Rhena

Life Learning: Baking Edition

We have long considered Eric our family baker. He’s worked in a lab for most of his adult life, and I think there’s something about the precision of baking recipes that is similar to following experiments in a lab setting. Follow the steps laid out on the page. I lean more towards cooking which, ironically,Continue reading “Life Learning: Baking Edition”

Life Learning

Learning does not have to be separate and apart from life. To wit. I’ve been knitting a lot this year. Amongst other skills I’ve worked on (like making socks without a pattern), I’ve wanted to learn and work on doing colorwork or using multiple strands of yarn to create multi-colored patterns and images in theContinue reading “Life Learning”

Queen of Nostalgia

In real life, my given name is Rhena. My dad was the one who chose it when he found it in a biography of Albert Schweitzer, who gave it to his daughter too. I lived for a year in a dorm in London while I attended Goldsmith’s College and one of my dorm-mates was aContinue reading “Queen of Nostalgia”

This is one of my favorite things

This breaded chicken (Japanese style) is one of my favorite meals to make. It’s simple and easy and doesn’t require much in the way of technique and expertise. Because each piece of chicken must be individually breaded, it requires focus, the same kind of focus that working on an assembly line might require and itContinue reading “This is one of my favorite things”

Vote, Baby, Vote

A few weeks ago, I ventured out with all three kids (10, 7, and 2) for their rescheduled dental appointment. The original appointment back in April had been cancelled amidst the shut down and they were overdue. I wore my homemade purple cotton mask, the letters spelling out VOTE emblazoned in bright white hand paintedContinue reading “Vote, Baby, Vote”

… it pours.

(The first half of this post can be found here.) I recall that as a child, electrical outages always felt a bit like an adventure or at least held the potential for adventures on par with snow days. At the very least, it held the possibility of finally answering the question: how *would* I haveContinue reading “… it pours.”

When it rains…

The text reads, “D got a tornado warning on his phone, said to get to the lowest level. Can we come down there with masks?” My older sister is the sender and is staying with her husband and three kids on the upper half of the vacation duplex we’ve been renting as a family (ofContinue reading “When it rains…”

Summer Sunday

It is hot and mid-day and Mr2yo and I are in the longest shady stretch we can find in our yard, turning, step by step it into a defacto toddler run. “Mama,” he says, “way!” And points his little arm around the adult-chest-high plastic box that holds the bike trailer and a few tools. “YouContinue reading “Summer Sunday”

Together, Together.

Five thousand years ago back in February of 2020, I ordered a Harriet Tubman themed yarn collaboration box curated by Lady Dye Yarns. It featured beautiful hand dyed yarn, a button with the Tubman quote “Every great dream begins with a dreamer,” a pocket constitution, a box of Girl Scout cookies (thin mints!), some greenContinue reading “Together, Together.”

Reading Revolution

Consider Kindle Unlimited. For $10 a month, a reader in possession of an electronic reading device can access a library (Amazon advertises it contains over 1 million titles) of self, indie, and large house published stories and books. The sheer volume boggles the mind: all those stories, all those words, all those pages. Over onContinue reading “Reading Revolution”