Berry seeds and bathroom shelf

I have enough pictures for another post! And since Q broke his arm last week, we're spending a lot of time at home.

I collected some huckleberry, salmonberry, and Indian plum seeds! I'm really excited to get them germinating in the fall. I've wanted these plants on my balcony since we moved here. Here are some pictures of my seed-cleaning method:

Huckleberries

Mashed seeds

Cleaned seeds

These look nothing like the seeds I ordered from VanDusen Garden a couple years ago, which explains in part why those didn't sprout, and why the Saskatoon berry seeds I ordered turned into willow trees. At least the bald-hip roses I grew from VanDusen seed are growing nicely and do look like bald-hips, though I won't really know 'till they flower.

I have them in packets in a drawer to after-ripen, and in Sept or so I'll put them on wet ppr towels in little boxes in the fridge to germinate.

I finished building an over-the-toilet shelf for the bathroom! I made it almost completely from scraps, gluing together some of them for bigger pieces. It was my first attempt at using my new Kreg Jig, which was pretty cool! And I got to use my new orbital sander, which was really fun. My new-to-me miter saw made the cuts a lot easier but they weren't quite as clean as I would like. Here's the final picture (it's attached to the wall to keep it from tipping over):

And here are various in-progress pictures:

Planer shavings! I love planing, so long as I keep it sharp.

Mormon Women and the Priesthood

Now that the excommunication of Kate Kelly (founder of “Ordain Women”) is headliner news, I’d like to make a few comments on the issue in addition to what my sister said here and here. First, the basic news: Kate Kelly’s organization’s goals are: “Mormon women seeking equality and ordination to the priesthood.” She was excommunicated. Thousands of other women who think the same way were not excommunicated.

As I read people’s facebook posts and blogs for and against women being ordained, there are several things I don’t see. The first is that the wider and much more complex issue of gender identity is largely ignored. Second, actually, women do have the priesthood, but they exercise it differently. Third, men can’t hold women’s positions either but that doesn’t seem to matter. Fourth, putting women into men’s organizations would require a complete restructuring of the church. Maybe that should happen, maybe not.

The observation that not all humans can easily be assigned a gender is one that our current society is just beginning to accept. Finding the best way to incorporate that into my church will take awhile.  And it’s a little beyond the scope of this little post. I will say, though, that my thoughts probably mostly (only?) pertain to people who genetically, physically, and socially identify as being either male or female.

I’d like to clarify something. Women in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (or Mormon or LDS) do hold the priesthood. Yes, we do. But we’re not ordained to the office of bishop, deacon, or apostle. That’s why the Ordain Women organization is called “ordain women” instead of “give women the priesthood.” The problem seems to be that women don’t hold the same offices as men.

Men can’t hold women’s positions either.  Yes, women have important positions in the Mormon Church, and no, men can’t have them.Women run the Relief Society, Young Women, and Primary, and they sit on various councils. It seems to me that if women should have men’s jobs, then men should have women’s roles too. It’s only fair, right? If women and men are the same and should do all the same things, then there’s really no need for gender-separated meetings or organizations at all, right? So everyone does everything. That’s “fair.”

But it’s diametrically opposed to a lot of basic church doctrine. Changing that would require complete restructuring. It would be a different church. Maybe that’s what should happen, yes, but maybe not.

The LDS church believes that men and women have fundamentally different strengths and challenges, and that assigning different gender roles in the church allows us to strengthen each other better than lumping everyone together all the time. I hate to use this statement, but scientists agree. It’s one of the things I really like about my church. I like being recognized as different than men, and as having my own set of challenges that most men wouldn’t be able to help me with.

It’s not just in my church that women like to be together for support and encouragement. Wikipedia lists over 50 women’s organizations of all shapes and sizes. And oh my there are tons of men’s organizations. So let’s say that men and women do indeed like to have their own separate groups sometimes.

You might say that has nothing to do with holding “priesthood” offices in the church. The church could retain gender-divided groups but still allow women to be bishop or apostle or church president, right? Okay, let’s see how we could do that. The only way I can see it working is to keep women’s organizations at status quo, but change the men’s organizations so they have to include women. Then we’d need to add several more organizations so the men could hang out together. That’s a major restructuring. Maybe it’s justified, maybe not.

If women must be ordained to priesthood offices in order to have equal weight in how the church is run, then a total reorganization is the only solution I can come up with. If men and women are equal but hold complimentary roles, then maybe we could just keep things as they are and make sure that women are included in policy decisions. That sounds a lot simpler.

Shelves, trees and summer

After the cake and Easter madness of Feb through April...

And after playing with my dremel and vice to make several maple, walnut and rosewood rings so I wouldn't worry about cutting off my gold wedding band....

I moved on to woodworking once the weather was warm enough to do some finishing work. Actually the rings were done while I chiseled dados and rabbets (grooves), since they drove me crazy. Thank goodness Q told me to make a set of shelves before embarking on a larger project (not begun yet), a wardrobe. I think I can safely say, "Never again," if someone asks me about chiseling dados.

There are lots of mistakes and less-than-perfect details but it was done in time for Father's Day! I asked TM to draw some flowers for the sides. I'm really glad I used a fast-drying finish because wow, putting on coat after coat on all those surfaces took a couple weeks.

Now I need a shelf for the other bathroom, and after hemming and hawing with myself for awhile, I bought a Kreg Jig, an orbital sander and a compound miter saw. I have the best husband for letting me buy toys :D. 

I moved my car out of the garage and claimed the space as MINE

Here are the kreg jig joints, filled with dowels. I didn't get the holes quite nice enough so I'm having to put filler around them but I think it'll still look nice once they're sanded and finished.

Here's my new-to-me saw (heaven!) and brand new orbital sander (dreamy!). Also my custom dust collector that hooks up to my vacuum, since the saw spews sawdust like mad.

I threw this shelf together a couple years ago, pre-kreg-jig, so now that Vivek has a nice shelf I'll make this one better and use it for the girls' bathroom. I countersunk the screw holes and am filling them with dowel pieces, added fir stops to the sides and back, maybe putting some more fir on the front, then I'll sand and finish it, then I'll put it on the stand I'm making to raise it over the toilet.

I'm loving playing around with wood. And the kids play in the driveway with chalk, water, blankets, and other things while I plot, sand, drill, and saw. I'm going to have to get another set of ear protectors so I don't have to send them to the stairs every time I use the power tools.

The other thing I've been doing lately is rallying [very few] troops to save the trees behind TM's new school. Take a look at my blog, Save Sunnyside Trees. I don't have much hope for it, I sadly admit, but someone needs to say something. No-one's happy about the development around here, and TM kept asking about what we could do for the trees, so I figured I'd better try to do something. But it feels like a lost battle, I'll admit. Sorry to seem to down about it (not the best way to run a campaign, is it?) but it does just feel that way. Lately I'm thinking that I might change my rallying cry to something that might have more reach -- like, "Please Follow the 2005 Neighborhood Plan" which is what they claim to be following but the reality is nothing like what they said they'd do way back then. Ah well. Check out the blog if you're interested. 

My motto lately is "If it's worth doing, it's worth doing badly" and it's saving me from a lot of misery, self-depreciation and boredom.

Now summer's upon us, which means children wake up and say, "What are we doing today, mom?" a phrase that strikes terror into my heart. Luckily, they don't mind playing in the driveway, or at the several parks kinda nearby. And the next sunny day that comes along, we'll go berry picking. And to Fort Langley and the beach and if I bribe them with chips and lollypops, they might even let me go to Home Depot.

Sharpening chisels and knives with sandpaper!

I have several woodworking projects waiting for me, but I got stymied at the "tool sharpening" stage. And our kitchen knives are dull dull dull dull. I happened to mention it to my amazing luthier friend, who showed me his very cheap method using automotive sandpaper! His is prettier, using a block of marble I think it was. I didn't have any extra marble pieces lying around but he said glass is nice and flat.

This is a piece of glass from a picture frame, taped on to an old cutting board for support. Then I taped 800 and 1000 sandpaper to it, and used the paper clip to help me keep the same angle as I sharpened the knives. Spit is the lubricant to use. It works great!! I still have to sharpen my chisel, but I'm so happy with this!

It's cheaper by millions than sharpening stones. Thanks, luthier friend :).

Eating gluten and dairy hooray!

Here's a long overdue update!

Since we moved to a newer place, TM's allergies have calmed down surprisingly. She doesn't seem to have trouble with gluten or dairy anymore, which is marvelous!

I had a blast making her birthday cake:

TM also is absolutely loving taking horse riding lessons. She's quite passionate about it.

This Christmas season was taking up with learning how to make chocolates. One of my friends makes hundreds and hundreds of chocolates every Christmas and sells them. He taught me the basics of fancy chocolate making. Very cool! He gets Callebaut chocolate shipped straight from Belgium, and he sold me about 20 lbs to play with. Very yum. Everyone loved them!

For our Christmas portrait I decided we should paint! TM chose butterflies, CH and I worked on the background, and Q contributed here and there. Our handprints are on it as signatures -- it was ever so much fun! Definitely due for a repeat next year.

The Fall here was full of fungi, which was absolutely marvelous. The two that stand out in my memory were the orange fairy cups (who wouldn't fall in love with those?)

and the shaggy manes were ever-so scrumptious!!

In other Fall news, we won the who-can-let-their-pumpkin-rot-the-longest contest (warning: picture not for the faint of heart).

I forgot to put in our Gingerbread House that we did before Christmas with my sister, who came to visit!

I'm teaching myself classical guitar, as well as anyone can teach themselves anything so insanely complicated. It's gloriously fun and very challenging, but mostly all I can do is teach myself to read notes and not get my fingers in the way of each other.

I also made some cute swim shorts for us girls out of great swimsuit fabric. Very fun! TM still needs a swim shirt, so I'd better get on it.

None of this is news for my FB friends, but I thought I'd put up a post anyway.

Cheers!