Kyla completed her Intro to Drawing class through the local community college this week. I remember thinking of her as an artist when she was younger, but the problem with siblings is that Piper eventually claimed the artist title. Obviously, more than one sibling can be creative and talented; I think in our household, Kyla has so many interests that “artist” just didn’t float to the top.

Anyway, to give Kyla her due, these are her two favorite pieces. If you zoom in on her self-portrait, you can see her pupils are CDs, a nod to her early love of audiobooks. She captured how she puts a finger behind one ear (it’s a bit of a neurodivergent regulation tactic), wears a ribbon as a headband, and often wears her dragon necklace. She’s really captured herself! Kyla would say it’s not so much talent as attention to detail and perseverance (which she has in spades), but I’m not sure it all can be separated so easily. I hope she continues to draw!

All–ALL!– of my family raved about the corned beef I cooked for dinner tonight. I can’t remember the last meal I made that everyone liked, which is as demoralizing as it sounds. I was horribly sick myself (and yes, still made dinner and Future Me has every right to be pissed about it), but for a minute, I actually felt good.

Now the trick will be to not fix it so much that they all hate it by April….

Wes loves parkour and has been going to a local gym for a few years. It’s always been the top two guys sweeping the quarterly championship and Wes vying between 4th and 3rd (and a trophy). This Saturday was a huge upset. Four trophies were brought out for the first ever first-place tie. The previous champion got 3rd. The previous runner-up came in second. And Wes was getting more shocked until he and another guy won first place together with identical times of 8.70 seconds. It was a very proud Mama moment and now we’ll have to do all the same routines for the Spring Championships– invite both my parents and drag along Piper as well!

Enough!

So far, I’ve only been out on Presidents’ Day and International Women’s Day, but I have a feeling I’ll have plenty of opportunities over the next four years.

It was estimated that about 2,000 came out for “No Kings” Day in February in Olympia.

I took seriously Dwayne’s comment that it’s hard to fit nuance into a protest sign. [“F*ck Trump?” Ew, no 30 seconds should ever be that awful, but yes, he is a despicable individual.] So nothing catchy, and still more signs than I can hold at once:

This article shows how peaceful protests that bring out 3.5% of the population is historically brings about change. Getting 11 million people out isn’t going to be easy, but I’m definitely in!