Dec 14
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

A little less than a foot of snow, and all cleaned up by morning. The kids went off to school, Aerin by bus, Alice by carpool, and I went inside and went back to sleep. Al dug us out in time for lunch.

This was inspired by a woman’s pocketbook at yoga on Thursday. It was made of overlapping rings of leather, riveted together, backed with something shiny. You could see through the rings to the lining, and the strong texture contrast added interest. I like the rings a lot – I can think of a couple different things they can do. I have some cut out already for tomorrow.

A dinosaur mummy, with fossilized soft tissue, and an articulated skeleton. Text here, video here.

How cool is that? 

Dec 13
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

I really love the twisty and curly parts of grape vines. This is still more ice coatings on the best twisty one I could find.

In 9 years of school, I’ve never had the kids sent home early. They were sent home early today. At 11:30 the roads were clear and the snow just started. At 11:45 the snow was blowing so hard we couldn’t see across the field and cars were going less than 10 miles an hour. And skidding and slithering all over the road. It took Al an hour and a half to go 10 miles from work to home, it took poor Aerin an hour on the bus to get home from school 3 miles away. Pretty exciting. Once everyone was home, we turned up the heat and got quiet with books and projects.

Happy Snow.

Dec 12
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

Experimenting with the settings on the camera, I realized I could adjust the color on the "Color Accent" choice. After a fair amount of thrashing about, plus freezing my fingers, I caught the red of the bittersweet berries, still coated with ice.

Aerin’s band concert was tonight, she was great. I was sitting way near the back, and almost didn’t recognize her until she stood up to bow after her piccolo solo. Stephanie Pearl McPhee  has a great post on the importance, and musicianship, of these grade school and middle school concerts. I think they might change up the program a little more at our school(s), but there is a relentlessness to it. But still, I sit in the middle of the cafetorium (vile word, vile space) thinking "these are all treasured children."

We are all so lucky.

Dec 11
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

We have had two snow/freezing rain/ice storms this month, and another is bearing down on us even as I type. This is a picture from the first one, of part of a grape vine coated with ice on the driveway.

I love having weather, but only if I have a good safe, warm place to watch it from. Aerin and I were admiring the ice coated branches of the basket willow outside the kitchen window this morning, and she mentioned the soft quiet snow that piles up in tiny clouds and puffs on each branch of the trees in the windless storms. There are moments when I feel as though I am doing exactly the right thing with this child, if she both notices and appreciates something like that, and can describe it so beautifully.

Dec 10
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

This looks like the terrain today. Low light, coated with ice, gray skies. I think I failed to incorporate a non-gray color, but I’m not adding anything to this one. Unless you count the extra color in the sky. I am very pleased with it.

Aerin skated off to the school bus on a solid half inch of ice. I took Alice and the car pool through rain and slush. I couldn’t make it up the driveway for the barn, so I stomped up the hill and mucked out stalls. It was too icy to ride – outside the front and back doors were solid ice.

Alice wanted fudge, so we had to make it. It was awesome.

Dec 9
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

finished last night, overwhelmed by tiredness.

Dec 8
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

white velvet on stringy black/grey background stitched with red

Today was the last class for the Quilt Journaling class. I had a good time with the class. Part of what I liked best was seeing what different people were doing and being inspired by their work. That is the same thing I love about the internets and other people’s blogs.

I am working on getting some of these people signed on for some small ongoing group. I want regular meetings, critiques, brainstorming and laughing. I also want other people to play with. I like responding to challenges, part of why I signed on for SharonB’s Next Step Challenge for next year. We’ll see who I can rope into this. Online members would be welcome as well (jude? Anyone else? We’ll talk)

I have some journal pages to show, but they’ll have to wait.

Dec 7
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

Friday’s card.

Nice lunch with my mum. She tipped over on my sidewalk and I haven’t heard yet if she broke her wrist. I hope not. I feel hideously guilty for breaking her – again – we have a bad track record for ankles.

solid hour and a half of laughing at the Capitol Steps, political commentary at every one’s expense. And there is such a lot to mock… My abs feel like I did sit-ups for half an hour. I laughed til I gasped.

Dec 6
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

I was noticing how many different patterns came from cutting into a shape and flipping the cut shape out. Patchy white silk background, black wool square with elaborations.

Wicked was fun. I was admiring a Dale Chihuly chandelier and fell head first over a granite bollard, smacked my knuckles, dropped my purse, flew out of my shoes. It was pretty dramatic. I’m OK now, but still startled at the reaction I got from falling. I think I might need some martial arts training to help me fall better.

Al says he learned two fun things about Wicked. One is that the author (Gregory Maguire) named the protagonist Elphaba after LFB or L Frank Baum. The best one is that the first 7 notes of the song Unlimited are the same as Over the Rainbow. It is a musical joke from Stephen Schwartz, in honor of the Oz most of us grew up watching. Seven notes because eight notes is copyright infringement. The rhythm is different, but the notes are the same.