The Wedding

I have been blessed to be invited to weddings through the years. Sometimes its a close friend, other times I am invited for other reasons. I am so honored when someone wants me to be a part of their special day.

Last weekend I was invited to the wedding of a friend's daughter. I had never met S, the bride, or N, the groom, but the event was special to me. I had not seen my friend, M, in about 2 and a half years. M was in my nursing school class at Duke. We accompanied each other on a life-changing transition, from IT professional to nurse.

The wedding was delightful. Of course the bride was beautiful, the groom was dashing, love was in the air. The guests were handsome and friendly, and we socialized merrily with them. I got to talk with M a few times - it was so nice to see an "old" friend! I still feel very "new" here in Kansas City and I miss the comfort of familiarity and intimacy (places, friends, routines). They had vegetarian selections on the buffet at the reception - joy! I even got to dance with M.

My husband and I stayed in a disastrous hotel room with a drippy bathroom ceiling and a locked door that could not be opened with our room key or the manager's override key. Roadwork had us wandering through unknown neighborhoods, stymied by one-way streets and no-turn signs. We got lost again and again, despite the help of a Garmin Nuvi navigation system. Just try telling Nuvi that I-64 is closed, so we can't go that way. It had no idea what to do about it so it get directing us back to I-64. Oh, it was a terrible trip , but the event made it all worthwhile.

On Sunday morning, we went up in the St. Louis arch and walked around the tourist area of downtown. We ate out and enjoyed the city so much we resolved to come for a long weekend mini vacation some time. I got another cancellation-stamp for my Passport to National Parks book. What a fun little hobby.

Now we are home, eagerly anticipating our big trip to Japan. Let us hope for smoother travels.

I hope to post/blog about the trip. We'll see how the timing goes. You may not hear from me for a while.

Baby Quilt - Ready for Droolin'

I have completed the baby quilt for L&S. It came out cute! I actually got it done before the baby was born, can you imagine?!

And I will use this opportunity to post some pictures.

Portrait view of the quilt:

I designed the quilt myself, but as you can see, it wasn't complicated piecing. Simple strips of contemporary fabrics - piecing was a flash. It's approximately 42" x 50," the size chosen for flexibility to go in a crib, on the floor as a soft mat for crawling, or lap quilt for a little boy. It could also be a wall hanging, I suppose.

Landscape view

The quilting design is where I exercised my creativity. Each strip is quilted with a different pattern. Sometimes I follow the design of the fabric, other times, I superimpose a regular pattern. I used a combination of free motion quilting and regular stitching.

Too bad the photos don't show the quilting! I am proud of my improved skill on the free motion sections.

Back View

The backing fabric is a Beatrix Potter print. Those beloved characters! Although, I wonder if kids even know who Peter Rabbit or Squirrel Nutkin are, in this generation.

Back View Detail

Look at the binding. I tried something new - an embellishment with rickrack! I sewed on the rickrack around the edge on the back using a small zig-zag stitch, lining up the edge of the rickrack with the clean quilt edge. Then I sewed on the border in the usual fashion. When I tacked it down on the back, I deliberately covered half of the rick rack to get the "bumpy" effect. It's a bias, double fold binding, which is my favorite technique. It should be very strong for baby to chew on, or drag along the floor.

The rickrack has a story: I found this olive-green rickrack in a pile of sewing notions at an estate sale. I bought the whole lot, not knowing how I would use the trims, bindings and laces. Here, I got to use one! The packages were ancient - wrapped in crinkly cellophane, marked 15 cents per pack. I love the idea of using "scraps" for quilts.

I hope they love it. I hope baby uses it as his blankie. Even if not, I have made it in love, given freely. It is my humble attempt at grace.

How Stress Manifests

For me, stress shows up in my sleep. When I have stress, worry and anxiety in my life my sleep is affected in two ways: I wake up frequently during the night and I have stress dreams. I wake up, check the clock, and then my mind gets busy and I cannot fall back asleep. It's a semi-conscious state - I'm not actively worrying, yet I am not resting deeply. If my mind is present, I usually try to focus on prayers and I pray for as many people and situations as I can think of. At least if I'm tossing and turning, I am doing something productive.

Well, I believe praying is productive use of my time.

The stress dreams are more intriguing. If I am angry at someone or something, my dreams take a violent theme. I witness an accident in which someone gets killed or gravely injured (usually I don't distinguish the difference in the dream). A disaster occurs, like a plane crash. Or, I see a car accident. Occasionally, I perform the violent act, and it's always as an accident (for example, I'm driving the car that hits someone - but I didn't see the person until it's too late).

When it's generalized stress, my dreams are stories of confusion and being lost. I am trying to get somewhere but I'm always making wrong turns, or finding the way blocked. I'm trying to do something, but I am stymied. I am puzzled in the dream, but I keep on going, only to face more challenges. I never reach my goal in the dream.

Either type of dream can be upsetting. When I wake up I am vaguely angry or upset. It takes a few hours to release the feeling.

Earlier this week, my dream was trying to return to my hotel room while visiting my alma mater, Penn State. I have not been to State College in almost 20 years, and I understand it has changed immensely. This was the theme of the dream - everywhere I thought I was going had been changed. I tried taking a detour through a fraternity complex, only to find a precarious gorge had formed in the middle of their courtyard. I had to go back. There were buildings I didn't recognize. The pathways had moved and didn't go where they were supposed to. The old places I hung out were replaced with new buildings and structures. As usual for these dreams, I never made it back to my hotel. I woke up.

There's always a real-life metaphor for these dreams. The confusion journey dreams are addressing my anxiety about our upcoming trip to Japan. I am nervous about the trip. I only know a very little Japanese and I can't read Kanji. Being out of my element is very scary...of course, that is the very reason I'm going. The experience will help me grow. Growth doesn't obliterate my fears; nevertheless, I will do it anyway.

In last night's dream, I found myself the owner of a large barn (on the property of a new house my husband and I bought). The barn was partially finished as a house, and it was full of stuff. Some of the stuff was nice, like brand new beautiful baby and children's clothes, new and used craft supplies, household items, furniture, and lots of TVs. Much of the stuff was worthless used merchandise. It was like an estate sale; it was all mine. My husband was no where to be found in the dream.

As I was surveying this stuff and trying to figure out how to organize all of it, people came and started wandering around the piles of things. They thought it was a yard sale, but nothing had been advertised or set up. Some decided they could take items; after all, I wasn't using them, I wouldn't miss them, and nothing was priced, no cashier. I confronted them, approaching them and yelling. "Why are you stealing from me?" I demanded of several people. "What are you doing? Are you taking something that is not yours? That's really not a Christian thing to do," I reprimanded another woman who tried to slip a new, fully packaged nightgown under her arm. (I remember thinking in the dream that I don't know if she's Christian, so maybe I shouldn't say that...)

I know where the yelling came from. It was a replay of an event at work yesterday. I actually yelled at the family member of a patient! I kicked her off the unit.

Whoa. Out of character for meek li'l ole me.

The situation was getting ugly. The woman was having a loud argument with someone on the phone using extremely foul language. First, I shut the door to the patient's room. She was so loud you could hear her down the hall even with the door shut.

I stormed in and told her forcefully and clearly how inappropriate her behavior was. No one needs to hear language like that; this is a hospital. I want you to act like an adult or take it out of here. She left. She didn't argue with me, although she pointed out that I didn't know what was going on. That's true, I said, but I do know that her behavior here was inappropriate.

Holy crap. I've never been that assertive before in my whole life. It was difficult, scary, stressful, and yet it was the right thing to do. No one else was around to take a stand, I just did it.

Doing something out of character like that is stressful. It was a tough day all around; hence the stress dream. Hence the fact that I woke up at 0500 am. Hence I'm posting (and trying to exorcise the demon) so early on a Saturday morning.

School Days

This morning I work up very early but stayed in bed, trying to go back to sleep. I thought about what I should write about on this blog. My last few posts have been rather uninteresting and I thought about the first few months when I had stories I was eager to tell. My mind was flooded with ideas I should write about. They have since slipped my mind, and I wonder where my inspiration went. This morning I had a good idea, and here it is.

My Elementary School Teachers

When you're a kid you never think you'll forget the teachers you had in school. Now, I don't remember all of them, but before they all leave my brain, here is a brief remembrance of my teachers and my early school years.

Preschool: Miss Mary, who taught preschool out of her house in our neighborhood. Her house backed up on Crystal Lake, and one of the fun activities during preschool was fishing in the back yard to catch sunnies using blue cheese for bait.

Kindergarten: Mrs. Dahlquist in Heights School in Oakland NJ. She was near the end of her teaching career when she was my teacher. I remember her as being a grandmotherly figure, and I generally liked her. I remember feeling very safe in her class. She maintained pretty good discipline. I got in trouble once (at least once, shall I say), playing with my friends when I was supposed to be quieting down for class. I had to stand out recess that day.

First Grade: Miss Bird, also in Heights School. She was young, probably a new graduate or one or two years out. She wore those mod '70s mini dresses in double knit polyester in bright colors, and she wore pant suits. She had reddish brown hair in a bouffant-like flip (much like "Nikki Blonski" character in Hairspray, the movie). She was kind of plump. I enjoyed her class, but it went too slow for me. My best friend Ellen and I cut up a bit because we were bored. By the end of the year Ellen and I got scared that we'd be held back, so we shaped up.

Second Grade: Mrs. Serio, in Lincoln School in Wyckoff, NJ. I was the new kid that year since we'd moved the summer between first and second grade. The other new kid was Judy Seaver. We sort of became friends. This new school was weird. It didn't have a cafeteria! We had to bring our lunch every day! You could buy milk and ice cream bars, though.

Third Grade: Mrs. Christie. She was known to run the classroom with an iron hand. I was scared of her at first, but learned to appreciate her over time. She was very thin and wore a neat teased hairstyle. She strove to teach us impeccable handwriting and would not tolerate our small fingers touching the exposed wood near the point of the pencil. "Fingers off the wood!" she'd exclaim. She also made us sit up straight when writing, not hunch over our work.

Mid year we "earned" our pens when our cursive script was neat enough not to have to be erased as much. I don't think I was the first to earn one in class, but I did get the first black pen (everyone else had blue). It was a badge of honor for me! Several years after she was my teacher, she became good friends with my mother, who had been elected to the school board in town. Reflecting on her now, I suspect she was a very intelligent lady. As I child, I naturally didn't appreciate that quality.

Mrs. Christie had a bulletin board in the classroom in which we all chose jobs around the classroom for a week. Some of the jobs that come to mind were "plants," watering the plants in the classroom, "erasers," clapping out the blackboard erasers, "messenger," run notes to the office or elsewhere for the teacher, "flag," lead the pledge of allegiance every morning and choose the patriotic song to sing from our repertoire, and "chairs," make sure all the chairs were put upside down on the desks at the end of the day. Certain jobs were coveted among the kids, especially messenger. Personally, I enjoyed doing plants; I was afraid I'd get lost in the school if I were messenger. Mrs. Christie set up her plants such that the pot sat in a deep saucer of water. These saucers were to be kept filled. I don't know how those plants survived, but they did.

Fourth Grade: Mrs. Orr, still in Lincoln School. I was delighted to have her because she had a reputation among the students for being nice. And she was super nice. Spelling was a big topic for fourth grade. In her class, I had a huge crush on Jimmy, an outgoing, ever-smiling kid with white-blond hair. It was not reciprocated. I think another little boy in my class, Steven, had a crush on me. He was a "bad boy" though and I never knew how to relate to him; so I concluded that I just didn't like him. Another milestone this year was wearing a retainer for my teeth. Braces came at the end of the year. Mrs. Orr had a retainer too, and she helped me feel not so bad about having to wear it.

Fourth grade we all learned how to play the recorder.

Fifth Grade: Mrs. Nally. I don't remember much about 5th grade. A few snapshots come to mind: two girls that alternated between being my friends and being my enemies: Gina and Rosalee. Gina was all hot and popular because her family knew the family of Ace Frehley of the band Kiss and she'd always talk about "so totally normal" he was in real person. That impressed us. She also developed breasts early. The boys were interested, and that whole dimension came into existence. Fifth grade is when we all learned about menstruation and adolescence.

I believe this is the year I started playing clarinet. I really wish I could remember the music teachers names! There were a total of four music instructors at the school. One guy did woodwinds. Another did brass and percussion. A third taught strings. The fourth one, the only woman, did the basic music teaching - singing and basic music concepts (which everyone had to take). Instrumental music was optional.

Sixth Grade: Alas, this is the first one I can't remember! Mrs. Stonebridge or something like that. She was an older woman, probably in her late 40s to early 50s. with salt-and-pepper hair in a stylish wave. I liked her well enough. A milestone I remember from this year was that this was the first year I made it through an entire school year without crying at school. Such things are important to the school age child!

Other topics in elementary school:
I enjoyed art class and instrumental music in school. I did not like physical education. I was shy and came from a reserved household in which girls weren't supposed to like gym or exercise.

One gym teacher I remember was Mr. Rydell. He was a good guy - he had an odd way of pointing at you using two fingers - the index finger and the pinky finger. Every year we had Field Days and the whole school was divided up into red and blue teams. Mr. Rydell was heavily involved in these activities.

My elementary school years were 1970-1978. It seemed like an entire lifetime when I lived through it. Now, 8 years go by in a whoosh.

Productive

I've had a productive couple of weeks. I've had some time off from work, and I've been working on my projects.

The baby quilt is completely quilted and trimmed. All I need now is the binding. I'm excited about the binding because I'm going to sandwich in some rick rack between the binding and the quilt. It'll make a merry little detail to the back. I hope they don't worry that it's too feminine a quilt - the backing is a cute Beatrix Potter print with characters from her stories. the background of this print is beige, and in certain lights it looks a little pinkish. The front of the quilt is strip pieced in blue, green and brown prints. The dad receiving this baby quilt is definitely a man's man - the kind that would freak out over something pink for his boy.

Might turn him into a fag, donchaknow. Heh, yeah, right.

When I picked out the fabric for this gift, no one knew that it was going to be a boy. That's my story and I'm sticking with it.

I should I post some photos of this quilt. It's cute.

I also finished my first crochet scarf. It's a mesh-like pattern of double crochet with chain stitches, interspersed with long rows of a fun-fur like yarn. This gives it a punch of color (multi-color, actually) and makes it soft and fuzzy. I even put the long fringes on the end, also made of the fur yarn.

I am refreshed and grounded. Ready to get back to work and get back to sewing.