Upon being asked to define what was meant by pious, one of the elder members of CTV's Laudate group replied: You like pie. He did go on to give the correct definition, after some laughter. As he is a priest's son, he said he identified with many of the young saints we have been studying who were born to "poor and pious parents." We encouraged him to think of himself as halfway to sainthood, then.

I'd like to know why nobody finds my knitting, cooking, or family brag posts worthy of comment. I'm getting far more comments on my "political" remarks than on my other posts. This is disheartening.

In any case, I will get to them later. Right now, I have about an hour to myself. Rich took the older two boys out to ride their bikes, Elijah and Amira are asleep for their afternoon nap, and I have decided that since I have too little spare time, I will try to teach myself to crochet. It's going poorly.

I can chain, do single crochet, slip st, double crochet, but I can't actually figure out how to make it work in the patterns I have in front of me. Can someone who knows how to crochet tell me if this is possible:

Ch 8 sl st into first ch to form a ring.

Round 1 Ch 1, 15 sc in ring, sl first ch.

Doesn't this seem to use too many sts? Am I to do two sc in each ch? Is there an error in the pattern?

I thought I would start simple with a pair of baby sandals and a hat with a crocheted flower on it. This is the flower part. It's not looking good for me if I can't even get this figured out.

I have no pictures of any progress, still have no photos of Rich as John the Baptizer, nor of the boys in costume. I forgot to ask Becky for them last night, so I need to ask tomorrow at church if she can email them to me.

Our last St. Martha's Guild meeting went well. I finally made the blintz souffle, though I messed with the quantities a bit, more sour cream, more vanilla, more lemon juice. I served it with sour cream and raspberry jam. Quite delicious.

We had a good time of prayer and laughter and fellowship, as well as lots of great food and a time to work on our projects. Marthie is finished with two hats, and a pair of booties. Marilyn is pretty close to the sleeves on her husband's sweater, Sandy was working on a baby blanket, her daughter is expecting a new baby, and I was at least further up on the Cross Your Heart Gansey. I'm actually on the cabled yoke now. Kelly wasn't able to come until late into the meeting, as she had a class that Saturday morning, but she was a welcome surprise when we did see her. Neither Janice nor Rachelle were free that morning, but may be able to come to my house in December.

The CEC is having a ladies' conference in late April, and it looks like at least 5 of us from Christ the Victor are going on a road trip to attend. It will be held in Beaumont, CA, at a spa resort. Whee! Since all of us are pretty lead footed drivers, it will be interesting to see how long it takes us to get there. We have a home open to us to crash overnight at one of the women's in-laws on the way, should we get tired.

We did discuss having Rich fly us, Fr. Jonathan said he'd be willing to take the boys if we took Amira with us, and then Rich and I could have a room together with Amira, he'd spend time with her during the day, and the other ladies would have another room. The cost seems fairly prohibitive, though, and Rich and I thought it would probably be more fun for me to have a weekend with just the girls rather than with him at that point. Besides, road trips are always great for stories for years afterward.

Anyway, I will sign off now. I will try to post the photos as soon as possible, and get to the comments quickly.

Labels: Crochet, Faith and Morality