So This Is a Little Bit Late

 In my defense, it wasn't posted on Ace of Spades until after Reformation Day either.

A Tribute and Memorial

My pastor spoke today at the Soldier's and Sailor's Monument in downtown Cleveland, Ohio. He served as a chaplain both in Shanksville, PA, and Ground Zero, New York City. Here is the text of his address today.

By the Shore

For decades now, I've gone to the shores of Lake Erie for enjoyment, but also when I need solace, or to think, or for cheering me up. I've been suffering from depression more lately with not being able to go everywhere I would like to, so a little over a week ago, Mr. BTEG and I hit the beach.

We saw one fish in the water that day, but we saw some birds come out of a dive into the water with fish in their beaks, too.

There's a creek right there that feeds into the lake.

And this breakwall was partially submerged; the water level seemed rather high the day that we were there.

Embrace Christ

On my way to the post office this afternoon, I drove past a church that had the slogan "Embrace something that gives you hope and joy this season." But what permanent hope and joy can we find in things that will rust, or moths destroy? I find hope and joy in my relationships, true, but the root of my relationships is still God, who is Love itself. Trying to find hope and joy outside of Christ is ultimately an empty pursuit, and sad advice for a church to give.

When in the Time of the Plague

 do as the plague doctors do.

Adventures in Baby Knitting (and Other Types)

Knitting is not technically a new hobby for me. I started to learn it over ten years ago, but at the moment, I am more active in the hobby than I have been for quite a while. I've gotten discouraged in the past, because I never seem able to move beyond basic stitches. I also for the life of me still can't get a project started in the round, because I can't join that first stitch together. However, I have a bunch of projects recently completed, planned, or "on the needles" right now. If I keep up this momentum, maybe I can go on to more difficult projects.

The first thing that got me on a knitting kick was the news that one of Mr. BTEG's co-workers, and his wife, were expecting a baby. We've hung out with the couple as friends often, and we were invited to the "drive-by" baby shower. I made them a baby bib, and a washcloth. The baby's father has this thing about collecting duck items; indeed, he wore his ginormous duck slippers at the shower. So I put duck themes into the items that I knit.

It's becoming a thing of mine to knit an orange-colored bib for new parents, because strained carrots stain things like you wouldn't believe. I would like to make another orange one for another young woman that I know who is expecting a baby, as well as a blue bib, because she's having a boy.

I made a Christmas dishcloth in red, white and green dyed yarn for a co-worker of my daughter. I may have let that one get out of the house without taking a picture of it, but there may be pictures on my camera card. If I find them, I'll put one up.

I'm working on a Barbie doll size sweater. I've had problems working with this size in the past, but so far, this project seems to be coming along okay.

I started a baby blanket as an after-baby gift for the couple that I made the duck stuff for, but the new baby is already about a month old, so who knows if I can get this blanket done in a reasonable time frame.

I'm working on an afghan for me that I think is just going to be plain old garter stitches, with some purl rows every now and then to add interest. I'm in no hurry for that one. In fact, since Mr. BTEG always likes the house cold, I can pretty much use an afghan all year round.

Lastly, I have some projects to work on that came in a kit. I got a really great deal on the kit; it's an interesting story about internet companies and branding, I think. Once upon a time, there was a website called Craftsy, which offered classes on things like quilting, sewing, knitting and crocheting, for a fee. They also offered patterns by independent designers, some which were free, some which were a small price to buy. I had a Craftsy account myself, until... someone decided to change Craftsy to Bluprint. I *think* Bluprint added some classes in other types of creative endeavors, but everything went to pay-for classes, and all the independent designers were gone. Bluprint also sold crafting kits, as you'll see. Suddenly, I see Bluprint kits for bargain prices on the webpage of one of my favorite fabric stores, and The Real Craftsy is advertising on Instagram. Yep, Bluprint has gone back to Craftsy. Even the Wayback Machine (archive.org) redirects Bluprint to Craftsy. Alas, the independent designers are still gone, and the classes that were advertised with the kit, to help me learn to knit and how to make the three projects that came with the kit, would now cost me $69.99 for the 17 sessions, 4 hour and 26 minute total set of classes. Or, I could join Craftsy for $7.99 a month, or $79.99 a year. Good thing that I already know how to knit! I may poke around the classes on the Craftsy site, but at the moment, I'm also looking at SkillShare. I signed up for a free trial with them, but I made the mistake of signing up right before Christmas, when I wasn't up to watching a lot of teaching videos. SkillShare caters to mostly different class types, but I was interested in things that were offered there as well.

Anyway, I did at least get a super good bargain on some nice knitting supplies. I paid $20 plus shipping for the kit below; I presume my fave fabric store bought all or most of the Bluprint kits for fantastic prices when Bluprint stopped being a brand. I got all the yarn and needles necessary to make the three projects, three patterns, a canvas bag, and a small case that contained the knitting needles, plus four yarn needles, a pair of scissors, and some stitch markers. The only thing that worries me is that the super bulky yarn up top is labeled as "roving." I'm pretty sure that roving yarn is yarn that hasn't been spun, and thus will fall apart after a short time of any kind of use, much less a hand wash. Roving is super popular at the moment, and I don't know why. I would think once people figured out that the item that you put some much time and/or money into, was going to fall apart after the second or third use, the roving fad would have soon been over. Never underestimate the silliness of the latest wine mom fad, I guess.

I hope you enjoyed reading this, maybe even if you're not a knitter? A gold star for you if you read this small novel, and a silver walker if you got the movie reference in my title. :)

State of the Blogger, January 2021

Hello, all you dudes and dudettes! I have the feeling that it would be a good idea to be more in touch with the outside world this year, so the blogging will be picking back up (hopefully!)

By God's grace, the BTEG family is doing pretty well. The Eldest is still out on her own, now living too far away for casual visits, but we keep in touch. The Dancer, now to be known by her real name, Alex, still lives at home, and works as a pharmacy technician. Mr. BTEG is able to work from home, which is a real blessing.

As for me? I'm pursuing my many interests and trying to pick up some new skills, and that's what this blog will mostly be about, as well as some essays and rants. I run a pretty active doll collector's blog, but I'll be talking here about other things I'm working on. I don't want to share too much yet, because I'm still in the learning phase for many of my intended pursuits.

I hope that any of you still reading here are doing well. I don't expect 2021 to be a great year, but we are at Casa BTEG will be doing our best to keep moving forward.

Happy Reformation Day!

 

For RagingMoon1987

RagingMoon is a doll blogging friend, but there were a couple of non-doll things I wanted to show her, so I'm coming over here to post them. Long past time I put up a post here, anyway.

First one is a Pepsi can that I brought home from a college trip to Germany, since RagingMoon has an interest in soda containers.

Licensed from PepsiCo, Inc.

Soda containing caffeine. Apparently Limonade has been expanded to just mean any carbonated sweet drink.

Secondly, a really blurry shot of a group of tom turkeys taking their sweet time crossing the street. The lighting wasn't that great, since it was around dusk, and I was several cars back from the turkeys. This was taken in 2017, in Bay Village, Ohio, on the westside of Cleveland.

Lunch by the River

Last Friday, I met a friend of mine for lunch at Margaritaville in the Flats, in downtown Cleveland.

The Flats are so called because they're lower than the rest of downtown. They're the shores of the Cuyahoga River. For a long time, the Flats were mainly for the loading or unloading big cargo ships that still traverse Lake Erie and dock at the port of Cleveland. But a few decades ago, developers started putting restaurants, bars and entertainment venues in. The Nautica Queen is a pleasure boat that cruises up and down the river, and can go out on the lake when the weather is appropriate. The Dancer had her senior prom on the Nautica Queen.

Parking is convenient, and was only $4 for the lunch crowd.

Down the street from Margaritaville is the river.

On the west bank of the Flats is one of the older bars, Shooters.

I have no idea what it costs to be able to dock your boat or jet ski in the Flats. You can see the Nautica Queen side on and head on in the two pictures below.

This is the best shot I got of the Nautica concert stage, and the Powerhouse building, which now contains several restaurants and entertainment venues, plus the Cleveland aquarium.

I think I need to get Mr. BTEG to take me down to the Flats again before the bad fall weather sets in. :)

Twenty-Five Years Ago Today

Grass Is Green, Water Is Wet, Cleveland Gets Midges

Apparently, the yearly infestation of midges is important news this year. Is there an unusual amount of them in 2018, or something? I don't really get that from the article. I spent most of my childhood years living two blocks from Lake Erie, in the 1970s. The outdoors would be crawling with those things for a little over a week. You kept your mouth closed and dealt with it. For that matter, it's difficult to drive your car in NE Ohio during a summer evening, or ride a Cedar Point roller coaster as dusk settles in, and not encounter a few bugs, even once the midges are gone. Take your car to the car wash, and as for the roller coaster, well, it's sometimes hard to keep your mouth shut, so be prepared to pick a bug out of your teeth.

Would Catholicism Save America? Discussing the Concept of Why America Will Perish Without Rome

I picked a bad time to try to start being consistent with my blog posts. Life has gotten super chaotic here at Casa BTEG, and I've neglected blogging as a result, especially since it's hard to even get to my personal computer at the moment. However, I think we're approaching the end of the current difficulties, and also, I found something that I really want to blog about! The subject today is two videos on YouTube from the channel of Milo Yiannopoulis, concerning a new book being released by his new printing company, Dangerous Books.

I've been reading and watching Milo's content since before he left Breitbart. I've never been an enormous fan, per se, but his take on conservative life and culture in America, as a Catholic gay man from the UK, comes from a very different place than other prominent conservatives, which makes him interesting reading and listening. Also, he's a lot of fun, which is refreshing.

Since I follow his YouTube channel, I saw two interviews Milo recently did with a man named Timothy Gordon. He is publishing a new book through Dangerous Books entitled Catholic Republic: Why America Will Perish Without Rome, to which Milo has written a forward. I'm definitely not going to touch on everything in the interviews, as the two videos together are almost an hour long total. If you want to watch them, they can be found on YouTube here and here. But there are a few points that I wanted to make, and hopefully discuss. I'll only be covering one today.

The most important issue I took from the videos was the idea that Protestants, from Luther on, do not believe in free will. Therefore, their thinking, Gordon argues, is antithetical to a country like the American republic, which was founded on the idea of Americans using their free will to make, for the most part, their own plans about how their lives should be arranged, with as little government coercion as possible. One of the most important values of the Founders was the right to individual liberty. Protestants therefore, who deny the existence of free will, cannot co-exist with a country of individual freedoms, or so Gordon posits.

From a theological standpoint, the concept of humanity and free will has been argued for centuries before me, and will probably continue to be a point of discussion until Christ's return. For Lutherans, our concept on free will, at least from the point of view of becoming one of God's redeemed creatures, can be found in our catechism: "I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength, believe in Jesus Christ my Lord, or come to Him. But the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and keeps me in the one true faith." So in this sense, Luther certainly does not agree that Christians become so merely by personal free will. Rejection of God is another matter, and one on which I am not as well versed. I do know that we do not follow Calvin's doctrine of people being foreordained to go to either heaven or hell. Modern day Protestantism, however, certainly does seem to follow the idea of free will, with the idea of "making a decision for Jesus." For whatever reason, Gordon seems to discuss only the early Protestant leaders like Luther and Calvin. I would like to know what he would have to say about the current views of the many Protestant denominations that do emphasize making a personal decision.

However, is the eternal different from the temporal? Is being unable to use my free will to be redeemed by God, mean that I am unable to use my free will to decide who to marry, for whom to vote, what type of government I want, or even what I will eat for breakfast? I was going to develop this idea more today, but this post has already gotten longer than I intended it to be! Hopefully I'll get some comments to draw on for my next post, and if not, I'll still keep going with the idea of secular free will, for a Thursday post. Maybe I'll be able to find some reading about Luther's views on the role of free will in our earthly lives in the meantime. There are also a few more things from the interviews that I wanted to go over, so be looking for that as well.

Friday Already?

To be fair, I had a really bad day yesterday, and I never even remembered my resolve to blog on Thursdays. But just keeping at the blogging is important, even if I do mess up, so here I am. I'm so glad that spring is on the way, even if winter decided to remind us that it's not quite gone yet yesterday. Anyone else have Seasonal Affective Disorder and have a rough winter this year? Of course, I didn't use my light box as reliably as I could have, so it's partially on me. My psychiatrist gave me an article recently about a light box being more useful to bipolar people if it is used around noon, so I might try that as March slowly winds away.

Where Have All the Lutherans Gone?

Talking with Scottius led me to blog today about something that I think about a lot, which is why there doesn't seem to be a strong conservative Lutheran community. The church Mr. BTEG and I currently belong to is a good distance away from our home, to begin with. While I suppose it would be asking too much to have a solid church actually in my community, it'd be nice to have one closer by. I don't feel any sort of connection to anyone at my current church. In addition, there's not really much of a strong Lutheran presence online anymore. Not only are bloggers gone, but people that I used to see on Google Plus aren't there, and Facebook is dying all on its own. When you don't have a church family, and you don't have an online church family, you can start feeling pretty detached from your church.

Working at It

I've been doing a lot of thinking about blogging, ever since one of my fellow doll bloggers made a post about the benefits of it. I enjoy the doll blogging, but most of the regular bloggers from when I first got started on this blog aren't around any more, and the Lutheran blogging world is pretty much non-existent. However, not only do I still enjoy blogging, it still seems to be the best platform for me. Besides which, as my doll friend's post pointed out, blogging can make you a better communicator and writer. That's always a good thing, so even if I never had a huge following here, it will help me provide a better doll blog too! Don't worry, I won't be blogging about dolls here, but doll collecting truly is where a lot of my time, blogging and money goes, now that my daughters are starting to make their own way into the world.

Both of my daughters and I each have several YouTube vloggers that we like to watch, although I'm waiting for some of my favorites to be shut down any day now. However, what the most successful vloggers seem to do is provide regular content. Even if it's crap content, they get something new up one or two days a week. So for now, I'm going to try Mondays and Thursdays as my days to blog here. Even if I have nothing that seems exciting to say, I'm going to try to put up a new post every week on those days.

For this post, let me tell you about what Mr. BTEG and I were able to do with some of the "crumbs" we received in our tax refund this year. For starters, this past Saturday we drove down to the IKEA in Columbus, Ohio, and picked up a cart full of items that we've been needing for quite some time, like a mattress, a set of dishes (most of our old plates got broken or chipped during the child-rearing years,) and a bookcase with glass doors for my doll collection! The IKEA warehouse makes a Costco or Sam's Club look like a little mom-and-pop operation.

The BTEG family has not taken a vacation in many years, partially due to commitments like school, but largely due to finances. Mr. BTEG and I both suffer from seasonal depression, which seemed especially bad this year. So this past Sunday, Mr. BTEG and I were able to spend the night at one of my favorite places, Great Wolf Lodge indoor waterpark in Sandusky, Ohio. I'm not a strong swimmer and not really up for large water slides, but there are enough water attractions at GWL to keep me happy, and it's got a very nice restaurant and a few other in-hotel food options handy, so Mr. BTEG and I were able to wind down and relax. Plus, I got some swimming in Sunday afternoon and evening, and Monday morning.

The first time we took a vacation at Great Wolf Lodge was all the way back in 2004. Mr. BTEG was working a contracting job in Chicago during that time, which meant that the girls and I didn't see him as much as of course we were used to. Fortunately, we were already homeschooling, so there were a couple of weeks the girls and I drove out to Chicago and stayed at his apartment there with him. It was even educational, since we visited a lot of the family attractions Chicago has to offer. But we wanted to spend some serious family time at Christmas, and on a contractor's salary, Mr. BTEG was able to afford a couple of nights stay at what I believe at the time was Great Bear Lodge.

Honestly, it was probably one of the best times we had as a family. The girls were young enough that somehow "Santa" managed to sneak all the Christmas presents past them, so that they were truly surprised when they woke up on Christmas morning.

Our eldest had brought some "reindeer food" that she'd made with her Brownie troop. We put that on the balcony the night before, and I scuffed the snow around after they went to bed, to look like the reindeer had come by and snacked on it.

We had a Kids' Cabin room, where the girls had their own little cabin with a bunk bed, a twin-sized bed, and their own game console and TV (the two pictures below are from another Christmas that we spent there.)

Most importantly, we got to spend that Christmas holiday together without worrying about dealing with annoying family, making food, washing dishes, or even going out in the very inclement weather that we were having at the time.

It's one of those times that as a mom of two adults, I still look back on with fondness, and they do too. (They *still* don't know how we managed to sneak all their presents past them.)

So yes, Great Wolf Lodge has wonderful memories for me, but Mr. BTEG and I still found it a very relaxing place to recharge this past weekend, so we can hold on until spring weather gets here to Northeast Ohio (Spring Training notwithstanding, Scottius!)

And I'm going to do my absolute best to put content up here every Monday and Thursday! It might be crap content ;), but it won't be doll-related. And no, my doll stuff is not crap, thankyouverymuch! :)

Happy New Year!

I've meaning to put up a blog post for a while, because I have some big news, but I never did. I'm out of the habit, not sure anyone reads this thing anymore, etc. But then Scottius Maximus re-emerged from his own blogging hiatus, which gave me the impetus I needed to revisit my own blog. However, this post isn't going to be about 2018, but the last big family event of 2017. Our eldest daughter got married!

As you can guess, the wedding had a Halloween theme. Overall, it was very nice. I'm hoping I won't have to deal with any big events in 2018, however, at least not in my immediate family!

Taking Stock

So the Dancer is officially done with high school, and the Musician is getting married in October! Time to do my own thing is becoming increasingly less scarce. Even though I'm really introverted, I'm still trying to find new ways to get out of the house, that I'll enjoy. I already attend a knit/crochet group once a month, and I'm trying to find people locally who are interested in doll collecting. I like going to baseball games, and it'd be fun to go to a concert once in a while. Neither my husband nor daughters are interested in the same music I am, nor are they interested enough in baseball to swing tickets, for the price.

At the same time, while scanning Google Plus a few days ago, I realized how few of these people online are my actual friends. It was enjoyable having other people to talk to about homeschooling, for example, while I was still doing that. But quite a while back, I realized that during the last period of time when Mr. BTEG and I were especially suffering through a difficult situation, we had absolutely nobody there for us. Our pastor did come and commune us, since Mr. BTEG's health hardly let him leave the house at that time. But it was just Mr. BTEG and I in the day-to-day struggle, me mostly trying to support him and be there for our girls. And now that I have more time to make better friends, even if some of them are still online friends, I don't want to waste thoughts or time or bandwidth on people that I don't have a real relationship with. And with more discretionary income and time, I can focus more on things I've always wanted to try, and maybe make real friends that way too.

This may not become strictly a hobby blog, but I think posting about new things I'm trying, and hopefully new people that I meet, will make for some fun blog posts. I may go back more to posting about current events, if I have a bloggable opinion. Because I like blogging! I've been able to interact and meet with some fun people while I've been writing this blog, and I'm hoping I'll meet more. Next time I blog, it will probably about my lunch date with a friend either in Ohio City or the Tremont neighborhood. I've never been to Tremont, although that neighborhood has been livened up by the development of the Christmas Story House and Museum. Don't know if we'll visit that, but if we do end up in that area, I'll take pictures.

Starting Anew

I find that I love beginnings, of the year, month, even week. It gives me motivation and opportunity to look at my goals, and try to improve my habits to get to where I want to be. I've learned over the years not to try to make huge changes, but to move a little bit in the direction that I want to go. Once I get that in place, I can move on to a further step. Although this is the beginning of a new week, for liturgical Christians, it is also the start of a new church year. This is the first Sunday in Advent, a penitential season leading up to the feast of Christmas. It's definitely not the time to make grandiose proclamations about being a saint in future, but if God's mercies are new every morning, then it can be possible to make a new start!

Making an Appearance

Besides being busy with my everyday life, I've been spending a lot more time on my hobbies, frankly because I need something enjoyable and fulfilling to me, in my life. But people do occasionally pop in here, so I should probably be more active here again too. As I've said, I'm pretty sure this blog has lost me acquaintances from the hobby side of my life, who've come here and read my stuff. But Barb the Evil Genius was already my private online persona, as opposed to using my real name with family and friends on places like Google Plus. I didn't want to create yet another nom de plume, so I'll stick with who I am, where I am, and hope it works out. Honestly, although I can get passionate about my beliefs, I don't bite. :)