Here’s what:
Invited people over to my apartment for a small Halloween movie situation. Great! Only three friends, a total of four. (Maybe five if the fourth fellow I invited actually responds…)
Great! Fantastic!
Except….
My apartment is a wreck. I have no clean dishes. No idea of what I’m going to serve for dinner. I can’t just have a plain, old regular meal. I need… decorations and a theme and STYLE.
Great.
Oh, and I have a trig test tomorrow.
Fantastic.
Call me crazy, but I’m gonna do it.
I know, I know. What sort’ve lunatic signs up for this? What am I thinking? Have I no common sense?
Nope, apparently not.
Because I’ve thrown my hat into the ring.
I’ve jumped in feet first.
I’m doing it.
You can track my progress, my work, and my complaints (inevitable) over at Sassy Shenanigans, my Novel Writing Blog.
Check it out, would you?
After five months with basically no rain, we are SOAKED. My flip flops might be mildewing. The bottoms of my jeans are all damp. (Note to self: self, do laundry.) But what concerns me the most is that people have apparently forgotten how to drive in the rain.
What? You might be asking yourself how that’s possible. It’s only been five months, and there have been showers here and there! They can’t have FORGOTTEN.
Oh, but they have.
So here’s to you, Mr. Tailgater. And you, Miss I’m going to cut you off even though it’s pouring. And you, Mrs. I’ll poke along going ten miles an hour with no headlights on.
I salute you.
And here’s a tip: If it’s raining, stay home. Some of us still remember how to drive in the rain. And we’d prefer to stay alive to do so in the future.
Now, snow… We all know THAT’s a free-for-all down here. If it snows, you may flip out. Until then? It’s just a little water.
Teddy Roosevelt once said, “The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotion, spends himself in a worthy cause; who at best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who have never tasted victory or defeat.”
I know what he means.
I got my pretty sewing machine and I sat down with it, and opened it all up and plugged it in and decided to try to sew something! First came the nauseatingly long process of learning how to thread and install the bottom bobbin, and thread the top needle. Getting those connected and in the proper place TOOK FOREVER.
But finally! I had it! I was ready to go! Ambitiously, I decided I was going to create a fabric sewing machine cover in a pretty, cheap fabric I bought in the clearance section for a dollar a yard. I measured, figured out what panels I needed, cut, pinned the first part, and I was ready to go.
You see where this is going, don’t you?
An hour later, I had managed to sew two inches of tiny, neat, beautiful stitches. I learned the following:
So, I have a sewing lesson scheduled for Saturday. Sweet, sweet knowledge. I’m waiting for you. In the meantime? I’m still excited. And thrilled. And awe struck. I own my very own beautiful sewing machine. I will conquer you, Brother! I WILL!
In other news, I’m going to name my beloved machine. Right now, I’m leaning towards Bessie. Thoughts?
After finishing with my classes for the day (Math, The American Presidency), I headed home to my Dad’s to hang out with him for a while. (Aka tonight and tomorrow.) After dinner, he casually said to me:
“Your Christmas present arrived today. It has to be returned within 30 days if you do want to return it, so come take a look at it now.”
What? I followed him back to his room, and he pulled a plain, cardboard box out of the closet. When I sat down and opened it?
My brand new sewing machine, purchased at a signifigantly discounted rate (think $200 off) from 0verstock.com. This little beauty is a Br0therXL 35oo, with 35 built-in stitches and a whole bunch of other little features. All mine for the sweet, sweet price of $100 and no more presents at Christmas. SO. WORTH. IT.
Pardon me if this becomes a craft obsessed blog. I can’t help it! Along those lines, you should check out Sweet Jessie, Sew Mama Sew, and Digs Magazine for craftastic inspiration.
Expect to see some sweet projects in the future.
My dad is the greatest!
EDITED TO ADD:
I redesigned my blog and created my own nifty little header up there to reflect my new creative feelings. What do y’all think?
I am not Catholic, nor a wife, nor a mother. Yet… She is like balm to a soul battered by a world that tells me womanhood is about being sexy, seeking fame and fortune, and always being on top of the world.
(It does, admittedly, make me long to have grown up in a home like that. I can’t even imagine…)
With the pressure of having to post off, it seems as though the post ideas are flowing freely.
Anyways, I was poking around over at Time magazine online, and I discovered a nifty little collection of ten books banned by various state and local entities due to various objectional content. Now, we all know it’s Banned Books Month, so I decided to check it out. It all leads me to a fairly obvious conclusion: fear is stronger than anything else.
Okay, so looking at the ten books that Time presented, the reasons for trying to remove the books from shelves are pretty consistent:
• Sexual Explicit language (even when the books were for the 12th grade age group… 17 to 18 years old.)
• Vulgar language. (Someone remind me what this culture’s definition of vulgar is please?)
• Advancement of a non-Christian agenda (Homosexuality, witch craft),
• Violence (Rape, murder, so on and so forth.)
So, charming little organizations like “Livingston Organization for Values in Education” (cutely but egregisously mistitled LOVE) file motions accusing teachers of violating the law by passing on sexually explicit material to children.
Fear, in America, has outweighed all common sense and decency. I actually feel sorry for parents who are so terrified of the world’s influence on their children that they rail against works of literature by Toni Morrison and Margaret Atwood. I feel sorry that they are so unsure of their own ability to infleuence their children that they feel the need to censor the libraries and literature classes.
Because that’s what it really comes down to, isn’t it? My 18 year old child cannot read a book that deals graphically with issues of race, violence, poverty, and rape because I am frightened it will somehow turn them to the dark side. Nevermind that issues of violence and race and poverty are something that we have GOT to face if we’re ever going to improve society. Nevermind that the issues are addressed in bad movies and violent video games and rap songs on the radio. No. It’s unacceptable that our children might confront them under the guidance of a teacher, in a classroom.
After all, we have to protect our kids.
Why aren’t parents saying: okay. This book deals with difficult issues. Let me read the book with you and we’ll discuss it. If you think a book is anti-Christian, why don’t you pull out the parts that are against your beliefs and instead of forbidding your child to read them, gently guide them to the understanding that this isn’t what you believe, and here’s an alternative.
It just makes me so angry that parents would be so fearful they’d be unable to see striaght. Honestly. I’m not saying read aloud to a six year old a work by Toni Morrison. I’m just suggesting that it would be wise to allow, then supervise, as opposed to banning completely. Not to mention, I won’t even get into the issues I have with “christian” values being used to legislate morality for the whole world.
I hope that when I’m a parent, I can hand my children difficult books and say, read it. Then we’ll talk. Then they can grow and learn. And want fight issues of race and poverty and violence. Because otherwise, it’ll still be necessary for authors to write about it.
