The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimberly @ Caffeinated Reviewer.

 

Home Fires: Sophia bridged to Brownies in the Girl Scout ranks! Right now she is working on her Space Studies and 2020 Census badges. We have been given the go-ahead to have in-person meetings with lots of conditions and with the alternatives if family/the individual scout doesn't feel safe coming to an in-person meeting. Right now, my co-leader and I have not planned for any meetings - we are waiting to see what August brings. No trips, no events, no other get togethers yet. 

 

Less than 60 days until the first day of school - and our new school building is almost ready! We are being told to plan "as normal" so the opening is scheduled as originally planned. Again, we will see come August. Kansas is actually doing okay re: COVID-19, despite being an assisted living facility haven; the problem is that the states surrounding Kansas are deep in the pandemic shitshow (*looking at YOU, OKLAHOMA!*) 

 

Happy belated Juneteenth! Happy belated Litha/Summer Solstice! Happy Father's Day! 

 

Nature is a Mother: We had almost two solid weeks of almost 100 temperatures - the pool has been a goddess-sent lifeline. And just as I wanted sunshine and warm weather for this weekend, Friday brought the (much needed - fire season is upon us) rain. Yesterday and today should be nothing but sunshine and high temps, the rest of the week brings more rain. 

 

Our watermelons and pumpkins seeds are duds. Not a single stem or vine after a month. On the other end of the gardening spectrum, our sunflowers are getting taller every day. Doing a lot of pruning and weeding around the pool in an effort to keep the pool filters unblocked.

 

Volunteer Valley: I finished all financial reports on my Girl Scouts troop and got them approved by the Council, so my troop is considered good to go for October 1st (our year goes from October to September). Next up is to get my current troops to renew for next year. I already received the notice I will be having a new troop - she is the younger sister of a current troop (who actually renewed already). Plus their mom signed up to be a volunteer! Whew, now myself and my co-lead have a back up! Sophia and I have renewed as well. 

 

I'm still the Secretary of the PTO board until June 30th. July 1st starts my term as VP. 

 

I have not had the chance to volunteer at the local library since the pandemic started. The library just re-opened, but I have the kids home, so volunteering is on hold still. 

 

Craft Corner: So I discovered Flosstube - the YouTube community dedicated to all things cross stitch. After watching more than a few videos, I felt the itch to pick up my needle and stitch again. It's been almost a year - since the move. Somehow I lost my stitching mojo and watching others show their works and hauls got me back on track. I finished the project from a year ago in one day and started a new project. Not only did I find new stitchers to follow, my IG following went way up. And then I went and bought a bunch of needle minders and some charity patterns (charities to support Equity and Social Justice, specifically #BLM types). More on that next week.

 

And since March, when the stay at home orders came down and the kids went to remote schooling, I have not had much of a need for my planner, much less a desire for decorating/working on my spreads. And then came planner videos and lots of inspiration from IG planner hashtags. So I put a movie on (more on that down below) and just work on monthly themes for July-December in my Happy Planner. On top of getting my planning mojo back, I got keyed into some drama concerning Erin Condren, who decided to show her racist ass AGAIN. There's a lot of planner vloggers/bloggers dissociating themselves from her and the company. Good luck to them.

 

I started to teach the kids latch hooking. Joshua is doing a simple three-color soccer ball on a green field. Sophia is doing a complicated rainbow swirl that is at least a quarter bigger than Joshua's project. Man, you can tell she is my daughter LOL! We are also working on kitchen science experiments.

 

Book Shelf: Joshua and Sophia read enough minutes in the Summer Reading Program to earn their first prize. Joshua picked 5 Epic Disasters (I Survive True Stories #1) by Lauren Tarhis and Sophia picked Whatever, After #7: Beauty Queen by Sarah Mlynowski. That was the first ten days of the SRP (June 1st-10th). On Thursday they earned their second prize, which we are picking up on Tuesday. At this rate, we will have to go through their bookcases and re-organize. The SRP goes to July 31st.

 

Joshua completed the William Allen White (WAW) Challenge at school prior to the stay at home orders. During the last week of school we picked up his prize, Inkling by Kenneth Oppel. This is a book from the list of nominees that were picked for the school year 2020-2021. The winner of the WAW award as voted by the kids is Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus (Avery Green #1) by Dusti Bowling. This was Joshua's choice for best book he read off the list, so he was happy to see it win. 

 

I'm working through my Short & Sweet summer project and the adult version of the library's SRP.  COYER participated #BlackoutBestSeller challenge, then followed it up with a RAT to read the books bought during the challenge. I have A LOT of reviews to write...I'm not even going to count them. There's a list and I am just going to work through the list. 

 

On the Tube: I watched 13th by Ava Duvenary on YT. Started following some of the people featured in the documentary on Twitter. I am not going to lie, I was surprised to see Newt Gingrich and Grover Norquist in this... I also watched Matter of Fact: State of Addiction by Soledad O'Brien regarding the opioid epidemic. Up next is to watch O'Brien's documentary on the early days of COVID-19 which was released Friday night.

 

In My Ears: I culled my podcast listening because I was getting tired to assholes and pick me "feminists" (*looks at Crooked Media "personalities"*). The podcast I am highlighting this week is Wind of Change by Patrick Radden Keefe, the author of the book Say Nothing (about the IRA and an unsolved murder). This podcast is only 8 or 10 episodes and follows Keefe as he investigates the rumor that the CIA was responsible for the Scorpions' song Wind of Change as a psych-ops. It is a wild ride and Keefe even goes to Russia and Ukraine to ask questions. The late 1980s Cold War gets into some weird positions. New episodes come out on Tuesday on most pod catchers or you can binge all the episodes on Spotify. 

 

That is all from me for now.