this and that

* A little googling around - and a comment from someone on ITFF, where I shared the photo - seems to suggest my carousel ornament came from a LeeWards kit in the early to mid 1970s, so my guess based on its style was right.

And you know? I kind of miss that sort of thing. Miss doing it, miss having it be more common. Oh, there are crafts now but in a lot of cases they are much less labor intensive than they used to be - or, alternatively, they are "expert level" crafts, like the people who knit lace shawls out of yarn  not much thicker than sewing thread. But I remember when I was a kid, it seemed pretty common that lots of people did craft stuff. Lots and lots of my friends, for example, had either needlepoint Christmas stockings (often made by a grandmother) or those felt stockings bedecked with sequins and stuff (you can still sometimes find kits for those).

We had felt stockings - my mom made them and decorated them herself. My dad's had a little felt train on it with the number 806 (that's a family joke - when I was first learning my numbers I saw my dad's nickname, "Bob," written somewhere, and I wanted to know "Why 806?"). My mom's had holly (she is a botanist). Mine had a reindeer (I asked for that, when I was a kid). My brother's had a gingerbread man.

And you know? The year mice got into stuff and ruined the old stockings - this was after both my brother and I were adults - and my mother made new ones, she asked us what we wanted on them, and darned if each of us didn't say, "The same figure on them we always had."

We also made some of the Christmas tree ornaments we use. My mom had a couple books, including one with a Colonial Williamsburg theme. (When I was a kid, the "colonial" or "Americana" style was big, and while my parents' house didn't follow it as strongly as some, still, that was the main theme. I suppose the Bicentennial had some influence there).

My mom also talks about how the "women's magazines" like Good Housekeeping actually used to have craft sections, especially in their Christmas numbers, and I remember Women's Day with the occasional, wonderful, Joan Russel stuffed-toy or doll pattern. (I have a whole book of patterns she designed, but not every one from Women's Day is there - and there's a project for a web archivist, if they could get permission to publish: to scan and record every pattern from those magazines).






There was a lot that was bad about the 1970s but there were also some things that were not so bad.

I guess now the "women's magazines" don't run crafts maybe because there are more specialist publications? Then again, there were specialist craft magazines when I was a kid....Maybe people do do that sort of thing less now. I mean the "average" person, not someone who is obsessed by knitting (like me) or who does needlepoint a lot, or who has a whole woodworking shop....Also it seems that recipes in the general magazines have simplified.

(Could it be that more people, I mean the average middle to upper-middle class person, has a lot less free time now, or they choose to spend it differently than they did in the 1970s?)

* Second Sunday of Advent was yesterday. We do the weekly "themes" in the sense of "these are things Jesus brought to the world." The First Sunday was Hope. This Sunday was Peace. Next Sunday is Joy (we use a pink candle for that, in my denomination). And the last Sunday is Love. And then, Christmas eve, there is the big white Christ candle that gets lit too.

And it occurs to me- those things, Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love are all things we desperately need right now. Or at least that I desperately need right now - the recent violence in the world has kind of made me snap a little and lose some of the hope I had. And definitely lots of people's peace has been shattered. And this past year or so, I haven't quite felt the joy I once felt about things - not, at least, in the kind of sustained and predictable way I once did*. And love, love seems thin on the ground these days - I mean the agape or philos kind of love, not so much the romantic kind. Everyone can have agape love if they work at it but I suspect not everyone gets romantic love in this life.

(*I partly blame all the meds I'm on for that; two of them note that "mild dysphoria" can be a side effect, and I am working myself up to ask my doctor at my January appointment if I could try cutting the dosage on one of them. I mean, I'm still *functional* and everything, and I don't do stuff like randomly burst into tears in the grocery store, but I can tell I'm not quite the way I used to be - kind of Pinkie Pie with a half-flat mane, if that makes sense)

And again, I think of one of my favorite lines from Paul: "Hold fast to that which is good" and I find I want to find a way to very tangibly grab on to all those things and hang on to them, kind of like a cartoon character who has gone over a cliff is hanging on to helium balloons as a way of not plummeting to their doom.

I dunno. Doing crafts helps some for me. Trying to be nice and to serve those around me helps. (I had a student come in this morning to thank me for my class, and to ask what other classes I taught that she could take, and it makes me feel good that I had a good impact on someone; I am picking up a new advisee (one of my intro students)). As stupid as it is, watching cartoons or sappy Christmas movies helps. Sometimes even just getting out and hanging out in antique shops, or doing the silly pointless kind of "research" I am seemingly so good at (figuring out how old something I've bought is - seriously, less than 10 minutes on Google and I had found the manufacturer of my bird vase. Which is why I look askance at people who say it's "SO HARD" to find stuff online, I mean, like, academic stuff.)

* I got "special" cards for the few people I am sending to this year. (I find that I lack the energy to do some things I once did - also, as I said, I'm not baking cookies, at least not until I get up to my parents'). A couple of family friends, my two uncles' families....and that's probably going to be it. I feel bad not sending to people at church like I always have (and I might dig out some of the left over ones I have from years back and still do those later on), but.....I don't know. I'm more tired at the end of this semester than I remember being before. I'm sure part of it is all the instability on campus and all the financial concerns. Well, also, teaching four lecture sections and one lab is no joke.

* As of this morning, ALL my spring classes have "made" (in order for a class to be cost-effective, it must have at least 10 people enrolled. Often classes that are smaller get cancelled and the faculty gets reassigned to other stuff). This is a relief because now I know my schedule - and Tuesdays and Thursdays, my first class is at 11 am.

Also, in the class that was the "problem class" (the gigglers) last year, this go round I have (a) more of our own majors and (b) more people who have already had me in class and who know me and know my expectations - and none of them are people I have had problems with. So hopefully this year will go more smoothly.

Of course, depending on how the budget goes for things like adjuncts, I may wind up with another "surprise" intro lab or two - I'm bracing for that possibility. (I will be teaching three labs, three lectures as it is). The intro labs aren't bad, generally we have a prep person who sets them up, but it's just more hours and more people to deal with.