Making Curtains INFJ Style

Because everything is about personality, right???

Well, I’m making curtains for the house. There are 10 windows downstairs! Can you say – HUGE PROJECT? I’ve settled on something along these lines for the living and dining room.

Simple, unlined, very, very cheap! Which is the ultimate goal at the moment. So here goes…

Making Curtains INFJ Style

I: Being an introvert, sewing is a perfect fit for me, provided I can actually do it alone, without distraction. If there are wild monkeys coming in and out asking for juice, popcorn made on the stove, non-bunchy socks, and the special Scene- It dice, Mommy is not a happy camper.

N: I prefer not to use a pattern. I like to sew intuitively… Ha Ha Ha. Which means, I have made a lot of ugly things, but I’ve learned a lot in the process. For example, I bought an entire bolt of this unbleached utility fabric at $2/yard and then went thrifting for curtains I could take apart and add as accents. Decisions like whether to do tabs, pockets, tie tabs, hidden tabs, grommets, kind of came and went as I went along. I kind of felt my way through the process until I had my first panel made.

F: I wish I could make decisions about fabric based completely on how fabrics make me feel, but alas, $$$ is usually the bottom line here.

J: Although I know I have to make like 50 tie tabs for the entire set of curtains, and I know it would make sense to make all the tabs at one time, I can not do it. I only sew when I know I can complete something start to finish. So, I’ve been making one panel at a time. Then I can pack up the sewing stuff, tuck it all away, and wait until I have time to make another complete panel. I know this is dumb… I am uncomfortable with things in process.

So, what about you and your projects? What does your crafting, sewing, cooking, writing, water-skiing, fantasy football playing, say about who you are???

Another Must-Read

If you have a daughter between the ages of 10-16, I highly recommend Kevin Henkes’, Olive’s Ocean.

I love Kevin Henkes. You probably do too. Have you read…

or

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The writing in Olive’s Ocean is a treasure. Who knew such a brilliant story teller and illustrator for the young could write something so rich and beautiful!

The characters are interesting and real. The subject matter is mature and handled tenderly – but it’s still a bit mature for me in thinking of a young reader. I probably wouldn’t want H7 to read this until she is 15 or 16.

But here’s why you should read it. The book is written from Martha Boyle’s perspective, who is a very typical 12-year-old girl. On the exterior, she looks like what we all might expect. She talks on the phone a lot, has a tenuis relationship with an annoying older brother, loves and loathes her parents, is in that strange place of being too old for flowery wallpaper, but not old enough to know what she wants instead.

Seeing the world through her eyes though, was insightful. She is wise, inquisitive, whimsical, perceptive, and kind, yet most of these qualities go unnoticed. She is simply Martha – chatty, red-headed, pre-teen, adolescent. Even her parents seem very unaware of her rich inner life.

So, again, why read this? Because, we all need to look afresh on our children and try to engage them in ways that allow these beautiful qualities to find expression. We need to see beyond the obvious, transitional, and awkward phases that make them hard to be with or inconvenient. There are wonders stewing and growing underneath it all. This book reminded me of all that a 12-year-old can know and feel.

It’s a fast read – a couple of hours tops – but you’ll enjoy each moment, and probably look with new, tender, and interested eyes on someone in your little family – and that’s a good thing.

Gaps

Today I put my long underwear for the first time this season. As much as I love the cozy warmth they bring, I have a few issues with them – which I feel I must share.

1. If you wear long underwear for any length of time, say 1 week, the waist band stretches out to what I like to call, “The Dumpy Default Setting.” I have a feeling the elastic waistband companies thought they were being kind, after all, who wants to walk around with a constrictive elastic waistband underneath other clothing. I get that. So, instead you get, saggy waistband, which has it’s own set of issues.

For example, if you bend over and your long underwear is saggy, but your other pants are not, the long underwear grabs your underpants and drags them down far into your other pants. So, you then have to dig deep into your real pants to fetch the long underwear and pull it back up. I don’t know about you, but I bend over many, many, many times a day – so I feel like I’m digging in my pants all day long.

2. With the sag, comes the gap. The terrible space between the waistband of your long underwear bottoms and the long underwear top. You think you are going to be OK when you get dressed, because you tuck the long underwear top into the long underwear bottoms. But then, see #1. From the first bend of the day on, the shirt rides up and the pants sag down, and your belly feels drafty and exposed.

3. No one over 5 ‘ 5″ should really bother with it in the first place, because it simply is not long enough – ever. Unless you wear knee-highs, there will always be a little gap between your socks and the long underwear. It’s distressing, and leaves me pulling them farther down, which complicates the problem outlined above in #1.

Thank you for letting me get that off my chest! I feel much better!

At home

It’s Monday evening and usually I would be headed to campus, but I’m home tonight. H7 has struggled all semester with being home with a sitter on this night. On the other night I’m on campus, Ben is home with her, but on Mondays we’ve been having a girl from our church come and be here. Most times, the kids are all asleep when the sitter comes, but H7 is wise to this now.

The past few Mondays she has made it clear, she does not want me leaving her for campus at night. I can tell she is genuinely afraid.

“What if the power goes out? What if there’s a fire? What if someone tries to break in?”

(If she only knew how panicked I would be if these things happened while I was on “duty.”)

Anyway, it’s a fine line. I don’t want her to feel insecure, or like she’s playing second to my commitments on campus – but they are commitments, and I can’t back out of them right now.

But tonight, I’m home.

PS: In case anyone is really looking for my post, previously entitled, “May 21, 2011″ – I’ve changed the title to “Dear Creepy Radio Dude.” I was getting a lot of traffic from people trying to convince me to become a “true believer.”

Beautiful Things

Like most people, I like beautiful things. I especially love to study my children’s faces. They are my favorite, beautiful things. I was playing around with a photo-shop-ish program last night and these happened…

The photo is a little dark and grainy, but this captures Haven. It says, “I’m perfectly content, I’m about to giggle, and I love my mom.” I’d say this is her usual default mode, but I know better.  In the original un-cropped version of this photo, she has a kitty in her lap, which for H7, makes her whole world better.

I put some sort of funky action on this shot, which I LOVE! It’s glowy, and shiny, and happy – which is sooooo L4. She is such a little charmer, full of hugs and kisses, and requests for dress-up items. “Mom, I need a tutu so I can practice my ballet.” “Mom, I don’t have enough rings,” (because she only has 7 sparkly gems, which of course leave 3 without any bling…) Now, why this joyous, contented, isn’t life just SO worth living, look? She is standing next to a pile of birthday presents, and the rings, scarves, shoes, and fairy wands, are whispering her name!

OK – here’s the story with this one. I tried all the effects I could to bring out my favorite part of this photo – the cheeks, the cheeks, the cheeks – THE CHEEKS! Since the day T6 was born, he has had the most perfectly rounded, plump, little cheeks. He is such a skinny little thing – every extra ounce of fat ended up right there in those adorable cheeks. You just want to squeeze them, don’t you?

OK, thanks for humoring me. I’ll stop now. Go about your business, and I’ll stay right here, gazing at these beauties for just a minute longer…

Yes, I did.

Before I get to the really important part of this post, I have to let you know – Acedia and Me, the latest from Kathleen Norris, is going exceptionally well. It’s not a book you can steamroll through in a weekend. It’s an “underliner,” “star and margin notes,” and “need to talk about this little paragraph with a few people before I really get it.” You know what I mean?

I can already sense it is helping me label and understand something I’ve been hedging around for years now.

Here is one of my favorite definitions for the ancient word – acedia:

“…a slackness of the mind…[and] a hostility to vows taken.”

and it’s effect?

“…it reminds those at prayer of some job to be done, and searches any plausible excuse to drag us from prayer, as though with some kind of halter.”

and it’s cumulative effect after years of distracted, tired, and vacant times with the Lord?

“…not only does it make us unable to care, it takes away our ability to feel bad about it. If we can no longer weep, or desire, or feel pain and grief, well, that’s all right; we’ll settle for that, we’ll get by.”

I have seen these symptoms coming and going in my own life for a long time, but in terms of where we are as a human race… the desire to consume, distract ourselves, numb ourselves, escape, “pay later,” block out suffering, make sin palatable, tolerate evil and harm as long as it doesn’t touch us directly – this is the root of it. A little word, a huge and terrible legacy.

I’m less than half way through, but this book is creating a stir and a shifting. As I mentioned, it’s something I’ve been looking to define for sometime. It’s not depression, although I imagine it very often leads to it. It’s a weakness and a lack of concern and passion for the health of our souls, our daily relationship to God and His kingdom, that acts like Novocaine in our being.

Anyway, I’ll keep you posted. It’s SO good, and her writing is beyond description. It will be a joy to read, regardless of your personal interest in this topic. I promise!

And finally, a tiny bit of ultra-important, relevant, and significant, news.

I let L4 go out in public dressed like this.

(Please note the too short for her sweat pants and dress-up shoes.)

I hear you. I know what you are thinking, but yes – yes I did.

Traveling Mercies – my two cents

I just finished Anne Lamott’s, Traveling Mercies. Some of you who were following my journey through the book via Facebook over the weekend know – I loved it. I devoured it. I totally ignored my family all day Saturday and buried my nose very far into her addictive storytelling.

Her writing style is such a joy to read. It’s contemporary, jaunty, springy, heart-awakening, funny, and stretching. I laughed out loud, gasped, cried, and felt known – then the next minute I felt totally off kilter and irritated. One moment I was wrapping my arms around her in my mind, the next furrowing my brow and pointing my “shame on you” finger at her. It was so much fun.

Her story, her life, the way God has pursued her so obviously since her youth, was a real kick in the stomach for me. I knew from some of the opening lines of her story – if I was to have met her in person at any point in her life, I would have totally dismissed her. I would have judged her lifestyle as one confidently rejecting the Lord. I would have assumed she was too far from the cross to bother with. I would have been totally wrong.

That’s hard for me to see this in myself. I wouldn’t have reached out to her, because I would have looked at her life choices and made assumptions, judgments, assigned her a certain value, and probably felt sorry for her. And here she is, an amazing women who has responded to God, who has allowed God to heal and free her, who has experienced God in personal, supernatural ways I ache to, and who has used a gift He has given her to encourage an audience toward God – an audience many of us would stride confidently past.

So, that’s one thing.

The other is her position on abortion. She readily admits having had at least one. She shares that she felt upset after one of them, but later, says she politically and theoretically supports abortion.

Now, all weekend I’ve been thinking, “How could this be? How can she reconcile herself to this? How could it not burden her heart to know babies are being killed? How could she not feel passionate about protecting them?”

Well, I’m not exactly sure about this, but in reading more about her thoughts on this issue, I think if I were to ask her about it, she would ask me this question in response.

“How do you reconcile your own lack of passion and burden for the lives of people around this world who have been born, but who are being oppressed, murdered, raped, who are starving, being stolen and used for sex, who are waiting for the Christian community to feel as passionately about them as they do for babies they can’t see or hear.”

I think she would say it better than that, and I have a feeling there would be a look in her eye that would sear my soul and give me serious pause.

I care about those issues too, but honestly, and sadly, they don’t burden me like they need to burden me. She is a passionate supporter of the rights of the born, as she calls it. I can’t join her position on abortion, but I admire and am totally tracking with her passion for justice and freedom for the suffering and oppressed.

And then, this question. How did this happen in my life – this tilt, shift, preference, interest and lack of interest? I’m ashamed to say, I tend to follow the Christian tide. Are we all passionate about abortion this decade? Great – I am too. Are we passionate about poverty and educating our children? Swell – count me in.

Do I ask God what He would have me burdened about? Do I concern myself with what the Bible says about these matters? Do I let the American Christian Community at large give  me my marching orders? Uh, yeah. I do.

Is that terrible. No.

Is there room for improvement? Oh yes.

I appreciate having Anne Lamott’s voice in my life. I’m so glad she will be in heaven with us all. She will certainly liven things up!

Peace out…

I am unfit for company at this moment.

I have had way too much caffeine, which has totally ramped up all my emotions, while leaving me strangely and utterly fatigued.

I smell terrible! I took a shower this morning, but then walked all around campus in the hot sun. I thoroughly enjoyed three very wonderful conversations with three very wonderful gals, but still – the hot sun wreaked havoc.

I have read too much Anne Lamott today.

As much as I’d love to invite you all over for dinner, I think it would be best for everyone if you just stayed home tonight. 

Doors will reopen tomorrow promptly at 9 a.m.

Peace out…

First Day – Phase 3

We made it!!! L4 has been waiting and waiting for her turn to go to preschool. Today was the day!

We shared a little moment on the stoop…

I dropped her off, and as I was looking through the pics, a terrible, embarrassing, and very important fact was discovered.

I have been wearing my hair like this on and off for over 20 years. This discovery may be one of the contributing factors to what happened later today…

More on this later…

Green and Spiral Bound

Tonight I spent time with a group of girls talking about the Bible and prayer. At the end, I passed out a journal of sorts with some ideas inside about how to spend time with God via his word and prayer.

As I was passing out the journals I remembered my own “very first journal.”  It was green, spiral bound, and I used to drag it up to the top floor of my dorm to write in it every night as a freshman in college. I still have it. I crack up when I read it because, I was truly, SO DUMB AND CHEESEY! The journal is totally about me and maybe .01% about God, but you have to start somewhere right?

Anyway, I have two tubs full of old journals now, but it’s been a few years since I’ve been faithful to write anything meaningful via pen and paper. The blog is a form of journaling for me, but I do miss the long letters to the Lord were I would pose my questions, listen, intercede for friends, chew on ideas from God’s word…

I wasn’t planning on taking one of my little journals for myself – after all – I am the leader, I am the “Nav Staff,” but I changed my mind.

I am re-entering the pen and paper world. Anyone care to join me?