First up, cottons, linens and shirtings are on sale at Gorgeous Fabrics! We have some great fabrics on sale for 15% off, just in time for warm weather. And I've been adding some spectacular silks to the mix too. Check it out and have a ball. The sale lasts through Sunday.
Tomorrow's Saturday Seminar is all about designer seam finishes. We have a great crew taking classes, and it has helped reboot my sewing mojo. Now if only I had more time this week.
Cool Toy! Thank you to LindsayT for introducing me to the Eye-Fi Wireless memory card. It plugs into the camera and once it is set up, badabing! It automatically uploads pictures from your camera to your computer. I asked for it for Mother's Day, and it arrived just in time. Alas, my camera takes a ScanDisk memory card, so we had to get an adapter. But last night DH got it all working. No more dealing with cables. Hooray! Here's a picture of Hoover taken with it.
According to DH, you don't have to be in close proximity of the computer to download. You can be one or two rooms over, or upstairs. Kewl!
Now for the not-so-fun part. Last June, the priest at my church, Father Lenny, left to become pastor of a church near Harvard University. We were without a permanent pastor for 6 months. I referred to us as The Island of Misfit Toys. We had a temp guy, Father John. He seemed nice and funny, and ultimately, he became the pastor.
Well, be careful what you wish for. Not to put too fine a point on it, the guy has turned out to be a psycho. He's dismantling everything that Lenny put in place over his 14 years at the church, and he's driving away many of the parishoners. Our choir director is leaving in June and he has told the parish council that we're not going to replace him. And this guy is an angry, angry man. I could tell all sorts of tales about his atrocious behavior towards people who don't "yes" him all the time. And he keeps telling people that he can't wait to get rid of the people who come from other towns and just make this a "Burlington parish". Alas, it is his type of priest that prompted me to give up Catholicism for 17 years. I'm not a holy-holy type of person, but I had found a home and community in this place, and now he's destroying that for the entire parish. It's sad and I'm really pretty upset about it. I'm going to start shopping for a new church this weekend. My DS the Eldest is going to be a confirmation candidate starting next year, and I don't want him confirmed under the tutelage of this guy. It's frickin' depressing. Maybe I'll go back to singing with the Anglicans.
Anyway, that's what's been keeping me occupied. I hope you all are having a good week. Oh! And my Marfys finally arrived. Yay!!! So I'm tracing off the muslin for the jacket and I'll start on it this weekend.
Happy sewing!
18 comments:
We too have had our share of doozies when it comes to priests. Ours thinks that he owns the whole parish, and singlehandedly did away with the advisory board. My husband always says that he will never let a priest drive him away from our church, but after the relationship bashing sermon ours gave at our daughter's wedding last week, I am having second thoughts!
Did I ever mention I married into a very Catholic family? MY BIL is a monsignor. The things I could tell you....
Glad you like your Eye-Fi. Gotta get one for me now too, since I had to send my demo unit back, boo-hoo.
That camera thing sounds pretty cool! I'll have to check it out.
Sounds like your pastor IS a psycho! He sounds just like the previous pastor at my parents church. Angry is right. He worked people against each other at first, creating a lot of infighting. Then after a huge mess with him, the congregation tried to fire him. He sued the congregation, naming several people including my parents, to get possession of the church building itself. After 2 years of litigation, the congregation won. But wow... The devil will work through anyone...
I'll pray for you this weekend. I hope all goes well.
I'm envious of those who are taking your class this weekend! I'm wearing a blouse that I completed last weekend and am kicking myself for not having done French seams on the sleeves . . . unfinished seams look so sloppy when you roll up your sleeves! Hope you all have a delightful time!
Ann - Sorry to hear about your parish. More & more seem to be driving people away instead of bringing more in. My own pastor is very liberal & has been fighting to make celibacy optional. Then I find out he was turning away baptisms because the parents weren't members of our parish. Huh????? I am "shopping" in my part of the country too. When will that Catholic Church ever learn!?!?
-umjudis
I had never heard of the Ey-Fi wireless memory card. Sounds cool. I'll have to look into that. Thanks.
www.sewingwithtrudy.blogspot.com
That memory card sounds GREAT! My list of 50th birthday wishes is getting longer and longer ...
Too bad about your church situation. Sometimes it takes a few tries to get a good pastoral fit. Does the parish council not have much say in who the parish priest is? Is there any recourse to the Monsignor or Archbishop? I am Episcopalian, and generally it's the parish people who get to choose the minister.
I have found my Catholicism, at least around here, to be a religion of exclusivity. This is not what I learned from the Carmelites as a child and not what I practice now. Oh, to find a parish that practiced inclusion! I have lived in enough places to know that what one region practices another one may not. I don't think that is right but that is the reality. It shouldn't be that way. I long for the Catholicism of my youth, really.
I grew up with doozy priests and doozy nuns. Some were fantastic, some were capable of scarring you for life. Leave your Parish if you need to, there will be another one that feels like home.I am the true Shopping Cart Catholic-I throw in what I like and throw out what I don't!
Unfortunately, the problems you're having are not limited to the Catholic church.
You know what I love? I mean besides the look in teh Hoovinator's eyes (now there is a pup who is in charge!) - that of all the fabrics you put on sale, I was in need of rayon, silk and wool. I think Murphy's law may have been operating... But anyhoo, after drooling over all those gorgeous fabrics for far too long, I finally placed a big, fat (at least to me) order last night - hope what will help cheer you up. :-)
(I can second that this "new guard" thing is problem in many organizations, religious and secular alike.)
Oh I hate that when the new preacher comes in and what's to redo everything to make it better - like new is always better. I lost my choir director and haven't returned to that choir since. I really miss singing in my church. But that choir was really speacial. I remember one time before one of our concerts, our director was speechless during our warm-up before the concert, and everyone was so worried when he finally said, "there's nothing more I can do - you all sound perfect!" Well, we went out and sang like a professional choir. We were so proud of ourselves cause we had no paid section leaders that other churches had. Then he left, and now we have paid section leaders. At least I have those memories of that great choir.
Good luck.
Our family left our church a couple of years back over an angry pastor, I was the fourth person I knew of that he had unleashed his fury on. I was crushed as I had been with this congregation for 20+ years, teaching Sunday School, mentoring confirmands, as well as years as the church treasurer - all jobs I took much pride in doing well. It took two more years for the church to wise up and send him packing, in that time many old time families left and as soon as he was gone we were called and invited back. I just said where were you when I was grieving over this whole darned mess to begin with? No thanks, and we have been quite happy ever since! MIL blames me that we left and that I should have been 'stronger' - BS, you should feel safe and welcome in 'your' place of worship. Happy shopping to you and yours...
Designer Finishes class? Me think me's going to learn A LOT in August with 3 instructors!!!
Heading over to your site to shop for shirting for DH (ok, and maybe for me, too!)
I am so sorry to hear the problems at your church. Alas, we had the same problems in the past as well. Changes arrived when enough complaints reached the ears of the Bishop. Your current priest definitely has some issues -- he should not be in change of a parish!
We had that happen years ago in our parish. He eventually was put on leave for a few years. Go above him and get other people in the parish to let the church know what's going on. Hopefully it will get better. Have you talked to him about how you feel. Sometimes people don't know what effect they are having on the church community. Good luck.
I really dislike when we get 'the shift' in priests at our church (which seems to happen every 2 years). We lost both a new priest and the pastor who had been the head of our church for a number of years - both had a good report with everyone, brought back a number of people who had left, and were great with the kids. Now we have two that are quite opposite - I won't go into it here. But wanted to let you know I sympathize.
On a different note - glad to hear the Marfys arrived... I'm looking forward to hearing about them!
Glad your Marfy's came in, want to see how you do. Too bad about the new priest. As a fellow Catholic, we have seen good and bad. Ours does some things differently than we sometimes think, but overall is easy to get along with. The last one, many did not like, finally he was transferred. But we always said we use our kids as gauges and our kids loved him, as did we, esp. our CP kid, Andrew. He would race across the LR floor crawling to get to him, yelling Father Donald!
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