Roller Ball Derby

My son had a bright idea this week. He thought putting a small rubber marble ball into a balloon might be cool. So Dad helped him blow up the balloon with the ball inside. Then they hit the balloon back and forth to see what happened. 

The coolest thing. The ball revolved around the inside of the balloon independently of the movement of the balloon. Kind of like roller derby skaters going round and round. 

My personal analogy this week was that the ball was my brain inside my balloon of a skull. Twirling around and around, faster and crazier. I guess I felt a little overwhelmed by this week’s tasks. 

Among other things, I’ve been working on our tax return. Yuck. It’s not hard, just tedious and time consuming. 

I felt pressure every day to write last week’s blog post until I finally forgave myself for not being super-person. So, I skipped a week.

I’ve also been preparing materials for a class I’m teaching in spinning on a tahkli, a supported spindle. That has been fun.

I’ve made more than 300 punis in the last 2 weeks. A puni is a skinny roll of short fine fiber. In this case, yak down, camel down and cotton. I’ve been using my cotton handcards and have gotten quite proficient at making a neat puni. I sit with my ‘friends’ on Grey’s Anatomy (love Roku internet TV) and make my little cigar shaped rolls of fiber.

And while poking around for pictures to post I came across this one from several years ago. 

My son spinning! Look how intent he is looking at and holding the fiber. A spinner in the making for sure.

Now, at 5 years old, he no longer holds fiber to spin. Instead he treadles and works the footman on my spinning wheel to turn it as fast as he can while steering the pirate ship in his imagination.