Here are some links to articles that have given me something to think about this month.
“Fundamental to looking after someone is finding where they came from and what they need.” This service to displaced women in Iraq really touched me.
Some of the benefits of writing are shared in this article. For the first two links, I thank Catherine.
This piece describes what it’s like to be a high school student, and it’s not about peer pressure and drugs. It’s about teacher-student relationships and restricted movement.
Mark and I needed these graphics a few weeks ago to show relative sizes of objects in the solar system.
Stephanie led me to this article that turned my heart. Go ahead and give those tall boys some candy on Halloween.
If you need a smile, here are some monsters for your Halloween delight, drawn by second graders and embellished by high school students. Brilliant! This one was from Russ.
Timothy earned some extra money this summer because he got a job mowing a neighbor’s lawn. He has been faithful and hard-working. I know it was a challenging thing for him to do, but he didn’t act like it was.
Timothy is a saver. He decides what he wants and takes the time to save for it. He bought a Lego set last week that he’s been working for all summer. After he built it, we decided it was terribly overpriced. I almost want to write a letter to Lego. Their profit margin is over 30% and when I think of all the hours and labor that this boy gave for that disappointing set, I am a little frustrated. Timothy is happy, but I think he has learned to be a little more cautious.
Just a smattering of thoughts today, readers.These super hero prints were a gift to the kids from the artist, Josh Talbot. We bought my new violin from his wife.I love pumpkins, and pumpkins from a friend are especially nice.Welcome to our house!Photo is from Halloween 2006
There are fewer costumes to get ready for Halloween this year. When I think back to the years when we coordinated costumes for the kids, I feel thankful that we made those memories. Super Heroes, The Wizard of Oz, and Star Wars were my favorite themes. I spent a little time sewing Halloween bunting over the fall break. Mark has been my helper to decorate the house. One day he spent an hour wrapping little skeletons in t.p. so they would look like mummies. He emphasized to me that the mummies are NOT for the house, but special for his room. Mark and I found this to be a mutually agreeable use for the mummies.
Mark told us that he didn’t need help with his tie. Okay.
The kids had a piano recital this weekend. Paige played the Mendelssohn Concerto in g minor op. 25, 1st movement. Daniel played Maple Leaf Rag by Joplin and a nice contemporary concerto called Concerto Bravo by Olsen. Timothy played Bach’s Solfeggietto and a piece called Frenzy. Mark surprised us again with very expressive dynamics in Spy Bot (He’s a real showman!) and amazed us with his speed at playing Cinnamon Popcorn. The older kids who played concertos were accompanied by their teacher, who spent a lot of extra time working with them on their pieces. She’s in the photo with the kids.
Mark’s measurement robot. I can’t tell you how many times this robot comes to my mind when I am working in the kitchen.
Home school with Mark is comfortable, sweet, and a joy. I’m savoring the time with him. Our studies follow a familiar path through ancient history, math facts, science, and writing. With each child, however, there is zeal for different favorite subjects and I enjoy seeing Mark’s personality and strengths emerge as we work on projects. Mark is good company, and we have the best conversations, and by that I mean we talk through a depth and breadth of his thoughts about super heroes, Star Wars, planets, Calvin and Hobbes, and Harry Potter. I write down some of the things he says as a keepsake of this time together.
On another front…
I find sharing my faith on Facebook to be very tricky. I admire people who can share concise, genuine statements about their testimonies. One thing I am thinking about is how to convey my testimony more effectively (online, among friends) without sounding like a Puritan or shaking so much in my boots. I posted the following paragraph on Facebook, but didn’t get any “LIKES” from my friends of other faiths. Does this mean I sounded like a Puritan to them? Who knows.
The LDS missionaries in our area needed some teaching practice so they picked our family. I loved how they taught and shared their love for the gospel of Jesus Christ. I wish I had invited someone to join us. Next time you see the missionaries, consider listening to their message with an open heart and mind. It will make your day. Their message is the most important part of my life.
Do you have thoughts about sharing your faith online?
I write this as the missionaries sit outside with Richard at a correlation meeting. They are around our house a lot. I am NEVER prepared when they come. One day I walked into the kitchen after showering, looking for a hair brush in my purse. It wasn’t until I had loaded the dishwasher while sporting wet, messy hair that I noticed that the missionaries were in the next room watching me make a fool of myself. Today they have to sit outside because every living area in the house is full of toys and friends. I just never know when they are going to show up.
This is probably one reason people respond well to online missionary work. I just need to learn how to do it better. Really, do you have suggestions?
We shopped at probably 20 stores before finding this dress. It didn’t require any alterations to make it modest. Hooray!
As I made alterations to Paige’s most recent school dance dress, I thought, “There must be a special reward in heaven for this work to keep my daughter covered.” I’m hoping for a comfortable room where there are endless romantic comedies playing and the chocolate is without calories. 😉 Modesty is a huge topic, but today, I’m just talking about dresses.
An invitation to a dance means that we will spend a lot of time looking for a dress which will need some alterations after we find it. Formal dresses rarely have sleeves, backs, or adequate fronts. Short dresses are too short. Always. This means that it will take some significant effort to find or make something nice. Young men need to understand this and ask young women several weeks before the dance.
It is easier to find a modest dress in Utah than in other states that I have lived, but they are rarely flattering. At one store in our mall, there is whole wall of the same dress in a variety of colors. They have sleeves, but the dresses are expensive and boring. Most often, the solution is to buy something that your daughter is not comfortable wearing and then fix it so it covers her. These are the strategies that I have seen to fix a sleeveless or short dress:
Wear a t-shirt: the girl will wear a cap sleeve t-shirt beneath the dress in an (almost) matching color or contrasting color. The problem with this is that cotton jersey knit isn’t in the same league with satin or chiffon. It’s really awkward looking. But if I see a girl who has decided that this is the best way for her to feel covered and comfortable, I say it’s better than nothing! Paige wore a satin shirt under a dress once and it was a nicer solution than a t-shirt.
Wear a bolero: the girl will simply place a bolero jacket over the sleeveless or strapless dress, and voila! She is covered. The problem with this is that it’s not original and bolero jackets don’t always match the style of the dress.
Make sleeves or inserts from fabric that doesn’t quite match: It’s impossible to match dress fabric perfectly. The sheen or the shade will be slightly off, and that’s annoying. One year we bought an inexpensive dress at Ross and put an insert in the front. The insert didn’t quite match, but it reflected 5 hours of shopping, so we called it a triumph.
It’s difficult to find fabric to match your dress.
Make sleeves from fabric from the dress: If you are lucky, you might have some pockets or a few extra inches of fabric you can remove from the sides or bottom of the dress with which you can construct sleeves. This is my favorite solution because no one can tell that you have reworked the dress.
We bought this dress even though it was sleeveless and 12 sizes too big because it was a good length and we could make sleeves with the extra fabric after alterations.
Buy the dress several sizes too big so its length is adequate. It means you need to alter the dress, but as I mentioned earlier, 99% of short dresses are too short, so this is a real solution.
Wear a lacy underskirt: For short dresses, one trend is to wear a lacy underskirt that extends below the hemline of the dress, making it look like a slip is showing. I’ve also seen how girls have sewn wide ribbons to the hem to lengthen the hemline. It was pretty.
Make the dress yourself: Sewing skills are a blessing. If it’s not your thing and you have someone in your life who can make something from scratch, hooray!
Modest dresses are not easy to find, even for young girls. I made this dress in Arizona because we couldn’t find anything in stores. While shopping for patterns, I met another mother who was trying to teach herself how to make sleeves for her daughter’s strapless prom dress. We shared a moment of camaraderie and panic, but then we got brave and sewed. I got to see the finished prom dress from a distance and gave a silent cheer for the mother who made it work.
All complaining aside, the effort and frustrations are worth it when you see your daughter look beautiful, intelligent, and refined. That’s what modesty is about. It’s a mirror to reflect how she feels about herself and her Creator.
Two baseball players made 4 baseball games a week plus a practices this fall. Richard and I have divided and conquered since the games fell on the same nights. I was Mark’s cheerleader, and Richard was Timothy’s assistant coach. It’s been a good season for each boy. Sitting outside looking up at the mountains changing color during the games make it seem like an ideal activity. Evenings where it was cold enough to huddle in blankets were rare this year.
I went out of town for the weekend to visit my grandmother and I missed seeing Paige’s homecoming date. Richard took pictures for me. The dress looks so much pinker in natural light. In the store and in the house, it is a lot more muted in tone.
Paige and I found the dress on a clearance rack after shopping at 10 stores. It was only 12 or 14 sizes too big and it lacked sleeves, but it was the right length and the beads were gorgeous!
It had pockets, too, and I knew we could make some cap sleeves with these.
It was a very nice dress and fully lined, which meant I had a lot of reconstruction and hand sewing to do. The finished dress had about 8 inches less fabric around the waist and the cap sleeves went on very easily, thanks to an online tutorial. I watched episodes of The Paradise while I hand stitched the lining back into place. I probably ate chocolate while doing all of this, so really, it was pretty fun, although time consuming.
Daniel joined our family in the early evening, a perfect baby after a difficult pregnancy which included major abdominal surgery. I was ecstatic that my little Daniel had made it through the lion’s den of my health issues. Prayer, faith, and a priesthood blessing were important elements in that miracle. (You can read about that here.)
He has always been resilient and strong. It’s a blessing that I don’t have much to worry about with Daniel. His independence, height, resourcefulness, and encyclopedic memory set him apart. He is great company in the car because he always has something interesting on his mind. You could come and hear him play a piano concerto on October 17th if you are in town.
Today we celebrate with homemade pizza, cheesecake, and presents, but the best celebrations are in my heart for a son who constantly amazes me. How thankful we are for Daniel.
Earlier this week we discovered that someone is “dying to go to homecoming” with Paige. The crime scene has since become a little disheveled, but it makes me smile every time I walk outside.
I fell in love with this. Richard has been trying to buy me a violin for a long time, but that’s not as easy as it sounds. I’ve tried out a lot of violins over the years and when I played this one, I knew that it was special. We joked that it was a little bit like wand shopping in Harry Potter. When I played it, I felt so strongly that THIS was the ONE! Magical! This weekend I get to bring it home. I am reading this. I just finished a chapter about the Vikings. Yikes. Scary. I am watching this a little bit at a time. Mark likes the corny humor in it more than I do. I’ve been concerned about THIS. We learned today that Richard still has a job.
I’m making a red one of these for Mark to use as a reading fort:
photo from Care’s blog; pattern by Susan
We’ve cheered at baseball games for Mark and Timothy. I haven’t been cooking much, but Daniel told me tonight that the food this week has been especially good. Now that’s an accomplishment. Did I mention that I am getting a new violin? That’s really all I can think about.
It’s probably because people know that I am a sentimental person that I have been asked many times this week how I feel about Paige turning 18. I have been taken off guard by this because I feel just fine.
I think I feel just fine because I see who she has become, and I know she’s moving in a good direction. I feel blessed that I was able to have so much extra time with her because of home schooling. I feel happy that she is doing well in high school. I look forward to our time together during this last year at home and the adventures she will have when she moves away for college. Our time together is a joy to me, and although it’s evolving to fewer hours together, we still have a foundation of peace and friendship that is a comfort to me. I’ve seen her shine through the change in schools, perform well under pressure, and create beauty with words, paint, music, and dance. She’s arrived at age 18 with grace and continually elevates the title of “The Best Young Woman I Know.”
