Go Colts!
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Books I Read in January
Lord of Chaos by Robert Jordan
A Crown of Swords by Robert Jordan
Right now I'm plowing my way through a re-reading of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, which I do every once in a while. There are currently 12 reeeeaaaallllly long (700-1000 page) books in this series. And it's not done yet. Even though Robert Jordan passed away in 2007. If you are unfamiliar with the Wheel of Time, it's a fantasy saga with a huge following of sometimes fanatic readers. There are a number of fan sites devoted to it. I started reading this series when I was 14, and a friend asked me to read the first book. He was delighted that I was undaunted by its length and that he would have someone to talk with about the books. At that point only three of the books had been published, and I had no idea what I was getting myself into. So this series is a habit that I've retained since my teen years. The twelfth book was released in the fall, and I've been re-reading them ever since. It's necessary to do this occasionally so that I can keep track of all the characters and story lines in my head. All this to say that I've mostly been reading WoT books this month.
I'm not going to write notes on each of these books individually. I think would be a bit pointless to read any of the three (books 5, 6 & 7) without reading the whole series. The first book is The Eye of the World. If you like epic fantasy novels, you should read it and decide if you wish to read on. This series is a (perhaps the) seminal modern work in the genre. If you don't enjoy fantasy novels, or series with a huge scope, you probably won't enjoy this, and you might not even if you do like the genre. To me they are old friends, and I love them despite their flaws.
Vintage Knits for Modern Babies by Hadley Fierlinger
This book is lovely. I want to knit about a dozen different things from this. I'm currently knitting a gift for a friend from it, which is why it is sticking around in my sidebar. I got it from the library, and I think I may need to add this to my personal library, especially if I ever have some modern babies of my own. I suspect you'll be seeing a few projects from this pictures in the future.
I didn't really care for this book. I read it because I was intrigued by the concept, a Revolutionary War soldier who gets propelled forward in time to modern day. It's a romance novel, and I didn't find the heroine to be very likable. I also didn't think the major conflict of their cultural differences due to being from different time periods was resolved very convincingly. If you enjoy reading romance that's not overtly sexual, I can recommend it on that front, but note that it has a rather syncretistic treatment of Christian and pagan practices.
And thus ends my summary of the books I read in January. I plan to do this the first week of each month. Likely the list will get more varied and lengthy when I finish the WoT re-read.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Two Visitors
As I mentioned in my last post, I spent the weekend of the 24th in southern Indiana. This gave me the chance to visit the very new, as yet unnamed, mission in Evansville. (Sorry, no pitures this time.) It was so wonderful to be able to go to Liturgy while there. This was a first for me. Although Evansville is the third largest city in Indiana, and if you include nearby Owensboro, KY it has a metropolitan area of easily 400,000 people, there is no Orthodox church of any jurisdiction in the area. I have long been praying for a mission to be started there, so it was a particular joy and blessing to attend Liturgy in my home town. Please pray for Father Daniel and the faithful there. They are a very small community right now, so I pray that this seed will bear much fruit in the years to come.
While I was in Evansville, being warmly welcomed by the founders of the mission, we had a visitor at my home parish in Indianapolis. This is not unusual, since we generally have at least a few visitors every week, be they family or friends of parishioners, people new to or visiting the area, or people curious about the Orthodox faith. But our visitor last week, Stacy Towle Morgan, has written about her visit to St. George at her blog, Never Enough Sundays where she is blogging about her experiences as she visits a different place of worship every week this year. In addition to writing about her visits, she is also taking the time to interview the spiritual leaders of the communities she visits, so you can hear her podcast where she has interviewed our pastor, the V. Rev. Father Nabil Hanna.
Morgan amusingly titles her post about her visit to St. George, "This Is Not a Church for Sissies: Discipline Required."" I can understand how she drew that conclusion, especially having visited an Orthodox Church as we prepare to enter Great Lent, but actually I think the Orthodox Church is absolutely for "sissies." Discipline is certainly something I find to be a constant struggle, and I know I'm not alone in that. The Church supports us in that struggle. It provides us with the loving support of a community of brothers and sisters engaged in the same struggle, spiritual fathers to guide us, and the nourishment of the Food we need to strengthen us.
I found it interesting to read about the Liturgy from the perspective of someone totally new the experience. I'm still quite young in the faith, having been Chrismated only three years ago, but although I was worshiping that same Sunday in a new place, with new people, in a very different environment than usual, the experience wasn't new to me at all. It was the Holy Liturgy that I've come to know and love, that I participate in each week. As I stood in Father Daniel's dining room, singing along with a choir just getting to know one another and the music, I felt totally at home.
While I was in Evansville, being warmly welcomed by the founders of the mission, we had a visitor at my home parish in Indianapolis. This is not unusual, since we generally have at least a few visitors every week, be they family or friends of parishioners, people new to or visiting the area, or people curious about the Orthodox faith. But our visitor last week, Stacy Towle Morgan, has written about her visit to St. George at her blog, Never Enough Sundays where she is blogging about her experiences as she visits a different place of worship every week this year. In addition to writing about her visits, she is also taking the time to interview the spiritual leaders of the communities she visits, so you can hear her podcast where she has interviewed our pastor, the V. Rev. Father Nabil Hanna.
Morgan amusingly titles her post about her visit to St. George, "This Is Not a Church for Sissies: Discipline Required."" I can understand how she drew that conclusion, especially having visited an Orthodox Church as we prepare to enter Great Lent, but actually I think the Orthodox Church is absolutely for "sissies." Discipline is certainly something I find to be a constant struggle, and I know I'm not alone in that. The Church supports us in that struggle. It provides us with the loving support of a community of brothers and sisters engaged in the same struggle, spiritual fathers to guide us, and the nourishment of the Food we need to strengthen us.
I found it interesting to read about the Liturgy from the perspective of someone totally new the experience. I'm still quite young in the faith, having been Chrismated only three years ago, but although I was worshiping that same Sunday in a new place, with new people, in a very different environment than usual, the experience wasn't new to me at all. It was the Holy Liturgy that I've come to know and love, that I participate in each week. As I stood in Father Daniel's dining room, singing along with a choir just getting to know one another and the music, I felt totally at home.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Knitting Diversions
Last weekend I headed down to the toe of the state to visit family and to attend a baby shower. A good friend is expecting her first baby in early March. In addition to a gift from her registry, I knitted this hat. She is having a boy, and they have decided on the middle name Patrick, so I thought green would be appropriate. This pattern is the umbilical cord hat from Stitch n' Bitch. I've made it quite a few times now, in various colorways. I'd call it my go-to baby gift at this point. I can knit it up in an evening while watching a movie or two. After making a couple I felt totally familiar with this baby hat concept. I'll happily do stockinette in the round all day long, and I love a project with decreases at the end. Yep, love that mindless knitting. It's easy enough that I've made some fun variations, like pumpkin hats with ribbing for October babies. This one was straight from the pattern though. It's even the suggested yarn, in a different colorway.
I had this yarn in my fairly meager stash (Leftover from making those pumpkin hats, I think). I know some knitters have a tendency to let their stash of yarn get out of control, but I'm very project oriented with my yarn buying. I tend to buy yarn for something I want to knit and then knit it before I buy more yarn. Most of my"stash" consists of leftover odds and ends. I think I only have one skein that I bought for a project that I never got around to knitting.
I do have a couple of works in progress right now, though. This little hat was a quick diversion from a bigger project I'm working on. I'm knitting another baby gift at the moment that I hope to finish and get mailed off by next weekend. It's rather bigger than a hat, so it's taking more than just an evening of knitting. Also, I still have a sock in progress. It probably would have been finished long since, but I need to buy more needles. I'm too hard on tiny sock needles apparently. I'm on my sixth sock and I've snapped 3 of six needles. They are rather toothpick-like, being wooden number ones. Maybe I should get some aluminum ones so I won't break them again. Once I finish the other project I'll have to track some down, so my husband can have toasty hand-knit socks before winter is over. Instead of getting new ones, I started that other project, which I should probably get back to now, actually.
I had this yarn in my fairly meager stash (Leftover from making those pumpkin hats, I think). I know some knitters have a tendency to let their stash of yarn get out of control, but I'm very project oriented with my yarn buying. I tend to buy yarn for something I want to knit and then knit it before I buy more yarn. Most of my"stash" consists of leftover odds and ends. I think I only have one skein that I bought for a project that I never got around to knitting.
I do have a couple of works in progress right now, though. This little hat was a quick diversion from a bigger project I'm working on. I'm knitting another baby gift at the moment that I hope to finish and get mailed off by next weekend. It's rather bigger than a hat, so it's taking more than just an evening of knitting. Also, I still have a sock in progress. It probably would have been finished long since, but I need to buy more needles. I'm too hard on tiny sock needles apparently. I'm on my sixth sock and I've snapped 3 of six needles. They are rather toothpick-like, being wooden number ones. Maybe I should get some aluminum ones so I won't break them again. Once I finish the other project I'll have to track some down, so my husband can have toasty hand-knit socks before winter is over. Instead of getting new ones, I started that other project, which I should probably get back to now, actually.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Health Kits for Haiti
On Friday afternoon, around 3:30 pm, I announced to one of my co-workers, "I have no plans or obligations for this weekend. I don't think I've had a free weekend since sometime in October!" I was really looking forward to doing a lot of knitting, watching the Colts on Saturday evening, and doing a little house cleaning. Then about 4 pm, James called me to say that we had been asked to help at church with an effort to put together health/hygiene kits for Haiti, and my plans immediately seemed pretty trivial. I felt really blessed to have this opportunity to do something with my own hands, beyond praying and writing a check, to help those affected by this terrible earthquake. And I have to add that with many hands working together, we got it done so quickly that it didn't encroach on my own selfish plans at all.
On Saturday morning James and I went to Holy Liturgy and a memorial for the sister of one of the priests attached to our parish, which was another gentle reminder to me to think of others. Since she lived in Serbia, he was unable to return there for the funeral. Afterward, we learned how to put together the hygiene kits and organized supplies so that we would be ready to teach others how to make them after liturgy today. The congregation all worked together to put together the kits, and in less than an hour we put together about 850. We still need to get a few more supplies to finish putting together 150 more to round out 1000 kits to be shipped this week. It was really a joy to do this, and the hustle and bustle around the hall as everyone pitched in to get it done was fun to experience.
Look here to learn more about what you can do to help Haiti through IOCC, including making health kits or emergency buckets. Recently a staff member from IOCC visited our parish, and he told us that they can never have too many of these kits on hand. It's one of the simplest and most effective things they can do to help people in the immediate aftermath of an emergency. These kits provide a modicum of comfort and dignity to people who have lost their homes and belongings, and they also contribute to sanitation to help prevent the spread of disease after a disaster. We found it so gratifying to do be able to do something tangible to help our neighbors in Haiti, however small, that we are now making plans in our parish to have kit-making days several times a year to make the various kinds of kits that are distributed by the IOCC.
And while I'm talking about IOCC, which is a really remarkable non-profit with extraordinarily low overhead costs, did you know you can select them as your charity at Goodsearch.com? Goodsearch allows you to choose a charity, and each time you use the search engine it donates a penny to that charity. Using their links to web retailers raises even more money for your charity. It lets you see how much money has been raised for your charity each month, and judging by IOCC's numbers, this is a well-kept secret! So mosey on over to Goodsearch, type in IOCC to set them as your charity, and start searching. Also, you may not know this, but if you give money through United Way at your workplace, you can probably direct that giving to IOCC. Click here to learn about it.
On Saturday morning James and I went to Holy Liturgy and a memorial for the sister of one of the priests attached to our parish, which was another gentle reminder to me to think of others. Since she lived in Serbia, he was unable to return there for the funeral. Afterward, we learned how to put together the hygiene kits and organized supplies so that we would be ready to teach others how to make them after liturgy today. The congregation all worked together to put together the kits, and in less than an hour we put together about 850. We still need to get a few more supplies to finish putting together 150 more to round out 1000 kits to be shipped this week. It was really a joy to do this, and the hustle and bustle around the hall as everyone pitched in to get it done was fun to experience.
Look here to learn more about what you can do to help Haiti through IOCC, including making health kits or emergency buckets. Recently a staff member from IOCC visited our parish, and he told us that they can never have too many of these kits on hand. It's one of the simplest and most effective things they can do to help people in the immediate aftermath of an emergency. These kits provide a modicum of comfort and dignity to people who have lost their homes and belongings, and they also contribute to sanitation to help prevent the spread of disease after a disaster. We found it so gratifying to do be able to do something tangible to help our neighbors in Haiti, however small, that we are now making plans in our parish to have kit-making days several times a year to make the various kinds of kits that are distributed by the IOCC.
And while I'm talking about IOCC, which is a really remarkable non-profit with extraordinarily low overhead costs, did you know you can select them as your charity at Goodsearch.com? Goodsearch allows you to choose a charity, and each time you use the search engine it donates a penny to that charity. Using their links to web retailers raises even more money for your charity. It lets you see how much money has been raised for your charity each month, and judging by IOCC's numbers, this is a well-kept secret! So mosey on over to Goodsearch, type in IOCC to set them as your charity, and start searching. Also, you may not know this, but if you give money through United Way at your workplace, you can probably direct that giving to IOCC. Click here to learn about it.
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