Friday bullets - May 27, 2022

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 work my way through my huge stack of books. The question is, how many books can I reasonably pack in my carry on? At least summer clothes don't take up very much room.
• I'm so excited to have found a house/dog/horse/chicken/duck/guinea pig/cat/goose sitter for our trip to Yellowstone in the fall.
• Our summer schedule continues to work. Math has been done every day without complaints. Reading and playing outside has also been done without complaint, but I didn't really anticipate either of those items being an issue. It's no more than they are expected to do during the school year, so I don't know what's different... maybe it is being able to do it on their own time? I'll have to sit with that a bit and see if it affects how we do school next year. 
• With two middle schoolers and two high schoolers, school is going to look different either way, I think.
• I still don't have the last three garden beds planted.
• I think what made the week seem long was the shooting in Texas. I'm sure I'm not the only one who is deeply affected by it. Currently all of my senators and my congressional representative are democrats, so I can't even work to vote them out of office. If you do have senators or representatives who are unwilling to vote for gun reform (or who still insist the election was stolen), please, please, please work to remove them. Our children cannot stand much more of the "freedom" they are offering. 
• And if you are still unsure about the unholy alliance between right-wing conservatives and gun manufacturers, then read about the manufacturer who quotes Scripture along with a photo of a child holding an assault rifle.
• Stewing about all this and feeling as though there is absolutely nothing I can do about it has consumed my week.
• I'll stop there because I have a feeling I am preaching to the choir. After the great FB friend/blog follower retreat of the past couple of years, where I would post something and I could watch the numbers slowly plummet, I don't think I have any readers left who think differently.
• Wow, this is cheery, isn't it?
• To end on a more positive note. I came in from teaching a horse class this afternoon to discover Y. working with R. to try to teach her to count past four. Since I've been there, done that, I was curious to eavesdrop and see how it went. My experience is that it is an exercise in frustration. It sounded as though frustrating was how Y. was feeling as well. P. even joined in for a bit to help. Eventually, after many, many repetitions, they did successfully get R. to count, "1, 2, 3, 4, 5" Wisely Y. stopped after that one success. As I was listening to this process (they were counting play fish), it made me think about if there were other ways of going about this process. I have some ideas, but need to think about them some more. 

And with that I'll say good-night. I have books to read.