We Have Chosen Hope Over Fear

.This is the custom piece I made out of the highest voted Dark Middle stitched piece, from the other day. It's for my customer to give to her massage therapist brother. Now I'm working on a piece for her. There are 3 specific design elements she wants so that may get a bit tricky in a 5" x 5" piece, but I can do it.

So about the inauguration. As soon as I got to work yesterday I emailed the manager of the IT department to ask if that large monitor in the lobby could be hooked up as a TV - yes, it can. They also set up a laptop/projector in the boardroom so the inauguration could be streamed there as well. Unfortunately, it was all hooked up at the last minute so I missed the actual oath-taking but that wasn't much. It was the speech I wanted to see and we did.

I sat in the boardroom with about a half dozen people, eating my lunch. I intended to stitch after I ate but someone turned the lights off for better visibility of the image on the wall, so there went that idea. I sat in the front, Kleenex in pocket. I felt like I was on Simmer, the whole time, very in the moment.

The tears finally came when he said this:

and why a man whose father less than sixty years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath.

I slipped the Kleenex out of my pocket and dabbed away, grateful for the darkness and sorry I had chosen to sit in the front of the room. Oh well - these people know me well - and being moved is never a bad thing.

I was also moved every time they showed Congressman John Lewis. How he must have felt, having worked closely with Dr. King, and now witnessing the first black president.

I appreciated the shout-out:

We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus — and non-believers.

I loved this:

We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories.

and this line:

the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job

I read a survey recently and wish I could remember the exact percentage, but a surprisingly large number of respondents said they would cut their hours, if it saved the job of a co-worker. I was impressed. I would do that.

Full text is here.

One of my good friends at work is quite cynical/sarcastic, which most of the time is amusing. I call him a big ol' pot stirrer - which he mostly does to be funny. Deep down he's a good person - good work ethic, good family man. Yesterday, he started in on how this president is going to be no different than any other. I said, "Please! Can I just have this day?? Just give me this one day, okay?" And so he did. :-)

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