Ordinary Time

It's just going to be a few pictures this evening because really all I've done is a lot of weaving this week. But because I've done a lot of weaving, I'm down to the last dishtowel on this warp. This means that I have finished ten napkins and one dishtowel. Here's the last towel started. I had to change the weft color for this one because after over six yards of the same color I needed a change.  And a close up of the pattern. What was exceptionally exciting to me was seeing the end of the warp appear on the warp beam.  This means I have figured my warp length nearly exactly right. I find that very satisfying. I am really, really excited to get to begin a new weaving project soon. 

I wasn't going to join the bandwagon of writing theological posts about Barbie, but yet, here I am. Blame the guest preacher we had at church this morning. J. was the recipient of a lot of scrawled notes from me, the first one began, "If I were preaching on this text, I'd... " Well, it's one of the perks of having a blog, isn't it?  As you might have surmised, one of the texts for the morning was the story of Mary and Martha, where Martha is doing all the work and Mary is hanging out with Jesus. When Martha complains about her sister's indolence, Jesus tells her that Mary has made the better choice. I've written more than a couple of blog posts on the story, because it is one I wrestle with. I also sort of thought that if I were choosing this passage to preach on, I would pair it with Proverbs 31, about the dutiful wife, another passage I've written about at length here and also one that I perpetually wrestle with. Why not just tackle both difficul

It's been a good day, and not only because the storm that came through last night brought cooler temperatures and (slightly) lower humidity. It was mainly because I got to do things that I enjoy doing. I had a client in the morning, so I was working, but it is work I truly enjoy. This time it was a parent-child pair.  For lunch (a meal I don't normally like, especially if I have to actually fix something), I remembered that TM had brought over a banh mi sandwich for me (and he also brought one for J.) from our favorite Vietnamese restaurant. So that was a win. Good food that only required me to unwrap it (and remove the cilantro.)  Then, because we had nothing on the calendar, I claimed the afternoon for weaving. I only have one and a half of the napkins I'm weaving left to do now! I am very much looking forward to being able to work on a new project.  And since the weather was still decent, I decided that I needed to start working more purposefully with Major if I want him

I'll dive right in. No one is happy with the heat and humidity, especially the horses. They have chosen to stand in their stalls the majority of the past several days. I've left the dry lot gates open and they have been doing a lot of grazing at night when it is cooler. J. also rigged up a mister system for them to cool off when they feel the need. I even saw Emmy, the horse who doesn't like water sprayed on her, using it. As a fun activity for a day when no one can be outside, J. and I decided to take everyone to see Barbie. (J. has Fridays off in the summer.) We all really liked it. It's the rare movie these days that can appeal to everyone at home, so I appreciated it for that as well. It is beyond me why it was given a PG-13 rating. The one swear word was bleeped out. Maybe it was because of the construction workers being gross to Barbie? If so, it kind of proves the point of the movie.  My children were surprised that I was the one who suggested everyone going to s

So it seems I wrote yesterday's rather complaining post a wee bit too early last night. The day was going to end on a high note. We were doing “just about to get ready for bed” things last night, and J. took the myriad of dogs who are living here for a last time out. I was doing... something. I'm sure it was vitally important such as playing Mine Sweeper on my phone, when I heard J. calling me. Now, when J. calls me asking me to come downstairs there's usually some sort of emergency. Last night was not the exception. I get downstairs to find an unhappy J. standing with an unhappy Aster who were both smelling more than a little like skunk.  After some quick Googling (I think Gretel was the last of our dogs to run afoul of a skunk which would have been nearly ten years ago), we put the very unhappy dog in the downstairs bathtub along with hydrogen peroxide (well, at least what was left in the bottle), baking soda, and dish soap. We got her very soapy and then rinsed her off.

The title sums up my day. First, it's just too hot and humid. I know we are late to the party, so I won't complain about that too much.  Then today I helped members of the weaving class for blind and vision impaired students get their warps ready for the start of class in August. This was a fun way to spend the day and the air conditioning felt wonderful... until it became so cold I was shivering. You would think that having grown up carrying a sweater with me everywhere to keep me warm in ridiculously cold air conditioning, I might have thought of bringing one today. Nope. I just froze. Inside. Outside, getting into the un-air conditioned van took care of the freezing pretty instantaneously and I veered back to steaming. Then this evening, TM's and A's animals came to stay for a variety of reasons. In case you're new, that adds two more dogs and two more cats. The cats are hiding, the dogs we're keeping apart. Even though Aster was a puppy here with Olive, for

The short version of this post is that prices are really high and I don't like it. If you don't want the number crunching I'm about to do, you can now move along and feel as though you have the main point. Can you tell I went grocery shopping today? I have to say that I found one of the bright spots of my children getting older and moving out on their own to be the idea of lower food costs because I was feeding fewer people. If only...  When I was routinely feeding at least twelve people every meal, I was able to keep my weekly shopping trip to around $150 dollars. This was not my total food budget because I stocked up twice a year with a bulk order of staples, I have been buying a side of beef for a very long time, and paper products I bought at a big box store. A larger than average bill was heading past $175 and a huge stock up trip or major holiday was a bit over $200. I'll remind everyone again, this was for at least twelve people for every meal. It was also not th

Since the scouring agent I ordered arrived and because the weather was so nice, I decided this was a good weekend to get a start on processing the raw wool I have been stock piling. (Don't worry, we'll get to share in the stupid hot weather this week.)  First the scouring (which is a fancy fiber way of saying washing the raw wool to get out the dirt and lanolin). I have washed nearly all the Shetland that I have, so felt as though that could wait. But there was the 5+ pounds of merino and the 7+ pounds of Clun Forest kicking around. I hadn't even opened the box the Club First came in to look at it. (Okay, a digression. The Club Forest was shipped in a large box that had contained diapers. I was out when it arrived, and J. sent me a picture of a large box of diapers that had come in the mail asking if I had forgotten to tell him something. I was so confused that someone was sending us diapers. Then J. said it was probably the wool I had ordered and all became clear. What'

If you've read here for any length of time, then you know I really don't like advertising in general and I'm really bad at self-promotion. So that means my idea of telling people what I do involves saying something once or twice and assuming everyone knows. Then I'm surprised when everyone doesn't know. I guess I need to get over this.  If I write one blog post that outlines what I do, then I can just link to it when I need it. It will kind of be like only promoting myself once. Right? Humor me a bit here.  I now own two Businesses. Well there is one business and the other is a DBA (doing business as) of the first. They just sort of look like two businesses. (See me throw business-y terms around as if I know what I'm doing and didn't hire someone to take care of all the filing and legal bits.)  The first is Bittersweet Farm LLC. I do a few things under this name.  Equine Assisted Learning - This is working with horses to develop self-awareness and to experi

It's been quite a while since I've done one of these.  Emmy and Java are still completely ignoring Major Tubbs, though in the barn, Vienna will happily let him greet her. In the field though, it's like watching a less-popular girl trying to hang around the popular ones. Since the arrival of the new horse, Emmy and Java have decided that maybe Vienna can enter their circle a little bit. Vienna loves this, even more than she wants to befriend Major Tubbs. Every so often, I'll see her standing in between and nicker at him, as if she's saying, you're okay, but I really want to be friends with those other horses. Vienna seems conflicted, Major Tubbs seems lonely. It's still early days yet.  I think we are one of the few places in the country with decent weather. I took advantage of it and deemed it "tack room cleaning day". It really needed it. Here is everything emptied outside. Of course I didn't get a before picture, so you'll just have to tr

K. is taking Driver's Ed this summer. This means that three days a week we need to take him to class and then two hours later we need to pick him up from class. He is thrilled to finally be able to start the process to learn to drive.  Another big milestone for K. is that he just landed his first job. Today was his first day working at Taco Bell. It seemed to have gone well, but he did come home and fall asleep.  These are great things for him. These are appropriate activities for him. I'm glad he's doing them. I am not so excited about all the schlepping this involved. I really, really, really don't like a day filled with a twenty minute trip here or a thirty minute trip there. It plays havoc with being able to to anything at home. So once again, for anyone who has asked me (or thought about asking me) how I accomplish the things that I do, it's because I try very hard not to spend my days driving people hither and yon. I don't mind one or two days where I have

I mentioned a while back that I bought a few books in the bookstore in Gatwick airport while I was waiting for my flight. I've now read the ones I bought and am now working on the ones I took pictures of. (I could only realistically purchase and tote about so many books.)  The book I read on the plane was The Appeal by Janice Hallett. This was an epistolary mystery which was a bit non-traditional. I enjoyed it once I got into it and sorted out all the characters. I appreciate a good fair play mystery and had it pretty much figured out by the end.  I also purchased another mystery by the same author, The Twyford Code. The story is told by a series of transcripts of recordings, so not technically epistolary, but not traditional story telling, either. The premise is that there might be clues to a treasure within the novels of a children's book author, based on Enid Blyton. What it really becomes is an interesting look at one man's story of a less than ideal life and what he en

I don't really have much to share with you, last week being kind of taken over with buying and bringing home a new horse. That's one reason, but here is the other. This is the table in my studio. And from the other side. I have now reached a point where until I get this sorted out, I absolutely cannot work in there.  Some of it is projects (yes, plural, and that is part of the problem), some of it is unrelated, non-crafting items that need to just be put away, and some of it is new crafting items that need a home. Right, about that. A spinning/knitting store near me is closing its doors after many years. I'm kind of sad about it because I've found really interesting spinning fiber there. There is a 50% off everything sale until everything is gone. That's a mark down to take advantage of even if I currently don't really need anything. It is definitely a stock up price.  (We won't visit the fact that spinning fiber is not really something I need to stock up on

For the past couple of days, I closed the gate between the two pastures and kept Major Tubbs in one and Emmy, Java, and Vienna in the other. For the most part, they ignored each other. Well, except for Java trying to take a bite out of her new companion a couple of times. Yesterday I noticed him standing at the fence just kind of staring at the other horses in a lonely looking way, so we moved Vienna over. Vienna walked over to him, he went to greet her, when she promptly turned around and tried to kick him. (It was a pretty adorable little kick. I know cute was not what she was going for, but it's kind of a default when you're a small pony.) After her kick, she comes racing over to where I was standing, goes behind me and peers out at the interloper from behind my back. I felt as though I was in a cartoon. While all this is going on, Major Tubbs just stood and stared at her. He didn't even put an ear back. The rest of the afternoon they grazed at opposite ends of the pastu

Early this morning I had a phone call from the post office. Our chicks had been delivered! To recap, these are the chicks I ordered when eggs cost more than bacon and our hens didn't seem to be laying sufficiently... or at all. I don't think they had started up again at this point. Because I wasn't the only one reacting to high egg prices, finding layers as day old chicks was proving difficult. The best I could find was a hatch date in July. It wasn't ideal, but we could brood them outside because it would be warm. And, if chicks were such a rare commodity, I should get a few. So I ordered fifteen because it was a good deal if you ordered that many and didn't care what type of hen you got.  Well, our hens have been laying well. Egg prices have gone down. And now I have 17 new chicks. Yes, they threw in a couple of extra.  In the box they arrived in. I think they were glad for the water once I got them home. They are pretty cute. We temporarily moved them into a larg

This could also have been titled "There are only a few things I'd voluntarily stay up until 2am for" or "Trying not to cry in the middle of Aldi". But I'll explain in a minute. First... Major Tubbs (His sale listing photo) He's a 17 year old gelding (boy) who is beautiful and charming and sane. I really cannot fully communicate exactly how excited I am about him. P. found him. I told her I was looking for a new horse and my parameters. On Monday, P. texted me and sent a link to a horse. She said she thought he would be a really great match, but that since he was more money than was in my budget, she could cover the rest.  This is where I struggled not to burst into tears in the middle of Aldi. And yes, of course I paused and looked at every single video attached to the listing. He was beautiful and did seem ideal. We talked it over at dinner and I asked the seller bunch of questions, but the only hangup was that he was in Wisconsin and it would be at lea

I was having a discussion with a woman I am mentoring and realized a small piece of what I had written might be useful to a wider audience. While I was writing in reference to children with a hard past, this is actually true for all children. «The keys to working with ... children are:  1. To keep yourself regulated no matter what they say or do. They need to know you can handle their mess and are not upset by it.  [Have you ever been so worried or upset about something that you are sure your world is going to end? And then you tell your spouse or a friend and they don't lose their mind with you, but remain calm and you can begin to ratchet down because their calmness helps you realize the world is not actually ending? Tell me it's not just me. Our children really, truly need adults who will not freak out and thereby confirm the world is truly ending. This is why it is so vital to learn self-regulation. We need to be the calm and stable center for our children.] 2. Accept who t

This past Saturday I took a day long warp painting class at Fine Line. It was exactly what it sounds like... you hand paint a measured warp that you will eventually weave with. (The warp are the long threads that are wound on the loom.) I had to go to class with a measured and prepared warp. This took many more hours than I had anticipated and it was pretty much my sole accomplishment on Thursday and Friday. I got it done and was ready for class. Had I known, I would have started sooner. Actually, no. No, I would not have started sooner. Who am I kidding? I would have waited until the last minute regardless.  Anyway. It really did take most of Saturday to paint, but it is a very relaxing way to spend a day. Because I had the right equipment at home, I was able to take my warp home unsteamed so the color had longer to penetrate the fiber. The color took exceptionally well.  After it had cooled I got to open it up to see what it looked like. The instructions were to divide the warp into

I'll write more about this later because it's getting late and I don't think very clearly when I'm tired. But I have the best son-in-law in the world, and he has been working on creating another website for me. Want to see?  Xanthos - Equine Assisted Leadership Development 

So do you remember me mentioning that we had a storm a few days ago and that we had lost power for a bit? For a brief period of time it was some pretty torrential rain. We really didn't think anything of it at the moment. Then yesterday, I was walking through the second floor and happened to glance at the ceiling. We had water stains on the ceiling for a while, but I had traced around them so that I could reassure myself that they hadn't changed. Except yesterday when I glanced at them they had changed. The ones that were there were much larger and there were more of them. I didn't need to check pencil marks to tell me that.  I call J. and he heads up to the third floor to see if he can figure out what was going on. He was afraid it was the air conditioning that has some vents that run above some of the second floor ceilings. (That's what the ceiling water stain in H. and R.'s room is from.) Of course to reach the under eaves crawl space to check, it means not only

Thanks to MC, I can now share pictures. They are pretty self explanatory. They were taken by a variety of people over the week, so I'll give photo credits for each in parentheses. I'm also not even going to try to put them in chronological order. We went to the beach, we went into town and ate ice cream, we played games, and we picked fruit. Various adult children came up, but not all at the same time. I'll annotate if something is particularly baffling. (TM) (TM) (TM) (TM) (J) (J) (J) (J) (J) (J) (J) (J) (J) You can see me on the couch knitting. (J) (J) (MC) (MC) (MC) (MC) (MC) (MC) (MC) This is W. and MC's dog Magpie (MC) And this is their dog Mambo (MC) (MC) (MC) (MC) (MC) (MC) (MC) (MC) (MC) (MC) (MC) (MC) (MC) (MC) We probably picked 25 quarts of sweet cherries and five quarts of Saskatoon berries. (E) At the candy store L. chose flavored crickets... and ate them. (E) They were really just dried crickets. (E) (E) (E) (E) (E)