Success!!!
I have finally, after months and months, finished my first quilt.
A couple of years ago, I began to work on a full-sized quilt, and I got very little accomplished. This year, I decided to try again, using a simpler pattern. I also wanted to make sure I could actually finish the project, so I decided to make a baby quilt. And after much hard work, I have completed my quilt!
I pieced the quilt using a sewing machine. This is a vast improvement over my last quilting attempt, where I tried to piece the quilt by hand and got approximately two squares finished before giving up. I wanted to be all old-school and do everything by hand, but I came to the realization that no one will see or know that my quilt was pieced by machine.
I did, however, hold to my standard of quilting the blanket by hand. Hand quilting looks completely different (and in my opinion, significantly better) than machine quilting. Goodness it took me forever, though. I can definitely understand the allure of machine quilting.
Anyway, I am very proud of my accomplishment. I sometimes (often) like to give up on projects instead of finishing them. And I finished this one!!
Next up, learning to knit!
Happy Halloween!
Well, we never ended up elbow-deep in pumpkin goop this year. The pumpkins we so carefully picked out have festively adorned the doorstep for fall, but they have not transitioned into Halloween decorations. Oh well. Happy Halloween, anyway!
Neglectful Parenting
Maybe Maddie needs a haircut.
Delusions of Grandeur
I can’t say I would mind an indoor pool, or a hundred living rooms, or especially a two-story library with a spiral staircase and a giant fireplace….but I can’t help the fact that I liked the servants’ bedrooms the best out of all of the family bedrooms and guest suites. So simple and clean and old-fashioned. No Napoleonic chess sets, no hand-tooled Italian leather wallpaper….just white furniture, wood floors, and a window. I suppose it turns out that I don’t need much to be content.
To be honest, though, I would like to be able to wander the house occasionally, and to explore the grounds at my leisure. One of my coworkers told me she would be happy to retire in North Carolina and to take a job cleaning the Biltmore house, just so that she could experience the estate every day. It is a beautiful place.
Aspirations
I want everything for my life. Is that bad?
I want to be a writer. I want to be in a band. I want to be an artist. I want to be part of the change in people’s lives.
I want to quilt. I want to knit. I want to crochet. I want to make stuffed things. I want to make jewelry. I want to screenprint t-shirts.
There is no end to the things I would love to do and be. (well…there are some hobbies and tasks I would pass up)
I would really just like to be able to do whatever I want whenever I want. But things like school and my internship get in the way, and I can do none of the things I would love to do. One day will I be able to sit in my house and craft things all day? Will I be able to lie on the couch and think of new songs and new stories?
Probably not. But how do I choose which things to do?
Death
So right now I am crying over the death of someone I have never met, the news told to me (and by me I mean the internet) by someone else I have never met. I don’t understand it. The gasp, the shock of reading about a family’s loss. It feels like eavesdropping. I feel like I know something private, something I should not have overheard. Why do I feel this strongly? Why am I taken aback today by something strangers encounter somewhere every day? I suppose it is because I know that those around this woman care about her very much. Perhaps my compassion for her family has gotten the best of me. They are the ones left behind to lead the same lives as before, but with a gaping hole where she used to be.
I am not ready to face the death of someone close to me. I cannot imagine how I would cope with the loss of my husband. It makes me sick to think about it. I dread even the deaths of my dogs someday, let alone a human with whom I have a relationship. I grieve just to think about the possibility of having to leave other people behind someday. I don’t want to do something that will cause people pain. Including dying.
Let’s not talk about this anymore.
Radiohead
This is amazing. I inherited Ryan’s iPod touch when he got an iPhone. And Wordpress is all hip and created an iPhone application. So I am currently boiling in the sun waiting for the Radiohead concert to get started, and I’m posting on my blog! I am in awe of the convenience. And I feel all tech savvy and cool!
The Lion
My dad used to tell us the story of the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe at night before bed. I do not remember him reading it to us: I believe he told us his own embellished version of the story. That was his style. I never bothered to read the actual books, though. I vaguely remember picking up Prince Caspian as a kid and not making it past the first couple of pages.
Times change, and after absconding with my parents’ 1978 paperback copies with loose pages, I began to read the series I had ignored in my youth. I identified with Lewis’ dedication of the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe to his goddaughter, when he stated, “But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. You can then take it down from some upper shelf, dust it, and tell me what you think of it.”
Over the past four days, I have read the first three books in the series. I enjoy the stories, and I still secretly wish I could enter a new land through some hidden passageway, but most of all I love Aslan. He is so familiar. So patient and compassionate, so loving and stern, so comforting and fearsome. Lucy’s encounters with Aslan make me appreciate and long for even more the One he symbolizes.
When I read about Aslan, I remember a comment made by a friend while we walked among the angry ancient Asian statues of gods and monstruous tomb guards at the art museum. She said she wished that there was someone like Aslan around; someone she saw fit to be worshipped and treated as divine. I identify with that desire: anything less does not deserve honor or worship. I only wish that more people understood that Aslan does exist, in an even greater form than could be described by a man in a series of short novels. I do not know how people get along in this life without knowing Him. I would be lost without Him. I am so grateful for everything He offers to me as His beloved.
Hello again
So hey, how have you been? I just completed a semester in the last 6 weeks. It was an adventure. I have to do it all again starting Tuesday, but it should be a bit more manageable this time around (I hope!).
The dogs have been busy, too.
That is the last time I fall asleep while they are still wandering around the house. Not only did they chomp into the wire in multiple places and eat both earphone pads, but mysteriously one entire earbud has gone missing….Oh, and notice the tiny bite marks on the remaining earbud. Mama’s little angels, those two.
Well I’m off. I will make a concerted effort to improve my full-time-student blogging. I hope I haven’t lost you forever!
Simplify
My semester is finally over, and my GPA seems to have made it through finals unscathed. Now I have my evenings to myself again, and I have big plans for tonight. Cleaning.
Last night was our night to host our life group, and because cooking took all afternoon, cleaning mostly consisted of shoving everything into the office and shutting the door. More stuff now exists in that office than I thought we owned altogether. I am not thrilled with the discovery of how much we possess; therefore, tonight is the night I am going to attack the office, along with my closet, and get rid of everything unnecessary. That is a difficult process for me, because I imagine all I own (and much more) to be necessary, either for now or for some undefined point in the future.
This problem of extra stuff was made much worse when my parents started removing things from their storage unit, and they located some things of mine I haven’t seen in two years. They unearthed two boxes of books (our bookshelves are already full), some plastic storage drawers, and a plastic chest with all the sentimental junk I have kept since childhood. I have a lot of paring down to do.
I have some extra motivation to simplify: I have been fairly nomadic since high school, moving back and forth between home and college every year for 3 years, moving in with my grandparents, and making two moves with Ryan. We will most likely be moving again at the end of the summer. I HATE MOVING. I figure the less stuff we have, the less painful every move will be.
Wish me luck. Books and clothes are the most difficult for me. Books because I want to own every book in the world, and I dread getting rid of my favorite things. Clothes because I already have a limited wardrobe. I keep clothes long after they cry out for retirement. I still wear a pair of sandals dating back to seventh grade.
I’ll do my best.