Hemming and Hawing

Harpy Girl has to have her orchestra dress hemmed and ready Wednesday for a group picture. Said dress arrived home Monday night (and of course we were busy and had no time to hang the hem.) Tonight after Reedy Girl's oboe lesson we headed to do some shopping at the mall.

(They must be getting older, or I am growing in grace, because it was really fun shopping at the mall together. Of course, as Harpy Girl pointed out, I did not make her try on any clothes -- a fate worse than death -- so what was not to like?)

But, arriving home at 8:30 on Tuesday night, with said dress still unhemmed... ah well... here I am resting my fingers, rubbing my eyes and stretching my back... it is still not done! Sit. Stitch. Fold. Check. It's fiddly polyester knit too. Every stitch that is a smidge too big shows. Black dress. Black thread. At night. With bifocals. sigh... My kingdom for a nice broadcloth...

But as I work my way around the hem, I think of all of the skirts, dresses and gowns that were hemmed for me (often at the last moment) by my mom. Some were huge flowing skirts, very full. Some were fabrics that must have made her groan. A couple of times my grandmother, who sewed the tiniest stitches helped with the handwork. They were all gifts of love.

That's why I'm willing doing this. I'm sure I'll do it again. I'm just grateful that the semester is ended and that I don't have a paper to finish ON TOP of the hem. Time flies. Hems don't wait... which is why I have to get back to the task at hand. Here's hoping they don't find me asleep on the dress in the morning... ...and yards to go before I sleep and yards to go before I sleep...

Before I forget -- thanks, Mom!

From our home to yours...
Deb

Advent: Names of God (week two)

Week Two of Advent. No less busy than the first, and the rehearsals, concerts and parties are appearing on the calendar fast and furious. The coming celebration of Christmas is now, and not yet (in more ways than one!) Here's this week's snippets to think on as you run your errands, sit in traffic, and yes, find time to remember God in the mix!

From our home to yours -
Deb


December 10
Name of God: "My Refuge"
Scripture: Psalm 9:9, 46:1

December 11th
Name of God: "Shepherd"
Scripture: John 10:14; Psalm 23

December 12th
Name of God: "Son of God"
Scripture: Matthew 14:33; Luke 1:35; Revelation 2:18

December 13th
Name of God: "I AM"
Scripture: Exodus 3:14

December 14th
Name of God: "Mighty God"
Scripture: Genesis 49:24; Job 36:5; Isaiah 9:6

December 15th
Name of God: "Holy One"
Scripture: Psalm 16:10; 89:18; Proverbs 9:10; Isaiah 29:19

December 16th
Name of God: "The Lamb"
Scripture: John 1:29, 36; Revelation 7:10

Fa-la-la-la-la, La Friday Five

From the RevGalBlogPals:
Those of you who read my blog know I have a love-hate relationship with the 24/7 Christmas music we're subjected treated to in stores and radio (in the U.S. at least). It gets too sentimentally sticky-sweet sometimes, yet I find myself unable to resist it. Nothing says "it's Christmas" to me like John Denver and Rolf the Dog singing "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas." So...

1. A favorite 'secular' Christmas song.
White Christmas -- only because I love the movie!

2. Christmas song that chokes you up (maybe even in spite of yourself--the cheesier the better)
Mary Did You Know? ...just gets me... no logic, I know.

3. Christmas song that makes you want to stuff your ears with chestnuts roasted on an open fire.
Hands down, the song that makes me want to say "gag-me-with-a-candy-cane" is the Carpenter's "Merry Christmas Darling" -- WHY does it still get airtime??? YEEEIIICK!!! (Then there's always "Christmas Shoes" which is... ugh... never mind...)

4. The Twelve Days of Christmas: is there *any* redeeming value to that song? Discuss.
Sure. Re-write the words HERE! At least you can practice your parts of speech painlessly...

5. A favorite Christmas album
Hard one... so many cheesy ones that get eliminated from the start! I'm going to go traditional with our CD of Handel's "Messiah" performed by Sir Neville Marriner and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields...

Now, I'm off to sing "Deck the Halls" as re-written by Walt Kelly of Pogo fame. (A song we used to sing and drive my parents CRAZY!!!!

Wally-wally-wash-and-Kalamazoo to U!

Deb

Flake-A-Thon

Create a snowflake! Or twenty! The more flakes that are created, the more money that Popular Front will donate to the Salvation Army for their programs and outreach ministries at the end of the year. You also get to do a shout out to friends and family too...

All it takes is a random click and drag of the mouse! Try it! See the snowflake I made for the RevGalBlogPals HERE! And for friends and fam - look HERE!

From our flake-y home to yours-
Deb

Christmas Meme

It's a Christmas Meme - just some fun things to share about your Christmastime traditions...

1. Eggnog or hot chocolate? Chocolate all the way... with whipped cream on top!

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? Santa doesn't do squat. I have to wrap them.

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? White - I know, I know, that's boring... but it's a long story... they were on sale, see... and...

4. Do you hang mistletoe? No... no particular reason... I just don't.

5. When do you put your decorations up? Whenever I can after Thanksgiving but before December 24th... There's no set time. It helps if it isn't freezing cold (like today!)

6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)? Well, I never! There are holiday dishes that AREN'T desserts??

7. Favorite holiday memory as a child? Being with my whole family - grandparents, parents, sibs, and the happy madhouse of it all.

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? There's a secret? What did he do?

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? Nope. Usually I am still wrapping!

10. How do you decorate your Christmas tree? Oh, it is a Ralph Lauren designer tree. Completely color-coordinated with computer programmed lights, plaid bows, matching ornaments and it rotates on a stand like one of those department store trees. ...NOT!! It has lights of many colors, lots of ornaments - some homemade, some gifts, some I just wanted for ME. It has silver 'beads' because one of the girls saw them one year and thought that they were pretty. It has a plug in star on the top from my family's tree.

11. Snow! Love it or dread it? Neither - I just deal with it. When it falls - shovel it. Drive carefully and play as much as I can.

12. Can you ice skate? I CAN... but DO I? Not any more - these knees are too old.

13. Do you remember your favorite gift? Don't know as I have one. I have been given many lovely things.

14. What's the most important thing about the holidays for you? Time with family, worship and probably sleeping in.

15. What is your favorite holiday dessert? Definitely those tea cakes covered in powdered sugar... yummmmm!

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? Watching the kids enjoy the lights the first time the tree is decorated and turned on. And Christmas Eve when we celebrate the birth of the Christ Child.

17. What tops your tree? A star with lights. Hopefully not the cats!

18. Which do you prefer, giving or receiving? Giving.

19. What is your favorite Christmas song?
The Cradle Hymn. (The traditional melody is a Kentucky folk tune. You can find the music here! )

20. Candy canes: yuck or yum? Real peppermint ones? YUM. The ones that are red and white striped and taste like soap? YUCK.

21. Favorite Christmas movie? Charlie Brown

22. What do you leave for Santa? The credit card bills... he never takes them!

Your turn - re-post as "Christmas Meme!"

From our home to yours-

Deb

Making a list, Checking it twice...

Mine BBS (Beloved Bearded Spouse) is getting anxious. I can not seem to come up with a list of things for him to shop from... and this is not good. If I don't do something soon, I will get things HE thinks maybe I'll like. His batting average is so-so... And when he has an imaginative idea, it's a dangerous thing. It's his heart I love anyway, not his shopping clairvoyance factor.

The problem is, I don't know what to tell him. The stuff I'd really like I don't want to ask for because it's, well, really considered something like conspicuous consumption. (It would only replace what I have that works fine or looks nice, I just want a newer/better/zippier/higher octane one...) The stuff I'd prefer is boring, or requires him to do something he doesn't want to do or would cost a lot to pay someone to do it. I don't really need more nice pens (I lose them) or desk accesories (I like what I have.) I'm not a jewelry freak. Poor guy! I need to help him out here... it's just a wee dilemma. Do I tell him what I really want???

Can I dream big? I could ask for...
- a cleaning service. I CAN clean my own home. I just wish I didn't have to... or that he has to deal with it when I am too wheezy to do it.
- getting the upstairs painted (it's been 10 years... geesh!)
- new carpeting in our bedroom
- a kitchen make-over - floors, cabinets and definitely a paint job

Or do I go practical? For instance, I need to add to my commentaries... yeah, right. That'll fly. I do need a new pair of slippers since the pair I have contributed to a rather ungraceful fall down the steps... and I could think of many things electronic and in the kilobuck category...

How about philosophical? Not just world peace, but JOY for those I know who are so depressed, or angry, or living the results of acting stupid. UNDERSTANDING for those who are struggling to see the meaning of the life. HEALING for the sick and COMFORT for the hurting...

SOoo... I am still stuck. I'm content with the blessings I see around me when I look at the faces at the dinner table, or read little notes on my desk... I'm aware of how much I have been given... Can I just get cards from Amazon and B&N?

dang it, he still wants that list...

I may just write down "World Peace" anyway. If "Miss Congeniality" can want it, then I can too!

From our home to yours...
Deb

Tolkien, Quail and Mercy

A bit of writing from an assignment... My Old Testament Survey class had an on-line discussion about the "Old Testament God" of wrath vs. the "New Testament God" of mercy.

It seems to me that our “Old Testament God” has always showed mercy, extended beyond what one would have expected. He disciplined the people of the desert, yes. He spoke through the judges, and He refined with the Refiner’s fire those who were exiled. He gave The Children of Israel word pictures, prophetic dreams and promises of His mercy. And He gave them every opportunity to be fully restored in fellowship with Him. He brought His people back to the Land after the exile, and gave them security enough to rebuild. And “in the fullness of time" as Paul wrote in Galatians 4:4, He sent the Messiah as that final, amazing and all-encompassing act of mercy. Absolutely no one in history deserves that much mercy!

One of my favorite reminders of God’s mercy to the undeserving was the way He provided for the people in the desert as they left Egypt (Exodus 13). He could have easily let them live on bread and water. Instead He sent quail. Beyond what the whining, grumbling children of Israel needed, He gave them quail! I think I might have been mad at God, had I been Moses. I might have wanted God to just give them manna, and make it taste stale, or at least a little bland! Instead of tasting like dusty cardboard, it tasted like coriander (what we call cilantro) and honey!

Simon Peter, that impulsive fisherman-turned-disciple, wrote the most amazing words: “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” [1 Peter 2:9-10] The disciple who denied His Lord understood first-hand the blessing of mercy, of covenant love, of forgiveness of transgressions!

To put it in a secular vein, another picture of this kind of mercy (perhaps because I am a lover of Professor Tolkien’s writings,) is the conversation that Frodo has with Gandalf when he finds out the Gollum was not killed by Bilbo, his uncle, when Gollum’s deceitfulness was first discovered. Instead, his life was spared by Frodo and the elves. Gandalf tried to get Frodo to see that this is the only honest and righteous way to have acted.

“But this is terrible!” cried Frodo. “…What a pity that Bilbo did not stab that vile creature, when he had a chance!”

[Gandalf] “Pity? It was pity that stayed his hand. Pity, and mercy: not to strike without need.”

“I am sorry,” said Frodo. “…I can’t understand you. Do you mean to say that you, and the Elves, have let him live on after all those horrible deeds? Now at any rate he is as bad as an Orc, and just an enemy. He deserves death.”

[Gandalf] “Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. For even the very wise cannot see all ends….” [The Fellowship of the Ring, Chapter 2].

In this quote from the Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien gives us a picture of “mercy” – one that shows the “undeserved” nature of it for Gollum, the traitorous hobbit forever changed by the evils he committed. Gandalf reminds Frodo that even Gollum deserves mercy, despite how ludicrous it seems to them as onlookers. “Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life.”

That does not seem too far off to me when I look at the world around me today. And that is the message, the Gospel of Mercy, which we are called to preach, yes, but also to show by our response to the needs we see around us.

Just an end-of-semester muse...

From our home to yours-
Deb

Advent: Names of God (week one)

Life gets busy in December. Like you, I have more than enough to fill my calendar, let alone finding some of that rare commodity called "free time"! I don't want to turn around twice and discover that Christmas has come and I barely stopped to think about the Advent of the Christ Child. One of the things I have done in year's past is to keep just a small phrase in my mind related to one of Names of God found in the Bible. It has been moderately successful -- simple things for simple minds! I'll post them a week at a time (at least that's the plan!) and hope that they encourage and bring you close to God, too.

From our home to yours...

Deb


December 3
Name of God: "Bread of Life"
Scripture: John 6:48

December 4
Name of God: "Bright Morning Star"
Scripture: Rev. 22:16

December 5
Name of God: "Faithful"
Scripture: I Cor. 10:13

December 6
Name of God: "Friend"
Scripture: John 15:15

December 7
Name of God: "My Provider"
Scripture: Genesis 22:14

December 8
Name of God: "Ancient of Days"
Scripture: Daniel 7:13-14

December 9
Name of God: "The Potter"
Scripture: Isaiah 64:8

And behold, a great stink arose...

And it came to pass that the Beloved Bearded Spouse (who shall also be known as BBS) spake unto his family: "I shall maketh a brew or two and all shall be completed before another day passeth. For mine storehouse is but empty of all but the most expensive brews."

And his family, though great with patience, sayeth, "please, no!" and "why must it be when we are home?" and "but mine friends are coming over they will like it not!" And the beloved of BBS sayeth, "but hath thou not promised to bring down today a Christmas tree for a time unto decoration?" However, the calendar appointment prevailed, and the BBS went forth and brewed.

And behold, a great stink arose. And the neighbors and those who came to the place where it brewed sayeth, "What is this smell that we have come upon, for it hurteth our nostrils?"

And in the steeping of the grain there was great consternation, for the stove caused it to runneth over. And in the stewing of the malt, there was an aroma not unlike the downwind side of the Brew-wiser plant. And in the pitching of the yeast and the adding of oxygen and the casting of sugar, there came much foam.

And the family sigheth, "surely, it shall not continue forever." For they were very tired.

Now behold, a new day cometh. And with the airlock and the keg, there was much bubbling. The contents of barrels doth bubble and make noise in the house. And there was a smell like unto a wild yeast in the air. And they looked at one another and sayeth, "when shall it make an end?"

And the BBS said, "when it is finished!"

So they went on their way and prayeth for a quick work of the sugars to be done, so that it would be potable. For verily, the beloved of the BBS said that yea, it had, when it was not well contained, tasteth like unto the straining of bad brew through dirty socks. And only the slugs in the garden drank it, for the humans could not.

And of the washing and putting away of equipment there was some. And of the piling of the rest unwashed there was much. And they still loveth one another any way...

Friday Five: Adventually

From RevGalBlogPals: Although it comes as late as it can this year, Advent is upon us. Some of us grew up observing it, while to others (including this childhood Baptist) it was even more foreign than Lent! Over the past twenty years, I have grown to love Advent as a season of preparation, although as a pastor I find it harder to practice it at home than at church, even when the church might prefer I make it the other way 'round.

Here are five questions about Advent for this first of December:

1) Do you observe Advent in your church?
NOoooooooooooo... but we are located near an Adventist Hospital... does that count? ;)

2) How about at home?
Not really. I do have an Advent wreath and we light an increasing number of candles each week... And we talk about it. And we read Scripture. But if you mean, do we sit around and hold hands and sing plainsong in Latin, and read the BCP, that would be NO.

3) Do you have a favorite Advent text or hymn?
Actually, I have several. But because you want STRICTLY Advent, not Christmas, I have to say that I like one that's in German: Macht Hoch die Tür. (Open the Gates). If you mean favorite but un-singable my Joe and Josie Congregant, than hands down it's "Ev'ry Valley Shall Be Exalted" from Handel's Messiah!

4) Why is one of the candles in the Advent wreath pink? (You may tell the truth, but I'll like your answer better if it's funny.)
Well, it was purple last year but I left it on the dashboard of my car in the hot summer sun (don't ask and please don't tell FlyLady!) and all of its color faded. Good thing I left it in the wrapper because it would have stuck the dash and been an even stranger shape (the cellophane kinda kept it looking cylindrical with only one flat side...)

5) What's the funniest/kitschiest Advent calendar you've ever seen?
Hard one... probably a paper pop-up one that looked like the animal kingdom in bathrobes with towels tied on their heads... I know it was supposed to be a nativity scene, but...

I actually have some stuff to put up for Advent on my blog. Just have to get it done... papers and quizzes first...

From our home to yours...
Deb