Things that Happened in April

Looks like posting monthly summaries is just about all the blogging I’m doing these days. Our days are filled so full, and sometimes there’s not much to say about any one thing. Ebbs and flows. I completely failed to do anything for Kids Clothing Week. I meant to sew for Caitlyn but then decided I needed to finish something things that had been lying around for ages first. That took way longer than anticipated. Pictures later. On the other hand, Caitlyn actually used the sewing machine. We made 100 fabric grab baggies. We saw the Broadway (touring) version of The …

Marching By

Things that happened in March: Caitlyn played two roles, Mellifleur and Maudlin, in Robin Hood, her latest theatre production at Youth Theatre Northwest. She’s looking forward to Alice@Wonderland in the summer. I finally managed to meet one of our homeschool goals, getting Caitlyn and I to SAM for Free First Thursday. This time we saw the Miró exhibit. Now, I just have to do it again! The peas came up. We saw a presentation of National Geographic Live: The Secret Life of Wolves. Caitlyn cried at the end. I joined the Seattle Modern Quilt Guild, my first quilt guild membership …

Field Trip: Snow at Mt. Rainier

Caitlyn loves snow. That’s a horribly brief and to the point sentence that doesn’t convey the degree to which Caitlyn loves snow. Of course, we live in a place that gets only occasional snow. When it snows here, it’s pretty and it’s fun, (usually) not enough to seriously snarl things up, although to an eight year old, I think the snarling is part of the fun. I’ve explained how more snow in Seattle wouldn’t be a good thing, but I guess I’ve not been terribly convincing. I’ve made some effort to explain how months of snow might not be fun, …

Field Trip: California, Coast, and Cousins

Welcome to March! I’ve got little daffodils blooming in the backyard to remind us that it’s not going to be cold and gray forever. It can rain some more, though. I’d feel better heading into summer with more snow in the mountains first. Back at the beginning of February, to help my grandmother celebrate her 90th birthday, we took a week off from the chill of Seattle and trekked to California. We had a lovely birthday dinner with family, and Caitlyn got to spend time with her cousins, whom we don’t see nearly often enough. The adults managed to pry …

Cover Girl

Sometime last year I received an email from Capstone Press inquiring about a photograph on my site. I’d completely forgotten about the whole exchange. Last week, a box appeared on our porch. You can’t tell that’s my girl standing in for the actual Sarah Gillespie, but there she is, wearing the “olden times” Halloween outfit I made 3 years ago. Can I gloat just a little? The book is part of a new First-Person Histories series that uses diaries of real kids (approximately ages 10 to 16 or so) to make American history more than endless names and dates. In …

Field Trip: Rockridge Orchards

Farmer Wade of Rockridge Orchards has been a fixture at the Columbia City Farmers’ Market ever since we started being market regulars; he likes to say he’s known Caitlyn since before she was born (which could be true since he appears at other markets in Seattle which we might have visited prior to Caitlyn’s arrival – I don’t remember). Caitlyn calls him “my favorite farmer”. Back before the economy declined and budgets were cut indiscriminately, there was a King County Harvest Festival. We meant to visit other farms, but we spent the whole day at Rockridge. Caitlyn was about 2. …