Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Bridal Show!



It is that time of year again! The beautiful, wonderful time of year that zillions of brides gather in an organized chaos and attempt to plan their wedding in one day, by eating more cake and chocolate covered strawberries than one person should eat in a lifetime.



It's Bridal Show Season!



And for those of you getting married, yes, there is a season for everything, including Bridal Shows!



And we are there to guide you through the chaos of a bridal show, and help you with cans of "Yoo-Hoo, so you're getting married!" and "Stress Relief Pills"









So if we missed you on Sunday, at the Performing Arts Center, for the Gainesville Wedding Expo, we'll see you on September 12th, for The Florida Wedding Expo, at the University of Florida Hilton!



We'll be in-between Too Jay's (and you guys know how much I love me some Too-Jays, I wonder if they'll bring me a corned beef sammich?) and Dream Day Cakes!

quilt as you go |quilt-along| { ROUND TWO! }

i am more than a little excited to announce the infamous... quilt as you go quilt-along is starting again with a ROUND TWO and in addition to that... i'll be running it! i have longed to try this quilting concept, but as life an sometimes go... i wasn't able to participate the first time out. so, i contacted miss Penny at sewtakeahike and begged her to do another round... and she kindly offered to hand her baby over to me to head up the 2nd round ( here's to doin ya proud Penny! ) :) So... here's the deets for ROUND 2!!

there will be two different formats of the concept { quilt as you go }... one will be the traditional take on the block/ quilt preformed by miss penny found here in round 1. the second will be my take on the incredible opportunity i see with this method to practice a multitude of Free Motion Quilting styles.

Each participant in the quilt-a-long can choose from either or both methods... that's the beauty of this funky style!! this endeavor really is meant for the novice quilter to the most experienced... so no worry about feeling this may be above you!!! just grab your big girl panties ( or boys ) and jump in!! it's gonna be a party!

For those who are unfamiliar with the traditional quilting { quilt as you go } concept... miss penny has provided a little back drop on how this phenomenon came about...

Someone from one of my quilting bees requested blocks that looked like the quilt out of the book "Patchwork Style". I immediately referenced the book, and found the style to be right up my alley since I love patchwork. I had never before thought I would make a quilt larger than lap-sized, but I started dreaming of making huge quilts, since I believed that quilting as you go would lend to that.

I wasn't convinced though that the method to sew the blocks together would be best, so I did a couple of experiments (you can read about that here). In the end, the method presented in the book seemed the quickest, and the final result was about the same.
I made a few blocks and posted them on sewtakeahike and started getting several requests for a quilt-along.

I just love this QAYG method! I may someday break down and pay a long arm quilter to quilt one of my quilts, but until then, this QAYG method is working great for me!

***********************************************************

now to introduce you to the newest method...
i recognized that with the traditional method that you were in essence building a wonky log cabin block& quilt once they were pieced together. so, i thought... HHmmm.... this style of piecing and quilting a block and THEN joining them would also generate the possibility to practice Free Motion Quilting abundantly within a safe size ( since, i think we can all get scared from trying new methods because of the fear of ruining an entire quilt or have seam rip the entire hot mess we made! )
So why not... make a wonky log cabin first, then sandwich my block ( which are 15" square ) with batting and a simple/ inexpensive muslin backing??? then the sky's the limit... quilt away kids... any method you'd like that you never felt you could try before due to the size of your projects.

it's perfect, really... you're making a quilt while feeling out all the quilting methods you've been too scared to try... you're not making mini's, not making pot holders, or pillows... but a quilt! and there is NO reason to be scared of the ending size either... because your quilt will be "quilted" as you go!!!.... with each block bringing a different adventure!!

i sure hope you all are as excited as i am! not only will we be creating a major piece of functional art... but, we'll be feeding each other creative food by uploading all of are block quilting images to the Flickr group ( thus bringing unlimited quilting designs to each other! )

and... as an addition to the hype of this project... i will be facilitating a { fabric strip Swap } too... the funkiest quilts are those which have a massive selection of fabrics within them! this offer is unfortunately, only for round 2 participates though. ;)
Kick off for this project will be September 8th.
i'll see you then with more info, goals, and fun examples!!
XO, Heather


Pencil Tip Art

So, I went to school with a kid that would fiddle with his pencils and make the tip into fun shapes... and so when I came across this, I thought of the that kid.



Yeah, that's right, he's carved the alphabet out of pencil tips! Not that kid I went to school with, but Brazilian born, Connecticut based, Dalton Ghetti carefully crafts the tips of pencils into amazing micro sculptures. These miniature masterpieces are a side project for the professional carpenter, who has been perfecting this art for the last 25 years. Dalton uses a razor blade, sewing needle, a sculpting knife, a steady hand and lots of patience to meticulously carve the graphite which can take anywhere between a few months to a few years. Over time he has broken many works in progress and keeps them in what he calls the cemetery collection. One of the most fascinating things about these tiny works of art is that he has never sold them, only given away to friends as gifts.





via telegraph.co.uk

















Original Post with more images

Monday, August 30, 2010

Accident Prone

Just when I thought I’d make it to the end of the month without any more threats to my health, I cut my right thumb while preparing green bell pepper for tonight’s dinner, pepper steak. And tomorrow’s the first day of class. I won’t be wearing heels.

Salutations and Compliments

Eventually, when proofreading a friend’s cover letter for a job application, there will be a clash of ideas about what’s “proper.” I believe it was back in the third grade* when I learned how to write a “proper” business letter. Sign with “Yours truly” or “Very truly yours,” a very simple rule, later corroborated by Emily Post. I’ve followed it faithfully in letters, and even some formal emails, for well-over two decades.

So when my friend used “Best,” I was puzzled. And when he protested against “Yours truly,” I was annoyed. What other way is there than the “proper” way? So I Googled* business letter format, and discovered self-appointed letter-writing gurus advocating “Best” and even the dreaded “Cordially yours” as the most proper ways to close formal letters. What an outrage!

I calmed down enough to ponder the situation. Propriety is certainly a fluid concept. In Jane Austin’s time, it was apparently perfectly respectable to send one invitation to an entire household, including houseguests, but that had become vulgar by the time round two of the cult of domesticity came around. Perhaps the post-Baby Boom world didn’t know what to make of “Yours truly,” mistaking it as a term of endearment. I dare say the new recommendations are no improvement.

What does “Best” mean? “Best wishes”? But why send your best wishes to a potential employer or other business associate? That’s rather impertinent, don’t you think? “Cordially yours”? If it hasn’t retained the condescension Emily Post complained about, then how is it any different from “Warmly” or “Affectionately,” which have been disregarded as too intimate? If these were intended to avoid a misunderstanding brewing over being “Yours truly,” it appears that business letter writers have actually gravitated towards becoming increasingly informal. But what else is to be expected from people on a first name basis?

*The image in my mind is the yellow Calvert textbook that taught cursive, although I might have learned “proper” letter format from a different book around the same time.
**I used Google, but I was just wondering: Is it still “Googling” if another search engine is used?

EXPOSE... the unknown crafters!

Once again... one of the most exciting parts of the Flickr online world is the extream exposure i get to the most amazing sewing talents! this featured crafter always blows me away with her bright saturated color choices! it really doesn't matter which project she's working on... they just feel bright and cheery!! please meet Corey from Little Miss Shabby! i have no doubt you'll all wanta keep up with her next projects after seeing these yummy treats!! ;)












How fabulous is she!!??


Xo, Heather

Saturday, August 28, 2010

The Church at Ground Zero

My heart just broke when I read earlier this morning about the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey’s treatment towards the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America over getting the St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church back on its feet. I recalled the horror I felt when I first learned about the church, not on September 11, 2001, but earlier this summer while watching Ric Burns’ documentary New York. One of the interviewees, focusing on the American symbol of financial power, marveled that only the World Trade Center was targeted and only the World Trade Center was hit, adding the little church as if it were an unimportant afterthought.

He must have been right. While local Christians, churches, and parachurch organizations collected money and supplies to send to families connected with the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and to soldiers sent to Afghanistan, I heard not one word about the church building* that was utterly destroyed. And now there’s so much clamoring about building a mosque a few blocks away from the site, as if its presence is the highest affront to Christiandom, while everyone ignores the port agency’s pointed snub of a congregation that has suffered miserably and is trying to rebuild itself. People have accused American Christians of caring more about money and warfare than their Christian brethren around the world. Now we can be accused of not even caring about each other.

*I still haven’t been able to find out if anyone was killed.

Friday, August 27, 2010

a winner, a vent, a sale!

i'm am speechless!!! ( okay not really... but you get the gesture )... 1300 comments!!! you all loOOoove yourselves some AccQuilt Go cutting systems!!! i feel a bit like Santa today! how exciting... okay... on the count of three... the winner is.... 1, 2, 3
Random Integer Generator
Here are your random numbers:1090
Timestamp: 2010-08-28 04:02:58 UTC

Elizabeth said...
Blogged: http://emsewandsew.blogspot.com/2010/08/giveaway-goodness.html :D.Totally crossing my fingers. Thanks for an awesome giveaway!xo -E
August 25, 2010 9:27 PM

please send me your info and we'll get you out your new toy!!
ps... my favorite cartoon were definitely the Snorkles! ;)

now i'm not sure what you all have been up too lately... unless i follow your blog ( wink, wink... then i do! ), but it's almost school time over here. and can i just say that i will... in about 10 days, i'll have a 7th GRADER! yeah... friggin crazy hugh... i hear ya! i had to actually take him to a mall this year for school clothes!! What is that all about... now he wants cool clothes, cologne, fancy hair cuts... i'm not sure how i feel about all this??!! i'm not ready for someone in my house to be cooler then me... he's already as tall! maybe i'm sulking a little bit but, come on... i'm not old enough for all this baloney! jeese....

the only way i could get through this week was listening to Pearl Jam and finishing my { Urban } Home Goods final swap item for my partner... and yes... i did try really hard to make it look cool, since i was feeling frumpy!! LOL and i thanked my lucky star's that miss terri was around to help out with the math!! haha... that one's a pattern genius!!

and have no worries about me making you feel all "left out" over not having any of that fab Japanese fabric... Runner girl fabric's is having a huge savings so, your favorite color of Echino Cars could be yours for a steal!! and if they're not your thing... lord knows she's got an insane amount of collections to choose from... i'm more than sure you can find something at that price that is! ;)

i am also more than a little excited about Kerri and my newest modern swap starting!! sign-ups are currently happening for the fabulous SavVy { Seasons } ( you can find out more details on it's special page above!) this is sure to be another fan favorite with the theme being seasonal items... like holidays!!! i have already placed my order for lovely Holiday Happy fabric line by miss monica solorio-snow of Happy Zombie... now try to tell me that is the cutest holiday fabric you haven't ever seen! i dare ya!! LOL

you can find some of her darling prints at Sew Deerly Loved or the Fat Quarter Shop!!

xo, Heather

Cute as a Button!

This is the picture that started it all for me. The picture that made me fall in love with button boutineers! How darling is it!!


Now I need to have a bride have them! Please, with sugar on top!


 I'll even give you a source, you can find them here, on Etsy....

Thursday, August 26, 2010

First Comes Love…

This morning I learned from a friend of mine about the great cover-up involving the National Survey of Adolescents and Their Parents: Attitudes and Opinions about Sex and Abstinence, a report prepared in 2009 for a branch of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. So with my curiosity then aroused, I read it. One thing that really stood out to me was one view consistently expressed by both the surveyed adolescents and their parents, across religious service attendance, income levels, race/ethnic groups, and both genders: Of the reasons chosen for when it was okay to have un-wed sexual relations, “Having sex okay if plan to marry” came out strong.

This came as no surprise to me. That’s been a popular view in America since the Puritans landed. From ancient times to today, the line between “not married” and “married” has been blurred by different ideas about what the courtship or betrothal period involves. But unlike the Puritan girls, an American girl today can forget about using the strong arm of the law to force the father of her child into marriage. And while pregnancy naturally led to weddings during our grandparents’ generation, the current one seems to feel less socially obligated to do so. It’s not that the past didn’t have the tragic ending of the deflowered girl abandoned for someone prettier or wealthier. It’s that everyone would’ve agreed that her boyfriend was a cad.

But times have changed. A young woman, convinced that she’s going to marry a particular young man, or perhaps promised marriage, still agrees to sleep with him. When she discovers she’s pregnant, she still expects him to marry her. That’s just how things are done. However, today, the ending often isn’t marriage; it’s abandonment. And no one sympathizes with her. Instead she’s criticized for giving up her virginity before obtaining a legally-binding marriage. Forget the fact that she gave it up under the most socially-accepted terms. Forget the fact that human society has flourished for thousands of years with shot-gun (sling-shot?) weddings. She and the baby go at life alone, until the next boyfriend appears.

The problem is a lot like the one popularized by the relationship self-help book He’s Just Not That Into You: Girls need to stop and realize that they’re not the exception. Children don’t guarantee commitment. Drastic measures are needed, like the one the name of the fast-growing movement No Wedding No Womb clearly suggests. While I remain optimistic about the situation, I do recognize that the “baby daddy” mentality won’t disappear overnight. We just need to find successful ways of attacking it. Really, where’s the Spanish Inquisition, enforcing flippant promises of marriage, when we need it?

Confidence Restored

Like most little girls, I wanted to be a ballerina when I grew up. I could sing and dance a whole day away. And every once in awhile, my mother would let me try to stand in her old toe shoes. At home, there was a stage, and I was always a star. That soon changed.

When I was about eight-years-old, I took my first dance class: a basic ballet course. I had mixed feelings about it. Although I felt very grown up, learning how to dance “for real,” it was a blow to my ego messing up in front of the other girls. The self-confidence I had dancing with my sisters at home shattered when I sensed that I was being judged by a room filled with strangers.

I remember the instructor: I thought she was wonderful, but she rarely danced because she was very pregnant.* She helped me when I put on my tutu incorrectly, and would “shh” anyone who laughed at my poor technique.

Once, the entire class lined up to attempt the grand jeté. I remember being nervous that I’d make a fool of myself, but I’m sure I was beaming afterwards when the teacher said “Very good” in front of the whole class. When she chose me to lead in the back row for the dance routine we were preparing, I had regained much of the confidence I’d lost. By the time of the spring performance, I felt like a princess, gliding effortlessly across the stage. I could dream again.

*I believe the baby was due the week after our dance recital.

I’m 100% Sure You’re Crazy!

“How sure are you? Fifty percent? Seventy-five percent? Ninety percent?”

Huh? I was doing some contract work. After being asked about some particular detail, I promptly gave the best answer I could, saying that I was “quite sure” it was accurate. When asked to give a percentage, I almost laughed. He just had to be kidding. Isn’t that something only junior highers would say?

I came to find out, after polling three of my four siblings, that not only were fully-grown adults guilty of asking this, but they asked in all seriousness. Rebecca said it reminded her of the “On a scale from one to ten, how much pain are you experiencing?” question asked by medical professionals. There’s an illusion that the number means something concrete when it’s actually very subjective and, in my opinion, less useful than a normal answer. Clearly, we place too much value on our ability to quantify and rank things.

I recall a professor who was against reporting statistics to three or more decimal places. He was always concerned that a long train of digits would give a false sense of accuracy and precision, leading an undiscerning reader astray. That’s what I see happening when someone says, “I’m eighty percent sure of X” as if there’s a Federal grant worth of data behind it. It’s a meaningless number. In contrast, saying “I’m pretty sure” is upfront about the situation. “Here’s my personal opinion. Take it, or leave it.” The other party’s forced to decide whether or not to trust what he hears. In both cases, there’s risk, but I guess some people feel more secure about a phony statistic than an honest opinion.

And Guest

When you get an invitation to a wedding, do you even think about what the inner envelope says? This is a problem as of late. People don't think about it.



These are the people that are invited to the wedding, the people listed on the inner envelope. And if there isn't an inner envelope, it's the people listed on the outer envelope.



That means that if it just says Tammie Jones, Tammie is the only one invited to the wedding, not her boyfriend or her kids.



If it says Tammie Jones and Billy Joe, that means that Tammie and Billy are invited, not their kids or their kid's kids.



Don't try to bring or invite a guest if it doesn't say "and guest" on the invitation, the bride and groom (or her parents, his parents, whoever is paying for the wedding) is paying a good chunk of change for you to attend their wedding. Don't force it.



It's just not good etiquette, its not fair to put the bride and groom in that situation.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Consumption with Negative Utility

This afternoon, I subjected myself to a third tuberculosis test in nine years. Given that TB has a reputation for being a “poverty disease,” and that more than half of the cases in the United States are found in foreign-born individuals, the most efficient use of precious public and private funds would seem to be to screen members of “high risk” subpopulations. Yet, instead testing’s universal for many municipal, community college, and public school positions. In addition, it’s mandatory for incoming kindergarteners, something which has proven to be one of the biggest money wasters in this state due to the ridiculously low rates of TB found among them. At the end of the day, I just want to ask: Who’s making money off of injecting all that bacteria?

Fantasmas de estações passadas – Ghosts of seasons past


(Scroll down for English)
Hoje resolvi rebuscar o armário por peças que já não usava há muito tempo. Não me lembro exactamente de quando é este vestido, talvez 2006 ou 2007… Até me tinha esquecido que o tinha. Na minha opinião mantém-se actual e resolvi levá-lo a dar uma volta…

Today I decided to raid my closet for garments not worn in a long time. I can’t remember exactly when I got this dress, maybe 2006 or 2007… I forgot that I had it. In my opinion it’s still very wearable so today I took it for a ride…


Super Cute Cake Topper

While we are on uber cuteness, check out these cake toppers, that I also found on Etsy!

When you are looking for a cake topper, and deciding if you wanted to use one or not think about the personality of your wedding. How the topper ties to you, if you are going to use your college mascot, or cute adorable birds, are you tying those birds anywhere else in the wedding?



Will the topper match your theme over-all?

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

I’m Gonna Live Forever, Part 1

Every so often, I come across another person who, grounding his faith firmly in modern medicine, hopes to attain the ripe old age of 200. It’s always 200. And the person is generally male, religiously an atheist, and politically a libertarian.

The argument goes something like this: People used to live until 50. Now they live to 80. So, if the government doesn’t interfere with scientific advancement, I must be destined to reach 200.

This drives me absolutely crazy. Overall life expectancy in the United States (see Table 1) has been in the seventies since my father was two. This has led to speculation in social science circles that there is, in fact, an upper limit on life expectancy at birth. Others see the trend continuing to increase very slowly. Either way, that’s far cry from the layman predictions I’ve heard.

TABLE 1*


What’s not being appreciated is how much of that increase in the average lifespan should be credited to Louis Pasteur’s disciples rather than any current developments. Now that childhood is virtually non-life threatening (Baby Boom anyone?) and “dying in childbirth” is something that’s discussed among genealogists, medicine has been devoted to giving us a few extra precious months with grandma…not 100 more years. Barring some revolution along the magnitude of hand washing and efficient sewage systems, we’re not likely to see any significant change in the average.

But that doesn’t mean someone can’t live 200 years!

Well, those suggesting that are assuming away an important concept: maximum attainable age. Despite the upward, albeit slowing, trend in newborns’ life expectancies, our supercentenarians haven’t gotten any older (see Table 2). We’re just now more aware of their awesome presence thanks to birth registration and international media.

TABLE 2**


I’ll admit that we haven’t yet given the babies who received the largest gains in life expectancy a chance to break the world record. Maybe I’m already biased against them, believing since my childhood that the Bible sets the highest average lifespan at 80 (Psalm 90:10) and the maximum attainable age at 120 (Genesis 6:3), give or take a few years to compensate for ancient reckoning of age. (I’ll admit there’s good reason not to take the first passage literally!) However, I have thought of how some other data might clue us into the likelihood of anyone today breaking 122. Stay tuned for Part 2.

*TABLE 1. Data series constructed from “Table Ab644-655 : Expectation of life at birth, by sex and race: 1850-1998,” Historical Statistics of the United States Millennial Edition Online (2006); “11. Life expectancy by age, race, and sex: Death-registration states, 1900–1902 to 1919–1921, and United States, 1929–1931 to 2006,” “United States Life Tables, 2006,” National Vital Statistics Reports, Vol. 58, No. 21, (June 28, 2010).

**TABLE 2. Life expectation data series constructed from “Table Ab644-655 : Expectation of life at birth, by sex and race: 1850-1998,” Historical Statistics of the United States Millennial Edition Online (2006); “11. Life expectancy by age, race, and sex: Death-registration states, 1900–1902 to 1919–1921, and United States, 1929–1931 to 2006,” “United States Life Tables, 2006,” National Vital Statistics Reports, Vol. 58, No. 21, (June 28, 2010). Highest age data series constructed from “Chronological list of the verified oldest living person since 1955,” “Oldest People,” Wikipedia (Accessed August 24, 2010); “Supercentenarians who died before 1955,” “Oldest People,” Wikipedia (Accessed August 24, 2010). Note: Non-Americans are included in the lists of oldest people.

Give-A-Way TIME!!

OOOooohhh.... it's time kids! to even ( like i had too... haha ) add a little ambiance to this fantastic give-a-way, i even tried to increase the sexiness of the AccuQuilt Go machine by changing my picture from color to black & white! yeah... i know... wonders never cease to amaze over here in my land with creativity!! LOL... i kid, i kid!! let's keep it real... the picture's color turned out horrid!! ;)

So... lets not waste anymore time on my smartmouth comments and get down and dirty with the deets!

one of YOU will receive a free GO! cutter and three dies from the very generous AccuQuilt!


This give-a-way will run until Friday 27th 9:00 pm PST

  • to enter... leave a comment for me and tell me your favorite cartoon! ( yeah... i know random... but, FUN! )
  • blog about this give-a-way and link to it on your 2nd comment
  • lastly, become one of friends by following my blog ( unless you're already one of my loyal kids and in that place... YOU my dears, can just say hi! )

    here's to a fab week for you!! good luck!!
    XO, Heather

Monday, August 23, 2010

Cake Toppers!

I love cake toppers that are fun and different, I found these on one of my favorite sites, Etsy.com. Have you heard of it?



If you haven't it's the best thing to happen to the wedding industry, since, well, since cake!



Etsy is chock full of designers and crafters that make stuff, like hand-made fun stuff!



You can find these toppers on Etsy, here.

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Diversity Sensitivity Training

Earlier this summer, a friend of mine who’s heavily involved in political activism was bemoaning the fact that there was a discouraging turnout at a local rally, even from among known supporters. He couldn’t think of why that happened and blamed it on a growing indifference about our country’s future.

I asked if he’d considered another explanation. Perhaps the real problem was the type of event. He thought a rally would be successful because he liked rallies. But local rallies always seemed to me to be organized and attended primarily by middle class and working class whites. In an area with a lot of upper-middle class whites and middle class and working class Hispanics, a rally (or that particular type of rally) might be unable to drum up enough interest. What was needed was someone to figure out what type of events would attract these other subpopulations.

His response? Well, people should be interested enough in the purpose to attend anyway.

Apparently, he couldn’t separate the message from the medium. But the truth is, if the latter doesn’t work, it has to be changed. Otherwise efforts to get out the message are doomed to fail.

That conversation reminded me of a sermon I’d heard awhile back. The preacher talked about his seminary class going door-to-door ministering to people. In the poorer neighborhoods, people answered the door and were eager to talk to them. In the richer neighborhoods, no one answered the door. From this, he reached a conclusion about the rich’s unwillingness to hear the gospel.

At the time, I had just finished some research on differences in behavior across social strata. I wanted to tell him that the “rich” value their time differently than the “poor,” so they are less likely to welcome solicitors. In addition, the “poor” answer their doors because they tend to value neighborhood friendships, while the “rich” have reason to suspect a stranger as a potential burglar. And to top it off: The “rich” were probably away at work or other activities, while the poorer neighborhood likely contained housewives who can’t afford to get out much and the unemployed. In other words, going door-to-door wouldn’t be the best way to reach the unsaved “rich.”

Unfortunately, this preacher hadn’t considered alternatives that would capture their attention. He preferred to stick with his usual MO. Similarly, my friend insisted that others should put the message before their personal preferences, while he refused to do the same. That’s like an American missionary in another country refusing to preach in anything other than English. When he doesn’t get any converts, he has no one to blame but himself. No reason to give the target audience a brush off.

As We Have Also Forgiven Our Debtors

Earlier today, I was reading Hosea, and something in the fourth chapter stood out to me. God accuses Israel of forgetting him and warns of a coming judgment (Hosea 4:1-11) and then directly links sinning against God to sinning against man by declaring that He will not punish the wives for their adultery and the daughters for their whoredom because of the men’s unfaithfulness to God (Hosea 4:12-14). I can almost visualize the prophet yelling to be heard while the people ignore him, too busy organizing community stonings, too focused on their own vengeance.

This passage reminded me of Jesus’ teachings about forgiveness and His “Parable of the Unmerciful Servant” discussed in Matthew 18:15-35. There’s a strong correlation between how we show forgiveness and mercy to each other and how God does the same for us. Like the men in Old Testament Israel and the debtor in Jesus’ story, it is wicked and foolish to expect compassion when there is none. It’s significant that our Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13, Luke 11:2-4) suggests that having mercy on others plays a central role in our petitions to Him. To forgive means to be forgiven.

Vestido listado, opção2 – Striped dress, take 2


(Scroll down for English)
Aqui têm o segundo coordenado da série vestido às riscas, um conjunto para tempo chuvoso mas ainda quente dos últimos dias do verão, em que estou a usar o vestido com uma gabardina lilás feita por mim (podem ver os detalhes aqui se quiserem) e com os meus botins de camurça púrpura.

Here is the second outfit of the striped dress sequence; it’s intended for the late summer rainy days and I’m wearing the dress with a lavender trench coat which I made myself (see the details and tutorials here, if you like) and my purple suede peep toe booties.




Friday, August 20, 2010

F Is for Phonics

There are some experiences that are so tragic that they remain imprinted on your mind forever: Age: three closing in on four. Setting: our apartment in the Pomona Valley. My parents had heard about four-year-olds mastering reading, so it was time to get started. “School” went from jumping up and down on the “dance mat” in the middle of my bedroom and singing “A, B, C…” to sitting down quietly in the livingroom doing exercises in the dreaded “red book.”

To my parents, it was a success. Samuel L. Blumenfeld’s Alpha-Phonics: A Primer for Beginning Readers did teach me phonics, but I hated every minute of it. I had mastered the alphabet, but its relationship to sounds continued to baffle me. And just when I thought I was getting it, the worse part came.

I have one memory of sitting by my mom at her Estey spinet,* parked under the stairs, and being proud of myself for sounding out the word above the music. Then my mom told me that the word was pronounced fugue because it was German and German had different phonics rules.

What???!!!

So now that I’ve finally made sense of one set of phonics rules, I have to learn another one? My heart sank as I imagined a lifetime of red books. And looking back at it now, I’m not one bit surprised that remembering correct pronunciation is the highest brick wall preventing me from furthering my French and Koine Greek.

*She still has it, and it still works (sort of), despite all the abuse it got from her seven younger siblings and five children.

Não me consigo fartar destas calças – I can’t get enough of these pants


(Scroll down for English)
São confortáveis e nada quentes, permitindo um conjunto vasto de variações de estilo; tanto as posso usar agora de verão como vão com certeza transitar para o Outono e Inverno. Neste dia acordei com o tempo nublado e um pouco fresco, daí ter optado por um blazer fino. À tarde o tempo voltou ao típico de pleno Agosto e pus o blazer de lado. O top foi feito por mim usando o mesmo molde deste vestido e como tem as costas muito destapadas, estou a usá-lo por cima de um top de alcinhas padrão leopardo, que não se vê bem nas fotos.
Obrigada pelas vossas respostas no post anterior!

They are comfortable and they are not too heavy/hot for this weather, permitting several style options, not only for the summer but also for fall/winter. When I woke up the weather was cloudy and a bit chilly, hence the blazer, however after lunch it was back to our typical August hot/sunny weather so I took the blazer off and I was ok. The top was made by me using the same pattern as this dress and it’s backless so I was wearing a leopard print top underneath which doesn’t show in the pictures.
Thank you all for your answers on my previous post!