Wednesday, when thrift shopping, we found:

• Jansport small purse-size backpacks for the girls. It was funny because we were looking for purse/backpacks for their California trip. Each backpack is a new-condition. $1.99.
• The Paisley Pincushion Scalloped Apron pattern. 25 cents.
• Another retro apron pattern. 25 cents.
• a purple cotton knit sheet. $1.99
• 4 yards of a pretty 100% cotton floral. $2.

The kids picked wildflowers in our front pasture today. Okay, I’ll admit. They were posing for me. But pretty soon they got lost in the activity.

Mikah found a turkey feather and put a headband on to become an Indian picking wildflowers.

For a wedding we attended two weeks ago, I made this skirt for Naomi. Oddly enough, it is the same size as the one I made her two years ago, also for a wedding. She grew taller, but not wider, and this time, we wanted a shorter skirt.

We got 10 pounds of local cherries yesterday, along with berries, pears and peaches. We are loving it all!

We are getting ready for a busy weekend. Tomorrow we are having friends over for lunch. The next day we go to a wedding and also, Jeff’s parents arrive to pick up the kids for the annual California trip. So today is our only day to clean.

Thus the point.

I sent Mikah to clean his room. Then he came to me and said he was done and he’d wait in his room for me to check it. I finally got there and this is how I found him. Laying on his bed, happily enjoying a cherry break.

Good food floats his boat like nothing else.

And his room looks pretty good, too. Now he is vaccuuming. I suppose he thinks he’ll get more cherries after this.

FOE = Fold over elastic.

I am in love.

The picture shows an unnameable garment I completed with a little bit of FOE that someone had given me. (It is embarrassing to put up that picture. I’m only doing it so you can see what I’m talking about.)

It was a dream – and answer to prayer! Sure beat everything else I have tried for getting elastic smoothly around leg and waist openings. As soon as I get some more colors, I am going to use the fold-over elastic for the arm and neck openings on tank tops, for more unnameable garments, and for the necks on dress/shifts for the girls… This is going to be so fun!

I ordered some from an ebay seller: Fold Over Elastic Plus. It will hopefully arrive today and then I can start to do more fun projects with it. I ordered black and brown and some miscellaneous colors, too.

If you want to see fun ideas and tutorials for fold-over elastic, you have to check out Angry Chicken. She’s made some adorable dresses. I haven’t watched any of the videos; I have limited bandwidth and could easily use up a month of internet with sewing tutorials!

The basic idea with fold over elastic is that it folds in half and you can encase any opening – neck, arm, leg, waist, ankle, etc. Use it like binding, only it is WAYYYYY easier to apply. If you’re okay with the casual look (such as in the unnameable garment above), just zigzag it in place, stretching the elastic to fit the opening. If you want it to look more finished, zigzag the back side of the FOE to the underside of the garment, then fold the front side of the FOE onto the right side of the garment and straight-stitch it in place. How much stretch you give it depends on the application. For swim suit leg openings or unnameable garment openings, you’ll want the elastic to be shorter than the opening, so as to gather it closed and hold it in place. For an open neckline, the FOE could be almost the same width as the opening, although I would still make it only about 75% or 80% so it wouldn’t gape open. (This remains to be tested though.)

Anybody used fold-over elastic before? Anybody willing to give it a try? Please share!

You’re blessed to be getting a sneak peak. Right now my brother is away from home without proper internet to spread the word. Hope he won’t be mad at me for jumping the gun, but he gave me something to write about today.

(This picture is for my mom and my mom-in-love and my other friends who are not on Facebook. I got eight inches cut off. Last summer I got ten inches cut off and no one could tell the difference.)

I’m appreciative of all your loving comments about Mikah’s hair and our choice to allow him to let it grow. It is his choice, I don’t know if I’ve mentioned that. A sweet friend of mine emailed me with some reasons why she thought other Christians might differ from us in their choice to keep a boy’s hair short. It seems to me that most of the reasoning behind having a boy cut his hair is so others will not think he is feminine, nor will the boy be encouraged down the road to femininity.

I appreciated being able to read a balanced, loving explanation, as offered through my friend’s gracious words. I am going to share some further thoughts I wrote back to her in response; some particulars changed to fit this general setting and discussion.

There are many styles of masculinity and many styles of femininity. My family prefers not much adorning at all, no matter whether man or woman. We don’t prefer the girls to fluff up and add frills in clothing or hair. And at times others have mentioned that we are not encouraging the girls to be feminine enough. Yet my girls are feminine. Our men don’t prefer many of the masculine adornments that some in our culture fancy – camouflage, certain styles of clothing, suits/ties, etc. Yet Mikah and Jeff are manly.

See, I think the point, with regard to God’s plan for our choice in personal adornments, is to consider: are you (in general) trying to be something you’re not — if a man, are you trying to be a woman? If you’re a woman, are you trying to be a man? Clothes and hair styles change, and people’s preferences come into play. I believe we should look more at the person and their heart, rather than some outward features, or whether or not a person is adorned enough to fit in with what society determines is masculine or feminine.

Our family, rather than looking at society-appropriate adornments, looks primarily at function and comfort. (And we balance that with the person’s style preferences.) Many of our society’s current men’s and women’s adornments are neither functional nor comfortable. This is not to say that short hair isn’t functional or comfortable – it is the height of both! But if a person wants to grow their hair out, whether a man or a woman, why not allow that while encouraging manageability and good personal hygiene (as well as can be done with an 8-1/2 year old boy!).

So, I feel that we – both men and women in our family – are somewhat misunderstood. Not by our friends necessarily, but by people who take one look and make a quick judgment.

Back to Mikah’s hair, the irony is that when people see Mikah’s hair and don’t like it, they could be thinking one of two things: 1) we’re letting him be feminine, or 2) we’re too modern. Neither of these assumptions make sense, if people would look a little deeper. A deeper look at Mikah shows a boy who is all boy and who loves God and his family with all his heart. I can’t think of anything else that matters much.

This may be a little tongue in cheek, but I think if God really wanted people’s hair to be a certain length, He would have created it not to grow past that point — OR — He would have created scissors when He created man! He didn’t do either.

So those are more of my thoughts, which I offer in love to my friends and family far and wide. Much love to you all! If the Lord leads, please feel free to add your own thoughts.

Mikah’s hair was getting too long to be manageable, so I gave him a haircut yesterday. Not too much, just about four inches off. We never did take any pictures of him “finished”. But really, it is not too different.

I feel like we get a bit of flak about keeping his hair long. I can only point to a couple things people have said or done that suggest they think we’re wrong (or at the least, strange) to let his hair grow long. This makes me feel bad. It is just hair after all. However, it is the hair God gave Mikah, an even more important point.

Mikah’s heart is God’s, and that is what matters. If we lived in a culture where long hair was the norm (as it was in Jesus’ time), then no one would think anything of this. The length of one’s hair is a superficial choice, not a heart matter.

Yet, seeing how God blessed Mikah with some beautiful features, it gives us reason to rejoice in the Lord’s creation. That surely seems good, not wrong.