorite books.) It took me a while to make progress with it. I think it's because I felt as though there was a vague sense of doom hovering around the edges of the story, and I was just a few chapters in when Russia invaded Ukraine. I set it aside for weeks because there is only so much doom, actual or implied, that one can take. I finally finished it yesterday and ended up liking it by the end. I won't reveal any spoilers, but I will say that how I was preparing for the book to end was not at all how it ended. I was glad J. had already read it so I had someone to talk about it with. It was a book that needed a little processing afterwards. The other was Jane Eyre (and as usual, there will be spoilers). It was a chapter that left all of us either baffled or annoyed, dependi

I want to tell you about the weaving class I was taking last week. It was a twill class, which meant we were learning about twill structures and how to weave them. The teacher is excellent. She is one of those teachers that make me want to see what else she is teaching and take it regardless of the topic. (If you're in the area, check out Fine Line Creative Arts Center in St. Charles. It is really wonderful.) Anyway, back to twill. I'm assuming that if you are here and reading on a Monday that you don't mind me droning on a bit about fiber-related topics. So, first some definitions. Twill is a weave structure that, instead of going over 1, under 1, like you learn to weave construction paper in school, it goes over 2, under 2. And with that pattern, it can be varied pretty much endlessly. Which brings us to what a gamp is. A gamp is a sample piece of weaving, so in this instance a twill gamp is sampling a lot of different weave structures. The things that change in the stru

I had mentioned that our dryer was not doing very well. We could get it to work, but it was fiddly and unreliable. This is an early Mother's Day present of a brand-new dryer which matches the brand-new washer which we bought not so long ago. We did not buy this. (It wouldn't have really been in the budget anyway. I was resigned to limping along with the fiddly one.) TM bought this as a surprise and delivered it today. I'm still kind of overwhelmed, not everyone gets a new dryer from their nineteen-year-old son. (And yes, as you might imagine, his job is going well, and he is working a lot of hours.)  J. is not having a good time getting it installed, though. The gas hook-up is proving tricky. This is hardly his first appliance installation. I'm pretty sure that this is the third (maybe fourth?) dryer we have had since we have lived in this house. I'm hoping with two new machines which both have extended warranties (yes, TM bought the extended warranty, too), that ma

Day 2 of my weaving class finished today. It's been wonderful to have two full days to learn new skills and spend two whole days doing it. It also means that I will be spending a good chunk of tomorrow afternoon catching up on all the things I haven't done for three days. (Thursday I was gone all day because we were at co-op.) There is a lot of catching-up.  Over the past couple of months, I've begun to understand why people seem to be amazed at what I do in any given week. You know, those ever present comments of, "I don't know how you do it!" or "How do you have time to ___________?" I truly don't think I do anything super human, but that is the reaction I tend to get. I think there are two things at play. The first I figured out earlier this winter when I began driving H. twice a week to her Rising Lights group. It's not terribly far, it only takes 15-20 minutes to get there, but by the time you double that for the trip back as well as the

It's been a full week. Everything is good, but there's been a lot. On Wednesday, I met with a friend who is a therapist and also has taken EFL training. We were discussing if there were ways we could collaborate together. I have a feeling that I got much more out of the whole conversation than she did. She is amazing at networking and pretty much spent quite a bit of time with me giving me a whirlwind networking lesson. I'll admit that it is a little bit (okay, a lot) outside my comfort zone. While I believe passionately about the benefits of EFL, I pretty consistently battle imposter syndrome, so the idea of contacting strangers to tell them about the services I am offering feels a little bit of a stretch. I've been doing a lot of thinking to process all of that. Then today I had the first full day of the weaving class I'm taking. It is all about how to weave twill and there is a lot to learn. I find it fascinating, but it is also a lot of information. Today we lea

[Spoiler alert if you've never read Jane Eyre and don't want the plot spoiled. Stop reading now.] Today in Jane Eyre, we learned that Mr. Rochester was already married and his mad wife lived on the third floor of his estate. I paused and asked if anyone was surprised. No, no one was surprised. The foreshadowing is extremely heavy. Plus, as everyone pointed out, there was still too much of the book left for a facile happy ending of Jane and Mr. Rochester getting married.  I was telling this to J. tonight while dinner was cooking. He asked if Jane Eyre was published in installments like Dickens' work. I didn't know, so I looked it up. The short answer is no, it was all published together, but in three volumes meaning you didn't have to buy the entire expensive book at one time. As I was searching up the answer, I typed in, "Was Jane Eyre..." and continued with my question. But, I was also interested in the predictive questions that popped up. The very first

I've been stewing about this for a while, but I recently saw it again, so here we are. What has got my pants in a knot? It's actually a meme, and admittedly, it is a little over the top to get upset over a meme. I can completely overlook memes designed to be sarcastic or purposefully infuriating. That's kind of their point, and I'm happy to scroll on past. It's the memes that purport to communicate some great truth but instead end up misleading people that make me a little upset.  What is it about this time? I don't have the actual text in front of me, but it is something along the lines of "The greatest danger to Christians is the idea that they should do things which make them happy." It goes on, but I don't remember the exact words; the sentiment is that being happy distracts us from doing God's work.  Boy do we Christians do a good job of taking the joy out of joyfulness. And yes, I purposefully replaced "happy" with "joy&qu

I think I've managed to get into the studio just once this past week. The week must have been busier than I thought it was. It also means I don't have much to share.  The day I did manage to get some time to spin, I decided I needed some color, so I opened up one of the polwarth/silk braids I bought last weekend. It is really beautiful. I have no idea what it will become, but it is very enjoyable to spin. Here is what it is looking like. The picture doesn't really do it justice. When you look at it in person, there are a lot more color variations in the yarn and, because of the silk, it has a sort of sheen to it that doesn't come through in the photo. Next time TM is over, I'll see if he can get a decent picture of it. Anyway, it is beautiful.  And that's all I have. By Friday, I need to have finished figuring out how my Sheep to Scarf class is going to do the weaving portion. I am nearly there, but it still needs some fine tuning. That was supposed to be today,

Here is what I spent most of the afternoon and evening working on. That is all the little seedlings I started last month which needed to be transplanted into bigger containers. See? I also planted more seeds which don't take long to grow such as marigolds and cucumbers. There are a lot of plants on this table. I am not going to ignore the garden this year. I have pared down my schedule a bit so I won't be working non-stop like last summer. It was a bit much.  Of course, the challenge with having any plants in the house is cats. That is why you see seedling covers perched all over the table. If memory serves, this worked well enough to deter the cats last year; I hope it works again this year. Having stood for most of the day, I am now ready to sit down and relax.