Hello Reader, It's been a good month in the media consumption department. We saw The Odyssey a couple weeks ago. It was fantastic. My nerd heart soared. I'll have goosebumps for months when I hear the notes surrounding that iconic bow twang. Awesome. And yesterday, I finished listening to Theo from Golden. I'd had it recommended to me by several people, and I have to tell you, it exceeded expectations. It's one of the most beautifully accessible stories about the value of seeing, listening...
5 days ago • 7 min read
Hello Reader, I have lived sufficient years to know that summer is going to come to an end. Winter is coming. It will be cold again. I will wish for more layers of clothing than a human can practically wear at one time and remain mobile. But at the moment, there are simply too many Fahrenheits running loose around these parts. We've been under heat warnings and heat advisories and heat whinings for days (okay, the last part is just me). I sent this screenshot to my son the other day: His...
12 days ago • 6 min read
Hello Reader, I don't know about you, but to me, it's starting to feel a little dangerous to go to the grocery store. Lettuce. Now eggs. I even saw a shocking recall announcement about a coffee product in New York and New Jersey the other day. Talk about a nightmare. It makes the rebellious teenager corner of my heart think that hyper processed food might not be the worst thing I could eat at the moment. Then the mid-fifties reality-based body points out that the rebellious teenager is in the...
19 days ago • 5 min read
Hello Reader, Last week's winning poll option was all about the stick-tights. It turns out that stick-tights may have also been slightly symbolic for the week ahead. Flocking Let me share with you the wonderful weirdness I witnessed this week about the flocking instinct in the sheep here at Pemberley Farm. A group of sheep is called a flock, but "flocking" is also the word used to describe the behavior sheep and other animals use to move together as a group. Sheep are happiest as one of many....
26 days ago • 6 min read
Hello Reader, They start off simply when we're young. If Sally has 3 apples and Herman has 4 apples, how many apples do they have all together? As we progress, the scenarios get more complex. We add people and variables and operations, and before you know it, we've got multiple trains leaving stations at different times heading different directions at varying speeds and we are instructed to calculate arrival times, distances traveled, and engineers' first names. As we were working out how to...
about 1 month ago • 6 min read
Hello Reader, I'm not much of a video gamer. I think I hit my peak with Mario Kart when my kids were little, and I managed to win a race once every dozen or so tries. I was seriously hindered by my tendency to physically lean my body in the direction I wanted my little vehicle to go and distracted by the hysterical laughter that behavior inspired in my fellow racers. Because of my relative ignorance, I had to ask one of the aforementioned chucklers what the term is for when a gamer's skill...
about 1 month ago • 5 min read
Hello Reader, I could justly be accused of being a Helicopter Shepherd. I'm not sure that's an actual term. I'm morphing it from a title lovingly given to me by one of my siblings years ago. I was thoughtfully and generously flooding this sibling's phone with texts of daily photos of garden plants I was attempting to not kill. I was convinced they would be as fascinated with every millimeter of growth and possible evidence of health as I was. I don't think the patient reception of the photos...
about 2 months ago • 7 min read
Hello Reader, Things have gotten loud. I should say first that Greg did a wonderful job of holding down the fort while I was gone. I loved my time with family, and I loved coming home, and no mass casualty events occurred on any front. Hooray! Part of my trip involved some time in New York City. If my recollections are correct, we arrived a couple days after the Knicks' victory parade and we left the day of the first World Cup match being played in Rutherford, just on the other side of the...
about 2 months ago • 5 min read
Hello Reader, First, and of utmost importance, you must know that this week’s KierstenJ Knitting Journal is NOT from Kiersten. It’s from Greg. The husband with all the questions. So, please, please, please, I beg you. Do not unsubscribe this week. Please. I know Kiersten is fine with her readers unsubscribing at any time if they’re not getting value from her writing. But, if you would be so kind, just wait until next week. Please. Because Kiersten is out of town visiting family and she’s...
2 months ago • 7 min read
Hello Reader, I was on the phone when I saw it. I'm not normally at the barn at that time, but we're haying, and I've never seen haying happen before. We were expecting the raking/swathing equipment and operator any moment, and so I was there. Waiting. On a call. Seated in the shade in the hay barn, firmly planted on a bale of straw, deeply involved in a serious conversation, I finally lifted my eyes from the floor to see the bizarre picture. Jane and Emma were attached to one another. And...
2 months ago • 5 min read
