Bye bye blue and other stories from the land of lost minds

This last Saturday I danced through the living room gleefully singing "I'm not crazy, so not crazy, not going crazy today!" in a continuous loop at the top of my singing volume (which let's be honest, isn't too terribly loud, because I've never been confident in musical matters.) It caused every one of my children to look at me like I had indeed lost my mind, and perhaps it was because the tune was from "There is a song that makes you crazy" or it could be that they have never seen me sing and dance my way through the living room. Ever. Because my dancing skills are even worse than my singing, and I probably treat life more like a sci-fi movie than a musical - just personality that's all.

But I had genuine cause for celebration, because the week had been one of mental stress on a few points. Enough stress that I had at one point thought I was mentally loosing it. To understand my journey this week you need to understand that my thought processes are very rooted in what I see visually. I am driven by color and texture, and have that "knack" for designing things. Perhaps it's my art minor kicking in, I don't know but it plays a hefty role in the events to follow.

On Tuesday I bought a car load of pool noodles for a youth event. 30 to be exact, 10 in each color. I know this because I drove to three different stores to find each color. (Let's be honest, pool noodles are not the typical mid-September find, the school supplies are being placed on the clearance racks, Halloween is appearing in full force. Pool noodles? Pool noodles were so June. So I considered my three store trip a huge success story.) The back of my mini van was happily filled with orange aqua and bright blue noodles.

On Wednesday I went to a friends house with a bag full of X-acto knives, rolls of duct tape, and electrical tape with the full intent of creating 30 noodle lightsabers. You know, one of those charming Pinterest ideas that you think would be totally cool to do. And it was cool. Fun, easy, a great way to spend time talking and planning with a friend. Only one thing bugged me. We only had the orange and aqua noodles. The blue ones weren't in the van anymore.

I wracked my mind trying to think where I had put them. I hadn't thought I had taken any out of the van. After all I knew I'd have to put them right back in. Could it be possible that someone stole them out of my van? But why take noodles and not the GPS, or the case of DVDs? And why just the blue ones? Nothing made sense, and so I figured that I must've taken an armload out of the van thinking I'd come back and get the rest later. I went home and combed my house for any space large enough to contain 10 blue pool noodles. Then I combed through it again. It bugged me, and I had a hard time letting it go (maybe because I also knew I couldn't replace them, until next June since I'd bought the last of them.Or maybe because the money wasn't mine but money from the youth group. Either way I searched my house a lot with no positive results.)

On Thursday, I visited my husbands work for a special meal that they were having. It's one of those places where you sign in and they give you a name badge that proudly marks you as a VISITOR in bright red letters on a white adhesive backdrop. Or at least I thought that until I went to the washroom later and caught sight of the badge in the mirror. The red letters were still present, but the badge was a brilliant cobalt blue. I shook my head, I was sure it had been white. I  just kept going forward - though I briefly thought about tearing the badge to bits and jumping up and down on it's remains for causing me such anxiety. Then I remembered that I was at my husbands work and such antics would not  reflect well. Thankfully my social filter was on.

In reality they were very small things. Dollar store pool noodles and a name badge that was a different color than I thought I saw. But those small things now had me on a mental edge. What else was I going to loose or see as different than it was. Unnerving.

Then my first break came. One of my husbands co-workers came by and in the course of small-talk said "I see you've been outside." then at my confused look "You're badge, it's blue - they are sensitive to the light - they turn blue if you've been outside." "Oh, oh yes! I've been outside." I am positively sure that my suddenly chesire cat grin of relief was not the polite reaction that should have come from such a conversation. I am also sure that I definitely hit "socially awkward". But I didn't care. I had seen the badge right. Both times. I no longer wanted to tear my badge up and jump up and down on it. No I just wanted to do that to whatever team of scientists, PR, and security that thought that color changing badges was a good thing. I mean come on - what weighs more, the security of your complex or the mental stability of one visually oriented housewife. Sigh.

The second break came Saturday morning when we were dividing up the pool noodles (and thus counting them) into two separate groups. 10 orange and 20 aqua. Yup that pretty much started the song and dance routine. I'm assuming the heat in my car, or the light in my car, or the aliens that took my van for a joy ride on Tuesday night, changed the color of the blue noodles to aqua. So why hadn't I counted them before? Good question and I honestly don't have an answer. I would have saved me a great deal of mental stress.

I am sure that there is some takeaway here. Something profound about angels rejoicing over what was lost being found again. Or learning to live in a world that is not colorfast. Or, patience with those who are battling dementia. Or a little tiny bite of what loosing your mental abilities does start to feel like - like how little things make you feel so out of control so quickly. Or how to learn to let go of little things (I clearly need work there.) But for today I am content to laugh. The singing and dancing has passed, much to my children's vast relief, and I can laugh at myself. Perhaps because I'm blogging you can laugh too. A good laugh goes a long way. And I'll hit the analyze button on another day.

This Is The Stuff  Francesca Battistelli

Because I needed a friend. . . .

My compartmentalized life has started to fray a bit in this season of "back to school" transition. The to do list has spilled over into several different areas, and the frenetic excitement of change and "new" has in some areas started to wear thin.

There's the ministry compartment which is buzzing with activity, nerves, and excitement as Todd and I set out to host a junior high home group this year with the girls. A recent training retreat was everything we could have imagined and so much more - energizing and challenging us.

There's the home front which is still getting re-booted after a nasty virus hit the kids ( and now me). Doctor visits, check, dentist, check, ortho - well after this week, check, play dates, check, birthday parties, check, squeezing what we can into the very end of summer vacation.

Boxes of school supplies sit in the doorway to be carted to various open houses - there isn't a night this week that isn't booked solid with some meeting or activity.

And I'm exhausted.

I know that some of it is just being sick. (Why is it that mom always gets it last?)

But I also know that there is another cause lurking in the shadows. It's the one I don't talk about.

A leader in our church that I respect a lot chats with me on our way down the hallway. "How are you doing?" he asks "I'm great!" I fire back with a conviction that has no roots in reality.

I talk with other folks and we converse about how it can be draining to be an introvert. It's an easy topic. It has elements of truth to it and I can blame my exhaustion on it. But the real truth is that I'm more than tired, more than sick.

There is a piece of my soul that is raw.
So simple a problem.

In this back to school season, I am not going back to school.

At the beginning of the summer I agonized over my digital  resume, splitting hairs over word choices and nuances. Then the applications went out, the essays were written,  the online questions answered, the Gallup surveys taken, and the waiting started.

Waiting for one call. Just one. An interview offered, a chance, an attempt to show that I would be a good fit for the need presented. It would just take one call, one e-mail. Just one - if it was the right one. Just one.

 I studied for that one interview. Made flashcards so that I could remember the many steps in an IEP, what IEE stands for, the types of RTI, and tables of CBMs.

The phone never rang. No e-mails came. With a week to school I have slowly watched every position fill, holding out hope for the very last one which has remained open for applications - until yesterday. When I found out that one was no longer available.

So I am not going back to school. At least not this year. Not yet. Not now.

My brain totally gets that God is in control, he can see the future I can't. He has plans that are good for me. My brain knows that.

But my emotions are raw with a feeling of rejection, raw with the sharp edges of a broken dream. A box labeled "hope" opened and found empty. Yeah, my brain has it right and eventually it will prevail. But tonight I was hurting. Behind every smile and assurance that my summer has been a good one, was a mess - a busted up sense of my own self worth.

I met new people tonight and we talked about stuff. But you can't tell someone new about the holes inside you. You can't tell a lot of people that you would give a broad general label of "friends". I needed a friend that was more than someone whose facebook photos I hit the like button on. Just one. Just one real friend. That was all I needed. Just one.

God didn't send me a phone call, he didn't send me an interview, but he did send me that friend.

Someone who knows right now what raw feels like; but who could set it aside for a hug - yeah that's right a hug. I don't touch people and I don't generally like to be touched. But I am learning that sometimes I need it, and this is one person that I can let do that. Because they get it. She understands that my head is in the right place and that I want to put all my emotions in a hole and go where my head is at. Yet while I can compartmentalize school and church and board meetings and projects, I cannot seem to get out of the same hole that I want to stow my feelings in. She gets it.

It makes me breathe easier. It helps remind me that there are hopes that are unseen that fit into the box I thought was empty. A simple hug. Just one. Just one true friend. Thank you God, because tonight I needed a friend. Just one.

Freedom

I am working on several themed duct tape book satchels today. My most challenging one is for Exploint No More and is supposed to be on the topic of freedom.

The term freedom in this case means freedom from human trafficking, sexual exploitation, and on a deeper level, spiritual freedom from those dark places.

It's hard to find an image that I want to use. I can immediately bypass the images of the American flag, Lady Liberty, bald eagles - even one of an upended M-16 with a soldiers helmet reminding me of the cost that we pay. But this is a different cost and a different war.

I can't seem to bond with images of birds or butterflies being set free, while some are very beautiful - I feel they speak to the animals freedom and today I don't feel very much like a bird. Though I would love the freedom of flight. Broken shackles and chains reminds me of different types of prison, and I realize that today I am locked into a very literal mood on a concept that can't be so literally defined.

There are themes - humans jumping for joy - arms outstretched with abandon. Jumping into the surf, jumping in a field of flowers, jumping off cliffs. . . .  that last one chimes.

Why this one? After all jumping off a cliff has a good chance of a messy ending. Casts, traction, years of therapy, metal implants, and coffins are decidedly not images of freedom. From someone who at one point contemplated suicide as a form of freedom - I guess I could see it from that angle. But I don't think that these images are speaking to the dark thoughts I had in that stage of my life.

These jumps are about letting go - for me - of fears that hold  back. I am deeply acrophobic, and a slew of other unreasonable fears have started to creep in at various points in my life. Try explaining "fear of waterparks" to your teenager. I detest social conflict so much that I become unsociable. Solitude suits me well, even though I know it is unhealthy. I would love to jump away from these fears, and maybe even away from the boundaries of the "common sense" logic that often drives my decision making.

I would love to jump away from unspoken social rules that dictate who I am and what I can do, housework, squabbling kids, mommy guilt, the need to decide what is for supper.

And with that statement I realize if I take that jump I will find rocks at the bottom of my cliff. Somethings we do need to try and escape - we should be looking for ways to end injustice and suffering. And God doesn't want his children bound by fear. There are things we should desire freedom from.

Other times, while a break from the "mom job" might be quite healthy, dropping the role altogether isn't real freedom. Freedom from social interaction is another one of those areas, though I have less success in stating reasons why - call it a gut instinct. Maybe it is the fact that we need to be cautious about desiring a freedom from responsibility - in any of it's forms. Whether that is deciding on tonight's menu or recognizing that human trafficking is right outside my door and that I need to do what I can to help.

So my mind circles this morning, picking at the concept of freedom. Time to stop mulling it over and get out my duct tape.

Confidence

I  did something last week that a few years ago I never would have thought possible. I stepped in as a last minute driver for a youth group work team. Doesn't sound so big, but for me it was. I grew up in a tiny town with one stop light. As a teen driver I drove blocks out of my way to avoid the light on Main and Center, and that pattern continued into adult life. As a young married, I walked everywhere I could trying to avoid driving. Finally as a young mom, I got used to a minivan, but only on roads and paths that I knew. Google Maps made a cross country vacation an option. You would laugh to see the printed out collection of maps and the time I spent on "street view" methodically making sure I knew how to get from the highway exit to the hotel parking lot. But even with Google, I wouldn't have tackled last weeks driving opportunity.

Rush hour traffic, downtown congestion, parallel parking, one way streets, road construction. . . . combined with a van full of junior high students and destinations that I was totally unfamiliar with. Yet it happened. In large due to GPS. Probably the best $100 investment we have made in the last few years. It satisfies my visual nature giving me a nice pink line to follow. Even more important, if I miss a turn, run into construction, or veer off the path it calculates a route to the destination based on my new coordinates. I don't have to worry about getting lost, or navigating a map. Instead I can concentrate on traffic and driving. And that is just enough to make me a much more confident driver.

I've been mulling over this concept of confidence a lot the last week or two. I'm not a highly confident person. I'm riddled with insecurity and self doubt. I feel socially inept, prone to saying the wrong thing and wondering when, if ever, I will have the confidence to tackle this squirelly moving entity called "life."

I think one of my biggest problems is that I have been looking for that confidence to come from within. And to be honest chances of that happening are slimmer than me being able to get through a metro area in a bus full of preschoolers. cats, and frogs without electronic navigation.

Because I am so broken.
I am self-centered, selfish even when I appear to be giving. Motives are so often focused inwards.
I carry my emotional baggage around hoping someone will notice how much I'm struggling, and get upset when there isn't any comfort. Then I get mad at myself for my inability to let go of that tattered baggage. I add a brand new set of luggage and bury myself in busyness. Trying to anesthetize my sense of brokeness. And then I try to do what many in the church have done, and I try to rejoice in my brokeness.

It's a catch phrase to be certain. But think about it. When was the last time you saw a child thrilled that a favorite toy was broken? No, being broken isn't a cause for rejoicing, but grieving. So I am going to allow my self some space for grief. And then I am going to move on and look for a source of confidence outside of myself.

But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. Romans 5:8 NLT

But you, LORD, are a shield around me, my glory, the One who lifts my head high. Psalm 3:3 NIV

I've come to the easy conclusion that my GPS is not an internal part of me. I don't have a satellite up-link in my brain (thank goodness and cue Dr. Who). Yet I've gained considerable confidence in having it sitting on the dash of my car.

And now I need to focus on a God who loves me, even a broken me. I can gain confidence in that external source. I need a little practice, because focusing on God has gotten rusty as I've turned most of my thinking inwards. We are taught to be reflective, and at times I could say that is a strength. Yet I'm finding that constant internal evaluation can also be a symptom of self-absorption. And yeah, I've been walking that dusty road far too much lately.

Time to lift up my head.
No, scratch that. . .
Time to look at God and let him do the lifting.

New familiar territory

It doesn't seem like clicking a little button on a computer screen should mean so much to me. But it does.

Elven Plate Mail Project - Day 2

Day 2

Pattern-making is something that I really enjoy. Unlike a lot of the things I do, I find it is something that I can't really explain or teach. I do know that it involves a lot of "thinking through" the entire construction process. My poor client will receive a lot of questions today as I work on creating a template.

On this particular project I start with the outer lines of the pattern pieces, then detail the interior. Since the larger pieces are made of smaller overlapping pieces I draw in the overlap with a different color ink and I place the rivet and grommet positions in.

 Then the 1st pattern gets cut apart traced onto green pattern paper and then taped back together  (to deal with the overlap) then traced for the next piece, taped back together, etc.

I only pattern one side of the breast plate. The pattern pieces will get turned over and traced for the other side. In the process of patterning an interesting decision comes up. I bought a yard of brown vinyl, and that will be enough if I expose the rivets - riveting one plate to the next. However, I like the idea of hiding the rivets under the edge of each other - riveting them to another layer of vinyl underneath the plates. I think that it has a cleaner aesthetic, yet it will increase the cost (I'll need more vinyl) and the weight. So I need to communicate and get my client's preference on this decision before continuing.


The client leans toward the aesthetic solution, so after procuring more vinyl it comes down to laying the pattern pieces out. There is more to this than simply trying to get the most out of your fabric. Vinyl is essentially a textured plastic coating adhered to a fabric background usually a knit. Knits are known as self-hemming. Meaning that you can cut them and they do not fray.

The knit portion of the vinyl does have a direction.  That means it has something called bias. Bias means that the fabric stretches differently on horizontal, vertical, and diagonal axes. Often in sewing, pieces that are meant to drape or curve they are placed diagonally on the grain of the fabric. Examples could be skirt pieces and collars. With the vinyl much of the bias will be mitigated by the plastic side, however it is there a little bit in the knit portion of the fabric.

So I cut the front of the breastplate pieces on a gradiated bias, because I want more curvature on the front than I want in the back - which is cut on a straight bias.

One of the other things that became visually apparent as I worked on this was amount of material used in the construction. You can get a simple vest out of a half yard of fabric, but this is not a simple vest. All of those overlaps add up, both in material and time. I am working with 60" wide vinyl and have used almost 2 yards of it in cutting the pieces out. That is 30 square feet - which is a whole lot of leather. Leather costs for an abbreviated  breastplate (it doesn't cover the midsection of the torso) and rerebraces (cover the upper arm) would run me around $240, if I could get the right weight of leather on sale. (7.99/sqft of 5-6oz.) Start adding in the cost of rivets and buckles stains and finishes and a real leather set of armor is going to get out of the budget I have in no time. The vinyl I have to say usually runs $16.00 a yard and I got it for better than that. So the difference is about $200.

That isn't to say that leather isn't worth it. If you can afford it, it is so worth the cost. But in many cases folks are looking at a costume that they cannot budget that much for.

So end of day 2 and I have the pattern cut. On Day three I will be tracing it onto the vinyl and cutting it out. I wanted to have all of that done today, but there are 42 pieces in this pattern. That's a lot of cutting and taping today alone. Good thing I find this work enjoyable!

Elven Plate Mail Project - Day 1

 Ok - trying something new here. This is a project blog for some elven armor that I am experimenting with. It's experimental because the only armor I've made is of the Stormtrooper variety and a few pairs of leather bracers. The purpose behind this blog will be to help others either make their own, decide against making their own, understand cost and time, and hopefully learn from my mistakes - since this is a first time jump.

Day 1

Electronic communications and face to face meeting with my client to determine a direction. My client combed through a lot of photos and sent some to me along with a wish list of what they wanted. Their initial best like was the following photo:

This came along with a list of wants - They wanted the armor to read as metal - not leather. In other words banded plate mail, not leather. It needed to be fairly durable for active use outside. And initially they also wanted a way to change it up to something they could sneak around in. They need it in two weeks. Oh and the budget was $150.

This might actually be a feasible list if I had a lot more experience, a full shop equipped with a die cut machine, digital laser etcher, a vac former, experience sculpting and making molds etc. Unfortunately for my client - I am a more of a person with a sewing machine and a few leather tools in the craft room. The good news for them is that with my inexperience they get my time free on this one, because I want to gain experience in this field. It is a win/win for us. They get hours of free work, I get paid supplies to experiment with.

Granted, I always get a little nervous, because I want something that we will all love at the end of this experimental jaunt, and there is a degree of gambling inherent in this. It could come out as a critical failure, in which case we would all be fairly disappointed.

And when someone sends me a photo of a thousand dollar suit of leather armor wanting me to get something like that in two weeks, for under $150. I have to take a moment and breathe for a bit. I like a challenge, but I also have to be honest with my clients. Some things can't be done - or at least not within the reality that is my basement craft room, my calendar, and their budget.

So our first day has a lot of conversations about materials and what we think might be feasible and what might not be. I am glad the client had time for a face to face meeting because it can be very hard to get visuals out of my head without drawing and showing materials. One of the things I really wanted to show my client was the tin duct tape that I have. It is an actual thin sheet of foil with an adhesive back. Think very thick aluminum foil combined with scotch tape backing and you've got it. Good news is that it is a type of metal that I can work with, it is inexpensive, and will read as metal. The bad news is that I fear if not done right that it could easily come off looking like aluminum foil armor - and that concerns me a great deal - it will continue to be my number one concern through this whole process.

I am also thankful that my client gets the idea that plate mail just isn't built for stealth. Or at least not in a case where you are trying to convince a panel of judges that duct tape is really metal plates. With real plate mail, the first steps I'd take to make it stealthy would be to sandblast it, paint it with dark matte colors in a broken camouflage pattern, and trim the plates down to the smallest sizes possible to allow for the greatest freedom of movement and the least carried weight. It is a hard balance to find if you want the armor to have the visual appearance of historic or fantasy shiny plate mail.

So what are the take away thoughts with Day 1.
(1) Well, if you are thinking of making armor for yourself, really think through what you need. Real plate mail is expensive and heavy if you are looking for something like LARPing. There are a lot of tutorials on foam armor out there and how to make it look like metal. This is realistic because of the light weight and the idea that you can mold foam a little with a hairdryer or a heat gun. Draw backs to that are that it isn't highly durable if you are running through brush, and Rub N Buff compounds used to make foam look like metal are really good for one time photo shoots. They will rub right off of the foam onto any nearby fabric - so get used to cloaks and sleeves that have gold and silver splotches if you are active in your costume.

(2) Realize you can't have it all. Even if someone paid me $3,000 to make the leather armor in that second photo. Even though I am fairly comfortable with leather work. I would have to say no. Because that particular bit of work would never happen in my shop in two weeks. Give me a month and yes you'd have it.

(3) If you are doing this for someone else, find folks who are OK with a bit of a gamble. I am very lucky to have clients who get the idea that they are risking some of their money here for me to learn what works and what doesn't. Yeah, if it turns out, they get a good deal, but there is always that unlucky chance that I'll roll a one.

(4) If you run a small shop or are thinking of doing this as a hobby business, have straightforward conversations about what's going on. I can't promise the moon and my client knows it. Yet it still helps to go over what I know about the materials and their limitations. This helps him make the decisions he needs to make.