New year, new goals :)

One of my goals for this year is to be a better blogger, so I'm going to start now. For the people that know me, I knit and crochet a lot. This year I am doing a few crochet-alongs on ravelry. Here are a few pics of what I have done:

The top pic is

Enough Love to Go Around by Penny Davidson

 and the bottom pic is 

Maggies Square by Drew Emborsky, the Crochet Dude

I'll have a few more in a few days and I plan to try and do some designing of my own this year, with patterns. I've done some, but I'm not good woth writing the patterns out.

They Were Single Too: A book review

Being a single Christian adult I have been trying to find material that relates to me yet has a biblical foundation. I finally found one book (so far) that is what I need it. It's David M Hoffeditz book They Were Single Too: 8 Biblical Role Models. It's a book about single adults, for single adults, from a single adult and goes through the marital situations of Paul, Ruth, Anna, John the Baptist, Nehemiah, Jeremiah, Martha and Joseph. Though not all of these people were single for their whole entire adult life, the Bible tells us about some of the situations that they found themselves in as a single adult. For instance, Joseph fleeing Potipher's wife when she tried to seduce him and the challenges that ensued, the loneliness of Jeremiah and his calling as a prophet and how Ruth, being widowed after ten years of marriage, stayed with her bitter mother in law and returned to Israel. In the cases of all eight people, the author gives the challenges and warnings that we can see and overcome from knowing about them. Though I do not agree with all of what Mr Hoffeditz says about marriage (he does not give the most favorable view, in my opinion, in the first chapter) it is a good resource for the young single christian adult who is looking for his/her place in the ministry of the Church where married couples seem to rule. Definately a must read for us Singles.

My day in the country

Today was an interesting day for me. My sister, her four kids, a friend of hers with eight of her thirteen children and I went to the Amish stores near where my BIL preaches. Believe it or not, we all fit into one vehicle. My sister's friend has a bus that they are in the process of converting to an RV style vehicle. The really neat thing about this vehicle is that there are seats in it that have the seat belts for the smaller children (including those who still use booster-we could get the boosters put in because of the seat belts). I love going to the Amish stores in the area. There is something homey and old fashioned about them. They fit me perfectly. I have often said that I was born in the wrong century and the pace of a "simple" life is more my style than the busy "everyone out for themselves" way of the city. The town that they Amish live near, Curryville, is a town that when you're driving through it, if you blink, it's gone. The "laid back, let's help out our neighbors" attitude that these people have is refreshing to me.
    Anyway, back to what I was going to write, the family that we went with are a homeschooling family that lives in the same city as us and belongs to the same homeschooling group as my sister. They believe along the same path as we do and don't think that it's strange that not only does my sister and her girls wear only skirts and dresses (I do when I don't work, but where I work that's not the most modest selection of clothing). When the fifteen of us went into Walmart, we not only recieved many raised eyebrows, but believe it or not, people were more curtious to us that what they are when I'm shopping alone. I don't know if that has anything to do with the fact that there were twelve children and only three adults, the fact that we (the women and girls) were not dressed like modern women in fairly revealing clothes, or the fact that we were still in the country. Any way, it was nice to have men act like a gentleman instead of letting a women do everything for herself.
SIDE BAR: yes I can do for myself everything that I need, but it is nice to have someone be nice and pick up a jar of mayonaise that your niece dropped, or open a door for you. SIDE BAR OVER
It was a very refreshing day for me though we were out all day long. Just having some other people that we can talk to and not be labled as crazy is a good thing.

I finally decided to branch out of my comfort zone with my crocheting. Even though I have crocheted for 15+ years, and knitting for only a year and a half, my knitting has been where I have been adventuresome. With knitting, I have already started to design a few patterns and quickly progressed from a beginner knowing nothing about knitting except what yarn and knitting needles were to working fair aisle knitting as well as fingerless mitts with a pattern that is at least an intermediate if not experienced level. I have not done much of that with my crocheting. When I'm looking at a pattern that calls for a hook instead of a set of needles on an intermediate level I can just feel the frustration starting, and I haven't even picked out the yarn yet. I have made up my mind that I'm no longer going to let that bother me. If I like the pattern and I think that I have a fair chance of doing it I'm going to try it. I have also decided that I'm going to start doing something that I have been wanting to do for a few years now. I'm going to start designing granny squares. Nothing fancy, at least not right not, just some simple patterns that look nice. Grannies are my "bread and butter" of crocheting so to speak. They are the fall back "I need a (something) and I need it by tomorrow" plan. I love them because the basic granny is simple and fast, yet when it is done right with the right type of edging, they look beautiful. Most all of my afghans have been made with basic grannies and I want to branch out from that and make my own types of squares. I have been inspired by the different patterns that I have been seeing on the internet and thought to myself "I think I could do this" and I have started it! I've come up with patterns for about four different squares, though I only have one of the patterns typed up. I plan on making step by step instructions with pictures for at least one of the squares in the near future, though I am posting a few pics here today. I'm just proud of myself for not letting my fear of my lack of artistic ability stop me from making something that I know I can do. Yay to facing my fears and overcoming them even in something that may be trival to the rest of the world!
I haven't named this square yet. This is a 6" square that I made with Red Heart Super Saver yarn I had laying around somewhere (I have yarn everyplace you can think of).

This one I have named "I'm not your Granny" Square. For some reason I've always thought that if I ever designed a granny I'd have to name it that. I guess it's the irony of the name and my actual age.

This is a scarf that I made from the basic granny square pattern and just trimmed it with a round of single crochet to not only hid all the hideous ends, but to pull the colors and the style of the scarf all together making it look much neater than what it is without the edging.

This scarf is an example of what I mean when I say that even a basic granny can look nice with the right color combo and edgings.
I'll have to find my copy of the patterns for the two grannies and see if I can type them out with step by step pics.

Good to know you're loved

Have you ever noticed that when you are not the parent of a child, but a beloved adult to said child, when you don't see them for a while they stick to your side when you eventually do? My sister has four children ranging in age from 7-3, yes they are stepping stones (or multiples :D). Her younger daughter and I have a bond that was formed when her brother was born. My niece at the time was only ten months old when my sister gave birth to her brother and sister ten weeks early (my youngest niece blessed us with her presence for only ten days before she walked with God). During this time I took a few weeks off of work so that my sister and her husband could spend as much time as they could with their daughter who was dying, and be there for their son who was also in the NICU. My niece was still on the bottle and still unable to do much for herself because of her age. My older niece and nephew were four at the time and able to even help me out a bit when I was watching over them. For three weeks I fed, comforted, played with and loved not only her, but my older niece and nephew too. Ever since then she has wanted to be with me whenever I was around, and only wanting to go to someone else if she didn't like me telling her no about something. Recently I had not seen my sister and her children mainly because of my work schedule so on my day off last week I called my sister up and asked her and the kids to go to a store with me. My sis had an errand to run so we made a deal that she'd come with me if I'd go with her. When the five of us arrived at the first store (my requested store) my four year old niece aske me "Aunt Jo Jo, will you push me in a cart?" Now how could I deny that? I naturally had her in the cart I was using. The cutest part of this though was not that she wanted to be near me, but that she wanted her sister right by her to hold her hand. My seven year old niece was kind enough to oblige her and hold her hand through the store. We left that store to go to the grocery store my sister needed to stop at. When we were getting the kids out of the car my niece once again asked me to push the cart that she was in and let her mommy push the cart her brother was in. We got the young ones into the cart and took all five of us into the store. While we were walking to the doors of the store my niece asked me one more question where I just could not deny the request. She put her head on my shoulder and asked me to snuggle with her. How cute can she get? It is so good to know you are loved.

My crafting.

It's been two and a half months since my last post, but I have been a busy lady. I have been working on my crafting and been busy with learning how to do coupons and helping to build up the food pantry at our church. I have finished some new projects from my knitting. I haven't crocheted much, but I have a friend who is pregnant and I found a project that I think would be great for her baby.

I just finished this hat. The pattern was found in a recent copy of Interweave knits. I did this to learn how to work with many colors. The mits, I found on the internet and everyone who saw them just loved them. The doily was a pattern that I came up with ~ without even doing a doily before and the blankets, two of them are doll blankets and the last was made for a friend who needed some comfort.

The Legend of the Candy Cane

I love legends about the holidays and although I know that they may not be true, there can still be truth found in them. The Legend of the Candy Cane is no different. Though this legend may not be true, the meaning that it gives to the candy cane is a great reminder of why we celebrate Christmas. Here’s how the legend goes:


Many years ago a candy maker in Indiana decided to make a testimony for Jesus in one of his candies. He took a sugar stick and bent it so one way it would look like a shepherds hook, since God is our shepherd (Ps 23:1, Jn 10:1-18; Is 40:11; Jer 31:10; Micah 5:4; Heb 13:20). When you turn it the other way it looks like a J for Jesus. The base white color of the candy cane symbolizes the virgin birth and also shows the sinless life of our savior. The three small red stripes are for the scourging that Jesus suffered on our behalf (53:5; Mt 27:32-50) and the large red stripe is for his bloodshed on the cross. The flavor is like the hyssop from Biblical times which was used for purification (Ex 12:22, 24:6-8; Lev 14:4, 49-52). The hardness shows how Jesus is our refuge, protection and strength (Deu 32:4, 15, 18; 1 Sam 2:2; 2 Sam 22:32, 47; 23:3; Psa 18:2, 31; 28:1; 92:15; 94:22; 95:1; Is 44:8).

The candy cane as a whole can show us the truth about Christ as a savior regardless of how the modern day candy cane came into being.

Look at the Candy Cane

What do you see?

Stripes that are red

Like the blood shed for me

White is for my Savior

Who's sinless and pure!

"J" is for Jesus, My Lord, that's for sure!

Turn it around

And a staff you will see

Jesus my shepherd

Was born for Me!

From the website: http://home.att.net/~scorh3/CandyCane.html



For further information see the following sites:

http://www.easyfunschool.com/article1266.html

http://www.worldofchristmas.net/christmas-stories/legend-of-candy-cane.html

http://our.homewithgod.com/mkcathy/MerryChristmas/legend.html

http://www.spiritisup.com/canetree

http://www.holidaydecorations.com/Candy-Canes.html

http://www.stcharleschristmas.com/candycane.htm

http://www.homeschooled-kids.com/candycanelegend.html