Easy-Made Pillows

A few years ago I found a beautiful placemat on clearance after Christmas. Crimson, velour-like, with trails of beaded leaves stretching around the edges. Beautiful. But also impractical for foods that might stain and missing any matching companions. I bought it and took it home.

Since it was lined, I made a small incision in the back. Pulled a bag of abandoned stuffing from the shelf and filled between the fabrics. A little stitching and my pillow was done. For about $2.oo (plus the stuffing) I had a beautiful pillow.

Since then, I've made a few more pillows from placemats. And though the beaded one has broken threads and thus shed a few beads from its leaves at times, it's lasted for at least 4 1/2 years. It's not something I would lay upon much due to the fabric and embellishing, and the fear my mom expressed that the red dye might bleed, but it looks lovely adorning a bed and brings the joy of knowing the beauty a small budget can lend itself to.


This is all the stitching my project required (and of course it could be done more neatly and inconspicuously than this!):


Just a note to myself, concerning posts to write/finish:
*A Subtle Narcissism
*berry cobbler recipe
*book review or notes of current read

Dissecting Books

Well, I tried pasting my form in here that I made for writing about books I read, but it seemed too long to leave open on the front of my blog until archived. So I am going to just paste here the words on my document. I made the original paper one night awhile ago and still need to make some changes, like changing the order of some parts and leaving room for a thesis statement summary and general overview of a work. As it is, it follows a log of books I've read, then has about 10 pages w/ small lines for addressing the following:


-Reason for reading:
-Which parts worth rereading and why:
-Some questions, concerns, research ideas prompted by or otherwise connected with work:
-___ was unconvincing/erroneous because:
-From reading this I discovered I am (are) wrong about ___ because:
-This work would be more effective in manner/aspect if:
-Idea of background information that (I think/know/suspect) would supplement the text, make it more effective:
-Works this work caused me to want to read/know:
-Notes of interest:
-Quotes:
-What audiences would this be good for?
-What Scripture references are used (not intended to be all-inclusive) for arguments I should know or be familiar with; how they are used; perceived faults/strengths of argument or chapter/verse/book/theme selections:
-Current Booklist [books I intend to read]:
Per John M. Frame’s advice [section where I examine book as Frame suggests in appendices to The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God]:


Sometime I need to sit down and think more over what to include. But for now, this is the form.

The Room I've Been Dreaming Of

Whenever I have a house or apartment for any long time period in the future, I hope God provides at least one room aside from my room to function very well as a bedroom. It doesn't need to just be a bedroom--if needed it could be a library and/or office and bedroom, or a private den I don't need to keep open for company during the day....

Following are some of my hopes and tentative plans for the room.

The room:
-Few adornments
-Nice adornments
-Walls painted a restful color
-A big rug under the bed (if the floors are wood)
-Lots of natural light

The bed:
-afforable (and used, likely), and nice
-old sheets (likely ones from garage sales that have the advantage, aside from being inexpensive, of sometimes already being worn-in!)
-a fluffy, very inviting comforter (probably more luxurious than the sheets)

Other furniture:
-day seating that turns into a bed
-a bookshelf
-a chest?

The bookshelf:

-real wood
-probably medium-small
-laden with theology books of many kinds
-containing children's books
-topped with a vase and, if I have room to grow plants outside, a few flowers in appropriate seasons
-if large, perhaps holding some blankets and spare bedding as a chest might

The chest:
-contains some extra blankets (don't want the guests to get cold and not know where to find blankets!)
-perhaps it or the bookshelf holds a few games bought at garage sales, maybe some crayons or Tinkertoys, crossword puzzles for the older crowd

Other accessories:

-something for clothes in case of long stays, unless my big shelf should be big enough for this
-alarm clock
-at least one reading lamp
-a few medium/large pictures
-a crib?

And now to the purpose of this room: for missionaries needing refreshment, other saints, neighbors, people in need of a place to stay for a bit. I hope to keep it beautiful and comfortable, providing refreshment, tranquility, shelter. I hope to foster theological conversations, edifying discourses, communion between souls. And yet I hope people will feel free to retreat to this room at some point during a visit to re-energize, reflect, have some space, have some quiet family time if applicable. I hope that iron will sharpen iron, generating new realizations, new ideas, new resolves, deepened awareness of God. I hope that my room will greatly help me to make my home into a mission field, should my future find me not a missionary in another land.


I'd also like to tuck at least one cot into somewhere inconspicuous in the room or somewhere else (e.g., in a large closet), providing decent bedding if a family or group should visit. If I have to stick cots in the family room when a family visits, so be it! They can be folded and pushed out of the way during the day :)

And I plan to keep on hand spare shampoo, nice unopened soaps if found on clearance at a really low price, a bottle of lotion.... I want the place to say, "Welcome! Stop and stay awhile." I don't want the place to put too much emphasis, though, on worldly necessities themselves; so I plan to keep things somewhat simple and exercise moderation in decor in all parts of my house, including this. Still, I want to make sure the missionary's room is nice enough to express love and thought. (This is one reason I like the soap idea--small gestures like that can say a lot to a visitor. And my house will be simple enough that items like the soap and down comforter won't make it appear highly plausible that I spend a very high amount of time and money merely to enjoy transient items.)

A few notes about the future of this blog

Topics I plan to write about in the future of this blog, LORD willing:

-kingdom hospitality
-missions (abroad & at home)
-building & maintaining relationships
-womanhood
-manhood
-the family
-children
-discipline
-organization
-cultivating a gracious spirit
-thrift
-book reviews & notes (ee! the thought intimidates me!)
-brief writings about books & articles most beneficial in my life


You will notice these areas are closely related (e.g., many of the topics listed are characteristic of the godly woman, and thus fall under "womanhood"). And though I certainly don't think I should spend more time studying housekeeping or thrift more than the character of God, I have recently been greatly impressed by how lacking I am in these areas. So I thought keeping a blog would help me to retain wisdom I find, be thoughtful, think systematically. . . and ultimately live a life that brings more glory to God and increases my ability to minister to those I encounter.

Right now the plan is to keep some types of theological discourses, if blogged at all, on another blog. In some ways I don't like this idea, as in reality there is not a sharp dichtomy between theology and day-to-day life (nor between one area of theology or life and another). Rather, we live out our theologies (albeit imperfectly, of course, due to sinfulness, human ignorance, and an inevitable level of syncretistic thoughts). Yet I think this blogging approach may just work, even without sharply defined boundaries. Furthermore, I think this may be more conducive to keeping me on track in certain studies and helping and repeat visitors (should I have any) be able to access the blog they think they will be most interested in at a particular moment. And certainly there are many books sufficiently robust on a certain topic that do not try to be anything like a systematic theology, all the while (to use a Lewis euphemism) "tracing the suns rays back to the sun." (I guess you can consider this my apology for the blog's intended focus!)

In many ways, I expect the blog to evolve a lot through trial, error, and rethinking. Yet hopefully my tendency to tear down and rebuild continuously will not, as it much too often has, prevent me from really going far in any one direction.

You hold that your heretics and sceptics have helped the world forward and handed on a lamp of progress. I deny it. Nothing is plainer from real history than that each of your heretics invented a complete cosmos of his own which the next heretic smashed entirely to pieces. Who knows now exactly what Nestorius taught? Who cares? There are only two things that we know for certain about it. The first is that Nestorius, as a heretic, taught something quite opposite to the teaching of Arius, the heretic who came before him, and something quite useless to James Turnbull, the heretic who comes after. I defy you to go back to the Free-thinkers of the past and find any habitation for yourself at all. [. . .] You are a nineteenth-century sceptic, and you are always telling me that I ignore the cruelty of nature. If you had been an eighteenth-century sceptic you would have told me that I ignore the kindness and benevolence of nature. You are an atheist, and you praise the deists of the eighteenth century. Read them instead of praising them, and you will find that their whole universe stands or falls with the deity. You are a materialist, and you think Bruno a scientific hero. See what he said and you will think him an insane mystic. No, the great Free-thinker, with his genuine ability and honesty, does not in practice destroy Christianity. What he does destroy is the Free-thinker who went before. Free-thought may be suggestive, it may be inspiriting, it may have as much as you please of the merits that come from vivacity and variety. But there is one thing Free-thought can never be by any possibility--Free-thought can never be progressive. It can never be progressive because it will accept nothing from the past; it begins every time again from the beginning; and it goes every time in a different direction. (emphasis mine)

The debris of my efforts to constantly reanalyze and redesign remind me of the G.K Chesterton quote. Oy! Shipwreck ahead?!