Bully Reading and Ruffle Bumps

I used to think that bullying was not a concern of mine. My image of a bully was one of a big guy on the blacktop during recess, picking on the little guy with glasses. Since there was no blacktop recess in the lives of my children, I didn't worry too much about bullying. I was so wrong.

In the last two months, I've learned quite a bit about bullying. I've learned that the more likely vehicle in my children's lives is not a basketball thrown at them, but a cell phone heavily armed with foul language and pointed mean messages. I've learned that the bully isn't necessarily a big grade school boy, but may be a teenaged girl. Not that boys are immune; they are bullies, too, and bullying is just as likely to happen at soccer practice in a pleasant suburban neighborhood with private school and homeschool boys as on the public school blacktop. Oh yes, we are learning about bullies in lots of venues and from several angles.

Most of all,  I've learned that homeschooling doesn't matter one whit when it comes to bullying. To say this surprised me is an understatement. The things I'm learning! Homeschooled kids are bullied and homeschooled kids are bullies. All of a sudden, it's very much my business.

So, I'm reading Dear Bully: Seventy Authors Tell Their Stories. It's an anthology of essays written by accomplished authors, mostly authors for teens. Every perspective is represented here: the bully, the bullied, the bystander. So far, it's an interesting read, but not something I'd hand to tweens and definitely something that I'd read with teens.

In the knitting department, I planned to knit for hours as I waited for soccer games on Sunday and finish this scarf at last. But I got stuck on picking up the wrapped stitches (can you see them there?). I have some different directions and I'm hoping to conquer them tonight and then just cruise to the end. Once the wrapped ones are all picked up, I have to knit front, back, and front again in all two hundred stitches, to give me a three hundred stitch ruffle. That's a very long stretch of ruffly happy. I'm very eager to get there.

{Good news: I think the comments are working again. Yay!}

Go visit Ginny for more reading and knitting.

Intentional Weekend: Autumn Reading

The air grows colder. The breeze picks up. The season is changing, becoming autumn, with no chance that summer will make a brief return this time. I've seen the seasons change so many times it would be easy to take it for granted, to barely nod to the shifting winds, save to switch capris for flannel-lined jeans. 

But I have children in my life. Boys who are eager to wear the long-sleeved Under Armour and half pants in the goal. Teenagers who sing the praises of Pumpkin Spice Lattes. And little girls who talk excitedly of Christmas coming tomorrow. They tell me to stop and savor the wonder with them. I am grateful, ever so grateful, to watch with them as He ushers in a new season, to notice the gifts of each turning of the calendar page, to revel in the joy of God's abundant bounty.

Weekends are for bar cookies, oozing with goodness. For sipping hot cider in front of the first fire of the season. For gathering the autumn favorites from the picture book shelf and snuggling together beneath the now-necessary quilt.

Autumn: An Alphabet Acrostic

Snowsong Whistling

In November

Christopher's Harvest Time

Apple Cake

Crawdad Creek

Brother Bartholomew and the Apple Grove

Mother Earth and Her Children

Pumpkin Moonshine

Thinking Big Thoughts with Young People

I started a post yesterday morning. I wrote rapidly and with passion, all about text messages and mean girls and life and death and the drama we create versus the reality God intends for us to live. After days of sitting with Rachael, waiting while her father was dying, Mary Beth was at home at our dining room table, trying to wrap her brain around a math lesson. Her cell phone, her iPod, and her computer were fully awake beside her. Normally, we don't allow electronics during school hours, except for academic uses. But Rachael had been texting pretty much all of the previous 24 hours and I was keeping a careful watch as girls rallied around her, some of them in person, some from miles away via social media. Suddenly, there was silence. In the silence of those morning hours, we all knew that Rachael's dad was drawing his last breath.

I tried to upload my post to Typepad. Typepad would have none of it. It disappeared into cyberspace. I quickly figured that was probably for the best and moved on to the next thing. I gathered my little girls on the couch and read Little Red Riding Hood. Just as the woodsman released the grandmother and little girl from their canine tomb, Mary Beth came toward me, laptop in hand. Rachael's brother had updated his Facebook status with a tribute to his father. There was his birthdate and his death date.

In a few moments, Mary Beth was at Rachael's house.

The rest of the day is a bit of a blur. I had seen the very best of social media and electronic communication. And then I saw human touch, unafraid, in hard places, loving with wholehearted generosity. I couldn't be prouder of my daughter and the girls with whom she dances. They were courageous examples of grace and compassion and their witness humbles me.

At home, while Mary Beth stayed with Rachael, we found ourselves on a bit of a rabbit trail. This post had us researching child slavery in Africa. Nicky, already raw from the past few days of watching and waiting with Rachael, was pushed to brink of emotional meltdown. This was just too much! Too much suffering. 

And yet. And yet he woke this morning wanting to know more about poverty in Africa. More about what Jesus calls us to do. More about the children. So, I showed him this article, about living for Jesus among the poor, about being young and acting with wisdom and grace and compassion and wholehearted generosity. And that, of course, led to Kisses from Katie (do watch the video on the Amazon page). 

Nicholas read the free Kindle sample to me this morning while I knit my Katie's sweater. (Yay! we made it to the sleeves!). Then, we downloaded the rest to read to each other a bit at a time. (I add a caveat here: I don't know if this book is inappropriate for children. I've sent a quick note to a friend who read an advance copy and I'm not going any further with Nicholas until I hear from her. I'll update here if there is inappropriate content.)

{the expression on his face as he reads about a sick, dirty, starving little girl the same age as his littlest sister...}

So that's about it here today. It's raining. Everyone who can read is off in a corner somewhere reading. Karoline and Sarah have overtaken the sunroom and turned it into a pancake restaurant of some sort. I'm getting ready to go get Rachael so she can hang out here for awhile before dance. 

And we're thinking. About big things. About suffering and loss and God's generous grace. About what it is to truly be Christ to one another.

{For more knitting and reading, visit Ginny today.}

Yarn Along: Happy Knitting

I have knitting progress to report this week! Yesterday, my friend K.C. breezed through Virginia on her way from Texas to Massachusetts. She stopped to sit a spell in my sewing room. After months of saying, "I wish you were here to knit (or sew) with me," she actually was here. I showed her fabric and patterns and told her all about my lofty sewing dreams. We talked sewing machines and ruffler feet. Our children played and played and played.

And she helped me past my knitting slump. No, I think she picked me up and lifted me over it. See that button band on the yellow sweater? I picked up stitches. K.C. show me how to do it and then watched me all the way up the band. And, she offered some very helpful tips on posture that seem to have decreased the hand cramps to almost nothing. Happy, happy knitting afternoon.

I'm reading all these quilt books, following suggestions here (not too late to enter that giveaway--winner this afternoon). All of them:

First Time Quiltmaking

Seams to Me (good tutorial on binding)

Fresh Fabric Treats

Simplify

The Practical Guide to Patchwork

I'm reading every tip and every instruction. And I'm about to commit to actually quilting. But that's a sewing post and not a knitting one, so I'll just leave you with progress on my red scarf-that's-becoming-shawl (gauge issue) and a yellow sweater that might just be wearable by next week.

Join Ginny for more knitting and reading.

Yarn Along

Good afternoon! I'm still knitting my red ruffle scarf. Sigh. I used to be a fast knitter. Not sure what happened. (Well, I sort of know. Sewing happened. So that's part of the slowdown.) Here you see the progress on the scarf and, oh yes, that does look like a twirly skirt for Katie. I've been reading Smart Medicine for Healthier Living and Optimal Wellness. These books, along with Smart Medicine for a Healthier Child, have long been the mainstays of health reference books around here. Still trying to overcome the joint stiffness...those are relatively small pains, though, and they serve a greater purpose as they remind me to keep Kim in prayer (won't you offer a prayer, too, on her behalf?). Knitting, sewing, reading, praying. All good.

Go visit Ginny for my reading and knitting tales. I'll see you there!