thinking about.....

1. Writing

So a few days ago I went over to Vincent's apartment to record some background vocals for a CD he's working on. While I'm not sure I did exactly what he wanted, I think in the end he was more-or-less satisfied with what he got. Vincent is a friend from church, and he did the recording for my band's CD last spring. He's great to work with and it was a lot of fun. While I was over there, we got talking about the direction my band is heading in (hmmm....where are we heading exactly?) and he asked if we ever did original tunes. That would be No. But it did get me thinking. So then on Sunday, while the family & I were sitting in the lobby of the Paramount waiting for The Lion King to start, I mentioned to Kent that I was thinking about trying to write a song...or two. He asked what it was that I wanted to say with my song(s). Don't know the answer to that. It seems that before you can write good songs, you need to have something you want to say. Back to the drawing board, I guess.

2. A new job

For the last 5 years or so, Seattle Childrens (my employer) has had a contract to provide NNP services at the UWMC NICU (where I choose to work). For a variety of reasons that contract will not be renewed after June of this year. However, the UW has posted positions and intends to cover the unit with their own NNPs. So basically I get to choose whether I want to change employers and do the kind of work I want to do or stay with Childrens (where I'm approaching the 22nd anniversary of my hiring) and work at either Prov Everett or Overlake. I've worked in both of those hospitals, and it's not bad work, but I like the UW NICU better. The offer they've made me is very close to what I've got w/ Childrens, from a financial standpoint. It's a tough decision. Not sure yet what I want to do.

(Hey, the title of this post is "thinking about...", not, "decisions I've made").

3. Matti's school

The appeal letter w/ copies of various test results was dropped off at the Public School admin office yesterday. We should hear back in the next couple of weeks - supposedly they'll be notifying people in time for them to complete the on-line registration by the 3/31 deadline. We'll see.

4. Music for Lent

The Women's Chant Choir sang last weekend, which was the first Sunday in Lent. There were a couple of new people joining us, and altogether I thought it went very well. I need to pull up the bootstraps and put some serious planning into the Good Friday service.

I've also been thinking about the whole process of Lent. Last week I put an update on Facebook: Amy is thinking about what to give up for Lent (or something like that). And over all, I'm inclined to want to carry over the theme from the Chant retreat and work on making space for contemplation, rather than worrying about giving something up. I've got a book, Radical Amazement, that has very short chapters and exercises for prayer at the end of each, and I'm trying to read one chapter every day or every other day, then use the exercises to frame my thinking for the rest of the day. So far that's working. Miss T helpfully suggested on Facebook that I give up one activity a week, in order to feel less frantic, and while that's good advice, I think I'm going to approach it more from the perspective of trying to be more conscious about how I'm spending my time. I know I take on a lot, but everything I've got going on is meaningful to me, in different ways, so I will work on changing my approach rather than changing my schedule.

5. Daydreaming about my Sekrit (Viking) Boyfriend ;)

Ok, so I'm reading a lot of fiction, which is really not something I've done much of lately. I'm quite addicted to the Southern Vampire Mysteries by Charlaine Harris, but have moved on from there. In the last week or so I've read one of the Harper Connelly mysteries, also by Charlaine Harris, and have read the first Anita Blake book by Laurel Hamilton. The continuity thread seems to be that all these books have vampires or other occult elements. Last night, the NBC news trailer had Brian Williams (and his tie) saying, "And later this evening, we'll take a look at how Americans are distracting themselves from the grim economic situation". I laughed and said, well, I'm reading about vampires, that's how I'm doing it. Whatever works.

6. Finishing socks and a baby blanket

Finally finished the re-do on the Christmas socks for my Dear Sister. I made her a pair last December, then mailed them to a really old address so she never got them. Still need to stitch the toes closed and block them, but am getting close. And I'm also working on a baby blanket. Am using bamboo yarn, and it's really soft and has a beautiful luster. Am a little less than half done on it. And when the crochet projects are done, I'm going to start the Celtic Blackwork Cross. And also have to run into the frame shop to see how much it's going to cost to get Our Lady of Fabio finished, since the auction donation deadline is this week.

7. Writing some more

This post got a little long. I guess I did have something to say here. Perhaps I should make shorter, more frequent posts. People I respect have told me I write well....ok, they're friends of mine, and have to be nice to me, but still. I'm 46, kind of old to decide to be a songwriter when I grow up, or to start writing short stories or something like that. But I was motivated by something to start this blog, so perhaps I should look at that impulse a little closer and see where it gets me.

sock photo

This is the photo of the nearly-completed Christmas socks that I'd meant to include with the previous post. They looked much better when they were blocked (and, in the case of the last pair, when they were finished). I've got the pattern down pretty good, and am looking forward to hearing back about how well they wear.

can't take it all seriously

Watched the Golden Globes last night. I may be the only person in the country who LOVED Drew Barrymore's hair. She looked like she was channeling Marilyn Monroe in a good way, and it was fun and different and cute. And I thought Renee Zellweger was channeling Sharon Stone, and NOT in a good way. And there were way too many white/cream/metallic/NO COLOR dresses. And I LOVED Marisa Tomei - but I've always had a thing for long lacy sleeves. I might have to go buy the Target version of that outfit as soon as it comes out. And when I first saw Sting on the red carpet I thought, "Who's that old fossil?", and about had a heart attack when I saw it was Sting. Wow, Dude, No. You're making the rest of your generation feel REALLY OLD. Other than that, there were a few winners and losers, and then there were the awards. What did you guys think?

In the meantime, I finished crocheting 5 pairs of socks to give as Christmas gifts, and now am working on a pair for myself. And I've started to put some serious time into Our Lady of Fabio, the Mirabilia cross stitch Madonna and Child that I started like 18 months ago. I want to donate it to the St C's school auction, and am hoping to convince one of our local frame shops to give me a break on the framing as an auction donation. Will take a picture soon to show progress. Because I am making progress. Slowly!

sunday evening post

Finally! Two pairs of socks are done. Only 3 more to go before Christmas. Or thereabouts. It did turn out that with both socks from the larger pair the variagations lined up in a fairly regular chevron pattern. Didn't look for anything special in the yarn when I started each one off, so it must have been the difference between making 48 stitches around vs 44 stitches. The next pair I make will be with a similar variagated yarn, but will be even larger, so we'll see how that works out.

And then at work the other night I had time to finish one more bookmark. It might be a bad thing to post about stitching at work, but really I'm there on call, so if the babies behave, I have time to stitch. I kinda like this bookmark. Instead of using perle cotton to make the kloster blocks, I used a fine alpaca wool. It's really soft, and I like the contrast between the wool, the silk thread I used for the rest of the stitching, and the linen I worked it on. I only have one more bookmark to work, and then I'll have a dozen for the Advent Fair. I started the last one this evening at a birthday party. The party was for a good friend's daughter, and since this friend is the one who's coordinating my participation in the Advent Fair anyway, it seemed appropriate to work on the bookmark at her house. And I thought if I was stitching I wouldn't eat as much. Yah, right. But I got a fair amount of work done on the bookmark, and the Advent Fair's not until next weekend, so I'm in good shape. And then I can go back to crocheting socks.

I have to say that I'm a lot more relaxed about The Coming Of Christmas than I've been the last couple of years. Last year I remember approaching Advent with an almost overwhelming feeling of dread. I just had no idea how I was going to get everything done. Well, this year I have no more time and even less money, but I'm pretty sure it'll all work out. I've been thinking a lot about what's important to me at Christmas, and it's really 3 main things. I want to spend good time with my husband and children, spend good time with friends, and make good music. Not necessarily in that order. ;)

Toward that end, I can say that this weekend has covered all those bases. Laughed a lot with friends at the party tonight, had a date with the Dear Husband last night, have hugged the kids at least once every day, and made some good music at Mass last night. The Women's Chant Choir and I did the Verbum Supernum Prodiens hymn that I posted about a couple weeks ago, and if I do say so myself, it rocked. Hard. If it's possible for a 1000 year old Gregorian hymn to rock, it did. So Advent's gotten off to a good start, and I'm almost done with the bookmarks, and the socks look do-able, and I'm in an ok place.

this was supposed to be easy....

Ok, so here's another installment in the saga of the Christmas socks. The good news is, I actually finished a pair. And (always looking for the positive), I'm really REALLY getting to know this pattern. One might suggest that I could have saved myself some trouble by reading the pattern book more carefully before beginning, but that would have been very much out of character. It's been an interesting journey, though. It took me a while to figure out that the stitch I'm using has a right and a wrong side. And I still haven't figured out how to make the right side of the body of the sock match up with the right side of the heel (sort of a cable pattern) without leaving out a row of single crochet. Last weekend I took one of the finished socks (in a nearly finished state) as well as one of the three false-starts to Pacific Fabrics, where I was going to ask a salesperson for advice. I had the good luck to run into a crochet instructor at the end of a class, and she looked at what I was doing and said, "well, if you need to leave out the row of single crochet to get it to work, then leave it out, because what you're doing looks fine". Duh! I was making myself crazy over that, and she made it so simple.

So, now I've started the second pair, and, apparently, grabbed the yarn in the right spot to make the variagations line up in a nice chevron pattern instead of the random look the first pair of socks had. Don't know if it really is where I started with the yarn or if it has more to do with the fact that I'm making this pair a size larger so using that extra bit of yarn shifts everything around enough to line it up. Guess we'll see when I start the second sock from this pair - although if anyone who reads this knows the answer, feel free to comment. And, as you can see from the picture, I still need to work on the first pair, because I've made one foot longer than the other. Will try them on Dear Daughter (they're intended for her cousin, who's the same age and approximately the same size) and see which one fits better, then try to make an adjustment. Good thing the actual crochet doesn't take long, because I still need to finish a couple of bookmarks, and have bought yarn for two more pairs of socks that I want to get done before Christmas!!

cool Advent hymn

Last night was a chant choir rehearsal. We're getting ready to sing the Vigil for the First Sunday in Advent. When I put the schedule together (last August) I'd picked an Advent hymn, Verbum Supernum Prodiens, for the choir to sing at Communion. The problem was, there are two sets of texts associated with the title "Verbum Supernum Prodiens". (Also two hymn tunes that I've found, but that's another story). One text is the Advent hymn, which is early, possibly 2nd half of the 5th century but likely 7-8th century. The other (later, associated with St Thomas) is a hymn for Corpus Christi.

In the Liber Usualis, there's the Corpus Christi hymn, and I found the Advent text on-line (but no music, just words). The challenge was to somehow get something on paper that had the music with the Advent text. If I was a more organized person, I could have contact St Meinrad and ordered a copy of their chant writing software, but I'm not. I tried to find something I could just download, hopefully for free, but didn't have any luck w/ that, either. So after spending a good three hours yesterday afternoon trying to figure something out, I ended up taking a sheet of vellum art paper with notebook paper underneath it and writing it out by hand. The girls thought it looked pretty, and they could sing from it fairly easily, so it was a success.

The text is really dark and at rehearsal we spent a while looking it over before we sang it. As an example, the fourth verse goes like this:

Non demum artemur malis/ pro qualitate criminis/ sed cum beatis compotes/ simus perennes caelites.

which translates as:

Saved from the whirling black abyss/ forever more to us be given/ to share the feast of saintly bliss/ and see the face of God in heaven.

I was a little concerned that it might be too dark for the group, but they totally got into it. I loved it when Miss Soprano T said, "it reminds me that He's not a tame lion", and she went on about the strength and power of God, and how we should feel awe at times. It was a great discussion, and we will be singing an ancient Advent hymn for the first Saturday in Advent. Cool.

On the home front, I was over half way done with a crocheted sock, but decided I didn't like how it was going so I ripped it out and started over. The good thing was that if I hadn't ripped it out, I'd have probably finished it last night, which means I crocheted a sock in two days, which is greatly encouraging considering I want to get three pairs of socks (at least) done for Christmas.

And then there's the ongoing saga of my Dear Son and his winter sports choice. He really really really wants to play football next fall, and I'm using that to motivate him to join swim team this winter. I really don't think 9 year olds should play football, but I guess it's probably better to play when everyone's under 100 lbs than it would be when they're all 200+. I need a break from him playing team sports, until he gets his temper under better control, and he's a good swimmer, so I've made him a deal. He swims for several months w/o complaining, and I sign him up for football without complaining. It sounds so simple all written out here, but it's taken sometimes twice-daily phone calls to Mom (MY mother!) to work it all out in my head. Mom is so patient....

the shower was a success

Had a shower for the kid's school music teacher on Sunday, and, if I do say so myself, it was a great success. It was also clearly a team effort. I had to clean house, but it was Dear Husband who freshened up the paint in several places and who took the kids off to a movie during the event. My friend D did all the flowers, which were just over the top (see above), and my friend T did the cake, which was delicious (also above). My friend the Kitchen Goddess took over and ran the food. It was great fun to bring up the vintage Wedgwood that I've collected from Ebay over the years and it all just looked so cool when we pulled it together. Instead of party games, we decorated onesies w/ fabric paint, so now she has a stash of newborn to 18 month sized onesies. I know the mother-to-be appreciated it, and I've heard back from some who attended that they had a lot of fun. Good times - and since I ended up working 2 - 24-hour shifts the week before, I could not have done it w/o the help that I had.

And then there's the ongoing saga of the bookmarks. I finished the white snowflake bookmark that I'd started on the night before the election, and I liked it so well that I did another one. I think it's the prettiest pattern I've come up with so far. The picture doesn't really show the sparkle. It's subtle, but I used a Kreinick opalescent thread for the eyelets, for the border between the buttonhole stitch edge and the kloster blocks, and also for the starbursts in the middle. They look really cool, and I'll probably do one more. I also finished another new-ish idea. It's cream 22 count (I think) lugana (I think) fabric with ecru perle cotton for the hardanger and a variagated green Weeks Dye Works floss for the blackwork stitches around the hardanger cross. It's pretty, but I wish the green were just a tad darker so it would stand out more.

I've done a total of 11 bookmarks so far, and my goal was to take 12 to the Advent Fair 12/7. Last week, however, a friend saw them and liked them so well that she ended up buying one from me. I tried to give it to her, but she wanted to support Operation Nightwatch (which is where all the $$ from the bookmarks is going). So I actually only have 10 on hand, and I was debating whether to stitch one more and take 11 to the fair, or stitch two more so that I'd have 12. I was worried, though that then I'd have stitched a total of 13, which might be a bad omen. Told my friend T that, and she said, "They, there were 13 at the table, so it'll be ok". That was the end of that worry. So I'll probably stitch one more snowflake pattern and one other TBA before the fair. But for today, I'm going to start crocheting socks, because I'm starting to stress that I won't have enough time to get 3 pairs done before Christmas.

Fw: one thing off the list

Got the test pair of socks done today. Dear Daughter says they're very cozy. Didn't take me very long - not quite two weeks to get them done. With luck and persistence I should be able to get 2-3 pairs done before Christmas to give as gifts. Dear Daughter is home this afternoon because she had three teeth pulled this morning. So far she's not too uncomfortable, mainly complaining about the numbness in her lips. She's had tylenol and motrin, and will keep getting whatever she needs. Oh, and she had a double scoop of Baskin Robbins Gold Medal Ribbon for lunch. Hey, it had to be something soft.....

lots to do

So I'm getting started on the whole Christmas thing. Earlier this year than most, but I guess that gives me permission to take on a whole lot of stuff that I wouldn't ordinarily try to do. Last January one of my New Years resolutions was to learn to crochet, which I have done to a certain extent. And, as the picture demonstrates, I'm now learning to crochet socks. My sister pointed out that I could BUY socks if I wanted, and is worried that the economic crunch in Seattle is worse than she thought. It's the hand-made thing, though, and I hope to get three pairs done for Christmas presents - matching socks for my sister-in-law and my neice, and then a third pair for my other sister-in-law. We'll see. If I have more time, I'll do more.

Then there's the Fabio BVM that I'm cross stitching. It's actually a Mirabilia Design "Madonna of the Garden", and it's a fairly complicated piece by my standards. It's also very pretty, like, if this is what Jesus and Mary really looked like, then Joseph must look like Fabio. Or something like that. It's cool to work on such a challenging piece, but it's not really to my taste. I'm thinking it'll be our school auction donation item this year. That gives me till May 2nd to get it done. Well, sooner than that if I want to get it framed.

And then there are the bookmarks. A friend secured a table at the St James Cathedral Advent fair, then asked all her crafty friends to make something to sell. Figured we'd all get credit without each of us having to make enough to stock a booth. My goal for this is to get a dozen bookmarks made. I plan to sell them for $8 each and donate the $$ to Operation Nightwatch. Am using Hardanger embroidery patterns that I designed (well, they're so basic that "designed" is a bit presumptious) although it's fun to play with the colors to tweak each one. They work up pretty quick, like, two evenings of stitching per bookmark. But then they have to be done by the first week of December, so I don't have all the time in the world.

There's lots to do. The house needs cleaning, and there's a stack of books that I'd like to read, but the cold wet weather makes me want to stitch. So for now, that's what I'll do.