Jon & Kate

Really, Jon and Kate? I mean, really? What are you thinking???

My thoughts on the Gosselin saga are many… I think that Walt Mueller’s June post (the president of the Center of Parent/ Youth Understanding)  and Christianity Today’s article echoes most of my sentiments. The issues in the Gosselin home, or rather, the issues in BOTH of the parents, are the very same sins that lurk in our own hearts.

“This train wreck called Jon & Kate Plus 8 offers a clear window into the human condition. . . and ourselves. This is a couple whose deep, deep narcissism has made them oblivious to each other, their kids, their extended family, old friends, wise living, and perhaps even the God they so blatantly claim to serve. It appears they’ve forgotten the everyday reality of their human depravity and the constant dangers that it poses. They’ve let down their guard. The evidence seems to point to the fact that they are eagerly engaged in the pursuit and worship of created things, rather than their Creator. Life has become about the things they can get. Kate is embracing the life of a diva. But they are not alone. Each of us has the seeds of the same thing sitting in our own hearts. While you and I can sit where we sit and pronounce it as wrong – and we should – I wonder what I would do if I had the opportunity to receive what they’ve received. I know what I should do. I can say what I think I would do. But I know what I’d be tempted to do. So if we are going to fulfill our responsibility to speak up and criticize, it had better be done in a humble spirit that recognizes beyond a shadow of a doubt that each of us is only one bad decision away from the same thing. . . or perhaps we’re already dealing with this stuff but not for the whole world to see.”- Walt Mueller – “Jon & Kate… Too Late?”

I hope that they get off the TV, in interviews, appearances, and the show. I hope that some kind of person that they respect will come into their life and grasp them by the shoulder and give them a good shake.

It’s been a while

Yeah, it’s been a while.

I just got busy, I guess, but I have missed the blogging world and all the creative energy that comes along with it.

I made a new purse, just in time for us to go to Orlando in the beginning of the March:

It’s the “Covington Bag” by Amy Butler, a discontinued pattern that I purchased on ebay last year. I’m still looking for her “Big Nap” pillow pattern that was discontinued but have had little luck in finding it. The fabric I used for my purse was from the Stonehill collection that I picked up at Joanne’s for a very very reasonable price. I thought it was cute, kinda Amy Butler-ish, but much more affordable. I think the bag cost me about 6 dollars in materials (thanks to a sale and a 50% off coupon), and I have a decent amount of extra fabric left over for a small project. Maybe a matching wallet?

It felt so good to have a new bag to take on vacation!

We went to Sea World while we were in Orlando and checked out the stingray pool, among other things. The stingrays swim around the pool and let you pet them! Sweet Pea thought it was fun.

Another favorite activity of hers was the kiddie fountain at our hotel.

The water was really cold, but she didn’t seem to mind. Looks like I know what to buy her for this summer! A sprinkler.

Coming to fruition

After quite some time of conceptualizing,  my snowboarding sweater is on the needles!

I’m using some patons classic merino wool that I bought on Black Friday and it was quite a steal, as everything usually is at 6 am the day after Thanksgiving!

Distracted

“But Martha was distracted by much serving.” – Luke 10:40

Last Saturday night I found myself in a familiar place.

The kitchen.

I feel like half my waking hours are in the kitchen sometimes.

We had two couples from our bible study over for dinner; one couple just brought home their first baby and the other couple had an adorable, rambunctious toddler just a little older than our Sweet Pea. So I was in the kitchen, cooking dinner, cleaning up after dinner, making coffee and dessert.

But I wasn’t distracted by serving. I found myself thinking , “Hey, I’m in the kitchen and everybody else is chillin’ in the living room…… but I am totally OK with that… those girls deserve a break…”  I then started to pray for my friends while I was doing the dishes.

This was a markedly different thought process than I had several weeks earlier when I was once again in the kitchen, but that time I was distracted by serving.

After our guests left and I went to bed, I opened up a devotional by Charles Spurgeon that spoke about Martha from Luke 10:40.

Her fault was not that she served: The condition of a servant is commendable in the Christian. “I serve” should be the motto of all the princes of the royal family of heaven. Nor was it her fault that she had “much serving.” We cannot do too much. Let us do all that we possibly can; let head and heart and hands be engaged in the master’s service. it was no fault of hers that she was busy preparing a feast for the Master. Happy Martha, to have an opportunity of entertaining so blessed a guest; and happy, too, to have the spirit to throw her whole sould so heartily into the engagement. Her fault was that she grew “distracted with much serving,” so that she forgot Him and only remembered the service. She allowed service to override communion, and so presented one duty stained with the blood of the other. We ought to be Martha and Mary in one: We should do much service and have much communion at the same time. For this we need great grace…….Beloved, while we do not neglect external things, which are good enough in themselves, we ought also to see to it that we enjoy living, personal fellowship with Jesus. See to it that sitting at the Savior’s feet is not neglected, even though it be under the specious pretext of doing Him serivce. The first thing for our soul’s health, the first thing for his glory, and the first thing for our own usefulness is to keep ourselves in perpetual communion with the Lord Jesus and to see that the vital spirituality of our faith is maintained over and above everything else in the world.

I realized that I’ve had a really messed up view of Martha & Mary. I had categorized myself as a “Martha,” because I DO things. I get stuff done. I serve. I cook. I clean up. And most of the time, I like doing it.

I have a “Mary” in my life, and like Martha, “Mary” drives me nuts. She is always at the Lord’s feet, always reading a book, a devotional, resting, taking a nap, and hardly ever lifting a finger to help. It’s always been really hard for me to serve her and I think that might be because I was jealous and annoyed by her “Mary-ness”.  Sure, I would love to have several hours in the middle of the day to spend with the Lord, but somebody’s gotta cook dinner, Mary sure isn’t going to do it. Being around my Mary perpetuated my warped belief that I must be a Mary to please God. Leaving my  home in shambles and ignoring my guests to spend time with God.

“Hello Mary! There’s lots to do, this is why I spend my time with God BEFORE the day gets started! Could you get off your knees and make a salad?”

What I read in that devotional was SO helpful! I loved what Spurgeon said about being Mary & Martha in one! Yes, it is incredibly vital and pleasing to God that we have living, personal fellowship with Jesus; spending time with the Lord is vital to our soul’s health and time must be set aside for just that daily. We need that before we can be useful in serving Him, in serving our families, in serving others. And yet in addition to that quiet time before the Lord, we can commune with Him while serving. We should commune with Him while serving, otherwise our focus will turn to our service and not the Lord.

God wants us to serve, but he doesn’t want us to be distracted by the doing, he wants us to keep our focus on Him. He has given us areas of service- our husband, our children, our home, a ministry- but once we stop communing with Him during our work, things start to fall apart. You get stressed. Your fuse is super short. Everything annoys you. Nothing works. I know. I’ve been there and I’m sure I’ll be there again at some point this week!

I got it, that night I was serving my friends. I was serving the Lord by serving them. I wasn’t bitter that I was the only one in the kitchen, I loved that I was able to give them a break from doing dishes. I knew WHY I was serving them, my focus wasn’t on the preparations of dinner, it was them. Because I loved them. Because I love my Savior.

snow day

Our town has been walloped with snow over the past few days and the snowfall has been the main story on the news.

This evening we almost fell off the couch laughing so hard at the captions underneath the people who were interviewed:

Man snowblowing outside- “Joe Somebody- Surprised by Snow” - really? You were surprised? It’s only been forcasted for several days now….

Young man at a convenient store in enormous pickup truck: “Joe Somebody-Else- Shopping for Grandmother.”

Did anybody else find that funny?

Black Friday timeline

5:40 am- walk into the vestibule of Joann’s, giant coffee mug, ad, coupons, and clipboard in hand.

5:43 am- starting talking to the other women in line. “What are you making?”
“Who taught you how to sew?” “Oh, what a cute idea!” “Fabric for a fundraiser? How sweet.”

5:45 am- bond is forged among crafters/ sewers/ knitters in line.

5:50 am- Bonded crafters/ sewers/ knitters knock on the door to ask store associates to bring out a wheelchair for one of their own. A cute old lady who makes no-sew fleece throws. Walking with her cane and carrying bolts of fabric would be too hard for her.

5:59 am- Doors open. Exciting but controllable chaos ensues.

7:30 am- sitting and browsing through the Butterick patterns (99cents!) while waiting for my number to be called at the cutting counter. Cart is overflowing with bolts of fabric, yarn, and fabric steamer.

7:31 am- See JR, Lynne’s husband. He called Lynne over and we were able to discuss our projects. Always fun to see someone you know and love at Joann’s.

8:30 am- arrive back home, everyone still sleeping.

The crowd at Joann’s is much different than that of the mall, Circuit City, Best Buy, etc, don’t you think?

I picked up a good amount of the flannel that was on sale for a variety of baby gift projects:

Some green fat quarters to finish up Sweet Pea’s Wall Growth chart:

Some fabric for Christmas gifts and decor:

And, of course, some Patons Yarn. No photo of the stash, but I do believe I will be finally making the sweater I dreamt up long ago, a-la- Zimmerman.

Now I want to just hole up in my craft room and create. Could somebody else run the house while I’m in there? Thanks

My baby’s one!!!

Yay for surviving and thriving year number ONE!!!

To-Do

My life has been a giant to-do list lately. Mostly move related.

Finally, our condo is rented to a lovely couple who is getting married in the fall. They’ll be moving in shortly after we move out! We listed the property on Craigslist and utilized a free web program called V-Flyer to make a professional looking listing. It took 8 days to rent the place- and we didn’t have to spend any money for classified ads!

So now it’s full steam packing ahead. Stumbling over boxes, not being able to find anything. I’m sure you can relate.

And a little decor planning for the new place.

I found this cool site through Better Homes & Gardens that allows you to virtually arrange your furniture in your house. You input the room’s dimensions, add architectural elements like windows, doors, etc., and then add the furniture you have. Very fun. BHG has a variety of web programs to try out new color schemes, arranging your deck and yard… it’s quite easy to spend way to much time on there.

I get to buy appliances for the first time in my life this week! A fridge, stove, and hood. I just need to find someone who can install the hood. Is it complicated to put a vent through brick?

I’m researching dog-containment systems (aka the invisible fence type deal) for Mercy, but we will probably be doing some cheap snow fencing for the first year. I just like to plan ahead… logistically and financially.

I’ve been weeding through the different things we want/ need to do to the house and phasing it out. We need to paint NOW, but we don’t need new bedroom linens immediately. Unfortunately, the linens in a bedroom affect the wall colors, so it looks like we’ll be going quite neutral for now. The bathroom needs some work but it works until we have a influx of cash to redo it. The floors should be refinished but that may or may not happen based on how quickly we paint.

In the midst of the above mentioned chaos, I’ve been enjoying walking to the gym as often as I can, since we are currently only a block away. Once we move, we’ll have to drive 2.6 miles to get there. Working out has been my sanity.

What helps you keep your sanity?

Consequences of Polygamy in Knitting

When knitting a baby project, BE MONOGAMOUS!!! Do not fall into temptation and dabble in other projects. The resulting consequences can be devastating…

That said, I have very little time to complete the Cabled Coat with Hood, as spring is coming and Sweet Pea is growing. She will be 6 months May 10th…….. is it possible to finish by then? If I tarry much longer, it will be too warm outside for her to wear! I am just starting the sleeves… I’ll be back when I can!

Flight of the Yorkie

We took Mercy with us to California again this year, citing boarding costs as our “reasoning.”

Truthfully, we didn’t want to leave her home and since there were two of us, we figured that one could handle the dog, and the other take care of the baby. We were quite the hit in the airport- all the adults oooed and ahhed over little Sweet Pea and all the children oooed and ahhed over Mercy.

By the way, has anyone ever seen a family travel with their baby AND dog? I’d like to think that we aren’t the only crazy ones…

Mercy flew in her “little kennel,” the FAA approved kennel that can fit under a seat. Dogs under 15 pounds can fly in the cabin with their owners provided their kennel fits under the seat. Flying with your pet will cost you, but it was less expensive than boarding her while we were gone. We use Mercy’s “little kennel” whenever we travel with her, by car or by air. She knows the command and gets very excited when the kennel comes out. The day we left, our flight was at 5 pm and her kennel was in the front hallway along with the rest of our luggage and Mercy just kept going in there, as if to say “Is it time to go yet? Is it time to go???”

She was not sedated and she was perfectly fine. On our way to California, we had a longer layover and Keith was able to sprint out to the outside of the airport and let her out for a potty break before our second flight. On the way home we didn’t have any time between flights, but Mercy didn’t seem to mind.

These are a few tips I have found helpful in traveling with a dog:

- Have your dog’s shots up to date and carry that documentation WITH your dog, we stored the paperwork in a small compartment in her kennel. We’ve never been asked for proof of vaccination at the airport, but you never know…

- Do not feed your dog 12 hours prior to the flight to prevent airsickness and also to make sure that your dog won’t have to do a “doodle” during flight.

- Make sure your dog’s collar is secure. Check for wear on her collar to ensure that it will not break at an inopportune moment. Collars with plastic buckles can break and I don’t recommend traveling with these on your dog.

- Bring a 4 foot leash for use in and around the airport. It’s easier to control your dog when on a shorter leash. Some airports let you take your dog out, some don’t.

- Bring a few days worth of food for your dog IN YOUR CARRY-ON luggage. If you get stuck somewhere, Fido’s gotta eat and you definitely don’t want to change his food while stuck in a strange city. Some dogs get diarrhea when they change food.

- DON’T let anyone put their fingers in your pet’s kennel. Fluffy may have never bitten anyone in her life, but when placed in a stressful situation, she may react differently. Mercy has growled at well-meaning people in the airport before.

- Know a name of a vet near where you will be staying.

Happy travels!