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SachikoSays

Last Sunday 4 of the 5 kids were in the Sacrament Meeting Primary Program, which means we had to actually get there on time. And not our usual "on time" which for us means "on time for the second hour", ON. TIME.  

We got to take the sacrament and everything! And saw the inside of the chapel! We were very excited.

I died about 5 times, hoping the kids wouldn't foobar their parts and cheering inwardly when they did great.

The dark moment was when we realized that 6yo Honeybee was supposed to have brought a part she'd written herself, and she didn't have it, and we had to find paper and a pencil while I frantically composed an appropriate message, but in my best printing so she could read it, and then Dragoon church ninja'd from the cultural hall folding chairs where we were, up to the stand by the mike where Honeybee was,and got the note to Honeybee just in time.      

ISecond hour started on a good note, then.

Here's something I just found out last week--this particular bunch of kids has gone through  7 Sunday School teachers in  3 years. It's my ward's Defense Against the Dark Arts position.

Which I had no idea of until AFTER I'd already accepted the calling. "Hey, SIster Sachiko just moved in, let's call her!" Wot cunning bishopric members we have.

Attempting to teach my SS kids was hard, especially at first.

But those setting-apart blessings the bishoprics give for callings are no joke. In mine, Bro. Next Door Neighbor promised me that I'd have love and concern for the young adults I would teach, and you know, I do. Even when they're stinkers. I really, really like them.

On this Sunday, 2 kids showed up. The single girl in the class--pity her--and the boy who plays in a rock band and who says he's leaving the church as soon as he's 18. Brother Rock Band is a great kid and a lot of fun, because he actually talks. In class! The first time I taught him, he showed up in white shirt and tie with a raging, puking hangover. I wanted to applaud him. Not for partying, but for still showing up for church, in a church shirt. That is really something.

I chatted with them while I was taping church pictures and scripture quotes to the board and then said, "Dangit, I know more people are here! I saw them. Where are they?"

Bro. Rock Band said, "I'll go find them," and I said, "Oh, would you? Thanks so much!" and he left. That's when my mental afterburner kicked in and I watched his retreating back, thinking, Brillian, Sister Sachiko, you just encouraged a kid to sluff Sunday School. He's not coming back. Way to go, chump. Now you're down to one young adult.

One of the elders we fed last Friday passed by and I waved and said hi, and one thing led to another and he joined the class. I really like the one girl I teach, but class gets weird when it's just me and her. I think she finds my undivided teacher attention tiring and I don't blame her.

We had the opening prayer and were into the second quote when Brother Rock Band reappeared!  with no less than FOUR other 16yo young men in tow. I leapt up and just about hugged him.

We actually filled every folding chair in the room.

More kids are a mixed blessing, because I'm more nervous, but the spiritual/emotional payoff is higher if I can manage to teach a good lesson. Probably not too different from stand-up comics playing to larger audiences, except I have new material every time.

Havingthe elder there was a huge help and I can't recommend them highly enough. I urge you to get your own misisonary, for they are handy in most situations, especially ones involving teenage boys at church.

Everytime the boys threatened to take the class off course the elder snapped them right back into line.

And when one boy asked a question about the history of the priesthood, I didn't know, but the Elder stepped right in with about 5 minutes of condensed history of the Melchizadek priesthood. Blew me away.

I'm so ignorant about the priesthood, I didn't even realize how ignorant I was, until yesterday. It's not like priesthood manuals have a "NO GURLS ALOWED" on the front, but they might as well have, for all that I haven't studied it. That's something I'll have to fix immediately.

Like I said, Missionaries: Get One Today!

 
 
SachikoSays
27 October 2009 @ 10:49 am
We're a bunch of soup freaks here. My kids can't get enough of it, and chicken noodle soup is their favorite.

I'm not a recipe fan myself, but I know some of you are, so here ya go.

The one I made yesterday used homemade egg noodles, lots. I made those first and then started in on the actual soup.

I used the traditional chicken soup ingredients, except I dialed the parsley and sage back a bit, and instead added a good deal of minced fresh garlic (sauteed in butter with the onions) while I microwaved frozen chicken breasts with a splash of soy sauce on 'em.

I added chopped napa cabbage to the celery, stirred in red miso paste with the chicken base, and instead of chopping the carrots I used a peeler to shred them them straight into the pot.

I always add some kind of fruity splash at the end of the cooking, a can of Sprite (Mountain Dew works REALLY well for this) or apple juice. This time I used pickled ginger and minced fresh pineapple.

At that point in my soups, when the meat's in, the veggies are crisp-tender and the noodles/rice/potatoes are cooked, I stop the whole thing from overcooking by adding a bag of frozen veggies. This time it was chopped turnip greens. In soup it takes on a texture and flavor that's very seaweed-like that we all love, especially in a miso-based hot noodle soup.
 
 
SachikoSays
27 October 2009 @ 10:45 am
2yo Moose is just entering that age where kids notice the family culture and begin to assimilate. (resistance is futile.)

He's noticed that offenses like burping, farting and swearing are lightly disciplined but mess with anything toilet related and Mommy will find you and open a can of Monk.

I'm going to need to buy more lotion if I'm going to be engaging in this kind of frequent and rigorous hand washing.
 
 
SachikoSays
23 October 2009 @ 04:43 pm

Dragoon woke up raspy and tired after a long night of coughing. No, no fever, I thought swine flu too. He's had this crud creeping up on him for awhlie now.

We're having the missionaries for dinner tonight. That is, the missionaries are coming over, and we are having dinner, with them. No cannibalism! (At least not this time. Maybe if a nice Tongan elder gets transferred to the area I'll ready my headhunting gear. )

Also today is rainy and blustery and fresh and there are brightly colored leaves blowing everywhere. Very cozy.

I set two chickens to roast while schooling with the kids--among other things, we talked about pie charts and the schwa and the definition of "persecution" and how to use a dictionary--and then the kids helped me roll out and cut homemade egg noodles and slice veggies for chicken noodle soup.

After lunch, I made a cherry pie. I can't flute the edge like my mom can, but I figured something kinda symmetrical out. My only real problem with pie-making is that the whole time I'm doing it, I flashback to the kitten pie scene in Young Einstein. I find myself gingerly poking the top crust to make sure nothing's meowing in there.

I had to call my mom to ask about making temps and times. My mom truly makes the best pies ever; I have never eaten a better pie, not from any store or restuarant, with a buttery, flaky, delicate crust and heaps of filling. My uncle Mike accused my dad of marrying Mom for her pies, a charge which might hold up in court.

The kids are fooling with the scraps now with the kid-sized rolling pin.

Chief had a lack-of-impulse-control moment when he took it upon himself to smear frosting all over an empty spare piecrust I made, for in case anyone wanted a pie made from frozen blueberries and whipped cream. But he's working off the offense now by doing the dishes.

I fretted about whether the missionaries will like roasted chicken and rice. Dragoon rolled his eyes and said, "It's better than what they'll make for themselves", so I've decided not to worry about it.

I've learned to pep-talk myself on the mediocre days when it seems like nothing gets done; it's a nice sort of odd to have a day when I do get things done.

 
 
SachikoSays
23 October 2009 @ 04:21 pm

9yo Chief has sprouted out of his fit-him-last-month-jeans, so it was off to Goodwill yesterday to scrounge up some more. Luckily his hand-me-downs are always in great shape.

Chief's skinny, skinny enough that if I photographed him in shorts, crouching next to a brown puddle, and Photoshopped in flies, he'd be an Atmit ad.

He never wears his clothes out, because they hang on him like he's a coat hanger. So they're in perfect condition to pass down to 7yo Slayer, who promptly does wear them out. She thinks she needs to walk on her knees or something.

Plus I needed to pick up more bedsheets for fabric for the giant quilted pillowcases I'm making the kids for Christmas. We have a LOT of blankets but not enough pillows, so I sew these big, pretty quilted and lined pillowcases, stuff them with folded-up blankets, and tie them shut. And, viola, a personalized pillow big enough to be a headboard/seat cushion for when kids read in bed.

I love shopping at Goodwill. I pause for a moment at the door and look at everything and think, "I can afford anything in here." Makes me heady.

Guess what I found? A chaise loungue! Big, soft, comfy, and only thirthy bucks!

Of course the pattern is violently pink, purple and floral, and is a little stained and torn, but that's really a relief. Like when we bought Sherman The Suburban, and Dragoon pointed out a little dent in the back door and I sighed in relief. Because that meant we wouldn't be the first ones to dent the poor car.

I bought a $5 king-sized cream cotton throw and covered the lounge and my living room has enough seating now for kids not to have to curl up on the dog bed. A habit I especially deplored when we were on the way to church.

The kids are happy because now they can play Can't Touch The Floor! across 70% of the living room. My living room's pergo floor looks amazing for having burst into flaming magma several times in the past two days.

Plus I found great sheets. There are people around here who buy silky pima cotton sheets from Costco, or Eddie Bauer, or Pottery Barn, and then give them away at the least provocation. 

I've talked about this with my other cheapskate Mormon friends. Most of us have gotten baby outfits from someone who had one, maybe 2 kids. These people bought clothes new, maybe only on sale and not clearance or maybe even (stuttering here) Full. Price.  

Just because *I* can't imagine walking into the Gap or Gymboree and buying something full price, doesn't mean it doesn't happen. It does, I know it does, because it's what my kids wear 2-5 years later when the big-spending parent gives away their kids' clothes. 

I'm not judging. This is symbiosis here. If it weren't for some parents buying trophy wear for their babies, my babies would end up in the stuff my other kids have used or, worse, the stuff other Mormon families have used. We're talking shredded dustrags here. My Mormon friends are wonderful for canning and quilting with, but the best baby clothes come from Outside. 
 
Now I get to have silky pima cotton at $0.50/yd that I can sew into stuff for me and my kids. I will probably never be one of those people who buys expensive stuff and gives them away quick, but I am very grateful for those people.
 

 
 
SachikoSays
23 October 2009 @ 04:13 pm


A couple of days ago Dragoon came home from work to show me a YouTube video--this one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ervaMPt4Ha0

and I promptly felt ashamed of myself. In a good way.

Most of my problems are of the fridge-too-full variety. (you know: Dang, the fridge is too full, now what do I do with all this stuff? Don't crack the eggs!)

It's good to wake up and remember the sacrifices a lot of people are making, so that I can be safe here at home with my kids and my too-full fridge. I am so grateful to the men and women in the US Armed Forces for all their sacrifices. 

I'm the daughter, sister and wife of former military. I understand a little what it's like to have someone deployed but of course I've never had to experience one of my loved ones not coming home. God bless everyone missing someone they love, but especially those who've had to lose someone.

Dragoon and I are searching for some way we can help, and I'm hoping whatever we find is something the kids can do, too. Anybody out there know of a good charity or care package group? 

 

 

 
 
SachikoSays
18 October 2009 @ 07:20 am

Last Sunday's whinging and wall-kicking is done and guess what this week's lesson is on? Temporal and spiritual self-reliance!

( I think someone's trying to tell me something, hee. )

I typed scriptures about things that we can allow to hold us back (debt, lack of preperation, idleness) and taped them to 2 1/2 weights and put them into a bag. I'm going to have each kid pull a weight out of the bag, read the scripture, and then we'll discuss it.

It's the "discuss it" that can be tricky. When I first got this group of kids, the only discussion went on between crickets andt eh church's ventilation system..
 
Now some of them actually TALK! And this after actually SHOWING UP! People who don't believe in miracles need to meet my Sunday School teenagers.

As for how I'm going to handle the kids, a friend of mine reminded me that my primary calling is as Mom, and if I'm ditching a crying child with someone else, they're only going to learn early to dislike church. True. I'm on my fifth kid in nursery and I still forget that.

She suggested I take clinging kids to my class, so the student-kids can see a wordless lesson in parenting.

Also true, and that's a lesson I would have appreciated as a 16yo.

When I was 16, I was only 3 years away from Chief being born. I really could have used a lot more of the basic How To Be An Adult lessons, but my YW leaders stressed that we didn't need to know;  we were all going to go to college and go on missions and be very careful about who we married and wouldn't become parents for a long time yet. In that context, "Marrying" started to sound like "voluntarily contracting HIV". But I digress.

My friend reminded me also that conversion is up to the individual, and if the kids don't show up, it's on their heads. And that part of this calling is for me to be edified by the lesson prep, which just about never fails.

Most weeks, preparing my lesson is the spiritual highlight of my week. Which isn't to say I leap through buttercups in eager anticipation of preparing it. If only, eh?

Usually I forget about it until Saturday, and then  facepalm "Oh yeah, I'm a Sunday School teacher!" and then I run to lds.org, open a Word doc, pray, and then it comes together in about an hour.  

The praying helps the most, I think.

My irritation ("I'm a busy homeschooling mom, like I want to be putting lesson plans together every single day of the week! When's my break?")

and anxiety ("Is this the week the teenagers eat me alive? What's my response going to be when That Kid swears or wants to talk about sex stuff again? How hard can I kick him without the bishop disciplining me?")

are replaced with a steely calm.

Steely Calm is not my usual MO, so I know that it arrives from an outside, higher source. Hoo boy, I am happy to have it.

I've got my policy in place--Motherhood is my most important calling; my students are responsible for showing up and showing respect; I'm responsible for preparing the lesson.
 
 
SachikoSays
15 October 2009 @ 04:24 pm

Some days I think the kindest, most unselfish thing I can do for my work-in-progress is to wrap it in newspaper and leave it on the doorstep of a real writer.

Except the real writers are all busy with their own babies. Ones with legs.

My poor, poor story-baby.
 
 
SachikoSays
12 October 2009 @ 03:57 pm

Before I vent, a little defensive explanation: Dragoon isn't a morning person, especially not on Sundays, and I probably cursed myself by shopping at WinCo at 6 am Sunday morning.

But it meant that by the time church started at  9 am, Dragoon had just gotten up and I'd already been slinging groceries, Tetris-ing them in the fridge, feeding kids, riding herd on kids to get ready for church, making sure my lesson plans for Sunday School were okay, getting myself showered, etc. since 6 am.

Dragoon got up late enough it was a choice between him helping me get the kids out the door, or getting himself out the door, and bless him, he bathed and combed and braided and buttoned dresses and I pulled out of the driveway 10 minutes before Second Hour with his promise that he'd join us there as soon as he could shower and get in a suit.

Newly 4yo Cherry Blossom didn't want to go to Primary. She wanted to go to Nursery with Moose. I pleaded, discussed, watched the people rushing through the halls, and finally let her stay in Nursery. And got to my own classroom late enough that clearly the 16yos that I had seen and KNEW were there, and had brought treats for, had clearly assumed I was a No-Show and had absconded.

One showed up--the only girl in the class--and my flop sweat settled down until the Sunday School President was suddenly towering in the doorway, with 6yo Honeybee in tow.

"She wouldn't go to the chapel with the other Primary kids to practice for the program," he said.

I fixed a gimlet eye on Honeybee and said, 'Oh really."

Sunday School Prez quickly said, "Oh, she's not being bad. She just refused to do anything but sit in the Primary room."

He left, and I said to the poor 16yo girl in my class, "I'll be right back" and took Honeybee the the chapel and said, "Look, there's Slayer and Chief, go stand by them."

"I can't," she said. "I need to be with family."

"They are family,"  I said.

"I fight with them sometimes," Honeybee said. "I need to be with you or Dad. But That Man (the S.S. Prez) wouldn't give me paper and a pen."

Honeybee is normally our sunshiniest, but her mouth turned down and her blue eyes filled up.

"The Primary room is our meetingplace and Daddy doesn't know we're in the chapel today and I was going to write him a note so he'd know where we are when he gets to church but That Man wouldn't let me and so I was going to sit there until he got to church so Daddy wouldn't get lost!" And she was crying, and mortified that she was crying.

So I agreed to let her stay in my class.

but when I offered her the folding chair next to where I was sitting, she said, "No, thank you, I don't need you to talk to me or touch me, I just need to be in the same room" and she went behind the chairs and sat herself primly on the floor. And was completely silent until Third Hour started.

Now, I love teaching Sunday School. I really, really like those kids, and I've felt so fortified by the experiences and inspiration I've had while preparing lessons. And all that.

But the crucial Being There On Time is giving me absolute fits. I sat there looking at those empty chairs where the teenagers weren't because I was late, and I seriously thought about giving an ultimatum to my husband: Next week, get up on time OR tell the Bishop to release me from this calling.

That's not fair, though. Dragoon likes to sleep in, and even if he wanted to change that in the next 6 days it would take time. And it wasn't like he gave me attitude or didn't rush around, helping me as much as he could. He did, and I am grateful.

But that conflict is still there. Yes, teaching Sunday School is very nice for *me* but am I being a blessing to the Sunday School Presidency that's counting on me being there, on the teenagers who may be half-hoping I won't show up so they can get away with playing hooky?

I did everything I could to get us there on time, short of taking a belt to my childrens' backsides, and we were still late.  I've brought this up before with other mothers, and responses come from all along the spectrum from "We've never been late to church and Sunday School is an easy calling, what are you doing wrong?" to the blessed, blessed admission of my friend in Idaho, the mom of 15, whose husband said cheerfully "We were NEVER on time to church while we had kids at home. Just didn't happen."

And--this is something I'm not proud of--I worried that eyes were on me. I worried,  What if people were thinking, "Oh, typical, homeschooling's ruined her kids. Mommy's so overprotective that she can't even get them to go to Primary."  A good opportunity for me to become more humble and to remind myself that what other people think of me is none of my business. I think that NOW. But when I was cold-sweating with a unhappy child in the chapel, all I could think was, "Stop looking at us."

The kicker there is that if I were so overprotective, I wouldn't be freaking out about my lesson and class and desperately scraping my kids off on any willing ward member. As I tried to do.

I know a lot of sisters are single moms all the time, or are married to nonmembers and always are the sole parent at church. 

 I remember the SuperSisters I lived near on the USAF Academy who braved deployments and got all their kids to church anyway and did their harder-than-Sunday-School callings, and that was WITH a long drive and dealing with gate security.

Oh, ladies, I bow to you. I don't know how you do it. I don't know how any of you do it. I have reportedly the easiest calling in the church and I still feel like having panic attacks every weekend. How DO you do it? Are you all drinking Listerine or something?



 

 
 
SachikoSays
08 October 2009 @ 03:18 pm
I am LOVING this stuff.

I'm handquilting a cream/red crown of thorns wall quilt and used Press 'n' Seal to first trace a tri-leaf stem and then stuck it on the quilt and needled right through it. And ripped it all off after. Looks great! Very easy.

One word of caution: I traced the leaf/stem pattern with black Sharpie. Some of the ink went through with the needle.

Now, I like that the quilting has a slightly darker color that makes it more noticable. But there are some of you, many, I'm guessing, who just heard "sharpie" and "quilt top" in the same sentence and are now breathing into a paper bag.

No problem. You all can just use a light-colored water-soluble (washable) marker instead of a Sharpie. Easy peasy. Have fun!
 
 
SachikoSays
08 October 2009 @ 03:13 pm
So on our way back from judo last Monday, 9yo Chief, 7yo Slayer and I are stopped at the light and watching the crosstraffic.

A big shiny metal double-decker livestock semi crosses in front of us in the southbound lane.

Slayer : "Look! Ponies! PONEEZ!"

Me, squinting: "Looks more like pigs, honey."

Slayer: "Yuck! Pigs stink!"

Me: "And that's why our windows are up."

Slayer: "Why do we even have to have stinky pigs, anyway?"

Me: "Weren't you asking me for bacon just this morning?"

Slayer, grudgingly: "Yeaaaah....."

Chief (who'd been reading): "It's not what's on the outside, but what's on the inside that counts."
 
 
SachikoSays
03 October 2009 @ 09:19 pm

General Conference today was great. Between sessions I made a big lunch--grilled cheeseburgers and salmon.

That's the last of the free stuff that FIL's given us. From here on out, we're going to have to do like everyone else and pay $$$ for our fresh fish from Costco. I'm okay with that.

But I didn't used to be.

Usually I try to justify the cost of, say, raspberries, by rationing everyone to 1/8th of a pint per day. How Dickensian of me.

I fall into this trap falsely labeled "Good Steward", where I think I need to mentally spreadsheet where every bite of food is going, and put off letting us eat the good stuff for as long as possible. It's not just the food. I was mentally Excel-ing my emotional and physical bandwidth too, and holding back from really serving people (especially my family people), because of a percieved shortage of self.

This is how I earned my t-shirt  MOM: Where Fun Goes To Die.

I ruin our enjoyment of things with that miserly attitude. I've lost more than a few wonderful things to freezer burn, because it was never a "special enough" time to warrent finally thawing and grilling that precious frozen steelhead.

This last week I tried something new--I let us eat the food.

We use stuff up. We eat it all. I let my kids eat the berries within the first two days of the Costco trip. You know, before the berries on the bottom layer get all nasty and have to be thrown out anyway.

At first I felt like I was just flushing money down the toilet, because I have this mental disconnect that somehow the berries are less expensive if I make them last over a longer period of time. If I'm sparing enough.

Instead, I'm finding that if I feed my family in abundance and consider the lilies, that somehow our supply gets refreshed, with what we need, when we need it. Not for free, but, within our budget.

I've always thought that I am more a candidate to needing to learn how to conserve my resources; if you've seen me in full Retail Zombie mode at Wal-Mart you'd agree. I am not the best at saving money. I don't make everything homemade. Coupons give me hives.

I pondered it today during General Conference. My conclusion: How does the widow with the Elijah-blessed cruse of oil know it's an ever-repleneshing cruse, unless she uses enough of its oil for it to require divine replenishment?

Lately I've applied this idea of manna to my writing dailies. I show up and write 1000 words every day, without thought of what I need to write tomorrow. I don't freak out about my writing, re: Is it good enough? anymore. I do it, it's done, it's what I could offer today, now we move on.

Sufficient unto the day is the plotline thereof, you know what I'm saying?

I'm wondering, where else in my life am I hoarding manna and relying on my own mortal devices to see me through, and preventing God from showing me how I can rely on Him?









 
 
SachikoSays
01 October 2009 @ 04:46 pm
half the time, when I cook Japanese food, it's because we don't have enough clean forks in the house and I have to fall back on chopsticks.
 
 
SachikoSays
30 September 2009 @ 11:33 am

She's four!

I get obsessed with numbers and dates when I'm in my third trimester. I like birthdates that are easy to remember.

In Cherry Blossom's case I got obsessed with having a September baby. Long story short, I was enough along in labor to get admitted but still had to get Pitocin and the whole works. And she was born maybe an hour before October started.

Dragoon went to get party supplies with the girls last night, including whipped cream in a can. She has been adamant abotu that. "Because," she said, "when the can's empty, it TOOFS!" and then she shrieks with laughter. 

Blossom said that for her birthday present she wanted a box with necklaces and bracelets in it. 
I took the boys with me to a craft store.  9yo Chief was very helpful, picking out gifts for his little sister and helping 2yo Moose to stay happy.

I bought:

a photo-storage box, pink floral design
beads and elastic cord
 5 little craft boxes with lids (shaped like a star, heart, egg, star and square)
5 scrapbook stickers
1 plastic harmonica
1 plastic squishy toy
1 roll pink plaid ribbon
1 egg Silly Putty
2 slap bracelets

Then last night after playing Liahona and putting the kids in bed, Dragoon and I watched Hidalgo while we strung beads into necklaces and bracelets.

I'd just like to take a moment to applaud my husband for Excellent Daddying. He usually likes to clean one of his guns when we're watching a movie, or not watch one at all and just go fix one of our cars instead, but last night he not only strung our daughter's name in beads onto the cord, he looked down at the pearl-looking beads and said,

"It's just not right. See, the proportions are off, and there needs to be better contrast between the letter beads and the pearly ones."

He slid the offending beads off and then he seperated the few hundred pearl beads by size into three groups, and then redid the necklace, which of course looks very nice.

What a guy! He usually very focused on solving problems, usually ones involving the house or the cars or writing code at work, but I've noticed how much I benefit if/when I can garner that problem-solving ability to work on my projects. To figure out how to place quilt blocks, say, or what color to paint the kitchen, or what plot device to use in my WIP. That's why I tell Dragoon everything about what I'm writing; he's so useful.

Anyway, back to Cherry Blossom: We love you, Muppet, and we're so glad you joined our family. I hope you like the treasure box your father and I made for you.
 
 
SachikoSays

While quilting, I mused on how what kept me from trying hand-quilting soonerg was the way hand-quilting had been built up in my mind by some quilters I've known. Like many of us, they made their skill seem far more demanding than it really is.

I wonder how many things a lot of us don't try, because someone at some point made it sound harder and more complicated than it is.

Today I decided that my way to get past that  "this is really hard, so don't do it unless you're an expert" bullcrap is to try new things for myself, with permission to fail, and keep trying until I improve and begin to see how simple and fun that task can actually be.


Several years ago, I was actually afraid of painting walls a different color than white. I know, pathetic. 

The instructions I read made a biiiiig deal about prepping the walls with cleaners and spackle and primer and having the many many tools and mask, and choosing JUST the right color.

My heart hammered when I pried open the paint can and starting putting the paint on the walls. I was so worried I'd "do it wrong" and the Paint Police would arrest me. I was born with a congenital lack of respect for authority, so it was a totally irrational fear. I own that.

Many walls and colors later, I now know that not every wall requires the enormous $$ prep that Home Depot tells you it needs. I've primed maybe twice in my life. Every other time, I've just slopped the paint right on and it's turned out fine.

I've used several different kinds of paint, and I'm no Consumer Reports but I can't tell the difference in application, clean-up or durability between the premium Valspar/Behr/Sherman-Williams paint and the cheapest Color Place brand from Walmart.

And now I know that if I put a color on the wall that turns out to suck...it's pretty easy to paint over.

I have a friend who painted her son's room last year. It's the first room they've ever made Not White. They did the whole song-and-dance--the obsessive Matching Of Colors; the full prep over the course of days; then the careful, careful application.

My friend says she's not painting any more rooms in her house, and I don't blame her. If I had to to go through that rigamarole every time I painted, I'd never paint either.

Perfect is the enemy of the good.


So, as of this blog entry, that's one of my goals in life--to keep trying new things until they stop being scary, and until I can reduce them, mentally, to their simplest and most enjoyable parts.

Successful painting = find a color you like and smear it on the wall. Let dry. That's it. 

You can apply paint to the wall via roller, paintbrush, Mr. Bean's teddy bear, fingers, rags, whatever.

Unless your wall is seriously nasty, prep work can be kept to a minimum.

And I've never needed a mask.

I'm so happy to have hit this point in sewing and quilting--that I don't have to be limited by patterns I find and buy, but rather can make my own, of whatever I like.


I make my daughters' skirt patterns myself now, with Sharpies on the back of wrapping paper. I can't follow a bought pattern for jack--Burda-lexia?--but making my own is fun and easy. Especially for simply tiered or A-line skirts. I've even made reversible wrap-arounds for them.

I've met a lot of people who are terrified at the thought of sewing clothes.

Maybe part of the problem is that a good portion of the people I know who sew clothes these days are old-school hard-core heirloom enthusiasts. Which means they're all about the linen and fine cottons and pintucks and faggoting stitches.

Yeah. I don't touch that stuff. Maybe someday, if it looks like fun, but for now, I'm more than happy making functional, every day stuff that I don't mind the kids wearing when they're playing in the dirt.

The thing that really set me free in learning to sew clothes was getting $1/yd fabric from Walmart. It was so cheap and ugly I didn't mind making mistakes practicing on it, and that was invaluable experience.

Hand quliting isn't rocket science. Seriously, it's not hard and is fun to try. All you need is a needle and thread and something to keep the quilt layers mostly taut while you work on it. I drew my design on freehand with waterproof marker (You may prefer chalk; I live on the edge ;D ) and it looked fine. Really.

This is what I've found with quilting: 99% of people will think what you made is great, maybe even amazing. They'll praise even the simplest quilts. That other 1% you're afraid of? That you're scrambling to make your stuff look good enough for? No matter how nice your stuff is, they'll find something to criticize. So screw them, and please yourself.

My daily writing goal since March has been 1000-2000 words a day. 1K/day seems to be my minimum for keeping my head in my story on a regular basis.

Even up till a couple of weeks ago, I was fretting and obsessing and ulcerating about my WIPs. Where my characters right? Was I working in the subplots correctly? How was my dialogue paced? Oh dear heavens am I writing total and utter crap?!? How am I ever going to get these novels done soon so I can submit them soon so I can publish soon? Oh woe, woe, woe....

Then it hit me. Who said my first novel has to be publishable? I'm not a multi-tasker. My brain is a single-arrow shot. Worrying about characterization AND plot AND dialogue AND daily writing motivation was too much.

Then I realized--I tell a story. I write it down, black on white. Most of these concerns aren't even relevant for a first draft. They're only relevant in revisions. The first draft is about just barfing words onto a page. It's supposed to be disgusting. Really. It's okay. Fellow writers: be messy.

And I realized that since I don't have to make every story, chapter, page, word perfect, I can write fast and sloppy. My goal isn't quantity, it's quality.

After enough quantity, most of my concerns or rough spots will have worked themselves out. For all that we worry about learning things fast enough, looked at the other way, it's pretty hard to joyfully do something daily and not learn how to do it faster and better.

Orson Scott Card puts the critical mass number at 1 million words. THe usual 300-page novel is 100,000 words. SO, if I just write 10 novels--even deliberately crappy ones--I can't help but improve.

My 10th novel is the one that needs to be publishable, not my first.

It's like yoga. All I have to do is show up and be calm, and the writing habit / yoga pose does the rest.

I'm pretty sure this approach will work. I've noticed in my quilting how much my quilting improved in every way relative to how much time I spent quilting.

More specifically, all the time I spent repetitively piecing multiples of the same block--hundreds of half-square triangles, for instance--consistently improved my quilting skills, and not just in piecing, but also in design and even in clothing construction. Isn't that weird? All that time spent sewing the same straight 1/4-inch seam in tons of blocks actually made it easier for me, later, to sew more complicated seams on skirts. I don't know why. Familiarity with my sewing machine?

I'm sure that the more time I invest, daily, in writing, the closer I'll get to my goal of publishing something which will not make readers vomit.

Knowing the path and being on the path are 2 different things. (thank you Matrix Oracle) I know I want to get published, but focusing on that goal is counterproductive to my daily writing.

My daily writing is best done when it's not scary, when the fate of the literary free world doesn't hang in the balance, and when it's perfectly fine to screw up and take the wrong plot twist for days at a time. It's okay.

And those days when I feel like a dry, scraped-empty barrel-some of my best stuff happens on those days. Looking back, I can't tell the difference between the pages I've dashed out in a Muse-inspired frenzy, and which ones I've had to painfully grind and hack out in between jumping up and taking care of kids and dogs.

So, in summary: Try! Create! Get messy! It doesn't have to be perfect, it's okay to be ignorant, you don't have to do everything right the first time.

I think the Eldernator says it best:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhLlnq5yY7k

 
 
SachikoSays
25 September 2009 @ 11:30 pm

All this time I've been machine-stitching my quilts because hand stitching looked too hard, too slow, and too OLD. I'm well-along in sliding down the Mormon-Mennonite slippery slope; I fear hand-quilting would rub it in.

But I was wrong! Or I was right, but happy about it. Guess what: I think it's easier than machine quilting.

Sure, the stitching itself on a machine is faster.

But the constant prep work--rolling and unrolling the quilt; fitting the bulky quilt in that inner space between the needle and the machine; fiddling with needles, bobbins and presser feet.....constantly sticky-ing up my hands so I could properly press flat the quilt sandwich for flat stitching. 

Machine quilting can be workout. In the tiring, cranky-making way. Not really in the nice aerobic way.

Hand quilting by comparison is simple, portable, quiet, and easy.

It's the difference between driving in a traffic jam, or getting out and walking. I like the soothing simplicity of "walking".  It's slower, but steadier, and requires less stop-and-go.

I am not using one of those frames that costs a couple hundred dollars and holds each layer and is the size of a small desk. I can see why some people like those things; that's not for me at this time.

I'm using a wooden nut-tightened hoop I picked up from Jo-Ann's for less than $10. That's way cheaper than the accessories I've bought before to expedite machine quilting. AND with the hoop I can take my projects to my kids' judo practices or outside when they play, and get projects done in my unpredictable spare moments.

Finished projects = happy me.

It's nice to have tangible proof that, unlike the things I clean or bake, results of my daily work will last for more than a few hours.

In my many good moments, this mommy-homeschooling-domestic goddess thing is great. I can set my own hours, I think my kids are cool people, and I like my house.

The Darker Moments reside in the Sisyphean nature of daily motherhood, in the miniscule half-life of clean dishes and diapers. 

Times like that, I find it handy to have some finished projects around, to know I'm not part of some psychological experiment designed to see how many times the physical evidence of my War on Entropy can disappear before I snap.

Also, quilts are more quantifiable and appreciable than my writing.

I have a writing site, with friends, where I report my daily wordcount, and I'm happy to see my manuscripts growing. But it's not something I want to show to everybody just yet, and not something just anybody will appreciate at this early, rough point in my novels.

But quilts!  are visual and tactile evidence that I did something this week, really, look! And they're practical. And not horribly expensive to make.

There are all sorts of fun designs I can quilt into stuff that I wasn't dextrous enough on my machine to accomplish.

I can do a whole quilt with kanji, or with komon,  Japanese family crests. My avatar here (see? by my name?) is my family's crest, the taka-no-hane, or crossed hawk feathers.

If you're interesting, here's some kanji I found online: http://japanese.about.com/library/bl50kanji.htm

yeah, I know, they're not as pretty as finely-drawn calligraphy, but they'd be easy to reproduce with black quarter-inch ribbon--less than $1/spool at Jo-Ann's--and a simple zig-zag stitch.

It's incredibly satisfying to open a little door to a new big room full of potential projects. I loves to make schtuff.

I found a great idea for transferring quilt designs onto quilts from printed paper, and it doesn't involve special papers or chalk wheels or plastic sheets and an X-acto knife. Check this out:

You just get Glad Press & Seal
and stick it on the picture, on the paper,
and trace.
Then peel off
and stick on the quilt,
and quilt right through it,
and tear away when done.

FAB. 

And there's no need for fancy or expensive quilt patterns. You can use anything--freehand designs, cookie cutters, coloring book pages, embroidery or paint stencils, free images from online, fallen leaves from outside--to make your own patterns for quilting and applique. Isn't that cool?

Now I get to have all my fancy Japanese quilts and wallhangings I've always wanted, and it'll be fun and easy to make them.

 
 
SachikoSays
25 September 2009 @ 11:23 pm

Cherry Blossom turns 4 in a few days.

I keep asking her what she wants for her party, for her cake, for her present; to each question she answers, "Pink!"

I thought it would be fun to make a Cherry Blossom cake for her birthday, and some Googling got me these:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hello_naomi/1353875804/

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3529/3207847381_353c256bf9.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2064/2485324082_1ec5f775bc.jpg

http://gourmetbaking.blogspot.com/2009/04/cherry-blossom-birthday-cake.html


WAY cute, right?

Except apparently those designs require something called "fondant", which as far as I can tell is like Mary Kay foundation, except thinner.

(sorry pink ladies)

I don't think I have the patience or $$ for fondant--hello, this party's in 4 days, I have 4 other kids besides, and I just need something PINK for kids to lick the frosting off of before they run out to my backyard.

My idea is I'll make a cake, frost it with sky blue, use store-bought brown icing gel to make skinny little branches asymmetrically across the cake, and then buy a spray of Walmart fake cherry blossoms and pick the flowers off and stick them on the cake.

What you think?

I'll have to do it and post the pictures.
 
 
SachikoSays
14 September 2009 @ 04:21 pm

You remember the angst from the last post--where I self-flagellated at Barnes & Noble.

Okay, I got over myself and washed the dishes today, and something I'd read in one of the umpteen WRITING FOR DUMMIEZ books I've read floated back up to me.

I'll paraphrase: It is very difficult to write a number of novels without somehow making at least one of them readable eventually.

Freeeeedom!

I can stop placing all my feeble hopes on my WIP. I've decided that this writing thing right now is for fun and learning. I get to have 9 novels to do just for fun. I'm not going to worry about it until Novel #10. Not going to. It doesn't matter. 

Oh, sure, maybe I'll submit a manuscript or two from #1-#9. But I don't HAVE to. Because it's just me paying my experience dues. I won't really be a writer until Book #10.

Pressure's off! I'm looking forward to NaNoWriMo even more now, because the faster I can write the first nine manuscripts, the sooner I'll be ready to crack my fingers and start #10.
 
 
SachikoSays
14 September 2009 @ 03:54 pm

You have to understand; reading is my superpower. The one and only. I run like I'm chasing chickens; my  cooking is strictly functional (I cook my meat JUST enough to kill off most the microscopic things); my homeschooling isn't calculated to send my children to Harvard by age 12, to say the least.

But, READING.

And it's not like I haven't been using my superpower. Oh, yes, I have. Ever since leaving high school I told myself "Eh...I should start writing again." In 2004, I added, "No, seriously! I mean it this time!" and then I started writing, and started figuring out what I wanted to write about, and then began the critical Over-Researching without which 35% of my current writing angst would be for nought.

(naught? Naught, nought....either one works, really)

Which meant instead of reading primarly fiction, crucially in the genres I wish to publish in, my reading went on Atkins and I started reading mostly nonfiction. Mythology books, books on languages, a LOT of theology, especially Hugh Nibley, and pretty much anything and everything about canids.

All the writing turned me into impressionable, snobby tofu. My standards for what I wanted to read rose in part because whatever I read seeped into me and turned into "original" plot ideas in my outlining. I've noticed that the more I read Ilona Andrews, the more I automatically turn to having strong absentee father figures in my characterizations. The more OSC I read, the more people argue about the ethics of things.

I don't imitate well, mind you. But like with my toddlers, I can see what my mind's trying to say, and I know where it's getting it from.

Okay so I'm posting at the Ilnoa Andrews forum, and reading everyone's rave reviews of some of her latest, and Patricia Briggs' latest (you'll recall that when I had my stellar idea for a supernatural series starring a female coyote set in the Tri Cities....I was already a few years behind the Mercy Thompso series?), and Charlaine Harris, and those are the just the authors I have actually read anything by! I haven't even touched anything by Kim Harrison or Meljean Brooks.

Even aside from the sucker-punching despair of going into a bookstore, flipping through the latest sci-fi/fan/urban fan books and seeing my ideas...even my character names...already there....

*puts that aside with effort*

ASIDE from that, there's the question of which books do I need to read to keep up, and how do I get them? $$$ ???

And....time? Precious time. There's the homeschooling of the five children, the getting my whites their whitest in the house, the sewing, teaching Sunday School at church to surly teenagers, the being married thing...

I am whining and I will stop. I apologize.

I've noticed with baby naming that the people MOST likely to name their children a name in the Top 10--snobby babynamers like me often say "Top Ten" with a note of horror in it, like how my 5th generation Mormon mom says "drinks beer"--the people whol do that, are people who are singularly unaware of baby naming trends.

Which is how you end up with 4 Sophies in a kindergarten class, and each parent says "Oh, it was so old-fashioned, and nobody I knew used it, and it was so pretty."

Not following the herd requires a certain level of awareness of the herd's location. I've taken that to an unhealthy level with babynaming and look through foreign language dictionaries and 16th century passenger manifests to Icelandic colonies for new names.

In reading, in current publishing, I am lacking that basic awareness. Which was how I came to the point where I"d been feverishly working with my head down for a few years on my very very secret Mormon werewolf/vampire novel when pop culture tapped me on the shoulder and said "Hey, did you hear? Twilight." and now the werewofl vampire thing is dying. Not dead yet, but not fresh and new. Oh, my misspent life.

Time and focus conflicts, not to mention the budget, mean I can't go read myself back to speed yet. I've got NaNoWriMo waving hi to me from November, and between that and homeschooling I'm booked to January.

So this is the deal I made with Dragoon: That once I finish a manuscript--I don't know if "finished" means revised or just drafted--I get to go blow a wad on used paperbacks of all the new shiny books out now. That's my carrot.

Dragoon grumbled a bit about it. I reminded him that used paperbacks is not only cheaper than the IKEA couch he'd promised me with initially upon completion of a manuscript, but also does not require a trip to Bellevue. He muttered something about how he was more willing to bribe me back when he thought I'd never get something finished.

Problem (mostly) solved.
 

 
 
SachikoSays
12 September 2009 @ 11:17 am

9yo Chief and 7yo Slayer take judo. Their treat is a cold drink or, if they're especially obedient and prompt, a Wendy's Frostee and a Junior bacon cheeseburger.

(No, I don't know how food addictions get started, but if you tell me, I'll give you this yummy cookie!)

Dragoon andt he three youngers were out at his cousin's place in the country, adjusting Dragoon's bow and affixing broadheads to arrow shafts for today's deer hunting.

 I'm not a big fan of walking into a dark empty house, so the two oldest kids and I got the burgers to stay and sat in a booth.

It was fun, having just to two oldest--this is what it would be like to have 2 kids, I marvelled-and I asked them how they feel about the first week of homeschool we'd just completed.

That started a nice discussion of what they want to learn about, which led to a discussion of why we homeschool.

I gave a fruity speech with "develop at your own pace" and "gospel centered" and "follow your interests" and "time to watch clouds and bugs". If you've ever spent time with a pedantic homeschooler (I can call them that if I'm one of them) then you know the speech I mean.

The kids were half-listening and then 7yo Slayer, at "watch bugs" lights up and loudly says, "Mom! Mom! Yesterday in the bathroom I found this fly, and it was crawling around, and it had a broken wing, and it was like this--"

Slayer hunched herself and moaned; I glanced around and saw that the two Wendy's customers within earshot and paused in eating their burgers--

"--and it had a broken wing, and I went, Ooohhhh, poor fly, and I pulled off the wing, and it's still going Oh, oh,--"

--Slayer waved her feeble hands-- "'All their funny little legs, Charlie!' like that, and then I picked it up and it was gross, so there was this spider? With a web? In the bathroom?"--

--one of the burger people is now giving my daughter and me The Eye--

"--and I threw the fly in the web, and it's shaking, and making the web shake, and the spider's craaaaaawling down, like this--"

--Slayer leaned forward with a predatory look; meanwhile 9yo Chief rolled his eyes and ate his cheeseburger--

--"and then Honeybee knocked on the door and I had to get out of the bathroom but I bet that spider's going to wrap up that fly and stick its fangs in it and suck its blood out!" Slayer finishes in loud glee.

Chief noisily sucked the last of his Frostee through his straw. I catch the eye of the nice burger person from the next table and try to smile reassuringly. The man quickly looks back down at his fries.  Then Chief says, "I like our read-aloud book. It's nice."

I said, "Well, it's nice to know you guys have time to watch bugs."

 
 
 
 

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