Wedding Progress

I have made a little progress on my wedding sampler this week at work.  Here's a picture:

This is what it looked like when I last touched it. 

Have a great weekend.  We're going to use our Outback Steakhouse gift card for lunch today and I'm hoping to hear from the teaching job I applied for tomorrow maybe.

Latch Hook finished

So, the latch hook is finished.  At least with the latch hooking part.  I have to bind the edges and have secured them with safety pins for now.  I will sew them later.

Here's a picture:

The Two Topics You're Never Ever Supposed to Discuss

Which are in fact, politics and religion...

I don't know the whole story.  I don't keep up much on the news but there was something about Michelle Bachmann being a former member of the WELS and taking some flack for our beliefs.  As a member of the WELS, I feel the need to say something so if you're not into politics or religion, now would be a good time to stop reading and I promise to post some pretty pictures a bit later of my crafty work.

Now with that disclaimer out of the way.  The big point that's being made is that we believe that the office of the papacy is the antichrist as described in Revelation and other parts of the Bible.  But the media, of course, has blown this out of proportion.  The best rebuttal comes from WELS president Rev. Mark Schroeder (the bold emphasis has been added):


While WELS continues to see the characteristics of the Antichrist in the Roman Catholic Papacy, it is wrong and dishonest to portray this belief as stemming from anti-Catholic bigotry.  We do have strong convictions and we identify what we believe are teachings that depart from the Word of God. But we hold no animosity toward Christians who hold the Roman Catholic faith and we respect the right of people to hold beliefs different from ours even as we point out the error. Furthermore, we rejoice that even in the Roman Catholic Church, where we believe that the gospel has been distorted, there are many Catholics who hold to a simple faith in Jesus Christ as their Savior and who will ultimately be saved.  Testifying to the errors that still exist in Catholic doctrine is itself an expression of love; remaining silent or glossing over doctrinal differences would express the opposite.
Media reports have portrayed the WELS position on the Antichrist to be a prominent or even signature doctrine in our church.  Certainly we do not deny this teaching or attempt to hide it. At the same time, it is not a topic of daily discussion or a regular theme in Sunday sermons.  Nor is this a view peculiar to WELS; it has been the historic position of the Lutheran church for almost 500 years—a position still held by confessional Lutheran church bodies around the world.


So there, you have it, yes it's a Lutheran belief but it's not prominent and I find that it comes up maybe once a year like at the celebration of the Reformation.  Otherwise, it has no bearing on faith in Jesus so why would we discuss it except once in a blue moon.

A long night

So, Zoé started throwing up at dinner last night.  She hadn't stopped by midnight and couldn't keep any liquids down. So we ended up in the ER which took forever. We finally got back home at 5 am.  They stopped the vomiting and it seems that it's just a bug.

She's doing a bit better today.

We also picked up a bread machine for $6 at a thrift store and the cassette for Wee Sing Bible Songs.

I got a little progress done on the latch hook.

A new bed and a almost new computer

Adèle has been sleeping in the pack n play for some time now since we're looking at about $150-$200 for the crib plus matress.  Fortunately, a coworker sold me his for $20 with matress.  It is drop side but we don't drop the side and it gives us a chance to save up for something nicer a little later on.  I put up the mobile but the music box spinner thing doesn't work so it's a stationary mobile.  I could buy on off ebay but it's too expensive for what it is.

I formatted my computer.  After 5 years of junk, it needed a cleaning.  Maybe now it will connect via the midi cables to my keyboard.  That should allow me to record songs and also have have finale notate for me when I'm playing.  My piano is a Yamaha keyboard which is basically a portable Clavanova with weighted keys and everything.  I got it and Finale at cost when I worked for a music store teaching lessons.

Stylish? Me?

Ruth over at Ruth's Running Stitch has awarded me a stylish blog award. Thanks Ruth! 

In real life, I'm really not that stylish but the terms of the award are as follows:

1. Thank the person who has awarded you
2. List seven things about yourself
3. Pass the award to 15 other stylish bloggers

So, the 7 things about myself are:

1. I love all things science fiction and fantasy
2. I have a large collection of frogs (and I used to have a real water frog named Phlox but he died)
3. I have a teaching degree
4. I play piano, organ, handbells and I was in my college's audition only choir as a 1st soprano.
5. I have 2 stepsons, 1 stepdaughter and 2 daughters.
6. I love Italian food
7. I own a set of Renaissance Faire Garb (but it doesn't fit yet until I lose the pregnancy weight)

The 15 blogs I would like to nominate are:

1. 4 of Wands
2. BeckyBee's Stitching Hive (who is sadly on hiatus)
3. Blacksheep's Bit of the Web
4. Bookwoman Stitches
5. Chocolates for Breakfast, Stitching for Lunch
6. Cindy's Cross Stitching Ornaments
7. Feathers in the Nest
8. Hooked on Stitches
9. Linda K's Creativity Works
10. Loom Lore
11. Seasons of my Mind
12. Teakettle Corner
13. This and That
14. The Wonder That is Me
15. Tigermum's Creative Corner

Ruth, I figure I can't nominate you AGAIN so there's my list.  In alphabetical order.

I would post stitching progress but there hasn't been any :(

Review: A Man Lay Dead

A Man Lay Dead by Ngaio Marsh

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I read this book because my husband put it on the iPod to listen to on my long drives to and from work.  I don't read a lot of mysteries. 

It wasn't a bad read.  I had a little adjustment to make to get used the the writing style and I had problems getting into the book.  The beginning had a rather abrupt entrance with a lot of characters thrown at you all at once.  And the murderer wasn't the person I expected it to be.  Otherwise, not a bad mystery at all.



View all my reviews

Help on a Quilt

So, I found this at Hobby Lobby.

It's a pre-printed quilt pattern.  This is what I got for backing.

Now, I need some help.  How do I assemble this thing?  I have the batting.  I know that I have to basically quilt it myself so I got a spool of matching thread for hand quilting but I've never done it before.  So, here's my list of questions:

1.Do I attach the batting to the panel and quilt and then attach the back?
2. Do I sew the backing on with batting, flip and then quilt?
3. Is there a special stitch that I need to be using to do the actual quilting?

I don't have a sewing machine so this will be done by hand.

Thanks for all your help!

Ah the weekend

So, I am trying out the Blogger android app.  I'm testing out a new phone.  Finally got my music books out.  So here they are.  Got a fair share of hymnals (being the church organist) and other organ books besides piano and voice.  It's been a long time since I've touched an organ.  Hope I remember if I'm asked to play again. 

Hope I haven't already told my organ story (if I have I apologize).  I started piano when I was 7.  When I was 11, I had already started accompaning.  The summer between 8th and 9th grade, I started organ lessons.  Played a bit in high school.  In college, I HATED my organ professor.  She was the complete opposite of my old instructor and wanted me to be some virtuoso which I didn't want to be.  So, after 3 semesters...I quit!  Until about 2 years later, my friend asked if I would play organ for Christmas Eve at a church in Milwaukee.  I reminded him that I'd quit but he told me that they'd asked like 30 people and were desperate.  So I practiced like I'd never practiced before and when I was done with college a little later that year, I played as one of their regular organists. 

An Open Letter to Mr. Alton Brown

Dear Mr. Alton Brown,

I must say that I adore Good Eats.  It's not boring like other cooking shows and it tells us not only the history of the food but also the science behind the food.  And it gives you useful tips like how to safely deep fry a turkey and how to make a fish smoker out of a cardboard box.  And I must say that the pizza dough recipe turned out extremely good and made the tastiest pizza ever.

However, this morning, we were watching a bunch of Good Eats that we had taped and ran across the one on gumbo.  Now, I married into a Cajun family direct from Acadia Parish in Louisiana and direct descendants from the guy who broke Evangeline's heart (yeah, the girl that Longfellow wrote the poem about).  They know gumbo.  In fact, we had it yesterday, made from scratch in my mother-in-law's kitchen.

My husband would like to point out that the recipe used appeared to be from Northern Louisiana where there are no Cajuns.  No respecting Cajun would put tomatoes in gumbo, okra might be found in a chicken gumbo and why did sausage go in with the shrimp?  The roux was also the wrong color because apparently there is a spectrum between brick and black.  The only thing that was right was making stock from the shells.

I must add that I'm just going off what the Cajuns tell me.  I'm a German Wisconsinite.  I know cheese, brats and beer.  I leave the gumbo to them.

Just thought you should know.

Sincerely,

Joy

Happy Fourth

Today's meal was excellent.  We had seafood gumbo (with shrimp, crab and crawfish) over rice and brisket that was dry rubbed and smoked (you could smell it two houses down!) and baked beans that my DH made from scratch. 

When we got home, I got a little progress done on my latch hook.

It's really starting to take shape now.  This it the 3rd latch hook I've done.  Only one appears in the finished pieces album, a unicorn that I made into a pillow.  I also did a cat also finished as a pillow which I don't have a picture of unfortunately.  This, of course, is charted.  My little trick is to lay out all the pieces of yarn for the current row in order before I start attaching them so that I don't have to try to attach and count at the same time.  I also completely ignore the printed on pattern as it's never lines up correctly.

I also finished winding the double pull ball of yarn.  It doesn't look pretty but so far it appears that it will work.  I just have to undecrease my panel.  Not sure when I'll get to it.

Wedding Sampler Progress

Finally, I'm posting a picture of the progress on the wedding sampler "To Have and To Hold."  DH still doesn't know that I"m doing this.

Going to celebrate the fourth today with a smoked brisket and homemade baked beans and gumbo.  Adèle is really really trying to crawl.  Hopefully we'll have some progress in the next few weeks.