Drawing on experience.

My doll-friend, Onna, is the one whose posted Zentangle tiles have drawn me [har har] into learning how to tangle, has been most gracious in her comments on tiles I've drawn and posted on Facebook. It has been so much fun watching her learn this method. I'm having fun as well. My resolve to make sure that other things that I love to do, come first, so that I am not sucked willy-nilly into the world of 3.5" tiles to the exclusion of all else, is looking a little dog-eared.

I had planned on knitting tonight, but Fourthborn awoke from her nap right after I finished my dinner, so we both got dressed like respectable human beings (i.e., not "People of Walmart") and went to Winco to round out the grocery shopping.  I should be in bed, asleep, in two minutes. Somehow I don't see that happening.

To be continued...

***

(Later" has arrived.) Brother Paul is eating my lunch! I've spent great chunks of the past two days in Romans 1-6, listening to the audio version, writing down what I think he meant, going back and reading carefully, chasing all of the footnotes. I love the poetry and flow of the King James Version. And once we leave the synoptic Gospels, comprehending the New Testament becomes a miracle on the order of the loaves and the fishes.

*However,* several years ago I asked for and received a copy of The Chronological Bible, which is one of the modern translations, and after I finished slogging through the chapters in the King James Version, I turned to that. Unlike other translations I've skimmed in the past, this one didn't feel "flat". I still feel as if I'd sat for the SAT (one of two college prep/entry exams, if you're not familiar with the term), and my brain is demanding carbs like you wouldn't believe, but I'm now reassured that I can finish this year's study with some measure of the enthusiasm with which I began.

I've been a Christian for 44 years this month. We rotate through the standard works (the scriptures) every four years. This will be the first time that I haven't abandon my study of the New Testament somewhere between Valentine's Day and Easter or the Fourth of July. I'm not patting myself on the back. I'm just astonished. And very, very stubborn.

Friday night I attended a lecture by BYU classics professor, Thomas A. Wayment, who has recently published a modern translation of the New Testament, utilizing sources and documents that were not available to the scholars who did the King James Version 400 years ago. I will be ordering my own copy this coming week, and I am looking forward to diving into it. He said, among other things, that the word "raca," which is generally translated as "fool" is actually much harsher than that, and that "fool" is the gentlest possible translation. I am not so secretly hoping that I get to read the more harsh translation. After all, tumping over tables was not out of the realm of possibility during the Savior's mortality. And as Middlest is so fond of pointing out, at heart I am (still) an anarchist, if a devout and reasonably obedient one.

I've finished the knitting and grafting of Middlest's linen-stitch cowl, and I've done several more Zentangle tiles this past week, and I've begun another iteration of Hitchhiker, using the yarn remaining from Leftie. I had thought of attaching a bead on each little point, but after doing so decided that I preferred the pattern in its simplicity.

In other news, the fitness app from work has a step equivalency chart for things like dancing, rock climbing, light or heavy housework. The half hour I spent dusting ledges and picture frames in our meetinghouse yesterday added over 3600 steps to the others that I accumulated in a more leisurely fashion. I'll finish this day with something under 1900 steps, but that's three times what I get on the Sundays when I nap.

Time to take my evening meds and kiss this day goodnight.