Dec. 5, 2009 - I'm Still Living
Life has been very busy around our house. So I thought I'd drop a note. I'm teaching full time at the Christian School and still leading Master's Club on Weds. nights. Were getting ready to do some major changes in our children's ministry. I'm very excited about it. I did coach our girls volleyball team for a while but I had to give that up. It became too much. The kids are doing great. I can hardly believe I don't have any preschoolers anymore. In 2 years I'll have one graduating. It just don't seem possible.
I think this will be my last year teaching at the school. I may sub but teaching fulltime is proving to be a little to hard on the old body. Maybe when the kids are older I'll give it another shot but right now with dh going to school and working fulltime, and with what I'm doing it's getting pretty crazy around here. Though it has been helpful with my oldest boy getting his license. I just wish we had a car for him to drive. Oh well someday.
The 2 oldest boys both got speaking parts in the Christmas play, so we've been busy with that also. It's hard to believe its almost Christmas again. I'm so not ready for it. Usually I'm almost done with everything but this year I've barely begun. I don't even have the tree up yet. LOL I wish life would slow down a little so I could catch up.
Wishing you all a MERRY CHRISTMAS!
Saturday, December 5, 2009 - Webcam Willies
Dec. 5, 2009 - Pulling off Weight(s)
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Hebrews 12:1(NIV, emphasis mine)
The Lord has been really speaking to me in “niblets” lately, and I have about three posts floating around in my head. I’m sure they’ll make it to paper at the right time.
Our pastor preached from this sermon, in part, on this past Sunday. He actually used the character Haman from the book to speak about the “weight” (the word used in the King James version rather than ‘things that hinder’) that caused his doom—a hatred of the Jews from the killing of the Agagites years before. The sermon was powerful, but I was stuck in this verse and an appropriate reflection on the things that hinder me.
I shared previously about my traditional burnout during this point in our school year. Earlier in my homeschool journey, I saw this as a sign of being a poor homeschool mom, and I would hesitate to voice it to anyone. Now, without the need to constantly wear a cape on my back, and with an ear and eye toward the hearts of candidly sincere moms who’ve gone before me, I have no problem admitting some things. One of those admissions is that burnout is real. Anyone who stays with homeschooling long enough will live to testify that you will grow weary before you grow graduates.
Having said that, this is the first year, even including the first year, that I’ve not experienced the burnout that normally defines my homeschool days between November and December. As I say each week in my wrap-up, we are enjoying a year of tremendous fruit. Not only are we prospering in our homeschool, but I am prospering in a number of areas. Yet, I find myself expecting to burned out, and that places a damper on all the things I should be excited about. My expectation that I shouldn’t be doing well at this point is the weight that is hindering me. And then, as I sat in church allowing the Lord to reveal all of this to me, I thought about how often I hear people speak from their weights. Whether it’s clinical depression, a work situation that isn’t going well, a ministry that isn’t blossoming, or children that aren’t aligned with the vision, we resign ourselves to certain situations and face the day as if they’ve taken permanent root in our lives. Those thoughts consume us and keep us from rejoicing in the beauty of who we are in Christ and the wondrous works He created. My husband and I talk all the time about people in our lives who always talk about the same things over and over, and they can maneuver any conversation around to how broke they are, or how sick and/or tired they’ve been, or just about themselves period. Being preoccupied with self, even if it’s with good things, is spiritually dangerous, and it limits Christ’s joy from manifesting through us. It stumps our witness, and it takes our eyes of who Christ is in us, much like Peter when he stopped looking at Jesus and instead focused on the water he walked on.
If I weren’t focused on the fact that I should be burned out, and why I am not burned out, and whether this is a permanent thing or just temporary, I might spent more time enjoying the unusual snow day earlier today. I might have enjoyed more the fact that the superhero was snowed in with us today. I might be more excited about the parades that the oldest will perform in this coming weekend. I could whip out the movie “The Nativity Story” and remind myself, amidst my neighbors who fight to see who can put up the most Christmas lights but won’t get up and go to church (a sermon for another time), what Christmas is all about. I could speak encouragement into my college students. I might rejoice that we are able to buy the kids Christmas gifts that they want and need, debt-free. I could hug more. I could give more kisses. I could stomp on the devil with sustained fervency.
What weight do you need to let go? May the Lord reveal to you what’s hindering you from allowing Him to be more inside of you, and God bless.
Dec. 4, 2009 - More Accurate Lafayette Coat
My son's dream has come true...at least one of them. He now has a Lafayette coat that is as accurate as I can possibly make it. Shadowing me all week, my son has been looking over my shoulder to make corrections, suggestions, and requests. Even when I made his first coat a year ago, he had wanted it to look exactly like the one the Colonial Williamsburg Lafayette wears.
However, with only three days to sew it and only having a few vacation pictures to go by, that was my personal best at the time. Besides he was only going to wear it for one presentation as he did a first person interpretation of Lafayette for an assignment for the CW EFT "Yorktown".
Never did I dream that we would move to Northern Virginia and he'd be walking the streets of the CW historic area in this costume.
Being only a quickie stage costume, it quickly started wearing out. Also winter was coming and I wondered how to allow him to wear a costume and stay warm. After a visit to the CW Costume Design Center and an opportunity to see a few embellishments for the Lafayette costume up close,
I gave in to my son's desire for a more accurate Lafayette coat, this time made of warm felt instead of thin cotton. The real Lafayette coat is made of wool but that is not in my budget. My kids' felt capes keep them warm on cold autumn days. Perhaps an extra layer of felt in the coat would help for the winter.
Once this decision was made, we never saw Lafayette again. Even though we still had questions about different elements, we had a lot of terrific pictures from different angles to help us piece together the mystery of the elaborate costume. Many of the pictures I used were taken by my son. Hmmmm, I think he's been scheming for this the entire time! Every time I had a question, he had a picture that provided clues to the mystery!
First off, my son explained he wanted the coat to look like Lafayette's but function like Washington's. What? He wanted his coat to open like Washington's. I tried to tell him those coats don't do anything like that. In fact, I never understood why Lafayette's coat had buttonholes for all those buttons. Guess what? My son had pictures. Here is Washington's coat.
I have noticed that he wears it buttoned at the top with a V shape below. I assumed that it was a completely different coat. My son insisted it was the same as Lafayette's and had another picture for that.
Interesting. We thought it was the same coat, because Washington's is a bit rumpled from apparently opening it up, whereas Lafayette's facings are sharp. I warned my son that if I do figure this out and he opens the facings, it will ruin the coat, especially with it being made of felt. He was positive everything would work out.
Meanwhile, I was googling for ideas. I did a lot of this last year when I made the first Lafayette coat too. However this year I stumbled upon a great site! I found a pattern with Tench Tilghman's coat...alas no instructions. Also I'd have to figure out how large to enlarge it at a copy shop to fit my son. I also found a pattern with instructions...alas this is for the Arnold Schwarzenegger physique. Hmmm, my son isn't quite there yet. The most helpful item I found were specifications for each part of the coat. I learned a lot!
One of the things I learned was that my son was indeed correct about those coats opening! These coats were designed to be worn like Lafayette's in the summer, yet like Washington's in the winter. It is achieved by unbottoning the buff lapel buttons to open out the facing. Isn't that clever? However I could not imagine how it was done. How does that curved buff facing lay flat when opened up? I was certain this was why Washington's coat looked rumpled when he rebuttons his to show the buff facings. Challenged by my son, I spent hours on Sunday playing with a prototype. That was one tip I had gotten from the milliner and tailor at CW. Use muslin to sew up a pattern, then make alterations from that. I knew I'd need to make a lot of alterations, because all I could find to even come close to Lafayette's coat was a contemporary version of a Revolutionary era coat for a gentleman. From that base, I looked at all the pictures I could find of Lafayette at CW, to make the necessary changes.
After playing around with different possibilities before cutting the fabric out, I finally made a decision and cut it out with extra fabric to fit to figure out the triangular part at the top of the lapel then sewed the lining of the prototype together. Once the core of the coat was assembled, I had my son try it on. The red fabric (I didn't have muslin but I had lots of scrap fabric) represents the buff. After I pulled the facing around to the front and pinned it in place, I sketched on the extra fabric at the top near my son's face to make the triangular top part (which I think is called a lappet) of the lapel. I agonized over how to sketch it before I cut the fabric but gave up. It was so much easier to do it with him wearing the coat.
I laid this out and cut it out, then laid it over the front part of the coat to cut out the facing which would be for the blue part of the coat. I sewed that to the buff and my son liked it. I did all that Monday. That evening while he was at Awanas, I whipped up the basic coat with the buff lining and blue outer part. By the time he got home it was done and he was ecstatic. The next day when he was trying it on for another fitting, he decided he did not like the blue facing after all. He did not like all the puckers, even though I had forewarned him there would definitely be puckers, because of the curve. So I carefully laid everything out, cut off the self made facing, cut a new facing like the buff had, sewed that all together...and my son liked that version better. However that now meant that the coat would not open like Washington's although my son didn't understand that. He was still confident it could happen.
Wednesday my son asked me which buttons I was going to use. I was collecting all the buttons from his previous military coats for unit celebrations, all of which he's outgrown. He told me they were mismatched. What?! Oh dear. I didn't have the car to run out until later that night. I went to the nearest Jo Ann's and they didn't have enough buttons. I asked them to do a search on the area stores to see who else had buttons. They asked me what I was making. A Lafayette coat for my son. When do you need the buttons? Now. (The look on their faces was priceless.) They found two more stores, not that I had any idea where they were. The next morning the kids and I headed out with Lee, the gps, to find these stores and we wiped out their supply of the perfect Lafayette coat button...28 total! While we were at it, we took all we could of the next smaller size for my son's future new waistcoat (vest). I forget how many of those we snagged.
Last night I settled down to sew the buttonholes on the facing and my machine wouldn't let it happen. There was too much bulk of fabric. It was late. I was exhausted. I was nearly out of buff thread. I practiced on a sample by using navy blue in the bobbin and buff in the top, the way I would have anyway if we could have made the coat open like Washington's. The blue thread came up to the top in the buttonhole stitch. sigh Well, I am no gadget girl and I had no time to figure it out even if I was a gadget girl. I told my son there would be no buttonholes. He was disappointed, but understood the need for that decision.
Meanwhile I put my son to work on the epaulettes. He knew he had to have his schoolwork finished first to work on them. Wow! What a productive week this was! Nothing like a new Lafayette coat to motivate my son once again to dig into his books!
My son insisted on the epaulettes looking exactly like Lafayette's. We got to actually hold these at the Costume Design Center, but I could not remember exactly how they were made. At the time, I had no idea I'd be redoing these, or else I'd have taken more pictures. No problem, my son remembered. He drew the pattern and cut it out of extra buff felt. I told him I had golden silk dupioni from a project at our last house to weave the top, since I couldn't find any ribbon in the stores that would work. He wasn't impressed but when he realized there were no other options, he went with it. I cut this fabric up into strips, then gave them an extremely narrow edge seam on the sewing machine. We analyzed the epaulette picture from the CDC...
and I hand stitched a running stitch on one side to sort of rouche the curves. He pinned the pieces exactly how he wanted and as he reached each stopping point, I sewed it down to the felt. Then he was able to continue. After he had all the "ribbon" down, I finished stitching it to the felt. The rest of the epaulette I finished myself. His help was invaluable and saved me lots of time!
Well anyway, that's the brunt of the story for those of you who ask me..."How did you do that?" In the beginning, I took lots of notes and made brand new patterns, like the facing with the lappet. About midweek I gave up since there were numerous alterations of alterations. In hindsite, I'm not sure what I did! It's all a blur. My husband was impressed. My son was thrilled. I am elated with his final reaction. He was disappointed with all the things I couldn't do, yet I made sure he had the final say on as many elements as possible. I'd have done a few things differently, but it is his coat to wear and enjoy. I only stood firm when he tried to have me sew collars differently and other such stuff. Not believing me that collars and other elements are sewn certain ways, he watched every move. He says he learned a lot about sewing this week! At least my son will enjoy wearing his new coat and it will help him to stay warm. That was the goal. Without further adieu...here it is!
Friday, December 4, 2009 - Over the river and through the woods....
and a 70 mile drive in the car, and a really bumpy tractor ride to a field.....
all to find a Christmas tree!
In years past we have had an artificial tree, but every once in awhile we get the urge to get a real one. And this year, (mostly because there was no snow yet,) we decided not to just go to the tree-lot on the corner..... We decided to cut our own down!
Unfortunately, there aren't any tree farms locally...hence the 70 mile drive. 
Although there was no snow - it was still very cold! (wind chills in the teens and 20's)
Good thing we all bundled up well!
Our transport was ready
So we grabbed a saw
and headed out into the frozen north woods
It was a fun ride!
Then the search began. Everyone had different opinions on the 'perfect' tree.
And some of us were quite sad when we didn't get 'our' tree
We hiked, and hiked, and hiked until some of us collapsed ....
(yeah....he was 'exagerating' a bit...so Katie decided to 'motivate' him a little - LOL)
Others needed to be carried...
But eventually we found our tree!
The men got busy with their lumberjack work
And we all had another wagon ride back to the station
(some of us were a bit tired after an hour hiking around in the cold....
Others were happy and excited
Our tree was bundled and tied for the long ride home
And then came the best part....popcorn, cocoa, and cider in the chalet!
And now...we get to decorate! 
