Embracing Autumn

I didn't want to embrace autumn this year; didn't want let go of summertime. June and July were perfectly lovely. Just about the loveliest summer I can remember. We didn't go anywhere special. I actually missed my one chance to go to the beach. We mostly stayed home, taking just a couple of trips to Charlottesville, which is "home," too. We made memories here-- happy, happy memories. Good, good days.

August was not good. It began with an infection that left me sicker than I remember being in the last two decades. And then, it just bumped along some more--one in-real-life hit after another, each one surprising me more than the next. I sort of staggered through September, trying with all my might to recover my midsummer joy. 

With all my might.

September ended with a heaving sob. My might depleted. Joy eluded.

October dawned cold, blustery, brittle. We celebrate the feast of my favorite saint on October first. An old friend challenged me to look for roses. Roses in the October cold. "Please pick for me a rose from the heavenly garden and send it to me as a message of love."

The roses of midsummer have faded and fallen. I cannot gather their blooms and bring them into the heart of this home. Instead, I have to find the October roses. With the waning summer, I feel my idealism fading; I feel some longheld notions finally acknowledging defeat after years of fighting with all my might; I fully feel the reality of messy lives. And I see that I cannot , no matter how hard I try, create the perfect childhood and hold it safely for all my children. They will be hurt. They will hurt themselves. We will feel pain and there will be fading blooms and browning leaves.

It's time to embrace autumn. It's time to acknowledge that there is suffering, to let myself know it, meet its gaze, and accept it. Time to stop fighting change, stop denying that this, too, is a fallen world in need of a a Savior. Time to stop trying to play on through the pain. It's time to remember that pruning is painful, but ever so fruitful. It's time to recognize that perhaps my most important role as a teacher of my children is to teach them how to greet the hurt and then to carry on in faith.

The breeze blows and lifts my chin; it's time to look up from the rain-sodden, trampled underbrush of late summer's waning blooms and to see His glory above me. It's time to know that it's not about my might.

It never was.

I see that now.

The joy of the summer was never of my making; it was the fruit of His grace. He waits for me, watching patiently, asking me to trust Him with this new season of life. 

"God is good," the Spirit whispers through the gathering storm, the rustling, autumn-gloried leaves, "all the time."

 

Patchwork Twirly Skirts and thoughts on some other stuff

When I was twelve, I had my first babysitting job. I absolutely fell in love with an 18-month-old named Andrew. He called me Yay-yay. We were pretty inseparable. Looking back, his mom went out a lot. I babysat for 75 cents an hour and I saved my money to make my first purchase: a patchwork quilt from the Sears catalog. It was $48. I remember it in vivid color. I wanted this quilt in particular because the patchwork was made of actually pieced squares, not screen printed squares. I am still that girl in love with patchwork. 

I loved every minute of making these skirts.

Mary Beth got me started. She had long been eyeing the project in the Stitch by Stitch book. While she had to be persuaded to do all the other projects, for this one, she had persuaded me to buy the Amy Butler charm squares weeks ahead of time. When I told her we were going to hold off on the curtain project and the pillow projects that precede this one, because I wanted to make some fabric decisions for both later, she was all too happy to forge ahead into the patchwork skirt for Sarah. She did all the layout and the sewing on her own. The only time I stepped in was when she wasn't pressing her seams. Mary Beth noted that there were no specific instructions to do so. I emailed the author for clarification and Deborah affirmed that pressing is preferred. Mary Beth made this whole project look effortless. 

 Sarah Annie was so thrilled with her skirt and her sister.

You all have already seen a good bit of this skirt. That's because it has quickly become what we refer to in this family as a "That Shirt."  When Michael was two, every morning he insisted on wearing "That Shirt," an ugly red, black and blue striped shirt that lives today in my hope chest to remind me how over-indulged my eldest was. And here I am again. Sarah insists on This Skirt every day. Furthermore, she will only sleep with the quilt Katie made. Perhaps she's not overindulged. Perhaps she is the rare toddler who appreciates the real value of handmade. {Here I confess that I have already ordered some stacks of newly-released Delighted to make Sarah a second skirt. As I recall, That Shirt had a companion-- "The Other One Shirt"--that allowed us to launder the first choice on occasion.}

About patchwork, if I'd any idea back when I was 12 how much fun, how completely satisfying, how peaceful it is to move squares of pretty fabric around until it looks just right, I have no doubt I would have saved babysitting money for a sewing machine and quilt camp. Oh my, I mentally composed thank you notes to Kate Spain, designer of the Terrain fabric I used on Katie's skirt and Bonnie and her darling daughter Camille, who designed the Ruby fabric I used for Karoline.

I think all the time about how we are called to use our talents to bless others, how the right turn of phrase can bring peace to someone who is looking to put feelings into words. I think about how music moves us; how dance and drama transport and even transform us. But fabric? Well, yeah. Fabric. This is art--color, texture, design. And it can fill our senses. There is beauty in those cotton squares and beauty moves. It does.

Karoline helped me sort squares by color and pattern, an exercise we will surely repeat again. She loved guiding me as I layed out the rows, first on the dining room table and then again later on the living room floor, to get it just right before I put the strips together. I actually made Kari's skirt after Katie's and the notes I'd made as I learned with Katie's made Karoline's a snap to sew.

Katie helped me to lay out her squares and she sewed them all into strips under my hovering supervision. There was no pattern for her size in the book, so I added a tier and tweaked the math (Yes, Dad, you read that right. I tweaked the math.) to make her a bigger skirt than the ones in the book. I used every square in 3 charm packs, so I was careful not to let Katie make an irreversible mistake. But she did do all the sewing of squares into strips. I took over from there, gathering ruffles into tier after tier and loving the process. It took me much, much longer than it did Mary Beth.

I think that as I age, I am becoming more conscious of the peace in the process of things. When my friend Cari first tried to teach me to sew in my mid-twenties, I was only too happy to have her do the mundane pressing or careful snipping of threads. I just wanted to get on with it already. Now, I am happy to press and every single thread is meticulously snipped. I'm sure this is about much more than making a patchwork skirt. It's an entire lifestyle shift. I'm holding onto the moments, measuring them and remembering to smile as they happen.

Skills we learned:

patchwork

gathers

casings and elastic

hemming

matching side seams

* *This project is a thread gobbler. Make sure you have a new spool and wind your bobbin as full as you can before you start. You'll still need a new bobbin to finish.* *

Stitch-by-Stitch projects so far:

My very favorite jeans and a quilted belt or two.

An Eye Mask and a Whole Wardrobe of Aprons

Reversible Totes

See our knitting needle cases and Kindle case here

See our Fancy Napkins here.

Ever have a bad day?

How about a bad week? A stretch of time when you don't even recognize the voice coming out of your mouth?Me, too. Read about it here, please.

Intentional Weekend: Liberate Yourself from E-slavery

"During the thousand years between the fall of Rome and the Renaissance, what defined human life in the Western world was the Christian religion. People’s daily actions and experiences aligned to the
liturgical calendar, which itself proceeded throughout the year in harmony with the rhythms of the natural world. People knew that this life was preparation for the next, but they also knew that this world was a part of the world to come...[Then] Human life no longer was informed at its center by worship of God but by worship of man...[Now,]...man has also passed and that the age in which we now live—The Age of Technology...In the process man has become a slave. C.S. Lewis called this “the abolition of man,” and his book thus titled explained how three technologies—the radio, the airplane, and the contraceptive pill—all promised greater freedom for mankind but instead became the means for a few to control the lives of the many. Lewis saw these inventions serving the designs of totalitarian regimes. Half a century later, many of us have of our own choosing surrendered our freedom to technology."

"Faithful Catholics see well enough the tyranny of technology in the wicked laboratories where human reproduction is torn asunder from human love. They recognize that the first device aimed at this end, the contraceptive pill, is the bastard offspring of the previous age’s two lies: the perfectibility of man (eugenics) and the total autonomy of man (unlimited sensual gratification without consequences). Where Catholics are less able—or less willing, perhaps—to see technology’s tendency to enslave is in the operation of the machines and systems of modern communication technology: computers, iPads, smartphones, e-mail, social-network pages, chat-rooms, blogs, Web forums, Twitter, the Internet, texting, and so on. We have given our lives over to these devices and habits. My colleague Aaron Wolf has coined a term for this condition: e-slavery."

"The story goes that when Evelyn Waugh at last succumbed to having a telephone installed in his home he answered it this way, “Is this an emergency? If not, write a letter!” None of us could get away with that now, but Waugh, even if he was not what we would call a “people person,” recognized the effect of communication technology on human relationships. It lowers discourse to the trivial.
Scroll through a day’s worth of teenage texting. Read the Tweets or blogs of those whose vanity has convinced them that the whole world is interested in their shopping and sexual habits. Watch the cell phones come out the moment your airplane lands, or read the posts on any Web forum. You will realize that, as Chesterton says, “[i]t is the beginning of all true criticism of our time to realize that it has really nothing to say, at the very moment when it has invented so tremendous a trumpet for saying it” (“The Proper View of Machines,” Illustrated London News, February 10, 1923)."

"“The impotence of the receptive party”: The phrase perfectly describes man’s servile relationship with the images and sounds of modern communication technology. Moving images so influence our lives that we conform our tastes, our clothes, our manners, and our behavior after that of our favorite stars. Some of us are perpetually starring in the movie about our own life, and our iPods provide the neverending soundtrack for this alternate reality."

"St. Augustine identified this human failing long ago, in Book Ten of his Confessions. He called it the lust of the eyes. Our desire to know about these things only drives us further from the divine because they crowd our imaginations when our imaginations should be filled with the contemplation of God. As long as I stay plugged into the noise, the flashing images, and the gossip, I do not risk facing the terrifying silence during which I would be forced to confront that which is most real—the state of my interior life. If my iPod headphones are blaring, I need not acknowledge the supplication of the beggar. If my iPod headphones are blaring, I will not recognize the beggar that is my soul."

Read the entire excellent esssay here and see what the author proposes instead of slavery to technology. I think a slow, thoughtful reading, pondering the message, praying about it, and then acting intentionally could truly be lifechanging.

As for me and my house, I think change could be a good thing.

10 Habits of Happy Mothers: Say No to Competition

This is probably my favorite chapter.

If only we could eradicate competition in the mommyhood. Oh! the friendships there would be. Oh! the work that would get done. Oh! the creativity unleashed. Oh! the peace that comes of knowing we are well loved.

Instead we compare. And we compete. And in so doing we defeat ourselves and our neighbors. What a huge waste of potential. What a thwarting of God's will. 

 

Dr. Meeker writes, "We want to stop competing, but we are scared to death. In out hearts we long to just simply be. We know that life is more than producing and competing and we wonder, Why can't we simply live differently? What would happen if we pulled back, slowed down, and rested for a while? Would we be okay?"

Is this an American thing? Are we just taught from a very young age to compete? There's that whole academic competition thing, even in little girls. And then, many of us heard our mothers competing with other mothers. The ways women compete with one another seem timeless: how big is your home? how beautifully decorated? how clean? how fit are you? how blonde? how thin? how well paid? how well educated? And we haven't even begun to discuss your success as measured by the achievements of your husband and children. 

Why are we "scared to death" to stop competing? What harm can possibly come of that? Someone will get ahead of us? Play that out in your head a minute. Ahead of where? Ahead how? How does the success of the mom next door at all impede our own personal progress? If she's an awesome wife and mother, does that somehow make me less of a wife and mother?

No.

I am called uniquely to this one (dashingly handsome) man. And I am called uniquely to these nine children. No one else can answer this call, never mind answering it better than I do. It's my call. Only mine. 

Mothering is not a competitive marketplace. And you know what? Homeschooling isn't a competitive endeavor either. Neither is crafting home. Or cooking family meals. Or loving your man. "Being competitive professionally can be good, as long as healthy boundaries are maintained. But when it come to being competitive in relationships as mothers, we always lose. Always."

So why do we do it?

Because we are insecure. Because we need affirmation and validation, some of us desperately. Dr Meeker points out that we have been conditioned to size up and judge our neighbor and that some of us don't even see it coming. We measure her against ourselves because we are afraid we aren't good. (I didn't say "good enough"--my mail indicates some of us don't think we are good at all.) We compare. And then we compete. And then we complain.

It's funny (sort of); a few years ago, I wrote a column about women comparing and the unhappiness it caused. Instead of "Quit Comparing," the title I gave it, the copy editor at the paper mistitled it, "Quit Complaining." That's what happens, though. We compare and we compete and inevitably, we complain.(They fixed it at the Herald, but you can read it here, still mistitled.) Comparison and competition breed discontent. 

We have to get a grip on this. Dr. Meeker believes that saying "no" to competition is crucial to all the other habits. "Breaking the habit of of competing helps break many other important habits in areas we're examining: money issues, living more simply, loving others better, improving friendships. [Stop for a moment and think of all those issues in light of competition: she's got a point, doesn't she?] If we can't get our drive to compete under control, we will have great difficulty getting the other habits under control as well.

So, we need to really examine our insecurities. Comparing and competing are bred in insecurity. I think that's an intensely personal process best done in prayer. And then shared with our spouses and maybe a close personal friend. Look hard at them. Stare them down. Bring them into the light of day and watch them shrivel. 

Be rid of them. 

That's all for now. I'm off to capture the glory of the morning with a new lens. Literally. At the suggestion of someone who could easily be a blog competitor, but chooses instead to be a close personal friend, I have taken Michael's lens as my own until I get a new one for myself. And I'm literally seeing my world differently. In the email where--quite out of the blue--she suggested a new lens, she opened a flood of fresh ideas and happy thoughts. 

How to abolish competition?

Encourage instead.

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{{This post is the 7th in a series discussing The 10 Habits of Happy Mothers: Reclaiming our Passion, Purpose, and Sanity.}}

The rest of our discussions of  The 10 Habits of Happy Mothers: Reclaiming our Passion, Purpose, and Sanity can be found here. The first two conversations are 

Part 1(discussing Habit 1)

Part 2 (still discussing Habit 1)

Part 3 (still more on Habit 1)

Part 4 (Habit 2: key friendships)

Part 5 (Habit 2: your thoughts on friendship_

Part 6 (Habit 3: Value and Practice Faith)

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