What have I been doing?

For reasons I did not initially understand I’ve been doing a mental checklist of activities and accomplishments, this past year. Most people think this is an occupation for New Year’s Day. I happen to think the first week of December is a good moment, being the beginning of the church year.

My brain is marking time from the end of October and beginning of November of last year. Since I can’t make it stop …

What did I do over the past twelve months?

Last December I published a book. Death Comes to the Science Fair went out the door right before I left for Detroit and a wedding. https://a.co/d/01OLnnJs

I traveled to Saint Louis, a Delaware beach, and Osage, Iowa. And Detroit for that wedding. And an overnight along the Potomac River.

I went to a wedding. I went to two funerals. The wedding was lovely.

The funerals were … complex in their impact. I’ve been to a lot of funerals in the last few years. That will be a true thing for years to come, I’m guessing. Both funerals were deeply Catholic but otherwise totally different in outward seeming. One a young man, the other an 81-year old lady. One in Latin, the other with very sixties songs. One in an old church, the other in a very new one. Both brought together people who hadn’t seen each other for years and created a lot of conversation. Both were people I loved.

I did a lot of crafting.

I wove more than thirty potholders on the kind of metal looms that use loops, often thought of as being for children. They take a lot of strength at certain points so they aren’t for five-year olds. Then I gave away at least twenty of them. Some of the rest of the potholders are keeping my scissors from scratching my work table; some are great coasters; some were woven with a bit of a curve and are perfect for warming a bowl in the microwave and keeping hands unburnt. Then I moved on!

I spun at least a thousand yards of two-ply yarn and gave it away.

I wove ten or twelve bands of material and gave five of them away. I cut up some of the rest to make something but it didn’t work out quite properly! Yet…