Weaving Class Day #3

I was too excited to tell what I did yesterday...I played with patterns. After warping the loom and getting the warp ready to weave, she told us to play around with different patterns. The bottom half of the picture above was completed on Day #2. I found that I have a significant interest in patterns...so much so that I couldn't sleep last night dreaming up new ways to do patterns!

Today we learned to read weaving drafts, which are like blueprints for weavers. Then we got to play with fibers, or threads. We could pick anything in the shop that was on a cone and weave to our heart's content. I did not do any fancy patterns, this time, but did enjoy getting to feel all the different kinds of threads available.

So, above you have me and my sampler. I absolutely LOVE weaving. I have to go home now and figure out how to make room for a loom and all the weaving accoutrements you need! Donations are accepted :)

WEaving Class Day #2

I'm hooked...

Weaving Class Day #1

Today I

• planned a project
• created my warp
• tied the warp off
• threaded the warp through the reed
• threaded the warp through the heddles
• tied the warp to the back bar
• tied the warp to the front bar

It really was quite a lot of work and whew! I'm tired! Thankfully Janice is making a dinner that smells yummalicious!

I'll have pictures when I get back home as I forgot to bring my cords! yikes!

Vignette #4

E, running in the house and slamming down the car keys—clearly in a tizzy: I’m not ever driving her around anywhere.

A not screaming but clearly high-pitched and distressed: Well, what am I supposed to do when you were about to hit a car? Be silent and get hurt?

E: I wasn’t about to hit a car!

A: Yes you were!

Me: Can we stop screaming please? What’s all this about?

E and A simultaneously: “She yells at me when I drive”
“She doesn’t drive like I do and we almost hit a car.”

Me: Let’s talk about this reasonably—I attempt to do so, doesn’t work, I send them to their room to calm down until they can talk reasonably.

About 10 minutes later:

E: I’m serious, I’m not driving her around.

Me: That’s fine, then you don’t drive.

E: That’s not fair.

Me: Sure it is. It’s my car and I can decide who drives and when. If you won’t share the car then you don’t have the right to drive it.

At this point they start arguing with each other again.

Me breaking in: I will sell the car if the two of you can’t come to some agreement about how you’ll drive and ride together.

A: I won’t complain about how you drive, but I will mention if we’re about to hit another car.

E: That’s fine and I’ll do the same.

And it was over. No other mention, no more upset feelings, no anger…just over.

Vacation Pictures

As promised, pictures from our vacation...

Aaah, Vacation

David and I had so much relaxation on our vacation that coming home as been rather shocking...not because anything is bad, but because we can't spend our days as we did on the beach...and we really enjoyed ourselves at the beach. I should have a pic or two up on the blog in a few days.

In a nutshell we:

• played lots of games: monopoly, dominoes, backgammon and battleship
• put together a 1000 piece puzzle
• read 2 books a piece
• talked
• went out to dinner
• walked on the beach once--but it was too windy to really do much else
• drove around looking at all the new construction...did you know that for only $3,000,000 you can buy a 5500 square foot condo?
• slept late
• shopped
• met our friends in Mobile for lunch on our way home.

Can't wait to get back!

A Happy Couple

This happy couple is about to take a bona fide business retreat. We are both much in need of some serious downtime. So, until Thursday next week, I'm at the beach!

The Tunnel

David and I have started walking daily on our local rails-to-trails bike and walking trail. It's not always lovely considering that south Mississippi is probably always the most humid in the morning, but it is nice to have a destination and then be required to come back. I can't wimp out and say "I'm too tired or hot or whatever to continue." About 3/4 mile into the walk there is a tunnel that goes under a busy street. It's a fairly long tunnel--probably 20 yards or more--and it' actually dark inside, and cool and all the other wonderful things you want when you're hot and sweaty.

This week we upped our mileage to three miles and when I see that tunnel on our return trip--about 2 1/4 miles, remember, I'm thinking..."there's the tunnel and I can see the light at the end of it."

And metaphorically that's where I am today. I completed my first draft of a 133 page report. It was a grueling couple of weeks, but I'm proud of it tonight. When I look at it on the other side of the tunnel tomorrow, it may not be so pretty, but today I'm happy...very happy actually...so happy that I could just fall asleep on the couch and not move until I get up to do my 3 mile walk tomorrow morning...

...and I can honestly say that I think I'm looking forward to the beach even more than I thought possible!

And btw, this is a picture of a tunnel in Ireland which, though it doesn't look exactly like our tunnel, reminds me of it somehow...

Busy...

Been busy lately, that's why I've been incommunicado...I think if I were to actually go back and look, I've been working 10-12 hours every day for the past two weeks. The big crunch is over on Friday, thank goodness...then David and I be here for 4.5 days.

One Happy Girl, Part II

Elizabeth got her driver's license today!

Sheer Joy

I bought this amazingly soft fuzzy blanket in Ireland 3 years ago, and Lochi tried to eat it, so I had to put it away. I got it out yesterday to warm my cool feet, and she immediately hopped on, laid down, and got comfy. She's barely moved since (and luckly isn't trying to eat it).

When I was a little girl...

...I liked to organize things. I could entertain myself for hours playing with simple things like buttons and organizing and reorganizing them according to whatever whim happened to come across my mind at the time: color, shape, material, number of holes, etc. I organized the cans of food in the cabinets, the dishes, my clothes, my mom's clothes.

One of my favorite things to do was let things in my room get really really messy so I could clean it up. I would organize my light bright pegs by color. I kept them in old egg cartons. I had a process by which I organized the colors. First I would throw them all on the floor and mix them up really good, then I would create a design of my choosing on the entire light bright board. Then I would take the upper left-most colored peg and have that as my "base". I would then take all the other pegs on the board of the same color and start switching them with the ones next to the base color so that they lined up left to right and up and down. I would continue doing this until all the colors were organized. Then I would remove the pegs by color and put them in the egg cartons. I could be amused by this activity all afternoon.

Upon reflection I'm kind of surprised that I was never suspected as being mildly autistic.

Book Review: Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather

Normally I would wait to give the book review for book club until the day we meet, but I'm afraid I can't curb my enthusiasm for 2 more weeks.

I loved this book--for the 3rd time reading it. I wrote two papers about this book, and a couple of others by Cather, in graduate school. Cather is one of the truly good American writers. You almost get the feeling of reading poetry in her prose, every word is so carefully chosen and every sentence of meticulously constructed. Yet, her writing isn't difficult to read or understand and flows off the page almost in a dream like way.

Death Comes for the Archbishop is the story of two priests who go to "tame" the diocese of New Mexico. Their charge is to build churches and missions throughout the region and to bring the Catholic faith to the Native Americans. The story is based on the real lives of Fathers Lamy (Latour) and Machebeuf (Vaillant) and traces them from their arrival as young men to their deaths as old men. Vaillant is by far the more aggressive and hands on missionary, but Latour is more reflective and spiritual. His acceptance of the native faith and appreciation for the giving nature of the Mexicans impresses the reader.

Told in a vignette style, we meet the many faces and facets of life as a priest in the "wild west": The rich landowners, the native spirituality and unrest, the lawless man, the spiritual woman, the giving mother, the repentent sinner. They are all there. Nature provides the backdrop fo growth and development of all the characters as well as the church which seems to be the central theme for Father Latour--build the church and establish a permanence in the region.

Death Comes for the Archbishop is one of my favorite Cather books. I love her writing style as well as her character development. Her love of space and landscape and how it impacts the people involved is unparalleled.