A busy week...

I have Weight Watchers tonight, A discussion group on Wednesday night, The symphony with Erik on Thursday night, New Moon on Friday, Trivia Night on Saturday and Mother’s day on Sunday… I think I might need Monday to rest up!

Erik is taking a music appreciation class at college as a humanity credit and he has to go hear classical music as one of his assignments. Of course he has waited until the last minute (school finals start next week!). So I agreed to go to the symphony to hear Beethoven on Thursday night with him. I like going as it’s an excuse to dress up and go listen to nice music so not really a hardship for mom.
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I’m hoping that this Sunday is nice as I’ve wanted to go to the botanical gardens. They are beautiful in the spring (well, all year actually but the spring is especially wonderful I think.) And I’m going to drag as many of my kids as possible with me! LOL

This past weekend we had planned on doing some work out in the campground and getting our shower house built but the weather didn’t corporate and we ended up cancelling our helpers. We took the mule out in the woods just to see how muddy it was and how much rain we had in the wet weather creeks. Here are a few pics:


The campground is looking a little ragged.


A river runs through it...


As you can see by the track of the mule - it was a bit damp.

What we talk about when we talk about pockets

What we talk about when we talk about pockets

I so totally agree! I don't carry a purse - often. I bring it to work because it has my id in it... but really, why am I even doing that? I find that the stuff in my purse is stuff that occasionally I am glad I have but most of the time I leave home without it. I rely on pockets! And yes when I don't have pockets and Bill is with me - he carries my phone, wallet and keys. It's not fair to him or to me that designers of women's clothes cant find it a challenge to put pockets in stuff. Hey - even my Ren Fair clothes have pockets (or I shove it down my cleavage lol) So repost if you like and lets try to get more pockets into women's clothes!

Originally posted by beckyzoole at What we talk about when we talk about pockets over on LiveJournal

Originally posted by kylecassidy at What we talk about when we talk about pockets over on LiveJournal

This post is about pockets, feminism, design, autonomy and common sense. Please feel free to repost or link to it if you know people who'd benefit from the discussion.

A few weeks ago trillian_stars and I were out somewhere and she asked "Oooh, can I get a cup of coffee?" and I thought "why are you asking me? You don't need permission." But what I discovered was that her clothes had no pockets, so she had no money with her.

Mens clothes have pockets. My swimsuits have pockets. All of them do, and it's not unusual, because, what if you're swimming in the ocean and you find a fist full of pirate booty in the surf? You need somewhere to put it. Men are used to carrying stuff in their pockets, you put money there, you put car keys there. With money and car keys come power and independence. You can buy stuff, you can leave. The idea of some women's clothes not having pockets is baffling, but it's worse than that -- it's patriarchal because it makes the assumption that women will either carry a handbag, or they'll rely on men around them for money and keys and such things. (I noticed this also when Neil & Amanda were figuring out where her stuff had to go because she had no pockets.) Where do women carry tampons? Amanda wondered, In their boyfriend's pockets, Neil concluded.

I then noticed that none of trillian_stars' running clothes had pockets. Any pockets. Which is (as they always say on "Parking Wars") ridikulus. Who leaves the house with nothing? (It's not a rhetorical question, I actually can't think of anybody).

We fixed some of this by getting this runners wrist wallet from Poutfits on Etsy -- it holds money, ID, keys ... the sort of stuff you'd need. Plus you can wipe your nose on it. It solves the running-wear problem, but not the bigger problem.




Clickenzee to Embiggen!

The bigger problem is that people who design women's fashions are still designing pants and jackets that have no pockets. In fact, this jacket we got last December has ... no pockets. It's not a question of lines or shape, it's a question of autonomy.



Clickenzee to Embiggen

So I'm asking my friends who design women's clothes to consider putting pockets in them, they can be small, they can be out of the way, they can be inside the garment, but space enough to put ID, and cash and bus tokens. And maybe a phone. (And if you can design a surreptitious tampon stash, I'm sure Neil & Amanda & a lot of other people would appreciate it as well.)

Texas Road Trip

Bill and I took a road trip over the weekend to Texas to visit with his brother in Ft. Worth and my son in Killeen. We started out on Thursday morning with overcast skies and sprinkles here and there. The biggest parts of the storms were to the north of us until we got past Little Rock then we hit wave after wave of hard rain and wind. We had rented a car for the trip and our little Chevy Cruze did great! We broke out of the weather just the other side of Texarkana and had sunny skies all the way to Ft. Worth.
We stayed with Bill’s brother and his wife Thursday night then got up Friday morning and drove down to Killeen to see Tom. He took us on a tour of the base, put Bill in his kit:




This was taken in Tom's room. I didn't give you the view from the other side for a good reason! LOL

and out to eat at a true Texas BBQ place (wonderful food!) We took a trip that evening down to Austin to Bucca de Beppo (one of our favorite Italian restaurants)




and then stayed at Killeen overnight.

Got up Saturday morning and drove back up to Ft Worth and then to Wachahachi for the Scarborough Renaissance Faire. It is a really big fair – like KC or Bristol in Wisconsin.


From left to right: Bill's brother Richard, his wife Carol, Bill, Me, and Tom

Stopped to watch a show on the road

Bill on the drive home.

A couple of things came out of this trip. I am thinking about trading in my Escape for a Cruze. We want to go back next year for the faire. We ate ‘round the world’ (Italian and Texas BBQ on Friday, Mexican on Saturday and Chinese on Sunday!) Texas weather in April is unpredictable (It was 81 when we left Missouri on Thursday morning – it was 46 when we got to Ft. Worth that evening.) I had packed shorts and sleeveless shirts because the forecast was for 80’s and sunny. It was sunny but certainly not in the 80’s!

Beautiful weekend - Blustery Day

This weekend was beautiful - a bit windy but the sun was out and it was in the high 70's.  My weekend at the farm was a bit shorter than usual - I went down Thursday night, then left work early on Friday to go car shopping for Aubri.  We found a few possibilities but will need to bring her back down weekend after this coming one to test drive a few.

I left early on Saturday to come into town for a 16th birthday party.  My freind Amanda's daughter had all of her family - birth, step and chosen - there to wish her a happy birthday and welcome her to the adult community. 

Later than evening Erik, Meghan, Meghan's neice and Meghans' friend and I  (along with Meghan's dogs) went to the disc golf course with Erik.  It's a course that is layed out in the woods - up and down the hills so it's a really nice walk.  We did the front 12 holds then went to McDonalds.  They brought me home after to a very quiet house!

Sunday I did some laundry, read my book and then Erik, Meghan and I did the entire 18 holes at the disc golf course again.  It's great excersise and much more fun than the gym.  But alas I think I'll have to go to the gym today since it's raining today.  I woke a few times last night to hear thunder and it's looking pretty blustery out there.

Bill and I will be leaving on Thursday morning to go to Texas to visit with Tom and Bill's brother who lives in Ft. Worth.  I'm looking forward to digging out my shorts and tank tops cause it's gonna be in the 80's and 90's over the weekend!  We are also planning on going to the Ren faire while we are there.  I know I'll feel underdressed since I won't be dressing in period clothes but I didn't want to drag all that along with.

All my comments go into the Never Never...

I have done everything that I can think of to fix this problem with Blogger but ever since I changed my email address I no longer get email notifications when someone comments on my blogs or on a comment I make on their post.

And now the comments section of my dashboard is broken too - I don't see any comments in the last month.  So as I trudge slowly through some of my old posts - I may comment on your comment.... This is almost as confusing as my autocorrect mishaps!

Spring? Really?

Our March came in like a lion so I was expecting it to go out like a lamb... this past weekend wasn't very lambish! Leading up to the weekend the St. Louis area was under a Winter Storm Watch with projected snowfalls for my area of 7 - 11 inches. I had to be down at the property on Saturday during the day and then come home Saturday night so I could take Erik to the airport on Sunday morning at 4:00 so I was sweating it a little.

I woke up on Sunday morning about 3:30 and looked out. It had been sprinkling when I got home from the country about 10:30 and it was still sprinkling. The temp was well above freezing so no snow or ice - which was a good thing. I took the boy to the airport and got back home about 4:30 - still just a sprinkle or two. It even seem to have stopped altogether by the time I got home. I went back to bed and woke up Sunday morning about 8:30 to roughly 7 inches of snow and it was till coming down - hard!

It continuted to snow all day and we got a total of about 12 1/2 inches. The plows started coming through our neighborhood about 6:00 that evening but I had already gotten Austen to shovel the driveway and had gone to the store for that combination of food that we were out of to make French toast! (Isn't it funny how everyone runs to the store for milk, bread and eggs before a storm? I had not gone before and didnt' realize until Sunday morning that we were out of all three - plus a few other things.) It continued to snow lightly all night and it's still snowing at noon on Monday but just a light dusting so far.

So I'm working from my kitchen table and have a big pot of beef stew on the stove and logs for the fire. Here are a couple of pics from Sunday:


Aubri and Tom's kitty relaxing - she was trying to play an xbox game but the cat had other ideas!


View out my front door before we shoveled or the snow plays came. You can't even see my fairy under the tree!


Austen gearing up to go shovel the snow.

Golfing the furnace update

Just a bit of an update on what's going on here at the Jilly-bear ranch and town house. :) Not much more has been happening down at the property - we get these little dry spells during the winter months - well we will until we get that furnace hooked up. We have the thing but we need a licensed contractor to actually hook it up for the warranty. Maybe once the tax refund comes in...


I have been thinking of getting some (or making some) stencils so that I can do some Celtic Knot work around the windows and maybe spruce up the wall that I was going to paint a different color and ended up leaving it the same color as the rest of the room. It just seems to need something. I have looked up some knot work and have found some I like but I'm not sure I can put the detail into it on the wall like I would like to. We'll see once I get with Austen to help me make the stencils.


I had some sad news earlier this week - My Brother in Law (Randy's brother) has stage 4 lung cancer and they don't expect him to live more than a few months. The kids have all been trying to get over there to see him including Tom who is trying to get home next weekend. I will love to see my son but I hate the reason.


Working from home most of this week - had a procedure done on Wednesday - I'll give you the details once I get the results back. I'm hopeful that all is well - the doc wasn't too concerned so I'm taking that as a good sign.


Austen has been working on a Disc Golf goal all week. He finally got it finished last night and has been outside this afternoon practicing his 'putting'.