Rarely Simple

Well hello.

I know I haven’t written in a while, and I think about that fact often, but really I’ve had no desire to post…

In fact lately I have been going a couple days without checking my email or taking care of my Travian village. O.O I like to think that this is because I am busy actually living a life.

Also, I’m pretty sure that my brain is now incapable of producing any more interesting or witty Facebook statuses. Such a terrible thing, I know.

And, in case you didn’t notice, I have not been posting on my blog.

I have always restrained myself when writing blog posts. I do not like to talk about all the little things of my life and describe in detail what happens to me everyday. I do not like to write posts that offer advice or that make it sound in any way as though I have even one area in my life figured out – because it is really really easy to give out advice and to talk about the valuable lesson I’ve learned when in fact I am in the middle of the lesson. It is all too easy to have something touch my heart – a verse, a saying, a moment – and to spit it out in a blog post before I have truly let it sink into my heart and have let it marinate within me. Do you know what I mean? Sometimes when I write little Facebook statuses or blog posts or even write in my diary, it feels like I am just taking in life through my ears and pouring it out again through my open mouth. Sometimes I just need to close my mouth and let things remain in my mind for a while.

Of course sometimes I need the entire opposite. Living inside your mind, without much people-interaction, is not healthy. Sometimes I hold thoughts inside of me and turn them over and over. The kind of thoughts that people have been thinking for thousands of years and that don’t have a conclusion, and those wonderings can drive you kinda crazy. If you stop and look at this world: the trees and the tiny details and think about how real it is and how many people have lived and are living and how many cultures there are and how small I am and my world, what a small piece of everything I am, and how many things there are in this universe …

One thing I appreciate about God is that He never says life is simple. I mean, He tells us not to worry and that He’s in charge, and He reprimands us when we get caught up in our human frantic-ness, but I always feel that He understands. I appreciate that He does not make life or faith sound like a 1-2-3 step easy-peasy thing, because it’s not. Life is messy and rarely feels simple.

I am thankful we have a God who is patient with sheep, and who loves the one that says, “I believe, help me with my unbelief.”

Sorry for the ramblings. But then I don’t post for you readers, as much as I post for myself. If you don’t see blog posts for a while, just know it’s because I am closing my mouth and holding life-things inside me, to contemplate for a while.

Book review coming soon.

Convertible Gloves: Knitting Pattern

Since our family heats by woodstove during the winter, I found my hands would get pretty cold as I worked on my laptop upstairs. Answer: fingerless gloves. But I also liked having the option of mittens, thus: convertible gloves! (or “glittens” as I have also heard them called)

I actually found a nifty pair for 8 bucks at REI’s Scratch-and-Dent sale, but after bringing it home, I found out that I had two left-hand gloves!… which is not really useful… at all. Thank you to REI for the refund!

So, being the crafty and resourceful homeschooler that I am, I started my search for a good knitting pattern. And was rather surprised to discover how hard it is to find a free, online pattern for convertible gloves! I had expected for there to be a greater number of patterns available than the handful I found.

I settled on the pattern called “Chilly Podsters”, which is available for free on Ravelry. I didn’t have any alpaca yarn they suggested using, so used some australian wool that had been on sale at Ben Franklin.I did the glove and the mitten flap in two different colors, which looks good while the flap is down, but rather odd when the flap is pulled over the fingers. This particular pattern also let you knit a small flap in the thumb, which would be helpful to owner of smartphones or similar touchscreen devices.

I didn’t feel I needed the thumb flap, so did knit the thumb normally.

I was familiar with knitting in the round, so had no trouble with the double pointed needles. I did encounter “ssk”, or slip-slip-knit, and the kitchener stitch, but those were easy enough to learn. I linked the stitch names to websites that will show you how to do those stitches.

The gloves were easy to knit up, probably took me a week overall, since I worked on them here and there. I found that the wrist and fingers were snug (I knit up the small size, since I have TINY hands), while the palm and back of the hands were a little baggy. I’m not sure how that could be corrected, though.

Also there were no instructions for making a small loop at the end of the flap, so you could fasten it down with a button, but that can be figured out pretty easily. The pattern for Broadstreet Mittens could be used to help you insert a loop and button onto the Podster gloves, or if you prefer the look of Broadstreet, you could knit that up!

I enjoyed making these because they expanded my knowledge of knitting and they are entirely useful! After you make a pair for yourself, keep going! What friend and family member do you know that would not appreciate and be able to use these gloves?

If you have never knit in the round before, I encourage you to try it. It looks more complicated than it is! You could always start with something even simpler, such as a hat or a scarf knit in the round, to adjust to knitting with circular or double pointed needles.

 

Have fun!

The Familiar & The Unknown

 

Hello reader,

Pardon me if my thoughts seem scrambled and vague (not that that’s anything out of the ordinary for me), but I want to try puzzling this"out loud".

With all of the summer job possibilities before me right now, I have been realizing all the more how much I love variety. I love to be constantly seeing new things, new places. The biggest factor in my mind as I consider Maine, Utah, Montana, is how different the scenery and experience will be from home and Mt. Rainier.

I had a few thoughts on choices between the familiar and the unknown.

What I am thinking about when I say that is, for example, choosing the same flavor of ice cream every time, or choosing a different flavor every time. Like my younger brother, Adam, who has tried black licorice ice cream and a caramel & toasted marshmallow Italian soda, among other things. Whereas my brother Kevin will choose vanilla 99% of the time. Although I can’t really fault him – why would I try other flavors when I already know that mint chocolate chip is indisputably the best?

But choosing the familiar or the unknown can apply to large decisions as well as small. Careers, schooling, where you want to live – desiring something you have experienced before or something you have never encountered can be a big factor.

My thought – or hypothesis – is that in the constant there is variety, and vice versa.

Choosing the same every time can be in itself a way to experience variety. In the small ways – you discover what brand of vanilla ice cream tastes the best, and are able to appreciate it all the more because you’ve tasted the cheap or nasty versions. And in the large ways – while visiting a beautiful or unique place temporarily can be wonderful, when you live in any place for an extended amount of time, it’s like getting to know a person. You see all of its moods – you see the different sunrises, and weather, and seasons. You see the small, gradual changes of time, and witness the radical changes when natural disasters or the hands of men alter the earth and buildings and growing plants.

A woman who has lived in the same house her entire life may not have seen other countries – states – counties – but she has seen that land and community quietly change, in slow, small steps and sudden, abrupt bounds. She has seen the many, varied faces of her home and knows it in an intimate way no stranger hope to gain by pausing on the same foot of earth for a breath.

As for constantly chooses something new, I have less experience in this area – at least concerning large decisions. After all, I’ve only been alive for 19 years, and until recently many decisions were not mine to make, because I was not yet old enough to shoulder my own life. The decisions that affected my life have been gradually shifting from my parents’ shoulders to mine as I grew older and taller. Mostly older.

So now I stand on the road of life (poetic, no?), facing future decisions that will concern schooling, jobs, housing, serving the Lord – with so many forks at every turn that I can only be grateful God is the one viewing this spiderweb from above, and He does not leave me to navigate on my own.

But I digress.

I think that choosing something different every time can be just another way of looking for familiarity. The more you have experienced, the more you are familiar with. The more you have seen of the world, the more flavors of ice cream you have tried, the more you are familiar with that life. The more you have explored, the less there is not to explore

Obviously this is not always true, because there are things that you can learn about forever and yet never fully understand. At the top of the list is God. He is too vast and our minds are too limited.

God has also given us a world that is HUGE – and full of such varied people, cultures, lifestyles, animals and ecosystems. A person could travel constantly, from the moment they are born, and perhaps see every country and landscape. If they are constantly moving, I suppose there is a perhaps.

And then there are humans. God created us in His image, and we are complex and have so many unmined depths and brilliant and ugly facets that have not yet seen the light. We are complex and not necessarily predictable or understandable, like Him, but in a lesser way. Indeed, what I’m talking about right now supports the complexity of humans and human nature. We cannot all be stamped with labels or classified into groups of those who prefer new things and those who prefer the old. Because the preferences of new and old and familiar and unfamiliar are all mixed up, like a greatly tangled ball of yarn, and cannot be separated from the others.

 

Like I said at the beginning, my thoughts might be vague, but I’m really just doing this to puzzle it “out loud.” Hope you didn’t mind reading.

 

Sarah

11/11–The Day of the Singles

So I’m mentioning this about 9 months early, but it seems appropriate with Valentine’s Day coming up. I recently found out that November 11th is celebrated (or mourned, depending on the individual) in China, as Singles Day, due to the date 11/11.

Singles Day can be celebrated in a variety of ways – some people get married, others "use this date and this meaning to tell their special someone that they are the only ‘one’ in their heart" (http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/citylife/2006-11/10/content_729511.htm), some go on blind dates, and others celebrate the day with their single friends! When I heard of this idea from my friend, she told me singles would go out, essentially, on a date with themselves.

Good food tastes just as good when eaten alone!

This interested me, and has stuck in my mind, so much so that I already programmed a reminder into my phone for when 11/11 comes around! On that day I am planning to take myself out to dinner and a walk. All the things a couple would do on date, but with me, myself and I. Ha ha, I suppose some people would find that terribly morbid, but I will use any excuse to treat myself to dinner. Plus I find myself entertaining, he he. I am rather excited!

Take this suggestion and run with it.! There are a lot of different ways you could choose to spend this day. Not everyone is like me and wants to take themselves out on a date .

You might want to spend the night with some of your single friends – a dinner at home and games, reminding yourself of what amazing people God has blessed you with, even if none of them bear the title of your “Prince Charming” (or Princess, for any guys reading…)

If you’re already married, maybe you want to take that special someone on a date. You can’t go on too many dates when you’re married, and I’m not talking about a bunch of fancy-dress-up, drain-the-bank dates. I’m talking about hold-her-hand, enjoy-being-best-friends-too dates.

You might want to spend the night with God, reaffirming your commitment to Him – that He is the one Lord and God and Provider in your life.

You might want to spend the day with just one of your very good friends, or maybe you’ll be busy on that day, and just have a couple minutes at night to jot down a letter and a prayer for your future spouse.

How do you want to celebrate 11/11?

True Love Waits: Valentine’s Day Project

Valentine’s Day is approaching, and one of my friends has asked for help with a project that I think sounds simply amazing. Check out the details here.

Valentine’s Day has always been a rather boring holiday to me, since it’s just a bunch of hearts painted on shop windows and candy – and an opportunity for married folk to flood the restaurants. But this holiday can be redeemed, and meaningful – before you’re married!

I encourage you to read StoryGirl’s idea and consider becoming a part of her project. Reclaim this holiday, singles, as a day to remember and pray for the one you are waiting for. Until God’s timing.

Pea Soup Fog and Periwinkle Sky Days

Following is a blog post containing random spurts of thoughts from Sarah’s mind, intended to be an update on all going-ons at Mount Rainier for the last several days, and full of trivial details which the reader is not obligated to find important…

Hello all.

The weather seems to be following a general pattern of several days of pea-soup fog, followed by several days of pure blue skies that outline the mountains beautifully.

The webcam for today - oh just look at that beautiful mountain!

I feel sorry for the visitors that come during the former type of days – one woman joked to me that she had determined Mount Rainier was a hoax and we made it all up. It is amazing how the mountain can completely disappear – even when the Tatoosh Range in the south is visible. If I could make the weather clear for every visitor,  I would!

I think my favorite “mood” for the mountain is not when it’s invisible (obviously) or even when it’s silhouetted against a periwinkle sky (oooh look I must be feeling poetic, just used periwinkle in lieu of blue. XD), but when there are several clouds around it… in that instance I feel like there should be dramatic orchestra music playing… and a helicopter taking a sweeping air shot… Ha ha, just kidding. But really that’s the time when I think the mountain is at its most glorious. Next time I will attempt to capture in a picture, to show you what I mean.

My week of work ended up being extended, and I worked Sunday, which is normally my day off. Both Saturday and Sunday were gorgeous, which meant excellent news for visitors and the cafe business, but 7+ hours of non-stop rushing around and endless dishes for us employees. I cashiered all of Saturday and some of Sunday and have developed a good steady rhythm – although sometimes I feel like a robot saying the same script to every customer.

“Is that everything? Total is $12.88. Thank you. Please sign. Do you want your receipt? Thank you.”

At first it was strange being switched to cashier instead of being behind the line, but now I rather like it. (I’ve grown attached to my register, ha ha). And it’s always a good feeling at the end of the day, especially a busy day, when the cash balances or comes pennies close.

Here’s my list of what I love/dislike in the customers (I’ll come back and add more as I think of them…):

Love:

• All of the different accents, of course!
• The foreigners that don’t know the currency, and hold out a handful of coins, or even a wad of bills, and I just take out what I need. (The other day I got to use the few words of spanish I knew, telling some Mexicans that the quarter was worth “veinte-cinco” cents, “de nada” to their gracias. The boy asked “Where is the… and made a sucking sound,” and I pointed to the straws. “How did you say that?” he asked and I repeated the word straw. Just very fun to teach English to those that want to learn.)
• When they just use my name (from my nametag) as though they know me and are good friends with me.
• When they tell me to keep the change.

Dislike:

• When I ask “Is that everything?” and they reply “Yes… and four sodas and a hot chocolate.”  ….
• When I put up the chairs to close off a section… and they pass right by the tables that are still open and take down the chairs to sit in the “closed” section… so I can’t sweep and mop until they leave… grrr
• How they don’t understand when pizza is two for one. “Ohh, two slices for one dollar?” Yeah, you wish. XD

The good part about working on Sunday when I normally wouldn’t, is that my next work week is shorter. I have Monday and Tuesday off, and leave around noon on Saturday to go home for several days. My birthday is in a week and I’m using it as an excuse to take a slightly longer weekend – I’ll get to spend 2 days at home. I’m so excited!!

My time off today was so exceedingly boring, you would fall asleep on your computer just reading about it. The fog was too thick to go hiking. Tomorrow I’m hoping it will be clearer, as it will be the first day my roommate and I have the same day off. We’re planning on hiking to the top of Pinnacle Peak.

I have now run out of witty and amusing things to say – oh wait, I never did have any :0)… so I’ll sign off.

That’s all, folks!

Sarah

Snails & Slugs

So I’m late blogging about it, but this Monday I had a day off… and I opted for staying around Paradise and working on school… doing laundry, all that great stuff. When my roommate got back from work, she said, “hey, let’s go somewhere!” And since I had been sitting around all day, “sure, why not!”

So we took the 5:30 shuttle down to Ashford and got dropped off in town by Ed, one of the shuttle drivers. He said he’d be back at 8:30 to pick us up, so we had 2 hours to explore the town.

We probably could have seen all of Ashford in ten minutes, but we took it slow… first trying out the small climbing wall in front of the mountainering building, then found a swing, then walked to the gas station (you’re probably starting to get an idea of how small Ashford is now…), then played at the playground for a while (good playground!), before buying several things at the general store and getting ice cream at a restaurant. All of these buildings were on one road, no more than half a mile from each other. Gas station, restaurant, general store… pretty much sums up all there is to see in Ashford.

While we were walking back from the playground on a trail, my roommate Katie stopped and poked something on the ground. “What is this??”

And yes, my dear folk, it was a slug. My roommate had never seen a slug before.

We started looking around and without going more than a few feet found quite few slugs and snails – Katie was so fascinated it was amazing. XD She had never seen slugs or snails before… we almost took a snail home but didn’t.

Snails!

As a Washingtonian I wasn’t quite as impressed… slugs are my mom’s mortal enemy, to be vanquished into a pile of slime by a heap of salt. Snails are cool, though.

Some flowers near the playground...

After our ice cream we walked out of the restaurant a few minutes before 8:30… and waited… and waited… and walked to the gas station… and decided Ed the shuttle man forgot about us. We were 2 miles away from the Ashford office where the shuttles leave, and the last shuttle to Paradise was leaving at 9:30. It was now about 8:45… so we power walked/jogged from the Ashford gas station to the office… and made it just in time!! Twas funny though, as the two of us had just been talking about how we didn’t like to run… and that night it was run or sleep outside all night.

So all in all it was an eventful night that made up for my laziness the rest of the day. We were thankful to be back at Paradise that night, and now I have chocolates to eat every night when the craving hits. Awesome.

 

The last paper of my last quarter of my first year of college is due this Sunday… so I’ll post again once that’s over and done with.

Lightbulbs

The people here are so nice! I brought a bedside lamp and the first day I turned it on, the lightbulb blew out. One time when I had a lunch break, I was sitting next to a maintenance guy, and I mentioned that I needed a lightbulb.

But I didn’t think anything of that afterwards and asked the housing manager, Matt, for a lightbulb.

So last night me and my roomie were engrossed in our laptops, and someone knocked on the door. It was Matt, and he handed me a lightbulb. Yeah! I can use my reading lamp now! No more than half an hour later, there was another knock and there was my boss, Mary. She was holding two lightbulbs and handed them to me, saying, “The maintenance guy just wanted to let you know that he didn’t forget.”

Oooh!

What could I do? I took one of the lightbulbs and thanked her, than closed the door and looked back at my roommate, laughing, “I asked too many people for lightbulbs!”

I’m just writing this because I thought it was funny, and because I’m so grateful for people’s kindness.

A Small “Jot”

At the library, my favorite place to be (besides God’s presence)!! (This is a different library than the one that rejected me =( And I felt like blogging… turning into an addiction? I think not! =) Facebook may be, but I don’t think blogging or journaling could ever get addictive. Necessary to my life and impossible to stop doing, but not addictive! =)

And since I have nothing amazing to say, I’ll sign off…

Sarah

Title? um… How about “Blueberries”

So Mom had her surgery today and it went very well (yeah!). I will be the mom of the house again, but not as long as last year, when Mom headed off to Mongolia for a month (and got so homesick she was very glad to get back). We have millions of cups of blueberries frozen if I ever can absolutely not think of something for dinner… =)
So that’s about all that’s up lately. I have a lot of smart thoughts during the day that I could have written here but I always forget them as soon as I think them, like de ja vu.
Ah, well. ttfn!