thumbergia2001

So far so good this Thanksgiving morning. No yelling, no guilt...just forgetfulness and searching. Either my mom is getting older or she's finally learned how to keep me out of her hair while she gets dinner ready! My task? I'm supposed to find the crock pot.

I was filling the humidifier bottles and putting dirty dishes in the dishwasher tonight when my mind wandered to getting my oil changed and to remembering Heidi's comment about how if I'd marry the single Christian dairy farmer she knows out in Wisconsin he would change my oil too. From there my mind went to the mid-west, and from there it went to the movie Sweet Land (highly recommended if you haven't seen it, though be prepared for it to be a bit different as it's more of an art film). And there I got stuck pondering the fact that once upon a time people needed and wanted to get married so much that they didn't even consider a common language to be a major factor in choosing a spouse. A character recommendation from friends or family would suffice, sight unseen. It made me think about how our everyday culture affects what we expect to give or get in marriage.

My grandparents got married right after World War II, in March of 1946 if I've figured correctly. My grandfather had a choice of two suits, and I think my grandmother wore the best dress she already owned. They're different people from very different family situations. They lived with my grandfather's immediate family (consisting of at least four other women and no men) for their first several years of marriage. Their first son was born the day my grandfather told my grandfather she couldn't have the baby because it was time to plant tomatoes. Their second son was born after they'd finished harvesting acres of corn, most likely picking it by hand. Their fourth child, a girl, probably should have been a twin. My grandfather accidentally cut himself in the eye when the children were small, losing sight in his eye and being unable to work for a number of years. They sold the cows and lived solely on my grandmother's income from working at market until my grandfather was able to work again. During the kids' teenage years, my grandmother lost her voice completely for an extended period of time, a year or two if I'm remembering correctly. Life couldn't have been easy, but all the stories are told with a smile and often a joke.

If there are only two suits to choose from and you need a suit, most likely you'll make one of them work. If you have an unlimited number of mass-produced or hand-tailored suits in every size, color, and style from which to choose, you can shop around, provided your means allow. In the first situation, you don't expect the suit to be perfect but that you'll learn to live with it and appreciate the fact that you were able to afford it and have it to use. If the second situation, you expect what you purchase to be perfect from the start and grumble about imperfections you discover as you wear it. You probably didn't work as hard and long to earn the second suit as the first, and thus you don't appreciate it as much.

And so back to the language thing...do so many people in our generation not marry until their thirties because they expect everything to be perfect from the beginning rather than seeing that it might not be a perfect fit but it will work and perhaps be better because it was obvious from the beginning that adjustments would be needed along the ways? I think I'm starting to understand that comment from Kristen's grandmother a bit more, the one that says, "Every pot has a lid, sometimes you just have to jiggle it to make it fit".

In case you wanted to know, I don't only eat pumpkin roll at twenty after ten...I also stop at Turkey Hill when I'm on my way home at midnight to buy a half-gallon of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream. I think Mom was glad I bought it too, because she joined me in eating some before we went to bed. And I wouldn't be surprised if Dad ate some for breakfast when he discovered it this morning. And the glorious thing is we can say we're supporting our industry.

So I really did help my dad with his corn tonight. You see, he has this corn crib that should be filled from the very middle of the cone-shaped metal roof...but his elevator is too short. And that means the crib fills in a lopsided fashion requiring someone inside the crib to kick the corn away from the elevator opening so it can fill up all the way. I helped him put the last load in there for this year, and boy was it hard work! I've never been that close to the top before (there was just enough room for me to slide in when we started, and then the corn would pile up on top of that if I didn't keep it clear), and there wasn't much of a slope to slide the corn down. It instead needed to be drug almost straight across the bin with something call a corn hook, which looks like a perpendicularly bent pitchfork. I found myself praying a lot as I worked, because I knew I wouldn't be able to keep up if God didn't give me more strength than I have - that corn can pile up fast! But I also knew that I couldn't just stop when I was tired, because not only would the corn start to fall on the ground, but I also wouldn't be able to get out of the crib until I dug my way out. And that's what I call incentive to keep up...because I was getting thirsty! But it all worked out, and when I yelled for the fourth time Dad finally heard me and stopped the elevator so that I could catch up. It was a beautiful fall evening with a clear sky full of stars, and I was ever so thankful that harvesting season comes when it's chilly because it got hot up there! I told Dad that I considered it a total body workout, but he doesn't think we could get people to pay us for the experience.

Dad says that Taylor Swift should have been his daughter instead of me...not only does she have a number one hit song, but she also just signed a deal to design cards. I asked him if he thought Taylor Swift would help him kick corn down in his corn crib tonight. He figured not and decided to keep me :)

As I walked to work this morning, it felt like it could be springtime...but it's fall. So how do the trees know that they should be preparing for apparent death instead of new life? Why don't the bulbs spring to life again? After all, the temperatures are the same. And so I thought about what's not the same - light. We are one month from the shortest day of the year, rather than three or four months from it like when warmth comes in the spring. We see it at the greenhouse - seeds that have enough light won't germinate without enough heat. And some plants that have heat won't bloom until they have enough light. Have you ever thought about our souls going through seasons in this way? Sometimes we're so busy that we don't let enough of the light of God's word into our lives. Regardless of the convictions and passion that we might have, the fuel isn't feeding the fire to shed light. And sometimes we're bathed in the scriptures but find we can't muster up passion for God on our own because only He can grant that heat. And He has in the past, so we know He will again, no matter how long the winter may seem. No one sees snow and believes that summer will never come again because of it. And we don't run from the light on those cold winter days just because there's not as much of it as we would like there to be. There's much to ponder, isn't there?

Oh, I feel old. I just dug out the picture of me and my best friend trying on $100 leather pants at the Old Navy store in King of Prussia. It doesn't have a date, but I'm guessing it's probably in 2000. There were pictures from freshman year of college (01-02) in the album too, back when Katie was still in diapers (and adorable, I might add)! The pictures were good, but I'm starting to see that I don't look as young in the mirror anymore as I do in the pictures. And I wish I knew how to make my hair look that good again. What's that? Oh, right. Proverbs 31:30. Perhaps I need to do some re-memorization of that one and remind myself that what truly matters is capturable in pictures.

Do you ever get "stuck" in a passage of scripture? This is obviously not the year for me to read through the whole bible, because between my inconsistency and my "stuck" moments, it would take a miracle to get me to the end! But if I have to dwell somewhere, I'm finding that Isaiah 43-44:5 is a good place to be. Could God's love for us, His specific love for us, be fleshed out more fully in the Old Testament? He reminds us that:

- He creates us
- He forms us
- He redeems us
- He walks with us and protects us
- He is our Savior
- He ransoms us
- He sees us as precious and honored
- He loves us
- He is with us
- He gathers us from the ends of the earth
- He makes us His witnesses
- He chooses us as His servants
- He is our holiness
- He is our King
- He is doing a new thing
- He makes a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert
- He formed us to declare His praise
- He is burdened by our sins and wearied by our iniquities
- He blots out our transgressions for HIs sake
- He will deliver us to utter destruction for our sins
- He formed us from the womb and will help us
- He tells us not to fear
- He will pour out His Spirit on us
- He will make a way for us to say, "I am the LORD's"

Do you question His love for you? Remind yourself of God's character. Truly He has been, is now, and will be good to His chosen people.

It's good there's a year in-between the Fersammlungs, because I always forget how incredibly frustrating it is to sit there and not understand the words being spoken. If I can actually understand the word that was spoken, I might not know its meaning. And if I know its meaning, I might not know it quickly enough to be catching what is currently being spoken. And that does certainly lead to mixed up jokes. My grandparents' interpretations are often not even close to my guesses! I can get the whole tone of the joke wrong just because of the main word that I understood each time it was said. For example, one of the jokes centered mostly around ironing, but I don't know the PA Dutch word for ironing, so I thought the main gist had something to do with the guy getting tangled up in a pair of pants and a telephone cord rather than burning his face with an iron. Go figure. So, I really should study...and maybe even practice a little. Then perhaps it wouldn't be bringing up so many awful memories of aurals class as a parallel. But all that aside, I had a great evening with my grandparents, got to talk to some interesting folks from Boyertown, and had some wonderful tripe and cottage cheese with apple butter. It was a good evening, and I'm thankful for living in a country that speaks my language!

At lunch time I went to my grandparents' house to pick up the cheese ordered by people at the greenhouse. I had a nice visit, ate some yummy food, and got to sing happy birthday to Maggie for the first time this year.  (I also had my grandparents tell me that I might have to go to the Fersammlung myself next year because they aren't doing so well anymore. They looked the same as always to me, but it makes me sad to hear them saying that!) I went back to work after getting all the cheese loaded into my car, and I parked in the parking lot out front, cracked the windows, and left the cheese in my car until people were ready to leave. All went well with delivering the cheese, but it was really dark when I went to drive home. Usually there's a dusk to dawn light on, but it was flickering a bit or staying completely black tonight. I walked straight towards my car, totally forgetting about the almost-as-tall-as-me stack of black plastic skids in the parking lot. My hand, and probably my leg, has the bruises to prove that it is indeed dangerous to drive to work. I think I'll walk tomorrow. 

 I was so excited to discover that one of the songs for Sunday is actually a shape-note hymn! But alas, I'm also finding that there are problems with transferring the music from original shape-note hymns to traditional hymnody. I guess I shouldn't be surprised...they did say on the DVD that it breaks all the western harmony rules. 

The first problem lies in the fact that the primary melodic line often falls in the alto, tenor, and bass lines rather than the soprano line. I tried just switching them around, but that creates all kinds of voice-crossing and hands-not-big-enough-to-play problems. The other difference is in the use of leading tones in the final cadence. Shape-note music tends to avoid them at all costs, it seems. It would rather leave this half-step movement completely out than use it set up the final chord. And so I'm excited to use one of the hymns on Sunday but sad because it won't sound like it does in my head. (I'm still not sure where that version came from though, because it's different than all the ones I've seen in print the past few days.) 

This project has also helped me to discover a nice online hymn database with the ability to save scores right into my notation program. That means about 90 minutes of typing music into my computer was saved tonight. Hooray!

So, without further ado, I introduce you to Come, Ye Sinners, Poor and Needy

I have no tuition to expense this year against my teaching income, which makes me worry that I might actually have to pay taxes this year rather than get a return. This could still be a concern, but I'm attempting to do my part to save my money from the government...I'm spending it. I just bought the Snow Leopard upgrade for my Mac and an ear-training program put out by Sibelius called Auralia. Hooray for becoming a more technological teacher! Maybe one of these years I'll plan a keyboard or a website into my budget. As for Christmas presents, I might splurge and buy books instead of sheet music for my students. I'm looking forward to my annual trek to the music store in West Chester during which I take about 30 pieces of sheet music from their bins and play through them on the pianos that are for sale. I usually only buy about ten at the most, but it's a lot of fun sorting through all of them. And the people in the store seem to enjoy the live music, which is always nice.

 One of the ladies I work with just lent me the book Captivating by John & Stasi Eldredge because we'd been talking about it some time back. I was looking forward to reading it, having heard some random positive things about it the past few years. But I just looked it up on discerningreader.com, and it didn't have a very good review. Has anyone read it who could recommend whether it would be worth my time or not?

I think I've been reading more fiction lately than I have since about sophomore year of college. It's probably a good thing I'm not passing the library this week. I think I may have read an entire book yesterday, though I can't quite remember. At the moment, I'm not feeling guilty about resurrecting this habit, but I'm sure that will change sometime soon. Beverly Lewis and Janette Oke have been my authors of choice, and they're good at writing books in series that make me want to keep reading. And I love the biblical themes that run through the books. Abram's daughters by Beverly Lewis included a story about a stillborn child, and the love that mother still had for her child - whom she never even got to hold - gave me a visual for Aron's sermon the other week as he was talking about how much God yearns for His children. He yearns for us to love Him and call Him Abba Father when our hearts are cold and lifeless like the stillborn baby was. Janette Oke's books about the Canadian West are so good at capturing the sin nature of a woman and her need for repentance in everyday life. They weave through the stories everyday (if you lived during WWI in northern Canada, that is) examples of what it looks like to care for others more than yourself, to love your husband by choosing to submit to what he says and only speak the best of him, and to long for something that God has chosen not to give and still say that He is good. 

There, I've given my spiel for reading some good fiction. It sucked me, and I can't say I regret it. My imagination isn't good enough to make up my own stories, so I'm delighted to read someone else's. Anyone have other Christian fiction authors to recommend besides Beverly Lewis, Janette Oke, and Francine Rivers?

 Somehow it took me until following the wedding rehearsal tonight to realize that not only have I been invited to the wedding reception of the wedding I'm playing for tomorrow, but I've also responded with my entree selection. And I honestly had no idea! I thought I'd responded that I would attend the rehearsal dinner, not the reception. But then I was asked on Sunday if I wanted to go to the rehearsal dinner - something I thought I'd already given an answer about - and told it was at a different place. It still didn't sink in though, and it didn't occur that I should check what the whole first restaurant thing was about. So I'm not sure if I'll have time to get a present by tomorrow, but I guess I can at least take a card! And I had to cancel babysitting for Jacob and Maggie again. It seems like I do that every time they ask me, and I honestly don't try to set it up that way. But Charlie was very gracious in saying they'd be alright without me, because I would feel awful having responded and had them pay for a meal and then not show up. And so presents the question: Am I the only one who does dumb stuff like this. I even told at least one person this week that if I was invited to the wedding I didn't know I was! 

But as for the rehearsal, that went really well, and I did one of those, "I think I know you from somewhere" things with one of the bridesmaids. It turns out we were both music majors at WCU who graduated in 2006. She was a roommate to my friend Amanda the year that we all lived in the South Campus apartments. I really feel like I should remember more about her, but it's been escaping me all evening. I think her hair has a lot to do with that. I can't remember what it looked like in college, but it wasn't nearly as long as it is now. Anyway, it was really fun to sit at the rehearsal dinner and see three girls who have been friends since childhood enjoy one another and rejoice as one of them is about to get married. And it was fun to hear the teasing and stories from the past. They're having a sleepover tonight at the bride's house, which sounds like it would be a lot of fun. Girlfriends are the best :)

 I just got to Psalm 126 in my reading plan (November, May...I'm close to where I should be, right?) As I read it, I was trying to pull out a significant memory of something related to it. The closest I could come at first reading was remembering that Mickey Connolly was preaching a sermon and it made me cry...a lot. And as far as I could remember, he was telling us good things that were making me cry. I think it might have been something along the lines of how God wants us to be happy...and that was so not where I was earlier in the year. Anyway, so I went back to my sermon notes and found some helpful reminders:

"The context for examining our sins is the redeeming grace of God. It should include an amazed laugh and a hearty song. This sin is forgiven, its power is broken."

"The Gospel promises real joy - nothing else."

"Seasickness is avoided by focusing on something stable on the horizon...the Gospel and the great things God has done for us is what we focus on."

 Give me grocery shopping. Or office supply shopping. Or music shopping or plant shopping or any number of other kinds of shopping. All of these I can get some measure of enjoyment and sense of accomplishment from. Clothing or shoe shopping though - no thanks. The obvious problem with this is that shopping for clothing at some point becomes necessary if one doesn't know how to sew. 

My first students for the day were sick, and I had a lunch meeting in Reading, so I decided it was time to face the dreaded task and go shopping for some new shirts. My main goals were that they be lighter colors, comfortable, and hopefully able to work with dress pants or jeans. I stuck out at the Vanity Fair, Bass, and Van Heusen outlets. Old Navy looked to be more promising. However, after trying on 4 different cuts of shirts and then 6 different colors of the only one that was flattering, I discovered that their clothing isn't cut very consistently. Only the first shirt I'd tried on appealed to me after all of that. And so I paid $7 for my first shirt. A brown one. So much for light colors. My last stop was Boscov's, where I always have a hard time deciding where to look because I'm not an old lady and I'm not a teenager wearing a size 2. My most exciting purchase there was a pair of jeans. I know, I know, it wasn't on the list...but it was a good price and they were cut how I was hoping my next pair of jeans would be cut. I quickly decided it's almost time for my good jeans to become work jeans anyway. And at the last minute I talked myself into buying a cream-colored long-sleeve shirt too. I would have bought a different color, but I was convinced from looking at it that the shirt would just fade in a month, comfy as it was. 

So 2 1/2 hours and $42 later, I was heading home and pondering the fact that guys don't have this problem. If I were a guy, I could go to the store and buy the exact same jeans or t-shirt that I bought ten years ago, it would just cost a little more that it did back then. I'm wondering if the whole artistically inclined thing doesn't only transfer to cooking but also to shopping. I think maybe I'll let Mom keep doing my clothes shopping at Christmas and birthdays...she enjoys it more and does a lot better job than I do!

The other book I bought at the shape-note singing was called "Primitive Hymns". 705 hymns, just the words. It's starting to make me wonder if the Gadsby Hymnal, used by the Red Mountain Church when modernizing hymns, was a shape-note hymnal, as I've found several of their texts in there. Anyway, here's the one I read last night that I wanted to share: 
( #12, Grace and works contrasted. ).

. 

I was at my grandparents' for breakfast the other week. I should know by now that their stories just aren't to be predicted. This particular morning I heard about Betty Fox and Frankie Schlegel. One of them came from a protestant family and one from a catholic family, and her father wasn't happy about it. In fact, when he came to ask if he could marry her, Betty's father shot him in the leg with his shotgun! He went to prison for a while, and somehow Frankie decided to stick around, because he married Betty after all. See, if civilization hadn't surrounded Oley in recent years, I might be collecting my own repertoire of stories like these to tell my grandkids!

I experienced one of those unplannable moments on Sunday. I was talking to one of the single guys who had recently been enlightened to the fact that all the older guys in the church tend to look out for us single ladies, especially our care group leaders and fathers/brothers. He reminded me of that conversation and said how helpful some of the things that had been shared with him were. My mind was quickly trying to get on the same page, and the conversation came back to me just before my care group leader walked past us and greeted him with a passing slap on the back. From his response, I'm guessing he made the connection :)

Matt must be going for a record - He's visited us five nights in a row! As he rushed out the door tonight, we called him back to get the sandwich he'd left on the jelly cupboard. Silly us - it was only bread to make his sandwich for tomorrow since he was out. He was awfully glad to come back and get it! Dad asked him if he needed any butter since he'd already "bought" bologna and bread from our store, but he declined. He'd rather have mayo. 

Shape-note singing is making all kinds of connections for me. My teenage boy student thinks I'm cooler than before because I went to the singing, and he goes to school with the son of the guy who runs the Exeter singings. I can't say I go around trying to make myself look good in the eyes of teenage piano students, but it is nice to know I still can sometimes! And who knows...maybe that means I can slip some shape-note music (and accompanying lyrics) into his practicing. 

Cooper book, #507 Top, Verses 1, 4, 6, 8 

I am a stranger here below,
And what I am is hard to know;
I am so vile, so prone to sin,
I fear that I'm not born again.

'Tis seldom I can ever see,
Myself as I would wish to be;
What I desire I can't attain,
From what I hate I can't refrain.

I seldom find a heart to pray,
So many things step in my way;
Thus filled with doubts, I ask to know - 
Come, tell me, is it thus with you?

My nature is so prone to sin,
Which makes my doing so unclean;
That when I count up all the cost,
If not free grace, then I am lost. 


I've discovered a new wealth of hymns in the Sacred Harp, and they are so, so rich. I haven't even scratched the surface of what's in these books, even if Daphne and I did spend about 4 hours singing from them today! The hymn above was one I remember sticking out to me, but I didn't take enough notice of titles to pull out some of the ones that spoke so joyfully of what Christ has done for us. The people leading certainly knew where these were though, because we sang line after line of truth today. And I've also discovered that near weekly singings actually happen almost in my backyard. The Exeter Friends Meeting House has Sunday night singings twice a month, and there's also one in Bethlehem on another Sunday night. As Daphne has said, "It's an experience every musician should have"...so maybe I'll be dragging more people with me one of these weeks :)

So I was replying to a comment on Facebook. And then I was distracted by something someone posted in my live feed. So I went to her page and checked out her wedding photos. She's a kind-of friend from college, a fellow undergrad piano/organ music-ed major. I checked out the link to her wedding photos and confirmed that I have no idea who the guy she married is. I picked out some people I knew from college in the photos. I wandered to her husband's page to find out more about him. I couldn't find out anything about him unless I became his friend, and since I don't know him, I didn't ask to do that. But I did see who our mutual friends are, all 6 of them. Who were they? His wife, three fellow methods students, one roommate from my apartment year, and...Paul. Makes me wonder if the Rus family knows everyone.