I may have mentioned that I am teaching a class on hymns on Wednesday evenings. I've done this class before, and it is always fun. Yesterday we were talking about hymns as theological statements.

You may never think about this. For one thing, you may never think about hymns at all. I bet there are people who don't think about hymns from one year to the next. I found, when I was doing research for the music part of the current publishing project, that classrooms are apparently only talking about hymns in the context of slavery. I found this rather weird, as religious music is an enormous fraction of all available music in nearly every genre (I believe that gansta rap is an exception), and it seems slightly odd to ignore it entirely -- but far more odd to make an exception for one group of people in one time and place. Anyway, this encouraged me in my belief that people don't think about hymns nearly enough.

But hymns are theological statements, whether good ones or bad ones. And when I teach about this, I like to use for my bad example the wonderful hymn, "Jerusalem" by William Blake and Charles Parry.

Here are the lyrics:

And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England’s mountains green?
And was the Holy Lamb of God
On England’s pleasant pastures seen?
And did the countenance divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among these dark satanic mills?

Bring me my bow of burning gold!
Bring me my arrows of desire!
Bring me my spear! O clouds, unfold!
Bring me my chariot of fire!
I will not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England’s green and pleasant land.

This is a wonderful hymn in the sense that it has a lovely tune (you'll hear it if you click that link up there) and beautiful words. However, the Minister of Christian Education hit the nail on the head last night when she described it as "theologically weird."

The first verse is asking whether Jesus ever hung out in England. You or I might assume that this is intended in a figurative sense, but there are those who believe that Jesus spent the years which aren't detailed in the Bible in England.

Here is an interesting and serious discussion of this, from the British Icons project. Here is a more loony explanation of the idea, from someone who believes it.

Not long ago, The Empress was imprisoned in a conversation on this subject with a random customer who took it a step further. Not only did Jesus spend His formative years in England, studying with Druids and working in a tin mine with his great-uncle Joseph, but he also brought his mother with him to visit New York and lay down a fortune in copper.

Well, I have two cooking shows here at my house this weekend, so today will involve mostly cleaning, once I have done my computer work. I can sing "Jerusalem" while scrubbing.

It is International Talk Like a Pirate Day, me hearties, which means that it is also #2 son's birthday. He plans to stay home from school and play all day. He is sixteen.

#2 son's birth was memorable for the fact that the doctor didn't show up. This was back in the days when people had beepers, not cell phones, and his was malfunctioning. I think I get a lot of points for the polite manner in which I said, "Is there any particular reason that we have to wait for the doctor?" as the nurses told me not to push because the doctor hadn't arrived yet. There was a guy in scrubs hanging around, so we just went ahead and had the baby.

Sometimes, on kids' birthdays, their mothers remember the day they were born. As the kids get older, the day they were born has less and less to do with them, but sometimes we still do remember it.

Last night I went back to my Tuesday class. There are several people I know in my small group, including a long-time customer of ours who homeschools her eight children and always responds to "How are you?" with "I'm blessed," another long-time customer who I have always assumed is a lesbian though I would be hard-pressed to tell you why I think that, a couple of women with whom I have previously been in small groups, and two more customers of the store.

The leader of the group seems nice, but I had never met her before. It was therefore a surprise when, upon hearing my first remark in the group (something about the varying viewpoints in the gospels, I believe) she said, "You're an artistic type."

I gaped at her. Probably in wild surmise. I am being a greeter this year, so I had put on a dress. I was not attired in Picasso-like trousers and a beret. I was not wearing anything handcrafted. She had never even heard me sing, as far as I know.

So what the heck is "an artistic type"?

She assured me that she meant it in a good way, and we moved on.

Still, I wonder. I mean, it is possible that I am an artistic type. I'm a musician, which might count. I write for money, which may or may not disqualify that from being an art.  I used to dance. I like to make things. I don't think of myself as an artist, but I guess I might be an artistic type.

But what, in the five minutes between when I met this woman and when I said something in answer to question #2 about the Book of Matthew, gave her the idea that I was an artistic type?

Well, I googled around a bit, and I have discovered that "the Artistic type" is a recognized personality type. Artistic Types are compulsively creative, likely to be involved in the arts, put relationships after their work, are kind, independent, productive, and likely to be both extremely introverted and extremely extroverted. They are prone to mood swings, appreciate beauty, and have keen perceptions and a love of nature. They are witty, energetic, studious, cheerful, natural, generous, and graceful. Also nonconforming, impractical, impulsive, disorderly, complicated, and overly emotional. They like ambiguous, unstructured tasks and have little clerical or organizational skill.

I suppose I've been called worse.

I am working from home today, doing complicated, ambiguous, unstructured tasks requiring creativity and studiousness. Also baking birthday cake, teaching the hymns class, and practicing bells and choir.

Shiver me timbers!

I got a lot done yesterday. I submitted my first show, which was kind of exciting, and followed up on the ongoing ones. I knocked out the citizenship section of the store publishing project. I sent in the paperwork for the encyclopedia entry, got errands done, did my homework, and got to the gym.

Then, having made dinner for the family, I set off for my rehearsal.

I had had to pick #1 daughter up from work, as her car is in the shop (a dent, so someone else is paying for it). I got to see what she does at work, which was interesting. But that meant that I was cutting it rather fine. So I was alarmed, as I drove up to the college, to find my path blocked by hordes of squealing girls.

First there was an enormous clot of girls in poison-green T-shirts, making high-pitched noises and jumping a little bit. Scarcely had I gotten through that group when traffic was held up again for a mob of pink-clad squeakers, with a man shouting at them through a megaphone.

I called The Empress, hoping she would answer and tell me that the rehearsal hadn't yet begun. No such luck.

Traffic moved on for about five feet, and then we stopped for a bunch more girls in white, giggling and flipping their hair. This group had some older women with them who darted back and forth across the road every time it looked as though there might be a space between the groups of girls. Border collies herding sheep was what it was most reminiscent of, except for the squeaking.

I did finally get to rehearsal, and it was a good rehearsal. But I would recommend that you not attempt to drive down Sorority Row on Pledge Night.

  I am late starting the Readers Imbibing Peril Challenge for this year. I was late last year, too. And last year I ended up with more scary books than I actually had time to read before October 31st, so I need to do this challenge again in order to finish reading them all.

"Readers Imbibing Peril" sounds as though we have a Jonestown thing going on, but it just means we are challenged to read 5 scary books between now and Hallowe'en.

#2 son and I have agreed to get carried away about Hallowe'en this year.

The HGP for this week has us put another meal in the freezer (I did chili for last week) and another batch of holiday goodies. We are supposed to clean our bedrooms and spend an hour each day on our handmade gifts.

I spent the hour making soap. Not all of it will be for gifts, but some will probably make it into gift baskets.

I also spent some time yesterday cleaning my bedroom. I like Master Bedroom Week on the HGP. For one thing, my bedroom is generally tidy, so I am usually just doing deep cleaning. For another, the results last, instead of my spending hours cleaning and then having someone come in and mess the room up again in a matter of minutes.

In the course of yesterday's cleaning, I used a tip I read in a mystery novel.

Now, just as an open note to any passing publishers, I would far rather have a good novel than cleaning tips and inferior needlework patterns, but mysteries nowadays often have a very slight story with uninteresting characters, and then have some sort of household hint or recipe. One highly forgettable book that I read recently suggested cleaning your fan blades with pine or lemon cleaner and then turning on the fan to waft the scent through the house.

I would not really want the scent of Pine-Sol or Pledge wafted through my house, but I do have a lemon verbena-scented cleaner which I quite like, so I cleaned my bedroom ceiling fan with it and sure enough, the scent was wafted through the room. I think I will do the living room ceiling fan with it as well. I have two cooking shows at my house this weekend, so a little wafting could be a good thing.

What with the cooking and cleaning and baking, plus my Pampered Chef paperwork from the week's shows, I didn't get to any sewing, but I did work on Ivy while reading.

There will be no sewing today either, I expect. I have rehearsal tonight, and I have my husband's car, so I will get to the gym and do errands. I have to pay bills and get that encyclopedia article approved and sent back in. #2 daughter and I have another writing contest to work on, and I need to work at least a bit on my music for tonight, and I have some homework for tomorrow's class, and my Wednesday class to prepare. 

It is also a work day, of course. I have been struggling a bit with the current publishing project. I take the oddly-assorted state framework requirements for the topic I'm writing on, and sort them into three groups so there can be a set of theme units. For first grade, it is possible to sort it all into music, weather, and citizenship.

I started on music, and that was going pretty well. I found a very characteristic ballad, a favorite of mine when I was a child, with a good story and widespread field recordings and whatnot, and was doing materials to go with it when it suddenly struck me that the song was about adultery and child abandonment. I must find another.

So I moved on to citizenship, and was surprised to find that I had a bit of trouble with that. Not merely about making what the governor does clear to first graders, but also with the whole concept of citizenship. It's a great topic for class discussions with older students, but in first grade it's almost a matter of Molding Young Minds, and you know what they say about moldy little minds.

I intend to tackle the thing head-on today and wrap it up, at least enough to send a draft of that section to That Man and The Empress for review. So I suppose I had better get to it. Happy Monday to all!

#1 son confided to #1 daughter, "Mom doesn't understand how to watch football."

#2 son confirmed this. "She said, 'Are they allowed to grab people and push them down like that?' And then, instead of yelling at the guy who dropped the ball, she was all sorry for him."

It is true that I had those responses. I didn't realize that I was doing it wrong. However, in my defense, I have to point out that I never watch football.

Football is often playing on the TV chez fibermom. The other members of my family watch it and yell and jump up and put their hands to their heads and things like that. Presumably, this is watching  football correctly.

I stay with them sometimes -- well, often, really. But I don't watch football. I quilt or knit or fold the laundry or even read a book. I am just there being companionable.

But last night, Partygirl was over. She leaves today for her daughter's wedding, so we had begun talking about that, and closing her Pampered Chef show, and girly stuff like that. But the game was on, and she started watching it.

So then I had to watch it too. Since I have no idea what is going on in the game per se, the things I notice about it are going to be different from what the other people notice. Just like the people at the opera or ballet who remark on the weight of the artists, or their clothing.

And yes, admittedly, I do often remark on the clothing of the players. I noticed, for example, that the the two teams in yesterday's battle had the same colors, which I thought would simplify the task of a hostess having a game party. Even if you had guests rooting for different sides of the contest, you could just use those colors and not seem to be taking sides.

My kids were aghast. You wouldn't invite people from both sides, apparently.

What was I thinking?

I was saved, yesterday, from the temptation to spend 99 cents on a pattern by the fact that the local store did not have any of the new patterns in. Or perhaps they were waiting till their 99 cent sale was over to put them out.

I also did not get any sewing done. Maybe today. It is a beautiful day out there today. Yesterday's cooking show went well, and I got most of my errands done, did the grocery shopping, got a little bit of housework done, slept. Life is good.

The new McCall's winter/holiday patterns are out, and are on sale at Hobby Lobby for 99 cents today, so this would be the time to snap them up if you need some. I do not need any patterns, and of course did not plan on buying anything but groceries and toilet paper till #1 son graduates, but I might spring for a 99 cent pattern. This is because they are doing all these shawl collars. I love shawl collars, and back when I took up dressmaking last year, it was fiendishly difficult to find a pattern with a shawl collar. That might happen again. So I am feeling as though I ought to stock up on patterns with shawl collars. That way, if and when I ever have sewing time again, I will be able to have shawl collars whether they are in style or not.

My daughters would not agree with this idea. Our Pampered Chef trainings have told us that we must "always look presentable" and #2 daughter pointed out that Janalisa is always stylishly dressed for her shows. I did my first cooking show in trousers and a tunic. #2 daughter assured me that tunics were last year.

"Only one year?" I protested. I like to wear my clothes until they fall apart. I am not prepared to have completely new plans each year.

I don't even get around to using all my patterns the first year that I have them.

Apparently I am doing this wrong.

At the very least, I guess I had better hurry up and make and wear those shawl-collared jackets that I already have planned while they are still in style.

I have a cooking show this afternoon, and I must do some housework and grocery shopping, but I am determined to take some sewing time as well.

McCall's also has this very pretty skirt in their new collection. I never got into wearing the trumpet skirts, but I like the ones this season with a bit of extra fullness at the back.

Since I only wear skirts once a week or so, and I now own enough of them that I only wear any given skirt once a month or so, can I expect that I would be able to wear a skirt like this enough times that its cost per wear would become reasonable before it becomes "so last year" ?

Deep and important questions, these. I have been reading a couple of books by Stephanie Lessing. In the first, She's Got Issues, we follow the adventures of a sort of idiot-savante for whom shoes are the most important thing in the world, closely followed by clothes. In Miss Understanding, the sequel, we shift to the point of view of her sister, a woman so uninvolved with her clothing that she ends up unwittingly exposing a breast in a business meeting.

I would like to shoot for something between those two. I would like to enjoy clothing and dress nicely and even be up on fashion, without thinking about clothes very much. Like, I probably would prefer to think about clothes about as much as I think about math. Less than politics or music, obviously. More than wild animals or sports. Medium.

We have grocery issues at our house sometimes. Lately it's been more of an issue than usual, because I am still spending my full budgeted amount on groceries, but the food runs out before the end of the week. #1 son looked at a grocery receipt yesterday and said, "It looks like you bought a lot of stuff, but there's nothing to eat." I've said it's the boys' locust-like appetites and they have said that I am not shopping right, but Leonidas has another idea.

Apparently, food prices are going up, that's all. Staples like eggs and bread have risen by as much as 20% this year. Here is an article discussing the reasons for this. If you have read The Omnivore's Dilemma, you know that there is a sense in which we are just eating petroleum, so the rising costs there have an immediate effect on our food budgets. If you have read Fast Food Nation, you know that our low food costs have been the result of artificial manipulation, which couldn't be expected to last forever.

I've figured that my not having a car has been part of the problem. I usually go to the farmer's market, the butcher, the natural foods store. Lately, since I've needed a ride to get groceries, I've just gone to the grocery store, which is not the best place to buy all foods. My husband drove off in my car today. I am still not allowed to drive it. He thinks that there is too much gas being sent -- I can't even finish that sentence. I don't know quite what he means by there being too much gas, but apparently there is still something wrong with the car. I will drive his car to the store today, and I am perfectly happy with that, but I am really looking forward to having a car again on a regular basis.

But if it is indeed the case that food prices have been rising sharply, the end of my transportation problems might not signal an end to our grocery issues.

The boys also suggest that I ought to get a tax break on groceries if I use them to practice for my business.

The cooking show last night went well. From leaving my house to returning, it took me about three and a half hours. I've done some emails and phone calls and there will be some more of those, but the hostess is a friend, so I would have spent that time in communication with her anyway. I don't think the total business-specific contact time will go over 30 minutes. Assuming that I don't spend an unreasonable amount of time on paperwork for this show, I will be within the official company time estimate of 5 hours per show.

Disregarding the initial time spent in training and practicing (much of which I would have spent on cooking for my family anyway, since my practices have produced their meals), I think I am making about $20 an hour at this. That number should increase as I go along, since my shows so far (all two of them, and one a catalog show) have been slightly under the average sales total for this area. I figure that once I can use the mandoline with elegance and quit absent-mindedly setting the garlic press on a distant counter, my show average will increase.

I am keeping track of these things as best I can since, as one of the women at the training said, you can't tell when you should celebrate if you never decided what success would look like.

I think she put it in a more catchy way.

One of the suggestions I noticed in the course of the training was a recommendation to take pictures of the shows you do and make a scrapbook. The idea is that you then can show people what your various theme shows look like, and illustrate your words with alluring photos that cause your prospective hosts to think how nice it would be to have you come to their houses and cook for them. You can see that  I failed dismally at this task. I got all involved in cooking and answering questions and there was no chance to take a picture of the garden pizza in all its glory. This snippet of a blurry shot of vegetables is the only picture I took. I have of course removed the people in accordance with my no-faces policy, but even if you saw the whole thing, you would not be thinking how alluring it was.

Considering the news from Leonidas, though, I may need to be pointing out how important it is to make the most of your food dollar, rather than how much fun it is to cut your zucchini into pretty crinkly shapes.

Sleep deprivation is the big issue right now for me. This is typical for this time of year. I just begin to recover from Back to School and then my husband's job goes into overdrive. If I could get up at 4:00 and make his coffee and go back to sleep... Never mind. I've done that rant before.

My husband is also sleep deprived. He starts in about how he's going to die soon. Today it was how he was going to die soon, without seeing his homeland again.

I have been listening to him say how he's going to die soon for about 23 years, so I have limited compassion about it. Mostly I roll my eyes.

Last night in hymn class we were talking about choosing music for our funerals. One of the participants told us that she was afraid we would think she was morbid, but that she had it all planned out.

My eyes lit up, I am sure. I also have it all planned out. I showed all present the hymn I have chosen for my funeral, and enjoined them to be sure that they would remember it if I died on the way home from choir practice that night.

I did not die.

However, I think that is a good example of how we seize on shared eccentricities.

"No way!" you hear girls shrieking. "You do that too?"

In a dating situation, people seize on these things because it allows them to think they are soul mates.

Outside of dating situations, it may be more about how it makes our own eccentricity seem less eccentric if it is shared.

It may also be the widespread human peculiarity of being way too impressed by coincidences.

In any case, while I do not think that I will die soon, it is possible that I may become psychotic. Sighkey told me this one year when I was whining about lack of sleep, and I always think of it now. I have my first cooking show tonight. It is possible that I will take a nap sometime today. If not, then I will have to watch out about blurting out things like what hymn I want at my funeral.

I went to a Pampered Chef training last night. It was fun, and informative, and I think I am prepared for my first cooking show tomorrow. Possibly the most surprising moment was when a woman came up to us and said, "I'm here for a meeting?" in a hesitant voice.

"The new Pampered Chef consultant training?" said Janalisa in her most perky and welcoming manner.

"No," the woman stammered, "Narcotics Anonymous."

Janalisa helped her find the right room. Apparently she remarked that we had seemed like an unusually nice group of drug addicts. I would have thought that the presence of a table full of kitchen gear and Elegant Artichoke Cups would have been the tip-off, but maybe they often have cooking demonstrations at Narcotics Anonymous meetings. Maybe I could serve that population.

One of my fellow new consultants is a synchronized swimmer from Pittsburgh. This made her so exotic and fascinating to the rest of us you just can't imagine.

Otherwise, I spent most of my day at the store, creating alluring vistas or at least getting the books into a reasonable order.

#2 daughter has been offered a position at a local prep school. It pays well and has great benefits, and she will do it very well, I am sure. She has to find out what would be required of her in terms of certification before she accepts, but they want her to begin on Monday. This may or may not mean that she will have to give up on the symphony job with the slow and stately hiring process that has been going on for several months now, but it does mean that she will be able to leave her non-music day job.

They want her to begin on Monday, so there will be very little suspense involved in this episode of the ongoing work saga chez fibermom and family.

#1 daughter is enjoying her new job well enough, and has been impressed with how well the counselors are compensated. Also with how hard they work. She has only been there two days, so her ignorance is always being shown up. For example, there is apparently someone named "Valerie" associated with the franchise, and the clients talk about her as though she were a dear friend. We gather that she is an actress who plays in the commercials for the weight-loss clinic. People come in and remark that they have seen Valerie and that she has lost so much weight and looks great. #1 daughter is supposed to join them in their enthusiasm, and instead she spent all day trying to figure out which mutual friend and/or coworker was named Valerie.

This is hard on her. She is a girl who likes to do things excellently. It doesn't matter so much what she does; it is the fact of doing it really well that she finds satisfying. This means that the first days at any new job are rough for her.

My husband is working 10-hour shifts and then coming home and spending his evenings working on my car. #1 son is weed-eating after classes up on the mountain (okay, it is a hill, but it is called "Mount" on the map). I begin teaching my class on hymns today after my day of computer work, and finally got the proof copy of my most recent encyclopedia article to approve... payment for it cannot be too far off.

Our industrious fall is underway.

#2 son, you will notice, is not working. He is trying to work hard at school to improve his GPA for scholarships. His strategy for this has many points, including two semesters of welding class. He figures that he is assured an A in there, and he thinks that this experience with manufacturing will be a benefit for him in his future as an architect. He talks most about his AP Psychology class. He also works hard at gymnastics, also with scholarships in mind.

But he is, economically, a lily of the field. He is the last one who receives an allowance, and he relies on his siblings' largesse for his fast food fixes. He will be 16 next week, so he may be earning something next summer. Until then, he can represent leisure for the rest of us.

Let's talk about the most important thing first: knitting. As you doubtless recall, I finished the right front of IVy and went to sew the shoulder seam, whereupon I discovered that it completely didn't match the back. Since the book doesn't use schematics, it is possible that it is not supposed to match the back, but I didn't see any hint of that in the directions. So I was left with the possibility that the back was wrong and needed to be frogged, or that the front was wrong and needed to be frogged, and no way to know which it was.

Ivy languished un knitted-upon for several days while I thought about this. At last, I realized that I can knit the left front and see. Since Back-to-School is past, I can pay proper attention and knit it correctly, and then see which of the completed pieces is wrong and must be raveled.

Accordingly, I cast on the left front and have done a couple of inches. I'll let you know what happens.

My dad came over yesterday with car parts and slaved away on my car while I worked on the computer. My work at the computer is extremely varied. Some of the time I was working on the deep question of how inconvenient orders are arriving at our website and what I could possibly do to fix that. Some of the time I was bemoaning the fact that my Google ranking has slipped since I have been working on the publishing project and the RLT (actually, the rankings are okay for the RLT), and seeking ways to fix that. Some of the time was about mollusks, and some of it was about government, and some of it had to do with the confusion in state abbreviations. There were a couple of emails involving stickers and borders. 

All of this looks just exactly the same. Me, sitting at the computer, typing and staring.

Having done this work, I made a cake (practice, practice, and the cries of "Make me some cake, woman!" from my silly boys) and dinner while my husband, who arrived home in the course of the cooking practice, slaved over the car some more.

Up to this point, all was going according to plan except for the fact that I didn't get any exercise into the day. Then my husband needed me to find out car things for him. I am no good at this, and it messed up my carefully-planned evening and caused me to be late to rehearsal.

I hate being late. Fortunately, I got there just as the warmups began, so perhaps I wasn't really late.

When I got home, the new parts were installed, except that the new belt is 3/4" too large. So my car is still not going.

I have to drive to the store today, so I drove my husband to work at 4:30 a.m. and must leave the store to go over and pick him up at 3:30, at which point he will drive me back to the store and go home, and then I suppose someone will come pick me up at 6:00 and take me to the Pampered Chef training, following which I will beg a ride home from someone. I have skipped over the part where my husband lost his temper, but it was about 4:15 this morning, and it suddenly seemed to him that all of this was my fault. Since I have been struggling against feeling that all of it is his fault, I have some sympathy. Not a lot, because I haven't had enough sleep to be really sympathetic, but some.

I may or may not get to the gym this morning. I actually have a car to drive, so I want to go, but I am seriously low on sleep this week, so I don't feel like it. Is it better to be sleep-deprived and exercised, or to be sleep-deprived and sedentary?