Fabric Friday!

The best thing about fall is cool weather fabrics. So much depth, so much texture, so much richness...

For my circa 1966 coat:

Italian Plum wool flannel lined with pistachio satin. On the way home from the fabric store, I remembered I bought this yummy, light pistachio yarn in Ocean City to make gloves. I forgot about that, hence only the beginning of that knitting.

When I signed up for Colette's Fall Palette Challenge, these were not the colors I had in mind. Not at all. But...one goes to the store and has to buy what there is. How do people choose their perfect colors and then go shopping later, anyway?

I don't have anything planned out and I'm already behind. But...hey....I work and have people to take care of.

I would like to make this coat and dress set, a blouse and a skirt. And maybe knit that pair of gloves for my poor, (raynaud's syndrome) suffering fingers. All of this is for work.

Maybe for winter challenge I'll choose something a little less uptight.

FUSE Camp

I never wrote about it. I was waiting patiently for words, but the right ones have not come.

2.5 months have passed. I've mentally composed this entry so many times and it's never good enough.

I have tons of pictures and none of them say what I want them to say.

Maybe some things are meant to be word-less.

All you are going to get is a tiny video clip and one picture from the night that's still too big for me to write about.

You should know these do not say anything about that night and yet they say everything.

Just stuff.

1. Seriously thinking about getting that tat this weekend. Wonder if I will still feel this way over the weekend.

2. I wasn't planning on getting any more animals...really. (I know, that's like hearing me say I wasn't ever planning on eating again.) Meet Oscar:

I'm not sure if he's going to be a "forever pet", but he's here for now. He was slated to be put down last weekend (because nobody wants him). He's a good dog. Officially, he is just here under the premise of being fostered. But, umm...I suspect we just became a two dog family. (Add that to the cat, gerbil and 3 chickens who already live here.)

3. A random, without explanation picture for my girl E. She knows what it means.

4. I am halfway done memorizing Ps. 119. I started that (and took a lot of breaks) mid-March. I'm giving myself 12 more weeks to get the rest done. Because, for real...I really could drag it out until forever.

Gadgets

I'm not really a gadget kind of person in the kitchen. I have a couple of things I could not possibly live without-like my garlic press and a good knife. But, for the most part, any gadgets I do have, I forget I own until after I've already accomplished whatever it was I could have used a machine for.

I used to roll my own tortillas. It took forever and they weren't usually perfectly round. Not that I needed "round", just sayin'.

And then I realized I could buy a press for around $10. For real. $10. (For the record, tortillas cost $4 a package at Safeway now...WHICH IS RIDICULOUS...I could make a stack of tortillas as tall as me before I spent $4 and mine are much more delicious.)

When we cook together, it's Ryan's job to make the tortillas.

Happy Labor Day!

Who even knows what Labor Day is all about? I didn't. I had to look it up. Turns out it's just a day to honor those who go to work.

(Not surprisingly, I'm sure, I have some comments about this concept...but I will keep them to myself. Except for one. How ridiculous is it the idea of someone going to work is evidently novel enough of an idea that it requires celebration? So bizarre. But, it's a day off. So, whatever.)

(Embracing the fact there is a video. There is always a video. Here ya go.
Click here.)

You've seen this salad before. But, it's always so pretty, so you get to look at it again.

And, my summer cake. Irene wasn't too kind to my foliage and the pickings were slim. You might also note it wasn't as "sunshine-y" by the time I got done with the cake.

And then it got a lot less sunshine-y.

Still...fun was had by all...at Barb and Blaine's. (I'll save you from all the mushiness of me being blessed by these people today.)

There was enough food leftover for a couple of more cook-outs.

Finishing off the day with this.

Ezra 3

I was told to read Ezra 3 today, so I read it.

And then I said to myself...????

Later, I read it again.

It's about rebuilding the altar and temple. Or, perhaps (today, for me), just rebuilding.

I have to appreciate the organization of the Israelites. First, they rebuilt the altar in order to worship. Next, they celebrated the Feast of Tabernacles. (I suppose because it was the 7th month and that is what the law said to do during the 7th month. I'd have to research to see if there is further significance to this.) Next, they started offering all of their sacrifices and began keeping the law. Finally, they began rebuilding the temple.

They didn't just start rebuilding the temple all willy-nilly. They didn't even start with rebuilding a structure to live in. They ORGANIZED and they PRIORITIZED. Their first priority was an altar to worship God.

From the first half of this chapter, I am forced to look at the current state of my life.

Today was not perfect. I was unsettled. And then annoyed.

Even though I was at the table (showed up early, in fact), I could not eat and was left starving for the remainder of the day.

Why?

In this night, it occurs to me my priorities are not organized. (This is not a new realization, in fact, it's a frequent realization. I just can't seem to do anything about it.)

Ezra writes how worship led to obedience and obedience ultimately led to them being unified and able to work together.

God has been talking to me for an entire year about obedience. Probably, because obedience isn't my thing. I'm getting better at it, but still...

When I read this chapter the first time, I was somewhat certain (or maybe just hopeful) it wasn't yet another message about me being obedient.

I was wrong.

Worship leads to obedience. Have I even considered the relationship of one to the other? Has it even occurred to me more worship might bring more obedience? And if I was doing both, not just one or the other, perhaps disunity would not be holding my food captive?

Is worship my first priority or do I just try and fit it in amongst everything else that must get done? (No need to answer that for me, I already know the answer.)

The second half:

11 With praise and thanksgiving they sang to the LORD:

“He is good;
his love toward Israel endures forever.”

And all the people gave a great shout of praise to the LORD, because the foundation of the house of the LORD was laid. 12 But many of the older priests and Levites and family heads, who had seen the former temple, wept aloud when they saw the foundation of this temple being laid, while many others shouted for joy. 13 No one could distinguish the sound of the shouts of joy from the sound of weeping, because the people made so much noise. And the sound was heard far away.

The picture my mind forms here is a bunch of people making a bunch of noise.

If you know me, you know I'm not really into a whole lot of noise and chaos. Nor, am I that much into a whole lot of public emotion. So once again, I was all ?????? (What am I supposed to get from this?)

And then it hit me.

Here are these people doing God's work. Some are singing, some are shouting, some are crying... Some are celebrating the change, some are sorrowful of the past.

Is doing God's work any different today?

Did I not get fed today, because I was caught up in the differing emotions (including my own) of everyone around me doing God's work?

How ridiculous is it to think God's work should be emotionless and that everyone should carry the same passions at the same times? That everyone will (at the same time) rejoice over change?

For me (a person who resists change and one who also thought "being unified" was the starting point in a particular situation I'm struggling with), I now have what I was supposed to get from this. As E would say, it's (this second half) almost too big to grasp (and certainly too big to put into the right words now), but I understand it's application for me in this moment.

With everything I do comes some point when I make a mistake.

Sometimes, I can add a spice or pick up a dropped stitch to make it "good enough".

Sometimes, I just decide to throw the whole thing out and start over.

While "good enough" is nearly always easier and far less painful, there are times it will starve you to death if you let it.

Year 3 Day 5

My intention was this: Take the camera to school and photograph all the parts of my room I decorated to look cute/welcoming/whatever and maybe say a few words about that...because...what else is there to say?

And then I forgot my camera. All week. How does someone forget something five days in a row? Maybe it was meant to be.

So, the above picture is purely for decoration. It's from some game I had the kids design last year.

Now, for the meat of this thing...

(I have to give you a brief history to make this story feel complete for me.)

I randomly decided to become a teacher five years ago. (This is my sixth year.) I don't know what my motivation was. I'm sure the "summers off" played into it. I had crazy ideas of what teaching was all about. Perhaps, for some teachers, those ideas are fairly accurate. For my situation, not by a longshot.

There comes a point (that "aha moment" without which I'd be someone else entirely), where one must give up their perceptions of what reality should be and must embrace what reality actually is. Or, at least accept it.

I spent two years in my first school, one year in my second school and this is my third year in (hopefully) my last school.

When I came to this school, I was contractually obligated to complete a full year. (Because, the date to say I didn't want to had already passed.) I was newly happy (I think I wrote about that in some other post on this blog.) and had decided I was finished doing things that didn't contribute to my happiness. Life is too short for all of that.

My plan was teach one more year and then find some other career. Because, while I had accepted reality, I didn't know what to do with it (for lack of a better explanation). I had decided teaching was not my thing.

Because while I had embraced the realities of who I was teaching, I had not given up my perceptions of who and how I was supposed to be as their teacher.

You can round the edges of a square peg, but it's never going to fit perfectly in that round hole.

I could see from the beginning most of my kids were square pegs. The kind who don't even try to be round pegs.

I know I'm a square peg. I kept trying to be a round peg. It wasn't working out all that well.

So there I was at my current school, 2 years ago, thinking I would just weather through and be done with all of it after a year.

Day 1: I remember walking out of there thinking "How can I still feel alive at the end of this day?" Because I had spent the entire previous year walking around feeling stress induced, physical pain and mental exhaustion from a school I never should have been at. (Or maybe I should have...otherwise how would I have recognized such a good feeling?)

Year 1 ended and I knew I could do another year. Year 2 ended and I knew I was where I was supposed to be. In fact, there is no place I'd rather be.

Day 5 of Year 3...Instead of walking out of there with the cute little pictures I was supposed to have taken, I walked out of there with the enormity of...

How awesome my school is.

How awesome my kids are.

How awesome it is I am allowed to be a square peg in a world full of round ones. I mean...for real...can you believe they let me do things like "waste" a week of time just talking to the kids and getting to know them (and letting them figure out who I am) before I hit them with work...(work I know they feel no connection to without having first connected with why they are there in the first place)? Or are fine with me having a fantasy football league (and later soccer) in the name of math?

I'm supposed to be afraid of the kids...according to most of my white friends (who I will admit live in some other reality...they mean well, but yeah...).

My school doesn't have the best reputation. People are first shocked I love the place and then always ask me why I'd stay. I can't really say in the number of words this blog would allow me (although that number is likely infinite).

All I can say today is it is so freakin' awesome to walk out of there on a Friday, after just having had the most engaging conversation with a kid,(a kid I discovered is talented beyond anything I could ever imagine being able to do...a kid who many would tell you is never going to graduate...a kid I might have earlier wondered if this is going to be the year he will keep coming to school, because he quit coming last year...) and knowing that same kid is walking out of the same place understanding there is a reason for him to come back, because not only was he just able to connect what he does with what he will be asked to do, but because some square peg is going to let him lead something in a world in which I'd guess he has felt fairly invisible.

And the whole thing just happened without any intentional agenda or knowledge it was going to happen.

It is a rush akin to no other.