#attunedpracticetuesdays: where we share the rituals and routines that are aligned with our sense of peace and wellbeing A couple of months ago, while working on a commission project , I started a new practice. I was listening to audio books while working since the project required my eyes but not my full attention, and since it was fairly labor intensive, I took the weekends off (not something I would normally do). Lacking something to do with my hands, the first Saturday I decided to put my speedy reading to good use and read a novel in one sitting (my preferred method, anyway). Then I read another novel the next Saturday. And now it has becomes a weekly thing. The only rule is that it has to be fiction - I read enough non fiction that a novel a week isn't going to hurt anything (and it wouldn't anyway, reading is reading). Helping out with Paper Heart Books and attending a bring-your-own-book-club meeting last week helped restock my dwindling supply. I like to get hard cop...

October is the Month of Fun Outings. The weather is generally pleasant, many things are less crowded than they are in summer because school has started back, and there are also an array of local events. We try to make the most of it, since I got used to not getting sick while we stayed in for a couple years so now we ride out the germiest months at home. But before that, we frolic. We'll miss our favorite fall festival due to scheduling conflict, but there will be a small one at my eldest's dance studio, and we're all going to the state fair this year. There are street fairs and at some point soon we'll go and each choose a pumpkin to stack on the front step five deep, and my littlest will name each family member while pointing at their pumpkin every time we go in or out the door.  I've started leaving windows open at night, and sometimes it's been cool enough to have them open during the day, too. My desk candle has expanded to three candles on a cheese board b...

I recently looked up the rest of the Mary Oliver poem that ends in "tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" because that was the only part I had ever heard, and it turns out the rest of The Summer Day  is about going for a walk and lying about in the grass. That's what she planned to do with her one wild and precious life. I feel like it gets misapplied a lot. As the weather grows cooler, I've been thinking about foraging, as a concept. I am a terrible gardener. Even as a child I loathed getting up early and tramping through the dewy grass to the dusty garden to water and pull weeds. As an adult, I stumbled onto the one plant that likes the climate of my front windows but claim no personal credit for their flourishing. If we ever move I may have to leave them here, to ensure their survival. There's also a pot of mint by my front step that survives on rain water or when one of the kids points out that it's a bit crunchy. Plants...

One philosophy that I hold quite firmly is "if it's not fun for everyone, it's not fun," applied not only to child/child interactions but also including myself. There is no reason for me to wear myself ragged helping everyone else have a good time at my own expense (this also aligns with another oft repeated phrase in our home: "everyone is the same important"). They play at the park, I sittervise with a cup of coffee and a knitting project I don't have to keep my eyes on all the time. On Saturdays, they have "taptap time" (noneducational games on their tablets and supervised internet access to download new episodes of their favorite podcasts) and I read an entire novel in one sitting. If it's not fun for everyone, it's not fun. Under this model, anyone is allowed input (since we're usually all impacted by the decision). Being the Generator of All Ideas is an exhausting job for one person, and this gives the kids a chance to practic...

The project that took up most of my month was two [redacted], one a sample/test knit for an upcoming book and one a personal item for the publisher because she liked the original so much but it wasn't in her size. I can't wait to share them with you once the book comes out, but in the meantime, to give you an idea of the time that went into them, here's a list of the audio books I listened to while working on them: Remote Control  by Nnedi Okorafor (a reread) Hood Feminism  by Mikki Kendall (possibly my favorite book so far on intersectional feminism) Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune Writing Down the Bones  by Natalie Goldberg (the library audiobook I listened to was an anniversary edition read by the author with added commentary at the end of each chapter, which was delightful) Noor  by Nnedi Okorafor (another reread) Cultish  by Amanda Montell (got a hard copy of this one to add to my yearly reads shelf) The Book of Magic by Alice Hoffman The Princess Dia...

#attunedpracticetuesdays: where we share the rituals and routines that are aligned with our sense of peace and wellbeing I have tried to be a morning person. I really have. All through my teenaged years, my mom (who, by nature or through years of practice, is an early riser) insisted on my morning alarm being set for 6am (a concession on her part; she would have preferred five). I have intermittently attempted to get up before the kids in order to have some uninterrupted time at the beginning of the day - but I've ultimately found that the thing that most helps set my day on the right path is not starting it with the blaring of an alarm. Since my natural waking time is... not early, let's leave it at that, that required some adjustment to the generally prescribed daily order that leaves one, according to self-help influencers and Benjamin Franklin, "healthy, wealthy, and wise." Historically, we have done school in the morning. Theoretically everyone is at their best a...

My partner and I came from households with two contrasting money management strategies: one household who sorted cash from every paycheck into labeled envelopes and still sits down together on Sunday evenings to write everything in a ledger, and one household who had more of a "spend it when you get it so you'll have food to eat when the money runs out" philosophy. As the more financially literate partner, budgeting fell to me when we got married. I initially tried to track everything but found that to be a soul-sucking endeavor that didn't really help me accomplish my goals. I have finally landed on a simplified system where I keep a list of each pay period's major recurring expenses, check them off as they occur, and then divide the remaining balance to produce a "daily spending limit." The bills are paid and I'm not trying to figure out what line item flavored coffee syrup should fall under (groceries? eating out? personal spending?) I recently re...

I tend to present as a disorganized person, especially if you're sharing space with me. As a kid I would move from project to project, leaving a trail of stacked art supplies and overturned books in my wake, waiting for me to come back and finished them (which I would... eventually). When I had an office job, my cubicle was a small explosion of incomplete tasks, all labeled with sticky notes so I knew what they were and when they were due. I have at times tried to force change, but that kind of change never sticks. What does stick, however, is paying attention to how I naturally am and figuring out how to harmoniously coexist with it, while also getting the stuff done that needs to get done. I do like lists - within reason. I do like planning - to a certain extent. And that's okay. So this month is about frameworks - the lined pages of daily life that are mine to write on what I will, without preprinted dates or prompts, but also without slanting determinedly toward the bottom ...

Earlier this year, I had an aura portrait. It was a a radiant kaleidoscope of yellow and orange, purple and pink. But in the middle was a small dark smudge. The photographer pointed to it and said it was a mental block; that something was troubling me. I thought about it afterward. My shoulder had been hurting for days, off and on, and I realized (through some journaling and card pulling and observing myself) that I was walking around hunched in on myself, trying to protect my heart. I rolled my shoulders back, lifted my chin, and journaled through what was bothering me. The pain went away. At the end of last month, the week that I would normally begin writing and scheduling posts for the upcoming month, my jaw began to hurt. Intensely. I prodded around and located the source as being in the soft space behind my jaw. There wasn't any swelling or visible problem. I wasn't in pain while I slept or when I first woke up, the motions and activities that triggered searing flashes tha...

There has not been a whole lot of knitting this month, but one project that I did make time for was some washcloths for the kids' bathroom. The Bigs recently discovered showers and have been going through washcloths at an astonishing rate, so I grabbed a couple hanks of Blue Sky Fibers Cotton in colors that coordinated with the new shower curtain (we didn't have one in the bathroom since the tub was previously only used for baths and the curtain was getting in the way). I found a curtain with potted plants on it, which is great in that the top third is white so it doesn't shrink the bathroom too badly, but an unanticipated downside is now every time I walk down the hall past that bathroom I jump because it looks like there's a kid standing there in the dark. I also finished the Bindle Bags  that I started a couple months ago. I've already tied one onto the little tiered cart I use as a nightstand/put by my desk during the day, and gotten yarn to make another one. St...

One of my favorite jobs was the time I spent as a library page. In the basement where the giant conveyer brought all the returned books, once the machine sorted everything by area, we would manually sort them into more specific categories, while alphabetizing them. Then they would go on carts and we would heave them onto the elevator and up to the stacks. Some things were loosely organized; both picture books and paperback romance novels were sorted by the first letter of the author's last name only, while board books weren't sorted at all. Biographies are alphabetical by the last name of the person they're about. Nonfiction, on the other hand, is categorized by up to three digits on either side of a decimal, with further alphabetization within that. Still, there is a lot of variety within each section. A manual on how to operate Microsoft Excel and an expose about aliens in the US government can be next to each other in the 000s, and "adult fiction" covers almost...

#attunedpracticetuesdays: where we share the rituals and routines that are aligned with our sense of peace and wellbeing During The Dark Years (circa 2004-2019), I recall joining someone in wondering why "those people" feel the need to make queerness "like, their whole personality" (probably over some hapless barista with a small rainbow flag pin on their apron). I was a practiced asshole, a closeted queer person trying to survive in a context that condemned my very existence. (As a side note, I think I have apologized to everyone I need to from that time period, but if I overlooked you, please know the omission was not intentional). At the time of that conversation, I wouldn't have considered it odd for someone to have verses of Christian scripture wrenched from their context and plastered on every conceivable household item and accessory. It wasn't the identifying that was the problem, it was the specific identity . But as someone who is now never out of ...

For most of my life, I tried to be who other people told me I should be. They arrived with pretty boxes that had labels like woman, daughter, wife, mother, or Christian,  and said that the only way to be good/happy/accepted was to get into the box. So I did. After all, I wanted to be accepted and happy, and seen as good (I was also a child). But while there are probably people out there who are the same shape as those boxes, I am not one of them. The only way I fit into a box of any kind is in pieces, and even then a lot has to be left out. It's very difficult to function, much less be happy, when you're like my four year old's Mr Potato Head toy, which is missing the match to every pair and (most critically) the potato body that they go into. But I'm not a Mr Potato Head, and I finally gathered my component parts back together and put the boxes into the recycle bin so they can have a new life as something else, hopefully something less oppressive. And I've found th...

July felt very long, and very slow. Not necessarily in a bad way, just like time didn't really matter or exist. We stayed home and inside a lot, ate a lot of ice pops, and splashed in a kiddie pool on the back porch as much as reasonably possible (when the humidity wasn't pushing the heat index well into the triple digits). A lot of days I looked back at the end and wondered what I had even done that day, especially to justify feeling as drained as I did. But I kept everyone fed and in clean clothes. We listened to several audio books (the kids went through the entire Bunnicula series for the first time). There were crafts and knitting and reading and journaling. We all worked on our emotional development - Middle knocked a sibling over by accident and voluntarily went back to check on them, and the little one threw his stuffed animals out of his crib at being told it was time to lay down, but when I came back from tucking in another sibling said he was feeling kinder and asked...

First off the needles this past month was a shop sample Myrtlar tee, knit with Noro Uchiwa. I hadn't worked with Noro yarn for years, and it was a pleasant experience, watching the stripes form. It felt like it took forever, but I realized near the end that because the panels (it was knit in two pieces, front and back) were so wide, my concept of how long they were was skewed. I finally finished it though and I think it came out nicely. Someone contacted me about making an eyelash yarn square for them to sew on their kid's lovie to stop them pulling their own hair as they fall asleep at night, and after blithely agreeing I visited three different craft stores and discovered that eyelash yarn fell out of fashion and only found this ball in a clearance bin after I was beginning to despair. It was an afternoon's effort, and I hope it helps the little one (and eases their mama's mind, as well). Not knitting but fiber, I wove a rock. Not that I necessarily know how to weave,...

#attunedpracticetuesdays: where we share the rituals and routines that are aligned with our sense of peace and wellbeing  It's been almost a year since I wrote about astrology , although I've posted on Instagram fairly often. It's not something I plan around, necessarily, but it is still an extremely helpful tool. At the moment, my favorite thing about it is the invitation to rhythm. Tonight I have a full moon circle . The moon will be in Capricorn, so we'll examine the intentions we set six months ago when the moon was new in the same sign, and make any necessary adjustments. We'll pull cards, because journaling is a wonderful tool for introspection but tarot is often direct in the areas I might soften or sidestep altogether. We'll probably also burn stuff - things we're ready to let go of, written on slips of paper and committed to flame. And then in another six months, when the moon is once again new in Capricorn, we'll embrace the culmination of thos...

Attuned [adjective] sensitive to one's needs, desires, values, etc Practice [verb] to follow or observe habitually Attuned Practice: rituals and routines that are aligned with one's sense of peace and wellbeing Welcome to #attunedpracticetuesdays, where I share (either here or on Instagram if I have less to say about it) rituals and routines that are aligned with my sense of peace and wellbeing (I spent a two mile walk trying to think of a non-capitalistic way to express the concept of "what works for me" and this is where I landed). The photo at the top of this post is a good example - that's a little altar I set up for a monthly moon circle, themed around the season of Cancer the crab. Attending that moon circle on Zoom , and doing a little prep beforehand, is one of my attuned practices. But more than just sharing my practices, I also wanted to start a conversation about your practices, as well. I love hearing what other people are doing that's different fr...

Heat waves are rolling across the US South and rippling up off the pavement and high humidity means that walking outside results in the dampening of a downpour without the accompanying refreshment. After a too-brief spring, I'm closing not only the windows but the curtains as well and staying inside as much as possible. In lieu of a beach vacation, we're filling up a kiddie pool on the back deck on the tolerable mornings, and getting our dose of fantasy at the library. Personally, I'm doing a lot of reading, napping, and rethinking impulse desires that would require leaving the house. This is the season when I usually revisit my spiritual practices, examining what's working and what isn't, and what's changed over the past year (in terms of my practice, and my needs). A tune-up to make sure that everything is in alignment and running smoothly. I'll be sharing more than usual about my practices on Instagram , although I plan to write about it here, as well. I...

32 had a greater-than-usual amount of travel and self-discovery. A recent realization I had was that, parallel to not being invited to things, I have found lots of things to do by myself that I deeply enjoy but don't invite others to (I guess I figured that if they were interested, they would go themselves, but also I do have a knack for finding interesting local things to do). So going forward I'm trying to tell others about the fun stuff before  I go rather than after, in case they want to join in - to share the wonder and delight that I'm always finding. CS Lewis (with whom I have disagreements, but not on this particular point) said that joy isn't complete until it's shared, and I definitely feel that. Watching someone else enjoy something increases my enjoyment of it - and that's definitely something I'd like to have more of in the coming year! I think for 33 I'll continue building community and embracing my weirdness/queerness - expecting delight a...

Three years ago, I took my oldest on a combined birthday girls trip to Dallas. It required a lot of planning and coordinating, since she had some tricky allergies and my youngest was still nursing, but we brought Mimi along as adult backup and had fun staying in a hotel, riding the DART to downtown and going to the aquarium. Now she's outgrown her allergies and I'm no longer a food source, so this year she and I went to St Louis while the boys went to visit grandparents (so no one felt left out). We had originally planned on going to the zoo, but ended up arriving in the depths of a heat wave, so we opted for air conditioned activities and went to the aquarium instead. I have been to a lot of aquariums and this was not my favorite, but it was the most interactive one I've been to and she had a delightful time letting doctor fish nibble her hands and feeding a sting ray. We finished out our time at Union Station by riding the Ferris wheel (a concession on her part, because t...