Push and pull

[My teacher did two, I did one. You can guess which.] After recuperating on Saturday, I took the plunge on Sunday and visited my cousin and her daughter and son. I am always reminded of why I don't do that often. It's too much of an energy drain - they are wild, and go from screaming about me being there to ignoring me to crying when I leave. It was a nice family day, though. I did homework for the 5-yo (HW is expected to be done by mothers, not the children) - this involved a lot of drawing medical implements and cutting them out and gluing them to posterboard, helped assemble his stegosaurus, went to the market for noodles, stopped for dessert and ended up coming home w/another child, dropping those two girls off at the natural history museum, and then helping prepare plums for pickling. After a nap, it was time to feed everyone dinner, and then somehow get back home in time to take a mild walk w/Kelsey.

Sarah flew back to the US today and spent last night with me, which meant that I got less than five hours of sleep. This was brutal, esp since I had to juggle getting ready for class and talking to Ben and saying goodbye all at once (and then meeting her once more at the post office b/c she left something at my place). I was so tired on my way to class and practiced in my head the speech I wanted to give to my teacher about not weaving anymore stuff b/c I am overwhelmed and need to wrap up. But he started teaching me a rectangular shape today, so I couldn't. I've wanted to learn this for months. The good news is that the plan for the next week or so is to go back to the papermill and lacquer the pieces we've finished. Hopefully after that I can be done w/lessons.

I went afterwards to see my parents' friends for amazing dumplings and cold buckwheat noodles. The mom will back my patterned hanji and make a garment even though I kept telling her not to. While waiting for her to finish a pair of pants, I sat and wove more with plum juice on my right, while her client my left kept inspecting my work and exclaiming things like, "your hand work is amazing! No one does things like this anymore! Does your groom know that you do this? B/c he would make you throw it out if he did!" I was too tired to fight about particulars so I just said, yes, he knows, it's fine. I gave up on having pretty hands a LONG time ago.