If it goes more orange, possibly A la Mode?

If it were to settle into more of a ball form, maybe Rivers Yellow Snow?

But neither one looks quite right here. RYS has a lot more petals and A la Mode is decidedly more orange rather than yellow.

I can't place this one, but it's pretty!

Thank you for the recommend! Just borrowed the audiobook from the library🥰

That said..... If we can ever manage funding, part of the farm plan involves small cabins where people can come to recuperate and/or have a week of sheep-to-sweater crafting, or flower arranging, or any sub variation thereof. I even plan to grow dye plants as well as flax and cotton in small lots.

Ugh. This one hit me too hard and I didn't even know that until I read it.

I guess I should have, because I've daydreamed more than once about a hospital stay for some imaginary, non-life threatening anger minimally painful condition.

That's probably not a great sign.

Oof. See, I do love me a good beard.

But I 100% know this guy and you’ve got him pegged.💯

The. Worst.

I can’t do much to make things better, and we’re still struggling to get through every day.

But I could make this day better by making the world a little more like I want it to be, rather than what it is.

So I guess I’m just saying, please do the small things.

They add up.

It took 15 minutes of my day, but I remember that this one thing was all I needed back when mine were impossible and small, to change the day from feeling like a failure to feeling like I wasn’t stranded on an island with the most important person alive and expected to get off it without a lifeboat.

She told me she felt so bad taking up my time, and I thanked her for letting me hold him, and assured her she’s not alone, that parenting isn’t meant to be done in isolation like we have to these days. That it’s not just her, we all feel like this. It’s an impossible task. SHE’S NOT A FAILURE.

And she efficiently filled up her cart and thanked me, and I just nodded her to the register and then her car, following along in her wake and murmuring to her now-contented baby.

I told her it would take her 5 minutes as long as I wrangled her little guy, but 45 minutes if she had to, so go on.

So I did that shushing thing you learn when you have a fussy little one and let him nestle into my arms on hoods belly the way he likes it and just talked to him about the world and patted his back. I told him it doesn’t get easier, but we get used to the noise and cold and we learn to cope, mostly

I walked up to this struggling mom and said, “I know you don’t know me from Adam, but can I walk with you and just carry your baby while you get through your list?”

I’ve been there. I remember leaving stores in tears more than once.

And she let me.

You know you’re making everyone else listen to your crying baby, and it’s awful, because you feel guilt for both letting your baby cry and also for being a nuisance to everyone else in a public place. There’s no good way to deal with it.

Society has made parenting well completely impossible.