CurmudgeonlyQuilter

Friday, October 28, 2016

Hard Times

As I said previously, I abhor the rabid and random of detailed postings of daily drama. As such, I will not post any such thing. I will just say that hard times are upon my family right now and muse about the proper response to hard times.

Over the course of my life, I have faced some very big challenges. That goes for most of us. While we expect good things to happen, and good things do happen, it is also true that bad things happen. For some reason, we just don't expect bad things to happen to us. Curious, isn't it?

If you've not experienced the death of a loved one, you will. If you have not faced financial or vocational hardship, you will. It is the nature of life.

When these times come, how should we respond?

An American Dream

Waylon Jennings

In 1979 Waylon Jennings released a song entitled "It's the World's Gone Crazy (Cotillion)." I doubt that even he would have believed how prophetic he actually was.

On August 8, 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered a speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial entitled "I Have a Dream." If you have never read it, I encourage you to do so. It is one of the best speeches in American history.

There are many memorable lines which are now iconic in American culture. My personal favorite is this:

Martin Luther King, Jr.

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

Where is the dream today?

Pokemon Go (Away)

Once, long ago, I was the father of a ten year-old boy who was infatuated with Pokémon cards. I didn't understand it then. Now that I look back at it, I still don't understand it. It was stupid.

Trying desperately to be a good father, I even went to the Pokémon movie. It was the worse use of celluloid in the history of humankind. But that might be giving it too much credit.

But, today's a new day. I'm an enlightened man of the future, right? Think again.

Venti?

I know that you have come to think of me as a sophisticated man-about-town. In fact, you'd be right. I'm totally hip and groovy. No one is more with it than I.

What can I say, chicks dig me. Why wouldn't they?

Remembering Les

I know that I've come back to college football time and time again on this blog. There's a part of me that wants to apologize for that because a quilting blog wouldn't seem a very natural fit for college football. On the other hand, this is a blog about me as well as my quilts, so, in that sense, it seems fitting.

This past Sunday, following a heartbreaking loss to Auburn, LSU decided to fire Head Coach Les Miles.

The Maze

Top Half of "Honey's Maze" Pattern

For the past month or so, I've been working on a quilt that I dreamt up about a year ago when I was doodling on some isometric paper. (Look here for printable isometric paper: Printable Paper or CustomGraph.)

As I mentioned in The Dream, I like to doodle to come up with designs. I have a lot of drawings that aren't very good, but that's ok because, every once in a while, something just comes to life on the paper. I never start a doodle thinking that I have to produce a home run. Rather, I start a doodle thinking, "I wonder what it would look like if I did this."

Hanging Columns

Sometimes it looks awful. Sometimes not. For me, it's all part of the process.

So, last year, I chanced upon a design that looked fun to me. I'm really not sure what to call it, but I've chosen to call it a maze. It's not really a maze, but it does kind of look like one, so there ya go.

The Wedding Planner

Engagement Ring

As I mentioned somewhere on this blog, I became engaged this past May. We didn't really have a date in mind, but we knew that the Spring or Fall of 2017 was what we were shooting for. Now, it looks like April, 2017 is the time.

It's nice to have it narrowed down to a month. There is a specific date in April; I just can't remember it. I'm a guy; details aren't my forte. What can I say?

Bet I'll be there, though.

The Dream

I want to share the delights and the process of designing a quilt.

I don't want to talk about the technical ways to design because there are many different technical ways to design a quilt.

Rather, I want to talk about the spiritual and philosophical aspects of design.

It's a funny thing to write about something that seems so organic to me. It's sort of like explaining how I breath or eat.

The Week in Review

There's no one thing that has struck my fancy to write about this week, but there's lots of things happening, so I thought I'd just recap the week.

Speaking Our Minds

For decades I have heard parents of college age children complain about the dangers of the university environment. Largely, they are right about the ideological leaning of campuses around the country and the danger that the campus culture poses to unprepared students.

Just when I thought that the craziness could not become crazier, the idea of "safe spaces" and "trigger warnings" burst onto the scene. A safe space? When I was growing up, a safe space theoretically protected one from nuclear holocaust, but, to these weak-minded wimps, it protects them from getting their feelings hurt. Good Lord in heaven above, we have raised a country full of spoiled-brat whiners.

Heaven help us.