Ordinary Time

I am currently reading four non-fiction books at once because I have a huge stack I want to read and am finding it difficult to settle on just one. It is the intellectual equivalent of drinking from a fire hose, which is a phase I go through every now and then. It will pass and then I will not want to read any non-fiction for a while as I digest it all. I know myself well enough by now to understand this is just part of my own peculiar learning process. I ride the wave now and know I won't feel this level of compulsion for an extended time. Part of the problem is that I read a couple of books which I really, really liked and they all had really interesting bibliographies in the back of them. (There are few things I love more than a good bibliography,) Quite a few of those books I put on hold at the library and they all arrived at the same time, so here we are.  One thing I always find interesting about these little bouts of non-stop reading is that I am usually drawn towards books

As many of you know, K. loves to draw and I've shared quite a few of his drawings on here. He is now venturing out into the field of photography. It all started with taking picture of the guinea pig, Delta. Then today on a walk in the forest preserve behind our house he took these. And then added in a few from our yard. Not bad for not really done much with photography before and on a little iPod to boot.

The week hasn't been bad, but it has seemed just long. We are finally to Friday. The purple iris are starting to bloom in the garden. Earlier in the week all the yellow iris bloomed, but when I went to take a picture of them today they were all past their prime. I guess I never realized that all my iris don't bloom at the same time. These purple ones came from the Big Ugly House by way of Arizona. Years and years ago we drove some of them home after visiting my parents. These came from my parent's front yard and they always make me think of my father when I see them. They are also the first things that I planted when we moved here. Don't expect too much (if any) blogging next week. My mother had knee replacement surgery this past week and I'm leaving for Arizona on Monday to go help her out.  (The surgery went very well, by the way.) G., L., and Y. continue to like their haircuts.  I'm in another bout of continuous reading, so expect some posts about it all as I

Today was the much anticipated day for three girls to get haircuts. All this past week I have had the countdown announced to me. I have before and after pictures for each of them. Y. L. G. Everyone is thrilled with their new haircuts. There was a truly astounding amount of hair on the floor by the end. I do have to ponytails from G. and L. to donate if I can figure out how to do that. It does make each of them look quite a bit more grown-up doesn't it?

If you have ever parented a pre- or early adolescent, you know it can be challenging. I currently have four living here now and have survived seven others. (I've written about surviving it in Parenting and Homeschooling an Early Teen .) When I come across actual brain science to back up my opinions, I like to share them. For instance, this: After the elementary school years, the young child enters the preadolescent period marked by new brain changes. The rapid growth of synapses that characterized the first three years of life returns again during this pre-pubertal phase, and cognitive functions may actually become less efficient as this excess in connectivity may decrease the speed of information processing. As adolescence begins, the second genetically programmed growth of synapses is followed by a long decade of brain remodeling that involves programmed destruction of neurons and their connections that are not being used. This parcellation process in which connections are pruned

but this time, let's forget about all that 'again' business. Instead, let's actually get it right this time. We can make America great by actually voting in lawmakers who are truly pro-life and are tired of seeing adults and children gunned down every week.  (These photos are of my children in fourth grade. I am thankful I am not having to bury a single one of them.) We absolutely need gun reform laws. Because guns really do kill people. Oh, sure, there are people pulling the triggers, but without access to guns, it would be a hell of a lot more difficult to kill an entire classroom of children.  We absolutely need to elect lawmakers who are actually pro-life who will make universal health care —including a total rehaul of the mental health services — a priority. No one should have to choose whether to pay rent or buy groceries or seek medical care. No one should have to forego mental health services because they aren't covered by insurance.  We absolutely need to e

I sat here for a few minutes trying to decide what to write. It took me a while to realize it was Monday, so I didn't have to think about it, I just needed to take a few pictures. This will be short both because I don't have much to show and because we had been invited to dinner and got back late.  My sole accomplishment for the week fiber-wise was finishing the gamp I have been weaving on my floor loom.  This is the end of it. I just need to hemstitch the top. Showing you this probably doesn't seem any different from the other photos I've shared of this project. Though it's fairly large, I can't take it off the loom yet. Here is the finished yardage all rolled onto the cloth beam. The main reason, other than the hemstitching, that I can't take it off yet is that I still have quite a bit of warp left. I spent hours putting the warp on the loom, I'm not going to waste any of it. You can see how much I have left by looking at how many times the paper is wr

We realized that with D. heading back to school tomorrow, we would miss celebrating his birthday with him. This evening we decided to have his birthday dinner and dessert. He chose steak salad (grilled steak, arugula, blue cheese, avocado, croutons, and red onion with a balsamic-mustard vinaigrette) with peach pie for dessert.  Of course we sang and he blew out his number 19 candles. (Well, he didn't actually blow them out. They have received a lot of use, these candles, and it is difficult to light them and keep them lit). He also really didn't have any gifts to open except a card from his grandmother. Our gifts to him were a supply of food for his summer apartment, his bow (which he got at Christmas to go with his cello because it is extremely difficult to play the cello without one), and the gas to drive him from and to school. Birthday gifts get super exciting when you turn 19.  It has been great having him home, and we are going to miss him. I also know he is going to real

I haven't done this in a while it seems. The garden is closer to being all planted. Today I finished adding compost to two more garden beds and got them planted. In now are sweet and hot peppers, sweet basil. and yellow pear tomatoes. These were the last of the seedlings which needed to go in. As far as seeds, I planted snap peas, arugula, beets, cantaloupe, pie pumpkins, and bush beans. Here is the bed with the yellow pear tomatoes and hot peppers. I have so much compost. It is composted horse manure that has been cooking for over a year. It is good stuff. Contact me if you want to come and get some. I will use up a good portion with three more garden beds to get ready plus I'll probably top dress as many of the other garden areas as possible, but it's a lot.  You can tell it's spring because L. has started catching snakes again. This was a little tiny baby snake. D. heads back to school on Sunday to do summer research. It has been great having him home and we will mis

I'm sure I'm not alone in that the past two or so years have been challenging in many ways. I think it has been a particularly challenging time to be a professing Christian while watching so many other (white, evangelical) Christians be willing to either turn a blind eye to what is going on or openly embrace the hateful rhetoric of the MAGA crowd. It is painful.  Pain such as that (among other life experiences that kind of kick your feet out from under you) can also cause a whole lot of questioning on a faith level. We left one church for multiple reasons, not the least of which was the tacit and outright racism our children experienced. It was not an easy decision. In some ways it still isn't. So when you combine all that together, it makes one think. A lot. About what one really believes, how everything all fits together, what difference it all makes. How does one reconstruct one's faith when you come to the realization that perhaps the conservative end of the spectru

I have officially declared us to be on our summer schedule. We have so little left to finish my homeschooling plan for the year that I figured I might as well acknowledge reality of what our schedule has been the past couple of weeks. After I get the garden finally in I'll read the last little bit that is left on the list. Then sometime in the next month or so we'll plan to have Ancient Roman food for dinner. There is one craft left on the list and it is one better done in summer anyway. We are going to create mosaic stepping stones for use in the garden. I figure this way everyone gets a chance to try their hand at doing mosaic and I get more stepping stones which are needed.  Yesterday we had a little meeting about summer expectations. I have three things on the list for the summer. 1. Everyone must do a page of math from their current book. 2. Everyone must read for at least a half an hour. I don't really care what they read. 3. Everyone must spend at least a half an hou

When I bought my floor loom back in November, I knew it was a good price for what it was. I talked with the woman who had owned it and she said she had woven many items on it, but she physically couldn't weave any longer. I knew it could be warped because it came with a warp on it. But there was always that question in the back of my head of whether or not I would be able to get the loom working.  Since it was so hot last week and I wasn't gardening, I used my free time to finally finish dressing the loom. Once I had it all threaded, I began to wind the warp on the back beam. And my warp somehow became tangled. It was a mess. I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to figure out how to fix it or if I would have to junk it and start all over again. J. got home from work while I was in the middle of messing with it, and just went downstairs to start dinner. Eventually I did get it sorted out and didn't have to abandon the warp. That felt good. Very, very good. I wound it

Last night J. and I went to a gala . It was to raise money for the Rising Lights Project which H. has been participating in for the past year. I've written before about how fantastic this program has been for her... giving her a group of friends, skills, and a chance to experience being on her own and doing things without her parents around. The organization also hosts other inclusive events throughout the year, and the group's founder's desire is to work to create a more inclusive society where the able and disabled are seen as being equal participants and have equal access to life and society. Because there is no fee to participate —and because we love the group and its mission — J. and I felt it was important to spend the money and attend the gala.  The gala was a black-tie optional event, which means that my nice jeans and washing off the horse smell was not going to be quite enough. Now, J. and I have attended galas in the past and have been able to dress accordingly,

I've been stewing about this for two weeks and I'm still not sure I have the words to fully express my thoughts, so we'll see how this turns out. I do know the phrase 'strange bedfellows' has floated through my head a lot because I find it a little surprising that I am siding with what some would consider to be the other side.  So, the leaked opinion from the Supreme Court regarding Roe v. Wade. I'm not even sure where to start. First off, I would say that I am in the pro-life end of the spectrum meaning that I really do believe that life is a precious gift and that God does seek to bless His children through children. But I am also pro-life in that I also believe that all human life is valuable... regardless of color or ethnicity or ability or socio-economic status. I am utterly baffled how the belief in those two ideas has become so politically diametrically opposed.  The world is not black and white; it is far more complicated than that. Anyone who thinks the

This evening, J. had asked R. to do something and suddenly she is stomping around and beginning to disassociate. (Disassociating is still her go-to technique for dealing with anything stressful. It is a default at this point but is slowly getting better as she feels safer and is able to be more present in the world.) Suddenly from the other end of the house, we hear her shout, "You not mad at me?" We assured her we weren't mad at all, that Daddy merely asked her to do something. Life then went on. It seems like a small, inconsequential interaction, but I assure it is anything but. My point for sharing this is to remind parents that you are not inside your child's head. What you think you said and what they perceived can be vastly different things. J. thought he had just requested that R. do something, and really he had. There was no intense emotional tone along with the request at all. R. heard emotional tone for whatever reason, and it was enough to point her in the