Small Wins

Some of my recent small wins ...

• I had one mail day last week that was all recycling and no bills!
• I slept on crisp line-dried sheets on Saturday night - heavenly!
• I found this literature clock! Open it up any time of day and you'll see a quote from literature that features the current time. Give it a try!
• I'm back to walking every day (for the past week) after letting it go by the wayside for 6 weeks or so this summer. It was too hot, I got too sweaty, my hips hurt, my back hurt, etc. I had an excuse at the ready every day, but it was time to put them aside and get moving. 
• I did manage to get to NJ Sheep & Wool on Sunday for a short while. It was raining (that's a good thing) and I missed meeting Vera, Dee, and Bridget (not a good thing at all), but I did manage to find some lovely yarn for what I hope will be a different and wearable Hitchhiker.

I hope your Monday is off to a good start and you have several small wins in your week ahead!

Museum of Me: September 2022

For this month's Museum of Me installation, Kym has asked for our thoughts about school. I decided to get out a bunch of school pictures and see what thoughts I could come up with.

This photo is from first grade in 1963. It's kind of scratched up and wrinkled, but this is the picture I have in my mind when I think of school. I loved that the photographer posed us with a book (it was Dick and Jane), and I remember feeling very upset when I went home on the bus after the first day and I hadn't learned to read. It was finally explained to me that this would take more than a day, and eventually, I did learn to read, thanks to Mrs. Neusch, the most patient, wonderful first-grade teacher that ever taught. I visited her after I had graduated from college and thanked her for teaching me how to read. It was one of the best gifts I ever received. 

The excitement of second grade was that I got to join Brownies. My aunt had chopped my hair off the summer before (I don't think it was at my request!) but I did have that cute beanie even if I no longer had my long hair. The uniform was a dull, rather ugly brown but I thought I was probably the envy of all the other girls that hadn't joined Brownies.

Now we enter what I think of as the "painful years", as it pains me to look at these school photos. This is sixth grade, with braces, poison ivy, and greasy hair because I wasn't supposed to shower too often for fear I would spread the poison ivy. I begged to not get my picture taken that year, but I don't think retakes were a thing back then. My hands, arms, and legs were covered with poison ivy but at least only one eye was swollen with it. 

Seventh grade here and I'm still in the painful years. Braces, my collar buttoned up to the top button (why, I wonder?), and short hair that I did not like one bit. I had started in our combined junior/senior high school building this year and was pleasantly surprised to find that I could manage changing classes, I could do all the work and get decent grades, and I did not get stuffed in my locker by seniors.

We're finally beginning to leave the painful years behind in ninth grade. I told my mother that I was letting my hair grow and I was beginning to feel more confident. If you could see the rest of this dress, you might even applaud my growing confidence. I'm wearing a dress I sewed in home ec., and let's just say the teacher did not focus on fit, finish, and flattering details. It was made of a clingy polyester knit, the back zipper was wonky, and the hem was crooked. But I wore it because wearing it was 15% of our grade. Girls were not allowed to take wood or metal shop in my high school, which I saw as a gross injustice. I couldn't get anyone to change their minds despite my reasoned and impassioned pleas, but I tried. 

This is my high school graduation photo, and I remember feeling confident enough to argue with my mother who desperately wanted me to "do something with my hair". I don't know what that was, but before my senior year, I had pretty much been the good daughter who did what my parents said and didn't fight back. I was getting ready to leave for college four hours away so it's a good thing I was starting to think for myself. 

My college graduation photo looks like I did something with my hair. I don't remember exactly why, but it was heavily hair-sprayed after getting it arranged just so. I didn't look like this on a regular day, since I was in the middle of my medical technology internship year at Abington Hospital. I had to be up and at the hospital at 6:00 am to draw blood from patients, so most of the time it was just pulled back into a ponytail. 

And we finally reach the end of my school years with my master's graduation photo. I wasn't even going to go to the ceremony but my parents said they wanted to come. At the last minute, they didn't so I graduated all by myself in uncomfortable shoes. 

So my thoughts about school are mainly that it was important and shaped my life for almost 20 years. Most importantly, I learned how to read and that opened up the whole wide world. I enjoyed learning and even liked the structure of the school year. I got frustrated by the silly rules in high school about what girls were allowed to do and not do, and I frustrated my mother by not doing something with my hair and eventually learning how to think for myself and fight back. All in all, my school years were pretty good ones. 

We'll be back on the second Friday of October with a brand new installation. Thank you for visiting The Museum of Me!

Fixing Things

When I drive to Ryan's house in Pennsylvania, I see lots of campaign signs, many of them for crazy Republican candidates. Mastriano is currently a PA senator for the poor 33rd district and he is running for governor. He is also currently suing the Jan. 6th committee over whether they can compel his deposition. He doesn't want his run for governor to be "improperly influenced", but Mastriano helped organize efforts in PA to submit alternate presidential electors beholden to Trump. 

Mehmet Oz is campaigning to be a PA senator, even though his primary residence is in New Jersey. He's a celebrity doctor, appearing on Oprah and promoting quack pseudoscience. His opponent, John Fetterman, had a stroke several months ago and has just returned to the campaign trail. When Fetterman declined to debate Oz, Oz taunted him about his recovery. 

Mastriano and Oz are people who do not respect the Constitution, do not believe in the rule of law, have no respect for the will of the people, and refuse to accept the results of a free and fair election. They do not respect women and their rights. These signs seem to be growing in number and size, and they irk me every time I pass them.

There, I fixed them.

Unraveled Wednesday: 9/7/22

I'm happily joining Kat and fellow Unravelers for Unraveled Wednesday, with rain (finally!) and some rainbows. I was so thrilled to get some measurable rain on Monday and Tuesday that I even threw my current Hitchhiker on the wet patio with all the acorn bits the squirrels have chewed to take a photo. 

I'm still not completely sure how I feel about this as I know that both the fluffy clouds in the blue sky sections and the rainbows will get progressively smaller as I keep increasing but I'm going to keep knitting and see what happens. It looks okay at the 21 teeth stage so I'll see how things look after another 25 teeth or so. 

I read The Unsinkable Greta James while I was waiting for some library holds. It was an average book but still struck a chord with me. If you’ve ever experienced the death of a parent and then had to learn how to get on with a parent you weren’t particularly close to, The Unsinkable Greta James may well speak to you also. 

Thanks to Kat's recommendation, I also finished Dead-End Memories. This is a collection of five slightly strange, disquieting, yet beautiful short stories from Japanese writer Banana Yoshimoto.  The author has written about unexpected things, from poisoning to ghosts to past traumas, while always maintaining a sense of hope and human connection for her characters. These stories are quietly reflective through their simplicity, and I think that Asa Yoneda also did a beautiful job of translation.

I was surprised to wake up Tuesday morning and find that my hold on Fairy Tale by Stephen King was ready, so I'm now happily ensconced in a good story well-told. It's still early, but I think I'm going to enjoy this one as much as I liked 11/22/63.

What are you making and reading this week?

Back to School

Around here, school always starts the day after Labor Day. I came across this scene recently and had to share the photo. Halloween is a given, but skeletons are year-round at this house. I'm looking forward to seeing what they do for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Wishing everyone a good school year!

Friday Letters

I've written a few Friday letters, so let's see what's in the mailbag today. 

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Dear John,

You asked me to get some caulk when I was at Home Depot for water softener salt, but did you know there are literally more than 30 different kinds of caulk? I read lots of labels and learned that there is latex caulk, silicone sealant, polyurethane foam, and specialty caulks like butyl-rubber caulk, and the Nose Bond that made me laugh. There are different colors, white, and clear, along with regular and fast-drying, interior and exterior. You didn't say what you would be using it for, so I didn't get any. I think you might be in charge of getting your own caulk so it's what you want.

Sincerely,

Your Wife, Confused About Caulk

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Dear Home Depot, 

I like to think that I know a little bit about lots of things, but I have to admit that I don't have a single clue what this thing might be for, even after I carefully read all the words on the box. Chain Tilting Bull Float Bracket? For multi-angle floating? For use with all magnesium bull float blades? Are you sure you didn't make this label with a random word generator? It turns out that this has something to do with pouring concrete. "Bull floating is performed on freshly poured concrete during the initial finishing process before surface water, called bleed water, appears. Floating with a hand or power float is a final finishing procedure performed after the bleed water has dried." Hmm ... good to know!

From,

A Confused (once again) Customer

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Dear Future Bonny,

Make sure you give yourself a pat on the back in January or February next year when you have hyacinth bulbs to force. You've forgotten to buy them for the past three years and they are always out of stock when it's forcing time. You'll have hyacinths in winter next year and the house will smell lovely.

P.S. And don't forget that you put them in the downstairs refrigerator to chill. 

From,

A momentarily wise Bonny in August 2022

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Dear LMR (our recycling and trash company),

I just noticed this slogan on the back of the recycling truck last week. Really? I don't think that's exactly how recycling works. Please feel free to contact me if you need help coming up with a better slogan.

Signed,

A customer that thinks and also puts cardboard, paper, glass, plastic, and metal into the recycling bin

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Wishing you all a good long weekend!

Take a Walk

I found myself without much to write about, so I decided to invite you along on my walk today. Let's see what we see. 

First up are some sunflowers at Fleming Castle. This place is right around the corner from me and I always thought it was a funny name for a really tiny house. When I accompanied both boys' third-grade classes on their walk around town to learn local history, I learned that it was the first house in town, built in 1756. Samuel Fleming and his family of 10 children lived here until 1763 when he lost the house due to his financial troubles. 

Just down the street from Fleming Castle is Tuccamirgan's grave. John Philip Kase received land from William Penn in 1738 and settled on it. A Delaware Indian Chief named Tuccamirgan lived nearby and John Philip and the Indian became very close friends. John Philip would not have survived without the help of Tuccamirgan, so he was buried and honored with this monument when he died in 1750. This is a tiny little cemetery of about 10 graves that is now in a residential area, but nobody wants to move the cemetery. (More history I gained from third-grade field trips.)

I continued on to the middle school to walk around the track there. It's a bit boring, but still, a pleasant enough place to walk (at least until school starts next week). I spied this interesting-looking stump while I was doing my laps. I've never seen a stump cross-hatched like that, and wondered if they made the cuts to help the stump decay faster.

After my walk, it was time to head up to Main Street for a haircut. I've taken the boys here to get their hair cut ever since they needed haircuts, and one day I asked the owner if she ever cut women's hair. She said yes, so I've been getting my hair trimmed at the Boro Barber Shop for the past 20 years. Quick, easy, and the two female barbers have become friends that I look forward to seeing a couple times each year. 

We don't have an ice cream place in town, so I got a couple of bagels from the place next to the barber shop. The chocolate chip bagels were almost as good as ice cream, especially with chocolate, raisin, and walnut cream cheese. 

This was not exactly an exciting walk, with some history, a tree stump, a haircut, and bagels, but thanks for coming along with me!