Our anniversary: of nerdyness, practicality and beauty

Oh yes, it is all quiet in the house. And I am taking advantage by writing up a few posts for this poor blog. Ah, I know I have neglected you, but with the retreat coming up as well as my anniversary, I just have barely been near my computer.

I could start about the retreat, which was fabulous and deserves it's own post, but instead, I will start with the most important; my husband. My wonderful husband and I celebrated our fifth anniversary. This makes us mere newlyweds compared to some, but it is never the less a big milestone. It's our first 'big number' anniversary. Halfway towards the double digits. I have told you before about how I came to marry that wonderful man. And about our wedding. It should be pretty clear that I adore my husband.
Now do not get me wrong, my husband is a man with flaws (though honestly, I think he does not have that many). And sometimes I am uspet at things he does. Usually though, if I think about it for longer than five minutes, I usually find much worse things that I have done, which makes it less worth quarreling over. If something bothers me long term, I try to talk it out at a happy moment in a non accusatory tone. "Hey, I was just thinking the other day how much easier it would be if we would...." seems much more productive than "Why do you always leave your pants on the floor?" Especially as .. ahum... I sometimes too leave things on the floor that do not belong there. Like pieces of clothing. However I never do this when I am cleaning up. Putting your own laundry in the basket seems natural, even if it is laundry that should have been in there two days ago. Putting someone else's laundry in there seems like an injust chore, a deliberate inconvenience. Sounds like a sinful and self centered perspective to me.
My biggest challenge in my marriage (and especially in motherhood) is to develop a servant's heart. It is my bullet prayer throughout the day when I am feeling overwhelmed: God create in me a servant's heart.
But despite all that: my husband LOVES me. And I LOVE him. For our anniversary I bought him a Jedi bathrobe. The perfect combination of nerdy and practical.



He has been wearing it a lot and claims it is really comfy! In return, he gave me the Pentateuch volume of the St. John's bible. This gift is nerdy and beautiful. Proof that by now we know one another well. I love the St. John's bible. This is the first handwritten bible since the invention of the printing press. It is pretty expensive, so I am acquiring it one volume at a time. So far I have the gospels and acts, the psalms and now the Pentateuch.



The beauty of this handwritten bible is that, because of the smaller size and the handwritten text (photographed handwritten text of course), it invites you to slow down in your reading and savour the Lord's word, even if- with small children- you only get to do so in small doses.

We celebrated our anniversary with Bill's parents and the children. Then in the evening we went out for a simple meal, a walk along the beach and ended up talking a few minutes under the moon while sitting on a porch swing. The group of teenagers sitting in and around the porch swing next to ours made the moment not less romantic.
Five years. Not nearly long enough. I was so happy to read that Matrushka Anna celebrated her wedding anniversary (fourteen, much further along the path of wisdom than I am) just a few days ago. Her fourteen lessons are a word to the wise! I found myself nodding my head at each one of them. Number three is my particular challenge. There is that 'servant's heart' again.
I hope that as the years go, I will grow in wisdom, in wifeliness (the spellchecker claims this is not a word, but it should be), in patience, in sacrificial love, and in willingness to serve. I hope our love will grow stronger and deeper. After all, I felt as if my heart was ready to burst with love on my wedding day. Five years later, it has only expanded.

Whitework pattern finished

This little pattern was made on an openwork stitched linnen and will be the baptismal stole for a little girl named Anastasia Elise.

I finished the pattern and now only need to add the initials and the date, but I lost my thread, and I do not want to work with another shade of white, so I have some searching to do.

Pink Roses II: Life, with children...

Two days ago, I made a post about the difference a vase of flowers made in my housekeeping. The beautiful pink roses are still standing next to me and making me smile. However, I vowed several times that in this blog I would be honest about the realities of homemaking and motherhood.
Quite often in the past I've visited wonderful homemaking blogs and come out feeling inspired but also hopelessly inadequate and doomed to failure, because I never would be able to get it all together and do all these wonderful projects like those women did. Their children never seemed to throw tantrums, their house never seemed a mess, and there always was a crockpot with something delicious on, so they never... ever... stood frazzled before the freezer and decided that they could get away with pizza this evening. And if they did, it would be homemade, wholesome, whole wheat pizza dough of course, with toppings layed out in a shape that portrayed the liturgical season or their current bible reading or homeschool project.

In the few years that I have been a wife and mother I have learned that life simply does not work that way. These women DO all these wonderful projects and I commend them for it, but often they are of the opinion that when things go wrong... you do not announce it to the world. I can respect that opinion, especially in this tell all generations where people seem to find it necessary to share every little detail about their lives, even the ones we REALLY did not want to know.
For some of us first generation homemakers however, this works discouraging. We have no other rolemodels to look at for full time homemakers than either old television shows (which we at least KNOW to be unrealistic) and the women we get to know through the internet who go before us.

So I made the commitment that while I want to share my inspirations and triumphs and joys, I will also share the ah... less pretty side.
On sunday... my house looked beautiful, the roses beamed at me in approval and I felt satisfied with the world. Three days, two doctors appointments, a husband with a busy time at work and a son with a cold later... these are the changes:

- Miscelanious objects have managed to congregate on my desk. I do not know how or why, because I certainly did not invite me, but from where I sit right here I can see a homeschooling book, a stick of deodorant, two childrens books, an empty box of tissues, a box of dried prunes, a necklace, a box of crayons that should be in the desk not on it, a mug, a can with an energy drink, a pretty tea cup, a childrens cup and a half worked scribbled drawing that my son made while talking with his grandmother on skype, as well as some junk mail. It's a big desk.

- The crystal bowl with the pretty red apples had to be removed because my son kept helping himself. That would not be so bad, after all, fruit is good for you, if he would actually eat one apple, and then go to the next one. Instead he selected one, bit in it. Took it along... left it somewhere and when whim stroke stretched his hand out for the next one. We went through three apples before I caught on and intervened. Two of the apples are now on Joseph's own plastic table to hopefully be finished off by tonight.

- There is one basket of duplo's upended on the carpet, and Joseph's shoes are laying next to them where I put them after I took them off to put him down for his nap. For some reason, my husband's tie is also laying on the carpet.

- The pretty white table cloth is unfortunately no longer pretty and white. Two days ago my son wanted to play with the coin box and help pick up the coins from the table and put them back in the jar. We 'counted' money for literally an hour and a half. Dirty coins leave residue on a white table cloth.

- To finish off the table cloth, came our daily practice of independance and self reliance: the idea that we should allow a child to do things for itsself so that he can become more independant and a greater help to mommy and daddy and he learns to do an effort. It's a great thing to stimulate at the age of two and a half where children actually LOVE to do things by themselves. It's also a sticky thing to stimulate, literally. Because while Joseph is learning how to spread cream cheese or choco spread on his own crackers or bread, the once white table cloth suffers in the two seconds there are between mommy realizing the impending disaster and the moment where she can hand a whipe to her son after having hauled her pregnant body from the chair in an unseemly display of haste, rushed off to the kitchen, found the whipe and offered it while exclaiming "NO Joseph, you're being a good boy... keep your hands up... no... keep it... oh..."



Now after I have finished up this post, I WILL actually put that tablecloth in the washing machine... I will clean up the clutter on my desk and it will probably only take ten minutes. But some days, I am too tired and by now just need a nap. Or some soothing time to knit, and some days it grows from this little bit of disorder to more extravagant proportions. Then I need a bouquet of pretty pink roses or another reminder that even in this season, even with limited time, I can create some order and pretty - ness amidst the choco smears. At least for a few hours.

Be soft of voice..

The signature line I use on message boards or other ways to communicate on the internet is always the same: "Be soft of voice and gentle of bearing.."
Somehow that sentence seems to radiate with people because I often get questions about it. Where does it come from? It's the beginning line of the following poem, which to me, describes what I want to be as a woman:

Be soft of voice
and gentle of bearing
be kind of heart
and tender of hands

be bright as the morn
and still as the evening
within you they'll find
God's love reborn.


It's a reminder to myself of what I should be. Of course I fall short more often than I would like to. But over the years that little poem has had a profound influence on me. I remember as a teenager priding myself in a razorsharp wit that could cut people to the quick if they were being 'stupid'. And in truth, if I do not keep a strong hand on the reigns of my tongue, sometimes a sharp analyses of someones actions, understanding, or opinions would fall out. I am working towards ridding not just my tongue from these unkind words, but over time I hope my heart as well will simply banish such thoughts as unworthy. That doesn't mean becoming blind to other peoples faults, but simply not feeling the need to dwell upon them, not feeling the desire to point them out unless in the greatest love and in a way that for them is not humiliating but helpful.
We all know some people who delight in "telling it like it is" "calling a spade a spade" and "I say this with great love, but what you are doing is ..." and so on. Calling a spade a spade is great for gardening tools, but people are somewhat different.

There are countless quotes in the bible that show God's desire for us to speak kindly, with foretought and without malice or even anger. Just to give you a few, here are some examples:

Psalm 34:13
Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking lies.

Proverbs 22:11
He who loves a pure heart and whose speech is gracious will have the king for his friend.

Ephesians 4:29;31
Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers... Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.

Psalm 19:14
May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.

Phillipians 4:8
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

I am not there yet, but I have made progress. My students, when I taught highschool a few years ago commented on the fact that I was "always in a good mood" and had "such patience". I was glad they could not look into my heart every single day, because I often felt impatient. My words however and the way I spoke them seemed at least to show them the reflection of something more beautiful. And that 'something' I believe is the Lord at work within me.

Of course, the Lord asks for my cooperation with this great work he is doing within me, and some days it feels like a lot of hard work. But recently... I have been getting some more unexpected rewards through a little mirror. It actually brings to mind yet another quote:

Proverbs 23:15-16
My son, if your heart is wise, then my heart will be glad; my inmost being will rejoice when your lips speak what is right

At twenty seven months, Joseph is in many things a little mirror. He likes to help us, he likes to mimic what we are doing, and above all when he speaks, my husband and I can find our own phrases and words sounding back to us. This goes from little phrases like "Yay, it fits" when we are doing puzzles, to even the intonation of the "muhuh" that I sometimes use as a murmur of assent if I am trying to agree with something but have my mouth full of food or do not want to interrupt my husband while he is speaking. When I dropped a cup of orange juice and let out a cry of dismay followed by a "Oh, silly mommy!" I found Joseph gleefully repeating "silly, silly mommy" and I had to smile. Because I realized that "silly mommy" is probably the worst word he can pick up here in this house. That and "stupid computer", which is only aimed at the machine in front of me in utter frustration when it refuses to work. Still... I'ld like to get that one out of my vocabulary too. There is no need for Joseph to start labeling things as 'stupid', just because I am impatient when the computer locks up.
It is wonderful however to hear our little word mirror say things like "How are you, sweetie?" when dadda comes home, and while we chuckle and tell him to say "how are you, dadda?" to realize that what he picks up in this house are terms of endearment. That the songs he hears are alphabet songs and allelujah's, Berlioz and songs that actually have a melody and can be repeated before anyone without us blushing.

I find a reward now, that I never would have thought to have in seeing my son pick up our words and mimic our behaviour towards others. He is two, and a rough and tumble, high energy boy, but there is often such tenderness in some of his gestures that I can only praise God for what he is working in me, and fulfilling in my son.

Etiquette: adapt, improvise or overcome?

According to Wikipedia, etiquette is a code that influences expectations for social behavior according to contemporary conventional norms within a society, social class, or group.

I love etiquette. But my problem is that aparently the etiquette that I adher to seems to belong to a different time or a different society than the one in which I find myself. I often have a vague feeling that this was the case, but today it struck home sharply after visiting of all things, an etiquette blog.
I stumbled over this blog (to which I will not link in this post for obvious reasons) following a little blog rabbit trail, as I do often if I have some spare time.

Unfortunately the first post was rather dissapointing to me. The writer had a very bad experience with someone over a swap. From what I read she had every right to be utterly dissapointed. Unfortunately she then proceeded not just to tell about this dissapointing experience, which I can understand, but instead of advising readers how to graciously handle such dissapointment she dragged the lady at the other end of the dissapointment through the mud in capitals, naming her by name, professional connections and allowing her anger to shine through in every word.

While I certainly think she was entitled to her anger, I wonder if her blog was the right forum for it. It's why I agonised over making this post and how to write it. Am I not guilty of the same thing in writing about something unpleasant here?
I think it's important for us to be honest in our blogs, and not to pretend we live a sugar and cream life in which our feet never touch the ground to brush a pebble. On the other hand, I think it is very important not to use our blogs to point a finger. The smallest child is taught that pointing a finger at someone is rude. We can be very honest about our experiences without, and this is where I find the important difference, embarrasing someone publicly. I do not write this post out of anger to the author of that blog, her post was just a little feather of inspiration so to speak, to put some dillema's in front of you.

When you have been raised a certain way, how much can and should you adapt to the culture around you? I have moved to the US three years ago and now in raising my son, I am trying to find the right balance between adapting to my new home country and the way I was raised.

For example, it is easy for me to still remain true to my mothers dictate never to embarrass someone else in public, because by doing so you will automatically embarras yourself. "You can not throw mud and keep your hands clean."






What is not so easy are matters more related to custom. Names for example. I grew up in the strict conviction that it is rude to address someone by their first name unless permission is given or exchanged.
You introduce someone as: "Please meet my friend, John Smith". And the correct answer is: "Pleased to meet you, Mr. Smith". Now, if Mr. Smith wants for a less formal rapport, he can say: "Oh please call me John". And from then on the title can be dispersed with.
The 'higher ranking' person is the one who is entitled to set the tone of an acquaintance. He or she is allowed to decide the level of formality. Higher ranking is not a matter of inherited titles, unless anyone has them. It can be determined by relationship. If someone is in a shop or restaurant as a customer, they have the higher rank. If people meet on equal footing, the eldest has higher rank, between a man and a woman, the woman enjoys the priviledge of higher rank.

I find it utterly annoying when people immediately address me with my first name. The first time it happened was when I was boarding an airplane and I nearly stood still to gape in shock. Well, that is a literary exageration, but the incident has still not left my mind years after the fact, so that speaks for itsself.

My question is now, should I adapt, or insist? Should I start introducing myself as 'Eva' instead of with my full name? How much of this is culturally determined? And how much of it is true politeness? Of course I will never insist upon is to the point of someone elses' discomfort. The perky flight attendant never knew that I spend the rest of the two hour flight mulling over the way she addressed me.

When I leave the house for a certain occasion, I like to dress up for it, whether it is a meeting or going to chuch, there are certain standards that I adher to. But, aside from church, I find mysef often feeling 'overdressed' since every occasion seems to call for jeans or slacks and truely beautiful outfits seem to have been deferred to weddings. Should I adapt? Is it custom? Culture? Or just general sloppiness? Am I relic from another time and would it be the polite thing to just adjust to the times? Or should I 'proudly but quietly hold up a standard', as the expression goes?

I am actually confused as to what the most kind and polite thing to do is in situations like these. And I want to try and clear up parts of my own confusion, since I am trying to train a young gentleman under my roof. He has an excellent example in his American father who has what I would consider oldfashioned European manners. But are those truelyEuropean? Or are they applicable in every Western society?

Can you help me out, ladies? What should I do?

My new hair style

With all the excitement of the new year, I forgot to mention my new 'do'. Cutting my hair was a big deal for me. I always had it long. Most people will say it still is long, but it has not been this short for well.. ten years.
I love long hair. I love the way it feels and I love the way it makes a woman look more feminine. Unfortunately my hair had become more of a nod to femininity than truely a statement. It was damaged and there had not been a decent cut in it since shortly after my wedding. The last thing I wanted, blogging so often about being modest without being frumpy, was to look like someone who had let herself go.

I have, however, a healthy fear of hairdressers who see long hair and just itch for the scisors to make you look 'modern'. In other words, they just want to cut it all off, regardless of your own wishes. It never seems to be too short in their opinion, and many of the 'stylists' in cheaper salons don't seem to have a concept of what flatters a face or what fits a certain style. There are of course great hairdressers out there, but I just didn't know one. At least not here.
My hair, my 'crown and glory', was not something that I would let any stranger cut. Hair does grow back, but it can take a long time, so I wanted someone I trusted.
So I waited till I went to Belgium to ask the hairdresser that did my hair for my wedding. I admit I had some regrets when a whole lot came off. But it still looks long, it's ultra feminine, and it DOES look a whole lot better. Now I just need to learn how to style it on a daily basis!

Feminine Friday

I gladly participate in feminine friday again this week and am taking my cue from the Barefoot mama. Her wonderful entry goes in search for the missing cute little girl dresses of yesterday. Now I am giving the subject a twist though. In my childhood, dresses were out. One of my biggest laments of being a child in Belgium in the late seventies and into the eighties is the lack of beautiful dresses. I was a girly girl. I loved dresses and would have kept them nice and clean too! For my confirmation, I ended up with a white pantsuit combination because it was impossible to find a nice white dress for the occasion. I am glad that as an adult I can find all the nice dresses and skirts that I have missed all these years.

Now that I am mother of a cute, wonderful 14 month old boy, my biggest frustration is the absence of cute, wonderful clothes for him! Where are the little sailor outfits? The tiny suits? The pants with white shirts and little ties. I am all too aware that dressing up has long gone out of the window for anything but weddings and funerals -and even there you can find yourself out of luck- I want to dress my little boy nicely. After all 'gentlemen' are one half of 'ladies and gentlemen'.

I can understand that in any given children's store, 70 percent or more of the clothes are intended for girls. After all, who does not fall in love with the cute little cardigans or sweet little dresses that the fashion industry allows those under the age of six. (After that age, mothers of girls run into a whole new set of problems.) But from the age of one, it seems boys are supposed to fall into one of the following three categories: basketball players, camo-wearing soldiers, or foul mouthed rappers.
Even if the slogan or picture is not offensive, the colours are loud and the style is ultra casual. Only now, around Christmas, you can find some cute little suits and shirts. Simply finding a real shirt with buttons is a challenge throughout the rest of the year.



Of course I am not sending my son dressed in a 3 piece suit to play in the sandpit, just as mothers of girls know that there is a time for a bit of lace trim, and a time for T shirts and knits. But when we go to church on sunday, or on a visit to grandma, I want him to look dressed up. After all, I am raising the next generation of gentlemen. If I want girls in 20 years to find men who know how to wear something else aside from track suits and jeans, I need to teach him now, or the idea of wearing a tie will be foreign and ackward to him at age 16.
Real men, know how to dress. And it is up to us mothers, to teach them.

Knitting

I am learning to knit. Well, I am beyond the first stages of learning and into the fact that I am actually knitting things. Simple things. I have knitted three scarves, one shawl, and two pairs of baby bootees. The first pair was my very first knitting project. I am proud to say that it actually looked like baby bootees. A bit less proud of the fact that they would be rather big for any baby of the human variety, but maybe Sasquatch has a newborn that is in need of a pair. Especially if he has two different shoe sizes.
My second project was a lacy shawl. I could of course not start with a scarf or a hat like a normal human being. But the shawl worked out and after that came the scarves. And then I found courage enough for the second pair of baby bootees, which actually look very nice.

I turned to knitting after my son was born. Since I was about ten, I have done embroidery: napkins, handkerchiefs, display projects, pincushions I have love it. It takes a bit of time though to set up nicely, to have all the threads at the ready, the scisors need to be close by, to find the next stitch you want to add. It's a lovely passtime for long, leisurely hours of silence and contemplation, with beauty growing beneath your hands. But long, leisurely hours were a thing of the past with a newborn, and still are with a todler.

Embroidery didn't fit in this season. I tried, I wrestled, I promised myself to find time, but as you read in my previous post on this, I just could not do it. After a lot of frustration, and inspired by the book: "no idle hands, a social history of American Knitting" I decided to learn how to knit. After all, if pioneer women on their wagons, between cooking, child care, and birthing found time to knit,
I should be able to find the oportunity too, right?
To my surprise I actually did. While knitting always has been a problem, this time, learning from a cheap booklet, it actually 'took'. The rhythm sooths me and allows me to focus on other things. For a few weeks I managed to get up at 6.30 am and put half an hour of knitting and contemplative prayer in.

During the day I find that simple knitting is easy to carry along. I can even carry it with me while I walk behind my little boy playing in the garden. So many things have been 'knit in' these scarves. Laughter, worries, warm rays of october sun and the occasional autumn leaf that had to be plucked out... I think it makes them more precious.

I have found that knitting has a wonderful calming effect on me, which in turn has a postive effect on everything around me, even my household, though at the moment the house doesn't reflect that as we are still trying to get organised after three weeks of sickness and two weeks of traveling. I have found that it is easily tucked in little pockets of time, while relaxing and sometimes even while busy. I have found that it allows me to be actively engaged with my son and my husband while I am just knitting or purling along. Of course this might also be because I barely have a pattern to follow and am just knitting straight on. I am learning quickly to knit blindly to make it even easier to knit without too much attention.

No wonder that knitting has been a symbol of domesticity for so long, when it combines both convenience, practicality and creativity, in one simple craft.

Let's bring back elegance (May 11, 2007)

While I was in my teens, I despaired over the future of elegance. It seemed that the entire world had begun to strive for a pure utilitarism. It was hard to find anything that had an aspect of beauty and simplicity added to it's function. Luckily the trend quickly faded and more and more people were trying to re instate elegance within their lives. Today, there are considerable options to lead an elegant life without breaking the bank. But what is elegance? Many in the past have considered elegance or tried to define it, as you can see here and here in these quotes. Although defining elegance is trying to capture something that in essence is undefinable, for me these two words are always at the core elegance: beauty and simplicity.
While going all out for Christmas or the holidays, I try to bring a bit of elegance back into my everyday life in small ways. The first and most visible probably is the way I dress. I prefer skirts, or dresses, flowing fabrics, not too much fuss and no big, splashy patterns. Kittens or Mickey on a sweater might be cute, but they rarely spell out 'elegance'. Elegance does not need to be expensive. It is a matter of consciously defining your own style. Look at magazines, look at historic costume and decide what suits you in colour, cut and pattern, then stick to buying these things, even if you find something that is rather sweet but that just does not fit the image that you have chosen for yourself.
Aside from clothes, there are many ways to bring elegance into a home without so overwhelming it with feminity that your husband finds it uncomfortable. Having an entire flower covered sofa might not be your husbands style, but few men object to having a vase or so of real flowers here and there. Maybe the day to day china is a plain white, but adding a candle to the table and some nice napkins immediately makes a difference. Cloth napkins immediately give a special air to your table, but nice paper ones can add a nice touch as well if cloth is too difficult to manage on a day to day basis. Still... consider to make sunday dinner perhaps a touch more special and formal, it can be a treat for your senses and a great oportunity to teach your children.
The way you carry yourself, the things you surround yourself with, the way you look at and aproach day to day situations, the things that fill your free time, all can offer oportunities to add elegance to your life, if you are alert to them.

Girly girls and pink elephants

Over the last ten years or so, I have often wondered about femininity. Maybe it started when I was a little girl. I wanted to wear cute dresses with bits of lace and ribons and big, big skirts that would bloom open when I twirled. Most little girls love to twirl, and I was no exception. Unfortunately I was born in 1976, which meant that by the time I was about ten, the actual finding of a skirt, blooming or not, was becoming extremely difficult, if you didn't want to resort to the things called balloon skirts or micro mini. What I wanted was simple: a nice, elegant little dress. The war on elegance had been declared though and it took up until the late nineties that finally glimpses of it were seen again in normal clothing stores.

My wonder about femininity started with my wonder about skirts and dresses. Of course that does not mean that there is no femininity outside them, but it seemed as if, during my growing up years at least, they had become symbols of something that people did not like to be reminded of. Putting a girl in a dress, even if that girl wanted to wear a dress, was seen as sexist. And the best way for a woman or a girl to be all she could be was to actually be... a man. Or at least pretend as if she was. Girls shouldn't just be allowed to play soccer, they HAD to play soccer. They shouldn't just be allowed to wear trousers, they had to wear them. They shouldn't just be allowed to do wild and adventurous things, they had to desire to do so.

My first rebellion came in the form of an enormous pink elephant. Out of the many books I devoured, many of them including knights and princesses, embroidery came to me as a wonderfully elegant pass time. It took quite a while to convince my mother that I really wanted to try it. I am trying to think back to remember if I was often given to passing whims, but considering I did ballet for five years before stopping, and sang in the choir until I had to go due to too old, I don't think I often gave things up. The only thing I did give up due to a sincere lack of any kind of talent, were the music lessons that I had wanted to take. Still, it took quite some convincing for my mother to actually buy me my first 'set'. I must admit it did not delight my childish heart. While I had been dreaming of tiny elegant stitches of roses in bloom and other beautiful materials, the gigantic pink, plump elephant with stitches of half an inch wide was nothing like I had in mind.
In this case, my mother proved to be much wiser than I was at an impatient and overconfident age ten. With an experience of twenty years of needlework, I know that what I had wanted then would have proved too difficult, frustrating, and would have been thrown in a corner quickly, instead of being the start of a lifelong hobby.