Day 7: Theological Creativity

I'm sorry -- no pictures today.  I spent most of the day involved with the churches I work for.  The two churches are preparing to vote on amalgamation with two other churches.

It's been a long process to get to this place and I'm not looking forward to the amount of work on the other side of the vote on Sunday. I don't think it matters which way the vote goes either; there will be a huge amount of work regardless.  Hey!  I'm going on vacation soon.  Whoo hoo.

The proposed amalgamation plan was presented tonight at one of the churches.  Listening to the presentation tonight was educational.  Looking back through the meeting, I can imagine the Spirit flitting about chirping in ears; a bird on a shoulder.  Some powerful, Spiritual things happened.  In the face of the worst in human nature, if not active evil.  I'm still processing it all.

Though, I'm disappointed in myself.  I had planned to say nothing.  I couldn't quite keep my mouth shut.  I've done worse though.  I give myself a 50 and go.

Anyway, all my creativity for the day seemed to go into meetings, which don't lend themselves to interesting pictures.  I give you instead a poem which has been drifting through my thoughts lately.

i thank You God
by e.e.cummings
i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any--lifted from the no
of all nothing--human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

Day 6: Honesty and cleanliness in equal measure

I've been contemplating honesty lately.  How do we be honest with each other?  Can you be honest with others if you can't be honest with yourself?

I've also been forced by renovations to confront my self-image as a housekeeper.   Never a good thing.  So this post is a fusion of the two ideas.  Alloyed in a furnace of outsiders' opinions with drywall dust and dog fur.

I struggle on a daily basis to know how much housework is enough.  I work from home and I find it very difficult to create in a cluttered space.  And yet, I'm not sure that I could keep this house clean even if I worked at it 12 hours out of every 24.  There are 5 other people (and a dog and a bird) -- that's a lot of mess.  This doesn't even begin the discussion of whether it should be my job to make the mess go away.  Or how many generations of mess we have here (I periodically find boxes labelled as my grandparents stuff).

I have on occasion de-cluttered other peoples houses.  For money, even.  I can offer 'expert' advice on how to de-clutter a house.  So, now to the honesty part; some pictures of my own  house.

(Cue the theme song to Love Story)  Where do I begin?

This time I'm starting with the bathroom sink.

Day 5: Guest Blog: Emily Zagrodney

Emily thought this 365 day thing was a good idea.  I said she could help.

Day 4: Remembering fun

For ten years, about ten years ago, Mark and I used to play with the Society for Creative Anachronism, a group who enjoy medieval reenactment.  For various reasons, we drifted away from it.

I took Emily to an event today.  http://www.pipcom.com/~thule/pikemans2011.html.  Part of the thing for me was to remember what I used to do for fun.  I have trouble with that sometimes.  I've had to make lists in the past of things I might like to do so that when I actually had time, I wouldn't spend it all trying to figure out what to do.

It was great seeing Helen and Sue/Anne (who I shall think of as SueAnne from now on :)), Evan, Danielle and the other singers.  I so didn't surprise myself by ending up with some books.  Garb is typically better than it used to be.   It felt very familiar, though.  It was good, I think.  I had a great time with Emily, anyway.

I did forget to take the camera, which was probably a good thing.  Sometimes I need to participate rather than observe.  So no pictures of the event.  But Emily and I stopped at a farmer's market and bought this:

Strawberry-rhubarb crumble.

"Stress cannot exist in the presence of pie" - David Mamet, Boston Marriage

Day 3: Wow. That didn't take long.

I spent most of my day playing mental games with myself about working on something for this blog.  I thought it would take longer before I started having trouble but I should have known better.  I'm a Mistress of Head Fu.

Of course, to cut myself some slack, I am in the middle of renovations.  Friday is supposed to be my day off to recharge but not so much this week.  I could really use some recharging.

Mark taught me a business term called barriers to entry.  It's the stuff that stops someone from entering into business.  If there aren't enough doctors, say, the government needs to lower the barriers to entry to create more.

I think procrastinators need a similar term: barriers to completion.  I seem to often get a project 98% finished and just need a button or ends sewn in to call it done.  But then it sits there.  And sits there.

So, today's project is completing a pair of socks that have been sitting for a while. I decided what I needed to do was lower the barriers to completion.  I didn't worry about a perfect sewing in of ends.  I didn't get out the big camera -- I took the photo with the webcam.  So, they may not be perfect but they're done.

Day 2: On another note...

Today's project?  A descant for Gordon Light's "She comes sailing on the wind".  It's still rough around the edges, mostly because I haven't practised it enough to be able to sing and play it at the same time.  I did try it out at choir practise tonight so I have a better idea of the rough spots.

I probaby should have included a musical sound byte but I don't know how to do that yet so a picture will have to do.

I've never been able to compose a melody that is worth a darn but I think I can produce passable harmonies.  I wonder what the difference is, in training or talent.  I know that Mark has a much better ability to remember tunes.  He is always trying to play the 'identify this song in three notes or less' game with me.  Why I don't know since I suck at it.  And yet, I'm the musician, not him.

I saw a TV show (TVO/PBS type programming) about Sting's brain.  He was asked to produce a new melody while lying in an MRI machine.  What amazed me was that he remembered that scrap of tune months later without writing it down.  That is definitely not how my brain works.  Which is why he is the famous musician and me, not so much.

P.S.  Yes, that is plastic on the top of the piano.  Protection against drywall dust.  Though, as of tonight, there is only one day's work left on the bathroom.  Yeah.

Day 1: Rub my rhubarb!

So what do we have here?  One of the dreaded rhubarb plants.  Actually, I love it.  A plant that comes up every year, is edible early in the season and has leaves bigger than my head.

 But what to do with it.  Other than strawberry-rhubarb pie, of course.  Well, if you're me, you make paper.  I read somewhere that rhubarb is remarkably similar to papyrus so you can use ancient techniques to make a modern version.  How cool.

The plan I used comes from http://www.boiseartmuseum.org/education/egyptian/FauxPapyrusPaperShawnPhelps.pdf

Step 1:

 Step 2:

 Step 3:

 Step 4: Rhubarb sandwich

I guess we'll see how it dries over the next few days.  I tried this last year but I let it dry in the sun after a couple of days and it was too curly to use.

It does use up rhubarb at a furious rate.  I used 5 or 6 stalks just for this one little bit of paper.  And I ruined a bit by hammering too hard - a large rubber mallet would have been much better.

I guess this officially starts my 365 project.