You

You

You don't know how much
I have ached for you
In all your pain. 
And I have rejoiced
For your success. 

In times of uncertainty
And despair,
I have longed to
Reach out a hand
And help bear the weight. 

You don't know I'm here--
Always watching,
Waiting for my chance
To be a part of
Your life, your dreams. 

Still, here I will stay. 
And one day, you
May look up and see
That I have always
Been right here. 

--Kari Yerton (8/2012)

A Birthday, a Tutorial, and Yoda

This month was my nephew Mr. B's 7th Birthday, and since he is such a huge Star Wars fan, we had a very SciFi month. =)  The party featured things like Darth Maul dogs and Yoda Soda and pretzel stick light sabers.  The kids played hard with their party favors of light sabers made out of pool noodles and popped balloons with pictures of the Emperor and his lackeys.

And of course, then there were the gifts... Mr. B's current fascination is Legos (Personally, I'm hoping this never changes.) so we got him several new Star Wars building kits.  And I found a really cute retro lunch box with C-3PO and R2-D2 on it.  However, my favorite gift that I gave him (Because, of course his gifts are all about ME! lol) was a Yoda shirt that I "painted" with bleach.

Here's how to make a shirt this way.

The internet has several tutorials for making shirts with freezer paper stencils, but this one was a little different because I was using a negative stencil.  Since the shirt was black and I was using bleach, I wanted the parts that would normally be painted to stay the original black.  This meant that instead of cutting out a normal stencil that I would fill in, I had to cut out and keep the void areas.

STEP 1:

Gather your supplies.

Freezer Paper (like wax paper, but with wax only on one side)

Image (For this kind of project, you'll want a silhouette that is as simple as possible.)

Pen/Pencil 

Scissors/X-acto knife

Iron

Spray bottle

Bleach

STEP 2:

Trace your image onto the paper side of the freezer paper.

Make it as detailed or simple as you want.

STEP 3:

Cut out your stencil.

Make you keep the dark areas of the image.

STEP 4:

Iron your stencil to your shirt. (Sorry. I forgot to take a picture of this step.)

Use your image as a guideline for positioning the stencil pieces, ironing on only a few at a time.  Also, put a large flat piece of freezer paper or cardboard inside the shirt to keep from transferring the image to the back of the shirt when you bleach it.  

STEP 5:

Bleach shirt.

Using a spray bottle filled with a mixture of 1 part bleach to 2 parts water, spray around the image. Remember, a black shirt will turn a brown/orange color (If you leave the bleach on for a really long time, it will eventually turn grey.)  I always spray lightly all over the shirt and then flip it over to spray the back, too.  This makes it look more uniform.

STEP 6:

Rinse out the bleach.

Once you can see it has started turning, remove the paper pieces and rinse out thoroughly using water. The water will turn brown as you are washing it, so be careful to not splash it on anything.  After this initial rinse, you need to launder the shirt to make the image color-fast.  Be very careful that you don't wash it with anything else (unless you make several shirts) because it will fade all over them.

STEP 7:

Wear and enjoy! =)

Take 2....

I must be the world's worst blogger! haha Amazingly enough, I never feel as if I have anything to say--you would understand how hysterical that comment is if you've ever tried to get me to stop talking. One would imagine that between my natural tendency to logorrhea (look it up) and English Education degree my life would provide me with an overabundance of material to share with the world.  But, for some strange reason, when it comes down to writing something and posting, my mind blanks.

Ironically, the only other situation where I am consistently speechless is if I'm interested in a guy.  I am a well-educated, intelligent, loquacious woman until "he" walks through the door; suddenly, I'm Baby in Dirty Dancing: "I carried a watermelon..." Well, that was impressive! I'm just gonna go bang my head on that wall for a while.

Of course my lovely big sister Lora over at My Blessed Life has proven herself to be such a wonderful blogger that I wish I could keep up. haha  And even though that does not seem to be in the cards for me, I would like to maintain some sort of connection to the great blogosphere.

Thus, I will post when I post and cease feeling guilty about it as of today....

(I'll let you know how that goes.....) =)

For now, I'm going to leave you with another poem.

All Hope

The black fog is
Rolling in again--
Blotting out the
Sun and--with it--
All hope.

These days are like
Endless funerals--
All of my own
Dreams, plans, hopes--
All die.

Nothing can stand
In the onrushing
Sweep of this
Relentless sadness;
All pales.

Your face alone
Pierces through the flood
Of pain and doubt,
Bringing with it, light--
All light.

Help me through the
Suffocating clouds
To Your side, Your
Faithful love, and
All hope.

K. Yerton (2011)

Two Perspectives

My Rose

Many a time, I have looked for you
And seen only masks.
Many a summer, I have walked through
Fields and searched.
Even in spring, with the world abloom,
I didn't find my rose.

Tears come so easily in loneliness.
Pain comes with time.
A single heart cannot see its chance
To right the wrong.
I miss what I have never kissed,
What I have not held.

How long does a heart long for unattained
Desires and needs?
When does love reach its own end?
Times bring change
To many points and longings. Winds
Blow time by slowly.

--Kari Yerton
02/2000

_________________________________

Wallflower

So much time--
Wasted.
So much effort--
Gone.
So many days--
Lost.

How long have I
Been looking--
Searching--
Hoping--
For that perfect fit?
My other half?

You stand in the Corner--
Watching,
Calling,
Trying to catch
My eye.

The author of this
Hole,
You know,
You hold
The answer--
My heart's need.

--Kari Yerton
02/2011

What can I say? 11 years make a big difference!

Finish Line!!

Well, we are done!

Sunday was the Graduation for the 2011 Class of Master's Commission Remix at Harvest Time.

It's been a long nine months, but I wouldn't trade the experience for anything! =) I've made life-long friends and grown so much closer to God.

However, I am more than ready to move up and on with my life. Going back into a college atmosphere after 6 years out of academia was, at times, stretching and, at other times, frankly annoying! lol

But, God was good and faithful. I've truly found the answers to my questions of "Why am I doing this program?" and "Why now?"

So, we've crossed our finish line, received our diplomas, and raced out the door!

Ready for the next phase, God! Let's go!

Blood Toll

Always near me,

Waiting patiently,

You watch with

Pained eyes as

I wander on,

Never looking back,

Never noticing.

Your very blood paved

The road on which

I travel;

Your life paid

My toll.

Yet I stumble along--

In boots muddy

From my sin and

Carelessness.

Cursing You for the cracks

And ruts my

Own feet have

Created.

--Kari Yerton

09/21/2010

My So-Called Single Life

I purposely avoided posting anything on Facebook or Twitter--or here--yesterday. I didn't want to add my voice to the clamor of Valentine's Day posts. After all, there are few positive response options available to me as a single, Christian adult.

• There's the Boycott: "Singles Awareness Day" (Come on! Do you really want to call it S.A.D.? That's just pathetic.)
• Or we have Substitution: "Jesus is my valentine." (Right. No one's buying that.)
• Denial is also popular: "Just waiting on God's timing." (Yes, but you're still just waiting.)
• And of course, there's always the standby Act-Like-Nothing's-Happening: "Beautiful weather!" "Oh, look, a puppy!" "There sure are a lot of people in Wal-Mart today." (Need I say how obvious that one is?)

So, I opted out. {Now, I did celebrate...with my family. I got (and gave) cards, chocolate--even a cute balloon. And then, I babysat so my parents and my sister and brother-in-law could go on dates.} But, after watching the multitude of posts and comments ranging from the nauseatingly sentimental to the painfully bitter, I decided I would give you my true thoughts and feelings on single adulthood. (And, I do mean adulthood; if you are still under the age of 21, you have no idea what true singleness is.)

Thus, here you have the true account of how I, Kari Renee Yerton, age 30, single, Christian adult feel about being single.

1. I HATE IT!
2. I LOVE IT!
3. My whole life is spent somewhere between these two extremes.

There, I said it. That is the whole, ugly secret. How I feel about my place in life changes daily, minute by minute:

• I love being able to make decisions without needing to consult someone else.
• I detest going to bed alone each night.
• I enjoy having my own space and alone time.
• I hate eating in restaurants by myself.

And so it goes...Each day, I will have moments of "Thank God, I'm single," and "This stinks!" If I want Mexican food, I eat Mexican food. If I want to go on a road trip, off I go. But, no matter how deeply I may long for someone to eat with or talk to as I drive, I can't make that happen.

This is where I feel the Church has failed its single adults. We're taught how to be in relationships, how to choose a partner, how to parent our children; but no one tells us how to be single. We're given pat lines of "Let Jesus fill that space in you," and "You have to be whole in Him before you can offer yourself to someone else." Well, that's just awesome, but what does it mean?

We are relational beings, created in the image of a God who is in constant triune companionship. The only time God said "Oops!" during creation was when he saw man was alone. And yet, I am made to feel guilty or less of a Christian for longing for and dreaming of that companionship. My newsflash is this: I'm not needy. I'm not desperate. I'm not lacking in faith. I AM HUMAN.

My humanity cries for companionship. My humanity craves physical touch. My humanity desires emotional connection. And it is my humanity that is being overlooked and ignored.

So, how do we balance our human needs with our spiritual life?

In my opinion, my don't have to "balance" them. They are both intrinsic parts of our makeup. God has made us to need one just as much as the other. The problem arises when we focus on one to the exclusion of the other. Christians and non-Christians alike make this mistake. One side tries to build spirituality without humanity, and the other focuses on humanity without spirituality. To be healthy, we must build both sides of ourselves. Here, we strike a conundrum.

I'll follow up on this thought a little more later, but for now, just be thinking about how you/we/I have been taught to ignore or downplay our human side because it's not "spiritual" enough. My reminder to you is that Jesus' favorite name for himself was "Son of Man." I think that would be significant.

--Kari

Question

Sometimes I wonder if I am invisible.
Can you hear me? Am I real?
Is it possible I live only in me?
Maybe this is all in my imagination.
Maybe this is all a dream.

How do you know what is life?
How do you see? How do you learn?
When does the real become life lived?
How does the dream find reality?
Who can teach the skeptic to love?

Why does love always evade?
When is it real? Who does it touch?
Why can I not grasp the cord and live?
How could I drop out so easily?
Why does no one catch me before I fall?

Sometimes I wonder if I am invisible.

--Kari Yerton
09/1999