St. Patrick's Day

We began the day with cinnamon rolls and sent the kids off to school. I had planned to make a green dinner with "monster soup" (split pea soup), but some of the kids made a fuss. I suppose this is expected when there are teenagers around. A leprechaun brought gold coins for the kids at dinnertime.

The weather has been so beautiful. I hope it lasts! On Sunday I was released from the Young Woman's as Laurel Advisor and given the calling of Visiting Teaching Supervisor. There is about a month left of school and I am looking forward to completing the semester. I have a list of projects I would like to work on during the summer.

In the last few weeks I have read the Eragon series. The series begins with the book Eragon which is about a boy who by an odd chain of events hatches a dragons egg and becomes a dragon rider. There is a movie about this book, but as always there is much more to the book than the movie. The second book in the series is Eldest. This book is filled with magical creatures and battles. The third book in the series is Brisinger. The journey continues and the confrontation of good and evil takes place. These books are written by Christopher Paolini and each is about 500 to 700+ pages long. I enjoyed the story but now have to wait for the fourth and final book in the series to be published.

Wacky Dinner

Last night we had a wacky dinner. We do this about once a year but the kids would prefer to have one more often. We invited our neighbor friends over, they also have 8 children. We served lasagna, french bread, salad, jello, corn, broccoli, carrots, brownies and strawberries. Each item is placed on a list with cup, fork, knife, spoon and napkin. The word for each item is disguised and everyone chooses 5 items to be served to them, per course. We had many goofy combinations the meal was fun!

Tyra and Nathan are at it again. I wish they would stop playing tricks on each other.

Spanish Women & Textiles in the 1700's

I went to Spain 2 years ago for a field study to research in the Archives. One of my purposes for going to Spain was to examine the records and figure out what textiles were being described in the marriage inventories, death inventories and wills. Besides genealogy, I have an expertise in working with linen and weaving. I needed to learn about the materials and stitches used in the needle work listed in these old inventories. I asked the older women in Spain to show me examples of the stitches and items that I had seen mentioned in the records. I also went to many ethnographic museums that held household items from history. I discovered many things, but one of the most exciting things to me was that the women used a stitch on linen called Desilado. This is similar to Hardanger where linen thread is removed leaving open boxes and the remaining threads are woven together in a pattern. I think Hardanger is my favorite kind of linen work.

I am now working with a history professor to write an artile about these women in historic Spain. Two weeks ago I was invited to give a one hour presentation to a BYU History class about my findings. The presentaion went well and another history professor was in attendance and had many other research ideas that could stem from what I have done so far. In June I will spend 2 weeks working on the final draft of my article. This history professor is writing a book about different aspects of culture in Spain in the 1700's and has asked me to write a chapter about the textiles. I am very excited about the many opportunities before me, especially working with things I love.

Home at Last

I love sleeping in my own bed! Last night Scott, Kate, Andrew and I arrived back to Provo about 1am. We made a trip to Anaheim last week. On our way back we stopped in Las Vegas to see my sister and her kids. We headed north to Provo about 4pm. As you can tell it was a long drive. We hit a snow storm and traveled slowly.

Today I will play catch up on everything. This morning I went to unload the dishwasher and it had the clean load of dishes I put in on Wednesday. No one bothered to empty it and wash dishes while I was gone. Silly high school kids!

I'm Alive, I Think

Well its been over a week and I have been so sick. I have now finished my antibiotics and can now talk. I still have a cough but I feel much better. It's about time too! I have too much to do I can't slow down.

This week I will teach my students about census records. I also have a research presentation to give on Wednesday. I will be speaking about the women of Garganta la Olla in Spain. I have extracted information from marriage and death inventories and I have an interesting collection of the belongings of these women. Oh, did I mention that I'm working in the early 1700's. My focus is on the textiles these women made and passed on to their loved ones.

The kids are doing great and the older children are preparing to compete in the Dance Sport competition in couple weeks.