there's no place like gnome.

It’s a leap year for Lindsay. We are only a couple weeks in and I’ve been taking some leaps.

I have been joining in an online quilting community with the MMStar Count blog posts and loving every minute of it.  What wonderful encouragement and inspiration around EPP.

I have taken some dating leaps. (*cough, cough*  Wasn’t expecting that, were you?) Nothing serious; just awkwardly testing the waters and, it appears, doing an awful lot of bowling.

I’ve been called in for my first sub job tomorrow.  It’s not a teacher position; I’ll be a para for two kindergarten rooms and will likely have recess duty.  I’ll take it!

Now, the true leap that inspiried this post – I signed up for a workshop with the Minneapolis Modern Quilt Guild.

*gasp*

(You’re still stuck back on my dating leap, aren’t you? Do you rather wish this post was about that? Sorry to let you down; it’s not.)

I’ve wanted to join the Minneapolis MQG for a while now but it makes little sense to drive to the cities for the meetings. [Plus, I’m very intimidated by them and their lovely advanced quilting skills.]  But I still stalk them on facebook. That’s how I learned they were hosting a sewing workshop on scrap management on a Saturday in February.  It’s a bring-your-sewing-machine-and-we’ll-email-you-a-supply-list kind of workshop.  Probably with really, really good, experienced quilters.  And then there will be me, walking in with my case-less $99 Kenmore machine slung over my shoulder in a thirty-one tote.

Another perk – are you ready? – is that the workshop is led by Amanda Nyberg, co-author of Sunday Morning Quilts, a book which I own and cherish and from which my on-going gumdrop quilt comes.  [I can be a little star struck by quilt book authors, right?]

It is one step towards making more modern-quilt quilty friends, learning new modern-quilt quilty skills, and being brave enough to check out SewDown when it comes to Minneapolis this summer.

Leap, leap, leap.

And it’s my favorite for the week.

Now, if only I could create some sort of job that involves color, kids, social justice, the environment, writing, and the sewing of pretty fabric.  Hmm …

[Quote attributed to Fabienne Fredrickson.]

Last week, I joined Life Under Quilts for the beginning of a weekly link-up all about EPP projects.  I did it last week; thought I’d give it a go.  I openly admitted that I didn’t think I’d do it every week.  I’m not so great at sticking to a blogging schedule.

And yet, here I am again.  Want to know why?

I have always heard people say they’ve found community through their blogs.  About how they feel supported and make friends and all that.  I’ve never really explored joining the crafty/quilty blog world in such a way.  Until I joined the link-up last week.

I get it now.  Those of you who commented – thank you!  It was wonderful to hear your affirmations and support.  And it was so fun and inspiring to look at all of your projects!  As I sat and worked on my Union Jack quilt at night throughout the week, I thought of you.  [In a nice way; not a creepy way.  Promise.]  I thought, I have to work on this so I have some work to show on Monday!  And I enjoyed every minute of it.  By golly gee, this whole online-community-link-up-awesome-quilters-giving-support thing works.

Okay, enough of that.  [I have a tendency to be a big old sap.  Moving on.]  Onto the project.

I’ve been working on this quilt – my first hexie [hexies are 1 3/4”] quilt – for probably about four months now and it keeps growing.  I laid out all of the larger components last night to get a read on how it’s going … and I like it.  I have three and a half sections of blue to finish bordering with white hexies.  From there, it is strips of red in between them all.  I don’t have a tally exactly; I just know I’m almost there!  I can’t wait to add the red; I’m hopeful it will come together well.  The pattern then calls for a sewn border; I think I’ll have a hard time going back to my machine to do that part after growing so comfy sewing on the couch watching Sherlock!  [For the integrity of the quilt, I try to watch British programming while sewing.  That’s only half a joke.]

Here’s where we’re at:

JOY is my new favorite word.  I preached about it on Christmas Eve [“I bring you great tidings of great JOY”] and I just wrote the following for the local newspaper.  Writing my dues for the pastor’s column is usually slightly the bane of my existence but today it came relatively easily.

It’s that time again.  The time when we think about our goals and our resolutions for the coming year.  Are you the kind of person who makes resolutions?  Maybe to go to bed earlier.  To eat less sugar.  To send a piece of handwritten mail each week.  To [fill in the blank].  I used to set resolutions like that.  But then you know what?  I never ended up following them.  Instead of checking things off the resolution list and feeling better, I ended up feeling bad.  Like I had dropped the ball.  Like I had failed.  This year, I have chosen one over-arching goal for the new year.  For life.  I’m going to look for joy.  Notice that I didn’t say that I’m going to create joy.  Sure, I might, but mainly – I’m going to look for joy and then I’m going to call it out.  I’m going to name it.  I’m going to look for joy because within that joy we encounter God.  A French priest and philosopher, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, once said it this way: Joy is the most infallible sign of the presence of God.  Joy exists all around us.  God’s presence is all around us.  In a smile, in excitement, in a conversation or reassuring touch.  In sharing a meal with people we love or people we’ve just met.  In a stranger’s greeting or a parting hug.  Where do you find joy in your everyday?  Can you name God’s presence in the ordinary joyful places of each hour?  That’s my resolution.  To look for joy and thereby be reminded of God’s presence all around, in the extraordinary and the ordinary.  Because joy is the most infallible sign of the presence of God.

I am just so in love with that quote.  I found it on an old bookmark that I picked up from someone’s discarded papers; I don’t even remember where.  It’s actually a bookmark to commemorate someone’s ordination.  On the back is the name of a pastor and date of ordination from the 1960s; on the front is the quote about joy.  I love it.  It hangs in my entryway.

Join me in naming joy this year?  So often we are convinced and told that we need to create joy or that joy is only found in happiness.  I think not completely either of those is true.  Joy is already here, in sad days and in happy days.  We just have to find it and call it like we see it.

Two posts in one day, Lindsay?  What gives?

Monday Morning Star Count, that’s what gives.

So it’s not Monday morning precisely, but I want to join in this fun link-up.  Jessica over at Life Under Quilts was one of the first bloggers/instagrammers I followed in regards to English paper piecing [aka the method by which I make and quilt hexagons] when I first became interested a couple months ago.  I received her book for Christmas which also has lots of great EPP tips and techniques.  Well…

Jessica is starting a Monday Morning Star Count – a weekly link-up to encourage and to show progress on EPP projects.  I want to play!  I might not play every Monday [We all know how my weekly Friday Favorites post has not been so weekly.] but every now and again, I hope to join the fun.  And so here I am, two posts in one day.

I continue to work on the Union Jack hexagon quilt from Hexa-Go-Go.  It’s my favorite thing at night to curl up and do on the couch.  I’m to the point where all of the blue sections are sewn together; I now am adding the white/cream borders to each section.  From there, it’s the red.  I find myself getting a little bored with the adding of the borders … I’m ready for some more color and am itching to get to the red!  I keep a stash of red squares to baste when I get really bored and need a little color in my life.  I have about 80 more hexagons to baste and then it’s just putting all the pieces together!

The top of my sewing kit – a green plastic storage container of sort -filled to the brim with the blue sections I’m working on.

A clearer view – minus the big blue sections.

The stool which holds the in progress pieces!

The sister leaves for Dublin.  My LITTLE sister.  How is she old enough and mature enough and adventurous enough to go to Ireland for a semester?!  Right about now, she’s on a bus taking her to O’Hare.  From there, it’s DC and finally Dublin by tomorrow morning.  I’m all nervous and excited for her!  Say a little prayer that travel for her goes safely without much delay or hassle.

And, hey, if you’re at all curious about her travels, check out her blog.  Her latest post features her travel itinerary and couple photos of the pillowcase Molly Bea and I made for her.  Family and friends signed the back of it; it turned out super fun.  Oh, yeah, there are also some photos of my siblings and I.  Let’s not get into the shenanigans that was that photo shoot …

It’s New Years Eve and I’m blogging.  I’m blogging at my mom’s after eating Chinese with my sister.  Reruns of Modern Family play in the background.  Let me tell you – exciting stuff.

But the fortune from my cookie was pretty cool.  Check it:

Which leads me to – what I think are appropriate – a couple lists.

First, the highlights of 2013 list:

1. Travel.  [Montana.  Alaska.  Madeline Island.  Chicago.]
2. Summer day camp at ROG.
3. Celebrating with three friends as they married men.
4. DIY projects: a dresser, a lamp, a fabric mosaic, etc.
5. Conquering an overnight kayak trip.
6. Favorite new movie: The Way, Way Back
7. Best reads: Divergent trilogy, YA novels by John Green
8. First Call Theological retreat at Heartwood in a May snowstorm
9. I-know-there-are-more-but-my-brain-is-having-a-hard-time
10. right-now-so-I’m-going-to-stop-at-8.

Second, a plan for 2014 list:*

1. Step on the soil of many countries.  [Or at least one.]
2. Finish The West Wing and catch up on Doctor Who.
3. Complete the Union Jack hexagon quilt.
4. Visit three new state parks.
5. Learn a new skill.
6. Rediscover favorite [and new] games.
7. Read The Happiness Project.  Discover what joy looks like.
8. Recover dining room chairs.
9. Keep blogging!
10. I really, really want to meet my quilting idols at SewDown Minneapolis.  Maybe?  [It’s not open for registration yet but this is what a SewDown from the Modern Quilt Guild looks like in Portland.]

And third – why not? – the most popular blog posts of 2013 list:

1. Thanksgiving Favorites.
2. A Banana Wedding.
3. A story of how I got left at the altar.
4. $11
5. A random Friday Favorites from February.
6. Napkin cards: A tutorial
7. It’s not going to be easy [a quote from Henri Nouwen]
8. A memo to Batman.
9. Another Friday Favorites from February.  This one features cousin Molly lip-synching.
10. Hello from MT!

Happy New Year, friends!  May it be filled with joy.

* I never said they were grand or super exciting.

And Lindsay is crabby.

I think I’m crabby because, once again, I’m realizing how different Christmas is as a pastor, and at this point, I’m having a hard time thinking it’s a good kind of different.  I’m crabby because my tree is empty and bare; it’s just not much fun to decorate without comrades.   [It does however have a gnome on its top.  That makes me not crabby.]  I’m crabby because I accidently dropped and broke my candy thermometer last night.  Hrmph.

But, instead of dwelling there, let’s talk about how we go out of crabby.  When you’re having a no-good, horrible day, how do you make it change?

Me?

Well, to start, I pull out my favorite Christmas mug.  This was given to me by my Grandma Julie a couple years ago.  I add coffee and – wait for it – peppermint marshmallows.  [The ones I made last night when I accidently dropped my candy thermometer.]  I don’t care for store marshmallows but homemade ones?  Delicious.

Next, I’ll probably spend time in my happy place: my sewing room.  I’ll wait eagerly for the mail and hope that the fabric I ordered [thanks to WELCA and their birthday/Christmas gift!] will be there.  Then I will iron it and fold it and and organize it three times.

I will play the pandora dance/pop music station ridiculously loud.  I will dance and do the dishes.  Mabel always takes this type of music and my dancing as an invitation to wrestle.  I guess my dancing is that bad?

And you know what?  I blog.  Because I already feel less crabby, just talking to you.  Life isn’t all bah humbug, but we have our moments, right?  This morning was one of mine.  Thanks for helping me get out of the funk.  I hope your Saturday has not even the tiniest bit of crabby.  [But if it does, dancing with flailing arms always seems to help.]

Update:  I have fun friends who tolerate and pity me in my crabbiness.  This afternoon I received an invite to a pizza picnic!  My gnome friends who now live in Owatonna invited me over to eat pizza while sitting on the floor [The picnic part was serious, peeps.] and watching The Polar Express.  It was probably the cutest thing I’ve done in a long time.  As long as the weekly pizza picnic isn’t copyrighted or trademarked or whatnot [Aaron?  Sabrina?  Have you copyrighted that cuteness so you earn royalties?  You could design a special pizza picnic blanket for families to buy or something!], I plan on stealing that in my future.   [You know, Mabel and I sitting on the floor by ourselves eating dinner.]  It was a great way to combat any crabby that continued through my day!

Do you ever cause your own self to stress?

Christmas cards have been stressing me out.  Christmas cards, people.

Now, I love Christmas cards.  I love sending them.  I love addressing the envelopes and the pure satisfaction when they’re stacked in the mailbox.  I love paper.  I love mail.  Perfect combination.

I had grand Christmas card plans this year.  I ordered notecards and envelopes from my favorite paper place – Paper Source – and ohh’ed and aww’ed over them when they arrived.  I pet them.  Such pretty, pretty paper.

The plan was to sew stars on them.  They would have been pretty; I’m sure of it.  But time started to wear thin.  It didn’t help that Thanksgiving was so late and then I went home for a long birthday weekend.  It didn’t help either that I got home from work at 9 last night, and it was 9 again tonight.  They’ve been at the top of my at-home to-do list and they just haven’t been getting done.  And it’s been stressing me out, more than Christmas cards ever should.

Finally, in the car yesterday, I let myself let them go.  I allowed myself to come to terms with the fact that it’s okay if I don’t send out Christmas cards this year.  I told myself that it wasn’t worth the stress.  I knew it was the right decision when I literally felt better.  No Christmas cards is okay.  The self-imposed stress of homemade, pretty paper Christmas cards was not worth it.  Stupid holding myself to standards that are impossible in one of the busiest time of the year work-wise.

HOWEVER, I was at a store today.  And their boxed Christmas cards were on clearance already. So I bought them.  They won’t be sewn.  They won’t be on my favorite kind of paper.  They won’t be handmade.  But the act of greeting the people I love via USPS this holiday season is the important part. That can most certainly be done with cards purchased at the store.  And I’m not super stressed about it anymore.  [Though if you normally receive a card from me, expect that it may be late.  I’m still running short on time!]

Another great stress reliever?  Confirmation.  Did you hear that?  Confirmation as a stress reliever.  We rang bells at HyVee tonight for the Salvation Army and then had ice cream at Culvers.  It was fun.  The kids said they had a blast.  And, plus, they made friends with the workers at HyVee and learned how to make the automatic doors close on themselves.  #awesome