Ordinary Time

Yesterday I spent a good chunk of the afternoon really cleaning our bedroom. It was kind of... not clean. J. was a little concerned a spider might wrap me in a web while I was reading, so it seemed perhaps it was time to do something about it. I don't enjoy cleaning (I'd much rather read or sew or spin or weave or spend time with the horses or practically anything), but I'll admit that it is nice to have a clean and orderly room again. Because along with the cleaning comes the dealing with the piles of stuff that get set down places since it is hard to dust around them. One of those piles was the set of paintings I bought from China a few months ago as well as the nativity paintings by H., K., and Y . All of this was sitting on my desk waiting for the day when I would finally get around to getting frames for them. Today was the day since I didn't want them to languish on my desk for yet more months. J. went with me and we managed to hit a sale on frames which made the p...

In Bread and Jam for Frances by Russell Hoban (one of my very favorite children's picture books), Frances decides that she only wants to eat bread and jam, so that is what her mother gives her. Eventually, Frances tires of bread and jam and starts to cry when everyone else at the table has spaghetti and meatballs. Her parents ask her why she is crying because they had given her what she had said she wanted, bread and jam. At the point Frances asks them, "How do you know what I'll like if you don't even try me?" Now everyone knows that the trying of new food is not always so simple with children, but sometimes it really does work. Take tonight for example, which is the reason why this phrase has popped into my head. When I was planning the meals earlier in the week, I was feeling very tired of our usual meals. (I tire extremely easily of the same food evidently because we rarely have the same meal in the same month.) When this happens, I will flip through some coo...

January has certainly made itself known here. I would be excited about tomorrow since the forecast is for 30 degrees, which is about twenty-five degrees warmer than it has been all week, but it also promises freezing drizzle, which doesn't sound fun at all. In some ways it would worse than the high of five to seven degrees that we have been having. If winter would stay at a nice 31 degrees all the time, it would be lovely. Then it could warm-up once, making just one mud season as opposed to the ten we've already had, and we could head into spring. Thus ends my moaning about the weather and we can move on to other things. The seed catalogs have all arrived. I don't think I need very many things since I kind of abandoned the garden last year. It must be cold because K. has been putting on long pants and an actual jacket to go outside this week. It's a lightweight jacket, but still. He still wears shorts and a tank top inside the house, though. We have finished our first w...

Earlier this week in geology we learned about rivers and running water. Because the idea of oxbows was discussed, I added in a little art history segment about "The Oxbow" by Thomas Cole. Today I had everyone make their own oxbow painting.  Here is everyone hard at work. It was very pleasant in that no one got overly frustrated, though I had prepared them ahead of time and also had extra canvas boards on hand for emergencies. Y.'s R.'s L.'s G.'s K,'s H.'s I love them all. I love that they are each so very different. A few words about R.'s. I drew a pencil sketch for her and helped her choose the color for each part. She did the painting for each color. What made me most hopeful about R.'s painting (beside the fact that she participated and was successful) was that when she had finished with each part... the river, the trees, the grass... she stopped. In the past, there has been no stopping. Once she has markers or paint or scissors in her hand,...

First, a blog-keeping item. I post my year's reading list because I love seeing reading lists, so I figure others do as well. I'm always in search of good books to read. I know I read a lot, but I don't post to make people feel badly about themselves. Reading, in my opinion, is done for pleasure (and to learn things). We all do what we can and everyone is different. Some years I have read very little because I had no margin left to focus on reading. I also read very fast. No, really, like really fast. It's how my brain is hooked up. This is especially true if the book is fairly light. Those books I read like other people eat candy. Other books take me a while. I will have some non-fiction books going over the course of months as I work my way through them. There are always a couple of books which end up being finished in one year but that I started in the previous year. I also don't watch television at night (not that I could if I wanted to, due to lack of internet ...

It was a good year for reading at least in terms of amount. I read a lot of non-fiction books this year, some having to do with my certificate and diploma programs. I felt as though much of the fiction I read... or started to read... was rather hit or miss. Here are the numbers. 102 books read, which averages to ~8 1/2 per month 30,141 pages 16 books which I started but didn't finish -- This is the highest number I've ever had. I think I have less and less tolerance for books that bore me. And now the list. You will need to know what the abbreviations mean. F = fiction NF = non-fiction M = mystery RA = read aloud (which will always be to children at teatime) YA = young adult (or around there, really it's my all purpose abbreviation for aimed at younger than adults) Usually I link to any blog posts I've written about books on my yearly list, but I just don't have the energy. I will put ( * ) next to any titles which I think are of general interest and were particular...

As promised, I'm going to try to limit my fiber crafting posts to Mondays. It's Monday, so prepare yourselves because I've been in the studio a lot. First off, I finished the table runner that I showed you the warp for.  (Forgive the horrible picture.) I'm happy with how it turned out and it was a great first attempt at weaving. Watching all those videos for months did pay off.  After finishing the table runner, I wanted to warp a new project using more yarn in my stash. This caused me to take a hard look at the amazing amount of yarn I had stashed in the closet. I realized that much of it I didn't actually buy and there was also a lot of it that I was probably never going to use due to size or color or fiber content. I spent one afternoon sorting through it all, getting rid (to give away) of the yarn I knew was never going to be used and actually organizing that yarn which would be useful. As a result, I found my next project. This is a wool scarf that I am making ...