Social Media

Devona 3 Comments

Today we had dinner with good friends of ours, Jon and Colleen (who my clevernesters of old know as my old blogging partner) and the conversation turned to matters of social media. We pondered the pros and cons, wondering about the long term societal effects. Jon, who is an active blogger, tweeter and author, said that he sees tweets as a form of performance art. I completely agree!

It takes a lot of mental work to make a short sentence interesting to a broad audience. You can write a paragraph on facebook which complains about the crappy driver in front of you, or you can show your subscribers why this crappy driver was worth sharing with them. You can create a common experience. You can log in and say, “I’m having a terrible day staying here with my kids in the rain and they won’t stop fighting.” Or you can bring all of the other people who are also lonely and on the edge of running screaming into the sunset to your crazy house for a minute so you all feel less alone. I enjoy the art of writing small, accessible pieces which mirror my life and entertain my friends.

I have been more active on facebook than twitter, and both more than here on the blog, mostly because I get more responses on facebook than anywhere else. I’m a super extrovert who loves to see that my words were received. But I am really reconsidering where I want to spend my efforts writing. We have owned this domain and the content for 5 years. It’s not going anywhere. One day facebook or twitter could evaporate and all of my photos, thoughts and work developing my writing voice could walk away with the platform. Can I break my addiction to comments and focus on writing here? If I link to facebook and twitter so that I can keep my writing here, where it is mine and it’s safe, would the link bring the readers with it? Would I become irrelevant if I don’t use the corporate social media that is so easy for everyone to automatically get my content? Is facebook the wallmart of self publishing? How many more questions can I fit in this paragraph?

Fleece Cupcakes

Devona 0 Comments

You think I would be working on my handmade Christmas presents full time. But you’d be mistaken. I spent my free time making these adorable cupcake toys while Cressida ate lunch.

They are made with brown fleece I got out of the remnant section. I cut a 9 inch by 2 inch strip of fleece and put a long bead of hot glue down the strip at an angle and folded the edge over. Then I rolled it into a  cupcake shape, fattest edge in the middle, moving out to the narrower edge. I covered the bottom of the roll with hot glue and stuffed it into a mini paper cupcake wrapper and squeezed a bead of hot glue around between the wrapper and the “cupcake.” After it was all gluey and my fingers were getting a bit uncomfortably warm I stuffed the whole thing into my mini-cupcake pan and put something heavy on top to hold it in until the hot glue dried.

I made a half dozen of the little guys. They’re great stocking stuffers, but I ruined the surprise by making them in front of Cress, so they went straight into the kitchen set toy bin.

It’s cool that I fudged the surprise. I’m making a hand knit poncho for Liv, knitted leg warmers for Elise and a koala applique shirt for Cress, so the handmade goodness is still going to flow.  I’ll be sure to post pictures as I finish projects!

Christian Feminism

Devona 0 Comments

I heard Rachel Held Evans on the Q last week talking about her recent book, A Year of Biblical Womanhood. I was very interested in her from the moment she answered the first question. The concept seemed so perfect, and so perfectly in tune with where my thoughts have been the past three or four years. I listened to the whole interview while I did the dishes and Cressida played with Chritmas themed foamies in the kitchen. And I bought the book immediately after the interview, not because of the concept, but because Jian Ghomeshi asked her, “Why not throw the whole thing out and just take the parts that inspire you? Why remain a Christian?” and she answered, “Because I am drawn to the story of Jesus Christ who is the fulfillment of the Old Testament, and he said the all of the Law hinges on these: Love the Lord God with all your mind, soul and strength, and love you neighbor as yourself… So I need to read these texts with the prejudice of love and wrestle with the parts I don’t understand.”

Now I don’t want to pretend that I already had Evans’ concept in my head before I read her book, but I had told my very good friend Jennifer days before I heard the interview that I always default to love when I have a problem with scripture and I fall back on forgiveness when I may have allowed too much acceptance of “sin.”  How could I not read this book when she so clearly understood what I’ve been trying to get out of my heart and into the world for quite some time?

I’ve been reading it very quickly. I am not done with it yet, so I’m not ready to share all of my thoughts on it. Though honestly, I’m growing weary of sharing my thoughts on the internet (especially controversial ones) because then everyone gets to just decide what kind of person they think I am. But I will say this, I am so glad that Evans is representing the Christian Feminist position. She is smart, likable, a good researcher, and willing to change her mind. And though I may not be ready to open up a debate forum anytime soon, I am finally willing to come right out and say, I am a Christian Feminist. I am struggling to figure out what that means. And though I struggle, I know for sure that it means I want to actively work to advocate for women no matter what they choose for their lives/families. And I want to live to see the end of the Mommy Wars. That would be a good thing, too.

But here I am… Opening up again. Maybe it is time to be brave… maybe in my next post.