What I've Been Doing - Part 2

I've been working like mad on the blanket I'm embroidering. The person it is intended for informed us that they are leaving the country, hopefully within the next week or two. Not sure how that is going to work out for them, but I decided that I'd better get busy and, well - get busy! So, I've been cross-stitching like crazy in any of my free time.

However, when we were at Nova Linea, I picked up a handful of small nails, as well as the fountain (and a 12 pack of TP). Over the past few days, while I cross-stitched I did a lot of praying - and that will continue until I'm finished with the blanket. But inbetween prayers, I did a lot of thinking, too. :) :) And one of the things I thought about was how to make a new 4x4 inch loom.

The one I have, a little green plastic Weave Easy Hand Loom, is falling apart. I've used it alot. I like using it. A lot. Little woven 4x4 inch blocks just seem to leap off this loom. I looked all over the internet and could not find a replacement - besides which, I figured a replacement would soon wear out, too. I looked at 4x4 inch looms for sale, but they are all different styles than this one and I have already made several blocks and want them all to be the same. So, I made my own loom.

HA HA HA! It is a funny looking thing, don't you think? But I made it. All by my lonesome.

I looked for wood at Nova Linea but didn't find anything that struck my fancy. Mel reminded me that we had that old shoe caddy at home that had fallen to pieces when we put shoes on it - it was make of wood. He'd used pieces of it to prop the window a/c stuff and hold it in place,

but there were several other good pieces left that I might be able to use. And I did. I measured the little green loom (about 50 times over the weeks I've been thinking about this!), and I measured the wood. I drew lines, make little marks, thought about it, muttered aloud about it, wondered about it, nagged Mel about it. He finally found pieces for a hacksaw in his tools, put it together for me, and went and cooked dinner for us both. I went out on the balcony and began sawing. Hack saws apparently do not cut straight down... or maybe it's my technique? Then I came back in, propped a stool on top of my legs and began nailing the 4 pieces together on top of the stool, measuring here and there every few hammer blows to make sure I was getting the right size. Why did I do it on the stool propped on my legs? :) :) :) Even writing that sounds weird. Well, because I didn't have any other surface to work on and bending down over that same stool to saw the wood killed my back. So, I propped the stool on my legs and then hammered it all at chest height, where I could actually SEE the nails and it worked very, very well. No bruises on my legs because I didn't hammer that hard, no smashed thumb or fingers, just easy pain-free hammering. And you see what I came up with.

The wood on the last bar began to crack as I was putting in the last few nails. I would have drilled holes first for the nails, but 1) Mel's drill needs charged, 2) he didn't have a bit that small and 3)I would have made a mess of it, having never really drilled anything before. So, instead of throwing the whole thing out and starting over (oh yeah, I forgot to mention - I glues the pieces down before I started nailing, so they were mostly glued together at that point), I decided to apply some glue to the cracks and see if that would hold the nails. And so far, it has!

As soon as the glue was dry, I made a 4x4 inch square - measured it back-to-back with one of the ones made on the little green loom - and voila! They are the same. Here are three photos, showing what I'm making: Front:

Back:

What I'm doing with them:

I'll write more about what I'm doing with them, and how I'm making them later tonight. For now - it's time to go eat dinner!

What I've Been Doing, Part 1

I'm having a bit of a problem uploading photos today. Hope this eventually works!! Very frustrating, to say the least.

Oh my - 10 days without blogging. Yikes! And I'm not even in the States playing with my grandkids. I think I need to post a whole lot of photos, not just the ones I was originally going to post. Oh well - we'll see what happens.

I've been busy. Busy working on this room. I totally rearranged it, except for the desk. I'm going to keep this desk so I can look out the window at the trees and sky and birds and clouds. Don't want to look at the wall. Don't want to look at the rest of the room. I want to look 'free'!!

I left the shkaf where it is - it's too heavy to even consider moving unless I totally empty it and have Mel move it in pieces. So, it stays where it's at. However, I did clean it out again. Seems like I'm always cleaning it out.

Well "always" is too broad of a term. It's more like "whenever we get ready to go home, I clean out the shkaf" in this room. I seldom put anything in the cupboards and on the shelves any more, so I don't know why it always needs to be cleaned - but there you have it.

But I moved the bed, and I moved the table, and I moved the empty and full of winter clothes now suitcases and I moved the empty boxes. And I threw away 2 full boxes of old video cassettes that we don't watch anymore, but kept another box full of ones we might watch again. The throw-aways were recorded off of tv - Columbo, Murder She Wrote and Diagnosis Murder. Kind of sad to see them go - but I needed the room!

We are downsizing. The greater team is downsizing. We are letting the office lease go. That means that all of Mel's books, and anything else we have downstairs in that room, need to come up here and go into storage here.

Ei Yi Yi. We do NOT live in a large flat to start with, so I needed to make room. I'm going to have to go through boxes and shelves of books next and get rid of books. Many books. Books that are so-so but I might read them again will go. I'm not sure where they will go, but they are going. Probably in bags out by the dumpster to someone can haul them off and sell them as used books in the market. That's fine with me. I will tear apart any that I don't want sold (we've been given a few books that are questionable - and I've bought a few that looked good, but when I started reading them, I ended up knowing that I won't share them with anyone, so into the trash they will go. Unfortunately, sometimes I just set them aside later to rip them apart and they end up getting shuffled back into the mix....) So, I need to go through at least 2 boxes of books and a whole bookcase and discard with a fury. Then, I'll have room for Mel's books - seminary books, theology books, study books, just for fun books that he has.

We like books.
haha

So, it took me at least 3 days to get the room where I have it now. And it will take a few more days for me to get inspired to do the books next. But in the process, I also weeded out old papers. I killed the shredder by plugging it into an extension cord without a transformer. Whew! The room stank for days! It sure did work really fast until I got it unplugged, however - like a chainsaw roaring away over there on the table! Poor thing. But I killed it in the process. 220v does not do good things to 110v electrical appliances and machines. So, all of the stuff I weeded out I had to shred by hand. Some I just tore into pieces, but names, addresses, dollar amounts, receipts no longer needed, etc. all got cut into tiny pieces and thrown out. Of course, two bags out in the dumpster were very appealing to someone who tore them open, rummaged through them and then left them for the garbage men to scatter all over the place when the dumpster emptied into the garbage truck. :( sigh. Looking out there and seeing that bright neon pink paper in the middle of scattered tiny pieces and knowing it was mine was not encouraging, but embarrassing. Should have taken a photo but didn't think of it, so here's a photo of what's out there right now (not ours!).
On Monday this week, Mel and I went over to Nova Linea. As you can see from this photo, we've had some dark, gray clouds recently and a couple of very heavy rainstorms. There was a little lightning and thunder, but not much. Mostly heavy rains. We really needed that rain, tho - it's been very dry. Fortunately, the temps also dropped, way down into the low '60's. Unheard of for summer here! :) I'm glad they dropped. It's been wonderful.

Along with other things, I bought a new fountain at Nova Linea. It's not as pretty as my blue jug fountain, but it has a light! and that is something I was trying to figure out - how to get a light to shine down into the pond so I can see the fish some day when I get fish again.

Mel helped me fill it with filtered water and in the process we discovered that the room is not level. Really? A room not level? Here in Ukraine? Wow. I'm shocked. Not. No, not shocked, just very sarcastic. :P How did we find this out, you ask? Well, we were filling it to the top so that the water would be deep enough for the fountain to circulate the pond water, not just the fountain bowl water - and the close side is apparently about an inch lower than the far side. Good grief. Water everywhere cuz we were watching the far side, not the near side. :) (Sounds like a comic strip or something.) I plan to get a couple guppies or maybe 3 or 4 goldfish to put in it on Friday or Saturday. Right now the water is sitting, recycling through the fountain and de-gassing or whatever it does while it conditions for fish. I'm hoping that whatever was left on the sides of the pond and on the rocks of the algea and stuff that fish need will "come back to life" and grow again and make it ready faster than if it was all brand new or freshly scrubbed (I didn't scrub any of it for that reason). We'll see.

And what else have I been doing? Well, that's for another post!

Fiber Arts Exhibit at the Museum

Yesterday I went to the Fiber Arts Exhibition at the Museum of Natural and National History here in Kherson (it was translated to me as the Museum of Local Lore - I just gave it the title of what is actually in the museum). My tutor, Lyudmilla, and my team mate, Melinda, went with me.

I went to another exhibition there a couple years ago. Really enjoyed that one a lot, so wanted to see this one, too.

This one was very different. First, there was a size limit on the submissions. According to the website, they could be no bigger than (30x30x30cm). Actually, here is the add for it:

2011
THE FIFTH INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION ON MINI TEXTILE

June 15 - 22, 2011, Kherson, Ukraine

International juried exhibition on mini textile (30x30x30cm). Artists from all over the world, who work in different techniques of textile are invited.
Deadline for slides, photos and CV - 1 February 2011.
Please contact to receive the Entry Form.
http://anschnei.public.kherson.ua
anschnei@public.kherson.ua

If you click on this, you will find information on another exhibition to be held later this year - FIBERMEN - for men only. I think that's a wonderful idea. I'm hoping to go to that exhibition, too, when it happens in October. If we are here then - we might be in a different part of the country at that time. We'll see.

Anyway, the exhibit was "interesting". The pieces were small and made of many kinds of "fiber" - paper, metal, cloth, string, wool, felt, etc. Some were painted, some were felted, some were woven, some were cut out. Some of them were nice to look at, one was obscene, and most were the kind where I stood there and said, to myself AND outloud - HUH?? There were 3 or 4 I would have hung on my wall in the livingroom if they'd been given to me. I would not have bought any of them. I'm very picky about things like this, I guess.

However, we enjoyed it. A lot. I want to go again. And I have several ideas running around in my head now about things I could make like that. (Such as - get out the sewing machine and just stitch random patterns in a contrasting color to the fabric, mount it and hang it on the wall - I don't know why, but I could do that - or give it to a friend for a birthday present....). No, actually, I do have some real ideas. Don't know if I'll ever get around to them because I have so many other things I want to do, need to do, as well as just live every day life. Laundry and vacuuming do exist in my world.

After we looked at all the exhibits, Lyudmilla, Melinda and I then looked at an exhibit on the Cossacks and Tatars in Ukraine many years ago. You know, those long baggy pants in red or blue cloth, can kind of look like a skirt when a man is just standing there getting his photo taken - but somehow there is NEVER any question as to his maleness, his masculinity. No, infact, I find them very attractive. Too bad guys don't wear those anymore, except in reinactments! (The photos were from the 1800's or early 1900's I'd guess.)

Quite often they are portrayed wearing red or blue pants. In fact, that is what traditional dancers wear.

After the museum, we walked up to the main walking street and stopped at a little shop that sells Italian Gelato. Yum yum! I had a scoop of lemon and a scoop of "forest berries" which turned out to be cranberry. Both were very tart, the berries being more tart than the lemon. It was exactly what was needed. Lyudmilla had never had this before and I enjoyed her delight in tasting the 3 different kinds I bought for her. :-) It was a simple pleasure on both our parts. The lemon, however, was too tart for her taste. She did, however, love the chocolate. :-)

Outside it was hot, and more than a bit humid for me. I do not like being covered in sweat all the time. In fact, I'd brought along a dry washcloth to wipe the sweat off my face while in the museum, but used it the whole time I was away from home. I noticed Melinda doing the same thing with a tissue and a younger woman on the marshrutka home using what looked like a hankie. It was miserably hot and humid for me, but then I was raised in very dry Colorado.

So, now I have ideas running around in my head about new things to create with my hands, with the loom, with floss and needle. However, at this exact moment what I need to do is create something with flour, sugar, eggs and butter! Tomorrow is one of our team mates birthdays and I'm bringing the dessert for our team dinner. So - off to the kitchen I go to at least get started.

"Being Home"

Talked with my grandson and daughter last night on skype. Unfortunately, my granddaughter was very tired, cranky and weepy and ended up taking a nap just minutes after I started talking to my grandson. So, didn't get a nice photo of her, or even really "talk" to her.

It was good to see them, hear their voices, hear about adventures last weekend. They went to Mesa Verde National Park, the Four Corners and had various adventures along the way. A woman in a store somewhere asked if she could buy this sword for my grandson. Papa said yes, so she bought it, gave it to him, and left. Hmmm. Interesting. He loves it. Obviously. First thing he showed me!

How I miss them! Thanking God for skype this morning.

Have been busy lately. Not the kind of 'run around town and get lots of errands done' kind of busy. No, just the kind where I do stuff all day long and then wonder where the time went and why didn't I ever take time to write on my blog?

Have finished part of what I had set as my goal on the blanket I'm cross-stitching. It goes really fast when I set small goals and work toward them. I don't feel so overwhelmed by the whole project. I finish the little section, or the item (like a flower, or the stems of several, or a butterfly) and then I put it all down some place where I can just look at it. Sometimes I get so overwhelmed with the individual stitches - and especially the ones that aren't "perfect" - that I can't see the overall blanket. That's why I do the 'setting apart' exercise. After an hour or so, whenever I pass it and see it, all I see is the completed whole, not the individual stitches.

Does that make sense? :-)

I like what I'm seeing in the completed whole. The good news, too, is that I'm well over half-way finished now. It needs to be done by the end of the month, according to what I heard on Sunday, but that's not going to happen. If everything goes as planned, I may have to mail it rather than give it to the person I'm making it for. If that's the case, that's ok. Not my first choice, but ... many things in life are not first choices.

~&~&~&~&~&~&~
Wow, my typing this morning is really weird - I keep transposing letters and making new words, or wrong words. :-)

I decided on the spurr of the moment yesterday to go out and clean our section of the stairwell. It's been driving me crazy. Every time I go out there all I see is all the stuff spilled on the walls. It has never been like that before, in all of the 12 years we've lived here, I've never seen stuff spilled on the walls.

Now that makes me wonder - what the heck went on while we were gone?? Most of it looked like coffee or hot chocolate. In America it is common to see people walking around with cups of liquid, sipping from them, possibly splashing a bit here or there as they walk, etc. But not here. No, here you might see someone with a bottle of beer or a bottle of water. Very rarely do you see someone drinking a bottle of soda (most soda is sold in 2 liter bottles, not smaller). But coffee? No way! Coffee is drunk after a meal and maybe for breakfast and that's about it.

So, what was that stuff on the walls, spilled here and there for 3 or 4 flights of stairs in our stairwell, starting about shoulder height? I have no idea.

I started by going out and sweeping all of the stairs from the landing above us (dirt comes down as people come down) to the landing below us (dirt comes up as people come up). There was a lot of dirt, even though I swept all of this a month ago (apparently I'm the only one sweeping them).

Then I came back in the flat, put on one latex glove (the kind used by doctors), got a bowl of cool water with some Mr. Proper in it :-), grabbed a rag made out of one of Mel's old sport socks, and went out and washed 3 flights worth of walls. You know, our walls are lime green and white - only the lime green is washable. The white is whitewash and just comes off with water - not good. I also washed the brown paint on each side of each step. I did not wash the brown paint that encircles each landing - I need a mop for that due to all the bending over.

The water was filthy. I figure that is the first time those walls have ever been washed since the building was built. Since they were painted a few years ago (I think I wrote about that, but I'm not going to go looking for that post right now), there was only a few years worth of dirt and grime on them.

When I come up the steps I always lightly touch the wall with my right hand since my left hand has my purse in it and the left is where the banister is at. That light touch just kind of steadies me on my way up. Then I come in and immediately wash my hands. Well, last night we went out to find the lunar eclipse and when coming back up later, I could feel the difference immediately when I got to the part I'd washed. It was slick and smooth - and clean! :) :) :)

This makes me happy.
Now - if I could just feel that happy about dusting, mopping and vacuuming here in our flat.........

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Yes, we went out and walked around in the mostly dark for awhile until we found the eclipse of the moon. Finally found it just a couple doors down our own building. Figures. The street view was too bright due to street lights (would rather have the lights than the eclipse), there were too many 5 and 9 story buidlings in the way or there were too many trees with lots of leaves on their branches to see the sky. Just down the walkway in front of our building, tho, just a few meters away, was a clear view of the sky.

The moon was really tiny, way up there in the sky. Tiny and very orangish red. I was disappointed. After seeing the eclipse in Colorado last December, this one was hardly worth looking at. Teeny tiny moon, not so good view, hot and humid air. We went back inside.

Finally, just 15 minutes before it was all over, I discovered a link to a live view of the eclipse. I clicked on it and watched the end of the eclipse. That was as good as what I watched in Colorado last December! Bigger moon here on my computer than up there in the sky - and even here on the computer it was, what?, 3 inches across at most? :) :) :) But it was way too cool watching the sunlight come back there on the far left side, turning the moon from dull copperish-red back to brilliant white.

By the way, this eclipse, viewed from the Southern Hemisphere, was 'blood red' due to the ash in the upper atmosphere from two volcanoes erupting. Hmmm - I need to write about that, too, but it's going to have to wait. Anyway, there are End Times implications for that, according to several websites I've read. More about that later, too.

~&~&~&~&~&~&~
And now, I must go get dressed, make a couple phone calls and get busy with my day. What I do is going to depend on what I learn from the phone calls.

Bye.

Rabbit Born Without Ears Near Fukushima

We've Come To See The Tapestries!

I've been working a lot on my embroidery project and my left thumb is beginning to tell me about it. Bummer. Woke up with pain in it this morning.

I love doing embroidery, though. Absolutely love it. Actually, it's a big cross-stitch blanket again, not a true embroidery project.

There is something magical about taking a needle and colored thread, pushing the needle in and out of the fabric in specific ways, changing the colors here and there in specific patterns and ending up with a beautiful 'painting on cloth.' It's so simple. So beautiful. So easy. (So time consuming, written in a whisper.) And the results can last well past the life-time of the artist who creates the whole thing.

Reminds me of visiting Stirling Castle several years ago and seeing this:

We actually got to watch a woman work on one of the tapestries while we were there. This is part of what began my interest in weaving, although I know that tapestry weaving is very different than what I'm learning right now.

While in Izmir, Turkey 10 years ago, we took a tour and saw rug weaving. This flicker account has a couple photos posted of what we watched. Here is one of them:

The photographer posted a couple other photos on his account as well. Check them out! (I wish we'd had digital photography and flicker accounts when WE went to Turkey!) I guess that this was my first real introduction to this sort of craft, not the tapestries at Stirling Castle. Wherever it happened, I would love to do this myself.

Sometimes when I think about things like this I wonder if we'll be able to do these kinds of things in heaven. I've probably written about this before, if so, forgive me for repeating myself. But in the New Heaven and New Earth - will we do things like this? Perfectly, over eternity to learn our craft, practice our craft, become better and better at it? Do it all for the glory of God, our Father and Maker, rather than out of self-pride?

I wonder. And I hope.

God has given us so much creative ability, so many different mediums to work with. A needle and thread. A brush and oils. A stick of chalk. A loom and yarn. A wheel and fleece. A piece of ground and a group of plants. A wheel and a lump of clay. A few sticks and a few dried reeds or grasses.

In our perfected body and mind, completely sinless, no pain, no frustration, no anger - what will we be able to do, to create with our own hands?

And the greatest thing of all - no sin.

Ahhhh - how I look forward to that! No comparing my work to someone else's and being jealous. No fear of causing someone else jealousy. The ability to do it for God with a clean conscience, pure motives, child-like knowledge that He will be pleased with my efforts and love me, no matter how it looks! :)

Someone recently told me that they are not looking forward to heaven because it will be so "boring" doing the same thing all the time. Actually, I began to question that person's salvation, but understood the pressures behind that statement as well (death looming in the family). I look forward to heaven because I'll have all the time I need to do whatever it is that I want to do, to do what needs to be done, to explore, to create, to relax, to live!!!

(PS - the title of this post comes from:

. Whenever I think of tapestries, that quote, originally said by Harrison Ford with a really bad Scottish accent, comes to mind. hahahaha!)

Fall-out In the Coming Days

(Note: I started this post yesterday, left to do something else and when I came back it was gone. Found it this morning and will post it, but I hope to write more before today is over. )

Well, what can I say? I was happy about the boat ride. The kids enjoyed the boat ride. I think the adults who went enjoyed the boat ride.

But ...

Not everyone was happy.

"Why did you hold it on a Monday?"
"Why wasn't there any music?"
"Why didn't someone plan some games or activities for the kids?"
"Why weren't the people from _______ invited, too?"

Whine, whine, whine, whine, whine.

Makes me want to throw up.

The whole boat ride was for the kids, NOT for the church, nor for any other churches, nor was it planned by members of our church or even the session (board) of the church. It was our team's gift, through the gracious and generous gifts of donors in the States, to the classes we work with at the orphanage. Inviting people from the church to come, too, was actually my after-thought, thinking it would be a nice thing to do for people who wanted and could come, too.

We never dreamed that people would have so many complaints simply because we extended to them an invitation to join us.

Sheesh. See if I recommend something like that again!

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Well, here's something to take my mind off the pettiness of the human race:
Wow! That was amazing! I wonder what effect it's going to have on earth in the coming hours. I also wonder when one of these is actually going to hit the earth full on.

Wow.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Short, Quick Update

Just got off Skype with Kara, John and the two kids. SO good to talk with them! It's been way over a week and I was having 'grandkid withdrawal' big time.

Well, the boat ride went very well yesterday. We enjoyed it a lot. About 23 or 24 kids from the orphanage came and about that number from the church. Since it was on a week day we weren't sure how many people would be able to come. It turned out that several mothers and their kids came. That's good. Very good.

It's almost midnight and I really need to get to bed. I only got about 6 hours of sleep last night and I'm really feeling it now. I hope I can get more written tomorrow. Busy day ahead of me, but that's good.

I'm feeling so much better today. Thank you, Father in Heaven. Still concerned about the pain, but it's not been there at all today. So, we'll see. God has numbered my days - I rest in that.

What Is Happening ... Time Will Tell

We're getting ready to go for a boat ride on the River with members of the church and kids from the orphanage. Should be a lot of fun. We've done this a few times over the past 12 years, usually with a team that is visiting us from the States. This time a team that was here a few weeks ago left money with our team to do something with the kids later.

I'd mentioned the boat trip several times over the past few months when our team was talking about things we could do as a team this summer. However, it seemed a bit weird to think of renting the boat, which holds up to 400 people crammed on both decks, for just our little group of 11 people (5 of which are kids and 1 an American not actually on our team, but a gal who joins us for worship and is involved in our lives in other ways here since we are the only Americans we know here). Whew. That was a long, involved explanation that probably doesn't need to be there at all!

I've been looking forward to this ever since it was decided that we'd do it.

Today, however, I'm kind of an emotional basketcase, teary and just hoping I can make it through the rest of the day without crying again.

Last night, while sitting in Jamie and Julia's big comfy house, I would break out in hot sweat every once in awhile and start dripping sweat off the end of my nose. I'm carrying a washcloth in my pocket all the time now so I can wipe sweat off my face. This is so frustrating!!! I don't think it's the heat. I think maybe I'm having hot flashes again. And hot flashes at temps in the 80's and above are absolutely no fun whatsoever. I'm also wondering if that's why I'm so emotional.

And if that is true - why? Why when the Dr. assured me that according to my bloodwork last time, I am fully in menopause? And why did I have such a sharp, horrible pain in my lower left side a few nights ago? A pain that woke me up and kept me up for well over an hour? A pain very similar to the pain I had at the beginning of my periods every once in awhile.

One time while Mel and I were traveling in the States, we stopped for the night in Ely, NV. We were getting ready to go out and have dinner after finding a room and putting our stuff in it for the night. Suddenly I was hit with such a pain in that lower side that I cried out. Ended up laying down on the bed, holding a 2-liter pop bottle full of hot water against my side to help ease the pain until I finally went to sleep for a few minutes. If I remember correctly, that was the first time it happened. After that it happened every once in awhile and always on that side.

Now I wonder - do I need to be concerned about this? Is there a possibility that I have a problem with an ovary? Do I need to be concerned about ovarian cancer? Or something else?

Or was it just gas the other night? (I don't think so.)

Later today I'll look it up on the internet. Later when I have more time. All I know was that earlier today I felt a twinge there again - and that's what reminded me of it all to start with.

That and the fact that I feel like I have PMS and am so close to tears. We won't say anything about the "fight" I had with one of my co-workers last night during our prayer time ... no, that has nothing to do with any of it. Right?

Maybe I'll write more later about this all. Hopefully later I'll have lots of photos from the boat trip. For now - I just want to go back to bed, cry awhile and go "home" - wherever home actually is anywmore. I can't seem to find my 'happy place'.

Poor Mel. He has to live with this. With me.

Sigh.

Much Better

I slept well last night. The first time in several days. Slept until 9:00! Wow - that is almost 1.5 hours longer than I have been sleeping.

And I feel better today. Much, much better.

A little sleep, a lot of prayer from friends and by myself - and I'm feeling better.

What really surprises me is that I came to this understanding after reading the news and some blogs this morning.

The stock market fell almost 280 points yesterday. There were more tornadoes, this time in an area of the US where they happen but are not common, all over the world more animals died under strange circumstances, more volcanoes are threatening to erupt, Fukishima continues to spew out radiation with no end in sight and with no idea when it will actually be 'contained', and violence is breaking out or continuing all over the world (like in Yemen), sometimes in ways and places that are not expected, like on airplanes. Plus, an Islamic cleric is okaying human slavery and praising jihad (again, as usual). And to top it all off, more food is now unsafe to eat, E.coli mystery spreads concern across Europe (to say nothing of all the Genetically Modified Food now in our food supply chain!).

So, there you go - bits and pieces of all the wonderful news today. And yet - I'm feeling myself (a very Russian way of saying that!) much better today.

Thank you, thank you for your prayers. I so needed them.

Now, I need to go get dressed - it is almost noon! And then I need to get a load of wash in the washer and then get the chicken ready for the oven. We have company coming over for dinner tonight. Probably should clean up the livingroom, too - they will need a place to sit down and eat. haha!

Cheyenne thinks this is a good place to sleep!

FO and Complaining

This is my latest Finished Object. It went really fast once I decided what I was actually going to do with the warp. The finished project is not anything at all what I had planned to end up with since I started out with a completely different design in mind. Such is my life sometimes.

I worked toward the original plan in several different ways. All of them ended up being unwoven (the nice thing about using acrylic yarn and weaving very loosely is that it comes apart very quickly with out felting together at all).

The scarf is actually darker and more purple-y than it shows in the photos, at least on my computer. The Danish Medallions - a last minute total design change - are actually woven with lavendar yarn, but kind of look more whitish in some of the photos. Next time, if there is a next time, I will weave them with double strands of yarn to accent them more, and I may try to start them in the middle of the scarf, weave them toward the edges and back and then tie a bow - or something. Little pom-pom? I'm not sure. I don't like the way they look here.

I do like the main scarf, altho the edges need some work. The colors are really pretty in real life. It ended up being a lot shorter than the Bamboo Scarf, even though I warped the loom with the same length warp threads. I don't know why. I haven't figured out what makes the difference yet - pattern, looseness or tightness of the weave, change in air pressure, what?

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Emotionally, I'm at a breaking point right now. Maybe because I have not been writing? Processing my thoughts in print rather than holding them in and/or verbalizing them? I do a lot better when I write. Whatever. I feel like a basket case right now.

Frustrated with myself. Angry with myself over several things. Sad. Feeling like just giving up on everything. Now.

I wanted to go to Last Bell at the orphanage this year, to say goodbye to the kids who were graduating in my Sunday school class. And I forgot all about it. Until Mel looked out the window and said, "There goes a little girl with a white puffy thing on her head. Must be all dressed up for Last Bell." Or something along those lines (little girl, white puffy thing on head). There was no way, at that point, that I was going to be able to get to the orphanage in less than 5 minutes.

Beat my self up mentally, royally, for the next several days. Anger at myself. Plain and simple. Dispair because I seem to fail so often at simple things - like making it to Last Bell on time, once a year - forgetting it was actually going to happen.

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My eye is not doing well. I can barely see out of it at all now. Well, I can see colors and large shapes, and they are perfect in shade and probably size - but how far away is the item/person/animal? And what are the details - like does the person/animal actually have a face - or just a blurry pink blob with brown/black/white blob on top (human) or, well, I can't even see that much of animals, so ... If Cheyenne is laying in my loom, while I'm tying the ends of the scarf on the table in front of her, I can close my left eye, look at her beautiful white blob of fur and tell she has pinkish bumps on top of what I think is her head, so that would make them ears, and if she opens her eyes, I can see that she has yellow and black dots under those pinkish bumps so I figure that's her eyes, and of course there is the pink dot in the center below the yellow and black dots, so that must be her nose - but that's about it.

And it makes me so angry! So angry that I went through the cataract surgery and could see so well, tho definitely not 100% due to the tear/scar in the macula, but I could SEE again and now I can't!!!

So, Mel asks me if I've looked it up on the internet and I say no (because I'm too scared and too angry and too full of self-pity) and he tells me I should because maybe this is "normal" or can be fixed or something.

So I do. I look it up and voila! It may be a simple thing that can be fixed with laser surgery and is common. And I feel better immediately. And I feel angry at myself for being so stupid and putting myself through the pain of fear of the unknown. And I won't have some Ukrainian "doctor" doing laser surgery on my eye, so what to do? What to do? (Throws mental hands up in the air in frustration and self-pity rears it's ugly head and self preservation tries deperately to push it back down, stomp on it, kill it before it takes over my whole life.)

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We came back to Ukraine and my fish were all dead, the pond stuck back in the back room. A few weeks after returning I accidently broke the fountain - which caused me a great deal of self-recrimination because I really did like that fountain a lot. The color of the blue glass was beautiful, the sound of the fountain running was soothing - I liked that fountain a LOT. And I broke it doing something stupid.

I kind of expected the fish to be dead because we'd been gone so long and I knew no one was hear for days at a time.

What I did not expect at all - and maybe I should have - is that most of my plants would be dead.

This has caused me no end of anger, grief, self-pity, frustration in a number of areas and just plain "I give up, I'm never going to have plants again, no one ever brings me flowers, no one cares about what I like, no one likes me, I don't like me, I'm going to throw out all of my plants/pots/vases because why bother they are just going to die/break anyway" and on and on until I'm sick of myself.

Now these thoughts don't go through my mind all the time. No, usually only when I'm already feeling down for some other reason. Or when I water what's left of my plants. Or when I finally decided to put away all the pots that just have dead dirt and sticks in them now. But let's face it - I'm angry that my plants died. Angry. I make a home here in Ukraine - and the things I do to make it my home die from neglect. Even my cat is different now.

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I rail/rale (how is that spelled??) against God: "You take everything away from me!!! My grandkids, my kids, my parents, my fish, my plants, other things in my life that are important to me, being able to teach kids in a language I can actually speak, mountains, my country, my eyesight, my knees (and on and on ad nauseum). It's YOUR FAULT, God!" I kick against the goad. I shake my fist, stamp my mental foot and feel oh, so sorry for poor me.

I'm disgusted with my self, actually.

I am so glad God is patient. And I'm so glad He forgives. And I'm so glad that I really do, deep in my heart, believe that He loves me. And somehow, I really do believe, somehow, someway, this is all "good" for me. I don't get it. I'm still mad about a lot of it. I still want to throw all my pots off the balcony in a fit of temper (which I guess is better than wanting to throw Cheyenne off the balcony, or throw the pots at Mel for some unknown reason). I just wish it was different. I want my life to be easier. If I'm going to live in Ukraine - why can't I have plants? Other people do. Why can't I have fish and a pond? Other people do. Why can't I see better?

Oh, I am so tired. So very, very tired.

I would want to go home - but I have no home to go home to. Home is here. Home is where Mel is. Home is exactly the place where I'm supposed to be right now and I am there.

I guess I'll go empty the washer and hang out the clothes on the balcony to dry. That's the next thing. And then - maybe I'll try and find another scarf pattern to work on later tonight.

We'll see.

FO - I Really Like This Scarf

Yep, I really like this scarf!

I have a feeling that I've discovered something that I need to keep doing. It's not easy for me, but I'm going to try it again on a variety of patterns. What is it? you ask.

Well, I tend to weave really tight. While weaving this scarf I concentrated on keeping the weft loose. (Is that how you spell 'loose'? Looks weird to me.) Loose weft and a Mexican Lace pattern insert, combined with regular weave on the sides to give it more stability - and I have a scarf that is a lot softer.

Since the solid scarves are very, uh, solid :-), and tend to be a bit scratchy, I think weaving the acrylic more loosely and more lace-ily will make more wearable scarves. (I think I created a new word!)

I also really like the pale tan verigated yarn. A lot. I actually ordered 3 more skeins to be sent in the next box, used as packing material for what else I'm having Kara send me. I think that particular color can have a lot of uses in other color combinations. It looks a bit like bamboo to me, what with the green and dark brown and all.

I've already chosen my next pattern. Now I need to figure out which colors I want to use. I have a wide assortment of yarn right now, so the sky is the limit.

So nice to have a real stash! I've read about people's stashes and wanted one. Now I have my very own! A multi-colored stash of basically all the same yarn. Love it!

I was reading about the violence and death going on in Mexico, especially along the border with the US, and could not help but think of these verses:
Revelation 6:3 When the Lamb opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” 4 Then another horse came out, a fiery red one. Its rider was given power to take peace from the earth and to make men slay each other. To him was given a large sword.
I cannot imagine living in a place that violent. We've seen things like that - a gun battle between rival gangs that killed at least 28 people - on television for years. But on tv it was always 'pretend'. This is for real. This is reality. It makes me feel a bit sick to my stomach. This is not far away Africa, where tribes fight against each other. This is America, North and Central.

Actually, when I think about it - the Indian tribes used to fight each other like that. And the pioneers used to have wars like that with the Indians. So, in reality, not much has changed after all. It's more like we lived through an unusual time of relative peace, and now are back at it.

Only more so with the weapons used today.
Sigh.

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We read the news about the tornadoes all across the mid section of the United States. Wow. And these after all of the flooding that has gone on. And we read that more flooding, due to the snow melt in the Rockies, will soon begin. This is an amazing time in history. An amazing time to live. Again - wow.

I wonder when the New Madrid fault will go? Or the Cascade fault? Or the San Andreas? Or one of the many other faults, known and unknown, that criss-cross the United States? I really think it will happen 'soon'. No dates, no time tables, no guesses - just 'soon'.

And then there are the volcanoes. All across California, Oregon and Washington. Earthquake activity may indicate that something volcanic may be happening in Nevada. Wyoming has the huge Yellowstone caldera. Then there is the volcanic areas of Colorado and especially New Mexico, and there are always little tremors going on along the Colorado/New Mexico border. I think most people would be very surprised to learn how much the earth is moving under their feet!

I was surprised to learn a few days ago that the Rio Grande River flows along a rift valley. Rift valley - you know, like the Rift Valley in Africa! The earthquakes happening in Chihuahua, Mexico, are also in that rift valley. And the rift valley may be opening up just a little bit, spreading wider!?! And where does the rift start? Ha! In one of my favorite places in Colorado - the San Luis Valley, with the Sangre de Cristo mountains on the east and the San Juan mountains on the west, and to the far north, the Arkansas River canyon (on the other side of Poncha Pass - I don't know if it's actually connected to the rift, but the earth there has obviously been torn and tossed about by earthquakes in the past).

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I wonder what other time in history compares? With the natural disasters and the wars and the fast changing government of freedom to government of oppression in the United States ... which part of history most closely resembles our current time period? I don't know. It is sobering to think of.

Catching Up - the Beginning

Wow - lots of things to write about today, but I think most of it will go unwritten. For now. I may be able to get back to the blog later tonight. Right now Tanya is here again, cleaning the rest of the cupboards for me.

It's thundering. I'm not sure where it's coming from because when I look out the office window to the southeast, it is partly cloudy with lots of sunshine. However, there is a "shadow" in the sunlight, like maybe a big thunderhead is beginning to spread it's wings across the sun. We'll see. The rumbling does not seem to get closer or louder - yet. {updated: Map of Icelandic volcano ash movement. How funny - the 'dulling' of the sunlight may have been/be from volcanic ash!}

I just finished reading another report on what did not happen last Saturday - the Rapture. As I read it, I became sadder and sadder. Not because the Rapture did not happen, but because of the tone of the article. Laughter at the idea of a Rapture. Mocking people who truly believe Christ will one day return. I cannot help it, I am reminded of The Days of Noah.

Genesis 6:11,12
"Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways."

Matthew 24:36-44
“No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.
“Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.

So, people are laughing, and having parties, and making fun of those who believed that on May 21 Christ would return.

Did I believer He would return on that date? NO! I did not believe it at all! Christ could return at any moment, but as Mel pointed out, it was very unlikely that Christ would return on that date simply because some man said He would.

So, what upsets me about all of this?
It is the fact that people are trampling the Name of the Lord our God in the mud. They are mocking Him. Laughing at Him. Denying that He even exists, much less is coming again.

And in some ways it makes me shudder in fear. Fear for their very souls. Fear for the wrath that will some fall upon them. It is a fearful thing, the judgement that will soon fall upon this earth and upon those who hate God.

Reminds me of that old sermon by Jonathan Edwards, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.