On-Line Games

Is anyone else out there addicted to on-line computer games like I am?  I started out years ago playing Zork, when it was text-only and graduated my way through several series of computer games before finally finding  http://www.bigfishgames.com/ and its one-hour trial games.  After playing the trials for quite a while, I finally talked my husband into a monthly subscription.  For my $7, I get to play one game through a month, usually about three hours of play time.  Now I am addicted to Facebook games.  I've played several over the years, but the three I'm addicted to right now are Mafia Wars, Zuma Blitz, and Treasure Island.  Why I have no idea, but if I have to miss playing one day I'm lost.  :)

~Jane

This and That

All my posts lately seem to be so serious, and yet, I'm really not that serious a person.  I guess my son-in-law's being out of work has sobered me up lately.  I'm worried about them and it affects me in totally unrelated ways, like staying up too late and eating too much.  Which then just makes me feel more worried.  It's a vicious cycle, and even though I can recognize it, I can't seem to do much about it.  It has spurred me on to pray practically unceasing though.  I wish my bible-reading was as dedicated.

On a happier or sadder note, I can't quite decide which, my Little Guy is turning 2!  He's such a cute little guy and is so funny.  His favorite things are his cars and trucks.  Just recently he discovered the Thomas the Tank Engine trains at ToysRUs and just loved them.  When I tried to get him to go find his mom, he had a meltdown on the floor, crying "Doot!  Doot!," his version of toot, toot, which is what trains say.  Needless to say, he's going to get some for his birthday.  He needs his own doot, doots!  :)  I'm decorating some paper cups and hats and baking some car cookies for his party on Saturday.  Grandma and Grandpa are giving him a little red wagon, a toddler t-ball set, and some puzzles and books for his birthday.

~Jane

Stay At Home Moms

I read and follow a lot of blogs and was intrigued by one that I read today.  It really promotes stay-at-home moms.  Now I was lucky enough to be a stay-at-home mom for all of my daughter's growing up.  I always wanted to be a wife and mom.  I never wanted a career.  I was perfectly happy at home and never planned on re-entering the work force.  I thought my husband was 100 percent in sync with that thought.  Guess what?  Life doesn't always work out the way you plan.

Now the blog I was reading is against women working outside the home in general, and especially if you're a mom.  I entered marriage with exactly those same thoughts.  But this is what I found.  There is a big difference between being a stay-at-home wife and being a homemaker.  Anyone can stay at home.  I know many women who don't work and stay at home - except that staying at home means running all over creation and doing lots of socializing.  It doesn't mean that if they have children they are spending much more time with them than someone who works outside the home.  It doesn't mean that they're putting their hearts into their homes and making it a sanctuary for the people who live there.  It doesn't mean that they are putting time and effort into their marriages.  It doesn't mean homecooked meals and families around the dinner table.  It just means that they are taking the hours they are spending not going to a job and filling them with other activities.  I guess the point I am trying to make is that the important thing is where your heart is at, not whether you can stay at home full time or not.

Now I always dreamt of being a homemaker and a mother and I was lucky enough be able to stay home full-time to raise my daughter and homeschool her from 1st through 12th grade.  She went off to our local community college and then to University and had the grades to graduate with honors.  She turned out to be a perfectly normal person, despite what people say about homeschoolers.  Looking back I can see though that I concentrated so much on being a good mom that being a good wife or homemaker came after.  In addition to homeschooling, outside activities with my daughter, and church, I was very into all my hobbies, to the point where my husband and my home sometimes got neglected.  Nothing major, but life was definitely out of balance.

It should not have surprised me then, although it threw me for a loop, to have my husband suggest I get a job when my daughter started off to college and we were through homeschooling.  Hey, I was against women working outside the home.  This was unfair.  I thought he agreed with that.  It was then that I realized why the subject came up.  He obviously felt that if I was going to be spending all that time outside the home or on hobbies, I might as well be getting paid for it.  I realized I was reaping what I'd sowed.

Now I have a wonderful job that I love.  It is a job, not a career.  And though I go to work every day, my heart is in my home and with my family.  They are my first priorities.  My hobbies are part of my  life, but not my focus.  I still have a long way to go to get to where I want to be, but I know I'm on the right path.  My daughter is a wonderful wife and mother who has to work outside the home part-time.  I know she would like to be a full-time stay-at-home mother.  In today's economy, I'm not sure that that is a realistic goal any more.  But I hope she finds the right balance between work and home and uses her time at home wisely and productively to not just be a stay-at-home person, but really learn how to be a good mother, wife, and homemaker in all its different facets. 

~Jane

The Young Victoria

From Netflix description:

Eighteen-year-old British royal Victoria (Emily Blunt) ascends to the throne and is romanced by future husband Prince Albert (Rupert Friend) in this lush period film that chronicles the early years of the British monarch's larger-than-life reign. Produced by Martin Scorsese and Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, the Oscar-nominated film also stars Miranda Richardson as the Duchess of Kent, Jim Broadbent as King William, and Paul Bettany as Lord Melbourne.

Oh my goodness.  Beautiful costumes and settings.  A wonderful storyline which matched what I had always thought the relationship between Queen Victoria and Prince Albert was like.  Complete with villains.  I loved this movie.  A must-watch if you like romantic, historical dramas. 

~Jane - who watched this movie while picking out the scorched ribbing at the bottom of Malachi's deer sweater. 

Thankful Thursday

What can I say?  These two make my heart sing!

The No-Good Scarey Sunday Night

I washed the Little Guy's Deer Sweater, which I have been knitting on for months, on Saturday and blocked it on a towel on the washing machine in the utility room, but since we keep the house pretty cool, it wasn't drying very fast.  So on Sunday I had the brilliant idea of putting it on top of the propane stove in the living room.  It's nice and warm, I often put bread to rise there or dry gloves or mittens. 

Apparently though, when I put the towel with the sweater on top of the stove, part of the towel and sweater hung down in front.  The front of the stove easily gets hot enough to severely burn.  I just wasn't paying attention - I had a bad cold which was making me kind of fuzzy headed - and everything was so damp that I thought it would just steam for a while and I'd take it off before I went to bed and put it back in the utility room.  So I was sewing in the computer room, watching a movie.  My husband had gone to bed. 

All of a sudden I hear the smoke alarm going off.  As I come around the corner of the kitchen, I see the top of the stove in flames and smoke starting to haze up the rooms.  I grab my favorite army surplus wool blanket from the couch as I run, and smother the flames on the stove with it.  All the while I am screaming for my husband to get up.  By the time he gets down the stairs, I've soaked the smoldering bundle in the kitchen sink and everything is fine.  I clean up a few bits of ash here and there and put all the ventilating fans on to air things out.  My husband praises me for my quick thinking (the scolding for being stupid comes the next day) and goes back to bed.  

I call my daughter.  Only then do I fall apart.  I was so scared.  The flames were so close to the curtains on the front window and if they had gone, I'm not sure the house wouldn't have gone with it.  It is an old house and the wood is very dry and seasoned.  Before I go to bed, several hours later mind you, I spray odor neutralizer everywhere to help get the smoke smell out.  Once in bed, I can't get warm enough to go to sleep.  I am sure it was a reaction to the adrenaline flood earlier.  My body was in shock.  Finally I get to sleep. 

Tonight I went out to the garage to check out the damage.  Here is what I found.  Everything is wet because I had it in a bucket.

You can see the edges of the towel all burned, and there are holes and charred parts in the blanket.  I'm not sure how much damage the sweater had.  It mainly looks like the ribbing at the bottom, which I guess I can fix if I can get the burned smell out.  I was going to just toss the blanket and the sweater, but my husband said to wash them first and see if anything can be salvaged.  I think he's thinking maybe I can patch my blanket or something.  I think it's going to be a total loss.  Meanwhile, I was estimating yarn amounts out to reknit the sweater.  I am just so thankful the house didn't burn down and I was able to catch it in time.  You can be sure I won't try that again!

~Jane

P.S.  After washing the blanket and the sweater, I think the blanket is a total loss.  But it looks like maybe, if I cut off the button bands and reknit them, and cut off the ribbing at the bottom of the sweater and reknit it, I may be able to save the sweater.  I have plenty of yarn left so that shouldn't be a problem.  I guess I'll wait and see what it smells like after it's dried.

Troubling Times

It seems like everything is in turmoil lately.  From world news events like the Japan earthquake to the issues governments are dealing with, there is just so much happening lately.  So much uncertainty.  I would like to think that in such troubling times we could be untroubled, but I guess that is just too much to ask for.  It seems to spill over into our everyday lives.

My son-in-law has been unemployed since right before New Years and my daughter only works part-time at our local hospital.  Luckily there is unemployment, but things are really tight for them right now.  My son-in-law's grandpa has not been doing well.  It has been hard for my son-in-law since they haven't the money for him to fly down to Texas and help out.  Jobs are almost non-existent around here right now.  My daughter says there is hardly anything to apply for.  It's stressful on everything and everyone.

As a mom, you wish you could just make it all better.  But the reality is that as a parent you can only do so much and then suffer through it with them.  It is so hard to see your kids hurting.  I'm so glad I can pray.  I don't know what people who don't believe in God do in times like these.  It is the only thing that gets me through. I know that God listens to the prayers of his people.

My pastor preached this morning about how the Christian life is blessed, but its not easy.  It was a great sermon, but not easy to hear.  We want the fact that God is blessing us to mean that we will have an easy or perfect life.  But the reality is that following Jesus is hard, but it's worth it.  Going through what we are right now, this is a hard sermon, but puts things into perspective.

http://www.ecconline.cc/ecconline/media_player.shtml

~Jane

Lent

Lent isn't really something we celebrate in our church.  But it's something I often hear others talking about.  Who is giving up lunches out at work, or meat, or sweets.  I have given it a lot of thought and I finally decided that what I'm giving up for Lent is some time.  I have a very strong faith in God and what I believe,  and I'm pretty consistent about my prayer life and church attendance.  But my practice of some of the spiritual disciplines (fasting, meditation, bible reading and memorization) is spotty.  So for Lent, I am going to make it a point to read my Bible every day.  One chapter of Proverbs every day until Easter.  Hopefully doing this will get me to the point of this being a habit.  I'm convinced that some of the hard things we go through is because we get so complacent about things like reading our Bibles and prayer and meditation.  Sometimes I think we have to go through some tough things every once in a while so God can get our attention again.  I'd like to get to the point where I was consistent enough in my devotional life that I could get past that thought. 

~Jane

Baby Showers

I've been busy making baby things this week.  Four of my co-workers are having babies, and we're having a shower for two of them tomorrow.  They only gave us a week's notice, not all that much if  you're going to make a present.  I've been busy sewing and knitting.  I was going to take a picture and realized I'd wrapped everything before I thought about the camera.  Anyways, one of them doesn't know what they're having and the other one is having a boy.  So I made two lime green dotted flannel receiving blankets, one for each.  Then a blue print for the boy and a yellow print for little unknown, and two coordinating hand knit cotton wash cloths for each.  Everything turned out cute.  Now I'll have to start working on gifts for the other two people in the office who are due closer to summer.  :)

New Sewing Machine?

In my last entry I told of how I had really screwed up my sewing machine and how I was going to take it in to get it fixed.  It is still sitting there waiting, since I haven't really had a chance to take it in yet.  Meanwhile, I'm using the little featherweight and it's working fine.  However, I've been having fun looking at sewing machines on-line, and I discovered one that I'm kind of lusting after.  Mind you, it isn't fancy or expensive, but it has some features that I would really find handy.  It threads its own needle.  A few years ago this wasn't so wonderful, but now that I have bifocals, I can really see the advantage of a self-threading needle.  Also, it has a stitch that looks like hand-quilting.  This would be handy making baby quilts.  It has a simple monogramming feature that can monogram simple phrases.  I don't want a machine that does embroidery, but being able to put the Little Guy's name or just Baby Jones, whatever, on bibs or undershirts would be fun.  I'm still thinking on it.  It isn't that expensive and I am really tempted. 

~Jane

Sewing Machine Disaster

Old Faithful

I've been busily sewing the past few weeks and my Singer sewing machine started sounding rather rough.  I decided I needed to clean out the area where the bobbin lives and give the poor machine an oiling.  Now, I've done this many, many times.  My machine is at least 25 years old and just keeps going.  I rarely have problems with it.  Usually it just needs the lint cleaned out and some machine oil and it's good to go.  This time, however, after cleaning it out, I must not have lined up the bobbin piece in the machine correctly and it's now jammed in there out of alignment.  I'll have to take it in to the repair shop on Saturday and see if it can be fixed and if it's worth fixing.  So.......out came the old Singer featherweight.  It may not be fancy but it sews very well as long as you only need straight stitching.  Since nothing I'm sewing needs a zigzag stitch, we're good to go until a decison is made on the other machine.

I managed to get all three of the cut-out diapers sewed this week.  Yeah!  And, I'm halfway through the second sleeve on the Little Guy's deer sweater.  That is real progress.  I may finish it before he outgrows it.  The Little Guy is coming to spend the night Saturday night.  This is a picture from a couple weeks ago when he spent the night.  He had Grandpa (Bapa) reading to him.  I just love it when the Little Guy spends the night.  He is developing such a personality.  He is so fun! 

~Jane

Tuesday - March 1, 2011

It's hard to believe it's March already.  Time just seems to fly by.  The Little Guy is going to be 2 the end of the month. Wow!  Just another reminder to live life intentionally and not waste it.  Work has come to a complete halt.  It's kind of  nice having the break, but we all seem to be so sleepy this week.  We finally decided we need the adrenaline rush of having too much work to do in too little time to keep us awake.  The nice thing about this slow week is that I can bring a book to read or my knitting to work on at my desk.  I guess its a fair trade-off for missing seven weeks of lunches.  :)

Coming home, I've tried to stay productive also.  I've sewn two more diapers for the Little Guy this week.  I cut them out months ago and, though I finished up about 18 of them for use, I must have gotten sidetracked before finishing up these last few.  It's good to get unfinished projects off the sewing counter.

I also decided my house is a disaster.  Of course, coming home at night so late doesn't leave much energy for housework.  I cleaned and shined my kitchen sink tonight.  Maybe the Flylady will kick in again and cleanliness will spread.

~Jane