Christmas Question

MAP and I are wondering about a larger family gift for Grammy and Grampy this year. Is it too late to plan? Mary A. says that their refrigerator could use replacing - the door does not shut properly. Another idea is something Grammy mentioned to Mary A. about getting a new dining room set. (I think that would be great because we could pick something smaller and more appropriate to the room.) We thought the refrigerator would probably cost less than a dining room set. What do you think?

Blog Blog Blog

Well, here I am - blogging. I am full of blogging thoughts. I am overwhelmed with creative thoughts about weaving, spinning, and knitting. I need to practice flute for a gig coming up on the 17th and a wedding on Dec. 9. Ahhhh. I need to clean house. My plants are dying. dieing. dead.

Anyway... last night's guild meeting hosted a speaker on Norwegian Tapestry Weaving. Dovetails, slits, cartoons, wise and foolish virgins, Norwegian ponies, dyes, Medieval Times, weaving horizontally versus vertically, sideways vs. something else. This speaker translated an authoritative Norwegian work about Norwegian Tapestry Weaving into English. I did not purchase her book - it did not look like too many did - because I am not in that place, yet.

The Apprentice Weaver's Group met before the meeting - there are 7-9 of us. Next month we will meet and discuss the color wheel we have to make. It's recommended that we make it on plastic canvas and someone else has already all of the yarns that we will need, so we will bring her some money if she can bring the goods. What is the purpose of making a color wheel when we can purchase them easily? Is it so we become more familiar with colors - complementary, tertiary, secondary, etc. with first hand - hands on experience? I suspect that's so. We will have a drafting workshop in late January with Virginia West - a great weaving teacher, author, designer of clothes, etc. I am looking forwar to that. Hopefully on Jan. 21.

Which brings me to blogging about coming to Illinois/ Wis. I can come after Dec. 18th and stay until Jan. 20. Dad says fares are good right now and we were going to work on that tonight, until he was reminded that the Wharf Rat chantey sing is tonight. Ah.

I am going to the dentist at 11:45 to see why I am bleeding between my two front teeth. Blogging is not on my list to do today, but here I am. Unloading my mind. I have a friend at Guild now. Susan Cleveland. She even invited me to sit with her last night. I feel like a school girl. She spins like crazy. She wovethis beautiful scarf made from the hair of her bunnies, her dog, her friend's dog, silk she spun, wool she spun, yarn she dyed. And ribbon. It is really pretty. And soft. She still fondles it a lot. The cream colored bunny is dead. She has a white one now. This was her first woven project. Man. She is very sweet. She lives in the Havre de Grace area, I think. Not close enough to run to for a cup of tea.

I order the Complete Book of Drafting by Madelyn Vanderhoot - probably spelled her name wrong. Looking forward to receiving that. I want to try to read it before the drafting workshop. Hopefully some of it will sink in. I have made a draft already so I am familiar with some of the concepts. Ok. enough of blogging for today. Blog, Eva, blog!!

Contemplate Me Through Leather

My copy of Life on The Mississippi is 552 pages long. Last night, I read sixty some odd pages. I figured out (using those fourth grade math skills Mrs. Aquino taught me) that if I kept up at that rate I would finish the book in ten days. Ten days??? I have two months to finish a book that should really only take ten days? We'll see how long it actually takes.

Did you have to look up what a tontine was? I did.

More thoughts on this later when I am not so dreadfully exhausted. (And hopefully after I've figured out what is the matter with my space bar.) I leave you with this funny: More than once, I've typed "Leif on the Mississippi" instead of the actual title. Methinks that may be a different book.

On Your Mark, Get Set...

Only six more days until we start reading! I am very excited that we are starting up again. For me, this is the perfect time of year to start something new. Even though it is gray and cloudy a lot of the time, I have more drive to get things done in the fall and winter than in the hot stickiness of June and July. Do you have your book yet?

Also, there are only six days until the beginning of National Novel Writing Month (NANOWRIMO for shorter). I have participated before, but mostly just like to check in now and see what others are up to and be encouraged by all the WRITING going on out there.

Two more fun things I've been peeking at this week:
Slate Green Challenge
Posie Gets Cozy

Enjoy! And get your book already!

Spikes and Plateaux

In the spike column:
CAP's piano skills are taking off by leaps and bounds. She is working on her first Christmas songs and is really enjoying sight reading ahead in her books as well as playing songs she has already completed.
Moving toward hemming Jeff's pants. My sewing machine manual arrived in the mail last week and I've taken the machine to the shop to be cleaned and serviced. My friend and I took inventory of the accessories and decided I was missing a piece, but then read a little more of the manual and discovered I wasn't really.
Sewing in general. Am nearly finished making an Advent wall hanging for the UMW craft window. I stitched the top to the backing and machine quilted around the design, fused the ornaments to felt and cut them out and now am sewing the 26 buttons on (24 for the ornaments and 2 for Santa's eyes).
My blue boat neck sweater. Am working on the last sleeve!!
Baby's teeth. Very, very spiky. One of the top teeth broke through yesterday. This may explain recent sleep-deprived nights.

And for the plateau side:
Housekeeping. If I had a digital camera we could insert a photo of any room in the house. They are not awful, but certainly not improving lately. Maybe after this weekend.
Reading. Well, it's hard to read whilst one is knitting/sewing/nursing a biting baby now isn't it?
Making decisions about jobs and school. This is the waiting stage for those things. Even though it is planned, sometimes it is frustrating not to know what comes next. But I am working hard at living in the now and soaking up all these precious moments with my small ones.

How about you?

If Wishes Were Horses

I wanted to write down some of what we talked about earlier. Hopefully, that will make it easier for us to keep track of our progress.

You said the horse you had to give up was named Candy (show name Jean's Estrellita). What year did you sell her? She was half Arabian and half what? She was sold to another 4H-er in Boone County, Illinois. She would be nearly 37 years old now.

I looked up some Animal Rescue places in and near Boone County and came up with a few with websites:
Fur Keeps Animal Rescue, Inc. in Barrington, IL
Winnebago County Animal Services in Rockford, IL
Hooved Animal Humane Society in Woodstock, IL
Northern Illinois Horse Fest (not a rescue, but maybe a place to contact)
Petfinder.com
How's that for a beginning?

Ignorance Is Bliss

At our house, we are trying extra-hard to be responsible citizens, but I am overwhelmed and confused about where to focus. There are so many areas of our lives we are wasteful and lazy. It is easier to pretend that our choices have no consequences.

We have been composting fairly regularly. This is especially easy because all we have to do is collect it and dump it in the compost bin out back. Then our landlord does the rest. We are not so good about the paper products. We use A LOT of paper towels. Not to mention diapers. And tissues. We are not too good about the recycling either.

So this week we reprinted the city's recycling guidelines and are evaluating each piece of garbage before it goes in the can. And I went to the store and bought handkerchiefs. So far we figure I've kept 25 tissues out of the trash. And that was just in one day!

I just read in The Simple Living Guide that most wrapping paper is not recyclable. What is that all about? We use for such a short amount of time!

Also on my mind, at the UMW cluster meeting on Tuesday we talked a bit about globalization and its positive and negative effects. We looked at where our clothes were made, where are food comes from and talked about making choices, but I was busy with the baby and didn't get to hear as much of it as I would have liked. I'm thinking of ordering this book from the Service Center so I can learn more and make more informed choices. What would you think about reading it with me sometime next year? Is this something you are interested in?

November Book

Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain

For January, I like choice #2.

Momma Bunny's Possible January Titles

Well, I love that reading list. Thanks for the link. Here are my 3 possibilities for January - all from the Education for Mission Category:
1. Iraq: A Journey of Hope and Peace by Peggy Faw Gish (319 pp)
2. The Hospital by the River: A Story of Hope by Dr. Catherine Hamlin (308pp)
3. The Bhagavad Gita: A Walkthrough for Westerners by Jack Hawley (194pp)
I'm not absolutely sure what #3 is, but I'm willing to give it a go. Do you want me to include a brief synopsis of each book here or will you look them up on the UMW website?

A Good Start

Ok, I'm still working on the template thing. Let me know what else you want in the sidebars and I think I can get it in there now. I found a link for the UMW Reading Program.

I want to share my good chicken recipe from the other night.

Chicken with Chickpeas
3 1/2 - 4 lbs chicken parts (we used 5 thighs)
2 T unsalted butter
2 C chopped onions
1/2 C chopped scallions
1 19oz can chickpeas, drained and lightly rinsed
1 C water
3 cloves minced garlic
1 tsp ground ginger
3/4 tsp salt (leave it out, I think it will be fine!)
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
a dash of cayenne pepper

Remove the skin from the chicken.
Heat butter in a large pan (with a lid!). Lightly brown the chicken and remove to a plate. Add the onions and scallions to the pan. Cook, stirring often, about 6 minutes. Stir in the remaining ingredients. Return chicken and juices to the pan and turn to coat. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a bare simmer. Cover tightly and cook, turning the chicken once or twice until cooked through, 35-45 minutes.

The chickpeas were mushy and marvelous. In fact, we liked it so much, we're having it again this week.

Oh, was I supposed to be picking a book?

To Miss Militant!

That sounds fine with me. So, when do we begin? Will we use the Methodist Women's guide?

The Rules

1. Book choices will alternate between members.
2. Book choices (a title and an alternate) should be posted by the 15th of the month prior to the month in which they will be read.
3. Book choices should be no more than 300 pages in length...
4. Except for in November and January when longer books may be selected and we will take two months to read each one.
5. Each member gets one veto per calendar year.
6. New members will be considered beginning January 2008.
7. Rules are open to discussion!

How does that sound for a beginning? A little militant? Let me know what you think. Thanks for doing this with me.