Three More Sites To Go Until I Earn Wilbear Wright

 I will never get over how weird it is to say that the National Museum of the United States Air Force is the most underrated museum I've ever visited.

I've been there twice now, and I still haven't seen half the museum.

I was told before I visited the first time that it's better than the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, and it IS.

I guess if you're the US Air Force, you've had a good, long while to collect some cool stuff!

What's even better is that the museum actually hosts TWO Dayton Aviation Trail stamps, as they treat the Aviation Hall of Fame inside the museum as a separate site. So my partner and I dutifully saw more early flight exhibitions and Wright flyer reproductions (I think we're up to about 20 at this point, and we'll have hit at least 40 before we're through)--

--and then before you know it, the Wright brothers have their plane business up and running and it's time for World War 1!

Check out Snoopy's plane:

I really like how colorful planes got to be before they were standardized:

I had to text my kids when I came across this poem on display:

I knew I'd required one kid to memorize that poem while the other kid had to memorize Dulce et Decorum Est, but which was which?

It was this one, and she still remembers it!

Fun fact: the big kid had actually had a choice between memorizing "Dulce et Decorum Est" and "Boots," but she thought "Boots" was too scary and she liked shouting "GAS! GAS!" in "Dulce et Decorum Est." 

The museum moves chronologically into World War 2--

logbook from the only American pilot killed in action during the Battle of Britain

--and then the Cold War:

the Mark 6 was the first mass-produced nuclear weapon

I'm so interested in all the Cold War spy stuff, all the normal bits and bobs of luggage with their secret compartments full of mysteries.

Yet another nuclear bomb, because I guess why not keep upgrading them until you're quite sure you can blow the entire planet to smithereens?

Mark 7 nuclear bomb, first produced in 1952

The last years of the Cold War are when my partner and I were impressionable kids, and so, of course, we both have our favorite planes from that time. Mine is the SR-71 Blackbird:

--but because he's a bad boy, I guess, his is the MiG:

But we both have the same favorite Desert Storm plane, the F-117 Nighthawk!

We only had time for a couple of exhibit galleries before we really needed to get back on the road (college move-out appointments do not wait for parents who are distracted by sightseeing!), but on the way out I did spy this cool exhibit of women's flight suits. Yay for strong female role models!

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Five More Sites To Go Until I Win Wilbear Wright

Because it's not a road trip to pick the kids up from college if I'm not detouring to a different tourist site every 20 miles!

All the sites on the Dayton Aviation Trail have different and odd hours--seriously, I'm talking hours like "Wed-Thurs 9:30-4" or "Tues, Sat 10-12:30", for Pete's sake--so you will be unsurprised to learn that I literally sat down one day, looked up every site's open hours, and noted it on my official Dayton Aviation Trail brochure.

And that's how I learned that although the Woodland Cemetery and Arboretum's grounds are open during daylight hours, the office where the Dayton Aviation Trail stamp lives is only open during business hours on weekdays, so if I wanted my stamp from there--and I did!--then we needed to swing by on this road trip.

So we did!

The Wright family plot is lovely, and since it's in a typical American city you can park very near it and then just hop out of the car and walk over, making it the perfect quick stop when you're actually supposed to be going somewhere else that day, ahem.

I always like to see the mementos that people put on famous graves:

Can you see the broken shell there? This article says that there are visitors who particularly like to leave North Carolina shells on the Wright brothers' graves. 

Nearby, we found the grave of Paul Laurence Dunbar:

The poem chosen for his marker reads, in part, "Lay me down beneaf de willers in de grass." We had the big kid with us for this leg, so she obligingly leaned over Dunbar's marker so that he could, for a moment, lay down beneath at least one "willer."

And then back in the car we hopped, because college move-out appointments wait for neither poets nor pilots!

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I Am Now a God of Crochet. Here are My New Fingerless Mitts To Prove It

Remember how I told you that I could crochet anything, as long as it was rectangular and done in single crochet on hook size K?

I did not lie, for here are my brand-new fingerless mitts!

I am sorry to tell you, however, that one is somehow two stitches wider than the other, and this is a terrible and obvious thing to me:

I still haven't completely cracked how to count my stitches and rows, at least not in a way in which I get the same answer two times in a row.

Before the older kid suggested that we learn together over Spring Break, I don't think that I've ever picked up a crochet hook with a serious intention to learn how to use it. I did once spend a couple of months fiddling around with learning how to knit, but it was quite fiddly, indeed, and ultimately I didn't like it enough to even finish a single project.

So far, I am really liking crochet, though. Reducing the number of tools down to one feels like it makes all the difference in the world, and I like that, unlike with cross-stitch, I can look up from it to actually watch the show that I'm binging while I work. Ugh, why can't Jed Bartlet be our president for real?!?

And obviously how can you know I've made something at all if there is not this glorious cat helping me model it? Spots and I started off the week in great alarm when I happened to notice that she was looking skinny to my eyes, and this combined with my casual observation over the past several weeks that she was eating her dry cat food quite pickily to send me spiraling into a full-blown Cat Health Scare. 

She's fine, though! Two hundred and ten dollars later, the vet said that senior cats just get picky and it's hard to keep weight on them. But what's even the point of working from home if you can't stop eight times a day and warm up some wet cat food to the perfect temperature, mix it with homemade chicken broth (no added spices or seasonings, of course!), and serve it to your cat on a Fiestaware plate?

Now I just need to figure out who the hell I can snooker into cat sitting this summer with that kind of nonsense routine going on...

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April WIPs, or, Nothing in My Life is Complete

Okay, *one* thing in my life is complete, because I finished my foster kid quilt last weekend. But do to various stuff and nonsense--

--I still haven't mailed it, yikes!

I keep doing the thing in which I start a new project before my last project is complete, and that has been going just about exactly the way you'd think it would, sigh.

So, for instance, here's the cross-stitch I'm making to teach myself how to cross-stitch--

And after that, I have at least four more projects that I want to make from Creepy Cross-stitch--it's so good! 

And here are the fingerless mitts I started before I finished the cross-stitch project:

I just need to finish weaving in the ends, now that I've figured out what that is, and then seam up the sides, and I'll have myself a super seasonal accessory, lol!

Also currently on the crafting table are the puff quilt blocks that I'm cutting, and will likely be cutting forever. 616 quilt blocks is a RIDICULOUS number of quilt blocks, and anything over 400 should clearly be outlawed.

Even more ridiculous, though, are the projects that I need to start but haven't yet. I want to mail my kiddo who will soon be celebrating her very first college birthday a DIY party kit to share with her friends, so ideally it'll have a decoration, a cake, snacks, a little craft project because I am physically incapable of throwing a party that does not have a little craft project, and party favors.

Do I know exactly what I'm doing for all of those categories? Ish.

Have I started making any of that stuff? Not even ish.

So yep, you've realized it, too, haven't you? I'll be starting this new project before I've finished ANY of these old ones...

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I Sewed a Quilt for a Foster Kid. I Hope They Like Flannel!

Y'all might remember when oh, so long ago, I discovered that the kid that I never could keep pants on really liked the feel of flannel, so I bought allllllll the flannel on clearance at Joann's and sewed her soooooooo many pairs of flannel pants. 

Girl wore those flannel jammies in every wild print and pattern for YEARS, and honestly I don't remember if she, herself, eventually got tired of them or if it was me that eventually got tired enough of them to sneak them out of her wardrobe. But to this day, my fabric stash contains the odd bits and bobs of that long-ago flannel: there's a horse print in there somewhere, a dinosaur print (of course!), and, until very recently, a cute print of cars and trucks on a white background. 

But no more do I have any cute--but babyish!--cars and trucks flannel in my stash, for now every single scrap exists in this equally cute--and appropriately babyish!--flannel quilt that I'm donating to Comfort Cases through sewist Stacey Lee's 2025 Quilt Donation Drive.

I wanted a simple pattern, so I decided to make it all 6" triangles. I cut every triangle I could out of the cars and trucks flannel, and then went looking for any other flannel I had that would match it, and I cut all that up, too.

I almost made it!

I'd already planned to buy new flannel for the back of the quilt, so I cut the final six triangles from that, and one of the better things about having a graphic designer in the family is that I could give him all my triangles and the dimensions I wanted, and he was the one who fussed them all around until he achieved a pleasingly symmetrical design:

Without the kids at home I've gotten into the habit of using the family room floorspace to lay out my quilts. But of course, it was never the kids who messed up my quilts when I was laying them out. Look, for instance, at this charming gentleman:

Such a sweet and innocent little guy. Clearly butter would not melt in his mouth. And yet how, then, do you suppose that this--

--becomes this?

And it's a mystery how this, left safely there on the floor overnight when I decided I was too tired to finish pinning it--

--by the next morning had become this?

We must have ghosts!

Binding is usually my least favorite part of the process, but one of my Facebook quilting groups has turned me onto the technique of glue basting. You literally get out your Elmer's school glue--make sure it says that it's washable!!!--and glue your binding exactly the way you want it, then iron it to set it:

Doesn't the binding look perfect? It's literally just glued! 

The glue basting is so sturdy that I was able to fold this quilt up, glued binding and all, and stuff it into my backpack to take to my mending group's monthly Mending Day at the public library. In between trimming the raveled edge of a vintage counterpane and then rehemming it, helping a novice quilter sandwich her very first quilt, and altering a pair of capris, I finished machine stitching the binding. 

And then I climbed on top of a rickety chair while menders and guests alike watched nervously to take my very first photo of my finished quilt:

And then I went home and took a slightly nicer photo:

I don't normally like a lot of quilting on my quilts, and I get paid back for that when my kids' quilts, which they use constantly, also constantly threaten to fall apart. So there I am during every college break, mending quilts until they have as much quilting on them as they would if I'd quilted them properly the first time.

I obviously can't have a stranger's quilt falling apart on them without me there to constantly mend it, so I had to quilt this one properly the first time. And ugh, fine, the quilting looked nice and added to the overall pattern in a lovely way:

I could have quilted a LOT straighter, but oh, well. That's how you know it was made by a human!

Fortunately, I did have some help with the photography, so that's why these photos turned out as cute as they did. Behold my helper:

Is there anyone who loves the first truly sunny and mild Spring day more than a housecat?

The last step before packing it up to send off was washing and drying it a couple of times to wash out the glue and get the quilting nice and scrunchy. It came out of the dryer scrunchy and adorable, and I hope whoever receives it SUPER loves it.

I want to use up every last bit of horsey flannel and dino flannel in baby quilts of their own, but making and donating those will have to wait until the 2026 Quilt Drive, because I am already in high gear making the puff quilt that my younger kid said she wanted. I want to surprise her with it for her birthday, but I'm still at the stage of cutting out 4" squares for the back of each puff and 4.5" squares for the front, stopping occasionally to re-work my math because SURELY this quilt cannot require 616 of EACH of those?!? Surely I have instead forgotten how to multiply?

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In Which the Fairy Smut Book Club is Punished for Its Sins by Reading A Court of Frost and Starlight

A Court of Frost and Starlight by Sarah J. Maas
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Here's my review of A Court of Thorns and Roses.

Here's my review of A Court of Mist and Fury.

Here's my review of A Court of Wings and Ruin.

And HERE'S my review of the piece of shit that is A Court of Frost and Starlight!

Did I just read the fury smut version of the Star Wars Holiday Special?

There are some book series in which I would happily read an entire book consisting solely of the main characters simply bopping around and living their lives. Outlander, for instance, if you omit Brianna and Roger and Ian and Lord John Grey. Percy Jackson, unless it’s more really shitty writing about Will and Nico, who are supposed to be AWESOME and I don’t know how on Earth Riordan managed to screw that up so badly.

ACOTAR is NOT one of these book series. I’m not entirely sure what I just read, but it was… wow. It was a combination of absolutely nothing happening and everything that did happen being really stupid. Is it possible that this novella is actually written by the winner of some sort of fanfic competition? They wrote the best Bryaxis/Tamlin dom/sub fic and as a reward Maas let them write this no-plot piece of fluff? Because seriously, it has ALLLLLL the fanfic tropes, not the least of which is the #foundfamily rhetoric that Maas keeps absolutely smacking us across the face with. I get it! They all found each other, and now they’re all family! But I swear to God they can stop overtly referring to each other as “my brother this” and “my brother that” and “my family blah blah blah” inside their own heads! Is consciously referring to each other as siblings the only way the rest of them can stop themselves from smutting each other as grossly as Feyre and Rhys are? Because if it is, it’s not worth it. I’d rather cringe my way through another entire scene of improbable wall shenanigans than hear the words “my brother” come out of their mental POV mouths one more time.

This novella reinforces my headcanon that everyone in this fairy crew is really stupid and that’s why they had such a hard time during the war. Their jokes aren’t funny, and their wine mom culture is boring. But boy, do THEY think their jokes are funny! You know they do, because every time someone says something that’s supposed to be funny, Maas forces us to pan individually to every single character and get their reaction shot that shows it’s funny. Like, Feyre says something stupid. Rhys smirks and says something horny into her brain. Cas snorts into his wine. Az laughs. Mor smirks but, like, sadly because she has daddy issues. Amrin gives a sly smile and makes a sexual innuendo. Even Elain giggles softly. And on and on and on, world without end, amen.

Everyone’s Solstice gift to each other is equally stupid, except for Elain’s gift to Nesta because books are awesome. I don’t care what everyone got each other or where they bought it, and I have no idea why Maas thought I would. Just saying, but the only time I would ever be interested in that kind of tedious minutiae is if I was writing a #cozy #foundfamily #fluff fic for a winter holiday-themed fest on A03…

I hate Nesta, and nothing short of the most traumatic backstory possible in the next book will ever make me feel sympathetic to her, but I actually am slightly looking forward to reading her POV in A Court of Silver Flames just for a break from this “we managed to save the world even though we made every wrong decision in the process” lovefest.

Also--jeez, are you elitist much, because I think Nesta’s ghetto apartment sounds… fine? I mean, sure, it’s no House of Wind, but it sounds pretty much like my own college apartment back in the day. Like, isn’t Nesta only in her mid-to-late 20s? Everything works in her apartment, the door has plenty of locks, and there isn’t any vermin--dude, it’s FINE! I get that we’re meant to see that Nesta is struggling and traumatized, and the alcohol and gambling and meaningless sex work with that, but adding the implication that she’s punishing herself by living with the poors is bigoted.

Predictions for A Court of Silver Flames:

• PleasepleasepleasePLEASE let Elain turn evil! She is so boring, and I don’t understand why on earth she’s there if it’s not to turn out that she’s suddenly evil and has been all along, mwa-ha-ha.
• OMG if Elain and Tamlin could just fall in love I would CACKLE. Instant 5 stars on Goodreads!
• Literally the only ACOTAR character I like and think is hot is Lucien, and that’s only before he soul-mated or whatever with Elain, and now he acts like a pathetic dog. So if he could, you know, get his groove back in ACOSF I’d love that. If not, I guess there’s always fanfic!
• As for actual plot, I don’t even care. I’m sure it will be something about the mortal queens and that Swan Lake-ish woman or whatever, but that all sounds so boring to me that I literally almost died of boredom while typing it out.

P.S. View all my reviews.

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