Purging

Do you want a planter? How about Monoploy? No?? Well how about some great ski boots, or some puzzles? How about a few dozen kitchen gadgets or some great dishes, a whole set or two? We're getting rid of it all this and more. OK, most of it is gone already. The Goodwill and The Salvation Army have been our frequent drop-off place almost every day.

It makes me ponder: How much stuff can one family accumulate? !!! I thought we were fairly good at getting rid of stuff we don't need, and also avoiding unnecessary acquisitions. I must have been fooling myself.

Yes, books are yarn are stockpiled here, but the rest....it's just stuff.

The amazing thing is the feeling I have now it's mostly gone. I am freed, somehow. That stuff that we loved welcoming in our our home carried a burden with it. The need to store, to maintain and to use, display or love all those things was a burden. It was part of what made us feel insulated within suburbia. It was part of the desire to break out.

The next two years of training will be in a home much smaller. It'll be good for us.

Strangely, I have noticed a new desire, however....the desire to fill up the cupboards with new and better stuff. I've got my eye on a GPS for travel and feeling our way around a new state. I've got my eye on a new Kuerig coffee maker (did I spell that right?). And I know my kids need new clothes ( #3 doesn't have any long pants/jeans). It isn't that I object to getting the things we need....it's just the WAAANTING of them I wish I could avoid. I was hoping I was changing. Guess I'll have to be content with my mind changing and having my heart try to struggle to follow my mind.

Anyway....did I show my house socks yet? I made them while watching the TV show, HOUSE. Yes, the blue looks like his eyes, doesn't it? Oh, and I finished my first event in the Ravelympics. I finished the Scarf Stroke and the WIP Wrestling events when the Easy Flame Lace Scarf cast off a couple of days ago. Ravelry acknowledged the win with an award...see up top. Phelps and Luikin must be jealous. ;-)

In Which I Pretend to be a Photographer...

Bear with me...I had fun with these. Nothing special on the point and shoot camera, and no special settings, just the usual automatic.


I had such fun with the photos which appeared, the blue in the end of the wings and the details. I couldn't believe they came out, because the butterfly never really stopped moving.

Nature

We've been interested in nature lately. This fungus started cropping up yesterday. It grew by the inch every few hours:This one is showing her nature:So is this one:
This one...not so much. I had to tell her to close her mouth and stop talking. Three times.
Showing her music-long nature, this one fiddles with her iPod.
We're getting rid of stuff. Purging half our house, and it feels good. Goodwill is getting some great stuff. We're getting lighter.
More pictures of the gorgeous swallowtail butterfly to come.

Tammy's Birthday

Today, my dear friend Tammy and I are going to visit Wild Fiber and A Mano yarns in the Santa Monica area. Hopefully she'll let me take her out to lunch as well. Her friendship is something I cherish. Go give her some blogging love!


We went to Wildfiber, A Mano Yarn Center and also Unwind in Burbank...and we had a fabulous lunch at Border Grill.

Thanks for giving me an excuse for an afternoon avoiding responsibilities, Tammy. Oh....and Happy Birthday.

New Babies and (gasp) New Housing

(Here I am, trying to pretend everything is normal, day to day. So for this moment, the knitting will begin the post.) I do love have another baby to knit for. A firefighter friend and his wife are expecting their first child and I get to give her a little gift before we leave. Can you guess the pattern?
It's the Mason-Dixon Knitting book's One-Piece Baby Kimono. I am in love with the colors here (which I had in my stash). It looks like Spumoni to me. The colors didn't photograph very well, but let me tell you...mmm..mm!
And these will be for cleaning the little one. Washcloths.
Why another picture of the four washcloths? I am not sure. I think maybe I am a little frenetic right now, trying to hold myself together while our whole lives are turning topsy-turvey.
You see, we rented a house yesterday. In our new town of Edwardsville Illinois. The nicest Realtors are there. Now begins the flurry of moving....

Big News

Many of you have known about the new turn our family is taking. For the rest of you, we are changing things in a big way! DH is leaving his job with the fire dept. (!!!) Then he'll train for a year to take his private pilot license up to a commercial (and instrument rating etc) until he is a capable commercial pilot. Then another year of airframe and powerplant school to learn to fix everything on an airplane. From there, he plans to join with an agency like Mission Aviation Fellowship to fly planes for them.

So, for the next two years the whole family will be in the St Louis area while John does the training. From there, serving overseas. Whew!

Why? Well, it started out with "why not?" We have the means and the desire to go...to help people, to reach out of our safety bubble in suburbia and follow the Lord in touching people who are hurting in isolated places. As we looked into it, realizing that God had put the desire there long ago for each of us, and brought us carefully here to this decision, we have become firm in our plans. Our kids are even on board, and we are eager to see how they will be changed by this adventure. And yes, it is an adventure which is big...really big. We imagine that we will be somewhere overseas in about 2-3 years, maybe Africa or Indonesia...who knows?!

Prayer requests:

A good family to rent our house

A home to rent in in the St Louis area

Strength and energy to get it all done

Humble hearts as we embark on this Journey...