home observations

Waking Up the House

In a new house, I’m forming new habits. One thing I’ve found myself doing every morning is opening curtains and blinds room-by-room. I refer to this as “waking up the house.” While I used to open curtains in the morning in our old house, there weren’t as many to open (just a couple) and I didn’t open them one after the other, like I do in this house. I just have to let the daylight…

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In Search of a Basement Pencil Sharpener

Having moved recently, I was missing our basement pencil sharpener. I have a couple of small, hand-held pencil sharpeners to use, but they aren’t effective at making a nice point without chewing up the wood on my cheap, soft pencils. What I really needed, and wanted, was a sturdy hand-crank pencil sharpener that mounted to a wall, preferably in the basement. You know, the pencil sharpeners found at the back of most school rooms that…

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Writing: Using Health Intake Forms for Character Development

Forms are on my mind recently, partially because I finished filing our taxes and partially due to a project at work. I have filled out a LOT of forms in my life. From tax forms to social services forms to grant applications to healthcare forms, all ask for some intensive and often highly personal information. After you’ve filled out the same information (name, address, phone, email … etc., etc., etc.) for the twelfth dozen time,…

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family home observations

Making a Comfortable Bed

Do you ever think about some of the odd habits you’ve developed over the years? Not hobbies, exactly, but things you’ve come ’round to doing that end up being a point of pride when you do them well? For me, it’s making a comfortable bed. I thought about this recently when we had a family member stay overnight. We have an air mattress that I set up. Having slept on this air mattress before, I…

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On the Practicality of a Weaving Degree

On Mastodon Sunday, not one, but TWO articles that mentioned weaving came across my timeline. Weaving is one of the lesser-practiced fiber arts, certainly not discussed as often as knitting or crocheting on social media. Likely because it takes quite a bit of money and some training if you want to weave using a floor loom. My training in weaving actually came in college. I majored in visuals arts with a concentration in weaving. Anyone…

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