Daylight Savings Time

I'm keeping warm with a scarf, a baby belly, and slippers.
My knitting sits on the coffee table, waiting patiently.
Emme claims the blanket on the end of the couch as her own.
This is what happens when the afternoon turns gray.

It is 3:34 p.m. here in Iowa.

I just turned on lights in the living room because it was getting dark. Hard to tell whether the darkness is due to last weekend's time change or whether it is due to a thick, gray mass of clouds that have settled in over the town.

It always takes me a few days to adjust to the time change in the fall. Mornings, instead of looking like dark nighttime, look instead like faintly-lit gray hazes that make you wonder whether it is morning or evening; early daytime or late-afternoon cloud cover. Afternoons turn dark sooner than expected, and night falls earlier, fooling you into thinking that the day has come and gone more quickly than you expected. It takes me a few days of this to settle into it, to get to a place where I don't feel so disoriented and unsure of the time and rhythm of the day.

And then, as I settle in, something switches in me, and I get it. I remember what winter is like, and I understand the new feel of the day, and I remember the parts of my own self that get tucked away when we spring our clocks forward in March.

In other lifetimes, I gave myself an October threshold for listening to Advent and Christmas music. These days, I hold out until at least the start of November. This year, for whatever reason, I didn't even start thinking about it until last week, when I started loading up playlists onto my iPod in preparation for labor and delivery later this month, and I programmed myself a copious amount of Christmas music for those forthcoming hours.

I forget that we've passed Halloween already, and that Thanksgiving is only a few weeks away. My usual rush to embrace autumn feelings and flavors has been a little slow this year.

Perhaps because while the seasons change around me, and the time changes, and the sun sets earlier in the afternoon, my mind is not on the seasons themselves, or on holidays or traditions or even the bits and pieces of nostalgia that late fall and early winter dig up in me.

For the whole span of time we've lived in Iowa, time has been pressing ahead toward only one thing: the birth of this much-loved, much-awaited hedgehog of a baby, whose due date is just two weeks away. Thanksgiving this year will either be a celebration of a very new newborn, or the last few days of a very very uncomfortable pregnant lady. Christmas feels like forever away, because something as big as HAVING A BABY needs to happen between now and then. The whole fall has been a time of talking about this eventual baby and making initial plans and preparations, except that we are now in the last days, and the things that needed to get done "sometime this fall" now need to get done today and this week and as soon as we can manage them.

Today, though, Daylight Savings Time finally caught up to me in a useful way. As I sat here on the couch, watching the grayness of the afternoon creep in through the windows, I felt this urge for something to happen. Tired of waiting, I felt ready for a holiday, or ready for some nostalgia. Ready to knit and make soup and do autumnal things. Ready to scoff a little less at the Thanksgiving and even Christmas commercials on TV. I am ready for something to happen. Ready to meet this baby, or to eat some stuffing, or to start sorting through the Christmas decorations that we might put up right after Thanksgiving with family members who will be coming to see us. I'm okay with the wind blowing outside, and with the fact that it might be time to pull out my winter coat, even if I can't zip it up right now. I am ready for something to happen. Babies, holidays, families, cozy nights, anything to reclaim a space for myself that is no longer a space of mere waiting, but a space of anticipation and joy and movement.

Maybe being nine months pregnant makes me a bit of a crazy-lady. Because I'm not sure how a gray afternoon can somehow make me excited rather than depressed. But maybe the weather just reminds me that the seasons are again changing, and that nothing actually stands still in life, and when the quiet of waiting starts to drive you a little nuts, even the world outside can remind you that change is always on the horizon, and those things that you've been waiting for will indeed come, and all the days that you've been counting will indeed lead to something new and interesting and beautiful.

Chasing utopia...and losing yourself

I am a perfectionist.

I have been for a very long time. Perfectionism manifests itself in me in various ways: being a type-A, detail oriented person; having manic swings where I have to ORGANIZE EVERYTHING RIGHT NOW; feeling guilty if I have not accomplished what I believe to be my best work; feeling hurt and ashamed by critique, no matter how kind or valid.

This is not to say that I am in perfectionist mode all the time. I make messes, I can be a total flake, I often have the urge to ignore areas of life and work that I'm not good at.

In general, my perfectionism means that my outlook on life is based on seeking ways to make things as good as possible. Some days, this comes across as optimism and energy. Other days, this comes across as frustration and feelings of inadequacy.

Put another way, I am a person who is always seeking utopia in some fashion, big or small. If I can just arrange my office in the perfect, most beautiful, most organized way, then I have created a peaceful utopia amidst the bustle of everyday church life. If I can just bring a few really good ideas to a committee and see them through to success, then I have created an affirming utopia where we are all empowered, and where I am in good graces. If I can wake up early on a sunny Saturday morning and walk first to the farmer's market and then to my favorite, idyllic coffee shop, then I have created a slice of small-town utopia that might trump whatever I loved or miss about suburban life.

I mean, I have this tendency to believe that if I put things together just-so, then I can create and appreciate a perfect little world around me, and be very, very happy.

The problem is that this doesn't actually work in real life.

It's not just that my office gets messy and disorganized sometimes, or that even my best efforts sometimes receive due critique. It's not just that sometimes I oversleep my alarm on Saturdays. And it's not even that the world is an unpredictable place, and I can't always control everything (as much as I'd like to).

The problem with endlessly seeking utopia is that you lose yourself in the process. When all of my time is spent organizing perfect parameters for my life, I don't actually get around to living that life.

Take yesterday, for example. It'd been a sleepy, frustrating sort of day. I spent the afternoon looking forward to going home, crashing on the couch, and knitting to the sound of silly television shows.

I got home, and pulled out my basket of knitting, but first decided that I was hungry and needed a good snack (a honeycrisp apple and peanut butter...yum). Once I had the perfect snack, I went back to the couch, and then had to find the perfect channel on TV before I could settle in to start knitting (that took two full cycles through all the channels, just to make sure I wasn't missing anything that happened to be at commercial during the first pass). And just in case somebody at church really needed me (and I wouldn't want to let anybody down), I probably needed to grab my phone and check my email one last time. Basically, it took me forever to get around to knitting, and I only finished a couple rows before it was time to start thinking about dinner.

Because everything needed to be just-so. Because I had to be perfectly set-up for my picturesque late afternoon of knitting. And in the process of setting myself up, I wasted all of the time I could have simply been knitting.

That's the thing about utopia. Work too hard to create your perfect world, and you never actually get around to enjoying it. Because you've put too much pressure on yourself to be perfect instead of being happy.

It's a lesson about life, surely, and about ministry. And about starting families and taking care of houses and doing all of that grown-up sort of stuff. We think that perfect will pave the way to happy. But perfect really just delays happy until sometime in the unknown future.

Which is not exactly how I want to live. Nor is it how my faith encourages me to live.

In Matthew 6 Jesus says, "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?...But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today's trouble is enough for today."

And in Revelation 21 I read, "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more...And the one who was seated on the throne said, 'See, I am making all things new.'"

We're not talking self-made utopia here. We're talking about trusting God in the stuff of today, and trusting God in the work of new, perfect creation. So how might I - how might each of us! - live in this space where we trust God more than we trust ourselves, where we stop trying to make things perfect, and instead focus on appreciating and loving this day and this blessed moment? Might we find that we are happier? More fulfilled? Less anxious?

I suspect so.

I must myself remember: I am not called to perfection. I am called to be faithful and gracious, generous and kind. And there is a big difference between those things.

Things I love

If you were to take a serious look at my online presence - Facebook, Twitter, Blogger - you would find that I am a horribly predictable person. Every Friday (my day off), there is a greater than 90% chance that I tweet or put up a FB status about what I plan to do with my day. Or a summary tweet in the afternoon talking about what I had already accomplished. Same goes for Saturdays when I have them free.

And that list of activities will always include at least two of the following: knitting, going to the Arboretum, going out for coffee, watching baseball, going to the farmer's market, or cooking/baking

If you were to expand out a bit and look at my day-to-day tweets and status updates, you'd find that more than half of them have to do with coffee (or tea), Bach, reading, writing, and eating.

I am one predictable and easy-to-figure out lady.

But here's the thing. I know what I like. And I know what feeds my soul. And I know what brings me balance.

Reading/writing: An old favorite. I love words. I love finding perfect words to describe what I'm seeing, thinking, or feeling. I love seeing how other people use words. This is probably also why I love writing sermons...

Knitting: It is the only form of visual art that I am good at. I am fascinated by color, I love touching soft things, I like that I can make something beautiful with my own two hands, and I am fascinated by the way that projects take shape. Bonus: I knit to knit, which leaves me with leftover projects without homes, which is GREAT for gift-giving.

Coffee: I blame my genetics for my love of coffee (the substance). I blame a particular group of high school friends for my love of coffee shops. Coffee is delicious, and going out for coffee is a change of pace and a change of scenery. So I use my coffee outings purposefully. I'm also very productive at coffee shops, so much sermon-writing happens there.

Cooking/baking/FOOD: I love eating. And if I love eating good food, then it follows that I love trying my best to MAKE good food. Part of it is the proud, creative, "I made this" feeling that also applies to knitting. And food is how my family celebrates and reunites. So cooking is about food and about sharing.

J.S. Bach: My favorite composer, hands-down. Fun to sing, fun to play, great to listen to. And something about Bach's music strikes me as profoundly ordered...and profoundly creative within that order. So it's definitely balance-restoring for me.

Morton Arboretum: A place I went to as a child, and now a place that is right up the road from where we live. Trees. Flowers. Hiking paths. Lots of land, so that even on crowded days, I can walk and hike and be all by myself. A great place to wander, or to bike, or to have a picnic. A fantastic place to bring my camera and pretend I'm a great nature photographer. And a great place to sit outside for a while, since we don't have a house with a lawn or anything right now.

So anyway, now you know a little more about my favorite things. I don't mind that I do nearly the same thing every weekend. And I don't mind that I tweet about it, even if there's nothing new under the sun to say about it.

How about you? What are the things that you come back to, over and over again, that bring you joy and peace and balance?

Whilst Waiting

I am looking looking looking for some sort of temporary employment while I await news of assignment - a month from now I learn my region and synod, and then start the process of getting matched up with a church, which could a short or long ordeal. In the meantime, between now and my start date for my first call, I'd love some sort of employment. So I comb Craigslist multiple times a day, I've sent my resume to a handful of potential employers, and I spent Friday wandering Michigan Avenue, stopping into retail establishments that looked interesting (applying at Argo Tea, Banana Republic, Ann Taylor, and the Apple Store).

And now I continue to wait. Wait for temporary employment. Wait for assignment. Wait for a first call.

In these past two post-internship, unemployed weeks, I find that there are some days when I can bring myself to do nothing at all of importance. These are the days that I help get Matt out of bed and on his way out the door to class, but then go back to bed until 10 or 10:30, and then spend my day flipping channels and surfing the internet and generally feeling slobby. There are other days, however, when I am a flurry of activity. Today, for instance, I cleaned the bathroom and the kitchen (and I mean REALLY CLEANED - floors washed and mopped, bathtub scrubbed, stovetop cleaned, the works!), and I did some laundry. I planned an impromptu dinner party for Wednesday night with my sister and my cousin, browsed recipes for said dinner party, experimented with making cold-brewed iced coffee (there's a batch steeping in the fridge as I speak), and caught up on some blog reading.

Tomorrow, I really need to finish the last of my unpacking, shove a lot of boxes into our small storage unit, vacuum everywhere, figure out what to make for Wednesday's dessert (and what wine I should buy...yay for an excuse to go to Trader Joe's!), and maybe do some more laundry if I can find more quarters. And maybe knit. I'm on the home stretch with this sweater I've been working on forever - done with the body, partway through the first sleeve.

But of course, there's also the chance that I wake up lazy tomorrow and play video games all day. Sigh.

It's intersting to see what happens when I mix unemployment and waiting.

I Need to Make a List

At some point, I will most certainly post about my brave decision to keep my "PhD Watch" list up for all to see, despite my apparent lack of success in getting accepted, and how I am working on dealing productively and positively with rejection, and how I could either be embarrassed by my lack of success or proud of my perseverance. And I will definitely let you all in on my vocational processing as I begin to re-envision myself entering the call process this fall, instead of 3-5 years from now. But for the moment, while I'm thinking to myself, "I must either be VERY called to ministry and God's making it obvious, or else I'm just stupid," I think that I need to make a list. I need to remind myself that I really am good at some stuff in life. One of my friends made a list like this for me when I was in high school, right after my best friend and my super-serious crush started dating. It's just good to remind myself that I indeed have gifts and talents.

So, without further ado, Things Melissa is Good At:

1. Hrm. Grammar. The title of this list really should be "Things at which Melissa is Good." But that sounds bizarre.

2. Knitting. And I love it. And all of these thoughts about an alternate plan for my future make me remember that in my dream world, I would open up a yarn store/coffee shop. Knitting, caffeine, and (hopefully) making money? Sounds good to me!

3. Singing in church. And perhaps singing in general. And appreciating classical music, both choral and orchestral.

4. Cooking. And baking. I think that I believe I'm good at this in part because I'm fearless. I'll try anything. And I'll eat anything, too, which is good for those times that my adventures turn out less-than-perfect.

5. Giving hugs.

6. Playing Scrabble. (Ok, so I'm not quite as good at this as my husband is - he ALWAYS beat ms! - but in general, I think I'm an above-average Scrabble player.)

7. Public speaking. I'm such an introvert, but definitely love speaking in front of a crowd.

8. Wearing my geekiness with pride. Whether it be related to music, computers, video games, liturgy, theology, whatever. I know my geeky sides well, and fully embrace them.

9. Related to #8, I'm good at being a goofball. And, for the most part, I've gotten over fearing being a dork. It's nice to know that by 26, I've outgrown most of my junior high insecurity...

10. Random things: driving in the city, cleaning the apartment (which is a VERY different thing than keeping the apartment clean, something that I am NOT good at!), bargain-hunting, clipping Emme's claws, being introspective/self-aware, being a family-gal, being a Cubs fan...

All right. Back to finishing my coffee, squeezing in a bit more work before 5:30, and then going to the church's knitting circle. :)

Too Pretty

I have found a new favorite thing in the whole world. And it's a favorite thing for many reasons.

I have, for the first time, taken a real look at Lorna's Laces yarns. Reasons that I am in love:

1. They are based out of Chicago. (My home-town pride runs deep!)
2. They name their yarns after a variety of things, including streets and neighborhoods in Chicago, and their two main lines of yarn (the regular and the new organic lines) are named the Purple Line and the Green Line, like the el. (There's that home-town pride again.) Examples: Uptown, Ravenswood, Lakeview, and Irving Park
3. In the spring, given their Chicago location, they have been known to specially dye yarn in the "Cubby Bear" colorway - Cubs red and blue - not to mention the "Go Bears" colorway that apparently was available this winter. (Ok, this Chicago-pride runs deep in me.)
4. Amazing colors. Like this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And I could go on and on...

So my two goals are to knit something out of the Uptown colorway and out of the Cubby Bear colorway. Maybe this will be my first foray into sock-knitting?

::swoon::

Happy Things

Here's what I love about today:

1. I ordered this yarn in this color to knit this pattern. I've been without a real project since Christmas, and I've been getting restless. So yay for a new project!

2. Vanilla cheesecake. Yum. It's out of the oven, cooling, about to go in the refrigerator for consumption late tonight.

3. We get to see Dawn and Brian tonight! Yes, lest you doubted, we actually do have friends, and we actually hang out with them once in a while. :) We're going to a Rockford Ice Hogs game. My first hockey game ever!

That's all for now. Happy Saturday night, everyone!

3:40pm

It is as dark as if it were 8pm outside right now - the same amount of light as mid to late twilight, post-sunset, pre-dark. And it is storming. Sheets and sheets of rain outside, cracking thunder, the whole bit.

It's a good afternoon to be me, knitting away on the couch, watching mindless - though not trashy - television. HGTV is good for that. (Oh, and on the knitting front, I'm making good progress on my Clapotis, in case you were wondering. It's very red-pink-yellow!) It's a good afternoon to be Matt working from home instead of going downtown via buses and rainy bus stops. It's a good afternoon to be a cat who likes curling up for naps.

If it were sunny out, I'd feel lazy for sitting around all afternoon like I have been. But during a thunderstorm, one would be silly NOT to be sitting around, doing simple slow things with no agenda and no guilt.

What a Combination

Two things that I love:
knitting
cooking/baking

Something that I aspire to be:
artsy/creative

The Perfect Combination:
knit night cupcakes

I'm totally impressed.

Brown Paper Packages Tied up with Strings

These are a few of my favorite things (that have arrived in the mail in the past couple days):

1. Big box o' knitting fun. Four skeins of Knitpicks Shimmer in the Happy Dance colorway for my imminent casting-on of Knitty's Clapotis, and 14 skeins of Knitpicks Wool of the Andes in a variety of brown tones for a secret project that will be unveiled at Christmastime.

2. Smaller box o' Lutheran fun. Three Lydia clergy shirts from Augsburg Fortress (which happened to be too big so I just sent them back this afternoon...oh well...), a cincture, and a book of choral anthems for my mom.

3. Smaller bag o' Lutheran fun via an Episcopalian website. An alb. White, boring, necessary.

4. Five little packages o' reading fun. The first five books Matt and I have mooched: Gilead, The Time Traveler's Wife, The Memory Keeper's Daughter, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Moneyball.

I like getting things in the mail that aren't advertisements for cable services or credit card offers. And all of the above packages carry their own elements of whimsy and entertainment. Even the clergy-wear. I move to Rockford this weekend, and somehow it makes me feel more official in my intern-pastor role to own my own garb.

Matt and I just returned from a five day whirlwind visit to New Jersey...I'll post about that soon. But for now, time to pack up half of the kitchen and add a few more boxes to my ever-growing pile of stuff to move!

Just in time for 80 degree weather...

...I finish knitting a wool-blend sweater and regret not being able to wear it for three months. So, without further ado, Mrs. Darcy:





The pictures aren't the best (I'm picky about being photographed), but at least you can get the idea of the shape and color of the sweater. I'm in love with it. I'm dying to start a new project, but I fear that I'm going to have a hard time picking a new pattern to work on, since this one was so pretty, so easy to knit, and fits me so well (I think I got lucky). Now, time to pack this away until September.

One free day, too many options

I don't have Friday class this year, but I usually work. Today, however, the Lab School has a day off, so I have the day completely free, but I haven't figured out what to do with it (which is sad, since it's already 2:30pm!)

I slept in until 10, and then ripped out some knitting that I'd been working on that wasn't doing anything that it was supposed to be doing. Since then, I've been working on yet another attempt at starting a sweater (doing it the right way this time: checking my gauge, finding the right needles, etc.), watching the Cubs/Cardinals game on TV, and eating leftover pad thai from dinner last night (yummmm.....)

Baseball, good food, and knitting. That's a pretty good combination.

But I'd also love to be hanging out in Wrigleyville, feeling the buzz of the game outside the walls of Wrigley Field. Or shopping and wandering in Lincoln Square, taking advantage of the beautiful weather. Or, speaking of beautiful weather, I'd be happy tossing a frisbee in the park, or at the beach, since both are within walking distance from our apartment. Or maybe it'd be nice to be reading a book and drinking coffee at Pause (and Smell the Coffee), or maybe outside under the umbrellas at Argo.

It's a free day and a beautiful day, and there are so many things I could be doing to enjoy it. But I am so indecisive!

My Morning Routine

What does it say about me that on non-class mornings, I get up, and after reading the comics and doing a quick email check, I settle on the couch to knit while watching the food network?

Or what does it say about me that I got totally inspired by reading some food blogs last night before bed and already know what I'm cooking for dinner tonight? (Salmon cakes and sesame snow peas, if you're curious.)

Apparently the feminism is in me is totally cool with loving the domestic (not that this is a big surprise or anything)...

My Plan

Update #3: Well, it's 11:56 and I'm done with everything I needed to get done. Given that I have to leave the apartment by 7am to get to class by 8, I don't know that it'd be wise to stay up any later for the sake of knitting, but I'm probably going to do it anyway. Perhaps a half-hour limit? :) See you in the morning!

Update #2: It is now 10:43pm, and I have to admit that I ended up getting myself very sidetracked. I've accomplished no work since my last update. Will I still be able to squeeze in some knitting tonight? Stay tuned...

Update #1: It is 9:19pm, and my paper is finished! So I now 41 minutes left to organize my group's notes if I plan on keeping to my "schedule." I have a knitting date at 10pm!


Fueled by leftover Stir Crazy stir-fry (consisting of tofu, water chestnuts, bean sprouts, broccoli, bamboo shoots, red cabbage, peanuts, and brown rice in a sweet and spicy Thai bbq sauce), and with both half a glass of diet black cherry vanilla Coke and half a cup of coffee sitting on the end table next to me (should I need them), with the Padres/Dodgers game on TV in the background, I am going to power through the last page of the research paper I've been writing for the past week on Andreas Osiander, the Lutheran confessions, and the concept of justification as the indwelling of Christ. It's been slow goings thus far, but I'm on the home stretch, so I will find a way to meaningfully interpret all of my research in order to write a page on "why the heck this all matters" and to write a pithy conclusion paragraph or two. And then after my paper is done, I will organize a pile of research for a group project that I'm a part of. And then...hopefully around 10:00 or so, if all goes well...I will KNIT.

I'm in one of those moods where the only thing I want to be doing when I should be doing homework is knitting. I've been working on a lacy scarf and making good progress, and I've ripped out the beginnings of one sweater that I'd started while ago (I've found so many better project ideas since then!), and started a new sweater with that yarn, which I also then ripped out, and have now dedicated that yarn to a new set of projects that I promise I will not rip out.

I'd bookmarked this tank top a while ago, and it's the perfect project for me right now, and the yarn I have will work nicely for it. And then, I tripped upon this shrug/cropped sweater, and I think that I can make it work in the same yarn, so if all goes well, I'll have myself an interesting variation on a twinset. I'm very excited about these projects, and would MUCH rather be knitting right now than working on a paper and a group project. But this is my incentive: do my work efficiently, and thus leave myself time for some pre-bedtime knitting.

I'll let you know how things go...