Have you ever watched the show Burn Notice? It’s a USA show about a burned spy’s adventures. It featured a fantastic cast, great friendships, lots of C4, a slow burn romance, strong female characters, and a man who loves and respects his mom.
The Chaplain and I binged through Burn Notice a few years ago, and it’s remained the stick by which we measure all the shows we watch.
A prevailing theme in the show was that the protagonist would be presented with a job that sounded impossible. He would then come up with an elaborate and risky plan that would only work if everything went right.
As he ate a spoonful of blueberry yogurt from the ancient fridge in the converted warehouse he called home, he’d say, “It’s the only way.”
Parenting in regular times is challenging. Parenting during a pandemic when we’re all isolated and chronically stressed often feels like a never-ending nightmare.
Sometimes, naming the good and bad things in life helps us remember the good, and make the bad seem less threatening.
I grew up listening to the folktale Tikki Tikki Tembo. In the story, the honorable first son of the family is given a very long name. When he falls into a well, his younger brother is forced to repeat the long name over and over in his attempts to get help for his brother, who then takes a very long time to recover after being submerged for so long.
It’s a good story with a silly moral (don’t give your kids pretentious names, because it could kill them). When we read it with our own kids, we turn the name into a rap with body percussion or tickles. We use the name as a family tongue twister.
The bigger point is that I’m kind of in the well. I’m doing OK, but I’m not feeling creatively inspired most of the time. My energy and mood have been low. It’s a vicious negative feedback loop.
So I’ve read several good books recently, but the thought of writing about them freezes my brain into a state of further inaction. My solution is one I’ve tried before: I’m just going to mash a couple of completely unrelated books together into one post and see what happens.
Maybe one will suit your fancy! And if you pass my well, throw a rope down. Or a good book. I also accept fudge brownies.
Based on my wearable muslin, I made some changes to my Seamwork Jo pattern pieces to get the fit I wanted. Click through to see the finished shirt and for a rundown of the pattern hacking.
Black Girl Unlimited: The Remarkable Story of Teenage Wizard, by Echo Brown, is a book I found in my 13-year-old’s stash of library books from our last pre-lockdown trip to the library. She admitted she hadn’t read it.
I have been missing having a good book to come back to in between all the “work” reading I’ve been doing, and a YA book was just the ticket.
