Break Time!

I am finally on my two week break for the semester! It has been a full few weeks leading up to it, and I'm glad for the rest. I am currently in a hotel in Jackson TN in the middle of my journey back home. I'll get home tomorrow and spend a few days with my family, and then I'll be spending a bit of time with Silas next weekend too. I'm really looking forward to not being at school and not having much schoolwork to do for just a few weeks.

A week ago I received my tentative internship assignment for next year. I am very pleased with the placement, but I'm not going to say anything publicly until I hear from my supervisor and know that he has ratified the placement as well. I'm really excited about internship now, especially now that I can begin picturing the church that I'll be working in. I'm also definitely looking forward to the experience of having a full-time job that isn't being a student! That's basically all I've done for my life, and I'm excited about getting a chance to do the work I'm learning to do for a whole year.

The past two weeks of school have been a rush to the first finish of the semester! Last week I realized on Monday that I had something due every day but Wednesday and I hadn't done any of them yet! Monday it was a presentation on feminist ecclesiology, Tuesday a presentation on Psalm 27, Thursday a sentence flow/diagram of a passage from 1 Thessalonians, and Friday an 8 page paper on my understanding of ecclesiology. I got it all done, and that Friday at noon when I turned in the last paper was a relief! This week I only had one paper due, but I was also working on getting my apartment properly cleaned and getting ready to leave for two weeks.

Now that I'm looking more seriously at my move at the end of May, I also began to look at what things I don't need in my apartment to move. I took four reusable grocery bags of books to Half Price Books last week and exchanged them for four cookbooks that I'll actually use. I need to continue paring down, and then deciding what I'll take with me to internship and what I'll put into storage, so that's going to be a continuing project over the next half of the semester.

These two weeks, though I'm going to put all of that out of mind and spend some of my free time reading for fun and some of it working on a sweater I'm knitting for Silas that I may finish by the time I graduate from seminary! I have very little time to work on my crafting projects while I'm in school, so it's nice to have a chance to play with wool again.

For now, George and I are all settled in for the night, looking forward to another long drive tomorrow. I can hardly wait to be home again.

Peace be with you all.

Busy Week and Many Churches

So another successful week has past.

I'm still keeping quite busy, and this week I've been working on my Exegetical paper for New Testament. I'm studying the story of Jesus walking on water in Matthew, and it is fascinating what I've been able to learn so far. I like that in my New Testament class we will be studying each book individually, and we can better understand the picture each of the gospel writers were giving of Jesus. I am enjoying getting to know the Bible better in this way. In Church History I am also quite enjoying myself as we discuss Constantine and monasticism. I love history, and learning the history of our Church is like learning all the family stories. The class is wonderful and I'm always excited about going to it.

I'm still keeping busy with work and being out with my friends. I'm also still working on balancing all of that out, but it is nice to have the problem of too many social engagements rather than too few. I have successfully become a crocheter as well as a knitter, and I get together with several women on Sunday afternoons to craft and enjoy each other's company.

Some of my most interesting adventures lately have been in visiting churches as I search for my Ministry in Context site. As I visit several different churches, I am finding I can more easily say what kind of church I want to serve in, both now and in the future. Many churches are not very good at welcoming strangers in their midst, which is not to say they are bad churches, but it can get easy to stick with talking to the people you're comfortable with in a church and not notice the new faces passing you by. I also really would like to be involved with a church that is focused on outward ministry. A church that looks at the world at its doorstep and finds ways to work in their neighborhood and show God's love to all the people they encounter. I would like to work in a church like that now so that I can learn how to better lead a church like that in the future.

In other church adventures, I went to a Spanish service this evening. It was really interesting, and I was pleasantly surprised to find out how much Spanish I have retained since I took it last several years ago. I was even able to understand the majority of the sermon, which pleased me. I am going to eventually take a Spanish for ministry class here, and Trinity is building a bigger focus on it so that it will be more available. Learning Greek has made me realize that I actually do like languages, so I am looking forward to taking that another semester.

For now I have to get ready for a rather full and long Monday coming up.

Kathryn

Baby Hat

I have a friend who is going to have a new baby very soon, so I made her this hat.

-Kat

Knit Fast

I don't have much time to knit right now, so I need to print this out and hang it somewhere to remind me to do it when I can.

-Kat

Red and Green

I'm still working on my knitted Christmas decorations, and I've had a very busy week. Tonight I decided to sit down with the new Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince RiffTrax and make this.

This was also the first time I tried out an argyle pattern. It went quite well.

-Kat

Laine

It's been cold outside for the last few days, and today I wanted some instant gratification knitting. I decided to finish a scarf I've been working on on and off for awhile. Now I can wear it just as soon as the cold really settles in.

-Kat

Blue and White

I had a bit of time to actually sit down and knit today, so I added another ornament to my collection for this year.

I got to play with intarsia - using two colors - which I haven't had time to do in awhile. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

-Kat

First Present of the Season

Christmas is still a long way off, but I started preparations for it this evening. Christmas is my favorite holiday, and a couple of years ago I bought a kit for knitted Christmas decorations. I haven't finished it yet, but I decided to make a start on finishing it for this year. This evening I made a present that can be used as an ornament.

That's a ten pence coin (the same size as a quarter) in the picture to give perspective to the size of my little present.

-Kat

New and Old

Today marks the first day I can share a knitted piece on this blog! I've been working on fixing up my apartment all afternoon, and I decided to take a break and knit. Then I realized that I only had a few rows left on a new washcloth of mine, so I finished it.

Also, I thought I'd share the sequel to the bit I wrote yesterday, in case any of y'all are interested:

Her favorite part of their home was the attic. It was small, softly lit, and covered in warm colorful fabrics. This was where she would disappear to. She could spend hours in the attic and it would feel like no time at all. She loved the tactile nature of the attic. There were fabrics of all kinds; shiny silks, warm wools, soft cottons, and many more. It was a riot of colors, organized by the hues of a rainbow. His place was the kitchen. It was bright and sparse, with metal shining everywhere. Everything was neat and organized, just the way he liked it. There was a large window over the sink letting in all of the sunlight – he rarely turned a light on during the day. He loved to cook, she loved to sew. They loved to be with each other too, but sharing a life was not always easy.

One tragic afternoon they couldn’t bear to even look at each other for the moment. They had received horrible news after rushing to the hospital when she felt stabbing pains in her abdomen. When they came home she ran up to her attic and he drew himself deep into his kitchen. Pots clanged the knives made chopping, slicing, stabbing sounds. The pans sizzled as red, raw meat began to cook. It was quieter in the attic. The only sound was a whirr as she sewed the sleeves onto a new robin’s egg blue shirt for him. They continued in this way for hours; neither speaking, barely even thinking. More and more savory smells began to drift out of the bright, busy kitchen and started dispersing through the house. They danced through the dining room, strolled through the living room, meandered up the staircase and finally peeked into the attic. There, she was sewing buttons onto an ebony vest to go with the blue shirt for him.

            After sensing cotton and wool for so long, the spices and citrus that came upon her from the kitchen were a shock. She smiled, a small watery smile, and breathed deeply. It wasn’t time to go yet, but it would be soon. She continued working on the vest and put the finishing touches on a plush, black, knitted scarf that she had been working on before; before this tragic day so it still held traces of the joy and hope that they had felt before. When she had finished making these things as beautiful as she could, and the smells from the kitchen were stronger than ever, she stood up and left the attic. She followed the smells down the stairs, thorough the large, soft living room, around the mahogany table, and into the metallic kitchen. She looked at him as he put the finishing touches on two plates. They had strength enough for each other. She gave him the shirt, vest, and scarf and he set the plates on the large dining room table in their still too empty house. 

-Kat

Knitting

One of my favorite creative things to do is knit. Unfortunately I don't share it here as often because knitting takes a lot of time. I'm in the middle of a sweater right now, and can't wait until I can post it here, but until then I decided it might be fun to make a record of some of the projects I've made and loved in the past. So, here is a scrapbook page of some of my knitting.

I thought of this today especially because it was surprisingly cold today, so I was thrilled to be able to pull Pete (the orange sweater at the top) out and wear it.

-Kat

In Which I Start Something

Today I drove from my home in Texas to my second home in Stillwater. A four hour drive on your own allows a lot of time for introspection. While I was driving I listened to a few podcasts. I started out with Bad Philosophy (check it out - it's going to be a thing), and then I moved on to catching up with a knitting podcast I follow. Sometimes I'm amazed at how much inspiration I can get from hearing someone else talk about knitting. I started thinking about how I don't have a class I can knit in this year - which was the most knitting I ever did in the last few semesters - and how I would have more difficulties finding time for my hobbies this semester. That got me thinking about my hobbies and the hobbies I plan on taking up.

Last week I was talking with a friend, and I mentioned how home ec-y I am in my hobbies. I knit, cross-stitch, write, and cook, and I want to learn how to sew and garden. Thinking about them all together I realized that I really enjoy creating things.

When I was young I dreamt of being an artist when I grew up. Then I realized that I can't draw a thing and I gave up that idea. Since then I have come to understand that I still have a strong creative impulse, it just goes through different avenues. Around mile 200 of my drive my thoughts wandered back to my lack of knitting time this semester. I made a resolution - this year I am going to create something every day. Whether that be a few rows of my sweater, a paragraph, a few stitches, or just dinner, I'm going to create a bit each day, keep track of it, and see what happens.

I find joy in creating things - otherwise I wouldn't keep doing it - and one thing I know is that it's important to make time for the things you love, so starting today that's what I'm going to do. And if you're even a smidge interested, you can keep up with me here on this blog.

-Kathryn