handwriting

Sunday morning during choir practice I became fixated on my notebook's name label. Our director's son had used his very best handwriting (print) and neatly labeled everyone's books at the beginning of the year. I love the way he looped the top part of the M, and I wondered why I never ever made my "m"s that way.  But I know why. My teachers demanded pointed Ms; that was the proper way to write. In fourth grade, a friend of mine started adding nice curls to her cursive letters, and I decided to make up my own cursive Q and F.  I never liked the book's version of those two letters. The following year I started at a Christian school, and creativity was not encouraged. I acqueised for the sake of my grade and started writing ugly letters again. Until high school, where I rebelled and would print Es, Fs and Qs before writing the rest of the word in print. But for some reason my print Ms always stayed pointed, even though I think the curved humps are much less austere.

Yes, my mind easily chases rabbits when it should be focusing on other things, like music notes and rhythms and whether or not I'm opening my mouth to pronounce a proper O or E or singing it in the southern lazy mouth way.

So I found it quite funny to get home Sunday night and read A.C.Snow's article in the paper. I remember as a child my parents writing notes to my teacher in cursive and it frustrating me because I couldn't read what they wrote. Many of my Chinese students couldn't read cursive, either.  Yet as I reflect on our changing society, I'm not convinced it's still needed. It's never made sense to me why it was mandatory to "sign" your name, but then print it because no one can read the signature. We were told in school that cursive was so important because it was a faster way of writing and we would need it in taking notes in high school and college. I found many people in college mixed the two as cursive easily becomes illegible when you're writing in a hurry. But now? Colleges require laptops, meaning notes are taken on the computer. Typing skills are much more important than writing in cursive. I'll be curious to see whether or not schools continue to teach cursive or if becomes an art form of writing (like the Declaration of Independence, which very few people can read now). And this method of writing drilled into me will be yet one more thing that stamps me as an old fogey to those of younger generations. Aunt Monica doesn't have a smart phone (shoot, she doesn't even have her phone charged most of the time!), she shakes her head at "normal" music, and she'll probably always write loopy. I suppose there's a reason why my youngest niece tells me "You're a good 'ol Aunt."

my new favorite salad

Many years ago at a banquet, I had a strange salad that tasted delicious. It had these dark green, roundish-shaped leaves, strawberries, craisins (which I had also never had), sugared walnuts, with a drizzle of vinagrette dressing. I knew the caterer, and she told me the "leaves" were spinach.

Spinach.  The only thing I knew about spinach is that it always looked pureed. I had never seen it fresh.

Since that night, Spinach leaves is one of the greens I love to eat in a salad. You can pair almost any fruit with it; it has more vitamins than iceberg lettuce, and it's low calorie.

While I'm not a huge fan of pomegranates nor oranges, I have tried this with pineapples, as well as apples and both are marvelous. This is one of the few vegetable/fruit combos I have tried that is both healthy & filling (and it doesn't taste like cardboard).

time warps

It never ceases to amaze me how when life jerks a rug out from under you, it seems as if you're living in two time/reality zones. On the one hand, you're going about life as if nothing happened. Washing dishes, folding clothes, sweeping floors, ironing shirts, gathering eggs, watering plants, making a grocery list...those mundane, ordinary, drive-you-out-of-your-mind-with-boredom tasks. Nothing has changed. These things must be done.
On the other hand, your heart and your mind stops. There are no answers, just questions. Future plans can't really be made, because you don't have the answers for what the future holds. You feel as if time has stopped, except everything all around you continues on at routine speed.
I'm a Martha (yeah, the one who wanted her sister to help out with housework instead of loafing with the boys) type personality. I seek to serve, to do, to have a plan of action, and I'd like those around me to pitch in and do their part.
As I was pondering through some of these things last night, I was reminded of a quote several friends have written recently. All them worded it differently, but the basic gist is this: While the circumstances of life surprise me, they're no surprise to God.
I find comfort in that.
The Creator of the stars I love to see at night, of the rain that breathes new life into plants, and who set the earth's spin in orbit...He knows. More importantly, he CARES. How awesome is that?

a random list

Smoothies (the healthy ones) will sometime in the far-away future get a third and final chance. If I gag or heave or even slightly grimace, they will go alongside my mental list of things to stay away from (like coffee).

My cousin Rachel, while sick from chemo and losing her hair, is remaining positive and focused, and we're rejoicing that the edges of one tumor are "softer" and it appears to be getting smaller, even though she's only 1/3 through the many treatments ahead.  So thankful and relieved! Now if God will help everyone involved restore a relationship or two, we can rejoice for the beginning of another miracle.

Mom's test came back with answers we wanted to hear. :) Happy, happy dance! No further scar tissue development from the last "surgery mishap", no bulging mesh creating pockets of infection, and no cancer lesions. The repeated infection is most likely coming from her sjrogen's (an auto-immune disorder) and the doc has some potential solutions that don't require immediate surgery. So thankful, as her body has been through enough!

I'm still fighting side effects from the Vitamin D meds my doctors have me taking, but thankfully the headaches are responding better to ibuprofen and are only lasting a day to a day and a half now instead of 2-3 days. I'm hoping my body is just feeling less shocked by the high doses and that I'll start noticing a difference in the next two weeks.

And while I'm not up to my goals on the quilts I need to be doing, I am making progress on things. :)

not even a half-truth

I am SO disgusted with our media and liberal comedians right now.
In case you don't follow politics, part of the Obama Health Care plan that is to take affect next year violates the exercise of religious freedom. If a business person believes that birth control is wrong (as do Catholics and a few Protestants), he/she will be REQUIRED by law to purchase health care that includes the cost of contraceptives to your employees. The simple thing would be to make it like a dental or vision plan where the employee can have the option of purchasing it on their own, at their own expense, but NO. According to Obamacare, the employer MUST provide it with the portion of healthcare they partially pay for. Failure to provide such healthcare will result in a daily, substantial fine (until the business either agrees or is bankrupt.)
This past week at a hearing in front of a Congressional Committee, a group of religious leaders who would be impacted by this ruling, presented their cases. They were belittled and ridiculed by many congressmen of this committee. One committee member even walked out because there weren't enough women on the panels presenting their case opposing birth control. NOTE: not enough women, not NO women.
Ever since this event, the media has been laughing and mocking that a group of men are trying to do away with birth control under the guise of religious liberty. It's a lie. They're not trying to ban birth control. They're simply saying they don't want to pay for it because they don't believe in it. Let the employees purchase it themselves if they feel that strongly about it. They are also saying NO women were present at the meeting. (Saturday Night Live even went so far as to do a skit on it.) There were two women on the panel:

Dr. Allison Dabbs Garrett

Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs

Oklahoma Christian University

 

Laura Champion, M.D.

Medical Director

Calvin College Health Services

 

who both feel that this requirement is a violation of religious freedom. Note both are Protestant, not Catholic. Pay attention to the fact that one is a medical doctor and the other has a doctorate degree. Lastly, both women represent employees that do not classify as churches but would be detrimentally impacted by this ruling. 

 

Personally, I am not Catholic and I do not have a problem with birth control. But I DO have a problem when the government starts telling people they have to live in violation of their religious beliefs. Would a Muslim or Jewish student be required to eat non-kosher food from a school cafeteria? Are Muslim girls forced to wear shorts in a co-ed gym class? Will Protestant churches be forced to hire a secretary who is an openly-practicing homosexual or Hindu temples required to hire receptionists who are evangelical Protestants in the name of diversity?

 

All it takes for evil to prevail is for good people to do nothing. 

singing the blues

While I like cut flowers, I think they're a waste of money. Plus, they often make me sneeze. My husband works with a bunch of women, who drive him crazy asking, "What are you getting Monica for Valentine's Day?"  They don't seem to grasp that A) I'm not a normal female.  B) Bobby and I tend to think alike. and C) Valentine's, while cool, is not our favorite holiday. We tried the going out to eat thing a few years, but we don't do well with crowds (have you ever tried getting a wheelchair parking spot or table when a restaurant is crowded?) so this year we went out last weekend to celebrate. And I somewhat jokingly told him (since he says he buys me flowers to make the girls at work shut up) if he had to buy me flowers, I wanted them in the form of blueberry bushes, and that Sam's Club had them in a box.

He came home with TWO boxes.  As in 8 plants total.  EIGHT plants. There are only two people in this family. I can never complain the man doesn't love me.

I spent most of yesterday planting blueberry bushes, raking pine straw to put around half of the said blueberry bushes, yelling at the chickens for messing up all the pine straw I put out, and watering the seedlings (and a chicken or two) we planted on the property line. My goal is to finish with the pine straw before it rains today.

Maybe next year I'll ask for a cocoa bean tree.

only 2 weeks behind :)

 Being the mature, responsible, and sane adult that I am, instead of completing the quilt I needed to finish, I finished step 2 of a totally different quilt. :) Above are 3/4 of the appliqued hearts I started as a result of a class I took a few years ago. While putting something away, I realized I had enough to do a quilt top without making any more. So I did. The above is the finished result. (Now it just needs to be quilted. But that's a different pile and a different project.)

 AND, as if that wasn't enough, I had enough hearts left over that if I added strips and squares I could make another quilt top. And so I did.

Meanwhile, there's still the Solstice Star tutorials taking place (6 squares in 6 weeks).  Today is Week Four, and above is Square Two.  But who's counting?

So after completing adjustments on a top for a friend and making one more top, I hope to get back to work on the Solstice Stars, my block of the month with Bernina, and the what-was-supposed-to-be-my-NC-State-Fair-quilt-but-wasn't quilt and finish the thing. After all, February is now half-over. Not that I'm counting or anything.