Rainy Saturday Morning

Yesterday was Brett's birthday and he's 25. (Brett is Holly's boyfriend.) We had a party here last night. I made and set up a bunch of food, with the help of Ashlee and Holly and Brett, and then I went to the back to hang out with Keith and let them have the party.

At 3:00 I came back up to see if there was anyone parked out the back gate, because if not I wanted to turn off the back corner light, which comes into our bedroom some. Marty, Bo and Julie were up in the library talking and I sat and talked to them a bit. Brett came back out. I stayed maybe 15 minutes, straightened up a little (there was really not much mess at all), got a snack, turned that light off, and went back to bed peacefully.

Keith got up and went to an SCA event (Queen's Prize, an arts and sciences event). He took some things to return to a friend for me, and she's going to be sending some onion skin typing paper back for me. That's what I print the warnings on for the Thinking Sticks, so if any of you are old enough and packratty enough to have some onion skin, I'd love to have it. I'll trade you something for it. The booklets I sent back to Flo had been used for this workshop and subsequent web page: http://sandradodd.com/guestfest/netting, so if any of you are interested in making nets (hair nets, fishing nets) by hand, there y'go. There's a video of Marty and Holly working on theirs that night, too. Holly's the one in the white cap. That's Sadie, in the green dress. Sadie was an unschooler of our acquaintance (college student now), and I made that dress for myself years ago. I always had those pamphlets in a safe plastic folder and I knew right where it was, but it took me a long time to get it returned.

I came upstairs so I could make tea. Bo's asleep in the library, Marty's asleep with his door open, and so I wanted to be very quiet. I got a mouse for the computer because the touchpad makes a click, and then just as I came silently back upstairs with a mouse, it started hailing, so I could've been typing on a cast-iron Remington (with onion skin and carbon paper) and the hail would've still been louder. Now it's raining. Sweet. We haven't had much rain lately and I want my yard to be happy.

Brett has the day off as a recovery-from-Birthday day. Holly works at 4:00. Marty works around then too, or 5:00. I'm happy to have many quiet, rainy hours to look forward to!

This morning I was reading a little magazine thing about whether people have kept their New Year's Resolutions. For many years my resolution has been "don't make resolutions." I was good with that. This year, though, I resolved to spend fifteen minutes a day more than I would have working on unschooling stuff online. When I read that I thought I had failed the day before, because I'd spent all that time on party and food and hadn't checked e-mail since noon or so, but then I remembered I hosted a two-hour chat earlier, and that did it. I'm still good on a resolution that involves doing something every day.

It's not that I wasn't going to spend fifteen minutes on it. It's that I find something every day to do that's not just for me and my personal desire to write and edit pages or whatever, but something directed more outward. I read other people's sites and blogs, or I do routine editing just to make the site better.

There's another chat Sunday morning. It's Easter, but my kids are grown (counting Holly at 17 as practically grown), and I don't go to church anymore, and the time is good for Hema Bharadwaj, who is missing some of the internet ease she had when she was living in the U.S. So anyone who has no church or egg-hiding or Easter dinner obligation can come and chat instead. http://sandradodd.com/chats/sunday

(Gratuitous flower images from my yard.)