Ordinary Time

Today was R.'s 20th birthday as difficult as it may be to believe. I know I have checked a few times today to be sure I had the number correct. R. was very excited and chose donuts for her birthday breakfast and a chicken and green bean green curry stir fry with pan fried noodles and dumplings for dinner. Dessert was chocolate cake and ice cream. (A huge thank you to Y. who fixed everything because I was at a weaving class all day. )  R. opened presents tonight, but we'll do a party with more siblings here on Sunday. Her stack of brand new coloring books was by far her favorite gift.  Happy Birthday, R.! We love you!!

As of today I have completed my Level 7 post-graduate certificate in Equine Assisted Services through the Athena Herd Foundation.  It was a great experience. There were four other students in my cohort and we all met at least once a month to discuss our projects and the process. I always enjoyed these conversations because they were filled with interesting discussions and good questions and ideas.  As I've mentioned before, my action research project was to develop a program which would help to mitigate sibling conflict by working with horses. I also used the process to make changes to my original plan in order to create a more effective program. When the numbers were all crunched, those who participated showed a statistically significant increase in how their families interacted both in terms of general behavior as well as using the tools and skills they learned. All adults rated the work with the horses as being integral to the program's effectiveness. I will admit it was pe...

There is an event coming up that H. would very much like to attend, but it just isn't going to work this year. As you can imagine, this is very disappointing to her. There was a lot of processing going on today.  The fact that H. could express a desire and then express genuine emotions when that desire couldn't be met is no small thing. It's even a bigger deal when these things happened without any prompting, coaching, or disassociation. While I'm sorry H. has to experience disappointment, I would be pretty thrilled about the expression of need and disappointment if it stopped there.  There was more to this process, though. H. wrote three "stories" (her term) that she brought down and read to us to help her express her needs and disappointment. This is so huge I need to say it again.  She wrote a story. She was able to read the story to us long after she had written it. The story expressed need and feelings.  I was totally floored by this. I didn't expect ...

K. took Kenzie for a walk through the forest preserve behind our house. I know you'll appreciate the better than usual quality of photos than you usually see on the blog. 

It's been a less than spectacular day at the end of a less than spectacular week. So instead of moaning to you about it all, I'm going to share the book I read that was a definite bright spot. It's The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett. It's a mystery but it's also fantasy in that it is set in a world other than ours. It's just an interesting combination. I particularly liked the detective and her assistant. Even better news? It's a first book, but there is already a second one published. I'm number 33 on the library loan list, but it will arrive eventually and be a nice surprise.  Sometimes it can be challenging to find a mystery that is a decent mystery and also well-written. Sometimes a light, cozy mystery fits the bill, but not for a steady diet. This book has some depth it. So if you're in search of a good and diverting book, pick up this one. 

A long while back, Y. had mentioned that she would love to be able to just pick different ramen from the wall of ramen at our not-so-local Chinese market, so that was one of the gifts we gave her for her birthday... a ramen shopping trip. Her birthday was in February. Sometimes the stars just don't align easily, but today I rectified this and we had our shopping trip.  She knew what kind she wanted so opted for bigger packages of those. I'm pretty sure one of those is blisteringly hot. They did get carried up to her room to ensure their safety in the face of the swarms of locusts which inhabit out house.  I also did a bit of stocking up. I have been reading about tariffs and supply chains and what not, and it suddenly occured to me that a good portion of our regular pantry staples are Asian products imported from various Asian countries. A moment of panic seized me that I would either not be able to find or afford our usual items. So...  Pretty much all those bottles came...