Mobile posting not quite working yet

Sorry about the gibberish. Apparently mobile posting from my phone has a few bugs.

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Tender Mercies

According to the Bible, a tender mercy is evidence of God's goodness, his loving care over his children here on earth. That is the way I choose to think of God and today, there were many little things that happened that I choose to think of as tender mercies rather than simply coincidences.

Take this photograph for instance. I found it on my card as I was uploading other things. My daughter has a lovely photographic eye and this is one of the very creative shots she took one day out in the garden. I'm so pleased we have something to share during these squirrelly teenage years. I also love that it is not a typical picture of a flower, it is from an unexpected angle. I love the courageous way she looks at the world.

Tender mercies are like that. You can either look at them straight on and think, whew, what a relief that things happened to work out that way, or you can look at them from a different angle and notice the light coming through and think something like:

The Lord is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works. (Psalm 145:9)

And sometimes, tender mercies are just about as common as a daffodil. It was certainly nothing big that happened to me today. I just had a serious lot to do today and all morning long, things simply went well. Better than well. I found 20 minutes here and there. Every store had just what I needed. I remembered to get everything on my list (well except toilet paper, but we're not completely out yet), rain cleared away to sunshine just at moments when I was tempted to get down on myself. So, rather than being a wreck worrying about my trip this afternoon, I have time to write about how grateful I am that I have the opportunities that I do, and that I have friends who love me, and a family that is smart and capable enough to get along quite well without me for a couple of days. I'm looking forward to a fun lunch with friends that will leave me smiling and enjoying the day rather than the unfortunate alternative.

I hope you are able to notice a few tender mercies today, whatever your beliefs about where they might come from.

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The "Glamorous" Life of a Professional Knitter

This week has been dominated by yarn and needles, even more so than usual. I've been doing a lot of knitting for hire (samples for shops and models that will be photographed for books and patterns) and I have a deadline, plus I leave soon for a teaching trip to Atlanta, plus I just had a design accepted for publication in a national knitting magazine. It is my first commercially published pattern and I'm very excited, but the deadlines are pretty iron-clad, so in the middle of this other deadline, I had to take time to knit a sample and get my contract sent to the publisher. Between now and when I leave later in the week, I have a local class to teach, I have to print out all my handouts for classes this weekend, knit another sleeve, sew up the deadline sweater, pack up my samples and notes, and throw a few things to wear into a suitcase. Usually this knitting thing is pretty relaxed and under my control, but every once in a while, I'm totally at the mercy of the calendar and then the clock as the hours and minutes tick down and I can't make stitches fast enough. Good thing I really, really enjoy it. I do actually, and even though I'm stressed about deadlines, I get to work while catching up on episodes of Masterpiece Theater, so I can't really complain. So, I still have a some fun pictures from our trip to post, and a few other things to write about, but they'll have to wait until after I get back and I can put down the needles for a bit.

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Back in the Box

Back in the 80's and 90's before Flylady, there were the Sidetracked Home Executives, these two wonderful, friendly, down-to-earth sisters who wrote a great book about getting organized one step at a time. They were Flylady's inspiration, actually, and they really inspired me. Instead of email alerts, I used a little box full of index cards, color coded with my jobs for the day, week, month, year, etc. More important that that for me though, was the book. It was like having my own personal cheerleader. I read it till my copy was tattered and falling apart. I used the system faithfully and it was a huge part of helping me establish my habits as a homemaker. Sometimes though, I would get off track and stop using the system for whatever reason-sickness, new baby, stress, whatever. The book had a chapter for that called "Back in the Box." It might sound limiting when considered with how the term "box" is used in the current vernacular, but for someone like me, it is not always productive to "think outside the box" or resist being "boxed in." I'm like an electric current and without a "box" I'm more like a lightening bolt-interesting but uncontrolled. Anyway, this chapter in the book, it was actually all about looking forward instead of backward and jumping back into the system wherever you are. That was huge for me because I often feel like if I get behind, I can't move ahead until I go back and catch up everything that I missed. It really grinds my progress to a halt sometimes. For example, with my goal to empty out 3 boxes a day from the storage unit, my mind would think, "Holy Cow, I've missed 11 days of sorting. Today I have to get through 33 boxes!" Seriously. And then I don't do anything because the thought of 33 is impossible, but doing only 3, my goal in the first place, seems too small because I've lost so much ground. So I'm Totally Stuck. So, today, after vacation and being sick and having two car situations with kids (*am had a fender bender a week before the garage door thing) and lots of other stuff, today I'm getting back in the box. I'm starting where I am instead of trying to catch up. My list is what it would be on a normal day, and if that's all I get done in the house today, then it is enough. I'll catch up eventually.

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Spring Break 2009 Wednesday

Warren Dunes is a state park in Michigan about 40 minutes from Eric's sister's house. It was our destination on Wednesday morning and was a highlight of the week. We started out hiking over the dunes to the lake and were greeted with views like this as we crested the summit: The lake (Lake Michigan) is as vast as an ocean to the eye, and was a gorgeous blue reflecting back the sky that really was this color. Sadly, that is a line of thick smog on the horizon, so we were denied a view of the Chicago skyline, but we were just across the lake from there.

We went down the dune, which really is quite massive as you can see with Evan to provide a little scale, walked the beach, searched for heart-shaped rocks and enjoyed the sound of the waves and the clear air.

After hiking back up to the very top, the kids discovered the real fun of a big dune-coming down. They found the perfect spot near the picnic area and just had a blast-jumping, running and climbing back up to do it all again. The sand is dry and fine, so when you run down or jump down, you go up to your knees in sand. It doesn't hurt at all, and it feels a bit like you would imagine it would feel on the moon. All your steps are in a sort of bouncy slow motion. Anyway, there was some pretty serious smiling going on.

After we dragged them away from the dunes, we met up with Eric's mom for an afternoon of shopping with birthday and Christmas money at the local outlet mall extravaganza called Lighthouse Place in Michigan City, Indiana. I found some Yankee Candle bargains and a few kitcheny things as I made the rounds with Eric's mom. It was probably a good thing that she wasn't interested in the clothes and shoe stores. I'm full up anyway and didn't need a thing so it really is just as well. After shopping, we went back to Cheryl's house, our wonderful base of operations for the week, had dinner and a cozy backyard fire with firewood provided by our handy boy scouts. The sun set over a contented group enjoying marshmallows, good conversation and a very nice last evening in Indiana.

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Book Review: The Friday Night Knitting Club

The Friday Night Knitting Club
Kate Jacobs
Adult
Fiction with a knitting theme

So, I mentioned the ploethora of knitting tomes that have, dare I say, flooded the market in recent years. This one is probably the most famous and best-selling of them all on the literary side of things. It actually made it onto the NY Times Bestseller List and for a niche-y sort of book like this, that is something for the author to be proud of. I have resisted reading this for years, and I'm not sure why. I guess because it's not something I would normally read if it weren't for the knitting angle. But, because so many of my students and knitting pals have asked me about it, I read it. It turned out to be okay-predictable and a bit contrived for me, but okay. It is a nice story of women coming together to become friends and supporters of one another against the backdrop of a cozy yarn shop on NYC's Upper West Side. It touches the emotions and made me laugh and cry, so it did its job as a way to escape through reading. Famous Knitter Julia Roberts is at work on the film adaptation. I'll be curious to see how that translates for the non-knitting public, or maybe she'll just play up the knitting, count it as a labor of love and not worry about how it translates.

If you like stories about women's relationships; crafts and knitting; New York City; plucky single moms; or stories that deal with redemption and second chances, you might like this book.

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Book Review: Knitting the Threads of Time

Knitting the Threads of Time
Nora Murphy
Adult
Non-Fiction
Memoir

I'm always up for knitting-themed literature, and the genre has exploded in the last 9 years or so since 9/11 spawned a knitting boom that continues to this day. There are thousands of knitting books out there now, both technical-for learning and executing the craft and literary-for pondering and discussing the craft. In both categories, some are really wonderful, some are really terrible, and some are in between.

For me, this one was near the wonderful side of the continuum. I really liked the author's framework of the knitting of a single sweater, from choosing the yarn all the way to completion, as a way to examine her life at that moment. I, like her, find knitting tremendously meaningful and metaphorical and really like to infuse my knitting journey with meaning that goes beyond just making stuff. By the end of this little book, I cared about the author and her experiences with her family, and admired her honesty about both her knitting and her life. I liked the way she looked at different traditions through the lens of art and craft. I'm not sure how accessible this book would be to non-knitters, because I live and breathe through two sticks and a string, but I would be interested to find out from some of my non-knitting reading friends if it would be a possibility. The writing is introspective and careful, with lots of interior landscapes carefully constructed. I liked that visual aspect of things and could really almost see through her eyes. Overall, it was a nice way to combine two of my greatest loves-knitting and reading.

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Book Review: The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down
Anne Fadiman
Adult
Non-Fiction

This is the account of a little girl in Merced, California who began having epileptic seizures at the age of 3 months. The fact that she is Hmong and her doctors are not is at the beginning of this tale of cultural misunderstanding. It is not the end, however.

There is much more than just ethnocentrism contributing to the struggle at the heart of the story, and Fadiman does a really good job of at least trying to explore everything that does contribute. I like this quote from the author herself from this interview (careful, possible spoilers), because it sums up some of what I felt when I read it: "I felt that I started pulling on a slender thread, the thread that was Lia Lee, the small sick child who is the central character of this book. I pulled on the thread and the thread became a string and the string became a rope, and then I tugged really hard on the rope and I discovered that it was attached to the entire universe."

If you have any interest in cross-cultural understanding, in looking beyond your own view of the universe and having the opportunity to stop and think about the relative importance of facts vs. beliefs and where the boundary between those two things is, then this book may interest you. In spite of the seemingly dry subject matter-an exhaustive investigative report of one medical case-it is a compelling read: It is beautifully written and the author manages to be fair, even compassionate, to both sides and really tries to help the reader to understand the deep-down intentions of all the players in the drama. I liked that. Some will find her too sympathetic to the Hmong, and some will find her too sympathetic to the doctors. For me, her balanced approach underscores the possibility that this situation may not have one right answer.

Here are a couple of other opinions of the book, but be warned, spoilers possible :
NY Times
Hmongnet

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Spring Break 2009 Monday and Tuesday

Yesterday we woke to this outside our window.
Come on, people!
It didn't turn out as badly as was predicted, which was snow both Monday and Tuesday with accumulations of 3 inches and more. It actually was just very blustery and cold both days. Hey, we knew we were going the wrong direction for balmy and predictable in the weather department. Yesterday we had a bit of sun peeking through fast-moving, suspiciously wintry-looking clouds. Today, Tuesday, while the sky was crystal clear and as beautiful to the eye that a day could be, it remained about 15 degrees shy of being truly pleasant for being outdoors. Lucky for us, we're not the sort to let that stop us.

Fortunately, yesterday was just for sleeping in, running errands, and dinner at Grandma's. I also received the gift of a beautiful (and very large) antique trunk that belonged to Eric's grandmother and may have come over from Eastern Europe with his great-grandmother. We'll get it home somehow. That's what big trucks are for, right? I'll take a photo of that when I get it cleaned up, or we actually get the car packed around it.

Today was a brief visit to the great city of Chicago, about an hour's drive from Eric's family, and one of my favorite cities to visit. We chose as today's objective the Field Museum, to which I had never been. I wanted to see Sue the T. Rex, and I just love the setting of the museums in Chicago-right on the lake. The museum was great-such a beautiful building and lots of great stuff for a geek like me. Here were my favorite things:

• The gorgeous building that houses the museum-classic, large galleries and atriums, arches, columns, beautiful details-wonderful!

• Sue the T. Rex. She is just amazing and I love knowing that she has a wishbone, which proves that dinosaurs are more closely related to birds than modern reptiles.
  
• The Ancient American exhibit-all the pottery designs and the textiles! I was in heaven collecting images for my inspiration library for future knitting designs.
  
• The Supernatural Bat. This mythic character as captured in pottery COMPLETELY captured my imagination as I thought about how magical bats, and really all creatures must have seemed to our ancient forbears. Bats are actually a favorite animal for me-a bit overlooked and looked down on for being spooky, but I cheer when they come out on summer evenings and start eating their weight in mosquitoes.
  
• The palpable excitement in the kids' faces each time we entered a gallery and they looked at the map to see the quickest route out the other side. (That one was written with fingers dripping with sarcasm, in case you missed it.)

Eric and I could have spent all day there, but the kids were done after a couple of hours, so we finished up. Everyone indulged me for a walk to the edge of the water where we sat on the promenade and jumped at our shadows and tried to stay warm. Next we took the long way home with a drive all the way up Lakeshore Drive, which is just what it sounds like-Lake Michigan on the right, city on the left. We turned around and took Lakeshore all the way down to South Shore , then followed Route 41 through South Chicago, across the border into Hammond, Whiting, East Chicago( where Eric's mom and grandma were raised) and finally down to Highland (where Eric was raised)-all on the same road. In those southern and eastern areas just outside the border of Chicago but still decidedly too urban to be called suburbs, we saw how the houses were mere yards from oil refineries and factories. There was a sense of community juxtaposed with the sadness of urban decay. There were neatly kept homes with curtains in the windows next to vacant lots so covered with broken glass they sparkled in the sun with an ironic kind of beauty. Such contrasts. My prosperous, well-kept, HOA-monitored neighborhood seems both beautiful and banal in comparison. We continued driving from the past toward the future as we showed the kids Eric's old house, then headed further south to where his mom has settled. When we left Highland, I announced to the kids that the historical portion of the tour was over. Without missing a beat, Evan's voice came from the back seat with this commentary, "A tour? That was a historical tour? It sure was boring." Someday they'll want to know this stuff.

The day ended with pizza at Uno's and an impromptu Easter Egg hunt at Grandma's. She is great about celebrating holidays and always sends the kids cards. This time it was nice to actually be with her to celebrate.



Click here for a bunch more photos.

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Spring Break 2009, Friday-Sunday

This time last year, we were winging our way to California to see my brother and explore. This year, the call of time spent with family was just as strong, but we're on the other side of the family and not quite as far from h ome. The eventual destination is Northern Indiana to see Eric's mother and sister. On the way, we decided to have a little history lesson. To that end, we got in our car Friday night and drove to a tiny town called Kirtland, Ohio, near the shores of Lake Erie, which has little significance to anyone but a member of the LDS church or the Community of Christ (formerly known as the ReorganizedLDS church). For us it is a place of history, of spiritual awakening and of pondering what it takes to live one's beliefs in the face of difficulty. Here are a few images:



This building is a temple, built for worship and education. It is now owned by the Community of Christ and they do a beautiful job of maintaining it and sharing it with the public. We got to tour inside it, but it is still a working church edifice, so they ask that no photos be taken inside.


This room is special to me because of what was learned there and who did the learning. Many former leaders of my church that I admire and continue to learn from myself were tutored here to understand that God is a loving God who guides his children.

Now Kirtland is a quiet, quaint little historically reconstructed village that takes just a couple hours to tour. Then, it was the place where a group of people had to figure out who they were and what they would do when their faith was challenged. For that reason, I think there is something for everyone there.

In between tours and braving the blustery weather, we enjoyed our fabulous suite at the Residence Inn and listened to General Conference, a semi-annual broadcast of inspirational messages from leaders of my church. All in all, it was a wonderful weekend of renewal and time spent together.

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Who Knew?

This was in my inbox this morning:
Hi,


Barack Obama (Washington, DC) has confirmed you as his fourth cousin once removed on We're Related.



Follow this link to see how you are related:
http://apps.facebook.com/we_r_related/?page=profile&fid=0U812&r




We're Related Team














---
This email was sent by We're Related. You can disable emails here.

Maybe I can use my newfound relation status to score my friends some tickets to the Easter Egg Roll. I'll get to work.


In other news, everyone is already laughing about the garage door, including the poor under-aged driver. When I told his siblings, as I expected, they did not merely smile or chuckle, they guffawed, open-mouthed, in utter delight that their little brother now has such a cool story to tell. The new door will be installed within days, and all is well. Thanks to everyone for your kind comments. They really helped me get my perspective.

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