P is for Practice.  And here is my new baby.    I had a lot of options for this letter in the ABC Along: pottery, preachain, puttering, pastry . . . but then the new guitar showed up on Wednesday, and practice is again mandatory here at the Mean-Skutai Manse.  Picking up the guitar again […]

You thought I forgot all about measuring handsewing, didn’t you?  Nope–I’ve been sewing relatively little this year, but the preparations for Celtic summer camp were upon us and Bodwin reminded me that I should keep up with the big tally.  I hand-sewed the bindings on a couple of small quilts and have been doing lots […]

Last weekend, I went out west to visit with Two Sock Knitters, and another Sock Knitter, and a whole passel of contra dancers.  The University of Chicago hosted a fantastic dance weekend, complete with the fantastic bands Cosmic Otters and Nightingale, and the amazing callers Adina Gordon and George Marshall.  We went to tons of […]

I ended up scrambling to affix beads to the points of the Heather Ale sweater on the metro yesterday morning.  I was desperate to wear this thing, and a night’s rest gave every single beadless point the chance to curl right up.  I’m not entirely sure about these purple beads–I have clear ones in the […]

Friday night, we went with Square and Tara to see the Wiyos at the Lyceum.  Hot damn, that was a good show.  I knew I’d like the band as soon as I saw their name–they take their name from the Whyos, one of the most terrifying Irish gangs ever to stalk the streets of the […]

When you study the ancient world, you study the concepts of curses.  When you watch every minute of extra material on Rome DVDs, you think about them even more.  And then, if you mix in some really good adolescent lit about a fantastical array of universes with lots of magic in them, and you maybe […]

As I mentioned last week-ish, during that phase when I was posting zippo, I went to the Smithsonian folklife festival with Bodwin, Ruadhan, Mapgirl, and Kevin.  It was blazing hot, but the festival covered Virginia, Northern Ireland, and the Mekong Delta.  So we couldn’t miss it. I tell you, I have never considered so decorating […]

Because I know my place in all of this, I’ll tell you what you’re here for . . . Kayo is going to be fine.  He has the sort of injury dogs, and people for that matter, get from landing straight-kneed in a hole or coming off of a jump.  He gets some pain-killers for […]

So, I finished copying all of our music to my new ipod this weekend, after more than a week of slavish tending.  Sheesh, what a pain.   I discovered that a few of our discs grew wings, which wasn’t much of a surprise.   Still, losing four out of 800 or so isn’t so bad.  And none […]