My new Project

I downloaded this pattern from Northern Sunshine Designs which I love. It's called Prairie Gold. I am making it in Panda Silk in pure white. I will post the finished sock when I am done. They are going to be worn in the temple, when I work there.

Surprise Socks

This are just off my needles. They are for a special friend who is going through tough times. I am not going to publish her name here, and it may take up to 2 weeks to get there. I hope she is surprised. They are made from Regia yarn, an old standby that makes up well and wears forever. I like the colorway, so bright and sunny. Should cheer someone up, don't you think?

I feel violated

My inbox has been flooded recently with some very disturbing emails recently. I don't have a TV, and if I did, I doubt if I would be watching the Big Love, anyway. It's the story of a modern day polygamous family, supposedly an offshoot of a group such as the FLDS.
BTW, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has nothing to do with any of the splinter groups. When they discontinued the practice of polygamy in 1890, some diehards decided to continue the practice and started their own branches of the church. In our world today, if someone who is a member of the Church decides to practice polygamy, they are excommunicated. I come from polygamous folk, and have studied the subject extensively. There is a clearly drawn line within the church between us and them.
Stay with me here.
Over 40 years ago, I got married. It was a gorgeous summer day, much like the one in the following photo. I was married in the Salt Lake Temple (see above). It was June 14, 1968, Flag Day, and it was so bright and sunny.

Before the actual marriage ceremony, I went through another ritual called the endowment. In this ceremony, I made certain covenants with God. I promised to live my life according to some fairly strict rules. Nothing terribly weird or anything, but having to do with my own live and the way I would live from now on. It was a personal and sacred experience.
In the 40 years since, I have repeated the ceremony many times, each time acting as a proxy for someone else who has died. Sometimes the name of the person was someone who was a member of my own family. We believe that in the next life, people have the opportunity to accept or reject these ordinances. The language used is highly symbolic and takes a long time to really understand. I am still learning about it, myself and my relationship to God. The first time I went through it, I was overwhelmed. Some days I still am.
Now I work in the Portland Temple, shown below, and help other people who are performing the same ordinances. I support and encourage them and it is very rewarding work for me. I consider this to be a time to renew my contact with God. The temple is also a place of prayer and meditation for me.

So why the fuss about Big Love? Well it seems the show has decided to do a flashback with one of the characters and is recreating the whole ceremony. They got an ex-member to act as a consultant. It's supposed to go into everything in great detail. When members got wind of this, and protested, the producers said they did not want to offend anyone, and they thought it was in good taste, and did not see what the fuss was about. And they are going to air it on Sunday night.
The only thing I can compare it to is filming me making love with someone. It's that personal to me. And here they want to put it out there, for people who have no idea what it is all about and make a mockery of it.
There are parts of our lives that are private and sacred and should not be displayed, period.
They don't get it. The fact that they are trying to be "accurate" and "tasteful" does not negate the fact that they have decided to go ahead and show it at all.
That's my rant, but I am distressed by this. How dare they take that part of my life, and stomp all over it with their dirty hands and feet!

Come Thou Font

I really enjoy singing and love to sing in choirs. The problem is that I don't have a great voice. It took me years to discover that I should sing second soprano or alto, and I do better. I never sang in school choirs, too shy, I guess. But in our church, every ward is supposed to have a choir. And so, tentatively, I started singing in them. When I moved to Minnesota, I just started singing with the choir. I even sang in several stake choirs. The leaders told me, it was fine and if nothing else, they appreciated my enthusiasm.
My sisters both have much better voices than I do. Ellen even has led choirs and really adds to one. But anyway, I persevere.
I was hesitant to join the choir in my new ward. There are some excellent voices there, both men and women, and they do an excellent job with some involved arrangements. But two weeks ago, after struggling with seven five year olds for two hours, I was ready for some spiritual refreshment. I cut across the chapel and was stopped by the choir singing Come Thou Font of Every Blessing. I meant only to sit and listen, but then found myself leaving my purse on the bench and joining them.
I grew up loving this wonderful hymn. It was in the songbook for years. I loved the beauty of the melody and the language. Then in 1985, the church removed it from the book! (Thank you very much Michael Moody). We sang it in our choir in West Saint Paul ward and I took my copy of the music and put it on my fridge where it stayed for two years.
The lyrics are so succinct and show such yearning for connection to God as well as an acknowledgment of our faults.
Come, thou Fount of every blessing,
tune my heart to sing thy grace;
streams of mercy, never ceasing,
call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I'm fixed upon it,
mount of thy redeeming love.


Here I raise mine Ebenezer;
hither by thy help I'm come;
and I hope, by thy good pleasure,
safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
wandering from the fold of God;
he, to rescue me from danger,
interposed his precious blood.


O to grace how great a debtor
daily I'm constrained to be!
Let thy goodness, like a fetter,
bind my wandering heart to thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
prone to leave the God I love;
here's my heart, O take and seal it,
seal it for thy courts above.

I Googled it, and found a wonderful recording of it done by the BYU Men's and Women's Choruses. I will try my best to link to it here. Watch this video on youtube.com
We are singing it on Sunday. I will be there, adding my shaky alto voice to the choir and meaning every word of it.

If you can't say something nice

Just a quick entry here. Remember that scene in Bambi when Thumper gets reprimanded by his mother, "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all." That's been one of my mantras. I try to treat everyone with respect. If I don't get respect back, well, that's another story.
So Wednesday, I found myself in a pickle. My van got towed. I parked in a restricted area at the MAX station. I thought I was out of the area, but I obviously wasn't. So I called the guy, and asked him what I had to do to get my car back. I told him that I had never had my car towed, and so wasn't sure what the procedure was. He gave me the address and I said I would try to be there by six.
The whole thing wasn't a total loss. I got on the train, rode it to my normal station and took the bus to my apartment complex. Piece of cake.
When I told my son, his reaction was to go slash the guy's tires. I am not into tire slashing, but it seemed like a good idea anyway. We went down there and met the guy. He offered to waive the after hours fee of $40, just because it was only a few minutes after the deadline.
We talked for a few minutes, and I admitted I wasn't sure where the restricted area ended and now I knew. I asked him to total up what I owed him.
His response? "I'm not going to charge you anything."
Ohmygosh.
"You came in here and didn't argue with me, and treated me with respect. Most people don't."
He also gave me a coupon good for money off if I ever needed a tow.
So, my being nice just saved me at least $250. Not a bad return for not getting angry and nasty, which I don't do well. I run out of steam pretty quickly. I don't do confrontations well at all.

I can see clearly now

I have worn glasses for over 20 years now, and somewhere along the way, they morphed into bifocals, (no line ones, of course). I am one of those people who reach for their glasses first thing in the morning. I am also hard on them, and have broken several frames in the past.

Last December, upon breaking yet another set of frames, I sprung for titanium frames. They were pricey, but guaranteed to be durable. They haven't broken yet, but they did get bent.

I was struggling with my vision being fuzzy and I knew something wasn't right, and I realized that maybe my glasses needed adjusting.

Yesterday I peeled into my local eye wear place where they advertise free adjustments, and sat down. The young lady in charge took one look at me and said, "Oh my, you do need an adjustment." She laid them out on the counter, and they were askew. She was a bit nervous, since the frames would have to be adjusted at the key point at the top, between my eyes, one of the more fragile parts of the whole setup. She gamely, gently worked on them and voila!

I can see clearly now. No more fuzziness. I cannot believe the difference in my clarity of vision. Fellow drivers in Oregon rejoice! I honestly can see you so much better now.

Here I was thinking cataracts and laser surgery, when all I needed was a brief stint and someone who knew what she was doing.

KnitPIcks and Me

I discovered KnitPicks online http://www.knitpicks.com/ years ago. I love them. I have knit so many things with their yarn. I also have found it a good place to find needles and books. Their book prices always beat Amazon's. My shopping cart at their siteeternally overfloweth . They are located about 15 miles away from me in Vancouver, WA, and Kelly, their president, has been known to frequent local yarn shops here. Don't ask me how she finds the time.

Anyway, I have been very pleased with their Harmony needles. made out of laminated wood. Besides being beautiful, they are so easy to work with. My yarn just slides over them.

Today while working on a pair of socks, (natch!), using size 0 circular needles, my needle suddenly fell apart. I was just knitting and doing nothing else.

I immediately called their customer service number and told them my problem. Without batting an eyelash, the CSR offered to send me a replacement pair. Of course, she looked up my name, and probably my order history and decided I was worth keeping as a customer.

And now they will. They are a company that stands behind their products and understand the value of good customer relations.

Go KnitPicks!