Karl and I joined the bone marrow registry yesterday.  A local man was unexpectedly diagnosed with leukemia shortly before Christmas, and the community is working hard to help him and his family.  We saw an article in the paper for the donor registry sign-up, which was held at the ice skating rink behind our house.  The rink donated free time on their outside ice, too, so Karl and Elise brought their skates and zipped around a bit. 

The three of us also watched Better Off Dead last night.  (Albin wasn't so interested.)  I watched that movie dozens of times with my friends in junior high and high school, but hadn't seen it for almost twenty years.  I was afraid that seeing it again would taint my fond memories of how fun and funny it was back then.  (Ask me sometime about my new Great White North album.)  Sigh--I needn't have worried!  I guess it's sort of like the Marx brothers, still good after all that time.  We had to keep calling Albin down to "just see this one part, it's really good."  And now Elise gets the "I want my two dollars!" joke and why we often say it in this family.

Progress is going well on the Wallaby test sweater.  This is the design I will knit for Elise (I bought the pattern months ago), as soon as we agree on the yarn.  I thought Dark Horse yarn would be the winner, and I had lots of little balls it left in my stash, so I started this smaller sweater to test gauge while she chose her colors.  It's a size 4, and I thought it would be good for Haley for next year, but it looks pretty small to me.  I won't even wait for her birthday, I'm sending it as soon as it's off the needles so she'll  be able to wear it yet this year (if she likes it, that is!).  It may fit next fall, too, but why take the chance?  It was a good opportunity to test out the pattern, too, and I think Elise will really like hers...whenever I get it done.  (Now I'm thinking a size 12 for her would not be as big as I want it--this will take some pondering.)

We are slowly sawing out the banjo neck from our huge butternut chunk.  Someone from church is going to lend me an antique draw knife to properly shape the neck.  On the one hand, I like that we are using hand tools and making this the old-fashioned way.  On the other, I can't help but think this would take five minutes with a table saw, and it will be weeks before we even have it out of the block with our handsaw.  But if we did use modern tools, and were done in five minutes instead of three steady hours, would we use those three hours productively? 

This sort of gets back to yesterday's post..  How do we spend our time, and rate it as productive (i.e. accomplishing something important to us)?  I guess the only person I need to convince that an activity is worthwhile is myself, but somehow that is really hard.  The 'what I want to do' list is usually way below the 'what I should do list.'  It's a struggle.  I want my children to explore and spend time doing activities that make their soul sing.  I should allow myself (and my husband!) the same opportunity.