Tamam

I taught at North High School, just down the street, today. An ESL class - so they were small class sizes with very low level students. One boys name was Tamam - he was Ethiopian, but I informed him that his name meant "Okay" in Turkish. He informed me in mumbling High School/English-as-a-Second-Language-type speech that he'd lived here for quite some time. I said, "tamam, tamam", finding myself very funny while he, did not.

I came home to my husband, brother and father all working on the roof. They are re-shingling the garage first. Tolga and Aaron were working together, my dad was rooting around the backside of the roof. I ca

n only imagine their work day. My dad said, "You must be feeling proud of your husband" which I think was a

not-so-subtle reference to our lack of Scandinavian-Protestant work ethic. Which when, I think about it, makes sense considering Tolga's Mediterranean-Muslim background. But that's another topic. What I was really feeling, more specifically, was pride in seeing my family work together. This has always brought me pride.

I headed over to Sherah's later to test-drive her new sewing machine.

Sherah and I both have pants whose hems have fallen out, and so I brought a couple of pants to sew. We struggled through the setting up and threading of the machine - learning about bobbins, foot presses, and dog teeth. We've both sewed in 7th grade Home Ec - I remember it quite clearly because I made a really cool pillow of a light bulb . . . but that was a while ago. I've more recently sewed my Anne (Tolga's mom) but that lesson was all in Turkish and I mostly watched and said, "Tamam." Today, I worked on my first hem - black pants - and I forgot to put the foot press down so the first few inches are quite bunched up. Then I remember to put the foot press down and it looks pretty great . . . except I was on such a roll I got careless and sewed part of the pant leg together.

The second pair of pant were gray, and I used the same black thread which I thought would be inconsequential. I also seemed to conclude it was okay to experiment with the stitch type/size switches while sewing.

Is there an Un-Sew machine?