Ordinary Time

We like games around here and I have usually found one or two new games to add to our collection each Christmas. For various reasons this didn't happen this year. But since we own a few games I wasn't going to spend much time feeling sad about it. It also meant that when B. and his fiancee gave everyone a new game I was thrilled to have that hold filled in.  Tonight while dinner cooked, L., J. and I sat down to figure it out.  It's called Vivarium and is in the Eurogame category. As you can tell from the picture, the game board isn't huge and it only tajes a modest size playing space. Set-up was pretty quick and simple once we figured out the different types of cards and pieces. And for a Eurogame the instruction book was pretty minimal... Just six, not very large pages. (We have some games where the instructions run to 20+ pages, which is when I start looking for an instruction video to watch.) The first round, though, was a lot of guessing, though, as we figured out w

Greetings from my favorite week of the entire year! It seems we decided to celebrate this year by having two major car repairs back to back. If only the checkbook had decided to celebrate as well by miraculously adding in money. But it didn't. Stressed about money? Me? I don't have any idea what you're talking about.  Because the cars tend to stop running while I'm driving them, I may be developing a bit of a complex and an wondering if I am a car jinx. Y. taught herself to crochet today.  I am so tired of the mud. K.'s big news from today is that he has his driver's permit! I'm proud of him for being diligent and continuing to work on learning the material so he could pass the written test.  I listened to a really interesting YouTube conversation earlier this week myth busting the idea that before modern times people never bathed and stank. (It was done by Bernadette Banner if you are familiar with her.) What I found most interesting was the idea that the f

A few people received various crafting items for Christmas which they have been busy using this week, but before I show you those pictures, I will share a couple of the gifts I made. First is this scarf that I wove for G. And this is the one I wove for D. This one has some handspun in the warp. Any of the yarn that is not solid green or dark purple is handspun.  Here is what it looked like as I was warping the loom. That is all handspun. The purple was some leftover that I spun in 2022, the multi-color yarn is what I spun when I first started to relearn how to spin in 2017. Practice makes a difference. But onto what's been happening this week. L. has been wanting a pottery wheel (or to take wheel classes) for quite some time now. Any classes for teens just haven't worked out for us and a pottery wheel just isn't a remote possibility. So when I came across this, I thought it was worth a try. It had good reviews in general, but I'm always leery of "toy" art supp

I had mentioned that on my Christmas to-do list was to make fabric squares that I could use for gift wrapping instead of paper. Well, I got it done, so thought I would share the results and my thoughts about the whole process.  I made 17 squares of fabric for wrapping and used all but one. It was a little too small to be useful, it turned out. All the other gifts went into reusable gift bags or boxes. I also reuse gift tags, tissue paper, ribbons, and bows from year to year, so everything I used will be used again. I'm cheap and dislike waste, so this felt good.  But how did the presents look? Here are a few all wrapped up. This is the same gift from the top: This is just quilting cotton: A drapier fabric: And flannel. This piece was really too small, so I wrapped with it like paper and used a ribbon to hold it all together. Did it make a difference to the Christmas chaos? I think so. Here are all the wrappings folded up and ready to be put away. It might have taken me a half hour

We had a lovely Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. They only disappointment was that W. and MC couldn't join us due to being down with Covid. We'll have a Christmas re-do with turn on New Year's Eve.  Some photos from the celebrations. The table set for Christmas Eve dinner. We were a little more casual this year, though I did use the fancy chopsticks and chopsticks rests. Waiting for Christmas morning to start. Scenes from the morning. One of K.'s gifts was an inflatable dinosaur costume. He loves it. Everyone watching Olive watch the dinosaur. Olive was not sure at all about it. Then we always head to J.'s sister's for Christmas dinner with aunts and uncles and cousins. Today, Boxing Day, is possibly my very favorite day of the year. We have done all the things, I have completed all lists. There is absolutely no where we need to be and no where we need to go. It's a day just to spend time together and relax. Heaven.

  Merry Christmas from all of us to all of you!

The gifts are wrapped. Other than muck the barn, it's pretty much the sum total of what I've done today. There were meals and breaks and some laundry, plus I have been pretty leisurely about the whole thing; we don't have that many gifts.  If you, too, are spending more time than you would like wrapping, then I have something for you to listen to which might help pass the time. We kind of have a thing here for the Twelve Days of Christmas, and our classical music station plays this very funny version once a year. They played it this morning which is why I'm thinking of it. Enjoy!

I think I'm going to be ready for Christmas.  I also think that I am a car jinx. We just paid for a very expensive repair on J.'s car. When I took it to take R. to a doctor's appointment, it was acting oddly. Halfway there I realized that I wasn't going to make it and found a place to stop the car. (I'm getting far too much practice with this particular skill.) After a lot of figuring out what to do, we got it towed. Of course it was something unrelated to the previous repair and will cost even more.  I do not enjoy living paycheck to paycheck when cars break down.  We did not make R.s appointment. This would be one of the appointments it took me two hours to make three months ago. The good news is that they were willing to let me bring in both R. and H. together. I'll add that concurrent appointments was what I originally wanted, but was told they couldn't do.  So many non-holiday expenditures and appointments this week.  D. made it home earlier in the week

So remember that study I have referred to multiple times about vocabulary being found to be deficient in the younger children of large families? I bet you were getting a little tired of me harping on it.  Well, I have some good news and bad news for you. The good news is you probably won't ever hear me reference it again. Don't get too caught up in your celebration, though, because this looks is only because a new, more egregious study is out. Now it seems, that it has been "proven" that not only are the younger children of large families intellectually behind, but the intellectual ability of the older children declines with each added sibling.  First off, I guess I need to apologize to my older children. Just think how much smarter you could have been without all those pesky younger siblings around sucking up parental attention and causing you untold intellectual damage.  You were reading that as heavy irony, right? There is absolutely nothing wrong with my older ch

I just got back from a committee meeting at church where we are starting an inclusion ministry.  Committee meetings are a lot of peopling so I'm done in.  But it's good this will be short because I have an assignment for you. I want you to listen to this keynote address on inclusion. It's about an hour, so put it on in your car as you're doing all your driving. It is well worth the effort and time and one of the best things I've heard about inclusion and disability. Even if you don't have someone in your life with a disability.... particularly if you don't have someone in your life with a disability listen to this. We can all do better. We can all do small things lots of the time. It adds up and before you know it, we've changed the world.  Inclusion Institute Keynote Address 

I've been making things, but because they are Christmas gifts, I can't share them with you yet.  I did finish the band I was weaving on my new inkle loom. Here is a close-up. I'm pretty happy with the selvedges, especially for a first attempt. And the whole band.  I wove probably two-thirds of this. It was quick and pretty easy. I now want to warp an actual pattern, but that is going to need to wait until after Christmas.  I am nearly done with all the gifts I'm making. But one of the big things still left to do is making fabric squares for wrapping gifts. I'm always bothered by the gift wrap waste at Christmas even though I reuse as much as I can (boxes, bags, bows, tissue paper). I came across a YouTube video the other day of someone wrapping gifts in pieces of fabric. It looked nice and was reusable. It also looked faster and easier than wrapping with paper.  In my stash I have a ridiculous amount of Christmas fabric. So my plan is to serge the edges and see abou

On our way to church this morning we had Christmas music on, though at the moment I am about to describe the song was Auld Lang Syne. When the singer got to the bit about a "cup of kindness", L. pipes up from the back seat, "I didn't know you could put kindness in a cup." There is a brief pause, and L. continues, "I'm going to collect it and sell it to a bunch of super rich people as an anti-aging formula." "A cup of kindness isn't quite the same as an anti-aging formula," observes J. "Oh, I know. But I don't think the really rich people would be interested in getting more kind, so I have to trick them," replies L., "And then they'll take it and get kinder and give all their money away. Hopefully to me." "You do see the irony in wanting to make people kinder by tricking turn and taking their money, right?" J. asked. I forget what L.'s reply to this was, but she was aware of the irony. However,

I didn't get a whole lot done on Thursday because I spent the second half of the day binge reading the last half of the book I was in. It was The Road to Roswell by Connie Willis.  Now some of you know that I'm a huge Connie Willis fan, particularly of her Oxford time travel series. One of the books, The Domesday Book, is set during the black plague.   I also read it out loud last year to everyone as part of school.  Also in the same series are Blackout and All Clear which are set in England during the Blitz. They are well researched and engaging and some of my favorite books. It was with no little excitement that I discovered that Ms. Willis had a new book released a few months ago. Since she is one of those authors I will read no matter the content, I immediately put it on hold. And to be clear, the premise of alien adventures in Roswell, NM did not exactly fill me with anticipation.  But having faith in the author, I started it when I arrived at the library. The first few c

We had dinner with W. and MC tonight. One of the things I love about having adult children is being invited to dinner in their homes. It's just a really nice perk of having raised some fantastic individuals who are interesting and good conversationalists.  But it also means that I get home late and all you get is a short paragraph telling you how wonderful my children are. Or maybe it's nice to have a break from all my words every now and then. I have a sneaking suspicion it's the latter. 

Y. decided to make gingerbread people today. She spent the morning baking the cookies, made frosting after lunch, and then everyone helped decorate them in the afternoon.