Ordinary Time

We've had a game make a reappearance in the family line-up over the weekend. Many of you have probably heard of it... it's Rummikub . It's a tile laying game that plays very much like you would play rummy, for card playing friends. You lay your tiles down in sets or runs, and the first person to be out of tiles wins. The fun thing about it, at least what I enjoy about it, is how you can move things around in order to play your own tiles. You can completely rearrange the tiles which are already laid down, as long as you maintain the set/straight rules. Is that confusing? Probably, if you haven't played it before. Here's an example. There is a set of four 3's already laid out on the table. You have a red 1 and a red 2 in your hand, but you need three in a row of the same color before you can play them. So what you do is take the red 3 from the set that is already there, leaving a set of three 3's, which is still just fine, and use the 3 your took to form the...

I have the radio turned on as I start to wake up in the mornings, sipping my coffee, waiting for the brain cells to begin functioning. It was at this crucial juncture of the day a few days ago, when I was listening with half an ear to what was being talked about on the radio, that I heard the interviewee state that he spent a couple of days each week in solitude, so that he could be more spiritually effective. Well there is nothing like hearing a statement which I take exception with, to get the brain cells moving. I believe my first truly conscious thought on that particular morning was something along the lines of, "Well, isn't that special for him." I know this was not his intent, but in that one sentence, I felt as though my life as it is currently playing out... actually anyone who spends their days doing full time care for another person or persons... we totally discounted. If it takes days of solitude in order to be spiritually effective, then I guess that's ...

And it's Friday again... Olive is getting bigger and bigger. I need to take some more pictures of her to show you all. It's as if A. puts her in the photocopier and enlarges the puppy by 10% every night. And she is growing at all uneven rates. Right now her feet and legs are very big and very long, and it looks as though her head needs to catch-up.  In other animal news, P. is thinking of putting one of those locator tags on Midnight. You know, the ones they make for you keys. We spent nearly an hour yesterday trying to find him, and there just aren't that many places in our new house where he could hide. It turns out that he was inside a box which was inside another box in P.'s room. She didn't look in there because she didn't think that Midnight could fit in such a small space. Guess he could. I've managed to get into my studio nearly every day this week. Right now I'm working on plying the singles I've spun into one yarn. It's less ugly p...

The past couple of months, I have been feeling as though I am living the anti-Cheers theme song. You know (if you are old enough), the line about going where everybody knows your name? Or at least Norm's? In our old city, I kind of felt like that song. While I didn't know everybody, and everybody certainly didn't know me, I could usually count on running into someone I knew when I was out and about. Then three months ago, we moved, and suddenly I went from everyone to no one. I knew no one, and no one knew me. It was unsettling. It also made me realize exactly how important it is to feel as though there are people out there who know you. It is probably why so many people comment on how being in a large crowd can feel so lonely. All those people, and not a single one of them to call your name, smile, and ask how you're doing. No one knew my name, but I grew up with my grandmother reminding me that you don't wait for people to come to you, so I locked my inner int...

I'm about a quarter of the way through Wired to Create: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Creative Mind by Scott Barry Kaufman and Carolyn Gregoire. It is very, very good. I suppose it doesn't hurt that the first chapter is all about play and how play ties into creativity. Talk about preaching to the choir. Since I cannot just share the whole chapter with you verbatim, I want to share a few snippets, and then strongly suggest you find a copy of the book. I'm excited to read the rest of it. Probably these portions struck me as strongly as they did, because we are back at the school-thing, and I find it endlessly fascinating to watch how each of my children learn. As I watch them learn, I become more and more convinced that you cannot untangle the learning-playing process without doing some significant harm down the road. I think I am also hyper-aware of the learning-playing process as I go about teaching myself to spin with my spinning wheel again. I find if I can let myse...

Our second week of school has started out calmly. Well, as calmly as life ever looks like around here. TM had his first morning of co-op classes which he liked and which went well. I worked with everyone else, and then we ended up doing land form pans. Since we are heading around the world this school year (to which I have had several children ask me, sometimes more than once, if we are really going and are we taking an airplane), it would be good to begin with some basic geography information. These land form pans and cards were ones I purchased years and years ago, and a very worthwhile investment as I have used them over and over, and they are just as popular with this group as they were with my older children. Here are some pictures to show what we did. The idea is to look at the cards and see what the formation is. The one down below is supposed to be a peninsula. Everyone drew and colored the formation first, then created it out of plasticine in the pan, and finishes off by p...

Yesterday was P.'s birthday, but we celebrated her birthday on Saturday. This is because the youth group at our new church was having their big kick-off event with a big scavenger hunt in downtown Chicago, and J. and I signed up our three high schoolers. P. is a good sport, because this was not her chosen order of events. Some pictures from the rather low key celebration. (P. also does not appreciate having a fuss made over her birthday.) This little bit of hilarity was complements of A., who first gave P. a joke gift of a knitted troll hat with pink, fluffy hair on the top. (Oh, so not P.) This is A. trying to get it on P.'s head. Then she gave P. her real gift, which was a movie P. had been wanting to see. (No wifi, here remember, so gifts of DVD's are very much appreciated.) Then P. opened the gift from us. We still owe her a couple more, but she absolutely cannot think of a thing she wants (you know, other than a horse or a miniature donkey), and coul...