Ch-ch-ch-changes

Wait, didn't I already use this title? Oh yes, back in June when my church service assignments changed drastically and I was about to start work with the young women (girls aged 12-18) of our church. Well, a short yet eventful 3 months later, that service is over. My husband already serves as the Bishop or lay minister of our congregation, and while our family is older and the kids are pretty independent, and we felt good about me taking on a major role as the president of the girls youth auxiliary, the leaders of our church had different ideas. Just a few weeks after I was called, a letter came from Salt Lake asking that Bishops' wives not be auxiliary presidents and if currently serving, they should be released. It was a general letter, it just happened to apply to us at an interesting time. So there you have it. There is a scripture in the Book of Mormon that counsels against "running faster than you have strength" and arranging one's priorities "in wisdom and order." I can see the wisdom and order in having a policy like this. Even though things were going fine and everyone was up to the challenge of both Eric and I being pretty busy, it will make things easier on our family. The only sad part about it is that I LOVE teenagers. I know, crazy, huh? Not everyone does, but I do and so I will really, really miss working with them. I will miss their energy and their willingness to question what they are taught and try to find out what is right and true for themselves. I love their boldness and I've learned over the years to be pretty patient with their goofiness. My inner child has never grown up, so I remember being a teenager and saying the same things they say.
Anyway, just because I don't have a formal calling doesn't mean I can't be their friend, and their friend I shall remain. As my pal who holds this calling in another congregation always says, "I'm their biggest fan." I can be that anytime.
So, for the moment I'm between gigs, as they say. I'm curious and excited to see what comes next. I hope I'll still be able to work with young people in some capacity, but if not, I'll get to learn to do something new after working with kids in one way or another for the past 18 years or so at church.

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Getting Out of the Gift Box

The Story of Me and Weddings, Graduations, Birthdays, Showers, etc.: I never get presents handled on time. I know why. If you really want to know it's because I'm an egomaniac in this one particular area of my life. No, really. I'm stuck in a box of my own making, and it is very elaborately wrapped and sports a handmade card. What that means is that I'm too fussy to go buy a gift card at Target and JUST PUT IT IN THE MAIL. It feels like a cheat, a cop out. Yes, it's true. I feel like I have to send fabulous, special presents that truly show how much I love the person, (really that show how creative and what a good friend I am-terrible to type out loud, but true) even though I know that all they really want is a gift card from Target or wherever they are registered or just a lovely bouquet of nice green bills. Sheesh. So, because of my silly habits, from this year alone I have about 5 weddings that have gone unacknowledged, plus several missed baby showers, a couple of graduations and well, pretty much all the birthdays in just my family alone. I won't even talk about my friends' birthdays. Thank goodness for facebook for at least a few of them...

So, what to do?

One solution is this: one of my bestest pals and I have a sort of pact, which is that we are not legally or emotionally bound to honor birthdays or any other holiday on the actual day. We can celebrate whenever it crosses our minds. I like that. (BTW, it worked in reverse for me. I acknowledged her birthday approximately on time this year. Go figure.) Anyway, if I take this approach, then I can send out some very late gifts without any self-consciousness or worry about how I will look in the bargain. I'll just focus on showing how I feel about the person on the other end. Which is what it is really about.

I know this is not a huge deal. I did not keep a list of the people I invited to my wedding who did not send presents, nor do I hold any ill will for them. I got late presents and it was actually kind of fun. I know that it's the thought that counts, not the Emily Post perfection of the execution. But I really love people. I want to show it. I am so blessed and showered with love from the dearest family and friends in the world and I feel like I'm not holding up my end of the bargain. See, there it is again. I'm worried about how I will look! Ack!

Back to what to do: I'm just going to do it. I've actually started. One gift at a time from the stack of lovely announcements that I've placed in plain view, right by my computer. Of course this will happen as the budget can absorb it. I'll check to see if their registries are still open. If not, then the old reliable gift card it is. The gifts will be simple, the note inside the card will be heartfelt, and the card will probably be...storebought. Sigh. I have to let that go. By the end of the year, hope with me friends, I'll be caught up and maybe relax about my expectations and just enjoy the moment of connecting with someone I love who thought to include me in their special day.

Plus I have to remember that I'm good at being a friend in other ways. So, if you haven't received an appropriately timed gift or card from me, remember that I love you in a hundred other ways and would do anything for you. And I wouldn't care how I looked. I'd come in my jammies if you needed me.

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That Time Has Finally Come

I've started collecting drug store reading glasses. I have them by my bed and in my knitting bag and in my purse. I got away with it for 3 years. Everyone told me that, like clockwork, the day after my fortieth, I'd need glasses, but I cheated fate. HAhahahahahah! Fate, however, has caught up to me after slowly sneaking up on me for a long time. The weird thing is that I'm not having to move things farther away to read in the iconic style of over-fortyish types, I can actually see close things just fine. Apparently however, I'm straining to do that because I can't transition from close work and reading to seeing far away things. Several friends have stated ominously and with little sympathy, "Yep, that's how it starts." (I'm still going to go get a check-up because I haven't had one in years.) So, I'm trying to be religious about using the weakest reading glasses whenever I knit and read so my eyes aren't too tired to look up and see things far away. If you need some entertainment, try to be nearby when I do because whenever I use the glasses, I feel like I've completely lost control of my face as I move my head up and down to change from close to far away. People often ask if I'm all right and I have to explain that I'm not having a seizure, nor am I frightened; I'm a new user of the spectacles and am still learning the rhythm.

Ironically, I always wanted glasses as a kid. You know how it goes-it was just one of those goofy things that I thought would help me stand out from the crowd. So much for that. Now I will proudly stand shoulder to shoulder with a large and noble crowd of middle-aged peers and, um, peer out at the world with my new and rapidly changing eyes. Fun Times. At least they make some really interesting and whimsical reading glasses. I can have fun with that.

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Books

After a summer of non-fiction for book groups and studying a lot of instructional material for leading the youth group, I've taken some time in these first two weeks of September to dive deeply back into literature. It has been a reminder of just how much I love words and stories. I love how a skilled author can shape words into descriptions of ordinary things that create pictures in my mind, that take me right from my chair to a train rolling across the Dakotas at the turn of the century or to a green English farm or to a made-up land in an imaginary time. Here is what is on my Nightstand, in my purse or on my Kindle:

Currently Reading:

• The Big Rock Candy Mountain by Wallace Stegner
• Precious Bane by Mary Webb
• Beauty by Robin McKinley

Just Read:

• The Actor and the Housewife by Shannon Hale

Planning on Reading Soon:

• The Moonflower Vine by Jetta Carleton
• Trail of Crumbs by Kim Sunee
• Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale

I also, after reading about Corinne's excitement about it, got back into Bookcrossing, which I joined a few years ago. I released a bunch of books, never heard anything about them, then just started forgetting to do it as often. This week I released 3 books at a huge hospital I was visiting while taking a friend to an appointment. I was in 3 different waiting rooms, so it was perfect. Last week I released one at a local shopping complex. Just left it right on a bench near a quilting/knitting store. I decided it just was not wise to try and do it in the airports or on the planes I was recently on. Too much fear there to leave something behind without explanation. But, I hope that maybe someday I'll hear back about some of my books and see where they've traveled.

Anyway, I seem to be in a mind to share favorite quotes right now, so here's a bit of Hemingway on books:

“All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened and after you are finished reading one you will feel that all that happened to you and afterwards it all belongs to you; the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse...”

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Stitches Midwest

I'm posting this to both this and my knitting blog so in the off chance that you read both, you can skip the other one.

This weekend I was in my element: Teaching. All weekend long, from Thursday till Sunday I got to teach and teach and teach. I went to a knitting convention (I am not making that up) called Stitches. It was in Chicago. I work for a company called XRX. They publish knitting books, a magazine called (appropriately) Knitter's Magazine, and they put on these shows. Four of them per year. I guess it is something like a Star Trek convention in that we are incredibly geeky, passionate and esoterically thrilled about knitting, but because it is more about learning than entertainment, I actually think it is more like a quilting convention or a scrapbook convention or an upholsterers' convention (don't laugh, it would be exciting to the upholsterers). There is a big market where you can buy anything and everything related to the subject at hand, and, when they aren't shopping, people take classes. That's where I come in. Over the course of the weekend, I get to teach about 15 hours of classes to knitters of all abilities. I teach about yarn and how to get it to behave the way you want, I teach about different styles of knitting, and I teach a bunch of one-hour classes in the market that allow students to try out a technique in a short amount of time.
It is so awesome. For me, teaching is transporting. I forget about everything outside the classroom, I'm completely in the moment, and I just feel so good. It totally does not feel like work and every time they hand me my paycheck I have to pinch myself.

So, that is where I was this weekend. It was awesome. Here I am with my friend and roommate, Debbie Radtke.
She is a talented designer and teacher herself and in the knitting world she is kinda famous because of this little guy.

My best news is that my design is officially published in the next issue of Knitter's mag, it was shown in the fashion show, and I got to get a photo with the actual model who showed it for the magazine photoshoot. That was cool. When I get that I'll show you. Here is me next to one of the publication photos that may show up in the magazine, and yes, it might be on the cover! The mittens that she's wearing, I designed and knit them, and there is a pair of socks to match. When it gets closer to publication I can link you to some better photos. They said that at some point they might give me this huge poster. What a hoot!

Ps. I am attributing my HUGE arms in this photo to some sort of distortion from the fact that this is my phone and not a real camera. Good Heavens.

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Some Sweet, Calming Music for an Emotional Day

I don't have any profound thoughts for this day, but what I do when I'm feeling like I need to ponder something is I listen to music and sing along. This is some of what I'll be listening to today, as much for the music and the sound as for the lyrics.

The Wailin' Jennys. Do you know them? Click on the link and listen to any of the cuts, but especially Avila, Glory Bound, One Voice, and Long Time Traveler to hear some of the lovliest harmonies in the whole wide world. If they sound a bit familiar, they are favorites of Garrison Keillor and regularly appear on Prairie Home Companion. I got to see them live when I saw PHC at Wolf Trap a couple of years ago. If you're feeling emotional today as you think about 9/11, this music might help you feel the emotions, as we all should, but also somehow soothe away the rawness.

One of the things I like about this group is that each member is so strong on their own, yet they choose to blend their talents and the results are just amazing to me. For example, here is one of the Jennys (Heather Masse, who is a successful solo artist in her own right) singing a new favorite song on Prairie Home Companion that I can't find anywhere but on the show archives and one home video on You Tube. According to the notes on You Tube, this song will be on Heather's new album, due out in November. I hope that is true. Anyway, either watch the video or click on the link above and listen to Segment 1, Bird Song, at 4:45 into the broadcast.

The Wailin' Jennys have a new live album out and it is the current soundtrack of my life. The sweetness calms me and smooths out more of the rough places inside me. I know that probably sounds a bit mystical for some, but that's why I listen to music, to connect my heart to my head. Their music tends to folk and traditional, so if that's not your thing, no worries, but if you like girls with gorgeous voices singing close harmony and aren't afraid to try new music, give them a listen. Their stuff is all on iTunes and the rest of their site is here.

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Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.

I have to agree with George Eliot, the author of my title. While the rain has moved in for a few days, that just confirms, along with the cool, bright days of last week, that the world is turning round, an Equinox is coming and soon it will be autumn, my favorite season of all. It is a season of contrasts because nature is coming to rest, the world still looks like summer, but the cooler temperatures and start of school bring energy and newness. Even the fresh angle of the light seems to make things look different. A walk through one of the many woods near my home during the coming weeks of Indian Summer, with the sky a little bluer and the humidity a little lower and a few trees here and there beginning to deck themselves out in their fall colors is a looked-forward to event. Because the weather here is so benign for the most part, we'll have vestiges of summer all the way through the end of October. Then, from the last part of that month till Christmas, we get some weeks of true autumn, with the wind and tumult and wild skies, then by January, the world is really asleep and the rain, cold and occasional snow move in. I love the movement of the seasons. Every change seems just right, my body craving it just as it comes. If I had to pick one season here that I don't love quite as much as the others, it would be winter, because it is always an indecisive winter. Our other seasons are as springy, summery and autumnal as they can possibly be, but winter is a mystery. Sometimes it is merely cold and dark and damp, like an obnoxious autumn that has overstayed its welcome, and without the lovliness of snow to make up for it.Sometimes it is mild and wet, like a sad, early spring that has arrived to the party before the decorations have been put up. Either way, it is not pretty or even always that cozy. It just doesn't know. Which, I suppose, makes the occasional winter storm all the more exciting and the eventual coming of spring that much nicer, so even winter has its place in the cycle. But until I have to deal with winter, I have many, many weeks of glorious fall, in all her many different forms. Here is another quote I found that makes me happy:

Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting and autumn a mosaic of them all. ~Stanley Horowitz

I really like that imagery.

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Deep Thoughts

Happy 9/9/09! I'll be gone most of this week, so I've set up for a few thoughtful posts that I've pulled from my drafts folder and other journals to magically appear while I'm gone. Have a great week!

Why the Heck AM I so busy? I got some interesting off-line responses to my previous post about my crazy 13 days. All loving, friendly things, and so reasonable and thoughtful that I just started to wonder. "Is there something WRONG with me that I can't seem, at least in my writing, to sit still?" So, here are the results of my ruminations (which word has reference to a cow chewing its cud-exactly what I do with every piece of information that crosses my brain-I chew on it forever): The bottom line for me is that having friends and even being happy and cheerful has always been a choice I have to make, because I'm actually a terrible introvert with strong tendencies toward anxiety and depression. Therein lie the reasons I choose to stay so ever-loving busy. I choose to be happy and have friends. For me, the best way out of a dark or too thoughtful mood is to go do something either for or with someone else.

The thing is, if I really had my most secret druthers, I'd be in a little cottage on a windy island somewhere off the coast of Scotland. I'd sit by my fire and read and knit all day long and never leave it except to go take photos on the beach and go the mailbox for my latest Amazon shipment. I'm sure I'd email people and I might blog, but I'd NEVER have to make another phone call and I'd only see people in person to obtain food or yarn (and they'd be speaking Gaelic, so I wouldn't have to make ANY small talk or be expected to be witty or impressive).

I love quiet days with nothing on the calendar, but, in spite of my hermit fantasies, I recognize that those empty days, they aren't so good for me. I just think too much. About everything! So, rather than worrying about what a maniac I am with my busy life, I try to be happy that I'm not inside, watching my 17th consecutive episode of NCIS on the USA network, having not spoken to another human in 36 hours, and starting to imagine that my pillow looks like Mark Harmon (in the absence of a handy Scottish Island, what I just described tends to be my hermitage of choice). That would make for some boring blog posts for sure, plus something in the deepest part of my soul tells me that I'm meant for better things than re-runs or even sitting alone in a cottage.

So, I fight the urge to do nothing, and I fight the urge to be shy and a bit sad and I fight them hard. Besides, is everyone really that much less busy than me? I'm sorry, I have to ask, because busy is the adjective often used FIRST to describe me and I just don't think of myself that way, at least not in any abnormal way. It may seem silly to get defensive about, because I really do think it is meant as a sort of complement, but not always, and I guess that description bothers me because it makes me worry that maybe I'm busy for no good reason, or that I take on too much, or that I'm telling about what I do to somehow brag or draw attention to myself, or that I'm not really noticing what's really important. I guess I can think of other adjectives that I'd rather use to describe myself. I'd rather focus on who I am rather than what I do because that can all go away anytime and I think (or at least I hope) I'd still be the same person even if I had to learn to "do" a whole different set of things, or even if I wasn't able to "do" anything.

Anyway, I take a nap pretty much every day! How busy can I be? I think I'm probably just too forthcoming. I have only a few filters when I blog and writing about all the stuff I do is, frankly, all I can usually think of to blog about. Writing about the empty hours in between when I'm folding laundry doesn't seem like such good writing, and I'm just not clever or disciplined enough to keep up on book reviews, politics or what's going on in the world. So, maybe that's the problem. I just need pretend I'm clever and disciplined, start writing about other things and leave the details of my life to the imagination.

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A Few Images

Here are some that I like of the First Day of School and our Weekend in PA:

The Official 2009 First Day Photo Shoot:
Sam- starting his senior year
Sara-starting her sophomore year
Evan- starting his 8th-grade year



My homework last Monday night, along with thousands of other Parents. The top stack is from ONE child. I needed snacks to get through it. That's my hummus and chips and limeade there in the background.

Our long-time Labor-day tradition is a family camp up at Blue Knob State Park in Pennsylvania. We stay in rustic, non-electric cabins and eat with other families at a mess hall with a modern kitchen. It sort of takes the best of camping and leaves behind some of the hassle. Plus, many of the same people go each year, so the kids get to see friends they only see up there. Even though lots of people are there, you can be as social or as private as you like because each family has their own cabin. Good times. Here is Eric getting away from it all, sort of...

I call this composition "Lawyer in Repose"
Yes, he is still working there on his phone. Checking email, getting things done, making phone calls. At least it was a prettier than his office. He really is not a workaholic, he's just a hard worker and this is what the job demands right now. I did find myself wishing that we didn't have quite such good phone service up there on the mountain because I used it all weekend also-kept up on email, posted here, etc. Crazy days we live in.

Here is Sam having fun climbing up a huge old oak tree in the campground. He was high enough up that he could talk to people passing by and they couldn't tell where the voice was coming from.
Sunset over the Pennsylvania Hills

Sunrise over the Alleghenies on a tranquil Saturday morning

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For those of you who worry about my sanity...

Here is my view down the slope of Blue Knob, a mountain in PA as i sit
under an enourmous old oak tree and listen to children running wild
with nary a facebook page in sight. The only thing on my agenda for
the next three days is looking at this view, keeping my kids fed so
they can basically run free with about 20 of their friends, and, well,
that's about it. Oh yes, read my new book. But only if I want to.

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