Ordinary Time

It never fails. You go along thinking that you have this parenting-thing figured out, that you are on the top of your game, and something happens to knock you down a peg or two. Specifically, two weeks ago, I was feeling pretty good about my relationship with R., with how R. was doing, and how we had really turned a corner in doing life together. And then right before Thanksgiving, she had a really hard night. That felt like a set-back, but the next night she slept well again and we had a lovely and peaceful holiday. So far, so good. Thanksgiving night she was up a bit. Friday night she was also up a bit and life during the day wasn't going quite as smoothly. This all continued until by the beginning of this week, life was not good at night and not good during the day. Nothing I did seemed to make any difference. She was back to acting as though my mere presence was an afront she couldn't cope with. And I was sleep deprived and feeling pretty darn despondent. I'll also say ...

Last Friday, the day we had planned to get the Christmas tree, we had to first get the loom out of the van, into the house, and up the stairs. It's a good thing D. was home. As I mentioned, this loom is heavy. It's probably at least 300 pounds. No one was excited about taking it up the stairs.  Between, J., D., K., and I, we managed it. K. and J. Were at the front pulling and D. and I were in the back pushing (or more precisely just stopping it from falling back down) and by taking it a step at a time, we made it to the top. It is still somewhat disassembled and probably will remain that way until after Christmas. I have figured out a few of the pieces that need replacing, but until I can try to put it together I won't know the full extent. There are brake gears in a box, so I am guardedly hopeful that they are mostly there. It feels a little daunting, I'll admit, but also exciting.  Figuring out how to store it. The main body of the loom. In the box are hundreds of hed...

We seem to have squeezed in a whole lot of holiday activities over the weekend. On Friday, we went to get our tree. Between the drive to Wisconsin last Monday and my drive to Iowa yesterday, we didn't feel quite up for another long drive to our regular tree cutting place. (Plus, while R. slept the night before Thanksgiving, she hasn't slept since and J. and I are increasingly running on fumes.) So we decided to try a different tree place that was significantly closer to us. The best thing I can say about it is that we didn't pay a lot for the tree. We did end up with a tree, a much smaller tree than we are used to, but everyone agreed that we didn't want to try to go somewhere else. We didn't even take any pictures of the process this year. Now we know that our usual place is well worth the drive, so we'll plan better next year. But the tree is bought and sitting on our front porch ready to be decorated next weekend. Christmas music is out and has been on nearly...

(Cue Mission Impossible music) Your mission should you choose to accept it: Drive to Iowa, pick up a full beef plus a quarter from you brother, return home, and try to fit the meat into your freezer. This message will probably not self-destruct. If it does, I think you have an issue with your electronic device. I did accept the mission and headed out at 8:00 this morning for Iowa. I met my brother and sister-in-law, transferred several hundred pounds of frozen meat ( grass raised on their transitioning to organic farm ) from their coolers to my coolers, visited for a bit in the warmer-than-usual weather, and headed home.  Three-quarters of that beef were for another of my brother's customers in the Chicago area and a half was for us. It filled up two large coolers, two small coolers, and three insulated tote bags.  But even with that half, I was not entirely sure that I was going to get it to fit into here. The first thing I did was to completely empty the freezer so I could s...

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving and day after. Yes, R. slept. We had everyone here (plus some guests) except for W. and MC, who were at MC's parent's. We did have their dog, Magpie, however.  Some pictures of the day, mostly thanks to J.'s aunt who was much more diligent about picture taking than I was. The table was set. Followed by a bonfire. Hot d'oeuvres Dinner And watching A Child's Christmas in Wales.

Sad sound number one: Yesterday the dishwasher part arrived in the mail, which was exciting because there was a chance that the dishwasher could be working in time for Thanksgiving. J. spent the evening replacing the part, thought he had done it correctly, and so turned on the dishwasher. The sad sound was water pouring out of the dishwasher all across the kitchen floor. It was a very sad sound. It was even sadder when it happened a second time after J. thought he had figured out what was wrong. Water running across the kitchen floor is never a happy sound. Sad sound number two: After having wiped up all the water I heard R.'s unique and PTSD inducing shriek from her bed. This particular shriek never bodes well. Never. I went up and got her calmed down... twice. The second time she actually fell back asleep while I was sitting on her bed with her. She has never done that before. But then both J. and I were up in the middle of the night, with me finally bringing her into our bed so ...

I'm writing this in the van heading home from Milwaukee. (J. is driving, don't worry.) We also have D. and K. in the van along with us. And what were we four doing in Milwaukee? Well, also in the van is this... The photo doesn't actually tell you very much, does it? This is a partially disassembled Macomber 12-shaft loom which was selling for a relative song. It probably needs a few parts replaced, but the company is still in business and sells parts.  It's very heavy because is 56 inches wide and is solid wood. And I did mention those 12 shafts, right? Twelve!! That's more than I actually know what to do with at this moment. (I can just use four of them while I figure that out.) Anyway, it's very heavy and that's why D. and K. we're press ganged into helping. I think once we get home it's just going to stay in the van until everyone has the energy to take it out of the van, get it in the house, and carried to the second floor where it is going to li...

Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst by Robert M. Sapolsky for his chapter titled, "Adolescence; or, Dude, Where's My Frontal Cortex?" It makes me laugh every time I read it.  I've been working my way slowly through this book, picking it up in between non-fiction books from the library. (I keep one fiction and several non-fiction books going at one time.) At the rate I'm going, it's going to take me a while to finish it, not because I don't like it or because it's not interesting, but because it's 675 pages long with another thirty pages of appendices. I'm actually really enjoying it. It is full of terms such as 'prefrontal cortex' and 'limbic system' as well as phrases such as 'how the ventral tegementum is the source of the mesolimbic dopamine projection to the nucleus acumbens.' (Okay, I only have the vaguest notion of what that last phrase means; just enough to not worry about it and keep going.) It is...

The date says November, but it is most definitely winter outside. We're supposed to warm back up a bit in a few days and I certainly hope that is correct. My treadmill experiment continues to be successful. I've used it regularly for five days each week since it arrived. One day off is the day I have my riding lesson, so that's a different sort of work out. The other is our co-op day where it is about all I can do to get everyone out the door on time. I had no idea that when you get off a treadmill you can feel all wobbly, like a sailor hitting shore for the first time in months. I'm sure I was pretty amusing to watch after my first few sessions. It's gotten better now and I can actually walk across the room afterwards without having to grab onto something. It's cold enough that I had to put blankets on the horses. Three (Bristol, Java, and Vienna) of them have brand new blankets that I bought a couple of months ago. They were wearing second hand blankets that w...

I'm going to give you a little pro-tip. If you go to bed too late a couple of nights in a row because you are trying to finish a library book that is becoming increasingly overdue at the library, you will not have a whole lot of energy during the day as a result. Shocking, I know. I finished the book yesterday, got to bed at a much more reasonable time, and (surprisingly) had quite a bit more energy than the two days previous. I'm 56 and still find this little bit of information somewhat surprising. Well, if not surprising, then inconvenient. Evenings are my designated reading time after all. I am now between fiction books again at the moment, so getting to bed at a decent hour should be fairly easy. I have had a horrible time this year finding fiction that I feel like reading. I have plenty of books on my list that would probably be interesting, but they just don't strike my fancy at this moment. I started Wolf Hall by Hillary Mantel a while bit, read the first 80 pages or...

I recently finished reading Cured: The Life-Changing Science of Spontaneous Healing by Jeffrey Rediger, M.D. I picked it up because I saw it mentioned somewhere and when I looked it up it had a recommendation from Bessel van der Kolk (The Body Keeps the Score). That was all the recommendation that I needed. Of course, being chock full of fairly bizarre brain-body facts means I was hooked from the beginning. But even if you aren't a brain science geek, I think you would find this book interesting. And hopeful. And a bit challenging. It doesn't hurt that it also helps to pile on more evidence for the importance of safety and connection; this time in relation to physical health.  First a bit about what happens when you don't feel safe: "Your autonomic nervous system has two basic modes: sympathetic and parasympathetic. The sympathetic system, or fight or flight , is the gear you shift into when you're in danger or under stress. the parasympathetic, sometimes called re...

J. was gone all weekend to New Hampshire where his brother lives. He (J.) and his sisters went to surprise him for his 50th birthday. It sounds as though they all had a fantastic time together. I'm glad he was able to do this. In the meantime, I was here holding down the fort. You'll also notice that there were no blog posts the days J. was gone. This was not a coincidence. Without a dishwasher, cleaning up after dinner just takes a long time these days. All the children really have been doing voluntary dish duty during the day, but still, by the end of dinner, there is a pile of dishes. By the time I'd done the dishes and taken care of children and animals there wasn't a lot of energy left. For everyone who wonders 'how I do it all' [whatever 'it' is], I can tell you that it is because J. does a lot of household work so that I can do things like sit down to write or read or knit or whatever. His efforts are not unappreciated.  But on to fiber because I ...

I need to keep sharing these R. stories because this blog has kind of become my default family record so it is definitely a way to record milestones and track progress. And since for so many years progress was pretty non-existent, I am thrilled to have progress to share.  So, are you ready?  For the past two days, in the afternoon, R. has chosen to sit in front of the shelves of pictures books and look at books. Really look at them. This was something I had kind of written off as never going to happen, yet here we are. Looking at books is something all my other children did voraciously. I would put the books back on the shelves and hours later they would be on the floor strewn about from having been looked at. Children looking at books was a constant and it was difficult to keep fresh books in front of them. Because it was just how life was, this life surrounded by books and that those books were being constantly "read", I never thought anything about it. I didn't know to...

I was listening to the radio the other day while doing some errands when I found, once again, myself banging the steering wheel in frustration. It wasn't even a station that normally does this to me, so I was caught completely off guard. I had finished one errand, hopped in the car, and caught a story right in the middle. It was an interview about a... business? app?.. something that parents could pay for that would help their children to save money. The conversation inevitably turned to the question of paying for household jobs. The person being interviewed gave his opinion and the radio interviewer then asked him, "Doesn't this make the relationship [parent-child] transactional?" "Yes, I guess it does a bit. But that's okay because that is how the world works," he replied. Now, I don't really care how people choose to navigate the job/allowance/payment question, but I do care very much when someone says that it is okay to make a parent-child relati...

I spent some time this evening listening to the election returns... at least what there are of them at the moment. And now I'm back upstairs and am going to knit and breath deeply. I am deeply concerned for the what the election will bring. And I am baffled. I am utterly and completely baffled that people will support those who lie, who spread conspiracy theories, who are unkind, who have such a narrow view of what is right and unacceptable that they write off huge swaths of the population, treating them with contempt and hatred.  You do realize that if you support these fear mongers, that it is my family that you are saying you are afraid of. It is my family that will bear the brunt of punitive and hateful policies. Because it is the immigrant, the person of color, the member of the LGBTQ+ community who will suffer. You may object and say that of course you don't hate my family, but forgive me if I don't quite believe you when you vote for people who put in place policies ...

Fiber-wise, not much has changed in the past few days, so I'm going to wait until next week for Fiber Monday and hope I'll have something to share. Instead, I want to tell you about a little event from today. I think that you all know that parenting R. has been challenging. One of the most challenging aspects has been the complete and sudden (at least to those of us looking on) significant disregulated behavior. Often we could discern absolutely no trigger for it. We would be going along just fine and then all of a sudden we would have a completely disregulated child who was so far gone that language or attempts at comfort could make no difference. We would just have to ride it out as best we could. Over the years, these occurrences have become fewer, but they would still happen every so often.  For instance in the middle of lunch today. One minute R. is eating her lunch and the next minute she is writhing and screaming face down on the stairs. Everyone was baffled as none of u...

J. and I went out to another gala last night. That's two in one year which makes us sound as though we make a habit of going to galas. I don't think we do. This one was to support the foundation which provides scholarships to students as the college where J. works. So it was kind of a work-thing, but we were given the tickets so that's nice. We had a nice time. We sat with friends, the food was pretty good, there were free drink tickets, and the desserts were yummy. The only thing we ended up spending money on was the one raffle tickets we purchased with the hope of winning the prize money. (The prize money would have turned into an 8-shaft loom. Oh well. We're actually considering buying a Powerball ticket. We can win that, right?) We even had our photo taken. Though we never figured out how to get a copy of the photo so I have no picture to share with you. We even tried to bid on something in the silent auction. One of the offerings was a side of pork. Ours is very ne...

I'm pretty sure I'm not ready for November, yet here it is. At least the weather has been (bizarrely) warm. I have used my new treadmill every day this week except for Thursday when we are dashing out of the house for co-op. So far, the lure of getting to watch a Great Courses lecture while I walk has proven effective and makes the forty minutes feel a lot less tedious. I think my body is still adjusting to the extra exercise, though, because I have fallen asleep on the couch after teatime more than once this week. The dishwasher still does not work. I am thankful that everyone has spent some time washing dishes over the past several weeks. Olive is our house guest for this week while A. is out of town. This is pretty much what she does all day. Well, that and every time a car drive down our driveway she wait hopefully by the back door looking for A. She definitely misses her person. Here was my surprise when I went out to feed the horses one day this week. That would be a shed...

I often discuss homeschooling with people who are curious about it, whether it is something they think might be good for their family or because they are just curious. One of the benefits I often mention that comes with homeschooling is how efficient this style of education is. We are always done with our formal learning by lunchtime and then the rest of the day is free for just pursuing individual interests or classes or field trips or whatever. This schedule has been our family's life for... always. It is how my children grew up, this knowing that entertainment or direction did not come from me after lunch. This large amount of discretionary time was a huge factor when W. was decided whether or not to attend the public high school. Ultimately he couldn't imagine giving that up which would have been required along with attendance at the school just by its very nature. So by the time my children hit middle school and high school, they are all pretty adept at filling their time....

Specifically, I'm going to moan about about fleece problems. As you know I finished dyeing the ~2- 1/2 pounds of CVM fleece that I had washed, using it as a way to see how each of my dye colors works alone. So far, so good. I really was hoping to get nearly four ounces of fingering weight yarn out of each of the colors, but I hadn't really decided how I was going to process it all to get it ready to spin.  Last Thursday, I lugged my heavy drum carder to our co-op so that my students could see one in action, would be able to make a batt, and then get to spin from a batt. They loved it. As we were doing that, it occurred to me... what if I just ran all that wool through the drum carder? It seemed like a great idea. It would be fast and I knew some children who would be interested in helping. So on Halloween, because we had taken the day off, I dragged everything down to the dining room to do just that.  This is what the wool looked liked before any preparation. Now, my best deci...