Here it is. I made the top in September, I think it was. I started with a piece of fabric that was my mother's, no doubt purchased to make mother-daughter blouses or dresses for herself and me. That piece, the pale pink and light aqua flowers, was the piece I keyed off of for the pinks and turquoises. The yellow has both pink and turquoise in it, and gave the quilt top the spark it needed.

I finished it a couple of weeks ago. It was really fun to make. I love the fact that the fabrics all came from my stash, and that some of them have a story (this one, and this one, are from Edith Karas; and this one was someone's pajama pants scraps from a class at Trinity...)

So I gave it to Megan on Monday. It's not our colors, she remarked, and that is true - but it is a good quilt for a little girl to put on the floor, to throw in the car, to take on the campout. I hope that it will be useful, and maybe a bit pretty, and maybe snuggley on a cold night. I look forward to meeting little Charis and telling her what a great mom she has.

The eyrie is my sewing room - the third floor bonus room in our house. I love it up there because it's fairly well laid out for working on projects, the light is good, it has a window, a window air-conditioner (absolutely essential in the summer) - and it is rarely visited except by invitation.

I have several projects going at once right now. One is a king-sized quilt I made in August and September last year. It is finished except for stitching together the fabrics that will be the backing and smoothing out the batting. I then will pack it up and take it to Thimble Pleasures where one of the people who does quilting for people will pick it up. My hope is to get around to doing that sometime in the next couple of weeks.

Another projects is the Strip and Slash quilt that I made based on the class that Cindy and I took last year at the quilt show. We're going again at the end of February, so I want to actually finish this quilt before we go. All that is left to do is to make the fabric/batting/fabric sandwich and quilt it.

Another project is the one I have been working on today. I'll say more at another time, but suffice it to say that I cut blocks for, laid out, and stitched together a 40"x40" quilt top today. All in one day. (Actually, some of the blocks for it were already made - I had done some experimental blocks a few years ago and decided to use them in this top.) More at another time - maybe even a photo!

And just a few days ago I finished a quilt I had made the top for in September. More details at another time (including a photo).

I remember my father making an ice rink in our back yard - somehow managing to keep the hose from freezing over the several days that he sprayed a fine mist of water over the carefully smoothed area. We skated and skated. It was great.

I remember an actual blizzard - with snow and endless wind and cold and drifts up to the eaves.

I remember a real toboggan under the Christmas tree one year, and going with the whole family to a real tobaggan hill with tracks, and all bundling onto it and going so fast, so fast.

I remember cross country skiing down the hill with the tree at the bottom - where you had about 8 feet of distance to turn to avoid the tree and then turn again to avoid the creek, which was rarely frozen despite the sub-zero temperatures. And you were going pretty fast unless you were wise and snowplowed most of the way down.

I remember making snowmen with three big huge balls of snow and a tartan scarf and some sort of old top hat.

I remember ice skating on the creek in the center of town.

I remember helping to chip ice off the sidewalk with a shovel so that Ruth could safely make her way to the car to go to Charles House.

I remember eating shrimp and spaghetti by the light of about 25 candles with the Clarks during the ice storm, and being so thankful that we had a gas water heater, a gas range and a gas fireplace and could make them warm and comfortable.

I remember school and work closed for a whole week, and us having the best family vacation ever without hardly leaving our house.

I remember walking in the ice and snow and standing shivering in the cold waiting for the Tar Heel Express with Uncle Dwight.

I remember watching our owl with the big flakes of snow falling.

I remember just this last Tuesday working from home so that I could look out the window and watch the snow fall, and the wintery grey sky being almost the same color as the ground, and wondering just what color would you call the tree trunks - are they brown? or tan? or gray? and how to make a quilt that could possibly capture that feeling.

1. Our owl is back. I say "our owl" because a few years ago we had a barred owl that hung out in a tree on our property, that I could see clearly from the window where my computer is. I just noticed today that he is back. No idea whether he hangs out regularly, whether this is a first time in a long time, or whether he is a she, actually. But s/he is back.

2. I've spent most of the day in the sewing room, working on a quilt. Great to be up there again and making progress.

3a. We sleep with the window open in our bedroom. I should not say "we" because if it were up to Byron "we" would NOT sleep with the window open. But I like it cold, so I open the window. Even last night the window was open about an inch at the top. When I got up this morning it was 7 degrees outside and 38 degrees in the bedroom. I had pity on Byron and turned on the heat for a little while, just to get the bedroom up to 50.

3b. I have not been sick in over two years. I wonder if sleeping with the window open all winter could have something to do with it.

4. Our Tar Heels. *shakes head* Don't know what to do with those boys. They have two losses in ACC play. Silly, silly. Naturally opposing players have career games against them. But still. There have been some thrilling games, though, and we are a very good team overall. We just have to play hard every minute.

And I'm making bread. Portuguese Sweet Bread.

OK, so I really should not do math in public, it seems.

"Placed end to end, they would extend about 4 miles."

This should be 38 miles.

I think the rest of the math is correct.

And I have not yet mentioned our wonderful Tar Heel men's basketball team here. They have one loss, which I hope was an educational loss. I've seen them three times at the Dean Dome. I have tickets to a few more games, including the final game of the season against Dook. So, this should be - hopefully, fingers crossed - a fun year to watch the Tar Heels. Tyler Hansborough is now the leading point scorer in UNC basketball history; he passed Phil Ford during a game that I went to with Brent. He will be setting lots of records this season, barring injury. Should be fun!

So, the 690 Thousand floppy disks I mentioned earlier? Placed end to end, they would extend about 4 miles.

Stacked on top of each other, they would rise almost 2 miles.

All stacked together in stacks 8 feet high, they would make about 1200 stacks. Placed beside each other, they would about fill the average bedroom, floor to ceiling.

My 1Tb drive is about 6.5" x 5" x 2".

I finally did get my second edition of my cookbook ready before Christmas, and got it back from the printer the day after Christmas. (There's a story here, but I am not going to tell it now.) Some of you have a copy already, and I'm making plans to get others out. I am pretty pleased with how it turned out. I'm especially pleased to have the newer recipes that I use frequently in there now. (And for you who wonder: no, the first edition is not available any longer - my files got corrupted years ago and I can't print any more.)

Also I now have a 1TB external hard drive, for the ridiculously low price of $124. I mean. At this moment I'm transferring files from one hard drive to another to make room for backups and other storage plans on the two smaller drives we have. And to think that we used to think one of the High Density 3.5" floppy disks, with 1.44MB of storage, was really cool. Just to do the math for you: 1 kilobyte is (roughly) 1000 bytes. 1 megabyte is 1000 kilobytes (1 million bytes). 1 gigabyte is 1000 megabytes (1 billion bytes). 1 terabyte is 1000 gigabytes (1 trillion bytes). So, my new drive can hold the contents of about 690 THOUSAND floppy disks.

(I'm sure that someone will check this for me and will tell me if I'm off by some number of powers of 10.)

And now I'll go to work, late. What a lovely luxury.

Maybe it's the nearly two weeks "off" that make January feel so new and pristine. Maybe it's the fact that we don't have plans to have company for a while. Maybe it's the fact that school has started again. But something always feels different about January.

The Roman god Janus had two faces - one looking back, and one looking forward. Many people use the first of the year to assess what they've been doing and what they want to do in the future. I certainly have done that many Januaries.

So, in that spirit, here are a few things I'd like to do in the next few months: I'd like to play more games with whomever I can talk into it. I'd like to read more books. I'd like to finish the three - no, make that four - quilt projects I have nearly done. I'd like to declutter and keep it that way. I'd like to not work an insane number of hours. I'd like to find the happy thing in every situation, even if it's only 10%, and especially if it's 90%. I'd like to get up from my seat and move every day.

There. That's a good start.

We are probably close to the peak of our fall color down here. Our own yard has mostly golds and browns, but in our neighborhood are some fantastic reds and oranges. The burning bushes around town are brilliant, but ours are behind the times. This is fine - it usually takes me several days of driving around looking at these others to remember that we even have some - they're behind the house where I don't see them every day.

And just to show off, the gardenia bush has been putting out a few blooms.

Scott is doing great in high school. He brought home all As the first quarter. We are crossing our fingers that he will continue to be able to focus on things and do well.

June is coming tonight for the weekend, then she has a conference in Raleigh. This is the first time she has been here - we are looking forward to showing her our life here! And playing games!

I have been reading Home by Marilynne Robinson for bookclub on the 19th ... but I might have to miss bookclub! I am enjoying the book, though, and will finish it regardless.

That's it for now!

Someone about a year ago told me that I needed to get on Facebook, that it was The Place nowadays, and that to not have a Facebook page was to be totally not hip and so forth. So I succumbed to peer pressure and got a Facebook account.

I was mystified. What was there to do? The only thing that I could see was to post photos and to look at other people's photos.

And this 'status' thing - what in the world was one supposed to do with that? You get a box to type in that is pre-populated with the words, "Emily is" - and then you type whatever it is that you are.

I looked around at what my Friends (I think that has to be capitalized to indicate that I'm talking about people who have Friended me on Facebook, to distinguish these entities from my actual friends whose Facebook accounts I might be speaking of) ... I looked around at what my Friends were putting in their status, and found that some put what they were doing at the moment, presumably, that they typed their status. And some put what they were not (especially Dave). And some put there what they were thinking about, or eating, or an adjective describing them.

So I was boring. I put things like Emily is going to bed. Emily is making coffee. Emily is awake.

And then Facebook let the word 'is' be optional, and so some people saw the possibilities of using past tense, or active verbs, and I wrote things like Emily wants a chocolate milkshake, and Emily drank a chocolate milkshake and hopes she won't pay for it with a migraine. Very creative.

Now, here is an interesting one: Emily is going to bed after a long two weeks. Wonder what I meant by that?!!

But I did figure out that sometimes writing 100 characters that sums up what my status is at a given moment can be enlightening, if I take it seriously. I can enlighten myself (and maybe the hoi polloi, too) about what is really going on. So, I might write, "Emily is trying to reconcile Rick's convicting comments about getting a lot of things done being an idol, and Mark's sermon about Col 3:22ff." or "Emily had a good week - two weeks in a row. And today, Emily is close to loving her job." (That was from June, lest you get any ideas ...)

So, in the end, what do I think that Facebook is? or does? or is supposed to do?

"Facebook is thinking that making people check in once or twice a day to see what their Friends are doing is a way of connecting - and it may be 100 characters or less but it is better than zero."

Catalyst is a big conference for Christian leaders that takes place annually in Atlanta. I went with Ashley, Angie, and Dave. We left Wednesday at around noon, and returned home a little after midnight yesterday.

It was:
a spectacle
interesting speakers
very, very loud
thought-provoking conversations
peaked at around 109 dB

It was also very loud - the worship, that is.

But I don't want to dwell on how loud it was. I'd rather give a few highlights, such as:
Andy Stanley's two talks, the first on moral authority, and the second on 'recent random thoughts on leadership'
Dave Ramsey on five enemies of unity
Jim Collins on Good to Great
Steve Furtick, who gave Andy Stanley a middle name it will be hard for me to ever forget (Andy Freaking Stanley)
the Daraja Children's Choir of Africa
beach balls, balloons, ping-pong balls, crepe-paper streamers thrown from the balcony
a school bus - and a pig
an elephant - and a donkey
a banana
and NERVE DAMAGE (did I mention already how loud the worship was? I had earplugs ...)

Ashley and I had a lovely dinner together and a good talk.
We all had good talks in the van down and back.
It rained cats and dogs - and pigs and elephants and donkeys - on the way down. (that was loud, too.)

Context: One of our building attendants is from another country; English is not her first language. She is a delightful person, very gracious, capable, and resourceful.

Today: So, at the end of the day, before I left the building, I decided to go to the restroom. And when I got in there, I saw something that made me hope that Cyndi, one of my colleagues (not the building attendant - another woman), had not left for the day yet.

Thankfully she was still at her desk, so I said, "Cyndi, please come with me. I have something to show you."

And just to show you how much she trusts me, she got right up and came with me. (OK, maybe trust is not quite the term for it: she did say, "I hope it's something funny.")

We went in, and there I showed her, taped to the outside of a closed stall door, a note which our building attendant had put up, which said, "Out of oder."

The weather was perfect. Highs in the 70s, lows in the 50s. Good sleeping weather. Good hiking weather. Good canoeing.

And the color was at its peak. Many, many red and deep orange maples, and many golden maples and birches. Some hillsides were totally colored - the only green was pines and spruce. It could not have been more satisfying.

We saw some wildlife - a blue heron; many, many ducks; four loons at once (one was a juvenile); a marmot-sort of animal. No moose, alas. No bears, thankfully. We did not hear (or see) wolves (I think it's not the season for hearing wolves).

The stars were amazing. Wednesday and Thursday nights the Milky Way was so bright you could have walked on it, and there were so many stars it was hard to pick out even familiar constellations. Friday evening a gathering of the Royal Astronomical Society (I think that was the group) took place at one of the beaches, and we saw Jupiter. I saw its bands and two of its moons. And that was on a hazy night. Make a note: they come to Algonquin the weekend in September closest to the new moon. These amateur astronomers had amazing telescopes (6 feet tall and more), and laser pointers with which they could point out stars and constellations. I had Cassiopeia pointed out to me, and Andromeda, and ... two more. And we also saw M-13, which is a ... star cluster, I think. The man was funny - he said that the haze was so bad that they might has well be doing a radio broadcast: "If you could see the stars I'm pointing at you would be able to see ..."

We did have rain on Saturday, and that plus the people who set up camp late Friday night and made noise until after 4AM made us decide to come home a day early. That was OK, though. We had a bonus day, in a way - games and good food (the make-up of most of our best days together, actually).

And tomorrow I fly home. Back to my own bed (which frankly, sleeping on Thermarest pads in a tent is very comfortable - I slept 9-10 hours all three nights we were there). Back to Byron and Scott. Back to work.

It was a great break.

So, it's not going to be all that cold. In fact, it's going to be perfect 'summer' weather. I guess I'm getting Indian summer up there. Highs of 77 and lows of 50. It will be lovely. And bright and sunny. Which might mean clear skies at night, which will mean brilliant stars. And maybe, just maybe, Northern Lights. Now that would be amazing.

Awesome, in fact.

The past several days here have been lovely, beautiful weather. I have walked quite a bit the last week, either 'meeting' with Khou (and walking all the way to my house and back) or down to the soccer field to see if it was dry enough to play on, or just around the building with Donna. My feet hurt, which is stupid, but there it is.

So I'm not sure about the hiking at Algonquin - nothing big, that's for sure. No Track and Tower. No Centennial Ridges (not that I could talk Anne into doing that, anyway, probably). But I hope we will at least do Lookout. That's a great trail from which to appreciate the fall colors.

And I have two days, now, to do some major things. First, I have to get my work in good shape to be gone for four work days without email. And second, I have to do some straightening and de-cluttering of the area of the kitchen where I tend to sit and do my work and email before I go because we are having the students in our Shepherding Group over for dinner the day after I get back. Third, I have to pack. I have not even started - but at least it is the easiest packing I could possibly do because I'll be camping almost the whole time, so who cares what kind of clothes I have? I just have to remember to bring my water sandals and a sweatshirt and my anorak and my passport. I hope that my walking stick will fit in the suitcase.

And I have to leave instructions: vacuum, clean the bathrooms, wash the tablecloth, make an 86-Proof cake and maybe some cookies.

I really can't believe I'm doing this, this taking off all of a sudden and going camping. In Canada. In September. It is very unreal to me, even though Anne and I have been exchanging emails about food and canoes and firewood. And when I drift off to sleep at night my mind pictures the lake and I can almost hear the loon.

I am not usually impulsive. But a week ago today I impulsively bought a plane ticket and reserved a campsite at Algonquin. I fly up two weeks from today to visit Anne and go camping with her at Lake of Two Rivers campground.

Anne is delighted. I am too.

There is no better way to gain perspective than to wake up to a mist-covered lake in the morning, to build a campfire, to cook and eat outdoors, to hear the call of the loons, to see the brilliant Milky Way overhead.

It could be cold. The first time I was ever at Algonquin Park was at the end of September in 1996, I think it was. Or maybe it was 1997. We stayed at Kilarney Lodge in Cabin 8, which was well-equipped with actual beds, a card table (which we specifically requested) and electric baseboard heaters (they did rattle and buzz a bit, but they did keep us warm). The highs were in the mid-60s, and the lows were right at freezing every night. The fall color was absolutely at its peak.

But this time we will be in a tent. I am actually looking forward to being a bit cold. The summers are usually so hot and muggy down here (though this particular summer did not seem so bad) that being a bit chilly is a novel challenge.

Of course, it might not be perspective I'm seeking. It might not be as lofty as that. I might not really think about things, or consider things very deeply. It might just be vacation.

I'll let you know.

I own five violins.

I have two arms and one neck, so realistically I cannot play more than one at a time.

But my great-grandfather willed all these violins to my grandfather, who left them to my mother and her siblings - with a stipulation that they never leave the family.

If my great-grandfather were alive, he would be more than 160 years old (he was a recruiter for the Union army during the Civil War, so I assume he was at least 20 in 1861). These violins are all about 100 or more years old. And they are in pretty good shape, I learned.

You see, I have had them for about 8 years, carefully stored in their ancient cases in carefully selected places in the house - places that are part of the house itself, so that they would be air-conditioned and heated. And all that time I have thought that I should take them somewhere and have them evaluated, have them fixed up into playable condition, and maybe even (gasp) sell a few.

After all, I can't play more than one at a time. And today's entertainment for families is no longer sitting around the piano of an evening singing grand old songs ("Will You Love Me In September As You Do In May") and playing stringed instruments in harmonious family ensembles.

So, this past week I took five violins to a local expert who repairs, appraises, and sells stringed instruments and asked his opinion. He advised me to keep the one I've been playing (because it is not worth selling - long story there, but in short it was sat upon some 60 years ago and was well-repaired, but still...). He also advised me to keep the one that is in the best shape, and play it. He has that one now, and is fixing a couple of tiny things, and cleaning a generation or two worth of rosin off the front of it for me and will call tomorrow or Tuesday so that I can go pick it up.

And the half-size one should be made into an ornament - hung on the wall, perhaps. It is a nice enough instrument, but the cost to get it in playable condition is not worth it given that no one wants to pay for a good half-size violin.

And two others, along with my grandfather's cello, are in his shop waiting to be researched (this one looks like it was made in Boston, and this one maybe Germany) and a few things attended to, a little tender loving care applied to them - and then maybe we'll see if some promising young player falls in love with them and brings them to life again.

So. Now that I have those dealt with, what should I do with these three trumpets?!

A friend, a reader of this blog, sent me an email the other day with three words in it: Update your blog.

So, here I am, updating my blog.

It is intimidating, thinking of all the great things that have happened over the past couple of months since I last posted anything. For one thing, I turned 50 with a very satisfying amount of hoopla - including a great party given by Brent and Cindy to which we invited 75 friends. It was really fun and meaningful. (It was in honor of Byron, too.) Emily's Lounge in late June was fun, too. And for Byron's 50th I invited his other wives over for a nice dinner.

And we went on vacation to Canada, camping at Pog's Lake with Anne as we have before. It was chilly and windy the first two days, but then it got nicer. One day of rainy weather we spent playing games, and one day of perfect weather we took a 12-mile canoe trip up a lake, up a river, around a dam, up a river, dropped off Scott and a book on an island, up another river, turned around, picked up Scott, ... and so forth. I love canoeing.

One of my birthday gifts was a french press coffeepot made of lexan that you can take camping, from Brent and Cindy. It makes good coffee. It came with a label which was full of warnings and cautions, including "'DO NOT PLUNGE WITH FORCE. Use of excessive force can cause scalding liquid to shoot out of pot. Brewed coffee and grounds may be very hot. Always respect hot liquids and other heat sources." I must say, it would be interesting to see scalding liquid shoot out of the pot.

In the past month I have finished two quilt tops. One is the Strip and Slash quilt that I took the class in back in February when Cindy and I went to the quilt show. The other is a king-sized quilt made from a fabric collection that I bought. It is a simple pattern but results in a fairly dramatic design. I started cutting the fabric on August 14 or so, and finished the top on September 1. I took a kit made for a queen-size quilt and made a king-size quilt out of it, so I had to do several calculations at key times to make sure that I would have enough fabric. I did.

So here it is, a posting. I wish I could think of something funny or clever to post, but I'm drawing a blank at the moment. Perhaps I'll think of something soon.

Friends, as most of you know, I am not a perfectionist. I am a 90% sort of person in most aspects of my life.

(Some notable exceptions are cooking poultry - always 100% done - and many aspects of my job, where I strive for more than 90%.)

But when it comes to quilt-making or housework or things like that - Better Finished Than Perfect is my motto every time.

So, if you come to my house, and look at the paint job in the guest room, you will see imperfections. You will see that maybe, perhaps, possibly, we should do a second coat at some point. And you will see that the trim really should be painted. And you will see that the cutting in above the door and window frames, and in the little space between the windows and the corners, is not perfect. (But to see those last things you'll have to have a head that is only 3" wide, or a little mirror on a stick like dentists use.)

If you notice these things and would like to remark about them, go ahead. I'll hand you a paintbrush and you can go to it!

So. 90%. Good enough. BFTP.

We had some work done in our house a few weeks ago - the main benefit was the ceiling fan installed in our family room. In order to get power to that particular location, they needed to remove some pieces of wallboard from the guest room above and run some wire. So, we had some patched places in the wall up there.

No big deal - except that Anne is coming in a couple of weeks, and it might be nice to have it painted before she comes.

There were also some water spots on the ceiling from some small roof leaks, so those needed attention, too.

So last weekend we asked Cindy, the most experienced painter we know, what she would recommend. She had three excellent suggestions. First, we should borrow her extension pole for the roller. It would make rolling the ceiling MUCH easier. Second, we needed to prime the ceiling before we painted it to cover the water spots. "Why prime the whole ceiling?" asked Brent (which did not get an answer). Third, we should look for the ceiling paint that goes on purple and dries white. That way we'd know what we'd painted and not miss any spots.

Brilliant. Using that ceiling paint made me wish that all paint went on a different color than it eventually dries. It was so easy to see where I had cut in, where Byron had already rolled. (However, we did manage to miss a square foot anyway - it dries fairly fast!)

We did not do one thing she said, though - we did not prime the whole ceiling first. We only primed the spots that had the stains. So we were a wee bit concerned when, after 6 hours or so, the whole ceiling was nice and bright and pure white except for the purple splotches where the the primer was. Fortunately it did all dry white, and it is OK. Not totally invisible, but OK. (Frankly, this is an advantage to having old eyes - I can't really see much at that level of detail if I am not wearing my glasses ...)

And Thursday night and yesterday morning I cut in for the wall paint (I love cutting in - no snickering from you, Brent!) and Byron rolled it yesterday afternoon. We are counting it done except for a tiny bit of touch-up needed.

I think we'll celebrate by buying a new grill.

It has been forEVer - I know.

Sorry.

In fact, I was going to give an excuse for just why it's been forever - such as that three weeks ago I worked 54 hours but it seemed more like 100 hours; or that I did not have a client to post to LJ downloaded since we ... um ... well, because of something having to do with this computer, but I don't recall what exactly. Or that I have been careful these last almost 6 weeks to be in bed more than 8 hours every night (because I'm taking a sleeping pill) and I'm feeling much better because I'm getting more sleep. Thankfully.

But, you know, excuses are just so lame. So I won't give any. I have no excuse.

Some things that have been going on are that Cindy and I have had two lovely afternoons in the past couple of weeks of sewing or going to Thimble Pleasures. I have made some progress on the Strip and Slash quilt that we took a class on in February, but I am irritated with my accuracy of sewing the bias seam and will have to rip out several blocks. Rats. But as soon as I have made a certain amount of progress I think I'll start on my "big project" for the year, which will be a king-size quilt that I bought the fabric for in February. That will be fun (and very easy - very straightforward design).

Anne is coming soon - I don't know exactly when. But she'll be here for Emily's Lounge and for two or three weeks after that. It will be great to see her!

And we have our camping trip planned for the end of July; I am just sorry that Brent and Cindy and Emma and Benjamin won't be coming with us this year - maybe next year.

And Scott and Byron gave me Mario Kart Wii for Mother's Day, which I am really enjoying.

And amazingly we had a crash of the church database last week that did not hardly make a ripple in my demeanor (that's the advantage of getting enough sleep). Cheryl and Amy and I worked on Saturday to recover the data, and we had fun and were successful in getting it cleaned up and ready to send to the Fellowship One folks on Sunday.

So, I'm not writing anything very clever here, but at least I am writing something. Right? Of course. Anything is better than nothing, even if it is not clever. Perhaps I'll think of something clever soon.

I've been working my &*% off and still reading and working on my quilts. Now that, I think, is a sign of a disciplined life, to have time for all those important things.

What have I been up to?

Work: We are implementing a new tool for connecting people in our congregation with ministry opportunities. I am the "Fellowship One Champion" which means that I get to work 50+ hours per week, partially on implementing this product, called Fellowship One. It is really great, has tons of excellent features, and will have an impact on our church if we use it. That's my job - to make sure that it is working right for us, and to make sure that we are using it.

Quilts:I finished a small gift for my friend Leslie for her birthday - it will arrive at her house less than a week late. I forgot to take a photo of it before I sent it, but that's the way it goes. I also have almost finished binding the Atlantis quilt. I only need to finish about 7 feet of the hand-stitching, and make a label, and it will be done. Finished. Yes, Sonya, I will attempt to post a photo here!

I'm also working on a quilt from one of the classes Cindy and I took at the quilt show. And I am working on a quilt from a pattern that I bought at the quilt show. And I have a kit that I need to decide when to get started on that I bought at the quilt show. Sewing Club is meeting at my house tomorrow morning - should be fun!

Books: We read The Last Town On Earth by Thomas Mullen last month for book club. We thought it was interesting and pretty good, I think. For this morning's meeting we have read The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. It is technically a young adult novel, but it is pretty sophisticated for the average 14-year-old, I think. I look forward to our discussion about it. I also just finished reading Son of Laughter by Frederick Buechner, a gift from rs. It is excellent. Lovely. Makes me want to read something else by him.

Other news: TJ, my "twin," got married on Saturday. I went to the doctor and got a prescription for a sleeping aid. We are having a ceiling fan installed in our family room. Byron and I vacuumed the dead wasps out of the sewing room Sunday afternoon. I am a slacker and have not brought anything to book club for breakfast in months and months. I am planning an Emily's Lounge to celebrate my birthday in June. I play Pikmin2 with Scott nearly every evening and lose, lose, lose - despite the handicap. We watch America's Funniest Home Videos together almost every evening, too.

That's it.

Most gas stations sell three grades of gas. They all have names for their grades of gas.

BP has these names:

Regular
Silver
Ultimate

*shaking head*

Atlantis

With the moral support of Cindy, I took my Atlantis quilt (not pictured here - this is the model from the front of the pattern) to Thimble Pleasures about 3 weeks ago for a woman I have never seen to pick up and quilt for me. She called Monday to say that it was finished - left a message because of course I was at work. I picked up the quilt Wednesday ... and I could not be more pleased. She did a great job, and it did not cost nearly as much as I anticipated it would.

I am inspired now - there is no real reason not to make regular sized quilts any longer ... the possibilities are endless!

All I have to do now is decide how I am going to bind it, and do it. I will aim for ... sometime soon!

I really should have mentioned, in my previous post, that we have not always had uneventful Maundy Thursday services at my current church. Sometimes there is the odd glitch - such as my husband, being tapped to sing the solo verse of "The Purple Robe" after the final candle leaves the room ... tapped, I should say, at the last minute because Margie, who was to sing it, was sick. Tapped, I should say, to sing it in total darkness.

Fortunately one of his fellow-tenors was able to light the page (discreetly) by opening his cell phone. The dramatic pauses between lines were actually caused by the automatic timer on the cell phone screen turning it off.

And last year, our excellent readers realized at about Word 5 that it was getting really dark, and they had considerable passages of scripture to read, and there were no flashlights. Nor cell phones.

There were, however, those long-barreled Bic lighters that had been used to light the candles at the beginning of the service.

We in the choir, who were standing behind the readers, wondered whether the Word of the Lord was about to be consumed by a refining fire as the flickering light danced oh so close to the paper.

When I was in high school our church (Episcopal) had a Good Friday service at 3pm, complete with the seven last words of Christ, the altar and cross draped in black, etc. It was a lovely, solemn service. The choir usually did at least one anthem, and led several hymns.

You have to get the picture here: This is a small church, and the choir sat in the choir loft, across the aisle from each other - the aisle that led to the altar, in full view of the congregation. Usually the sopranos sat on one side and the altos on the other. My mother was a soprano and I am an alto.

So, Roy York, our very esteemed and rather elderly lay reader got up about halfway through the service to read a passage from the gospel of Matthew. He went to the huge Bible on the stand and found his place. "Here beginneth the reading from the Gospel of Saint Matthew, Chapter X, verse x." "The word of the Lord," responded the congregation. Then he paused, skimming the columns to find where he was supposed to stop.

At this point he did not say, "And when they had sung an hymn..." (You realize we used the King James Version of the Bible in that church - God's own words, you know. None of this modern "you" and "your" - give me good old "thee" and "thine" when we're talking the Holy Bible. But I digress...)

What Mr. York did say was, "Here endeth the reading." And some in the congregation obediently responded, "Thanks be to God!"

The minister was not as inattentive as those folks, so he leaned over and whispered, "You didn't read it, Roy."

"I did read it," replied Roy, in a whisper likewise.

"No, you didn't. You have to read it," whispered the minister.

"I already read it," hissed Roy in a slightly louder and definitely more agitated whisper.

"Roy, you have to read the passage. You didn't read it," in a more distinct and louder whisper.

Full voice, full of resignation and disbelief: "Do I have to read it again?"

Well. My mother and I were no longer transported to that sad and solemn day, that terrible and dreadful day when God's judgement was visited on his own Son for the sins of the world.

Nope, we were transported into gales of laughter - but of necessity because of our circumstances, entirely silent laughter. We threw our choir folders up in front of our faces and tried not to snort. The pews rocked slightly.

Our fellow sopranos and altos were probably scandalized.


At our church now we have a lovely Maundy Thursday service - a service of Tenebrae and The Seven Last Words of Christ. We have seven candles that we put out one by one as the Last Words are read until the last candle is carried out of the room and the room descends into darkness. We leave the service in silence.

It is such a moving service, so solemn and so lovely. We have excellent readers, by the way.

We sang this hymn as our introit this time. So lovely and so full of yearning.