Ordinary Time

I'm continuing to think about my changed relationship with winter. As someone who really struggled through winter, I'm still surprised that this isn't the case anymore. I've written other posts about this, but I have two new pieces of information to share.  The first happened during the huge round of snow we had a few weeks ago. I happened on a picture of tow trucks towing cars in Evanston because the street needed to be plowed. What I found interesting was it was taken on our old street not far from our house. Suddenly I was remembering what a heavy snow was like. We had a driveway, so didn't need to worry about towing, but the more snow there was, the narrower the street became. I would dread this because backing out our 15-passenger van was extremely challenging with the much more limited space. It gave me a sense of claustrophobia and I dreaded it. Literal dread. I don't miss that. There's plenty of room here for the snow and while it can get slick, it ...

After a marathon shopping expedition today I think I am 95% done with my Christmas preparations. I feel both as though I have bought a ridiculous amount of stuff while at the same time feeling vaguely worried that I am missing important things. I find shopping in regular retail stores exhausting. After a good night's sleep and some time spent with all my lists I should be fully recovered. J. will head out tomorrow and take care of the last few things. My plan is to stay home (something I haven't done much of this week) and try to make some order out of the chaos that happens when I'm not home enough.  This also means that we can spend the days leading up to Christmas doing Christmas type things. L. is currently downstairs making rice krispie treats, plans for decorating gingerbread cookies are being discussed, there are several Christmas movies we've been saving, and we're the family lighting the Advent candles in church on Sunday. And maybe I can find time to sit a...

We've been having unusual weather here. After our multiple snow storms which left inches of snow on the ground, I was utterly convinced that we would have a white Christmas. I was thrilled. Everything was frozen, the ponies could be in the pasture, and it looked pretty.  And then it didn't. We've been above freezing for a few days now which began to melt the snow, but it was the hours of rain we had this afternoon that really did most of it in. Pretty much the only snow left is on our driveway, and it's not so much snow as ice.  But wait, there's more . We're supposed to go back down into the teens tonight, then on Saturday it's supposed to be back up to the 40's, but them back down to the teens at night. Multiple daily 30+ degree temperature changes is not my idea of fun, especially since it means putting on and taking off horse blankets a couple of times a day. As I was putting the horses' coats on them at dinner time, I was decidedly grumpy about ...

I have about 1.5 feet left to weave on the Christmas scarf I'm working on. If I can find a couple of hours over the next few days it should be off the loom before the weekend. It's... something. When I was planning it out, my biggest concern was that the busyness of the variegated warp would be too busy and overpowering. I went ahead because I hoped the solid weft would be enough to cover much of it up and tone it down a bit. Thus didn't exactly happen because the weaving structure I chose was equally busy. My biggest lesson learned from all of this is that there can really be only one complicated element in a project, more than that becomes too much to look at.  Up close, it has some really interesting things going on, such as these X's and these little circles. I like it better when I'm looking at it from a distance because it tones the whole thing down. It will probably be fine as a scarf because it will be more bunched up and usually viewed from farther away. I ...

We went to the Art Institute today. Everyone was done with classes, Y. has been dying to go see the Thorne Rooms again, and the museum was free today for Illinois residents so it seemed like the perfect activity. (For those who don't know them, the Thorne Rooms are a set of 68 miniature rooms of various historical interiors. They are exquisite.) We saw the Thorne Rooms (for Y.), various ceramics (for L.), and the swords and armor (for G. and K.) Then I made everyone go through the textile area. It was a good visit.  The church Thorne Room Tiffany stained glass window Some Chinese ceramics  A cool yet vertigo inducing staircase on the way to the armor And a textile fragment that has me completely obsessed.

I am thrilled to announce that last night TM married his partner, and so we have a new son-in-law! We couldn't be more thrilled. It was a very small private ceremony with parents and a few friends. They will have a larger celebration with family sometime in the summer. A few pictures that J. took.  Of course now I need to assign yet another initial to the family collection. I truly with I could go back in time and suggest to myself that what seemed like a brilliant idea would become completely unwieldy with the addition of more children and then spouses, but here we are. Our new son-in-law will be referred to as JH because no one has seemed to be able to marry someone with an available initial letter.  [A note about comments. Do I really need to caution people that I will be quick with the delete key? I hope not, but since you never know, consider this your warming. You can keep your homophobia to yourself and just keep on scrolling. It is not welcome here.]

I've mentioned before that I tend to only like to do Christmas crafts during the month of December, which means it can take a while to get something finished. Yesterday I had some free moments so I decided to get out one of those languishing projects. I have never forgotten about this project, I really like how the finished project is supposed to look, but it just wasn't something that made it to the top of the list. I also knew it had been a while since I had taken it out because I moved it in its unfinished state. But how long exactly it has been since I had worked on it surprised even me. Let me show you the project before I continue. Here is what it will look like when it is finished.  It is a little beaded tree and I still love it. This is an old Martha Stewart kit from when the magazine has a lot of really nice kits that they sold. What surprised me was the year on it... 2002! I knew it had been a while since I had worked on it, but I didn't think it had been twenty-t...

L. had her ceramics class final presentation today so came home with a huge box of completed projects, many of which she was thrilled to see come out of the kiln in one piece. Her final project was to create a piece based on a history piece of pottery. The students then had to create a PowerPoint presentation on the piece they chose. L.'s choice was a canopic jar from ancient Egypt. Here it is. I love it. That's a regular sized ruler to give you a sense of scale.  -------- I did very well at the Artisan Market, but did have a few skeins of handspun which didn't sell. I'm offering them on my personal FB page if you want to take a look. 

With the end of fall semester, my college attending children are now all home in the late afternoon on the same days. We haven't managed our read aloud all fall because someone was always missing. Today we sat down to our story at teatime for the first time in months. I'd had an unexpectedly busy day so it was a nice break.  We are now 26 pages away from the end of A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth. Since it's a very long book, with dozens of characters, we needed to do a bit of a story review before diving in. Thank goodness for family trees in the beginning of the book to help us refresh our memories as to what the character's names are. Our goal is to have it finished by Christmas. When we do finish it, I'll have to look back to see when we started it to see how long it took us to read 1349 pages. 

With all of my holiday things done, I can think of other projects. Mainly I have been feeling the need to finish things that have been kicking around for a while. The item at the top of that list is the sweater vest I've been slowly working on all year. I've done the back and all that's left of the front are the two sides of the 'V' at the neck. Once those are done I'll do the ribbing on the arm holes and neck and it will be done. The end is in sight. It is at this point with a project that I get a renewed sense of energy and work on it diligently. I'm hopeful it will be done before the new year. I don't have a picture to show because in a photo it looks pretty much as it has done all year. Solid colored cables just don't change that much as you work on a project.  The only new thing to show is the threading for the Christmas scarf I want to weave. I've done five inches and only have three and a half left which I should finish tomorrow. Them I ca...

Vienna and Buddy continue to enjoy being out in the big pastures. For the most part they are their own little herd and do their own thing apart from the big horses. The big horses don't pay much attention to them and do their own thing as well. Except for Luke, who really likes Vienna and will often trail around after the ponies.  Ponies are so primed for survival, it's interesting watching them. Before they've finished the hat that room service obligingly provides multiple times a day, I've noticed that they are likely to go wandering off and dig through the snow with their hooves looking for the grass underneath. What's amusing is that J. noticed that after Vienna will dig out a spot, Luke will come sauntering over to investigate the grass Vienna has found. As of yet it doesn't seem to occur to Luke that he could dig out his own hole in the snow.  Vienna and Buddy are a funny pair. Buddy is always the leader and Vienna is always half a pace behind. It's ho...

  "In his master's steps he tried Where the snow lay dinted. Heat was in the very soft, Which the saint had printed. Therefore Christians all be sure,  Wealth or rank possessing. Ye who will shall bless the poor, Shall yourselves find blessing." This is the last verse of the carol, Good King Wenceslas, which is one of our family's favorites. It tells a story which is always a plus. If you aren't familiar with it, look it up. Really, this is just a holiday reminder that Christmas is political. It is the story of the turning upside down of power from the rich and powerful to the masses who live underneath them and have no power. It reminds us that the most powerful thing we can do is care for and love others regardless of the status they do or don't have. 

With everything done for the Artisan Market and two last napkins to hem, I now have enough time and brain space to deal with the aftermath of Thanksgiving. You're probably thinking that is just a lot of picking up and laundry. While I do have laundry... all tablecloths are washed, two are ironed, and I hope to get to the linen napkins next week.. that is the easy part.  What is far more time consuming is dealing with the turkeys. Yes, that's plural, as in three. The actual turkey is long gone. After Thanksgiving we had many sandwiches, turkey pot pie, and turkey soup. Y. used some of the very last of it to make herself some turkey and mushroom jiaozi. But there are still the bones. Bones make great stock and I never throw them out.  Today turkey #1 was officially finished. I canned five quarts of turkey broth and froze 2-1/2 more quarts.  I would have canned seven quarts but there was an incident. As the canner started to come down to no pressure, I started hearing concer...

And what is this term? Rage baiting. I read it for the first time yesterday and have suddenly seen it in numerous places. The concept is pretty obvious. An entity does something to elicit feelings of rage in someone. The more simplistic definition is something done on purpose to enrage another. These are not quite equivalent definitions as you will see. The place I came across the term yesterday was a parenting video with the parent claiming their children were rage baiting them. It rubbed me the wrong way then, and continues to do so as I have mulled it over since.  Here's the unpopular opinion: We adults are responsible for our actions. A child can't actually make you do something, such a become enraged. This is also the abuser's line, as in, "You made me do it." It's a cop out.  Calling a child (and I include young teens in that, too) a rage baiter tells me a couple of things about the adult using that term. It says they are unaware of their own emotional s...

This past Saturday, I spent the very snowy day finishing up everything for the Artisan Market. Everything is all tagged and ready to be delivered on Wednesday. The slightly dispiriting thing is that it all fits nicely in one market bag. With room to spare. It really kind of feels as though 20+ items that have taken me months to finish should take up a little bit more space when completed.  Out of all the things Christmas sales I've been working on, I only have five more dinner napkins to hem for a local friend. This means I'm feeling as though I can start more projects. I really need to start more projects because my brain has grown tired of what I've been working on. Today I indulged myself by planning a new weaving project and measuring the warp. I've decided to do something easy and short using yarn from my stash.  It's going to be a Christmas scarf. You can see (kind of) the green I'm going to use for the weft. It's only going to be 8 inches wide, so fin...