I Am My Sister’s [Ruler’s] Keeper.

I don’t know why this has survived so many moves, when most of my family mementos have not.



I wonder if it was once the bland beige of new rulers at the office supply store, before decades of handling brought it to this lovely warm brown?

I downloaded KnitPicks’ free Classic Lines Cardigan pattern Saturday night. It will be waiting in the queue until I finish a few dozen other projects. I like it as designed. And I think it might be a good way to use up the Alpaca Cloud that I regret buying, as the accent yarn in place of the Shimmer. The pattern requires two hanks of accent yarn; I have three. But the golden question is, do I use the Shadow, which I already know that I love, or do I go with Gloss Lace in a compatible color? I really want to work something up in the new Gloss Lace “Kiss” colorway. It’s a very sassy pink. Maybe I will have to make two of these: one in hot pinks using the Shimmer as accent, and one that is closely-toned in greens. I could tweak the shaping on one of them so I could have a similar fabric but not two essentially identical sweaters.

Stop just a minute and go read my friend Alison’s post. I’ll wait. You need it for background on what I’m about to post next; otherwise I am going to sound like the Pharisee announcing her righteousness on the street corner (Luke 18:11) while the widow casts her mite into the temple treasury. (Mark 12:42-43)

Thursday I drove in to work. On the way home I stopped at Taco Cabana, where I usually get a chicken fajita quesadilla. Light, tasty, and eminently affordable. But Thursday night I found myself ordering two burritos and being dismayed when they were huge and rather floppy. Too much food for the appetite I had, and too messy to eat while finishing the drive home. I pulled up to the light and saw a man with a sign that proclaimed “hungry”. I handed him the bag with a smile as he blessed me and said that Taco Cabana was his favorite.

I share this not so that you will think I am some wonderful, ethereally perfect creature. We know better. What I want to share is what Alison shared, the joy of being in the right place at the right time to do the small thing that matters only to perhaps one other person, and to Heaven.

I fell in love after church on Sunday. I stayed behind in case the bishop needed to talk with me, and when I came out of his office there was a woman sitting in one of the chairs. She was visiting her daughter in the other ward, and she has lived in San Antonio for many years and knows our friends from the Fredericksburg ward. She was born in eastern Europe and is probably about my sister’s age. Her English is flawless and enchantingly accented, and she has served twice as Relief Society president. [She told me that a woman who was very kind to me when we lived in Fredericksburg, has served as the stake Relief Society president in that stake; I am not in the least surprised.] And I think I must have known this sister well before we came to Earth, because there was that sense of coming home as we spoke.

She told me how much she had loved serving her ward in her calling, and that the thing she missed most was knowing, often without words, how the sisters were doing. I am coming to understand exactly what she was talking about. I spent Sunday School out in the hall, talking to sisters who were not comfortable being in class. And just before Relief Society began, I caught one of them trying to slip quietly out the door, and I put my arm around her shoulder with a “We need you in class” and a smile, herding her into the Relief Society room. She gave me a sheepish grin.

[Perhaps I will be able to get them into Gospel Doctrine class next week; I miss it when I’m not there.] I am still feeling my way in this calling. Bishop needed to correct me on something a few days ago, but he did it gently and privately. I may have put my foot in it again, today, but at least it was a different (possible) mistake. Like Anne of Green Gables, I do try not to make the same one twice.

My days and nights were all turned around this weekend. This comes of spending Saturday on the couch, knitting and listening to movies, except when I dashed out to do the drive-by fooding of the elders. It was nearly 3:00 when I got home from church, and I ate a little something and went to bed and slept for four hours. I set the alarm last week and got a decent nap without disrupting my sleep pattern. I really should have done that yesterday as well. Now it is 1:22am, and the alarm will go off in three and a half hours. Part of me wants another nap, and part of me wants to stay up and finish the left front of Autumn Asters. I am done with the armscye shaping and have (I think) four or five decreases left on the V-neck before doing the shoulder shaping.

This is madness; I think the sister’s keeper, needs a keeper.