Arrived in Houston

Scripture Reading: Breisheet/Genesis 35-37

We had a pleasant uneventful flight to Houston. We even arrived before the expected arrival time. The weather is beautiful, no luggage was lost, and all is right with my world.

I finished the eyeholes on the black Jackyll & Hide balaclava and will be switching to the double-pointed needles soon for finishing the top.

The plan is to head to the International Quilt Festival tomorrow evening for Preview Night. Only thing missing is my sister--wish you were here!

My dad has been alert and pretty interactive (he's had several strokes) and seemed happy with his new slippers, and they're the right size--yay!

Only had 3 hours of sleep last night from doing all the packing and last-minute stuff plus leaving early to get to the airport, so I'm going to bed early tonight to try to catch up before tackling tomorrow.

The Scriptures in Chronological Order

Scripture Reading: Breisheet/Genesis 32-34

A few years ago I read the Narrated Bible, which is the NIV in chronological order. It really opened my eyes to the sweep of history covered in the Scriptures and how everything happened and the continuity of the nation of Israel from Genesis to Revelation.

When I finished this past year's through-the-Scriptures reading cycle, I decided to try another chronological reading when the new Torah reading cycle began.

I looked online for a chronological reading schedule and found this little gem:

http://www.wrs.edu/bible_reading_plan.htm

This yearly schedule is a pdf file that is printed in landscape style and then can be folded in fourths to use as a bookmark with the column you are currently using on the outside to make it super easy to see what the next day's reading is.

It will probably take me more than a year to complete this schedule because I follow the Torah cycle for readings on Shabbat and holidays. Also, I don't follow the dates on the chronological schedule (which has as its beginning date January 1) since I started my cycle after Sukkot.

Yearly Torah reading cycles can be found here:

http://ffoz.org/downloads/torah_study_resources/

http://www.flamefoundation.org/parashiot.html

http://www.hebrew4christians.com/Scripture/Torah/Weekly_Readings/weekly_readings.html

Slippers Finished

Today's Scripture Reading: Breisheet/Genesis 30-31

I finished the slippers I was making for my dad. I hope they fit and stay on his feet. I had already made 3 pairs of these for my husband, so I went one hook size up for my dad's pair since he's a bigger size, but they sure seemed to come out A LOT bigger!

Here's where I got the pattern:

http://www.crochetandknitting.com/slpprs3a.htm

I've got the laundry caught up, so now I'm just down to packing for my trip. One of my daughters is going with me, so we're looking forward to traveling together again. She went with me last time, so I really should have taken a different child. I wanted my older daughter to go with me, but she was starting a new job and couldn't get the time off. The next in line would be one of my boys, but since it's the Quilt Festival, I figured that was more of a girl thing, so it made more sense to take my younger daughter with me again since my older daughter couldn't go.

One or both boys will get to go with me next time. They are being compensated by me hopefully finishing what they call their 'headwarmers' (the Jackyll & Hide balaclava).

I still need to double-check on whether or not I can take my knitting on the plane with me. It's always like this getting ready for a trip--no matter how much pre-planning you do, it seems like there are always a million more things that still need to be done at the last minute.

Family Crisis

Today's Scripture Reading: Breisheet/Genesis 27:30-29

Got bad news last night that my brother-in-law had a heart attack and was in critical condition for a long time. He was at a conference, and my sister had to drive nearly to another state to get to him, leaving with no toothbrush, change of clothes or anything. Thankfully he is now stabilized, but of course she needs to be with him, so she will not be joining the rest of us in Houston later this week. We will be missing her, but it is so good that she and all of her children are able to be there with him while he is hospitalized.

A wonderful bright side to this crisis is how so many of his colleagues there at the conference stepped up to help with child care, finding accommodations and whatever was needed. That has been a great blessing to the family.

Well, the Addi Turbo 16-inch circular needle really is much easier to work with, and it does feel like I'm knitting faster. The stitches seem to slide like butter, very smooth, and everything moves right along.

Here's how far I've gotten on the black Jackyll & Hide:

After the 2x2 ribbing neck section, the stockinette face section will begin. Every time I lay the needles down to do anything else or even to rest my hands a little bit, the son for whom this one is intended nags me to get back to it. And his younger brother keeps asking when his will be done.

If I'm remembering correctly, knitting needles can be taken on planes now, so hopefully I'll be able to keep knitting on these on the plane. My husband also wants one, so I'll definitely be giving the new needles a workout in the ensuing days.

Happiness

Today's Scripture Reading:

Torah Portion Vayera (And He Appeared)--Breisheet/Genesis 18:1-22:24
Haftarah--Melakim Bet/2 Kings 4:1-37
Ketuvim Netzarim--Luke 1:26-38, 24:3-53; Kefa Bet/2 Peter 2:4-11

The Torah cycle includes a portion of selected Scriptures for each week of the year. The cycle begins on the Sabbath after Sukkot (Feast of Tabernacles) in the fall every year.

It may help to have a glossary in this post:

Torah = instructions, commands, law. The first 5 books of the Tanak, or 'Old Testament'.
Tanak = word created from a Hebrew acronym תנך which stands for Torah, Nevi'im and Ketuvim (Torah, Prophets and Writings). This set of Scriptures is also known as the 'Old Testament'.
Haftarah = selected reading from the Prophets related to that week's Torah portion.
Ketuvim Netzarim = Nazarene Writings, also known as the 'New Testament'.
Mitzvah = instruction, command, good deed.
HaShem = The Name. Like 'LORD' in many English Bibles, used in substitution for the Name of the Almighty, which is יהוה . In English, it is usually written YHWH or YHVH.
Kashrut = dietary instructions or laws
Shabbat = Sabbath
Yetzer HaRa = Evil inclination

Last night I read an excellent article on the First Fruits of Zion blog, called The Mitzvah of Happiness (please read it here: http://ffoz.org/blogs/2007/10/the_mitzvah_of_happiness.html ).

The author makes the very important point that happiness is actually a self-directed action and not something that merely happens to us given the 'right' set of circumstances.

YHWH does not ever tell us to do the impossible. When He tells us, 'Don't worry. Be happy.' (and He does!), then that is exactly what He expects us to do, and we can be assured that it is something that we are capable of doing.

Shabbat Shalom (Sabbath Peace).

LYS=Local Yarn Store

Today's Scripture Reading: Breisheet/Genesis 25-27:29

I got to go to the nearest yarn store (35 miles away) today, and I got me some Addi Turbo needles--Yay!

The $2.44 bamboo 16-inch circular needle I got at Wal-Mart broke about halfway through only the THIRD round of the Jackyll & Hide ski mask/hat--I kid you not!

When I returned it at Wal-Mart, I told the lady that since knitting needles are for knitting, if they break WHILE one is knitting with them, they can be assumed to be worthless, and I recommended that they return the entire shipment to the wholesaler because they could be getting more customer returns, if they haven't already.

I learned my lesson the hard way, but at least I now have some good-quality needles in size 8--the circular replacement and a set of double-points.

The lady at the LYS invited me to their twice-monthly gatherings for stitching together, which I would probably really enjoy, but it's on the 1st and 3rd Saturdays of the month, so that lets me out since that is Shabbat. Oh, well.

Shabbat Shalom!

New Blog

Today's Scripture Reading: Breisheet/Genesis 23-24

Trying to set up a new blog. Also getting ready for a trip to the International Quilt Festival in Houston. Of course, the festival is the excuse for visiting with family there, but still, my sister and I have been wanting to go to the festival for more than a decade--since we first learned of it--so we're pretty thrilled to finally be going.

Since it is a quilt event, it makes sense to bring along a quilty-type project, but I needed a small simple one, easy to take along and work by hand. I remembered that when we first moved into our house I had come up with an idea for a new valance for the kitchen window to match the ceramic-tile counters, so I dug around and found the work in progress and now have it all packed up and ready to go.

I had purchased the fabrics at Joann (85 miles away), hoping that when I got home they would come close to matching the tiles, and I was relieved to find that they seem to match pretty well.

My idea was to do a Grandmother's Flower Garden type of pattern, joining hexagon-shaped pieces of fabric, alternating the yellow-and-blue prints with the blue prints to make the 'flower' motif and then using the solid blue to join the motifs and border them. It will be interesting to see how far I get on this.

Happily, my project bag is big enough to hold the supplies for this project AND the needles and yarn for the ski masks my sons have been begging for. I'm using the Jackyll & Hide pattern from http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEfall07/index.html . Believe it or not, my boys want me to leave off the scary embroidery! One wants his in black, and the other one wants his in blue, so it will be fun to see how they turn out.