The most challenging posts I write are the reflective ones that pop up between the sewing and book posts every so often. Sewing and book posts follow a kind of formula – I just tell you what I did or read.
Translating thoughts and feelings into something readable isn’t easy. I didn’t start this blog because it’s easy to write, though, and I’m trying to use this year to challenge myself to do things that I’m afraid to do, like write, possibly badly, to express ideas and truths I’ve discovered.
In that spirit, I am rounding up three books into one post – three books that are so unlike one another that they usually would have each have garnered their own post. I’m combining them so I can spend more time writing those other, more difficult posts that force me to work harder and hopefully challenge you, the reader, to do some mental exercise as well, at least once in a while.
I have a big list of looks I want to make for costuming, and with a general starting theme of the 1700’s and more specifically, the 1740’s and 1770’s, I wanted to make pieces that would work for both historical costuming, as well as cosplaying some of the characters from my favorite historical dramas, like Verity Rutter from Jamestown, Demelza from Poldark and Claire from Outlander (I’m not a superfan of the show. There is a lot of violence and over-the-top nudity. I am a fan of the costumes).
My first pick was an outfit Claire wears in Season One in several episodes, working in her healer’s dungeon at Castle Leoch, and when she is doing laundry and attending Jenny at the birth of her child at Broch Turoch. These three tasks spoke to me, and added a layer of appreciation for the costume.
As always happens at our house, after I successfully made Six his 1860’s jacket, his brother wanted one, too. And since Four had already been waiting for me to make him a bigger vest since the last one was a mite too short, I figured I’d make him a matching set.
I used to have a weighted blanket that I used to chill at the end of the day.
Except I wasn’t chilling, I was roasting a lot of nights. At some point, I realized I was experiencing peri-menopause, and it wasn’t the blanket that was causing the night sweats.
I spoke to my endocrinologist about it. He was the doctor I saw the most often, and he ordered unnecessary hormone tests that confirmed that I was not menopausal. Which wasn’t even my question. But, men. Alas, they are helpless in the face of a woman in distress and sometimes they do foolish things the woman must then pay for. In this case, literally $300.
Have you heard of Ida B. Wells? I hadn’t. I found Discovering History’s Heroes: Ida B. Wells, Fighter for Justice, by Diane Bailey, in the kids’ biography section of our library.
