nobody wants to eat, and i promise i own a camera.

1. lady gaga. she goes out of her way to be weird, and i'm not sure i consider it art. however, i still laugh out loud (i still always contemplate just typing "lol" hm) every time i hear "bad romance" because of this. i'm not sure what that says about me. probably that i don't have children yet and haven't reached the point where saying "bad words" is offensive.

2. yesterday, while i was at the grocery store, i was thinking about where i was a year ago, and how much my life has changed. this time last year, i was at college, planning my final art show, frantically developing photos, spending every night in the dark room or the mac lab. i lived with one of my best friends, i worked a few jobs, and i had a whole life in that little town. my teachers all encouraged me to go somewhere with my art - get noticed and become an artist. now that i've had a year to step back and look at art in my life, i realize that enjoy making art for classes, and for gifts, but i really don't enjoy art for its own sake. sometimes i miss making things that speak for themselves to the glory of god, but now i'm thinking that maybe i still do make those things - just on a smaller scale.

maybe not. that's a question: can knitted blankets and scarves be for the glory of god, or are they just a piece of fabric that took way too long to make?

whenever i miss making art, though, i very quickly remember that i don't have the tools anymore, since i left college. the tools are expensive and i'll probably never have them again. so, i'll have to make different art. because it's true, i have to make something.

3. vacuum cleaners. i got a new vacuum cleaner, and i honestly vacuumed our one rug for 10 minutes yesterday, out of sheer joy. it works so well! we're moving to an apartment with carpet, so our previous vacuum that just usually blew dirt around the room was not going to cut it. we got a kenmore canister vacuum - you know, the kind where you have to drag the vacuum around behind you like a disobedient dog on a leash? it's the kind my mom had (and my bff leah's mom) and we kids always hated it and begged for an upright, but looking back, my mother has had 2 vacuums in her entire life, and they've both been these kind. so i decided that i didn't want to buy a new vacuum 2 years from now, so i'd go for the errant dog style one.

4. maybe i'm not a domestic failure.

5. i started making my little clutches to sell on etsy. they're super stylish and fun. i hope they sell.

yeah, i know, i do own a real camera. but let's be honest: i have no real photo editing software, and this is just easier. it's 6 steps faster.

this turned out to be a complete waste of time.

i know i was a photography major in college, and there's never an excuse for using my photobooth camera when i could use my good camera, but sometimes my laziness overwhelms me. this is version 3.0 of my spring baby blanket. it's pretty much my favorite, and i'm starting to wonder if i'll ever knit a different baby blanket.

i tried to write something thoughtful, but right next to me, andrew and laura are having a yelling conversation with sue on the speaker phone, so that turned out to be a failure, and now i can't type anything.

this day just gets more and more ridiculous.

so much yarn, as usual.

my brother came to visit and i have three things to say (or at least, i think i do, but we'll see how many i end up with):

1) that photo is a shot of daniel and andrew playing farmville together, in a family tradition of one person playing a computer game and another person watching. yes, it's a real tradition.

2) we visited a birmingham icon today, and i always marvel at the majesty of the exposed cheeks. (search vulcan, birmingham alabama on google images, and see what i mean.)

3) we just saw "up in the air", and despite my political differences with george clooney, i remain a strong believer in his ability to carry a movie. just his hair might be enough for me. but seriously, the movie was a bit depressing, but unlike most depressing movies, it ends with a hopeful air, and that's what i liked about it, because that's life. hope never dies, even when you wake up and realize you've been doing it wrong all this time.

well, that's all for now. i bought so much yarn today, and i love that my etsy store financed all of it.

ohhhh myyyyy whatttttttt.

this just happened.

our baby. fig tree.

we think that our fig tree is sprouting figs, no thanks to us. ISN'T THAT COOL? i mean, look at the poor thing. it looks so sad and spindly, thanks to almost no sun and the occasional waterless month. (i've apologized to god for this oversight) yet, despite poor conditions, there are 4 fig-looking little blobs growing on its sad little branches!

MIRACLE!

flying fruit and my yarn obsession.

for the last couple of weeks, i've missed all kinds of fun due to a variety of symptoms and sicknesses - as my grandmother used to say in virginia, "you're just so sweet, all the bugs want to bite you!" though i do now question the truth of that statement, it's still a nicer way of looking at things.

so, tonight, when my husband went out and i stayed in, i decided to do some fun things despite being told very sternly TO REST.

first, because i've been craving strawberry shortcake So Much, even though strawberries are so far out of season it's not even funny, and i realize how un-environmental and un-natural and completely un-granola and un-cool and just probably un-responsible it is of me, i bought a box of strawberries. then i (oh, please try to ignore that huge run-on sentence!) came home and made some biscuits and ... I Ate My Strawberry Shortcake. and i liked it a lot. Amanda Soule might judge me for my crime against the natural order of the earth.

i sure am glad i've never cared if someone judged me.

anyway, there's that. i've always aspired to be really natural and laid-back and earth-friendly, though not overly obsessed, and i think there just comes a time when it's okay to accept that airplanes can fly fruit across the world so i can eat it. for a price. haha.

then, i thought it would be a great idea to try for the third time to knit a lace scarf. here's how that's going.let me just restate: this is my third attempt. it's actually a fifth attempt to make a scarf with this yarn. it's like i can't visualize what i want from the yarn, so i keep tearing it out. maybe by the time i settle on something, i can have the WHOLE skein of yarn all tangled up like just half of it is now. that's my goal.

sometimes, i let the yarn and the knitting really get to me. my third giant cable blanket is sitting in the corner all sad like. i should finish it so i can sell it and buy more yarn.

as one final thought: i've been having the worst cracked skin on my fingertips due to a chemical burn 4 months ago (a silver polishing accident) and the constant handwashing involved in my job, plus the cold weather, and i'm just wondering if there is some cream that will actually help heal my finger pads? i've tried just healing lotion for extra dry skin, but i suspect that my problem goes beyond simple extra dry skin, considering that my fingertips occasionally crack open and start bleeding in the cold winter air. i'm laughing now, but as that i type that, it sounds moderately pathetic... and old. I Might Be Old Now.

well, goodnight.

ps. when i try to type the word "obsession", i always try to spell it, "obsessiong" HAHA.

sparrows and snow days and my family emergency.

i had a breakdown of huge proportions the other day. it was at night, so of course, the next morning, i woke up looking like a family emergency had happened to me (basically, i looked like someone took my face, turned it into old playdough, and then put in the microwave for a few minutes). thankfully, it was a snow day; god's gift to me, on one of the worse days in my life. it's not like anything truly terrible happened to me, i had just sobbed for an hour or so the night before, wiping my snotty nose on my loving husband's shirt, and trying not to get too hysterical. i was sobbing because i was coming to the realization that i had walked so far from god, and had just sat down on a lonely street corner, refusing to look for a way back home.

it was a self-imposed misery. it was brought on by laziness, selfishness, stupidity, and bad time-management. or, as could be summed up so succinctly by jesus: "oh you of little faith! why did you doubt?" i have this verse written on a post-it note beside my bed, so i see it every day, and yet, it is a concept that always escapes me, every few years.

a lot of times, i find myself sitting in church thinking to myself, "i wonder if they know i'm an imposter." and, shamefully, "what am i doing here? what is the point of all this?" i know it's not a waste of time, but i'm just not sure why not.

i am a woman of little faith. sometimes, i don't remember why i am a christian. i go through my life not acknowledging god's work in me - god's work in everything around me! that is my confession to you. i struggled to admit it to myself, but once i did, i realized that i had to go public with it, because it's not real till other people know. i can always pretend it never happened if no one else ever knew.

life for me right now is not the future i imagined for myself when i was still in college. things turned out differently, and while i do love some things about how things are, i am struggling to accept the things that i wish were different. being at this point in my life has forced me to realize that i really can't handle things without god's help, though. here's a short list of things i love about my life, because making lists helps me cope.

- andrew, my loving husband
- leah, my best friend since we were 11.
- my parents
- my cute, tiny apartment, with the wall of windows
- knitting, and teaching others how to knit
- making new friends in my new home.

i don't know what i'm doing with myself. i feel so weird about this whole thing because i've been a christian for so long, but i just feel like i'm back at square one. i don't know a damn thing. fasting? what's that? praying? oh, i do that sometimes when i'm about to cry.

but, you know, the truth of the matter is that i do know, deep down inside of me, that all hope is not lost. i have to dig real deep in there, but i can find it, and when i do find it, i know things will be okay. i'm not a lost cause, and i do know what jesus said about how he leads his people. "i will never leave you.... as the father knows when a sparrow falls, how much more do you think he watches over you, his children?"

so, where, from here?