Photo a Day: Made Me Smile Today

So, that worked well, huh?  Photo a Day must actually mean Photo a Fortnight, because that's how long it's been.  Oh, well.  I never did promise perfection. ;o)

Yesterday's prompt was "Made You Smile Today".  My new hobby sure makes me smile.  I've wanted to learn how to weave for years.  It seems to me to be a natural progression from knitting to spinning to weaving.  I think I'm an odd type of learner in that I seem to learn best by watching videos or reading about how to do something for months before I actually try it.  I learned about the types of looms and how they work and what you can do with each and then watched video after video on youtube of others weaving on the type of loom I'd decided on.  I then spent weeks thinking about weaving and imagining what it would be like to weave and what I would make on a loom.  So, when I received my new loom and got it all assembled (also learned through video) I felt like I'd done it all before.

My friend, Abby, came over to visit when I was just beginning so I got to verbally overload her with all the stuff I'd been learning, and she got to witness the insanity that is me learning a new skill.  I've had people compliment me before on my knitting or crocheting or stamping and say how talented I am.  I don't know about all that.  I do think that because I throw myself, often quite headlong, into learning new skills that interest me, I tend to look like less of a beginner than I am because, let's face it, not everyone tries weaving lace on their 10th row ever.  I simply don't know any better. ;o)

Photo a Day: What You Read

A friend shared this photo challenge from FatMumSlim on her blog, and I'm going to try to join in.  Maybe it will help me post a bit more throughout the month...maybe.

Today's photo prompt is "what you read".  Another friend recommended the Hawk and Dove Trilogy.  On her recommendation I immediately bought the trilogy and began reading on my kindle.  I'm now halfway through the second book in that trilogy and finding the stories therein captivating and inspiring and of great spiritual merit.  I highly recommend that every Christian read this series (and, I understand, there are new books in this series...more of the same, I trust.).

  

with love from me

Dear Me-at-15,

I know for you 20 years seems like a lifetime, but from my perspective it's been a blink of the eye.  And yet, I barely remember being a teen, though I still feel all the old familiar insecurities at times.

You've just returned from a Girl Scout trip to Montana where you spent 3 weeks with other girls from all over the country.  It was your first time out in the big world "all alone" and you totally rocked it!!  I know it seems impossible now, but you'll lose touch with every single girl from that trip, although the memories will never leave you.  They'll shape how you view not only the greater world, but yourself as well.

My YFC Northern Ireland ministry team. I'm in the stripes front and center.

Your confidence will lead you to go even further next summer...to Northern Ireland with Youth For Christ.  Don't be afraid to step out in faith.  This trip will stretch you more than anything to date.  You'll have to speak to strangers about your faith and really own it personally.  Throw yourself fully into the experience and make purposeful memories you'll cherish for years to come.  From the other members of your team you'll learn how small your view of God is and your heart and mind will grow so much in 3 weeks you'll hardly recognize the person who returns.

High school's pretty torturous, I do remember that.  You just keep being you and don't worry about living up (or down) to whatever they expect. You tend to worry too much about what others think. Hold tight to the person God created you to be and don't compromise.  That said, there's no need to put so much pressure on yourself to be perfect.  God loves you far more than you could ever imagine or understand.

High School graduation day.  Showing off our honor cords.

After a bit of waffling and floundering, you'll attend an amazing Bible College where you'll learn even more about God and others and yourself.  A word of warning: After your freshman year you'll feel like a Bible genius.  Don't let it go to your head.  Just because you know so much more than you did a year ago doesn't mean everyone else is Bible-dumb or that you don't have tons more to learn.  You'll spend your whole life learning from and about the Lord and never know it all.

I'd love to be able to warn you about poor decisions to shield you from hurt, but the truth is, everything in your life is there for a purpose.  Every experience and person and triumph and failure will contribute to the person you'll become.  You'll learn patience and trust and how to be comfortable in your own skin.  So, I wouldn't wish any of them away or change one moment of the years to come.

Just two more words of advice before the portal closes and I must go.  First, cut your parents some slack.  They're human, not perfect.  They love you so much and only want what's best for you.  Trust their judgement and learn from and about them.  It will greatly expand your understanding of how they became who they are.  Second, on Christmas Eve 1997 you won't want to go to lunch at Eat 'n' Park but you will.  You won't be looking for or expecting it, but that's the day you'll meet your husband.  He's everything you've hoped for and more.  God sure knows what He's doing. ;o)

Now, get back to band practice.  Enjoy these days.  They're shorter than you think.

Love,

         Me-at-35

Linking up with Emily at Chatting at the Sky to help her introduce her new book Graceful for young women.

yarn along update

If nothing else, Ginny's Yarn Along is getting me to post more often. haha  I do enjoy seeing what others are working on and reading.

I'm still working on the same books as last time: A little further in the Lord of the Rings, not so much in the others.

I'm making great progress on my Baby Quill Shawl/Blanket, however.

4 days confined to home after an outpatient procedure made for great knitting time.  Just me, netflix and this project.  I was able to zip through all the garter stitch and the old shale border in just over a week.  All I have finished of the edging is shown in that photo.  I'm very happy with it and would love to take a full pic with it all spread out, but, alas, it's trapped on a long circular needle that's not nearly long enough to make it look like anything more than a poorly constructed bag at this point.

Tomorrow morning we venture to Pittsburgh for our final homestudy meeting with our agency, so I'll have quite a bit of time to knit on the round trip.  By tomorrow night I'm hoping it resembles more of a blanket than a bag. :)

my first yarn along

I'm, finally, linking up with Ginny at Small Things for her weekly Yarn Along where she shares what she's reading and knitting.  I've wanted to do this for weeks and always seem to think about it on Thursday, which is a day late.  So, I'm writing this Tuesday night with hope that I'll post it sometime Wednesday so I can participate. :)

On the nightstand:
I tend to have several books in progress at any one time, and now is no different.  These days my kindle is serving up regular portions of The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (reading through it for the first time ever) and The Open Adoption Experience (some required reading for our agency). However, what I want to share is an actual, physical book I bought a couple weeks ago and just started reading last night.  Color in Spinning by Deb Menz has been on my must-read list for quite some time.  I love color and in this book I'm learning so much about how to use and manipulate it to achieve the results I want in my dyeing and spinning. I so enjoy learning new things.  I can just feel my brain sucking in all the colorful knowledge. 

On the needles:
I am a member of the 12 Shawls in 2012 group on Ravelry.  In case the group title isn't descriptive enough, we're each attempting to knit 12 shawls this calendar year.  On Sunday, as we drove 1 1/2 hours to meet my dad and sister for Father's Day lunch, I cast on #7.  I'm knitting my first Shetland hap shawl, the smaller version of Quill in all white for use as a baby blanket.I'm already 1/3 of the way through the center square, and while I fully expect to feel a bit comatose from all the garter stitch by the time I start the outer border, for now I'm thoroughly enjoying it.  Mindless and simple enough for a travel project and going quite quickly...so far.

in which i finally blog adoption

Thirteen and a half months ago, the day before our 11th wedding anniversary, we had our first meeting with our adoption agency.  We met at a little local restaurant halfway between here and Pittsburgh. I remember telling her our history and why we wanted to adopt.  I remember laughing together and laying our hearts bare about our desire to be parents.  I also remember how her face lit up when Lee mentioned my blog.

"You have a blog?" She almost bounced out of her seat.
"Well, yeah, kind of..."
"What do you blog about?"
"It's kind of a personal-walk blog about how God is growing and changing me, but it's still pretty new and empty.  I'm not sure what I'll do with it."
"Will you blog your adoption journey?  Expectant birthparents love blogs."  *Big smile* leaning forward in anticipation.

I could tell a "yes" would be well-received, but I wasn't sure how to answer.  I hadn't really planned on sharing that journey here in detail, since it will ultimately involve others who may not appreciate being blogged.  While anyone who's known me for more than an hour knows at least a little about our desire to parent and plan to adopt we're pretty private people.  (I, for some reason, always feel the need to clarify that while we've been married more than a decade and don't have kids, we really do want them.)  We don't post much to facebook, where we only friend people who are actually friends and family.  It all just feels a little voyeuristic to us. "Hey, look at us, we're doing stuff! Don't you wish you were doing it, too?"

So, when I gave him that silent look with the raised eyebrows that says, "How would you feel about me blogging all this?" He shrugged and said, "She can write whatever she wants.  I don't care."

I was a bit floored.  You see, I'm the talker, the extrovert, the sharer.  I'm the one who has random conversations in the cereal aisle of the grocery store with complete strangers.  Lee is most decidedly the opposite of all that.  So, the thought of sharing on a public blog something so close to our hearts, something we rarely allude to on facebook among friends scared me, so I couldn't imagine what made him say "go for it".

Which is why it's taken me over a year to finally write this post...my first about our adoption journey.  I've decided to do this mostly for others who are starting this road and aren't sure what to expect, but also for our family and friends who want to know more about this adoption journey that so few of us travel.

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We had our second of three homestudy meetings on Thursday.  This was the in-home meeting and would involve a walk-thru tour of our home.  I'd read blogs and received advice from other adoptive moms about this visit.  I wasn't to worry about my house or clean every cupboard or reorganize the pantry.  Now, I'm a bit of a perfectionist, and I have ADD, and I love to reorganize, so simple cleaning almost always involves at least one cupboard or drawer turned out on a table.  But I commited to being cool about this and not worrying myself to death over an uberclean house.  And God guaranteed that I'd keep that commitment.

On Monday, just 3 days before our in-home meeting with the walk-thru tour, I had my gallbladder removed.  I spent the week before doing my best to finish the incomplete 1% of every project we've started in the 11 years we've lived in this house.  (Lee handles mechanicals, I handle aesthetics)  I didn't get to them all, but I also didn't reorganize cabinets or overhaul our living room so I'll call it a win.

Monday I went into the hospital.

Tuesday evening I came home.

Wednesday afternoon my best friend, Naomi, and her 2 wonderful boys blessed me with a clean bathroom and floors.

Thursday came and brought Lisa, our agency worker.  The majority of her visit was questionnaires and interviews with us.  You see, her job is to take 3 face-to-face meetings and a handful of questionnaires and put together a document that describes us, our home and our life.  I do not envy her that job.  I've known us for almost 15 years and would have a hard time doing all that.

When interviews were over, we gave her the "grand tour."  I expected questions like, "where will you put a play pen?" and "do you have covers for your outlets?"  Instead, her scrutiny of my house left me...underwhelmed.  Her notes consisted of a list of the rooms we have "living room, dining room, kitchen, etc" with no comments regarding the new lithograph in the hall or the fact that the bathroom is sorely in need of a new coat of paint.  She does think my kitchen, with mismatched cabinets and limited counterspace, is spacious, so maybe she just needs new glasses. ;o)

In all seriousness, though, it's a classic case of inflated expectations.  Even though I was warned I still expected scrutiny and judgement and disappointment.  You see, we don't live in a brand new house with all the amenities.  11 years ago we bought a starter home and stayed.  We've made it newer in a lot of ways with new flooring, new paint, new bathroom fixtures, but when I look closely I still see that old house with little more than potential.

Before she left, Lisa asked about the funny little thing in the corner of my living room...my spinning wheel.  I then proceeded to do a short spinning demonstration, drug her into my studio to show her my handspun and even pulled out the latest Woolgatherings Fiber Club installation that I plan to spin for baby things. (It's all bright pink/yellow/green and superwash BFL. So yummy!!)  So, I guess she definitely met the "real" me. LOL

project simplify: week 1 (late report)

Over the past several years I've lived in a pretty constant state of decluttering.  I have a box on a bench in the dining room that collects those items I periodically come across and decide to purge.  Every couple of months, or when we need to use the bench where the box(es) resides, I make a trip to our local Goodwill to pass on the "treasures" contained therein.

Yet, somehow, I still have entirely too much stuff, or, at least, what feels like a gross imbalance of stuff to space.  At times, I've felt the stuff:space ratio is acceptable, but the organization of said stuff does not lend itself to comfortable living.

Enter Project: Simplify.  I love that Tsh gives us an area each week to focus on, a deadline (so ADD-me doesn't fall too far off track), and a place to link up with others doing the same for recognition and moral support.

Last week the focus was on kids' stuff.  While I don't have kids, yet, I do have a stash of kids' stuff, but I'd just purged a load of "someday" kids' stuff last year keeping only neutral infant items.  However this challenge coincided nicely with the completion of our nursery.  (No, this isn't meant to be a covert announcement.  We're still working through adoption paperwork and prep.)  Last month I spent a weekend painting the room while the mattress and dresser clogged the hallway.  Then last weekend we carpeted and moved the furniture back in, along with the crib we received several years ago from a friend and my mother's rocking chair that's only slightly older than me (and identical to the one Lee's mother had).

The before pictures are pretty bad, since they're pre-paint and carpet, so I'll just show you the after. :)

Next week: Fridge/Pantry