Aquileo | indietutes

Aquileo | ePatterns! free download

noreply@blogger.com (Charity Indietutes) — Sat, 28 Oct 2023 01:35:00 +0000

I've been telling girl child (who is not a child, except in my heart obviously), who has been having a difficult go of it as of late, that when someone is an asshole to her and there doesn't seem to be a direct resolution, then an action must be taken to make it better for someone, somewhere. I don't know why, but it addresses my sense of what it means to either contribute to the good in humanity and to try to balance out the feels. Not a Pay It Forward but a Stop It and Do Better.

So today somebody was kind of shitty to me, thus I decided to do something I've been meaning to do for awhile now for anybody out there who is still paying attention to this space. First off, I updated the pattern link on the Toddler Backpack Tutorial so it should work now.

And here are my full ePatterns for most of my patterns I developed way way back (I'll add them over the next few days but here are a couple right now). If you are printing the patterns, make sure you check the sizing with the 1" square. Enjoy!

(Eta, I have a donation jar for those who wish: Thanks for the patterns!)

Patchwork Twirler

Revolutions Frock

Fair Weather Jacket (sizes 2-4)

Fair Weather Jacket (sizes 5-7)

Bib Tunic

Willow Wayfarer Hipster Pants

Birdie Britches

Racer Back Athletic Top (Tweens)

Lace-up Dress

Bush Hat (Toddlers)
Oh Suzanna Smock Top

Aquileo | Begone child (take me with you)

noreply@blogger.com (Charity Indietutes) — Fri, 24 Mar 2023 17:29:00 +0000

It's been a minute, but digging about the ancient storage bins in my mind, one of the earliest times I remember thinking I should share intimate information about my daughter on very public internet to complete strangers was when she had barely reached toddlerhood.

I feel our naivety from that time. We ambled about the world, thinking it to be a material place, where relevant boundaries were tangible, touchable. We did not know about the universe inside the boxes and screens. My daughter was so young, unaware of the dangers and adult associations of the material objects about her. I called her Smootchie. She certainly did not know about the Internet. I hardly knew about the Internet.

She also did not know about the potty. Or maybe, she hadn't yet learned to withhold appreciation of an object to the most pedestrian* designated use, which is one of the necessary but not the most creative parts of growing up. We were at a shopping mall, my mother, my daughter and myself, perusing one of the new style novelty shops, A Loonie Store, which sold things that only cost a loonie (or one dollar cad for non-Canadians).

Grandma says, You can have thing, child, from this here shop. Pick anything you like.

There was toys. There was candy. But in the end, my daughter parades out holding aloft her shiny new toilet plunger.

Of course that plunger was a favourite toy for years to come, kept pristine and far away from any lavatory. It was a hat, a horn, a sword, a tripping hazard. I remember my son, born three years after the girl, playing with it.

But I am not here to speak specifically about toilet plungers or the ethics of writing about private family life that includes minors.

I am here to mildly embarrass my daughter. Again.

I have written so much about her online. It has been mostly, I believe, about my experience as a parent and as a maker of things for people. I've tried to not speak for her. But she has been employed as my muse and model, for her entire life. At first she was generously compensated for this with chocolate. In later years, gas money and the occasional boot.

You can still find this sewing pattern modelled by daughter in 2007 (I think?) on this blog site, and purchase the e-pattern with the sewing pieces on my Etsy. People still do, every week. If I forget to renew my listings on Etsy, or a download link breaks here, I receive messages to Please Make Available.

It is surprising to me. After all these years. I wonder if people see this little girl and believe she is out there now, an eternal enfant. I am estranged from the world of sewing, currently only using my machine to stitch together paper pockets in books I make. My creative work moves along; I won't say evolved because it doesn't seem like something moving away but connected and better suited. It more revolves, spinning around an elemental base. Still, I like to think that if I sat down with a pile of fabric squares and a serger, my hands would remember the movement and I could put something functional together with just a few tears.

That is one thing I remember. There is always tears when sewing.

But daughter. Daughter has Evolved. Moved along. Long ago she started on a path I had laid for myself. But she's fast and brave. She is way up ahead of me, carving out the trail for herself. I follow her now.

This blog has saved so many moments for me. My memory fails me, despite my attachment to the dramas I live. Reading the archive here, my own words are unfamiliar. I don't remember writing them. I don't know what happened next. But I am transported through time, feel the feels. Looking back over the entries, sometimes I am impressed with drive to find insight, but mostly I am appalled at my smug belief that I could tidy up experience and draw out some sort of sense of the glorious absurdity of these years. I knew nothing. I know nothing now.

But here. Look at this human that has survived somehow from the effort and chaos of my devotion.

Girl child's closing act of childhood will be playing roller derby this summer in Valence, France, with the Junior Roller Derby Association Canadian team for the Junior Roller Derby World Cup.

I can't think of a more suitable launching point into adulthood for this dynamic, tenacious, valiant human.

As I write about this on the Internet now, for strangers to read**, I experience, despite my murky memory, a direct line of sentiment that ties me back to way, way back to when I started writing about my tiny baby. That small one who began life in the middle of a boss battle and has somehow never stopped fighting. I'm grateful for this child who brought me inspiration and reason to pursue my own fundamental needs to create and love. That she lives and breaths is so gobsmackingly miraculous. I am so happy for her, and that she does this thing that makes her feel alive and such intensity.

So today I briefly revive this ancient format to just express my wonder at it all. For those who have read about my creative work and my small family who are my inspiration, if you are curious, you can know that we are well. Life is not unblemished, we have many regrettable moments we unfortunately designed ourselves and, of course, still stand in the way of the inevitable tragedies and indignities that is the burden of every living being on this planet. But we are well and we have so many good things and many other things to look forward to.

I still don't know what I am doing.

And we are going to France.

* It's perplexing to me that the word pedestrian, an occupation that is undervalued and endlessly fascinating when approached with an inquisitive spirit, also means something that is dull or mundane. Although, I admit, I often prefer to pedestriate while wearing roller skates.

** Or not. I am sure no one reads blogs anymore at all

Aquileo | PROCESS :: teddy needs a name

noreply@blogger.com (Charity Indietutes) — Thu, 26 Mar 2020 16:35:00 +0000

Making of a doll.

Through my little art and science supply, Pulp Anatomy, I make these little raw dolls I call 'fleshies' for artists and/or magical folks who use poppets. With all fairs being closed down at the moment, instead of starting my dolls from scratch, I've been dipping into my market stock that were supposed to come along to Pulp Anatomy's spring pop ups.

I thought I would share my process for making this particular bear doll, for anyone interested in how I do it. I do not have a tightly laid out schedule and often do not know where I am going until I get there, but I snapped some photos along the way. For anyone thinking of making dolls for their young ones or with their young ones, feel free to ask questions about my process and techniques. If you do not have a prepped raw fleshie canvas, you can make one (we are crafty folk here) or use any existing doll or stuffed animal, and just sort of cover and add. It's all for fun.

So, here we have the fleshie and some of the materials I use: photo reference, super sculpey original polymer clay (it's a low temperature bake clay that doesn't harm the stuffed doll), and sculpting tools. For anyone looking to more information for working with polymer clay, I highly recommend Ace of Clay video tutorials on YouTube.

For the clay face, I use tin foil for the basic structure and sheets of polymer clay on top to make the features. Sculpey bake and bond is a bakeable adhesive that I use to attach the clay to the fabric.

When I attach the clay to fabric, the bake and bond gets me so far, but for durability I usually have additional supports. For some clay pieces, I make little holes that I can stitch the clay to the fabric. Various supports also go in, like these toothpicks for the ears.

I just bake according to the super sculpey packing directions. Let it cool and off I go to stage two: painting.

I use various techniques for painting but generally I use a matte or ultra matte acrylic paints on the clay and fabric. You can put the paint through the oven again if you are adding more clay later.

The hood fabric is an old chair cover I made and we wore down the edges so badly that I had to retire it. I basically salvaged what was still intact and now it serves as doll clothes. My process for clothing this bear was to paint the arms and legs, and the actual cloth goes on in small pieces and is stitched directly onto the doll form.

A small break here to check out the actual chaos that I work in. I start each project with a clean table and during the way this happens. I have a particular methodology of organizing that I've developed over the years based upon my very small multi-purpose rooms in my house and my ADHD. This is my kitchen/dining table for my family of four and that's a hula hoop too. I go full in when make stuff and this happens:

But I can pack it down and have the space prepped for roller skating in less than five minutes, and even be able to find my tools afterwards to pull out again to make an even bigger mess.

And back to the doll. More painting. Tin foil to keep the legs apart, like when people paint their toe nails.

Adding more cloth. I like a lot of layers on my dolls. I just find my basic shape and then stitch on, working from the extremities inward until I am happy. It's how I get dressed in the morning as well, but, almost always, without the sharp jabby needle bit.

Obviously, I am going with a scrappy, raw aesthetic here. If I wanted a finer, smoother look, I would make the clothes separate and then secure to the body with a few stitches. For strange times like these, though, the raw edges and visible stitching seems best.

I added a hooded edge to the head to both add a level of security to hold secure the clay piece and because, you know, hoods. I like the post-apocalyptic onesie effect here.

The tutu portion came off another doll I made a couple years ago. It was a linen ruff I made that I removed because I want to revamp the doll. It happened to fit here quite well around teddy's belly.

And then for the a little finishing party hat, I took some quilt lining felt, painted it up, stitched it into a crown.

A bit of rub on wax metallic finish to give a little shine (and make it inappropriate for ages three and under because I just can not make a doll suitable for children).

And that's my guy. If you have questions about the process, I'm here :)

Aquileo | how to read

noreply@blogger.com (Charity Indietutes) — Thu, 19 Mar 2020 20:24:00 +0000

This is for those of you who know how to read words, but are struggling to read a book. As in sit down with a book, and just read it. With intention and focus and enjoyment.

A couple days ago the public library phoned me to tell me it was closing. It was probably my most unregulated emotional moment so far, as our springtime of isolation has been revealing her depths.

I had an ugly little breakdown as I realized it would probably be months before I can borrow a book. I put down the phone and I cry to the boy, 'The library has closed it's doors! But what will I read?!'

The boy doesn't answer but pointedly casts his eyes around the room, taking in probably a thousand books or more, before returning to his (text heavy) video game. It's all fine for him maybe, as somebody reads to him out loud everyday as part of his homeschool and before bed, and is a reluctant reader beyond that, but if I told him that Fortnite and Roblox were shut down and he'd have to just play the video games he only has for his Nintendo 64, he would lose his eleven year old mind.

I am a person who doesn't describe herself as someone who reads a lot, although I do. Since I started tracking in 2013, I've jotted down more than nine hundred titles. That's just the ones I remembered to record.

I do read a lot, but when I talk about reading, I speak of myself as Bookish. Like an identity. I don't just read books, I am books. They are a part of my being, the same way my bones and flesh are. (But not, like, literally.)

There are many fine arguments as to why people should read books. Fiction and non-fiction, lengthy books, electronic or the more tactile form, the act of reading is generally agreed to be good. A search of the Internet will throw up any number of elegant reasons, some of them even animated on YouTube.

There are arguments against reading as well, though many of them are located at earlier historical points. Reading about why people believed in the past that reading was a terrible idea is one of, I think, the best arguments for why we should read as much as possible, all the time.

So, being Bookish, it may surprise you to learn that reading a book is, for me, a complex, sometimes difficult task. I know there is a perception that bookish people just are. We just sit and read effortlessly, that it's a easy as slipping on ice, we just fall onto it. Except instead of cracking a tailbone, we lay upon our couches sipping hot beverages, all cozy and smug.

I think this image of literary escapism is one of the reasons so many people tell me they wish they could read more. It seem warm and peaceful, an idyllic mental holiday.

Sorry, definitely not true for me. That's just tea packaging propaganda. Sure, there were times in my life when it was easy to read, practically a compulsion. That's a common prepubescent vocation, I think, as our desire for life experience is far greater than any that the people around us are willing to let us explore without supervision. But once out of the Sweet Valley High phase, well, things just don't go as smoothly.

For me, reading is work. It is pleasant work, mostly, but a certain level of effort is required. I have mentioned before that I also have ADHD. I am easily distractible. I have a hard time sitting still. I have a difficult time remembering what I just read. I spend hours every week searching for the book I just put down... somewhere. And despite this, or because of this, I definitely want to read.

I am also a recent ADHD diagnosis, which means that I have had these forty some years to wonder why the hell I am the way I am and, more importantly, develop highly personal and effective strategies. Reading is something that I have a structured approach to but is also integral to the management of my ADHD. You'll see what I mean below.

This is how I read:

1. A non-negotiable part of my daily routine involves reading. I have built in reading times, including for half an hour or in the morning while I have coffee (actually, this is an active brain time for me where I also dump all my creative ideas as well as read but I will talk about that later). I also read before bed to help me sleep as it helps minimize the endless rolling of thoughts that would otherwise keep me awake all night.

I also bring along a book with me in case I have any waiting times during the day. This also helps me manage my time in that my ADHDness loses track of time often and I end up arriving late to places, except that I'm looking forward to having a few moments just me and my book, so I leave ridiculously early so I can have that time. That means I'm at most of my appointments just on time.

2. I follow my energy, or as my daughter would say, the vibe. In the early mornings I like to sit and read but in the late morning, especially if I'm reading out loud to someone else, I like to pace. Also, if I'm high energy, I put a lot of drama in my voices and exclaimations. If I'm reading to just myself, I will still read out loud, even perform, to make that noise and focus myself with the stimulation. Sound a little crazy? Maybe, but it's also fun and keeps me on task.

I'll add here that when I was a child, I used to ride my bike and even drive an off road quad while reading. I do not recommend this, but my need for movement to help me focus is what is key here. A rocking chair may do it for someone else. Or walking a track that they don't need to pay attention to. Reading in the car if it doesn't give you motion sickness (not while you are the driver though). Treadmills could work for someone else but they are too weird for me. I need to vary my pace and not be worried about tripping on that grippy rubber bottom.

3. If I want to read but I'm getting distracted, I add stimulus. First, I do read out loud in outrageous ways. It isn't too long before I settle down into after that. I'll also take my bookmark and go through line by line. I take notes of characters as I go, or details that might be important. In other words, I add a task for myself that is centered on the reading. I may tap my fingers or play with a fidget but I prefer a stim that is directly related to the text.

I will also take myself out to a more stimulating environment with background noise. Coffee shop or some nature area with running water or chirpy birds. Or turn on a radio station loud enough that I can hear it, but not actual words. This is a tricky one because ambient noises can also distract, and my inability to filter out irrelevant noises, especially conversations can make this work well or terribly. The worst place is actually the library, as it's too quiet that I can hear every shuffle, cough and whispered question. All of that grabs my attention and away from my book. So I find a nice burble that is not too loud but still filters out the tiny unpredicted sounds. Some people use headphones and a repetitive beat, trance music, or something they enjoy but doesn't demand excessive attention. Familiar old television shows, white noise machines, or your spouse talking also works well for some.

4. I also follow my mood. I am reading four or five books at any particular time. I do enjoy a variety of genres and non-fiction all over the place as I am a total book slut. But I do swap my books around throughout the day. In the mornings I like to tackle my big heavy non fictions, with historical or pathological topics. They tend to be heavy hardcovers that sit supported in my lap while I hold my coffee. Before bed, I read lighter topics that are entertaining but don't suck me in so bad that I can't sleep. Children's adventure fiction is my choice here, although if it's been a hard day, it might be Garfield or Calvin and Hobbes. I have also been known to have a small stack beside me of books that I read a couple of pages of each, rotating the order through if I am having a hard time focusing but still want to sit and read. The switching books allows for small dopamine surges that works kind of like channel surfing or checking my social media.

5. Oh, social media. So this is genuinely a problem. ADHD and social media is the most dangerous combination. I am managing a lot of it by setting timers and restrictions. For instance, ten minutes of reading, set down book, pick up phone for five minutes, and then ten more minutes of reading. For anyone who thinks I just stay idle for hours reading, you'd be very surprised how often I get up and move around. I just build in the phone checks or wanders in the kitchen for snacks instead of trying to stop it. Boundaries not barriers.

6. Speaking of ADHD, there are a couple of specific issues we have. The above suggestions might be helpful for any neurology, at least to try and see if it helps. But ADHD has two key issues in particular. First is dyslexia is quite common and a complication that does not apply to me. I can not address this, but if anyone has resources they like to share, please comment! I have dyscalculia, which has it's own set of trials and tribulations, but it doesn't affect my reading.

Another issue is that many people with ADHD are bombarded by ideas, things they should be doing, things they want to do, and random, intrusive thoughts that are nearly impossible to shut off. What I do is keep a piece of paper beside me with a pen and I write it down as it occurs to me, then back to my book. I do not make this paper a to-do list, which is a whole other set of problems for people who lack the ability to prioritize and have 'pick up medication' on the same list as 'paint the basement'. Oh nos. On this paper I put the date on top and then I scribble down or draw whatever occurs to me. I may, if I think there is something important later, scan the list and see what it was (pick up milk? feed the dog?) but mostly I tuck it into a folder I keep (eventually) and never expect to look at it again. If I am every stuck for ideas when I sit down to work, I may go back and scan a few sheets because they are chalk full of random fun stuff that usually gets me working on something.

The above list is not complete obviously, and addresses mainly the adult who is trying to read for pleasure. For required reading such as school work or legal documents, or encouraging your kids to read, there are many resources written about it online and in... books!

Additionally, I do not have a visual imagination, so I can not address how people picture it. I do experience stories with imaginary textures or moods or sort of murky feels, but that is definitely a neurodiverse dark alley that we don't need to talk about right now.

Good luck to everyone who are now confronting their home libraries and vowing to tackle some of the books they've been meaning to read. Unless you Marie Kondo'd your books away, then, well, you just get judgement and heads shakes from me.

Let us know if there is things that you do that help you focus and enjoy your reading time.

Aquileo | Suddenly homeschooling? One way to think about it

noreply@blogger.com (Charity Indietutes) — Wed, 18 Mar 2020 20:35:00 +0000

I made a little off hand commentary on Facebook the other day to my unexpected non-consensual homeschoolers out there who are looking at trying to do three months of school at home. I saw a lot of crime scene like photos, with books and pens scattered across rooms like they were at ground zero of some explosion.

The message I posted was basically: relax, it's messy, but it'll be okay.

I have no basis to say such a thing, but I am quite familiar with not knowing what to do with my kids all day and I know that panic spreads like wildfire from parent to child. Panic is not particularly helpful in a learning environment unless you are learning what ice cream you like best to binge eat while crying on the kitchen floor.

There is a lot of scrambling this week, home education wise, and I am impressed at the glut of home based resources being tossed around the social media sites. It would of been great to have this kind of access when I first started homeschooling my girl back in 2009.

Nope, actually, that's a lie. It would of been overwhelming and despair inducing.

The decision for us to homeschool way back when was based on a genuine desire to spend as much as my time as possible with my children, for me to find a way to work at home, and my generalized loathing of externally set structure and loss of control that comes with following institutional schedule and demands.

And, as a strong, invisible force, it was because I have ADHD.

I didn't know that at the time; my diagnosis has been relatively recent. But an inability and non-desire to follow schedules, easily distractible, low motivation to participate in group activities, and poor adherence to timetables are hallmarks of kindergarten drop outs. Which, as a parent, I was.

Undiagnosed ADHD has many mental and physical burdens that are beyond the scope of this particular afternoon to talk about but it was instrumental to the way I set up my homeschool. Or, as I usually refer to it, my life.

Initially, the how to do homeschool/life correctly was anxiety producing. We tried curriculums. Workbooks. I bought flashcards. I made flashcards. I read all sorts of educational philosophies and methods, Charlotte Mason, Classical, Waldorf, online, blended and all that. I know many homeschooling families that served as models for all types of structured methods and they all seemed good. I couldn't really find fault in the various ways, it appeared what mattered more was rightness of fit for the family involved.

If you circle back to undiagnosed ADHD running amok in my brainy parts, though, you'll see how attempting to adopt an external structure and enforce it on myself leads down spirals of non-adherence and guilt, feelings of just not being good enough and what is wrong with me?

Fortunately, though, I was born with ADHD and also managed to make it all the way to adulthood, through school, through a messy young adulthood, through college, meaning that through pressure and fire I have developed all sorts of novel, maybe bizarre, strategies to make things happen that need to happen. I am also nearly buried under a landslide of creative ideas everyday, ADHD being this situation where all the walls are down in your brain and the thoughts that others may categorize and prioritize are instead smashing into one another like surly teenagers in a bouncy house, and I am utterly unafraid to act on any strange idea. Actually, this whole blog is a study of what undiagnosed ADHD looks like in an adult woman with small children. Sometimes it's ugly. But it does keep us entertained.

So I decide to homeschool and I ask myself, me with two small children I've charged myself with the heavy responsibility of educating while under the judgemental stare of family, society and an unknown invisible neurological disorder, 'What are we going to do here? We can't just keep eating ice cream while crying on the floor.'

And me says back, 'Hey us, we're probably going to mess this up, but fuck it. Remember back when we were a kid? How about if we just sort of make a space and schedule that we would of thrived in as a child.'

We're so smart.

I took the pressure off myself to find a system that fit us. I gave myself permission and time to explore and experiment and fail and create our own private world that we could not only live with but actually love.

The actual method we use, turns out to be mostly non-method. Consistently non-consistent. Or a ragtag bunch of ideas that come under the heading of Unschooling.

My own need for quiet safe spaces interspersed with excitement, and particular aesthetics, rhythms that flowed with my personal energy over the day, freedom to indulge my interest of the week and then putting it aside when the sparkle dulled. I made a home that I would of loved to grow up in. Lots of books, creative raw materials and kitchen dance parties. Blanket forts, twinkle lights, and painting the walls. Joining short run activities on interesting things. Plenty of unscheduled time to explore whatever, to move or be still, depending on the moment. Naps. Contact sports. Prioritizing interest and engagement over what we are told is important. Project based learning, with a multi-disciplinary approach. Or, you know, doing what we want to do.

I have been very lucky that I could do this, and turns out, so has my girl. When I set up something that would of worked for me as a child to learn and be engaged with and generally satisfied with life, I coincidently created the environmental conditions for my particular child with undiagnosed ADHD to thrive in. Turns out this shit is super inheritable.

Our home is a good fit for us. Which means we didn't know some of us aren't not entirely neurotypical until grade nine, where girl child decided to enter public school. That's we realized that something was different in the way the girl processed the world. Much more than labelling her a homeschool weirdo could explain. Like how she actually needs to full send run in the hallways all lunch hour. How she is physically incapable of keeping her feet below her butt when sitting. How much of a jackass she is.

The girl has the ADHD so bad that we were only a month in before we went from being utterly unaware of this particular neurology to positively identifying the need for medication and targeted strategies. We had no idea up until she went into an environment that wasn't actually made for her personally. Samesies here.

I think if the girl had been in classrooms in her youngest years, maybe we would of known earlier. But maybe not. She might have just been labelled as a discipline problem, she would of been confused and angry at herself for not fitting in, not being able to just do what seems so easy to other kids. Everyday I learn more about what this means to the girl and myself. Increasingly I am aware that my instinctual acceptance, even indulgence, of individual quirks comes from my own genetic set up and having grown up out with parents being unaware of their own neuro difference. We all make strategies and model ways of being in a world when your brain is not set up to work well in standardized environment.

I taught myself How to Weirdo. And then I taught my children as well.

For the record, the girl tells me that she's glad that she wasn't diagnosed earlier, because being free to just be herself without thinking that there was something different about her allowed her to get to know herself quite well without judgement. She could focus on what worked, rather than if it was good or bad. She is tremendously self aware and articulate about what she needs. It's a rare and precious thing she has, and nobody here is sorry for how we've done things, as non-conventional as it was. And is.

And despite never having taken formal classes in English or Science, her grades we sitting in the 90% for everything, except math where her dyscalculia and unfamiliarity with the subject kept her at a 70%. High grades are not something I really care about, but it demonstrates to us that she knows how to take in information and apply it as demanded by a situation. The unschooler is doing well at public school, socially and academically. But more than that, she is very familiar with her own way of learning the information and easily cuts past methods she knows won't work for her. She talks to her teachers and works with them to build strategies. When there a background of information she doesn't have from her past schooling, she just finds out the information in the way that works best for her and moves on without getting upset that she's 'behind'.

But for us, way back when, I just decided to roll with it. Whatever it is. We can read classic literature and we can read graphic novels. Watch cartoons while we eat lunch. It is most definitely not for every family, but amongst ourselves, it is perfectly acceptable to drop your math book to grab somebody and pretend to bite them to get them to fight you. Works for a needed dopamine boost so you can focus again. Or just up in the middle of something, run outside and trampoline like a squirrel on fire. Or become hyperfixated on a special interest and monologue for hours. Or to not listen to somebody's monologue and continue typing your poems of sadness. Or spend the whole night awake drawing with one eye on Netflix. We make messes and mistakes and we laugh our asses off all the time. We seek information and excitement and hate scratchy clothes. We stim. We allow each other to get into things, even if we don't like it for ourselves. It's not perfect, but it's cool man.

Here is the thing. Because I stopped and asked myself what I wanted, I stumbled on what could work for us. When it fits, the successes come easier and the motivation develops to push through the discomfort of not knowing what was going to happen next. My confidence grew over time that my way may not be everyone's way, but it works for us, most of the time, and I love our homeschool life.

So as an unprecedented number of parents suddenly find themselves in that What Do We Do Now? phase of homeschool exploration, even if it's just for a few months, as an old hand at the least travelled path, I wish to encourage parents to ask themselves what they would of wanted as a child? What would your best case learning scenario be? Maybe that will give some direction to fit you, one that you can't get from online resources or bedtime stories read by celebrities. Or if you have a changeling, like my son - sometimes I wonder how this stranger found his way into my home - locate another human that does seem a lot like your child in temperament and personality (probably a relative, your brother sister maybe?) and ask them what they would of liked as a child?

This is a plea to you to work with the child you have there, in front of you, and don't worry about what other people tell you is the right way. Don't get your head turned by flashy online resources. Don't force it. Just slow down, be thoughtful, look for what feels right.

Homeschool is just as much about learning how to learn as what subjects you actually engage in. If they are interested and motivated, it's nearly impossible for them not learn about it. And if they don't care, well, all the ice cream in the world is not going to get the information into that child's head. Explore, have fun, discover where passions are.

And then make lunch and get on with it.

Aquileo | fixing up the bone boi (anatomical skeleton reconstruction)

noreply@blogger.com (Charity Indietutes) — Sun, 15 Mar 2020 06:08:00 +0000

Oh boy, let's see if I remember how to do this!

With the world social distancing and all my market, roller derby, and travel plans cancelled, I've started slipping into old habits. I do make things still, as, you know, my j.o.b.

I guess.

You can search my artsy fartsy bizness name 'Pulp Anatomy' to see what I'm up to. But without my ridiculously stuffed schedule of derby events between myself and the girl, who plays with a provincial travel team and on Team Canada (little heart baby makes good!), I haven't had an outlet for my general know-it-all-ness.

I remember blogs though. Such a brilliant thing. I do what I want and can turn off comments.

Surprising, nothing has changed in formatting. This feels very primitive. Thank goodness because I am a matronly woman now and no longer have the ability to update my computer skills.

But I did need to update my skelly boi because he was looking a little worse for wear. A whole lot of him just sort of fell off, Black Knight style. Not very educational, unless he's demonstrating what happens to an extra for The Witcher.

I tried all sorts of adhesives but they couldn't take the weight of the plastics. I've been keeping his fallen parts around in hopes I would one day find the time to put him back together. Looks like, thanks to a pandemic, that day arrived!

What I used: wire (probably a 24 gauge, but tough), wire cut and bending tool, and what I call a hand drill, although I don't know what the people who know tools call it.

I use this little drill all the time for real animal skeleton reconstructions and with polymer clay sculpts to make the holes I need to put in supports. For the skeleton articulations, I usually use a small brass rod instead of just wire, cut to a precise length and secured with adhesive. It's nearly invisible and very strong when in place.

Here is an example of an articulated rabbit skeleton I done did up last year. Note the joints are secured with small brass rods and then a larger one for spine support in the middle. The spine is threaded with a hard 12 gauge craft wire.

However, I needed some flex with this plastic anatomy model since it is molded plastic and I had to somehow maneuver through an already constructed rib cage. I was also not concerned in anyway about roughly finished wire edges. Obvious repairs add charm, right? Like visible mending?

Off I go. Without actually counting and accounting for all the parts. (Foreshadowing?)

Using the hand drill (or whatever), I screw my way through the plastic (so much hard polymer, had to turn on The Witcher while drilling), and then threaded my bendy wire through the holes. A simple operation except when Geralt was doing something violent or sexy, and then I had to stop and pay attention to the screen for a bit.

Twist ends to secure.

Here is the ribs. One did not want to cooperate no matter how much I cursed at it. I decided to leave it as a lesson to itself. I could, however, later go in with an adhesive, maybe with a silicone, to force it into shape. With the wire supports, it would probably hold up well.

For now, though, I've got my bone boi looking much more intact and conventionally educational. And I got an entire Witcher episode inside me too, which is very satisfying.

But wait! Half an arm missing?!

I know it's here... somewhere. While I search, not very hard, I am contemplating making some sort of robotic substitute. Or maybe a grass sword, a la Finn the Human style?

What do you think I should do with this opportunity?

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Aquileo | teatime with predators

noreply@blogger.com (Charity Indietutes) — Thu, 03 Aug 2017 17:11:00 +0000

Made the girl a little top. Put a spider on it.

I'm tickled with my spider web appliqué. I shall have to revisit this again in the near future.

The spider is machine sewn. The web is pieced together with pin tucks. Spider web in process:

Back to the girl this morning:

This was moments before she broke the tea saucer. My girl is a delicate flower. Except when she's not.

The embroidery on the shirt says, Part Girl, Part Wolf Spider.

(It took all I had to not reverse that into spider wolf. Spider wolves are terrifying. Thank you Welcome to Night Vale for that particular thing I'll never forget yet I can not remember where it is.)

I saved the tea cup from miss delicate, though. Put a weird little cyclopean clown doll in it.

Then I listed the doll on Etsy. Check it out.

Aquileo | up close

noreply@blogger.com (Charity Indietutes) — Mon, 31 Jul 2017 19:41:00 +0000

Look at this happy little guy.

No, no, not the child. The dragonfly.

He has the nicest smile.

Anthropomorphizing animals and insects is one of my favorite pastimes. It's practically a school subject here. The childs and I can be a bit stalker-ish when it comes to wildlife. At least wildlife that we do not have to leave the yard to see.

I have no particular need to see exotic species or rare ones, although it is exciting to spot a bear or a wolf while out in the mountains. I'm more concerned with staying out of the way of the bigger wildlife and minimize our contact.

The creatures that invite themselves into my realm, well, that is a little different. Urban scavengers and pests, I just love them so much.

We have frequent visitors to our yard, crows, robins, jays, pigeons and a hawk that enjoys delicious crunchy pigeons. We have all sorts of beetles and millipedes down by the compost under our stored browns. Bees in the flowers, wasps that come check out our evening backyard meals, scads of spiders that hang off our lawn chairs and mailbox. And the furry critters like squirrels, mice and this mama along with her four babies.

Actually, this could be one of the babies, they've grown so fast and, unsurprisingly, we can't really tell them apart by their markings. So we'll just call it the skunk that I snapped a quick photo of before it turned and ran at me and I screamed and slammed myself back into the house.

The thrills never stop.

Into the urban backyard ecosystem is the volunteer plants (we have many, also known as weeds) and even our small attempts at cultivation, like our raspberries (once a couple sprigs, now a dense bush that is waiting for another year to produce that the skunks hide under), our sprawling strawberry field (in it's 12 by 3 foot box) and the carrots we plant to keep the boy happily noshing in the yard for an entire month. We are a little careless and not so good at keeping things tidy, which works well for the critters who need cover and plants to live. Every time I fail to clean up the leaves in my flower bed in the fall, I think of the hundreds of ladybugs who are going to have a snug winter under those leaves.

Add in our two cats, who are starting to explore the outdoors for the first time in their fourteen years and our small family, who can take the time to flirt with skunk encounters and dragonflies.

This is how it should be.

The Man even swapped out the swings on our old play set and added a couple of swinging benches as our family viewing gallery. The seats creek a bit when they swing, and I think Battle Cat hears them as a beacon to come get his pets, as he comes running for our laps every time we sit down for a (not so) quiet sit.

I would like to learn a bit more about what other bits of yard work I can avoid to encourage urban wildlife to move in. Though we have a relatively large city lot (big yard, itty bitty house), I don't think we can support any deer but I think we could have a few more butterflies and birds. And bugs. We love the bugs. Maybe a bat or two?

I consider it a privilege to be able to be this close to wildlife, to observe them throughout their natural lives, to notice their arrivals and departures. Though I make no special effort to provide them with food and shelter, excepting of the sunflower seeds we put out for the birds, but they are still able to find room in this yard with us and it is gratifying.

I used to think observing the wildlife in our backyard as a way of reducing complexity, so that the childs could study biology and animal behavior up close and generalize to the rest of the world. To some extent this is true and helpful in education. But I'm finding that, as I look closer, the idea that these animals and insects are familiar and simplistic is turning out to be grossly naiveté. I think I know what a squirrel is, but spending a day trying to get one to come stand in a specific spot so you can take a sneaky picture will teach you that you really don't understand squirrels after all. Extra hats off to Nancy Rose and her mad squirrel photo skills.

The goal for the next little while, for the childs and I, is to do a bit of documenting of the creatures we find in our yard, when and where. It will be a bit of formalizing of a project that has been underway for years. Then we can decide what sort of critters we would like to encourage more of and what adjustments we can make to our little habitat.

Aquileo | minimalist top for needlework

noreply@blogger.com (Charity Indietutes) — Thu, 27 Jul 2017 22:12:00 +0000

I've been working on making a simple minimalist top pattern that I can whip up in half an hour or so and use to play around with some machine drawing and embroidery. I really love functional, wearable art, and want to spend some more time playing with that.

Here is my minimalist top 1.0:

With a spider and web 1.0.

The spider is all machine sewn (no breaks! I don't know why, but I made that a rule.) I placed the structural secondary layer of fabric on the outside so that I could have it appear a bit deconstructed and remind myself not to take myself too seriously - always a danger in the design stage. This is supposed to be fun and basic.

The web creeps over the shoulder into a wee web.

It fits nice and loose, super comfortable. There is some work to do in having the shoulder in a bit tighter... maybe make it a racer back? Or maybe not. I always like to have something that I don't have to wear pinch-y bras with, if you know what I mean. It would also make an excellent pajama top.

I did wear this to a pub show the other night and nobody laughed out loud at me so I will consider it a so-far success.

Now onto the next incarnation of the top and come up with another arachnid illustration.

Aquileo | making plans to not make plans :: homeschool version

noreply@blogger.com (Charity Indietutes) — Wed, 26 Jul 2017 19:42:00 +0000

It's homeschool planning time. Our official plan that we submit to our homeschool authority is going to be a bit different this year. Last year, two months into the school year, we were forced to change what school authority we work with due to bizarre workings of the government and while it turned out to be unnecessary, it's probably best overall that we did.

The new place, though, has a wee bit different accountability protocols and requires a plan that is less, 'yeah, we'll go to the library and find some books to read' and more 'we will read this many books in this many days and here are the titles of all the books'.

It's really hard for me to wrap my mind around all this alien 'structure' and 'organized' stuff. I am being kind of facetious, but kind of not. Our homeschool plan will be a living document that we can alter to fit what works as we go, but right now it feels like throwing the dart at the board while blind and drunk. Lots of optimistic ideas and probably totally off target.

Thinking about it, I have to go back to why we do this crazy homeschool thing anyway and what it is that we are trying to achieve. Funny enough, it's not about the education. I mean it is, in the sense that I have ideas about what constitutes a good enough, even excellent, education for my children and try to implement that, but it's more about utilizing the greatest resource that we will ever have:

Time.

We homeschool because we want to spend time together and have time to do what we like. We want to get the stuff we have to do over with quickly, preferably in less than six hours. I can't even imagine trying to have the kids learn schoolwork from nine am to three pm. They'd run away and join a circus after day two. We want to use our precious time doing what makes us human and complete.

I remember when I first started entertaining the idea of homeschooling as a new parent. Girl child was wee and watching her learn and grow while considering what sort of school she'll need to attend and I started to feel very... jealous. Selfish. Weirdly mama primal. Watching and being involved in her growth was so satisfying, I knew I didn't want to turn it over to virtual strangers who would barely notice.

Basically I just wanted to grab my toddler and scream, 'MINE! MINE! MINE!' at the rest of the world.

Girl child, summer 2007, seriously engaged in her blue period

Of course, that feeling like I want to keep my children isolated all to myself passed quickly. In fact, I try to send them away often, because it's good for me and for them. (Take my children... please. But have them home by dark so I can read to them before bed. Also, they have chores to do.)

Another dimension to this is that the childs are getting opinionated about what their education looks like. With all the meta-learning stuff and knowledge hacks freely available - learning on how to learn - they figure they can learn their skills fast. Thanks to strategies put forth by people like Timothy Ferriss, they can learn incredibly quickly. And they know that if they aren't interested they will forget it by the next day. In other words, they are hyper aware of their own learning processes and capable to being deeply involved in this homeschool plan.

But they just want to say, 'yeah, we'll go to the library and find some books to read.' So maybe they're not so much help right now.

We all need to come up with clever way of measuring things that can not be measured. Making plans to not make plans.

I am thankful for this bit of hoop jumping for the homeschool, though, because it does allow me to evaluate, on a broad scale, just what it is that I think I'm doing and appreciate the amazing years we've had together.

Also, so I can officially plan to say to the school authority and government:

MINE! MINE! MINE!

Girl child, summer 2017, seriously involved with her hipster phase
(That's kombuca, not beer, for anybody who's eyes are failing them. And girl child would like everybody to know that she's wearing her What We Do in the Shadows "Werewolves not swearwolves" fan t-shirt, ordered from Etsy shop UnicornEmpirePrints, a mockumentry that is brilliant and trending on Netflix.)

Aquileo | twinsies... you'll have to believe me

noreply@blogger.com (Charity Indietutes) — Tue, 18 Jul 2017 22:39:00 +0000

It's not everyday a twelve year old girl wants to wear the same shirt as her mom.

I'm not sure how to feel about it.

I made myself a racer back athletic top a couple years back and girl child has developed an affection for it. I still had some fabric left over, sourced from Sew What?, from mine of the same style. Which I realize, now that I just went to look for pictures for, I don't think I ever posted it. I'll have to remedy that soon but you'll have to trust me, it looks about the same, bit longer, more room for boobs and higher on the neckline so nobody can see said boobs directly when I bend forward.

For both of us, we often reconstruct t-shirts and sports jerseys to fit us better for roller derby and the gym, and it's not often I use virgin fabric to make something to sweat in. Bit of a novelty right now.

Anyway, the top:

The pattern I use for my own athletic shirts is my own. Adjusted over the years, it fits me just the way I like it.

The pattern I use to make girl child's athletic tops is also mine, the RacerBack Athletic top Epattern for kids. She's at the top size now, and looks like I'll probably have to draft up a larger size soon. It is a pattern I use often for t-shirt mods. Roller derby puts you in a lot of different colours over the course of a season so it's not unusual to have to make up six or seven shirts over a couple months.

The Racer Back pattern, by the way, I think was the bestest photo shoot we ever had. It's girl child and one of her good friends and roller derby teammates. It's fun to see how much they've changed since I took these photos two years ago. See the original post here.

What sort of clothes do you guys sport in?

Aquileo | foraging

noreply@blogger.com (Charity Indietutes) — Fri, 14 Jul 2017 20:11:00 +0000

It's super duper hot here. Which means great berry weather.

We are the weirdos pilfering the berries on the sides of the paved paths in our small city. We brave the hobos, sudden long boarders and, sometimes, a bit of awshucks embarrassment to have a little warm berry snack, about the most delicious thing you can imagine eating.

We've had people say, omg, you can't eat that. Because it's transgressive to just eat food without the intermediary of a vendor. Without the permission implied by the paying for a commodity. Like we consumer animals and we eat products, not food.

I think that we have an obligation to ourselves to maintain some autonomy from commercial interests. Saving seeds, growing a garden, trading with your neighbor, growing fruit trees, learning what wild edible species you can forage in your area (particular invasive species or crazy prolific like dandelions).

But I think that about everything. Making your own clothes, your own art, your own fun. Not all of it, but some. Enough to know you can do if the alien lizard monkey beasts do take over and we have to live exclusively by our own efforts.

Ten years ago people used to ask why bother sewing clothes when you can anything you want at Walmart instantly for less money. People don't ask anymore; DIY has come into it's own since then, and there are plenty of manifestos out there that have explained it better than I ever will, but, generally, everybody gets it now. That's why they spend money at Walmart to buy home décor and clothes that look handmade. Culturally, there is value (or even just aesthetic) in doing it (or appearing to) yourself.

I'm still in the actually doing it for yourself mode. It's what, to me, constitutes freedom.

Aquileo | book drifts and a lap top bag

noreply@blogger.com (Charity Indietutes) — Wed, 12 Jul 2017 21:18:00 +0000

As I get older, I find myself worrying less about goal setting and thinking more about how I should live. What constitutes a good life? It's creeping into midlife, late night thoughts of mortality territory, and the more I think about it, I realize, the less I know.

Which is probably why this is what my bedside looks like:

Actually, this ever shifting messy pile of books is not a new thing. I'm just trying to justify my book drift with my existential angst. I've always been untidy with books, coffee cups and general art supplies. A little cavalier when it comes to leaving my mark on things, especially since I consider literature, art and curiosity to be of much higher priority than being neat and clean.

My childs have learned well from me.

We don't need no stinking gloves. Our kitchen table bears the marks of a hundred projects. And often our art falls into collaboration, as we inspire and encourage each other.

Messy creativity with weak boundaries may not be a virtue, but it still qualifies as a way of life.

In the same way, I love combining what I read with what I make. One of my favorite children's books is Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. I love it as much for Alvin Schwartz's short stories as for Stephen Gammell's illustrations. If you don't have a hard copy, you can check out some of the stories here.

My attempt at recreating the illustration from The Dead Man's Brains is not super duper excellent, but it was a free hand machine stitch drawing that I touched up a bit with water colour and wanted to keep around because it's still kind of cool. And reminds me of a good book.

This is it:

I've made it into a laptop bag, since I've been transporting the laptop back and forth from home to my studio. It is all machine stitched, no hand stitching. A closer look:

You'll have to forgive my messed up hand, with the scrapped knuckles from the gym and the nail polish that girl child applied. She's a great kid, but not so precise with the paint (see second picture of this post).

Also, on the theme of screw ups, I managed to some how put the patchwork panel intended for the back of the bag on the inside and putting the inside pocket intended to hold a power cord on the outside back.

My only real defense is that while piecing the bag together I was also having a small argy-bargy with The Man over text messages about what-I-can't-even-remember, and I was all flustered and did not pay enough attention to what I was doing. Which reminds me why I wanted to have a studio in the first place, so I could focus on what I was doing and not have to redo things or rip them out so often because I was distracted by family life. I will have to start ignoring messages from home, keeping at least one boundary a little intact.

I don't think that will stick though.

Aquileo | drat dancing on my wall.

noreply@blogger.com (Charity Indietutes) — Tue, 11 Jul 2017 19:57:00 +0000

Little bit of paper and water colour fun. I was thinking that this was a rat with a deer's antlers, but The Man says it's a rodent sized deer with a rat's tail.

Either way, I call it a drat.

Deer + Rat = Drat

Of course, the drat doesn't want to stay on the wall with my subpar double sided tape, so I stuck him to a glass picture frame and he's been doing ballet with a squid ever since.

It's been quite gloomy over the past couple of days, which is a nice change from hot like hades it was last week, but makes for less than spectacular pictures indoors. If you are interested, I posted a few of the steps I took while making the drat on my Instagram account and girl child helped me make a little video here.

I think the drat needs a little buddy to dance with, maybe a bouse (or mear?) or a vrane (crole?). What are the best animal mash ups?

*********************************

Little shop update: I can't be bothered trying to keep up on two separate Etsy shops because I a) have some books to read, stuff to make and kids to raise and b) Etsy keeps changing their stuff and fixing problems on both shops its a bit too much. So I am posting my Dollyshop Theatre dolls on my first and best shop connected with this blog, Indietutes. So if you like weird art doll things, please visit. Also there is patterns.

https://www.etsy.com/shop/Indietutes

Aquileo | Battle Cat vs Skunk: everybody loses

noreply@blogger.com (Charity Indietutes) — Wed, 05 Jul 2017 13:58:00 +0000

Dear Backyard Skunk,

You should know that your current form of defense - the spraying and the stinking - in no way deters Battle Cat from throwing your smelly butt out of his yard. It's just not working. May I suggest you try a different tactic? Something that might actually be effective. Like honking a horn or martial arts. Because the shooting off your anal glands does not work against cats with standards as low as mine.

Sincerely,
Somebody who has better things to do than bathe a belligerent feline at midnight

****************

After thirteen years, our kitties have recently retired as indoor housecats. In the morning, I clip on their collars and give them the option of going outside. Tiny Cat mainly declines. He's not a fan of the nature and, being a giant chicken, when he goes out, he tends to be gone for way too long as he's most likely hiding somewhere under a shed, paralyzed with fear.

Battle Cat can't wait to get outside though. Remember how I said Battle Cat is super chill? That is all true, unless you happen to be smallish creature that dared to set foot in his yard. He patrols his territory boundaries, which extends to everything he can see outside from our house windows, and has successfully driven off many aggressive invaders, like squirrels and large beetles.

And the other night, he chased off a skunk. This was of mixed success.

We have an 'all cats in before dusk' policy because, you know, vampires. A couple days ago, though, we were gone for the better part of the day and didn't arrive home until nearly dark. We let Battle Cat outside for one quick rove, feeling sorry for him for being cooped up in a hot house all day.

Dumb, dumb, dumb.

It's not like we didn't know about the skunks. A mama and her three babies have been terrorizing The Man for months as he travels between the house and his garage in the evening. You'd think those little skunks have bombs duct taped to themselves, the way The Man reacts. He's ever alert for skunks. I would actually say, he's almost pathologically terrified by them.

Which is probably why he was the one to first notice the stand off between Battle Cat and mama skunk.

The Man's reaction was to yell at me to get out there and call my cat off because it's MY job to deal with rowdy children. So I did (while The Man and boy child hid in the house). My goofy five pound cat responded to my call with his 'coming!' meow but added a, 'just a sec' chirp. He would not and did not back down until the skunk had left his domain. The skunk was probably twice the size of my cat, yet Battle Cat did not hiss or growl, and he certainly never raised a paw. He just slowly walked that skunk towards the fence line. I think he wins with his pointed looks and general air of disapproval. The one of time I've seen him in an encounter with another cat, a scarred old tom, he used this same lack of menace to remove him. Perhaps his name has given him a reputation that other critters are too nervous about to test? Like how the little guy with multiple tics, scarred face and neck tattoos named 'Skinner' never gets into fights in the pen?

Battle Cat, once he chased off the skunk, came back all perky and proud. Good job, Battle Cat. You smell bad, Battle Cat.

The scent was not so much experienced nasally as much as the feeling like someone was squeezing all the air of your lungs.

In short order and in line with out family policy of having me deal with the icky stuff, Battle Cat and I were sequestered in the bathroom. I had grabbed the cat, then The Man grabbed my shoulders and steered us both towards the bathroom, then firmly shut the door behind us. Then, from the other side of the closed door he asked, 'What can I bring you?'

A pair of rubber gloves were pushed underneath the door crack and frantic Googling ensued, trying to find out with what to wash a cat with that has gone and done something so stupid as to get sprayed by a skunk.

Battle Cat's proud demeanor quickly turned to resentful disappointment as the bath commenced. Oh, bathing a foul and hostile creature at midnight instead of crawling into the bed you so desperately need is super fun. Reminded me having infants in the house.

Stop washing off the wash, Battle Cat!

See, Battle Cat, this is the price of being outdoors. You want adventure and fresh odors to sniff? Well, congratulations, you've got it. Indoor kitties don't need baths. They also don't need flea collars or de-worming pills. All of life is trade offs. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

Good news though! We pulled the cat in so fast I don't think the skunk oils had time to really settle. He was being washed with a combination of dish soap, baking soda and hydrogen peroxide less than five minutes after being sprayed. Another wash with just dish soap and Battle Cat smelled like the after supper dishes. Granted, I turned nose blind after about ten minutes of being in that bathroom with him so I couldn't say for sure, but the next day he didn't make me feel like I'm suffocating when I put my nose up to him. Boy child also gave me a thorough sniff after I washed up from washing up the cat. He is very sensitive to odors and he gave me a thumbs up and allowed me to hug him good night.

Spikey little pedal paws

The rest of the house also received a super clean up with a degreaser and just in case any skunk oils remain lingering about. Right now Battle Cat is sitting on my lap and he seems to have forgiven me the bath. That's great, because with his vet visit last week, the medications he's needing to take and his surgery planned for Friday, he has a lot of stuff he could be resenting me for. But, he is, as I said, generally, a really chill cat. Just stay out of his yard.

****************************************

This short video helped the childs understand what happened between the cat and skunk and answered boy child's question on, 'how skunk's work'. It's a little graphic in the anal zone, though, so I do not recommend viewing first thing in the morning or while eating.

Aquileo | Rapunzel, Rapunzel, I bet you regret your asymmetrically shaved haircut now

noreply@blogger.com (Charity Indietutes) — Tue, 04 Jul 2017 12:39:00 +0000

A couple days, I told girl child that I would write her a short story, something funny and a bit weird to entertain her. A couple hours later, I had my wish from a recent post granted that someone would come take my children away for a camping experience I was not involved in. Well, sort of granted. They only took one child, the female, but that puts me at a fifty percent success rate which is not half bad.

But now I'm sitting down to write her a story and I'm a little stumped. I started with, "There once was an almost teenage girl who, like, totally abandoned her mother and deeply regretted it."

Of course, I deleted that and began again.

"The girl was born in 2004 and began her travels a mere twelve years later. She was light hearted and happy, glad to be facing a future on her own two feet, but she did not know that while she cheerfully skipped away from her childhood home, the woman who had provided her with all she needed to make her travels possible was wasting away from this vale of tears."

Or not.

"The girl startled with fear. It would be hard to say which she was more afraid of; that she hurt the only woman who cared for her or that that woman would hurt her back."

No, no, sorry. That's getting a little dark.

Anybody else want to wrap their children in bubble wrap and install them permanently in the living room so that they will always be safe and can not go out into the scary world yet, at the same time, want to go hide from them in the basement with a book and a bottle of wine by the laundry machines where they would never think to look?

I usually am pretty good at balancing the fears that are normal and identifying the crazy (eventually) but even when I think, 'yes, that is a totally insane thought,' I still have to work very hard at letting go. All while keeping a totally neutral expression on my face for the childs, so that they do not see the underpinning neuroticism that is fundamental to my decision making.

Relatively speaking, the childs are free range. We live in a small city with a high crime rate but considering that in our neighborhood someone experiencing a psychotic break in reality is just as likely to walk into our backyard as anywhere else, there isn't much reason to hold them back from traveling about on their own.

All of this doesn't stop girl child from rolling her eyes at me and saying, 'Yes, Mother Gothel,' when I make a small request for her to stop by someplace with wi-fi and check in once in awhile.

Oh great, now I'm the bad guy.

But here's my deal with camping and why I think it's good for the childs to go even though I really don't want them to. Outdoor life is, as the Internet tells me, really healthy even though nature is violent and cruel. It's sort of the bears but mostly the storms. Big dramatic storms with wind and lightening can and do cause bodily harm. Camping is just so rife with the opportunity to be caught unsheltered in some sort of rage-y weather. I don't think this is an irrational fear. I just think that when the risk is weighed with what camping can offer (see Internet: outdoors is healthy), it's an acceptable risk.

It's cool to camp in bubble wrap, right?

We may not be tornado alley here, but we do have short lived burst storms throughout the hot months - hail, plow winds, lightening. Just last week our spruce in the front yard lost the top half during a storm (was it a microburst, plow wind, or almost tornado - there is a debate - but it destroyed hundred of trees around the city), and, as it took out a power line on the way down, we were without electricity for three days. So that's us almost getting fifty feet of spruce tree to the face and a power line zinging about without ever having to leave home. What happens if you are out in the backwoods and don't have a handy dandy house to protect you? I think tents are just roomy and colourful body bags. Or bear burritos.

Without electricity, by the way, it was kind of like we were camping at home. I didn't like it.

Regarding our tree out front, we're all devastated that it had to be taken down all the way. It was a good tree, that provided tons of shade for our house and backyard (yes, it was so big it shaded the yard on the other side of the house... or is that our house is just so small?) Global warming is being felt much more in our house.

In a necessarily epic act, The Man borrowed a fire truck with a hundred foot aerial ladder and my brother-in-law, a professional tree guy, came by with his chain saw to take down the remainder of the tree. A couple of guys, a tall unsteady tree, a chainsaw, the impression that emergency assistance was already on the scene... what could go wrong? The whole endeavor was fraught with opportunities for traumatic hilarity. The neighbors brought out lawn chairs to watch. For awhile, we had a little hobo meet up on the front sidewalk where bets were placed on whether or not we were going to bumble and take out the house or the truck. It was nearly universally agreed that, at the very least, the power line would be yanked down again.

To general disappointment (except the neighbor directly next door who has lived under the shadow of that tree for decades and, of course, us) the tree was expertly dismembered and came down perfectly without causing damage, except for some wood dust, or man glitter, came down into our bowls of ice cream, which the childs and I were enjoying while spectating.

What is left is a twenty foot high stump. The Man wanted to take that down as well, but I asked him to leave it for just a little bit to see if I could come up with some ideas of how to use it.

And then girl child gave me an idea.

We do have to build her her own room. And she does like to call me Mother Gothel.

So, a story for girl child: "Once upon a time, since a certain young girl loved camping so much, she ignored the life lesson that was the tree in her front yard, and as her karmatic reward, she was made to live outdoors at the top of the stump of the former tree, in the urban wilderness. Also, she stopped rolling her eyes at her Mother Gothel."

Aquileo | Many, many pictures of my cats

noreply@blogger.com (Charity Indietutes) — Mon, 03 Jul 2017 12:15:00 +0000

I recently brought my kittie, Battle Cat, into the vet to check on some drooling he's been doing. As I understand it, cats are the classier pet and drooling isn't part of their regular behavior. Turns out he's got a couple of bum teeth that need cleaned, maybe yanked, and a surgery booked for next week. Some of my most miserable moments in life have been centered on trying to do post-surgical care on a cat so nobody is looking forward to that.

The vet was one that Battle Cat hadn't seen before and when she introduced herself, she was a little taken back by Battle Cat's name. I mean, if you knew you were about to try to pry open a strange animal's jaws and poke around in their needle sharp teeth, wouldn't you rather it be named something more encouraging like 'Totally Relaxed' or 'Weak Guy'?

Battle Cat is actually just under 5 pounds of fierce chill. Both our cats, litter mates (and nearly identical) are small for house cats and not fighters. They are beta-males (thank you Christopher Moore). They were rescues and so badly nourished when we acquired them as a foster family nearly thirteen years ago that they were unable to determine how old or even what sex they were. Eventually it was decided that they were about a year old and male but were sized at about three months with the attendantly sized genitalia. Poor boys. And there is a long gross story about worms I can revisit another time but probably won't because I actually have, unfortunately, many horrible stories about cats with worms, I don't really want to think about any of them again.

Also, if you are wondering how we started as a foster family and ended up being the forever home, it's because we are weak.

The point is, Battle Cat today is small, dorky and shy. Really, the only time he gets a little intense is when I'm a few minutes late with his daily treat time. Then where did his name come from?

When we received our tiny, sickly foster kittens years earlier, they were bestowed the names 'Button' and 'Tiny' by the lady who removed them from their location and put them into a vet's care. It's always kind of bothered me that a woman who interacted with our cats for a whole twenty minutes gave them these most humiliating labels. They already had so many disadvantages and deserved so much more. Stronger names, such as Tiger or Cowboy or Dirk (which I've always thought was a stoically masculine sounding name). Something with spirit. But, through the weirdness of fostering and then vet check ups, these poor cats were officially known as Button and Tiny for a tragic amount of time.

Tiny Cat, the brother, is less happy (though more smug) than our Battle (Button) Cat. Or he is happy, but only when curled up in a warm safe bed with one of his people who is reading or sleeping and generally not moving around anything more than their fingers, with which they are to pet him. Yes, he's lazy. He loves to spoon when I lay down for a nap (I have just embarrassed myself enough with that confession that I may have to quit the Internet).

Most of the time, Tiny is hiding somewhere and difficult to find, unless you open the treats bag or sit down to read a book. Then he'll suddenly appear and stare intently at your hands until you relent and give him what he wants. Pets or food. I don't even think Tiny recognizes there is a whole body attached to his beloved hands. He's really only interested in the one feature and what I can do for him.

Tiny as a kitten hadn't totally developed his run and hide schtick yet and instead of hiding when approached, he would cowered down and try to become one with the floor. "That's funny," says my husband, "He's totally like Cringer from He-Man." Because The Man was a huge fan of He-Man. Like all normal adults.

Cringer didn't stick. It's just not fun to say and you feel sort of bad when you call the sick kitten, like you're making fun of him. It's not really fun picking on someone who doesn't fight back. Nope, Tiny Cat he stayed. But the nearly identical cat right beside him, the feisty, fun one who loved to play and cuddle and fought off all those disgusting parasitical worms eventually, definitely appeared to be Cringer's tough fighting alter ego, Battle Cat.

That one stuck.

The fun thing about sticking Tiny with his unfortunate name is that it's become ironic, as he's the cat who, while maintaining his small stature, still managed to make himself look like a fluffy shoe box with his short legs and body and barrel round tummy. That kitty loves his treats and lazing around.

Battle Cat, on the other hand, has recently retired as a house cat and decided to start venturing outside. He basically patrols the our and the neighbor's yards, making sure that all the sunny spots with good dirt to roll in are safe from intruders. He's had confrontations with blue jays, rabbits and skunks and lived, so he's not totally helpless.

All of this naming trivia, of course, I didn't explain to our most recent vet. Mainly because we had no time for chit chat when the exam begun and we were confronted with a mouth full of cat halitosis. Almost as terrible as worms.

As we await Battle Cat's surgery next week, I have dubbed him Battle Breath, as it seems more suited.

Aquileo | I don't wanna

noreply@blogger.com (Charity Indietutes) — Sat, 01 Jul 2017 01:25:00 +0000

It's weird to think, but home schoolers have summer holidays too. Mostly because it's damn hard to continue with business as usual while the rest of the world is on holiday or, at least, pretending like they don't have jobs. Around here we get only a couple months of summer weather and then we're back to the snow, so folks like to fit in as much sun and fun in as they can, while they can.

It's a little frantic, actually.

Already, we are swamped with invites for beaches, swimming, camping, parties, fairs, conventions... am I complaining that we are so popular and have all these things to do? No, not really. My actual invites from real human friends remains slim. But social media does like to push along the many, many events happening in my town and around the province. On Facebook, you know if you invite twenty people to your pool party, fifteen will respond with 'Interested' and three will show up. Can you imagine if people started going to all the places they say they are attending? Cloning technology will advance by light speed out of sheer need for multiple selves.

(I know that is not how cloning works, but I didn't want accuracy to get in the way of the point. As every uncle everywhere has said, why let truth get in the way of a good story?)

There is a lot out there to feel like you should go to and even more to get all FOMO about. In my neck of the woods, everybody goes camping and wants to share their favorite camp spot with friends. Mostly, cynic me believes, it's because it's about the laziest hosting experience possible (short of your own funeral) and inviting a few friends to a campground gets you off the hook socially for the rest of the year. No need to clean your house or provide food or entertainment or gifts, just invite everyone out into the woods with their tents and some beers and your job is done.

As a family, we are generally pretty busy. We take our hobbies seriously. Hardly a day goes by without an activity or appointment or sports practice. During the day, the childs I are off to something, and without any scheduled concerns, we'll go on a park crawl (like a pub crawl, but with more playgrounds and less booze), visiting or some big long hike. Like most home schoolers, we're never home. In fact, one of the major reasons why we chose to home school is that we couldn't figure out how to do all our out of school activities and still have time for school. Assuming we also like to sleep.

But at the start of this summer, with roller derby lurching into off season, all the activities taking their break, our dojo limiting their summer hours... suddenly, our time to participate in summer fun like camping and fairs and beaches is wide open. And guess what? I don't think I want to.

I have, it feels, been neck deep in recreational activities all year long. Facilitating the childs' activities and my own. I'm tired of recreating. I'm thinking I could use a little bit of buckle down and work. A holiday from fun.

I could sum up my entire attitude to this summer to: nope, don't wanna. I don't wanna go camping or to crowded beaches or street carnivals or even to run down the ice cream truck. It's all sort of more-ish when I could use some less-ish.

When I was a kid (here we go), summer was a time of slowing down, not speeding up. I remember having entire weeks of nothing planned but laying in the shade looking up at the clouds. I am not advocating a return to my somewhat uninspired childhood (I have many sad pictures in my family photo album slurpee cups, which I apparently I had a stronger bond with than my family members or friends), but it seems that one thing that I really need a break from is recreation and entertainment.

I am already entertained. And it's tiring.

Part of this may be coming from the fact that I am a bit injured and pain is taking away my sleep and ability to enjoy things. But the feeling of needing to wind down and just NOT for awhile has been growing for months.

Could also be because I'm going to be turning forty two years old this summer and my what's-it-all-about-anyway-when-you-get-right-down-to-it questions are also starting stealing my sleep. I mean, really? What's the point?

I think I'm going to try something novel, for us home schoolers. I'm going to stay home.

Optimistically, I'll get a few things done around the house and go easy on the pocket book. Maybe even someone will feel sorry for my camping-improvised childs and take them away for a few days for a camping experience I don't have to be involved in. Some studio time, making something I can use (another quilt? Something about this thirty above weather says no), making some real progress on girl child's downstairs room that we've been building for a year or so.

Realistically, it will probably be a lot of rolling around on lawn furniture, complaining about the heat and reading books. Or dropping the kids off at the swimming pool while I go hide in the air conditioned library. Really, that sounds very nice too.

Anything is possible when you refuse to make plans.

Aquileo | book cat wine

noreply@blogger.com (Charity Indietutes) — Thu, 08 Jun 2017 16:37:00 +0000

The Man tells me I have a couple of warning signs that I may need a couple hours on my own to decompress. The big two are when I "get a little shout-y" and when I have more sighs than a grim reaper convention.

Ha.

Tonight it seemed like there are a few more grim reapers around than usual so I've been banished to my room with a glass of wine and my book to experience my fourth favorite time of day.

My fourth favorite time of day is the middle evening, when the sun is sitting low in the west, dappling my bedroom in dancing shadows made by the hedge outside my window and I get to enjoy the warmth of the room with my Tiny Cat snuggled in beside me.

My third favorite time of day is afternoon quiet time, when I lay down on my bed and read my book with Tiny Cat stretched out beside me, with his head resting on my arm and snoring gently. If you've never spooned with an unconscious cat, you haven't lived.

(Please note that I said 'quiet time', not 'nap time', because I am an adult.)

My second favorite time of day is right before lights out time, when I have my hot lemon drink or glass of wine with my book, Tiny Cat curled over my feet, all snacked up from his evening treats and dozing off.

My absolute favorite time of day is when I first wake up and The Man has placed a cup of coffee on my side table (which is a chair), and I read by myself (and Tiny Cat) for an hour or so before I start the day with the childs and the gym.

I swear, I actually do leave my bedroom sometimes.

It seems like a lot, like I spend my days reading in bed, but I actually pull the trick nearly every woman I know does, of handling all the things and still putting supper on the table. Actually, with all the activities we do, running this way and that around the province for roller derby and home school bureaucracy, I feel like I'm hardly ever home. I spend hours in a car every day. Reading in bed is not a guilty pleasure, it's absolutely central to who I am as a human. It is key to my health, physical and mental. Plus, it's good for the cat to have us some quality snuggle time.

It's always seems a bit odd to me to think of myself as belonging to a group of people, since the times when I feel completely and utterly myself, I am alone(ish). But I do have a tribe, of sorts, of fellow heavy readers, whom I will probably never meet and don't really want to anyway. At least in person.

Hey, you, not paying any attention to me because you've got your face stuck in a book! Twinsies!

It is just now creeping up to my favorite time of day that is just before my favorite time of day, which is reading to a child time. Every night, I read out loud to either boy child or girl child (I alternate with The Man), from a book that we've picked out together. Or the child insisted on and I'm too weak to resist. Right now girl child and I are reading the second Dirk Gently book, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul by Douglas Adams (my favorite Adams' book) and boy child and I are reading Astrix and the Secret Weapon. Speaking of the low and variable lighting in my room, I have loads of good things to say about the Astrix books, but the size of the print is not one of them.

Do I have to mention that Tiny Cat always sits in on story time?

My roller derby team has expressed some interest in having our daily read out loud time become a Skype event. My description of snuggling up in bed every night with my hot drink or wine, diving into a book for an hour of uninterrupted reading sounds delightful for many people. Also I do the voices so I can be quite entertaining. Who doesn't want to have some very excellent book read to them while they relax in bed?

The question is, why don't we all read out loud to one another more often or at all? We love our stories (movies, podcasts, Netflix, all different ways of telling stories) but reading out loud to someone, especially as a daily just-what-we-do event, is rare beyond early childhood. There is something wonderful about a live human voice that is telling a story that you can interact with, to slow down or speed up or explain, or pause to appreciate the weird and funny thing the cat is doing.

With someone reading out loud to another, the immersion in the story is a collective and social experience, yet personalized and unique. When I read a book to one child and then the other, I subtly alter the character voices and emphasize different aspects of the story to fit the child's interests. I can tell when they've missed something important or funny and go back over the passage. I read slower to one than the other. It is theatre, a performance for one, and can never be repeated exactly.

I do experience the same when I read quietly to myself, my own mental state changes the way I receive a book. Books, in return, cast light on my own life, reflecting back my thoughts but offering a new perspective that helps me figure out what to do or to appreciate what I have. This is just one of many ways that reading forms the core of my health and being. My heart rate slows, my brain focuses and entering a world that is beyond my narrow self-interests nourishes my spirit.

Like this evening, when I'm starting to get a bit shout-y, having being sent off with a book is the most healthy and proficient way to halt the mood and refresh. It's my (and the cat's) favorite time of day.

Aquileo | fence

noreply@blogger.com (Charity Indietutes) — Mon, 22 May 2017 03:23:00 +0000

It's fence painting weekend! Actually, now that we've gotten going on it, it's turning into fence painting summer. There is no way we are going to finish in our allotted three days of painting because we have a LOT of fence and a LOT of distractions like sleepovers, skateparks, feeding ourselves, wine...

I have mentioned a couple times that my house is a whole 644 square feet of wonderful, but that my yard is, relatively speaking, a good size. It's a 175 feet deep. It was established at a time when people were expected to have a home, a garden and an outhouse. I joke that we bought a yard with a shack on it, which is funny, until it's time to upkeep the fence that circles the perimeter. Not so funny anymore.

I have a curious relationship to yard work. In general, I like the outdoors, especially when it's on the other side of the glass, peered at overtop of the edge of my book. I'm not a fan of actually being outdoors, in the sun, for hours, because I'm a vampire. But I have very few jobs in my life where I can see an actual end result like yard work present. Weeding the garden looks good (especially since I let it go so long). So does mowing the lawn. So many inside things that must be done but never actually look done or are, in fact, Done. You only know that they are done by when they aren't done, because nobody notices that it gets done until you fail to do it. I'm looking at you, laundry.

So, though I must spend time outdoors, doing work jobs, painting is something with appreciable results and a definite end. At least I hope so. We haven't made nearly the progress we've hoped for. And the second coat will probably be much less satisfying since painting white on white is not quite the same impressive looking progress. But, if I work at, every day, over the next week-

This is probably never going to be done, is it?

It doesn't help that I paint like I'm trying to bludgeon the fence to death. It's tough on the arms and I have yet to subdue little more than half the beast.

I was trying to look at a bright side to all this but failing a little bit. Thus, instead of trying to derive satisfaction from a job well done, I'm going to find another angle. Like, look, the trees are gorgeous!

Yay, cherries! Good stuff I have to work not at all to get! Also, they look nice with my white fence and undead complexion.

And there is, indeed, an end in sight, when it gets too dark to work, so I may sling inside and read my book.

The book, by the way, is Shrill by Lindy West, which I am enjoying very much. The book mark is by Boy Child, and it is part of his design to attach a full set of deer antlers to his head to wear to the medieval faire this summer. Not only is he a great artist, he is also a snappy dresser.

So here's to the end of another day of painting and getting things done, slowly and painfully. I am sure, sometime around August, when the fence is fully painted, it will look very nice and I will bask in satisfaction of a job well bludgeoned.

Aquileo | my mother's day

noreply@blogger.com (Charity Indietutes) — Mon, 15 May 2017 02:03:00 +0000

For my children, who are epic.

I really like this homeschooler aesthetic you've got going on. It says antiestablishmentarianism with a dash of nap time.

I like that our spring time 'school subjects' are Picnics with Geese and Skate Park. It's a nice change from our winter subjects of Coffee Shops and Skate Park.

I like that your favorite animals are penguins and centipedes ('They're so cuddly!") and that you consider our kitties, Tiny and Battle Cat, to be your brothers. To be fair, all four of you come running whenever you hear packaging being opened in the kitchen as being in competition for food is a defining feature of siblinghood.

I like that though you are only twelve and nine years old, you live like middle age people who have unstructured time in the afternoon who enjoy a quiet nap before tea time. This is unbelievably convenient for me.

I like how you have low standards for housekeeping. Not having nice things is an excellent strategy we've developed together that allows us to not have to worry about wrecking the things we have and we can just relax now and have fun. As long as we clean up the dishes so we can eat off plates and occasionally hose out the bathroom, we're all good. Who needs nice stuff when we can draw on the walls and play indoor parkour?

I like how your creativity and interests are unfettered by taste and skill. That sounds harsh, but what I mean is that you never wait to be taught how to do something right, you do not wait to be told what you should be into, you just sort of go for it. This way of proceeding has produced mixed results but the process itself, putting the responsibility of learning on yourself, takes the breaks off and what I see is a couple of kids who are resourceful and assured of themselves. You take pride in your own achievements, whether they be performing solos in musical theatre or learning to tie a balloon off. Some people are given an education. You are going out and taking yours.

I like how you like me. It still blows my mind that everyday you want to be around me, want my attention, want to hear my stories and want to do all the things with me. I can't expect this will go on forever so I'm going to soak up everyday now that I can, being with you in our little world, living our quiet routines and laughing at our own jokes. You forgive me my flaws and I positively adore yours.

Aquileo | bang

noreply@blogger.com (Charity Indietutes) — Fri, 28 Apr 2017 15:29:00 +0000

My son likes his stuff. Everyday he has a small group of objects that he deems particularly important, often related to some ongoing private imagination game he is playing. The game may be or may not be related to whatever video game or video gamer he is interested in at the moment. I'm not entirely sure, since he does not directly share the plots of his games with me and the games evolve constantly. But I do receive little hints from the things he leaves about.

Boy child's playthings are generally of two categories: techy or weaponry. Guns, swords and the like are preferred toys. Things with buttons are the second favorite. Remote controls, robots, calculators, toys that blink and whirr. Sometimes a random piece of plastic or a Pokemon card will sneak in but those will be few and usually has some sort of interesting graphic or is shiny in a way that boy child will relate to weapons and machines. Rarely does anything representing a living thing come into the boy's games.

Important objects to boy child, whatever they may be at the time, are often left in specific arrays in specific locations are not to be moved when found. This can be a bit tricky, since information about where and when things become relevant is also not share, but I'm getting good at spotting the signs.

Like this little tableau I came across on the table the other morning:

That one was a rather obvious arrangement and, sure enough, when boy child awoke, he came to the table, loaded up his person with these objects, and wandered off to continue his internal narrative.

I remember being flummoxed by little boys long before I had my own, irritated with their fascinations with weapons and just want to shoot, slash, and bludgeon everything in their atmosphere. I like books and quiet games where all the characters talk about their feelings. When boy child came along and wanted to mash everything he couldn't blow up, I turned to resignation and for a time gave into the lazy thinking, 'Well, I guess, boys. What are you going to do?'

But lately I am finding myself becoming interested in the forms that weapons take and what that means. Truly there is a vast array of objects that are outright representations of actual weapons used in the world today, but also a great variety of imaginary weapons with science fiction capabilities (turning people to stone or freezing them, creating space/time rifts, etc.) all mixed in with a primitive skill of turning the most benign object into a weapon by sharpening a point and swinging it wildly.

Stranger still, to the way my brain classifies, boy child has no division between these very different types of weapons. He will carry his space zapper right next to his pointy stick. He's like a warrior out of time, or in all times.

Thinking a bit further, this anachronistic warrior, though, isn't such an anomaly when you consider that despite all of boy child's fascinations with the things, they are still tools in service to a narrative game he is playing in his mind. In his imagination there are people like characters that are moving about motivated by their own virtues and vices. Bravery and sacrifice is a common theme. Protecting, endurance and strength. Heroism. This is, I think, the core of the weapon fascination and connecting factor that explains why the mace is nestled next the ray gun. It's in service to a higher value.

Even with the weapons and the monsters that he draws and the insistence that all our books be about zombies and the first person shooter games and the acts of violence perpetrated against any standing pole, he's not really a scary kid. He's loving and sweet. I don't want to diminish his love of imaginary violence (he does not like real violence), because, for sure, he is all about splashing about the imaginary blood of his imaginary enemies, but his the movies he loves, the stories he plays, are about overcoming odds and being the good guy. And if being the good guy and saving all the people requires stepping up and crushing the imperial warlords with extreme prejudice, well then, a guy has to do what a guy has to do. Because, you know, boys.

Aquileo | studio update

noreply@blogger.com (Charity Indietutes) — Thu, 27 Apr 2017 15:04:00 +0000

For almost three months now I've had a separate working studio space away from my home. This has produced mixed results. First of all, anything you might imagine when you think 'studio', you have to strip out all the romantic elements like sunlight, windows, quiet and peacefulness. It's located downtown in a basement of a busy theatre, so the atmosphere can be charged with all sorts of theatrical emotions and, if there is no theatre above, then Phantom of the Opera level subterranean spook, with me being both the creeper and creeped.

My ability to find get down to my studio is quite limited, much more than I initially anticipated. If I manage an hour a day, I get quite excited. Maybe three on the weekend. Maybe.

While I'm there, for however long, is it work time, so that part is working out. Focusing on the task before me, I am not interrupted by the demands of home, childs, husband and cats, leaving me emotionally intact instead of irritated and scattered, which is how I feel when working at home. An hour focused on my work is much more satisfying in the studio as I feel like I've been able to immerse myself.

But what am I working on? I pictured finally getting to jump into all the ambitious ideas I've had over the years and really produce as an artist. So far... nah. I have done about the same as I would have done at home, but, and this is important, with more quilts!

This is boy child's design (as inspired by a non-traditional quilt he spotted on the Internet). I started this on the first day I worked in the studio. It's now ready to have the border hand stitched in the back but here it is in starting the 'making a quilt sandwich' phase:

There is no way I would of been able to leave out the quilting supplies while working on other projects when at home. As mentioned (whined about) many times, I have six hundred and forty four feet of home here and there is hardly enough room to swing a broadsword, never mind working on a multi-piece quilting project. If you have children like mine, you know how relevant it is to understand how much room it takes to swing any variety of weaponry.

In addition, while working on the boy's quilt, I actually made another one as well:

The quilt reads "Hello I'm good for nothing Will you love me just the same", which is a little bite of the lyrics from the Dresden Doll's "The Perfect Fit". I love that song. I love this quilt! And I love this child:

It's our new couch blanket and everybody loves it, especially the cats.

My studio has allowed me to do these quilts along with some of my more usual work, but, they really aren't the purpose of having the studio. As my husband reminds me, I have overhead now. Producing the art so I can sell the art has been a little low on my priority list.

I love this guy, but he is the only doll I've made in the past three months:

He is a were-bear and I actually never want to give him up, so that brings my doll productivity down to, round-about, zero.

Eeek!

That is exactly opposite of the plan.

Okay, but, the studio has allowed me to start learning a brand new skill. A little anthropomorphic taxidermy to expand my horizons and indulge an interest. Here is Rat King, one of several rodents I have been learned all about the taxidermy with:

Girl child has also been down to the studio to taxidermy a mouse along with a couple friends of mine. New skills for all of us, and even commercially successful for me so far. I've sold a couple of rodent pieces. That would be a check mark in favor the studio.

I have committed to keeping the studio until midsummer to give it a fair trial and see if it's worth all the bother. So far I give it a grade of fifty percent worth-it-ness. I do like having an emotional separation between the creative work and this home where the childs and distractions are, though I end up doing quite a bit in the house still. Mostly the quilting and hand sewing bits that I can do while talking to the childs or when we are all listening to a podcast. If I tried sitting alone in my studio while hand stitching a quilt border, I'd probably go bananas.

I have a situation right now where I've cleared out a couple projects and can begin something new. I'm talking to myself about what is a good idea as far as taking care of some of that overhead, but, well, honestly, another quilt idea seems to have wiggled in and is proving difficult to ignore. It is, with a bit of foreshadowing here, worming its way into my headspace. I know there is no way I could tackle this idea at all at home, but, far away in my private studio space, just maybe...

Aquileo | School Boxes

noreply@blogger.com (Charity Indietutes) — Sun, 19 Mar 2017 04:57:00 +0000

Tiny Cat gets a scalp massage. It's funny how it doesn't actually help him relax.

We are asked sometimes about our homeschool and what we do to 'cover' subjects. Sometime the person asking is a teacher who is assigned to our family to oversee us and, ultimately, keeps us in the legal zone of homeschool education. Which is this whole artificial dividing of learning and mastery into ersatz categories that make no sense and frustrates me to no end. Like you can chop life up into little boxes, stick a label on it, and study it at the appointed time. Well, maybe other people can, but we've got a lot of stuff to cover around here and all our boxes are open and spread out across the floor, covered in cat hair. So we don't do boxes well.

The worst about making 'subjects' of learning is when the childs buy into it and start to panic because they just go about doing stuff and then their conventionally schooled friends are all, 'Hey, what grade are in? What unit are you doing in math? What's your reading level? What kind of science you studying?

Burning Stuff is a subject at conventional school too, right?

Every once in awhile I need to remind a child who has suffered a 'what level are you at?' inquisition from their school friends that learning can be measured in many ways and taking a test and getting a score is only one way. Rolling around to September and being assigned a new grade number is another. Or you can make stuff see how you have improved skills or build communities with other people creating things together. Other ways of measuring learning is communicating your ideas with other through reports or stories or drawings, or keeping records, or just waking up and knowing a little bit more than you did yesterday and, even more important, getting excited about what you are going to do today.

Stretching rabbit pelts. You can never really wash away the smell of rabbits, unfortunately.

My favorite way of keeping score is by how many times I have to wash my hands in a day. In our home, we are hands on. No, we are Hands On. I tell the kids that our learning is 'project based' which is totally legit (Google it) but, even better, is a good shorthand for all the stuff we do and how we learn while doing it. Generally, we do not shy away from the messy stuff.

But, to make a homeschool plan in our province that is approved by government types, we do need to play the boxes game a bit. So I need to figure out how the things we do because we want to do them and (sometimes) they just need done fits into scheduled learning objectives relating to subjects. To be fair, they give the objectives generally and then allow us to label our own boxes without preset categories.

Still. Now I have to make the categories that I am categorically against? Sneaky work, people.

This is more art than anything. Today, for instance, the childs did Math while helping put up the insulation for a room we are building for girl child in our basement. (Right now the childs share a room, thus, there is high motivation for both of them to get involved in the construction and speed things up.) They had to measure up the walls and cut the insulation to size. That means Math, yes?

Or was it Science, because they were learning how to insulate against concrete, to keep the heat in the room and the damp out. Or maybe that's Engineering? Is Engineering a topic in grade school? It could be Health because preventing dampness in the room is preventing poor lung health and also they had to wash up afterwards. No, wait, it was Physical Education, because it was a lot of physical work carrying, prepping, measuring, lifting, holding and more holding as the glue set. Or it was Communications because there was a whole lot of instructions given by their father. Also, they listened to the radio, so Music Appreciation!

Girl child painted the basement stairs. With her face, it appears.

So where I put the priority? Also today, girl child did her first taxidermy. I was vastly impressed at her maturity and deftness with a scalpel. Plus, it's hilarious to listen to the muttering monologue of a twelve year old girl trying to figure out how to deal with a mouse's oversized scrotum and to incorporate it into her plan of making her mouse into a tiny rodent Greek philosopher, complete with toga and laurels.

(Do the balls tuck under? Do exposed genitalia add or detract from the general authority of the speech posture? Why are mouse balls so damn big? This is why he has to wear a dress.)

(Additionally, it helps to know that one of girl child's favorite memoirists is Jenny Lawson, which explains much yet also manages to raise even more questions.)

So, taxidermy. That is Biology. And Art? Anthropomorphic taxidermy is also a vocabulary exercise. Could be Sewing. Definitely Health education. Even Sex Ed.

Boy child tries a little light dentistry on a swine jaw we used to make headcheese with.

Whatever it is, I have a meeting coming up with my homeschool authority to try to explain what it is we are doing and whether or not we meeting the learning objectives I said that we would meet. Luckily, my homeschool people are totally onboard with the unschooling and work to help me articulate what it is we are doing and how to translate into the language that the educational authorities can understand.

Also good for us is they allow me to use my Instagram account as part of our portfolio to show examples of our projects. I use a specific hashtag I can search and bring up our portfolio at our teacher meetings. My account is here, if you are interested.

I leave you now with our current favorite super Hands On STEM Youtube Channel, The Brain Scoop, which is fascinating for so many reasons and so good for my science-y girl to watch. Also, STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) is a great way to make a big box to throw a bunch of stuff in and not have to sort it out. Sort of like how I always label all my moving boxes with 'miscellaneous'.

Aquileo | The Peculiar Demands of Hot Beverages

noreply@blogger.com (Charity Indietutes) — Sat, 25 Feb 2017 21:05:00 +0000

The other day I was discussing stopping by The Man's work and he says, sheepishly, 'Don't be surprised if my co-workers ask you to do a moose call.'

What?

I actually know why he said this. It's me who is the weirdo here, not The Man's coworkers.

I don't want to brag, but my moose call is Hilarious. And private. I only let people who have come from the inside of my body (and the one who put me in the awkward position of having people inside of me) hear my moose call because it's not flattering. It's loud and shocking, designed to make small sad children a little less sad.

You may think that making moose calls is a strange way of cheering up children, but try it. An awkward and sudden moose call can do wonders to lift a mood. I also use it bribe the children into doing chores sometimes. Like, 'if you clean the bathroom, I'll make a moose call.' It works. As I said, my moose is Hilarious and worth a little toilet scrubbing.

It's also worth, apparently, a little bragging about at work. Like, 'My wife's moose call is better than your wife's moose call,' or whatever it is that guys sit around in the lunch room competing over. Or maybe he was just being sweet and fondly talking about how awesome I am at moose calls while chuckling over the water cooler? Maybe they often talk of moose calls at work and it was inevitable that mine would be brought up? Because it is, as has been mentioned, Hilarious.

Now I am studiously avoiding The Man's work. I still haven't recovered from the whole thirty seconds of roller derby that The Man showed his boss and coworkers of me playing in a tournament when I was accidently pantsed by a teammate. ('Nice beige granny panties, honey!' THOSE WEREN'T PANTIES!)

Here, look at Tiny Cat for a moment while you seriously do not think about what I just said.

Actually, there might be a tragic lack of entertainment during coffee breaks considering The Man also likes to talk about my hot beverage preferences.

My hot beverage preferences are, admittedly, a little quirky. A little exact. And if the beverage isn't just like I want it, I feel betrayed and sort of like my day is ruined and what's-the-point-of-it-all-anyway ennui sets in and I have to go lay on my face for awhile. Hot beverages are important to me.

For example, I like my coffee hot. My first cup of the pot, after adding a precise amount of cream and butter, must be heated for exactly thirty seconds in the microwave. Unless you are The Man, and are leaving the coffee on my bedside chair (yes, a chair, not a table) in the morning, and then it'll have to go in for a minute so in that the three minutes it take for me to wake up enough to drag myself upright to take a sip, it will have cooled enough but not too much. If it's too cold, I can't drink it and will have to warm it up and then cream will make a congealed film on top that I have to scrap and then WHATSTHEPOINTOFITALLANYWAY?

The second cup does not need to be heated, because the cup is warm from the first already (back to back coffees) unless it cooled a bit because it's been a little while since I finished, which if you place the cream in the cup (no butter this time) and then put the cup on top of the coffee machine to stay warm, then it's already perfect when the cup is finally poured sometime in the near future.

You will not be surprised to learn that only certain mugs are 'approved' for my use. I rank cups along volume, weight, handle shape and cleverness.

I also like hot cocoa, but I prefer dutch processed cocoa powder, exactly one heaping (super heaping) tea spoon into a half cup of boiling water (boiled on stove in kettle) and mixed in with coconut milk or heavy cream, a sprinkle of cinnamon and sixteen drops of stevia from a fresh bottle, seventeen drops if the bottle has been open for a couple weeks. Mix well and fill the rest of the cup up with remaining water from the kettle. Now, it must be hotted, so into the microwave for one minute twenty seconds. No longer because it will already be bubbling ominously and about to flow over the sides like lava spewing from a chocolate volcano. I like my cocoa to be so hot it takes a layer of skin off the roof of my mouth.

Cocoa is my evening drink sometimes but before bed I like to have hot lemon, which is half a lemon squeezed into a mug, along with a quarter teaspoon each of cinnamon and nutmeg, a baby toe size wedge of ginger and filled with hot water. But no need to heat the hot water any further, because I like to drink it up in just a couple gulps so it merely has to be hot.

I won't get into my afternoon tea for time and space reasons but you can assume there are some rigorous guidelines around that as well.

The way The Man tells it at work, I think his buddies consider him to be a living saint having to put up with someone with such maddening specifications for making coffee. Around here, it doesn't do to fix me a cup of tea just to be nice. No, you need training for that.

To balance this rigidity on hot beverages, I defend, I am incredibly relaxed on topics like housekeeping and yard maintenance. Or where the children are.

On some level, I think my hot beverage preferences (laws) have kept our relationship strong these past seventeen years. I have changed my recipes over time but my desire for a consistent experience has not changed. Having The Man trained up to specifications and, more importantly, the recognition of the importance of hot beverages to my mental well-being keeps here and working whenever we go through rough patches. I mean, good help with hot beverages is so hard to find.

With this in mind, I asked The Man why he puts up with my hot beverage nonsense, bringing me coffee nearly every morning. I expected him to say something about how he loves me and wants to do nice things but instead I got, 'It's my first line of defense for the children every day.'

What?

Like he's being a good dad by caffeinating Mom before the children wake? But what does he think I'll do if I do not have a cup or two of coffee in me? Satan blood rituals with the children as sacrifices? Run screaming around the house, violently throwing cups and cats? Or maybe I'll simply fall to get up to attend to the hundreds of things needed to be done each day before noon? Frankly, I'm a little insulted.

Maybe I should rethink these past seventeen years. Right after The Man fixes me a cup of joe.