Questioning

I don't really have anything interesting to say, but I came across this article through another article and it made me feel a lot more comfortable with this possible impending acceptance of religion:

"There is a risk in being guided by conscience, but no less a risk than following the voice of “commandedness.” Martin Buber once wrote, “Moloch [an idol to which children were sacrificed] imitates the voice of God.” How can we discern the voice of God knowing that Mephi­stopheles is a ventriloquist, skillfully projecting his voice onto others? A “slippery slope” is to be preferred to being cemented in the ground. On a slope I may be able to grasp a tree or rock. But in cement, I am immobilized and subject to the threats of the wilderness."

In discussing Judaism and religion in general, this question of doing something because you are commanded to and not because you want to seems to come up again and again. This article doesn't answer the central question of "Why does God care if I do [thing that doesn't hurt anyone and makes not logical sense NOT to do, aka eat a cheeseburger or use a light switch on Saturday]," but it does make me feel better about commandments that I don't particularly think are right.

Mainly the thing I'm thinking of here is forgiveness.  From what I'm reading, the Jews don't seem to be big on turning the other cheek, and frankly, I don't blame them.  When you've been persecuted for basically your entire existence, justice seems a lot more appropriate than "okay, just don't do it again..."  I've spent my entire life trying to be more forgiving of other people's flaws, and while the prospect of fully embracing a justice-oriented existence is great, I just don't think it's the right thing for me to do.  I have to try to keep being forgiving when people are jerks.

"I shall be what I shall be."

It's been pretty quiet on the homefront lately.  I just haven't had much to say.  But I feel like now maybe I do.

I started an Introduction to Judaism course on Sunday.  (Brian's taking it with me but really only because I begged him to.)  We're the only couple there that isn't half-Jewish.  I went into this wanting to find out more about Judaism with the option at the end to decide whether or not to convert, and it seems like this class is exactly that.  The Rabbi is funny and passionate and vegan, which I find particularly interesting because I wouldn't necessarily expect that from a Reform rabbi - going vegan seems to be more of an Orthodox approach.

Anyway, there are a lot of books to read for this course, and the one that is used the most is Jewish Literacy. I've read the assigned reading for this week and next week, and quite frankly, I find it so interesting that I've just started at the beginning and begun reading it straight through.  Last night I was reading about Moses, and this particular segment struck me:

"The three word name God gives Himself is not easy to translate.  The most precise rendering is 'I shall be what I shall be,' although it is sometimes translated as 'I am that I am.'  The 1962 JPS translation of the Torah despaired of coming up with an accurate rendition, and just left the words in their Hebrew original.  Although generations of Bible scholars have tried to decipher the name's precise meaning, it really did not seem to matter that much to Moses.  Rabbi Gunther Plaut has pointed out that though God gave Moses a new name to take to the Israelites, Moses never again refers to it.  Plaut deduces that 'the revelation was never meant for the people at all, nor did Moses really inquire for the sake of the people.  Moses had asked for himself, and the answer he receives is also meant for him.' In some way, God's answer is satisfactory to Moses, if not to us, implying perhaps that when one has a true experience of God, it is very private.  In other words, God shall be what God shall be to that person.  He cannot adequately be described to others."

 For some reason, this really struck me, and I think it's really at the heart of how I feel about God and religion in general.  I've never been able to justify the image of a man in a white robe looking down at all of us disapprovingly, and it reassures me that there are others who believe that each individual's perception of what God is is acceptable. In fact, the individual interpretation of what God is seems to be a running theme with Judaism and this class - the next book that's been assigned is about that very topic: Finding God.

Anyway, long story short, I really really like this class, and I really really like what I'm learning so far.  We'll see where this goes, but I suspect I already know the answer.

Style Cure Day 11

Day 11: Plan a get-together

Ha!  Hahahaha.  No.

As this Cure goes on, I'm definitely getting a lot more choosy about what days I do and what I'm ignoring, and that's okay.  I'm less discouraged than I was yesterday, which is good too. I think letting go of both the need to follow each day exactly and that feeling of "I'm behind I'm behind I'm behind" really helped.

Last night, I went to Home Depot and got a bunch of different colors that could possibly work together and started fiddling on the wall.  With a lot of discussion last night and this morning, I think we've decided to do grey on the bottom, blue on the trim, and white on top.  (This combination is the fourth from the left or third from the right.)  Brian is a bit hesitant because that's a LOT of blue all around the room - the trim is all along the ceiling and the floor, around all the windows, and around all the door frames.

BUT WAIT maybe I should be doing white on the trim, grey on the top, and blue on the bottom??? ARGH THIS IS THE WORST.


The task for this weekend is to shop, so we'll see.  I can't get past the painting part to even consider starting to style the room, so I think some stuff is going to have to be done out of order here.  Perhaps I'll paint this weekend and then shop and style next weekend.

ASSUMING I CAN PICK SOME PAINT COLORS THAT IS.

Days 7, 8, 9, and 10

I must own you, loveseat

Day 7: Clean your room and think about paint chips
Day 8: Choose your color and think about a "pairing"
Day 9: Research your pairing
Day 10: Make a shopping list

Ooomg I am failing so hard at this you guys.  It started this weekend, when our job was clean the room.  That didn't happen, at all.  Instead, Brian did a little bit of organizing, taking a lot of stuff off the green shelves and moving it to the shelves next to the fireplace...but that's all we did.  The rest of the weekend was spent looking for a chair for the living room, since we're switching the downstairs furniture with the upstairs furniture.  So instead of thinking about what color to paint the den, I've been obsessing over this loveseat for our upstairs.  We also bought a mount to put the TV (again, upstairs) on the wall.

So then we come to day 8, picking a color.  The farthest I've gotten on that is taping a bunch of paint chips on the wall.  Brian is worried that whatever we pick will darken the room too much, since it's a downstairs room with low ceilings, and I mean, he has a point, but the brown makes me so sad that I'm pushing forward with painting anyway.  I think we're going to end up with a blue, although grey is a strong contender, and I think it's going to be extremely light in color.

Because we haven't picked a color, it's basically impossible to do Days 8 and 9, because how do you pair something with a color that hasn't been selected yet?  And then a shopping list...I feel like this has gotten way more advanced than I'm capable of.  They're talking about lampshades and pillows and I don't even know how the room is going to be arranged or what color it's going to be. :(

I'm getting really discouraged.

Days 4, 5, and 6.

Day 4: Set up a one room outbox
Day 5: Make a floor plan
Day 6: Learn about color

I've been quiet the last few days because the tasks didn't really lend themselves much to blogging, with the exception of the floorplan fiasco.  I set up our outbox (which is just a box of things that you think you might want to get rid of, which you go through after a week and make a final decision about), put some of my stuff in, and realized there's no way Brian will put any of his in.  (He really likes his stuff.)

We worked on this floor plan last night, and we totally need help.  (I realize now I really should have made the floor brown, since, you know, that's the color of the floor, but I digress.)  The layout that's up there now is roughly the same as the layout is currently, except that there are two chairs instead of one+end table, and there are three bookshelves instead of two green ones. The little blue square is an ottoman, the colorful thing there is the pinball machine (which is cabinet-style, not giant machine style, and the light brown things are a DVD rack and the 9-cube thing.  Everything is proportional.

So HELP.  How do we lay out this room so that the pinball machine isn't neglected in a corner, and we're not splitting the room up so harshly into two pieces?  Keep in mind that there's a 3-4 inch ledge at about waist-height that goes around the length of the room, except on the wall where the bookshelves are now, and the red bit is another ledge where the fireplace is, but it's thankfully much lower.

Looking at the pictures in the previous entry and the layout, any suggestions for color are appreciated.  I realize we're going to have to do warm colors, which...ugh, and Brian has made it clear that he doesn't want anything too contrasty, which nixes my idea for super dark on the bottom and light on the top.  Possibly a green on the bottom? Maybe?

how i did i get here i'm no good with decorating

Day 3: Choose your room

Some of the video games.  A lot are still in storage.

Day 3: Choose your room and sit in it for 10 minutes

The task for yesterday was to pick the room that needs restyled. I puzzled over this for ages, honestly.  All our rooms could use a little sprucing, but I've also been working on them for months now, so there wasn't a ton of revamping that needed done in any room.

Except one.  The one that I was most sure I wouldn't be allowed to touch:  our den.

When we first moved in, I had originally pictured the room as a cozy place where we could watch TV and sit by the fireplace, and just generally be comfortable.  I thought maybe it would be our main hang-out room, where we would entertain most often, and had great ideas for it.

Then we moved in, and it became Brian's room.  Not that that's a bad thing, but just not what I had pictured.  Currently the room has a small TV, a couch, a couple of old chairs, a pinball, and aaaaallllll the video games.  The room is perfectly functional for him, and he likes the simplicity, which is great for him.

But it does make for a room that's really not particularly nice to be in if you're not Brian or one of his immediate friends. 

But really, the worst thing about the room to me is the poor use of space.  We have shelves that are basically empty, or have things on them that I set down literally the day we moved in and never moved. (See: the jar of peanuts on the mantle.) 

So, after talking to Brian, I think I can make some changes, as long as I don't go overboard and ruin the things he likes about the room, which is that he has a place to sit, he has a TV, and he has easy(ish) access to whatever game he wants to play at any particular time.  I need to find a way to spruce up the room and make better use of the space without completely disrupting his flow (OR spending a ton of money, haha.)

Pictures and to-do list below.  Suggestions are desperately wanted.  Required even.

UFYH

Picture discs from the 40's that we hung up last night.

Because we're having company over today, Brian and I have made really good progress towards unfucking our habitat this weekend.  Right now I'm really pleased with how at least our middle floor looks.

There are two problems with this:

1) Whenever the phrase "made really good progress" comes up in our house, suddenly Brian and I manage to completely stop whatever we're doing and give up.  It's a sign of the end whenever we get pleased with our progress.  So, crap.

2) Now that everything is neat again, I'm moving into that "oh there's so much to be fixed here" state.  I'm now painfully aware of how there really should be a houseplant on the cart in that corner, and how we need to make a firm decision on putting the TV on the wall or on a stand because the white space above the TV is driving me nuts, and how I'm going to have to rearrange my gallery wall soon because the empty spots are driving me crazy, and how I need to reupholster the wing-back chair, and on and on and on.

But overall, I'm happy right now. I'm able to look around right now and see things that are in my house not because they're functional, but because they're lovely. I have live flowers in a vase behind me.  (Okay, live is stretching it...they're a week old.) I got new throw pillows yesterday, and they are ORANGE.  I hate orange!  But I like these and they look nice with the sofa that's currently in our living room and the sofa that is soon to be in our living room.

I like being happy.