Garden of Holiness

7 Quick Takes

2012-01-27T05:37:00.000-06:00

It's a small World Wide Web, after all!

The other day my husband's uncle (more about him in #2) posted on my Facebook wall that he'd been reading The Crescat on Patheos, clicked on someone's comment, and found himself reading an update on the very goats he'd milked himself. That commenter was me and it linked him to this! I hadn't started blogging the last time he visited, and I guess I hadn't mentioned it, so finding himself over here, reading about his own family was a bit of a surprise.

Click here to submit prayer intentions to the Holy Cross community

My husband's uncle is my youngest child's Godfather. He is also a Holy Cross Brother in Ohio. He teaches physics and is wicked smart, like all my in laws. He's fun to introduce as "My uncle, Brother David" (say it fast). It's also very handy having a Brother for an uncle because it's a constant reminder that there are Religious out there ready and willing to pray for any old body. All you have to do is ask. It's their job.

On a related note, I spent a bit of time over on Patheos the other day, trying to track down which comment of mine my uncle in law had read just in case I'd been a jerk. Although I find it convenient to be the same person on-line as off, occasionally it backfires. Since I don't have the mental energy required to keep up appearances in real life, I certainly don't have what it takes to keep track of an on-line avatar. What you see is what you get, folks. Hence the anxiety about the jerkiness: sometimes it slips out, like gas.

"Please excuse me, uncle Brother."

Speaking of being a jerk, I was being one the other day. There were tons of mediating circumstances: moving, an over scheduled calendar, interrupted sleep, cranky kids. I found myself saying, "Just because I'm being a jerk right now doesn't mean I'm a bad person. I'm just having an bad day" right before my husband went in for the hug. It takes a brave man to hug a bristling porcupine, but that's the one I married. He's all awesome like that.

"...and then the dishwasher threw up and one of the kids did, too, and the dog tracked in mud, and...

As you may have guessed, we are all moved in to the farmhouse. (Back story: we bought an acre a year and a half ago, put a trailer on it, downsized into that, and then began a hunt for a house to relocate onto our property. We just got a farmhouse moved here, all house systems up and running, and are back on our land after 6 months of living with my mom and dad) (thank you again, mom and dad!) We're unpacking, rediscovering furniture we haven't seen in a year or so, and enjoying all the space. A few other things we are enjoying are the sunsets in the country, the sunrises, the quiet, and the neighbors. We have some of the world's best neighbors. Missed them all.

I've been cooking up a storm on our first, ever antique!

My husband invested in one of these beauties, fully refurbished, and I'm finding myself broiling and baking a whole lot more than usual. I think I appreciate beautiful things enough to work harder just to hang around them.

One of the things I missed the most, living in town, was milking in the predawn hours. I know I complain about the cold (because it is COLD), but I really do enjoy the routine, the peace, and the little chance to commune with the animals. I must say it's very, very good to be home.

Thanks to Jennifer Fulwiler, a fellow Texan, for hosting

7 Quick Takes Friday

over at Conversion Diary.com

The gift of remorse

2012-01-26T06:14:00.000-06:00

February is Autism Awareness Month so you'll be seeing a lot more posts about working with and around it at our house. I'm jumping the gun by posting this, but I was too happy to wait.

Monday, my 6 year old son showed remorse. It was the first unmistakable, undeniable, and unself-centered sign of remorse ever. He had broken his brother's beloved pop gun. With his brother crying in the background, I showed my Autistic son the broken pieces of the toy and said, "You broke this pop gun. John is crying because you broke his pop gun." He'd been smiling nervously, responding to the tension of the moment, but then his face changed. Tears welled up and his eyes darted to the room his brother was in. He touched the pop gun and then looked away. I seized the moment, drinking in the fact that here and now he was sorry. "Simon, you can fix this. Go hug John to say sorry."

My son John was surprised by both the tears in Simon's eyes and the hug. He stopped crying instantly. He's well versed in Autism and knows that the self-centeredness of his brother is not intentional, even if it can be hard to live with at times. Even though his all-time-favorite toy of the moment was gone, in moments he was smiling and proud of his brother being sorry for it. Of course it helped that I promised to replace the toy the first chance I got. The problem wasn't as large, the hurt wasn't as powerful now that Simon had showed he suffered over it, too.

Autism always gets me thinking. Forgiveness does not require remorse on the part of the forgiven, but it sure does help. When the wrong doer doesn't take up his own cross of remorse, we have to bear it with the thought that the person who should be sorry isn't. That makes the hurt a little bigger, sometimes a whole lot bigger.

I know that this is obvious. I know that you already know this, but some insights into ordinary things are bigger in real life. We get used to remorse in those who wrong us. We forget that it is a gift, that it is, in fact, optional. I am going to try to remember this the next time someone is sorry at me. I want to be thankful for it and not just expecting it.

Like my sons, I can learn.

Accept an apology like a gift...thankfully and politely

The Annual Walk of Ninjas

2012-01-24T06:35:00.003-06:00

It's happened every year for 39 years. Every January 23, thousands of people, half a million this year, descend upon Washington, D.C., and barely make a blip on the national media's radar. Never is the media bias more apparent than when it comes to the Life Issue.


2012 March for Life Now you see them...

...and now you don't.

So, I'm just doing my part to let you know the Whos are in Whoville. We are here. We are here! We are here!

If you marched, don't stop walking the walk. Here's something you can do today...

Monday, January 23, 2012

The Pro-Life Thing You Should Start Doing Today (Even if You're Pro-Choice)

by Rebecca Frech at Shoved to Them

Today was the March for Life in Washington D.C. and thousands congregated in our nation's capital to show their support for the unborn among us and their mothers. It wasn't just Washington which saw these huge crowds, although you wouldn't know it from the news coverage, thousands of marchers showed up in communities all over the country to speak out for the voiceless.

I love their passion and admire their dedication. Every year I hope to be able to join them, and while it hasn't happened yet, I'm sure I'll get there someday. In the meantime, I've found my own gentle protest, my own uprising against a culture which is trending against the value of children. Where our country is hardening itself against the beauty of Life, I've made myself a quiet spokesperson. Being a parent is difficult even in socially acceptable circumstances. It can become defeating when it seems as if your beloved child is unwanted by the world. So those of us who value the lives of these children should say so.

Will you join me?

Will you smile at the mom in grocery store, who is herself on the verge of tears, as her two year old melts down and she wants to hide in shame? Will you look her in the eye and reassure her that this is temporary and that while this moment is bad that it does get easier? Will you reach out to her and be the kind voice she so badly needs to hear? Will you tell her that her screaming monster is beautiful? Will you see past the noise and see their humanity?

Will you smile at the mother at the park whose child bears the unmistakable signs of birth defects or genetic abnormalities? Will you look at her baby, the one others avert their eyes to avoid seeing? Will you see past what others see as ugliness and see the beautiful eyes that reflect his mother's love? Will you comment on the beauty of his spirit and the lovely joyous lilt of his laugh? Will you talk to her and listen...really listen to this woman whose choice to carry her baby has made her an outcast among most of the people she meets?

Will you smile at the mom whose family seems too large? Will you see in her 12th baby the same beauty that you would have seen in her first? Will you be kind in your words and greet them in the library check out line instead of impatiently sighing as each child must run her own books across the scanner? Will you offer to hold the baby as she fumbles for her keys? When they walk past you in a restaurant and tables must be moved to seat them all, will you compliment her on how lucky she is to be surround by all that love? Will you see them for the family they are instead of the spectacle they easily become?

Will you smile at the mother whose child has been lost? Will you remember to speak his name and not be afraid to bring him up? Will you look at those heartbreaking photos from the day that he was born and see not the dead child she delivered but the living love she lost? Will you remark on his sweet face and the beauty of his hands? Will you allow her to still be his mother even though he's lost to her? Will you be the one who sees the mother when just the woman is standing there?

Will you smile at the woman whose womb is empty still? Will you be gentle in your joy as her own heart breaks in two? Will you ignore the tears she tries to hide and yet hand her the tissue box? Will you let her talk about it for as long as the ache is there? Will you be the person who listens to her pain? Will you wrap your arms around her and love her when it's hard? Will you be the smile she needed to get her through this day and not be offended if she just can't look at you?

Will you be the person you want to be in the back of your own mind? Will you be the kind and calm voice the word just aches to hear? It's funny how the mean and cruel words are flung at us without a care, but the kind words are held close as though their cost were very dear. So take the time to smile at all the people you run into today. It's the very smallest thing, and yet it can change so much in the life of someone who needs to see it. This is what we are marching for, the beauty we say we protect. If all life is valuable, then we should behave as if it were true. Will you join my little campaign? Will you smile at them?

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I am temporarily without Internet...

2012-01-08T15:52:00.001-06:00

..because we have finally moved in to our home! I'll be back and blogging as soon as I can get the guy to come out and rehang the satellite dish that links our house to yours!

An interesting thought...

2012-01-05T05:24:00.000-06:00

A friend of mine returned from a Bible Study with this gem...

We've always considered death as the penalty for sin, but it might also be a mercy. Imagine a world where Pol Pot, Adolf Hitler, Genghis Khan were immortal.

Pondering a world like that...

Husbandly Wednesday

2012-01-04T07:32:00.000-06:00

Correction: Wifey Wednesday is up and running this week...goest thou hence and read all about it!

The Wifey Wednesday meme will return next week when Sheila at To Love Honor and Vacuum returns from vacation. Meanwhile, I am taking the opportunity to explain why I write to wives and not husbands...

I answered the "Why do you only talk to women? Men are half the problem!" question officially over at To Love Honor and Vacuum in the comments section of her Am I Too Hard on Women? post...

Like you, I write to women. Like you, I expect each person in a marriage to work equally hard at making the marriage work, but I write to women. Sure Ephesians 5:22 is hard. It’s hard to submit. In an ideal world we could do it and not worry about it. We have to work with our limitations and our husband’s limitations and work out how that is going to look in the very real world we live in.

But you know what I know? I’m glad I’m a woman! Ephesians 5:22 may be hard to work toward but Ephesians 5:25 is even harder. Biblically our husbands are called to lay down their very lives for us in love and service. I don’t know how to even approach that one, so I don’t write to men.

I don't see a whole lot of that manly type of sacrificial love going on in the Christian world, honestly. I see it here and there and it stands out like a jewel. My brother-in-law Brent, my own husband Andrew, and my neighbor's husband Timothy lay themselves down for their families like Christs, but I don't personally know many other real men: the kind of man who takes the hits from the world for his bride and children, instead of passively or selfishly making them sacrifice to ease his burdens. From what I can see around me, it is hard work to make a marriage into the reflection of God's love that marriage is meant to be. Sure, women have to work very hard to fulfill their role as the heart of the home, but in all honesty, men have the tougher job to attain the level of Christian Husband. Women and children suffer more when he fails in his duties, but the hardest job is his. Dying is harder than submitting. Period.

I think the temptations are greater for men, the pitfalls are deeper, the ways to fail are subtler. A man can look and feel the part of the loving, Christian husband and yet live as if his wife were his personal drudge. In other words, he puts her in the sacrificial role he is called to fulfill. That always looks ugly. When a husband sacrifices like a man for his family, it is exquisite and manly. When a wife does so at a husband's demand, it is a scandal. This is the little bit of truth behind the stereotype of the Christian Wife as Doormat that the secular world criticizes us with. It is this that they are pointing to when they say, "I want no part of that!"

But like I said in the comments section, I don't know how to fix men. It's not as if you can nag them good. What I do, what I have done, and what has worked for 2,000+ years, is to call women to become the jewel of love, the precious gift from God, that inspires better things from her man. What works to transform yourself is what works to transform a spouse: prayer, love, generosity, service. That's what I know.

For you men, you'll have to look somewhere else for the specifics. Here's a good place to start...

The tyranny of the moment

(from The Generous Husband blog)

December 12, 2011

in Acts of Service, Be a grownup, Her Needs, IMG

Five words jumped out of the sermon today – “The tyranny of the moment.” Does “the moment” ever cause you to do stupid things in your marriage?

You are so caught up in whatever you are doing that you are rude to your bride either in word or deed.
You are so focused on your immediate goal you don’t listen to her.
You are so ready for sleep you fail to give her the ten minutes of talking and cuddling that would make such a big difference to her.
You are so desirous of sex that you don’t take the time to warm up first her mind, and then her body.
You are so upset at being interrupted you don’t even hear what she said.
You are so desperate to get ahead of the bozo that cut you off in traffic, that you terrify your wife with your driving.

In one way or another, each of those is putting some short-term thing with no long-term significance ahead of the woman you promised to love, honour, and cherish. This sends a message to her that she is less important than whatever you are doing or wanting in the moment, and that’s not a message that blesses her or helps your marriage!
The term “tyranny of the moment” is very appropriate as we do give in to the moment. We want what we want when we want it, and we want to deal with what we are focused on to the exclusion of everything else. It’s easy to get such a narrow focus on now that we do things that make a mess of later; or, we fail to do things that could make later much better.

Homesteading Stuff

2012-01-03T09:24:00.005-06:00

A cute,
nubby eared La Mancha kid

Michelle
one of our Nubian kids

Our milk production has been low for the past two years. Last year was almost a disaster due to the stresses on our goats from the heat and drought. The quality of the plants in the pasture is very poor. It's been a tough row to hoe for us and our animals. We are even considering selling our Nubian breeds to replace with La Manchas, who are supposed to fare better in extreme conditions. With another drought year on tap for 2012 we may have no other choice.

Despite all that, yesterday I made cheese. I was so happy to be able to make a wine and garlic ricotta and a mozzarella. For dinner we had a cheesy pasta made with 2010's garden canned spaghetti sauce. Everything but the rice noodles was produced right here.

This was the state of the pastures at the start of the summer.
Sparse was the word then. Bare was the word at the end of it.

Tonight, I have some stale breads to eat up. I will slice and toast some pieces, then fry them with more homemade spaghetti sauce and my mozzarella melted on top. It is divine.

Those of us who homestead know that there is no satisfaction quite as total as watching your family dig heartily into food brought into the world through your own labor, especially during a drought year.

For those of you who can only dream of homesteading, here is a recipe you can also try using store bought milk:

Wine and Garlic Ricotta

2 quarts of whole milk,
3 tablespoons of vinegar,

3 tablespoons blush or white wine
1/2 teaspoon of salt
2 cloves garlic crushed

The equipment: stainless steel or ceramic pot to heat the milk, stainless steel spoon, candy thermometer, colander, cheese cloth

How to:
Prior to the process place cheese cloth in a colander and place colander in the sink.

1) Place milk over medium heat until, stir constantly until almost boiling (approximately 195 degrees F).

2) Slowly add the cider vinegar while stirring.

You will see a change in the milk when enough vinegar is added. The liquid whey will separate from the solid curds. The curds will look like very small globules (a little like cottage cheese) floating in a yellowy liquid. If this does not happen after 3 tablespoons of vinegar is added, raise the temperature for a few moments before adding more. Over acidified milk will ruin the curd. Once the curd begins to form, turn off the burner and let rest for 10 minutes.

3) Pour the contents of the pot into a colander lined with cheese cloth and let drain 5 to 10 minutes

4) Add the wine, salt, and garlic (or other spices of your choice) and gently stir into the ricotta

5) For this step, you have a choice: you can put the cheese into a recipe at this point (or in the fridge) or you can knot the ends of the cheesecloth and hang the "bag" over the sink for an hour or two to continue draining. The longer it drains, the drier and more sweet it becomes.

Some ways to use it:

Make spaghetti as usual and simply add the ricotta to the sauce.
Prepare fusilli or egg noodles and drain. Coat pasta with 1 Tbs of olive oil and salt. Add ricotta and some minced olives.
Add it to make a hearty salad.
Make lasagna, of course!

A ricotta will take on the flavor of foods surrounding it. It is made to be eaten fresh. Enjoy!

Because it is Monday

2012-01-02T06:00:00.000-06:00

Happy New Year and All That!

2011-12-31T07:39:00.001-06:00

Although it may seem like shameless self-promotion to post a list of my Top 10 posts for the year instead of a thoughtful list of resolutions, a poignant review of 2011's events, or an awesomely gruesome martyr to inspire you to buck-thyself-up-at-least-you-have-skin, I assure you the underlying sin here is Sloth and not Pride. It's 6 a.m., I have been up since 3, and I haven't had enough coffee yet to fully activate the Oh Whoot! It's New Year's Eve! portion of my brain. It is only mildly conscious of that fact and that I owe you, my faithful readers, something to read while avoiding the relentless sales ads and the weekend's To Do List. I am motivated just enough generate a paragraph and a few links. Please forgive me.

Bartholomew: Patron Saint of "It Could Be Worse"

Top 10 Garden of Holiness Posts for 2011
Compiled Entirely by Blogger

And Brought to You

With the Least Effort Humanly Possible

By Your Friendly Neighborhood Coffee Swiller

#10 A Challenge

But this kind does not come out except by prayer and fasting

#9 A Recipe! No kidding!

Heavenly Humbling Homemade Olive Oil Mayo

#8 Of Course Sex Makes the List

Make Love, Not Idols

#7 Judging is Fun!

Secular judgmentalism! New and improved!

#6 A More Worldly Perspective

Population Control - The Kenyan (and Zimbabwean) Perspective

#5 Getting Our Girl On!

The Wardrobe Project: Shop For Your Pear Shape

#4 Teaching Social Skills

Shy or Stuck Up?

#3 Getting Girly Again! (Skip to #2, fellas)

The Wardrobe Project: Shop Your Hourglass

#2 Written by a Really Cool Guy
(Girls Allowed)

Guest Blogger: A Catholic Becomes Catholic

And the Big Surprise is...

Sex is #1!

Why Sex is Complicated

7 Quick Takes: Gifts

2011-12-30T08:00:00.000-06:00

Thanks to Jennifer Fulwiler, a fellow Texan, for hosting

7 Quick Takes Friday

over at Conversion Diary.com

1 While fixing him a bedtime snack, my oldest, age 8, asked me what my favorite gift was this Christmas. While I pondered a bit, he chimed in with, "Friends and family were mine. Those are the best." You got that right, kiddo.

2 Another favorite: Ages ago I worked on a family ranch with range land and almond orchards. I mostly piddled in irrigation work, sucker snipping, trash patrol along the roads, and fencing. Well, the orchards are long past their expiration date. Some have already been replaced. The last one, it seems, is coming down this year. When I go home for a visit, the trees I walked and worked in will all be gone. But my sister sent me the coolest Christmas ornament, made of the heartwood of an almond tree that was felled in the wind and rain this year. So those orchards won't all be gone. I can visit them every year.

3 When not renovating the house, I have been playing in frosting. I graciously received a cake decorating kit to make up for November's spider cake decorating disaster

"Those sure are scary looking teeth, honey!"
"Those are eyes."
"That's even scarier."
"You can stop now."
"Are there legs on this spider?"
*squirt*

The Miss Paula herself!

4 Speaking of disasters, The New York Times is out trolling for Internet hits by disparaging Southern Cooking and Paula Deen. (Seriously, Paula Deen?) Let them eat their black eyed pea hummus on their side of the Mason Dixon. More chicken fried steak for the rest of us!

5 And speaking of Southern and Paula Deen, there is a tradition here in the South of eating black eyed peas on New Year's Day. It's supposed to bring you luck, but frankly, any day with black eyed peas on the menu is lucky. This is Miss Paula's recipe we'll be using.

Black-Eyed Pea Salad

Recipe Courtesy of Paula Deen

Servings: 4 to 6 servings
Prep Time: 10 min
Difficulty: Easy

Ingredients Add to grocery list

3/4 cup oil
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1 (15-ounce) can black-eyed peas, drained and rinsed
1 bell pepper, diced
1/2 cup diced green onions
1 large tomato, diced
1 red bell pepper, diced
1/4 cup freshly chopped parsley leaves
3 tablespoons freshly chopped thyme and oregano leaves mixed

Directions

In a small bowl, whisk together the oil, sugar and vinegar.
In a large bowl mix together the remaining ingredients. Pour dressing on top of salad and mix well.

6 It is so hard to believe that this year is over. It's also hard to believe we are still not in our house, but slowly and surely we are making progress. We put in some temporary stairs, so anyone who'd like to come by for a tour, call me!

7 Have a blessed and a safe New Year everyone!

Just in case

2011-12-28T09:38:00.003-06:00


Admit it, he's smarter than you.

Have you ever heard the phrase, "No one was ever converted with an argument"? I know I wasn't. You could have reasoned, screamed, or bribed me, and I would have tossed Christianity aside out of sheer habit. Don't get me wrong here, there were seeds planted all around me, but no one incident or person converted me.

Well, other than Christ.

Just know it wasn't any one human person.

Well, again, other than Christ, who is an exceptional person with that dual nature of His.

Gah! I am so not cut out for this kind of stuff. You know what, how about we assume that in any given conversion, the cause of it wasn't you, and it won't be you because it's always Him?

Don't take me wrong here. Even Thomas Aquinas realized his vast knowledge didn't even scratch the surface of Truth. After his glimpse of Heaven, he was ready to trash The Summa as woefully inadequate. So even the best apologists among us is merely "budding." Take care that you don't let your pride trick you into thinking that if you just keep at a person, they'll convert. Sure, take the opportunities as they arise, but your best efforts will be when you aren't even aware of them. Let your life feed your compassion for others, both your joys and your sorrows; let your understanding that you live for Someone else shine like a beacon from your every action and God will do His work through you. That's tougher than it sounds, but that's God's way. If you go your way, you get in the way. Don't make Him have to work around you.

All I'm saying is be humble. Listen. Pray. Be careful. That's a delicate seedling there, that slow conversion of a soul.

P.S. But just in case we're all wrong about the whole "You can't earn your way to Heaven" thing, would you please comment below if this blog has converted you? I'm feeling the need for extra credit.

Aw dang

365...364...

2011-12-26T09:56:00.000-06:00

Wishing You a Blessed Christmas

2011-12-25T10:32:00.001-06:00

When Heaven Met Earth


All Creation Rejoiced

Peace, Peace, and Blessed Peace
Be Yours

I have a confession to make

2011-12-24T17:51:00.000-06:00

I haven't made this in six years...

About 15 years ago, a Jewish family introduced me to this bread and told me how to braid it. My first attempt met with their approval and so this beautiful bread has graced my table every Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas since before I was even married. Except the last six.

What happened was that six years ago I gave this bread as a Christmas gift to a person whose family refused to eat it because it was a Jewish bread, and she called to be sure I knew all about it. Understand that if my family was so odd as to reject Jewish bread on the day we were celebrating the birth of the most famous Jew of all, the person all Christians consider the Jewish Messiah, Christ Himself, I would have been silenced by the irony. Understand further that simple good manners would also have kept me mum. Also know that due to my weaknesses of character, I was equally outraged by both outrages. I don't know why bigotry did not trump rudeness in this instance, but apparently it didn't.

For six years it didn't. I did not even want to think about that phone call, so I didn't. Even to the point of not thinking about the bread. It was a forgiveness problem. If I had done the simplest examination of conscience shortly after hanging up the phone, my girls (six and under) would have memories of attempting to knead and braid this bread. They would have mastered the egg yolk painting of dough. My oldest girl, now six herself, would be ready to braid her own little loaf. They watched me, today, and they painted. This Easter, they will braid and mangle their own little loaves.

I must say that I am ready to forgive, now that I am aware that I hadn't. Challah once again graced our Christmas table. It was fun teaching my kids to get a nice spitty gutteral "chka" going. I don't feel very forgiving, but I have decided to forgive. I well know that forgiveness is more an act of the will than an emotion. My emotions may never quite catch up to me on this one, but if you ever read this and recognize yourself, you have been forgiven. We're good here.

I was almost Jewish before I was Catholic. I was also almost Mormon. If it hadn't been for God intervening, I don't know which I would have picked. Either way, traditions in all three have a soft spot in my heart and a place at my table.

This recipe and my humble awareness of my brand of silly is my gift to all of you...

Challah

Braided Bread

1 1/2 tsp yeast

1/2 cup warm water

2 cups scalding milk (almost boiling)

1/2 cup sugar

1 stick butter (1/2 cup)

2 tsp salt

1/2 cup water

5 eggs

11 cups flour

1 egg

Step 1: Combine yeast and warm water in large mixing bowl and set aside to proof.

Step 2: Scald milk, then add sugar, butter, salt, and 1/2 cup water in a medium bowl. Cool to 110 degrees (Warm to touch).

Step 3: In a small bowl, beat 5 eggs. Add to cooled milk mixture. If the yeast mixture has bubbles forming, add the milk mixture to the yeast mixture. (If the yeast has not bubbled, reproof another mixture of yeast and warm water). Add 2 cups of flour and beat until smooth. Add remaining flour until a stiff dough (not sticky) forms. Knead for 10 minutes. Lightly grease a large bowl and place the dough in it, turning to coat the bread evenly with the grease. Cover and let rise until doubled (about 1 hour).

Step 4: Punch dough, turn, cover and let rise again until doubled (about 30 minutes).

Step 5: Punch down again and divide in half. You will make two loaves. Take each half and divide into thirds (for a total of 6 pieces). Take three parts and roll them until they are about 15 inches long. Pinch the tops and braid the rolls on a large, greased cookie sheet. Tuck then ends under the loaf when finished braiding. Repeat for the other roll. Cover and let rise until doubled.

Step 6: Lightly beat the remaining egg and brush evenly over the loaves. Bake in a preheated oven at 350 degrees for 30 to 40 minutes. Bread is done with a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

If the bread is browning too fast, lightly tent with foil while cooking.

Merry Christmas!

7 Quick Takes--It's Christmas Eve Eve! Get It Done Quick Edition

2011-12-23T08:25:00.002-06:00

Thanks to Jennifer Fulwiler, a fellow Texan, for hosting

7 Quick Takes Friday

over at Conversion Diary.com

1 Today is my girl's birthday. We have a party for her earlier in the month when everyone is not so crazy busy. Today, on her actual birthday, we are having cake and her favorite dinner while she opens her grandparents' present. This year, the little Texan has asked for biscuits and sausage gravy with fried potatoes.

A Biscuits and Gravy Kind of Girl

2 We have managed to lose the box with the stockings this year. After moving a farmhouse, moving us from the trailer into my parents' house, and storing stuff in three different places, only losing one box isn't bad. However, my son is eight. As everyone knows Eight is known as the Rev Tevya Year in young boys. I hope he recovers from the shock of having to put up with a temporary replacement stocking.

3 Why, yes, I recognize the irony. I do, indeed.

4 I made a list, checked it twice, and now I am prepared to run with scissors. I have to wrap, cook, bake, buy stockings, rehearse, have a family party, attend a friend's party. I also have to remember to be cheerful. Coffee is in order. By the bucket load.

5 I almost forgot to mention (brag) that I have now completed the subfloor of the bathroom in our farmhouse. My friend and neighbor helped a ton. Yesterday I finished the job. It's all nailed down and ready for the flooring.

6 Speaking of flooring, now that the farmhouse has settled onto its foundation a window pane decided to begin falling out. There is a 1/4 inch gap through which the blisteringly cold Panhandle wind seeped into a bedroom and hallway, dropping the temperature in that portion of the house to about 55 degrees. We taped it up and are putting in the plastic window insulation kit until we can replace the window itself. Meanwhile, the flooring that is supposed to "cure" in the house for 48 hours got too cold to install yesterday. I moved the boxes of flooring to a warmer room, but the material won't be warm enough to reinstall until Christmas Eve. That floor isn't going down until next week, for sure. At least I have an excuse for not adding construction duties to my list of pre-Christmas panicking.

7 Although I am busy, I am grateful to be so. Sure there are a ton of things to get done, but Christmas is truly a most wonderful time of year. I love the hope and promise of the season. Every birth is miraculous, the birth of God infinitely so. Amazing. Awesome. Enjoy.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Wifey Wednesday: Twelve Years In

2011-12-21T09:22:00.000-06:00

...and we are still in love.

The thing is, our definition of love has changed. When I first fell in love with my husband, I thought of him constantly. Even my body thought of him. It was easy to think he was the center of my universe. But what 12 years has taught me is that I was more selfish then than I am now. I guess I can see it from a distance of 12 years later, but I didn't know it then.

When I first fell in love with my husband, I was in love with the way he made me feel. I loved him, sure, but I was hooked on my own soup of hormones and excitement of finally finding The One. I idealized him in light of that. Only the perfect man for me could make me feel the way he did, so he had to be my perfect man. Every time I saw clay on his feet, we'd argue. Rather, I'd begin a discussion, he'd avoid it, then I would chase him around with my list of points.

I applied this strategy because that's how to get me to change something about me. Point out a perceived flaw, reason with me to convince me it needs changing, help me hash out a strategy for change and boom, I'm working on it. Regardless of how many times this technique failed with my husband, I persisted. I think my thinking (if I gave it any thought) was that since he was my ideal man, he had to be like me in this. Even with all the people skills I'd learned as a school teacher, I was almost blind to my husband's needs and differences because of that ideal I'd created.

On my husband's part, he kept to himself. He grew up in a home with a mentally ill mother, so his mode of operation was to do everything possible to create an illusion of peace in the home while his real feelings and fulfillment lived themselves out under the radar. My conflict management style of discussion and rationale looked like dynamite to him. His style of conflict avoidance looked like agreeable assent to me. When I took my feelings out to examine and discuss them, my husband would say and do anything to get me to put such dangerous toys away. When my husband said and did that "anything," I took it as a mutually arrived at, logically derived marital plan of action. I was confused when later, he'd go his own way, saying things like, "But we discussed this!" He, reacting to his feeling panicked and pushed by my forthright manner, would stick his chin out and quietly and immovably insist on his way. I'd chalk it up to a miscommunication, acquiesce because he was so obviously invested, and question who this person was I'd married, he baffled me so.

Everyone has character strengths and weaknesses. In the wrong setting, even a diamond looks flawed and cheap. When applied in isolation a character strength like rational frankness looks like bulldozing, compromising support looks spineless and indecisive. Used in isolation, hurt feelings and confusion can result. Used together, an emotional character will balance a rational character. It's one of those lovely ways that the two become one. We are finally figuring each other out. My husband has learned that has input. I have learned that everything is not merely input. He has become more rational and less reactional in his thinking over the years. I have become more open to experiential emotional Venn Diagramming as opposed to my usual flow charting.

Every marriage has a recipe for disaster written alongside the recipe for success in its cookbook. Funny thing is, they both use a lot of the same ingredients. It took us about seven years to figure each other out enough to start switching recipes and using our ingredients to compliment one another. It took us that long to figure out how to set aside our perceptions of each other and actually see each other.

So Happy Anniversary, honey. Happy to know you. Hoping to know you better.

Wifey Wednesdays are hosted each week by Sheila Wray Gregoire
at To Love Honor and Vacuum.

Pray for those who persecute you

2011-12-17T08:27:00.000-06:00

Christopher Hitchens never persecuted me directly, but he inspired some of my friends to say some pretty unfriendly things. Since that's nothing compared to being shot in church, burned at the stake, roasted alive, skinned for faith, I can take a little ridicule here and there. God made sure I had such a firm certainty that I don't need everyone I meet to agree with me before I'm certain about Him. I know in my bones. If you don't believe or if we disagree? It's not my job to convince you. It's my job to live as perfectly as possible in harmony with Truth so you can see the light shining through despite the way I tend to muddy things up.

Conversion is God's job, not mine. I'll only debate you up to the point where it becomes pointless. Then I'll sic a saint on you. If you want to call me names in the meantime? So be it. I have one friend in particular who can't wrap his head around my conversion. I used to be interesting. I used to be creative. I used to be relevant. How could I do such an infantile thing? I've devolved. He comes back around to irritate himself over me two or three times a year. I bite my tongue when he insults me, and he knows me well enough to know exactly how to insult and hurt me, but that's what you have to do when you are a hate mongering Christian.

The death of Christopher Hitchens is wrapped around my feelings for this old friend of mine, mainly because my friend admired him and quoted him. So I've prayed for this man. I will continue to. It's funny what will inspire prayer. I probably would never have uttered a word to God about Mr. Hitchens if it wasn't for my friend and I quietly battling over the state of my soul. Gotta love the irony.

That said, I don't have much to say about the man, but this post by Frank Weathers sums up what I would if I did.

Christopher Hitchens, Requescat in pace

Posted at Why I Am Catholic on December 16, 2011 by Frank Weathers

One of the practices Catholics engage in that really infuriates the world is that we take Christ literally when he says,

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.
For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? Do not the tax collectors do the same?
And if you greet your brothers only, what is unusual about that? Do not the pagans do the same?
So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.

And so we pray for the repose of the soul of Christopher Hitchens. He was enigmatic, and had depth of soul. Gifted writer, militant atheist, enemy of Christianity, brilliant debater, wordsmith extraordinaire, and secular humanist who endured “waterboarding” (to prove that it indeed is torture), he was one of God’s children and will be missed.

Pat Archbold has a piece worth reading that marks his passing well. And his post helps explain why Catholics will pray for the repose of the soul of Christopher Hitchens. Because infuriating the world is something Catholics have been doing for over 2011 years.

There is no sense in stopping now. Besides, Our King’s order still stands.

Once you’re gone, you can’t come back;
when you’re out of the blue, and into the black.

Tell it, Neil.

It's Official!

2011-12-16T08:35:00.000-06:00

Merry Christmas to me!

This morning I got the Christmas gift I gave to myself. Four pounds! I had hit a plateau on weight loss and I made up my mind to be rigorous and gift myself with falling below that mark. I've done it! Over the course of this year, I've lost a whopping 27 pounds! The first 15 pounds were due to illness (when I get sick, it isn't pretty), but the last 12 have been by following The Light Weigh by Suzanne Fowler. We're between sessions right now, but I will be returning in February as part of my Lenten Practice this year.

I was inspired by the over 50 pound weight loss of my friend and neighbor. Her health and energy are so much improved. Every time I see her I smile. I keep telling her how incredibly cute she looks. I have another friend who just celebrated the Fourth Anniversary of loosing 100 pounds! (She blogs here.) With those kinds of friends, it's easy to be inspired!

So, part of all the fashion advice is due to research on the clothes I will have to buy in 2012 when I hit my maintenance weight. Meanwhile, if you see me around town in baggy clothes, it's reason to celebrate! I'm saving up for my real clothes!

Goody Goody Gumdrops: Easy Christmas Candy

2011-12-15T10:00:00.000-06:00

Sheila's over here getting eaten alive by trolls on the blogosphere. One even strayed over to bite me for saying essentially the same thing (she says it way better). I do advocate practicing accommodating hubbies on this side of the sheets first so that the shouts of delighted surprise emanating from the bedroom doesn't wake the neighbors. (Those would be your shouts, by the way. Hubbies are generally very accommodating to accommodation in the bedroom.) All of this oppressive politeness and Neanderthal niceness seems run of the mill to me, but you never know what will tick people off. Makes you have to work hard for it.


Hubby and I on a vacation in Europe

At any rate, since being sweet to your husband is this year's outrageously offensive behavior, I thought I'd be even more scandalous and advocate cooking again.

I know this cooking habit of mine is downright stereotypical of me, but I can't help myself. My husband eats. My children eat. Even I have been known to eat. My family is referred to as the "Plague of Locusts" among our friends. We descend upon a kitchen and leave dishes spinning in our wake. If I didn't cook, just imagine the effort entailed in feeding the Martin Hordes. I'd have to strap five children in their age appropriate car torture devices and appear with them in public. I'd have to comb hair, wipe faces, and even wear shoes! Anything but that! Have you seen my shoes? Cooking is my only recourse against such horrors.

I wear them because he likes them!

It doesn't help that I'm cheap. To move Martins, we must use a vehicle. The vehicle has about 6 round trip town runs in its tank. I have to tell you that what I cook, for the most part, is better than the food we can afford once we feed this member of the Martin Family.

Most restaurant food isn't worth the gas.

So, now that I've got my daily recommended allowance of snark out of my system and have once again implied that I seriously believe that wives should at least act as if they like their husbands, I guess I should give you the candy recipe. I adapted it from a magazine that advocates, among other anti-happiness propaganda that wives should have boyfriends to practice being nice to. I guess that makes sense. Since we gals are supposed to treat our husbands authentically (i.e., rudely, impulsively, irrationally), we have to make nice somewhere or we'd lose all social skills before our divorce.

Gumdrops

6 tbs (8 envelopes) of unflavored gelatin

1 1/2 cups cold water

2 1/4 cups boiling water

6 cups sugar

Sugar to coat

extract to taste (5 drops butter extract, 3 drops mint extract is super yummy!)

food coloring as desired (try some of the neon colors)

Don't hate me because I'm sweet!

Begin boiling 2 1/4 cups of water. Coat 2 8x8 pans with cooking spray and set aside. In another pot, sprinkle gelatin evenly over cold water, avoiding clumps. Let stand for 5 minutes. Pour boiling water into gelatin and water mix. Stir until dissolved. Add sugar. Gently boil mixture for 25 minutes. Pour mixture into the 8 x 8 pans. Add extract and coloring and stir gently until uniformly colored. Chill for 4 hours or let stand overnight. Coat a knife with cooking spray (this is important) and cut gumdrops into cubes. Coat in sugar and let stand for a few hours for the sugar coating to crystallize. Store in an airtight container. Tastes great! Ships great!

Wifey Wednesday--Why Sex Is Complicated

2011-12-14T09:09:00.000-06:00

Wifey Wednesdays are hosted each week by Sheila Wray Gregoire
at To Love Honor and Vacuum.

A very wise young man once blew my mind by pointing out a fundamental reality in our fallen world: God made all things good and Satan tries to turn good things evil. Satan can create nothing. All he can do is use his superior intellect to twist our perception of reality to make good appear evil, truth look like lies, the attractive repulsive. He loves to use our emotions, good things, to further befuddle us.

God made marriage. Marriage is good. God made sex. Sex is good. Marriage reflects the unity of the Triune God and the bond between Christ and the Church, so it is a profound good for the world, even without the economic and social stability marriage generates. It is good for the persons involved, too. It takes immature, self-centered creatures and matures them, making their lives outwardly focused on another. With sex in the equation, it also makes them parents, which furthers the process of maturation.

God the Father loves the Son perfectly and completely: so much so it is personified in the Holy Spirit. Your love and your husband's love is meant to be that beautiful. Your love will grow larger than the two of you, something you will both stand in awe of. In fact, the world will wonder at it, writing news articles about love after 75 years. In fact, marital love personifies, too--in your children.

Speaking of sex: the more selfless it is, the better. The more you lose yourself in your spouse and let go, the more amazing it is. On a fundamental level, sex is about surrendering to each other and becoming one, if even imperfectly. The hormones involved, oxytocin especially, are designed to cement a bond between husband and wife so that each sexual encounter--be it a romp under the covers or merely the promise of one in a look and a wink shot across a table crowded with cranky children and schoolwork--produces oxytocin and other hormones to reinforce the chemical, emotional, and spiritual bonds between husband and wife. That is very, very good.

That's why Satan hates it. You and your spouse are created in the image and likeness of God. Marriage speaks to the world about the Nature of God. Since Satan cannot hurt God, he will hurt you, His image, or your marriage, His reflection. Satan will interfere with your marriage in any way inhumanly possible. If he can't end the marriage, he will mar it to make it as imperfect a reflection of God as he can entice the two of you to make it.

God knew you and His purpose for you from The Beginning (Jerimiah 1:5, Romans 8:29). You and your spouse have been called to the Sacrament of Marriage from the moment God created the world. Satan, being a spirit, exists outside of physical time. He is not bound by our bonds. He can see you married when you are still a speck in your mother's womb. He knows your spouse before you have even met. He will work on you and your husband from birth until death to interfere with your marriage. He will encourage you, a woman, to damage your ability to bond with your spouse by enticing you to sexual encounters without commitment so that you will come to marriage untrusting, numbed and scarred. He will entice your future husband to view women's bodies as tools for his sexual fulfillment, separating the act of sex from the bonds of marriage and keeping him emotionally and sexually immature and unable to approach true manliness. (The Damage of Sexual Promiscuity--a must read)

Satan insinuates himself into your marriage to make less room for God

But God teaches us forgiveness, repentance, and self-sacrifice. God heals. As damaged as you come to the marriage bed, there is hope. As harmed as your marriage may be by sins against it, infidelity, lust, selfishness, God infuses the Sacrament of Marriage with abundant Graces to heal you both. All you need is God. All God wants is you.

Make yourself precious, like jewels.
Proverbs 31

Open your heart to God and to your husband. By this openness, you will allow Grace to flow into your marriage. Be prayerfully aware of God and set your selfish impulses to ignore, belittle, or bemoan the needs of your husband at the foot of the Cross. If he wants you to bring him a cup of coffee, serve Him by serving him. If he wants you to cuddle up on the couch after the kids are asleep, serve Him by accommodating him. If your marriage is damaged, use your love of God to rebuild it. If your husband is so damaged as to be numb to your needs, let God heal that. Help Him heal your marriage by taking up arms with Him to fight for your husband's heart. Send a barrage of roses against the fortress your husband has built against you; flood his life with so many small acts of love that he drowns in it. Surrender to God to win the war for your husband's heart. Make him gasp at the beauty of Love.

Who knows? Maybe your husband has been trying to do the same for you for years.

Your emotions, your desires, and your impulses must be under your guidance. Your guidance must be under God. If you do not guide your impulses, if God does not guide them, you will be manipulated and enslaved by them. Do not surrender your will to your emotions. Unite your will to God's will, even when your emotions have a will of their own.

Your marriage can work. It can fulfill you, but only if you let God in.

Jesus looked at them and said, “For human beings this is impossible, but for God all things are possible.” Matthew 19:26

7 Quick Takes: The Left Behind Edition

2011-12-09T19:55:00.001-06:00

Thanks to Jennifer Fulwiler, a fellow Texan, for hosting

7 Quick Takes Friday

over at Conversion Diary.com

1 - Since I wasn't able to get to a computer nearly all day due to baking at my friend's house, I thought I'd be a smarty pants and write my first draft on a piece of paper. I even enlisted some feedback on the topics. Everything! I had a draft. I'd collaborated. It was going to be great. I managed to make it home without the list, but you'd probably guessed that already. I mean, you've read this blog before.

2 - Sometimes I forget that it isn't normal to have children with their parents during the day, so I took the brood of wee Martins shopping this morning. I got a lot of looks (no, they were perfectly fine until someone praised them--see #4) and one woman actually said, "Some of these children look like they belong in school." I blinked at her blankly for a moment and began lamely explaining myself when something enthusiastic took over. I gushed, "Oh, we're HOMEschoolers! We worked really hard to finish our work for the week yesterday so we could spend today baking!!!" I gestured dramatically to the cart full of butter-flavored lard, extracts, and food coloring. She looked perplexed, so I finished off with, "Isn't that the coolest thing you've ever heard of? We HOMEschool." Now, if only I could evangelize like that for NFP.

3 - Okay, wait. Now I'm enjoying that NFP evangelization idea. Walking through the store with the Martin Five, and someone saying, "Are all those yours? Don't you know what causes that?" I could gush, "Oh we're CATHolic! We charted really hard to get them all spaced close together so we could spend our children's inheritance on disposable diapers and sippy cups!!!" When they look perplexed by my enthusiasm, I could add, "We LIKE children. We really LIKE them!" Then I might nod at them vigorously while contemplating how to work the words mucus and fecundity into the conversation.

Someone's in a fertile phase!

4 - Now that everyone has run screaming from their computers (I promise I won't say mucus again) it's probably a little late to make this plea, but here goes. Please don't ever tell me I have well behaved children. At least not while I'm with them and in public. I will start hyperventilating and breaking out into a sweat. You see, the words, "You have such sweet little children!" sets the timer ticking on the tantrum bomb. This nice-seeming little old man said that to us today and two of my children exploded moments later. It wasn't pretty. I'm working hard to forgive him. He meant no harm.

5 - Speaking of enthusiasm, while googling the picture above, I discovered to my horror that there are websites with titles such as "How-to-stay-enthusiastic-all-the-time!" Yes, the dashes seem to be part of the pleasure. Maybe it's to remind you that you must say it all in one breathy squeal.

6 - Mucus. Yes, I said it. I said it again.

7 - Is there anybody left reading this? Anyone? C'mon now, #7 is about chaaaarrrrtiiing!

On the Battle Ground of Marriage

2011-12-08T10:02:00.001-06:00

Gird your loins, ladies. Sheila Wray Gregoire is calling us to battle! I can't say enough about this woman's take on marriage, both her words and the guest bloggers she invites to write on the topic. Although not a Catholic source, she is excellent in understanding and expressing the ways that Christian marriage is the battleground on which you will fight for your eternal life--yours and your husband's.


Click here to go to the blog To Love Honor and Vacuum Don't forget to tune in each week for Wifey Wednesdays

Here's one quote from her latest Wifey Wednesday post: "God’s Word doesn’t say that marriage is designed to bring us happiness. In fact it says that it will be an area of struggle and hardship. Genesis 3:16 He told the Woman: 'You’ll want to please your husband, but he’ll lord it over you.'"

And another: "If Satan attacks married people first and foremost through their spouses, in order to render their hearts useless to God, doesn’t it make sense that two strong believing Christians may have more problems within their marriage than non-believers? "

She gets it. She really gets it. I would like to encourage you to read her insights, discuss them, and then get busy battling your temptation to fight fire with Hellfire (letting your husband's sins be an excuse for your own). Even if your husband is not behaving in a way worthy of a Christian man, you are to behave like a Christian woman. Remember, always, that you are serving God by your service in marriage. It isn't about what he deserves from you, it's what He deserves from you.

Get to it, ladies. The war is on!

Be a Prayer Warrior

To Get Started Today:

3 Steps to Make an Immediate Improvement

in Your Marriage

1. Apologize
Even if you are only responsible for 1% of today's problem, apologize for it, then say no more. Even if he's a jerk about the apology, you have done your best to heal the matter.

2. Do More
Do three things every day that you don't want to do, just to please your husband.
Again, pleasing him is your surest bet to pleasing Him. Face it, we treat strangers we will never meet again way better than we treat our spouses. It's time to break that bad habit.

3. Smile
Make your face a friendly place. Sometimes our face is a bad representation of our innermost selves. You may be worried about tomorrow's schedule, but your face reads as grouchy. Check your expressions a few times a day. Let a smile and an open countenance open doors in your husband's heart.

These improvements are meant to improve YOU first. You are a major component in your marriage and are responsible for YOUR behavior. God is responsible for changing your husband. Be an avenue of change and grace for the marriage so that God can do His work. You can't change anyone else but you, even in your own marriage. Truly, the secret to a better marriage is prayer. The best thing you can do is to pray for your husband, for his good, for his blessings to increase, for God to pour grace and love into his soul. Let God in. Pray and make room.

Pray and Make Room

Just in case you were thinking this blogger has it together

2011-12-07T12:16:00.001-06:00

with all these fashion posts, I thought I'd share a little reality check with this...

Today's Mental To Do List

Brush teeth
Bathe
Dress for being seen in public
Cook something
Clean something
Be seen in public

I'm hoping I manage the entire list today. You will note that "doing my hair" is not on this list, which means I'm shooting for (hoping for) a brushed out ponytail. I'm also hoping for lipstick, but I wasn't optimistic enough to actually put it on the list. Please note that I have not numbered this list: that's to help me feel better about skipping any items.

Just thought I'd share. Humility and reality kinda go hand in hand around here.

P.S. Yes, it is noon and no I have not brushed my teeth yet. You sure you want fashion advice from me?

The Wardrobe Project--Dress Your Apple Shape

2011-12-05T16:18:00.000-06:00

If you are an Apple Shape, you have nice, broad shoulders like your Hourglass Cousin, yet with slimmer hips and thighs. Your arms and legs are your best feature. Let's show them off!

Waist not? Worry not!

Your slimmest point is just under the bust line. Belts and waist lines will look best on you here, especially when the fabric flows over your tummy, gently skimming it. Experiment with tying a sash or long scarf under the bust line to create a waist. Empire waists, sweetheart necklines, and ruching are excellent details to look for in a top. Apples will want the lines of an outfit to move smoothly from the slim, high waist down to your lovely legs.


Image Source: http://www.bridefinds.com/shopping-guides/bridesmaids/lavender-bridesmaid-dresses/ An example of rouching, or repeated gathers, at the waist. Knee length and sleeveless looks show off your thinner arms and legs!


Image Source: http://www.girlieguide.com/apple---oval.php The waist of this top is just under the bust line and the material drapes nicely over the tummy, slimming it!

2. Watch the lines in knits and patterns. Fabric without much pattern or with large, bold patterns will flow more seamlessly over your shape; however, lines and lettering can accidentally emphasize our curves by getting partially stretched out of shape. Be sure to check the patterns for distortion before purchasing.

4. Something else the Hourglass and Apple shapes have in common is a longer line between the neck and the bosom than all the other shapes. Break that line! Wherever there is a break in the outfit, a spot where the item ends or the color pattern changes dramatically, your eye tends to be drawn there. Use that tendency to play down the tendency of the eye to follow the lines of an outfit which visually break only at the dramatic curve of your ample Apple bosom. Draw the eye away by using the natural "break" of a neckline. For this same reason, be sure your necklaces fall well within the neckline.

Neckline Examples


Image Source: http://preview.tinyurl.com/42ks5pr Sweetheart, V-neck and Surplice necklines will be the most flattering for you. The Jewel and Boat and Turtleneck (not shown) necklines will tend to emphasize a larger bust.

Smart Use of Breaks


Image Source: http://www.hgtv.ca/propertyvirgins/host.aspx Strategic breaks in a bold pattern and the natural lines of a partially open jacket create the illusion of a slender waist.

Dressing your lovely legs!

You have fine legs, to be sure. Dresses, shorts, pants will all show them off. Be sure to focus on proportion when looking at the silhouette of an outfit. If your legs look too slim and shapely, you may wind up accentuating your Apple instead of flattering it.

Look for flat front, straight leg, boot cut or flared pants that will balance your top and bottom. Zippers and clasps on the side seam are great for you. Try a mid-rise or higher to keep your tummy comfortable.

Because of your lovely shape, shorts and skirts can be flattering at an inch or two above the knee. Any shorter and you will run into both modesty and proportion issues.

Accessories

Because of your blessings, you can have a so much fun with hosiery. Show off those legs in colors and patterns. Winter is the perfect time to shop for exciting tights!

Watch that scarves and necklaces do not "point" to your tummy or larger bosom. Be sure to emphasize upwards toward your face with shorter lengths. Bracelets will show off your lovely arms, so have fun with them. Feel free to play with earrings, too.

Your shoes will be part of your balancing act. Use them to further elongate your silhouette by choosing pointed toes and slingbacks. Go for a more substantial heel to maintain proportion with your upper half.

Although your necklines can plunge, be sure to stay modest! Your ample Apple bosom needs taming! Layer a tank underneath a bold neckline and always be sure to bend over in front of a mirror before you leave the house so that any exposure problems can be *ahem* addressed.

Modesty Panels come with and without lace
and attach directly to the bra straps.

Your Bra(No Boys Allowed)

1. Structure and support. Being an Apple Shape, your bra is a vital element of your wardrobe. Like a shoe, it is a structural and supportive element, and nearly as complicated. A good bra will be barely noticeable during the day. A bad bra draws attention to itself by rubbing, binding, or riding up. There should be no gap between your body and your bra at any point, especially between the breasts. With a correctly fitted bra and good posture, the line of your bosom will fall about midway between your shoulder and elbow when your arms are down.

2. Get a fitting. If you have not been fitted in the last three years, go to a lingerie shop and have it done. Department stores may be great for prices but not necessarily for the level of customer service you need. Getting fitted for the right bra is a complicated process for any woman, but especially for a larger busted woman. You need more than average in a bra, so you need better than average service in finding the right one.

3. How many do I need? A woman needs 3 to 4 good bras, which should include at least one nude bra to wear under lighter fabrics and one black or brown bra to wear under darker fabrics. All bras should be hand washed and line dried as part of maintaining your investment.

4. It is an investment, so do not shy away from the price tag. For girls in the larger cup sizes, $30 to $40 is going to be the best minimum price you will find after shopping the sales! A cheap bra may look good in the checkbook, but it is going to look and feel bad on you.

So Go Shopping!


Everyone tries on clothes that don't fit, even your idea of an ideal shaped woman. Fitting is a process, not a number.

Most women have a few shopping habits to break--shopping for the shape they want rather than the shape they have. This leads to frustration and a feeling that "Nothing looks good on me!" It will take awhile to train your eye to spot the gems on the hangar. Don't give up and don't despair! If you keep picking up clothing for another shape, voice out loud who the item was designed for, "This would look fantastic on So-and-so! She's a Banana," then hang it up and move on to an item designed for you. Everyone tries on clothes that don't fit. Even your idea of an ideal shaped woman. Fitting is a process, not a number.

Nothing breeds success like success. Go have a fun morning with a friend! Take this list, $25, a digital camera (so you can more easily analyze your silhouette in an outfit), and a friend and hit a quality used clothing store (one that only racks gently used items and sorts women's clothing by size) and search for one complete outfit or one fantastic item. Try on items that follow these rules then analyze what looks good and what does not to find out why you love or hate it. Talk over each item and what it does to add or detract from your graces. Giggle when it looks awful! Remember, if clothing doesn't look good--it's the fault of the clothes, not you! God has blessed you, so go bless yourself with a very good time!

If you need help shopping, I recommend Betty Beguiles' own Bloom Personal Shopping.

Why is all this important, anyway...

The Mumble Rule

2011-12-05T09:16:00.001-06:00

In her book What Southern Women Know (That Every Woman Should), Rhonda Rich points out, "The major difference between Southern women and ruthless manipulators when it comes to charm and flattery is that Southern women use charm and flattery on everyone." Most days it's just too hot to keep track of whose turn it is to be wrapped around your little finger, is all. If we Southern gals are going to use our wiles, we are just going to have to use them wholesale. It is only manipulation if you dazzle in secret. When you are blazoning your intent to charm, it's called hospitality.

Charlotte, hard at work.

We sultry Magnolias do need to let off a little steam, to be sure. It's hard and sweaty work to move the world with a smile. How do we manage? We have our ways...

The Mumble Rule

The Mumble Rule can be summed up as follows: a true Southern lady can say nearly anything bordering on the impolite, as long as it is Mumbled. When questioned on the Mumble, it is understood that the response to, "What did you say, dear?" is to smile, tilt your head a bit, while asking with all due innocence, "What?" It is also understood that the subject upon which you have Mumbled, and indeed the Mumble itself, shall forever be dropped, at least while in your mutual presence, at least until the next opportune Mumble, or at least until you have a chance to dish about it with your respective Mommas over an iced tea.

"You won't believe what she said. She pretended I couldn't hear her, but I heard her, Momma."

For the uninitiated, there are subtleties to The Mumble Rule too intricate to be blogged. The red tape sticks mainly to the words, nearly anything and bordering on the impolite. The only truly concrete portion of the rule is the lady part, which is why my husband is so funny.

Although my husband was born a Yankee, Southern is like a second language to him. No one has ever explained The Mumble Rule to him, yet he knows it by heart, like all intelligent and dashing gentlemen. Having broken the etiquette of not speaking about etiquette in mixed company (there are Bostonians present), I shall explain that men don't ever Mumble. Boys sometimes do, but like a splash of glitter nail polish, applied by a real man, Mumbling is simply funny.

When my husband Mumbled while I made coffee this morning, he lightened the mood considerably. He made me laugh out loud. It was a true Geography Joke: not only did you have to be there to get it, you had to actually be from here.

My laughter and my response, "Did you just Mumble at me?!" was countered with, "I know! I knew you'd catch that!" My oldest daughter did not get the joke, but she perked up her ears. At 5 she knows when something flies over her head.

She's learning.

Candied Sweet Potato Casserole

2011-11-24T14:36:00.001-06:00

This was such a big hit today, I thought I'd better write it down before I forgot how it happened. Yum, nom, nom.

Candied Sweet Potato Casserole

Not a picture of mine. It's actually from My Italian Grandmother for a different recipe.
I chose it to show you how brown the marshmallows should be.
I think the site is worthy of a visit, a recipe, and a listen! That's Amore!

Ingredients:

2 large cans sweet potatoes (drained)

1 can pumpkin

4 cups miniature marshmallows, divided

1/2 cup butter

1/2 sugar2

Tbs maple syrup

2 Tbs pineapple (or orange) juice

5 drops vanilla

ground cinnamon to taste

ground nutmeg to taste

ground cloves to taste

dash salt

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease a deep pie dish or spray with cooking spray.

In a large saucepan, combine butter, sugar, syrup, 2 cups marshmallows, spices (minus vanilla). Cook over medium heat, stirring frequently, until the marshmallows disappear. Stir in pumpkin and return to simmer.

Remove from heat. Stir in vanilla. Stir in potatoes. Chop larger pieces into bite-sized chunks. Transfer to prepared pie dish.

Bake in preheated oven for 15 minutes. Remove from oven and cover top evenly with remaining marshmallows.

Return to oven and bake until marshmallows are browned (10 minutes or so).

The Awkward Pause: Witness like a pro!

2011-11-24T07:53:00.001-06:00

For the competitive Christian spirit and true Thanksgiving one-up-manship, here's a real conversation stopper to help you through those awkward family holiday pauses. For the win!

Tea Drink--London Fog

2011-11-23T15:44:00.001-06:00

Real London Fog

I will be serving these simple teas tomorrow as a preliminary to Thanksgiving Dinner. I'm also going through quite a few during our Black Wednesday shenanigans--the pie crust and deviled egg marathon that presages Thanksgiving Thursday.

A Yummier Version of London Fog

London Fog (single serving)

6 oz boiling water
1 Earl Gray tea bag
2 Tbs cream (low fat milk works fine, too, especially if you scald it first)
1 Tbs sugar (or 6 drops of stevia for a sugar free alternative)
4 drops Vanilla extract
1 dash cinnamon

Steep the Earl Gray tea, add cream, sugar, vanilla, and cinnamon and stir. Simple, yummy, fog lifting!

If you need a decaff version, you can easily decaffeinate any tea. Steep a bag of tea for two minutes, then discard that caffeinated tea. Immediately steep the bag in another cup of boiling water. This second steeping will give you a tea that is caffeine free!

The Wardrobe Project--Why I'm Late!

2011-11-07T22:48:00.000-06:00

My family is temporarily in my parents' house as we get out newly relocated farmhouse ready for occupancy on our little acre of paradise in the country. We are in a big push to get the floors, heat, and plumbing all move-in ready. We had a hidden fireplace make its presence known by crashing through the ceiling in two rooms during the move and reattaching the house to a foundation has taken a month longer than we had planned.

Meanwhile, computer time is at a premium when seven people are competing for two workable keyboards. I haven't had access to do the level of research I feel is needed to complete the entries for the banana and apple shapes, but they are in progress! I will keep you all updated. I'm so sorry to make you wait!

Meanwhile, I did find time to go shopping for these....

My husband found them actually. 60% off. My size. My color. Now all I have to do is relearn how to walk. I've never worn heels this high. Ever. I have to learn to dance in these!

Sure hope the explanation and the little fashion teaser helps ease the wait.

7 Quick Takes--Tah Dah!

2011-11-04T21:41:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Jennifer Fulwiler, a fellow Texan, for hosting

7 Quick Takes Friday

over at Conversion Diary.com

1 Friday is almost done, but I have just enough time to squeeze these in under the wire. It still counts if California and Hawaii are on Friday, right?

2 We are still living in temporary quarters, but I've been getting my kitchen and bedrooms together with the help of very good friends. Good friends help you move. Very good friends help you renovate.

3 We have celebrated two birthdays since we've moved in with my parents. My mother's birthday is next. For her present I'd like to give her her house back.

4 As I've started unpacking the boxes we packed up at the end of a brutal summer, I keep expecting to be hit with a hot blast of packaged air. It was such a miserable summer for us: record heat and no air conditioning in a metal trailer with the sun beating down on it. It is only two months since the last box was packed up, but now that fall weather is here, the memory has a surreal edge to it. Have you ever had something very unpleasant to endure and you muddled along, then you look back and wonder how you managed? This summer was like that for us.

5 My oldest is loving his science program this year. The entire book is experiments. He runs one or two experiments each day. His latest discovery was that sound travels around corners but light does not. The other kids love helping him, especially when the experiment involves getting into a dark closet.

6 This morning I forgot I was supposed to go to church. I was late. I'd also forgotten to turn off my phone. It rang. Today I'd also forgotten how bad I was at furniture assembly. I remember now. It took all afternoon to get everything wrong enough times to eliminate every other option except the correct one.

7 My 3 year old is at that stage where everything is a grand production. When she gets out of the van, she says, "Tah dah!" When she walks into the living room, she says, "Tah dah!" Lately, I'm so tired that any thing I manage to do feels like a grand production, so I am going to follow her good example and end this small production with a triumphal note. Hey, I worked on something other than the house today!

Tah Dah!

5 Reasons We Are Unapologetically Celebrating Today, Yesterday, and Tomorrow, Too!

2011-11-01T12:34:00.000-05:00

I am among the first to yell, "Neopagan!" in a crowded sanctuary, so let me tell you I have looked at the myths surrounding Halloween. I have been sensitive to the ideas roaming around that roaming around at night in costume is somehow Satanic. I have come to the conclusion that taking three days to dress up, eat candy, carve pumpkins, and pretend to scare one another with spiders and "boo" noises is about as sinister as a Christmas tree in the living room. We won't touch the gore and ghouls, of course, unless you are talking martyrs, but it's official! The Martins are celebrating. Not only that, we are hitting Mass to pray and we're going to the cemetery to pray. We may even place flowers on our relatives' graves. How wicked! We will even pray for the repose of their souls. We are Catholic, after all!

Boo, ya'll!

Here are the 5 top reasons we are celebrating...

1 - The fact that people like you and me have achieved Heaven is reason to celebrate, indeed!

2 - We are Catholic. We celebrate holidays for weeks on end. Taking three days to celebrate the idea of people achieving Heaven seems understated.

3 - My kids dress up almost daily. They beg for candy even more often. Dressing up to ask for candy seems natural.

4 - Holidays garner silly rituals even faster than they develop serious ones. Carving a pumpkin is no less trivial and fun than decorating Easter eggs.

5 - It's my birthday and that's final.

I'm a Stylish Blogger!

2011-10-24T11:09:00.000-05:00

I'd like to thank Therese, my favorite Aussie, over at the Aussie Coffee Shop for the nomination for this award. She is one of the sweetest and supportive bloggers out there! (other Stylish Blogger Award nominees)

Besides being a nice pat on the back, part of the purpose of these blog awards is to foster a sense of community among blog writers and to introduce our readers to some other worthwhile blogs, so in return, I am nominating some blogs I think you'd enjoy:

Adoro at Adoro te Devote,

Ellen at Love that Max,

Sheila at To Love Honor and Vacuum,

Hallie at Betty Beguiles,

and even though he is a guy among the gals in this list, Jeff at The Catholic Foodie

To fulfill the requirements of the award, I have to tell you seven random things about myself, so this is a bit like a 7 Quick Takes Friday post in lieu of my usual Monday fare.

1. I love coffee because the taste of creamy, sweet coffee belongs to memory and my grandfather. My Pawpaw used to reward me for extra good behavior with his "big people only" candy--coffee flavored nips. Every cup brings him back for a brief moment, and I still feel like a very good big girl whenever I hold my mug of joe. That's the way to start a morning, I tell you. Thanks, Pawpaw!

2. Although we've long known that my cousins, aunts and uncles all spell my Pawpaw's name as PaPa, my banch of the family tree is sticking to including the "w"s. My brother and I heard the "w"s in the heavy Texan accents of my cousins, so we've always written it that way. Even if everyone else thinks we're silly, it's our kind of silly.

3. I haven't worn contacts since my 20s because they are a little uncomfortable and my laziness out performs my vanity in the comfort department. I don't think it is a virtue either.

4. If I'm ever over at your house and skip dessert, it's not because I am a strong willed calorie counter, it's just that I don't have much of a sweet tooth. No virtues here, either.

5. I don't have one favorite color. Different colors catch my attention from day to day. My husband is the same way, so one of the discussions we frequently have is, "What was your favorite color today?" There's always a story attached to the day's favorite.

6. I like debate and I love clarity, but after a certain point of "here's where the line is drawn between us" I'm not going to stand on my side of it and shout. I can be very passionate about my beliefs as well as extremely saddened by what I consider someone else's serious and grievous errors and still coexist. That's what manners are for. More importantly, that's what prayer is for.

7. At the end of a demanding day, the last thing I want musically is a simple phrase repeatedly endlessly and ever more passionately. Modern music in my worn out ears sounds like yet another form of nagging and whining. I may be getting old, but I'm putting that radio in a time out!

Splinters: The Nature of Time

2011-10-22T08:31:00.001-05:00

Because I'm of a teacherly bent, my talent is to make complexities simple while pointing down the path to further study. The larger the subject, the more imperfectly it can be rendered simply, Teaching being such a frustrating science. It has been 10 years since God used His Holy 2 x 4 to get my attention, and I'm still unpacking the experience. While talking about everyday matters, I'm suddenly waxing philosophical. My husband likes to call these weird little insights of mine splinters.

The best way to begin this little insight from my conversion is to assert, imperfectly, that it is almost as if our souls once had clear senses in the same way we have bodily senses like sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell. As a friend of mine once put it, "Before The Fall, our souls had eyes." With Original Sin, those senses of the soul became damaged beyond repair. Perhaps in our soul's roiling paroxysms of shame and horror at the advent of personal sins, we each damage these senses further. But it is a mercy of God that we can no longer know the lacerations we unleash upon ourselves and upon reality and the world with the slightest of our sins. We are now numbed to the consequences of sin, thank God.

All of that aside, for a moment, because I could get lost in such essential tangents and never take us down road I intended to take.

One of those senses that is damaged, or muddied up, by sin is our sense of time. Although we live in the Eternal Now, because there is no other time but Now, we perceive now as a continually shifting moment. We feel as if we a slipping from this now to the next now, when in reality it is all one. Part of the damage is our perception of our past and future. Instead of it being integrated into our present, we see each as distinct and somehow fixed. We can dimly see the error of this by our understanding of our ability to affect the future by our choices now, but it is harder to see how dynamic our past also is. Those of us who have gone through experiences like a conversion, which radically changes one's perspective, know that perspective has an immense effect on memory--our only access to the past remaining to us. Radical changes of perspective radically effect history by the explosion of insight into past situations. Such explosions flood our past with new color and light which essentially change that experience for us.

All of time can be reduced to Now. Now is all that matters because Now is all that there is. You are here now, reading this, and somehow you are experiencing every now that you will ever experience in this same moment. That is the nature of Eternity, which we will understand more perfectly when our souls are healed after our slip through death into the perfection of the Eternally Present. When the eyes of our souls are finally healed by the Touch of God at the end of our brief perception of our earthly now, we will see and experience this now so much more perfectly. So, if you can follow me into the end of a prayer while carrying such an insight, you will see that our earthly life hinges upon two moments eternally: Now, and the other vitally important moment when we surrender, ultimately and for all time, to God. How we surrender at our final earthly now that intertwined gift of life and love He has entreasured us with determines how we will perceive our eternal now: eternity itself.

How impossible it is to wrest from language spiritual truth! My frustration has reached it's limits, so I will quit with this now in the hopes that a window has opened upon reality by the briefest brush against the pane. I wish to express to you that it is no mistake that one of the sweetest prayers is an appeal to the sweetest of created beings to pray for us at the most essential moments of our existence: now and at the hour of our death.

Amen.

Jacob Wrestling with the Angel
Wresting Truth from Language is akin to this.

7 Quick Takes

2011-10-21T10:38:00.000-05:00

1 - I am working on very few hours of sleep due to my mother running to the hospital last night. My father took her in before midnight and they got back after three. She is doing just fine now. It turns out that all the mysterious and scary symptoms she was experiencing were very treatable, though Emergency Room worthy. What a relief!

2 - P.S. to #1 above...Pardon the typos or rambling incoherency. Today, and today only, I can blame it all on the lack of sleep.

Image source: http://thesavannahsoapco.com/wash-dry-fold

3 - My main focus today is to write this post, finish the homeschool week, and make sure my parents stay asleep as long as possible. I shall do this without grumbling (if I'm doing it right) and while folding laundry. I did very little laundry while laid up with the rib, so the Laundry Monster needs some taming.

4 - I have an idea for a brand new blog--which may wind up being a page on this blog since I have made the Garden purposefully broad. I'm going to go ahead and create it so that nobody steals my cool name, but I'm not going to work on it until the focus of it comes more into focus. I'll keep you posted on how that is going to work out.

5 - After tossing out a fleece (see Gideon) regarding blogging, I am being answered in the affirmative to continue blogging. Now that my personal ego is out of the way (all the goodies I wanted from blogging have long been outweighed by the grind of producing posts), it seems that I am being called to practice the discipline it will take to make blogging a part of my vocation as a wife and mother. I had thought blogging was all about fulfilling my personal interests of writing and socializing, it turns out blogging is more about me working out my salvation (Philippians 2:12--14) through my primary vocation. I think that because I use my posts as a way to remind myself of what I know I should do but often don't, it is more vital to vocation than I had thought. Now the trick shall be to keep at this without allowing it to interfere with my duties. Can we say 4:00 a.m.? Oh, yes we can! No grumbling allowed (Philippians 2:14).

6 - Part of the Catholic celebration of All Saint's Day and All Souls Day is praying for the people who have died. If you are of the Protestant persuasion, the non-Christian persuasion, or the semi-catechised Catholic persuasion and have questions about the Catholic understanding of life, death and the afterlife, this is an excellent time of year to ask. The Catholic Blogosphere is gearing up towards November 1 and November 2 and, in fact, the entire month of November should have plenty to offer in that regard. Feel free to ask away!


A picture of an elaborate All Souls Day remembrance.

7 - I should seriously get going, so I am going to leave you with the guilt-ridden thought that I took exactly 40 minutes out of my duties today to write this. This is better than my 3 hour average, though. It must have been inspired.

Thanks to Jennifer Fulwiler, a fellow Texan, for hosting

7 Quick Takes Friday

over at Conversion Diary.com

2011-10-19T05:30:00.000-05:00

The Wardrobe Project: Shop Your Hourglass

The outfit that looks best on your Hourglass will look like you, balanced!
It will have structure, a waist, and equal proportions top and bottom.
Check out Betty Beguiles for affordable personal shopping
and for her sponsors who carry dresses just like these!

If you are an hourglass shape, your figure is undeniably feminine. Hourglass figures are balanced top and bottom with lovely broad shoulders and feminine hips and in between the two is a tiny waist! God has blessed you with both symmetry and abundance. Your job will be to be sure that your powerful assets do not overpower!

One of the ways to do this is to compliment your curves without adding bulk. Speaking of bulk, this article is going to be the lengthiest of all the pieces because you, our Hourglass, have been blessed both top and bottom and so we have more to work with!

Dos

The shirt's lines gently taper in at the waist.
The open neckline draws the eye away from the bosom.
The 3/4 length sleeve (with a little rolling) hits her at the waist!

1. Show off your waist! You can belt it or wrap it, but don't ever overlook it. Clothes that don't have a waist will fall straight from your broad shoulders to your broad hips and make you look...broad, but you aren't! Your shirts should allow plenty of room for your upper endowments and then taper down to fit you through the waist. You should see darts or other structural elements or the cut should show the curve.


A curvy girl Don't! You are not boxy and so you won't fit in the box!

2. Choose fabrics of a medium weight. Fabrics that cling or are flowy will emphasize every bump and lump. Fabrics that are too stiff (like leather) will add bulk. Fabrics of the right weight will hold their shape and compliment your curves, flowing over them and taming them, rather than emphasizing them.

3. Do be kind! Google "hourglass body shapes" and you will come up with pictures of cleavage (both sorts) and words like "ideal shape" and "perfection." Your body shape can be voluptuous and attention grabbing. Men, other than your husband, need to be able to think of things other than your body parts, so if men have to struggle not to look at something you are emphasizing, you need to be polite enough to reconsider your choices.

Special Notes on Tops (including yours)

1. Fit the bosom, tailor the waist. You may have to go up a size or two (even three) in order to get a shirt to properly fit you through the bosom. When that is fitted, then you can take in the waist with darts or a belt. This is especially true of buttoned shirts. Neither the fabric nor the buttons should strain when you move your arms around. To check the fit of a shirt, lift your arms over your head, hold them out to the side and twist at the waist to see how the shirt moves. If there is any puckering, excessive riding up, or any straining of the fabric or seams this is not a good fit for you. Try the next size up. This is true of jackets and dresses as well. Unless you are handy with the needle and thread, you are going to have to find a good seamstress who can take in your tops and bottoms for you. Tailoring is going to be a vital part of your wardrobe budget.

2. Watch the lines in knits and patterns. Fabric without much pattern or with large, bold patterns will flow more seamlessly over your hills and valleys; however, lines and lettering are going to emphasize all the curves by getting partially hidden in some spots and stretched out of shape in others. If people are having trouble making eye contact with you, it may be they are trying to figure out what your shirt is saying!

Drink Iced Tea!

Non-wonky Translation: Drink Iced Tea!

4. Give them a break. Hourglass and Apple shapes have a longer line between the neck and the bosom than all the other shapes. Break that line! Wherever there is a break in the outfit, a spot where the item ends or the color pattern changes dramatically, your eye tends to be drawn there. Use that tendency to play down the tendency of the eye to follow the lines of an outfit which visually break only at the dramatic curve of your bosom. Draw the eye away by using the natural "break" of a neckline. For this same reason, be sure your necklaces fall well within the neckline.


Image Source: http://preview.tinyurl.com/42ks5pr All of these necklines will work well on an Hourglass shape, although the Jewel and Boat and Turtleneck (not shown) necklines will tend to emphasize a larger bust and so should be used for layering and not as a stand alone shirt.

5. Bend over in front of a mirror. This should be something you do before every top or dress purchase and before leaving the house, so that any exposure issues can be taken care of by you before someone else has to point out the problem. Modesty panels and layering with a tank top can help.

Modesty Panels come with and without lace
and attach directly to the bra straps.

Speaking of Tops: Your Bra

(No Boys Allowed)

1. Structure and support. With an Hourglass figure, your bra is a vital element of your wardrobe. Like a shoe, it is a structural and supportive element, and nearly as complicated. A good bra will be barely noticeable during the day. A bad bra draws attention to itself by rubbing, binding, or riding up. There should be no gap between your body and your bra at any point, especially between the breasts. With a correctly fitted bra and good posture, the line of your bosom will fall about midway between your shoulder and elbow when your arms are down.

2. Get a fitting. If you have not been fitted in the last three years, go to a lingerie shop and have it done. Department stores may be great for prices but not necessarily for the level of customer service you need. Getting fitted for the right bra is a complicated process for any woman, but especially for a larger busted woman. You need more than average in a bra, so you need better than average service in finding the right one.

3. How many do I need? A woman needs 3 to 4 good bras, which should include at least one nude bra to wear under lighter fabrics and one black or brown bra to wear under darker fabrics. All bras should be hand washed and line dried as part of maintaining your investment.

4. It is an investment, so do not shy away from the price tag. For girls in the larger cup sizes, $30 to $40 is going to be the best minimum price you will find after shopping the sales! A cheap bra may look good in the checkbook, but it is going to look and feel bad on you.

Skirts and Pants

If this is sounding familiar, it's because you and The Pear share the blessing of the bum!

1. Balance the bottom at the bottom. When choosing pants, go for a mid to high rise to lessen the risk of muffin tops and exposing your underwear when sitting, and steer away from a tapered leg. Go for straight legs, boot cut, and flared bottoms as long as you can get them without dragging the hem on the ground. Following these tips will make your legs look long, but they won't draw unwanted attention to your hips. Decorations around the hem and on the leg seams are also very fun.

Here, the sleeves end where they are just as wide as Maggie's hips, allowing for balance.
A Pear can use the scarf and earrings to add emphasis to the face.
An Hourglass would use this same outfit, but would move the
scarf up to wrap around her hair.
Notice, that the dress has gathers around the waist, slimming the waist.

2. Skirt Shapes. A-lines, pencil skirts (be careful with the vavoom factor on these), and wrap skirts work well.

3. Watch the hems! Be sure the hems of your shirts, jackets, or any items end somewhere other than the middle of your bum (or bosom). This will make it look bigger and draw the eye there. Also, be sure that the hem does not hit at the thickest part of your leg either.

4. Fit the bum! Purchase your pants and skirts to fit very well through the bum. You can easily alter your waist yourself or spend a few dollars to have a seamstress take in an outfit. Consider alterations a necessary part of your charms and one of the hidden costs of your wardrobe, like dry cleaning (since you will be altering tops, adding pants into the mix won't be an added burden).

5. Try on everything! A fashion rule of thumb is to never buy anything without trying it on. Skirts can be tricky, because the look changes with different leg shapes. Your fabulous skirt might look mediocre on another Hourglass because of this. That's why we try everything on before purchasing!

So Go Shopping!

Most women have a few shopping habits to break--shopping for the shape they want rather than the shape they have. This leads to frustration and a feeling that "Nothing looks good on me!" It will take awhile to train your eye to spot the gems on the hangar. Don't give up and don't despair! If you keep picking up clothing for another shape, voice out loud who the item was designed for, "This would look fantastic on So-and-so! She's an Apple," then hang it up and move on to an item designed for you.

Nothing breeds success like success. Go have a fun morning with a friend! Take this list, $25, a digital camera (so you can more easily analyze your silhouette in an outfit), and a friend and hit a quality used clothing store (one that only racks gently used items and sorts women's clothing by size) and search for one complete outfit or one fantastic item. Try on items that follow these rules then analyze what looks good and what does not to find out why you love or hate it. Talk over each item and what it does to add or detract from your graces. Giggle when it looks awful! Remember, if clothing doesn't look good--it's the fault of the clothes, not you! God has blessed you, so go bless yourself with a very good time!

If you need help shopping, I recommend Betty Beguiles' own Bloom Personal Shopping.

Next week: The Apple

Do I really care about style?

2011-10-11T21:21:00.002-05:00

Tomorrow's installment of the Wardrobe Project is not going to hit the blogosphere on time. I dislocated or broke a rib and have had to take Advil, a medicine with a previously undocumented side effect: generating unclear and verbose blog posts. Meanwhile, I have readied this portion of the project--a look at my attitudes toward the body and the adorning of it.

If you had asked me even as little as a year ago if I really cared about style and dressing well, I would have given you a mixed answer. For years I cared enough to sometimes flip through a magazine, to try to put an outfit together once in awhile, but I didn't care enough to put any kind of real effort into it. Forget about accessorizing (I'm still working on that). A few years before that? Meh, if it was cheap, it fit, didn't make me look fat, and wasn't too terribly ugly, I'd wear it.

All of that has changed. I do care. I see the importance and am willing to put forth the effort. To understand the change in my outlook, I need to take you on a little journey. I will also need to tell you that my husband and I have discussed sharing this aspect of our lives with you to help those of you in your own hopeless moments find some hope.

Three years ago this November, I was lying on a hospital bed with a raging MRSA infection that had mysteriously made it into my bloodstream, bowels, and urinary tract. I was in indescribable pain which the morphine dulled just enough to allow me enough breathing room to think. My systems were shutting down. I was quarantined. Visitors to my room had to be gloved, slippered and gowned to prevent the spread of infection. My children were not allowed to visit.

After two weeks of increasing illness, on a Thursday morning before the end of her shift, one of the nurses came in and asked, with tears in her eyes, if I shouldn't send my husband to collect the end of life paperwork he was going to need. Looking into her eyes I knew she felt enough of a connection with me after the last few nights together as she watched and encouraged me while I fought to stay ahead of the pain. I didn't have to ask her to bring the pictures of my children. She went to the counter and brought them over before she left me to cry over them by myself.

My baby was not even four months old.

When my husband returned, we talked over things for a bit, then he left on his errand to get the paperwork. While he was gone two things happened. He turned around halfway there, knowing he wouldn't need the papers, and my unrelenting pain changed from eating me to just hurting me. It still hurt horribly, but I was no longer teetering on the edge of screaming. Something had given way in me. I was going to live.

When my husband came back again this time we both said simultaneously, "You won't need those papers," and "You won't be needing those papers." Then he smiled and said, "You are going to make it." He held my hand as I fell asleep.The blood tests taken that afternoon revealed that the infection had simply disappeared. The infectious disease doctor visited with us late the next day to tell us he was no longer needed on the case after 24 hours of being MRSA free. He shook his head and said, "I've never seen anything like this." I was still sick enough that it took me another three days before I'd recovered my health enough to be released from the hospital.

Real Life Isn't What You'd Expect
If this were like a Lifetime Movie, you'd expect an experience like this to bring a couple closer. What it did for us was emphasize how we'd not learned to pull together. When I came home, both my husband and I were exhausted by the whole ordeal, so we both checked out, each expecting the other partner to take up the slack.

It wasn't good. My husband's work schedule was such that he spent a lot of time alone at home--time he filled at the computer. My slow recovery meant that I was not meeting his expectations with the children or the house upkeep. I sank into a depression yet somehow found the energy to argue with him constantly over my disappointments and his shortcomings, while valiantly overlooking my own.

Here's the connection with fashion. My husband wanted, among other things, for me to dress nicely and be pretty for him. I, on the other hand, had an unhealthy disdain for things of the body and expected "better" of my husband. To sum it up, we both had unrealistic and selfish expectations of our marriage. We both wanted our own needs met without consideration of the other's. We were both heading for a marital trainwreck. The brush with mortality merely opened up the throttle.

Next week: The Trainwreck

7 Quick Takes

2011-10-07T11:54:00.000-05:00

1 - "Don't pick up a pooping cat!" After the emergency load of laundry and all the scraping, the washing, and the smelling, this is the bit of wisdom my 5 year old daughter took from her recent decision that the cat must play with her RIGHT NOW, even though it looked a little busy at the moment.

2 - I started my 7 Quick Takes with the above story because I feel exactly like someone who has picked up a pooping cat. I broke or sprained a rib this week and can't move or breathe without being tempted to wax scatological.

3 - Speaking of, I have a story to share that I think of every time I am in pain and it never fails to make me smile. Our old Parish Priest had a prison ministry. He often admonished us to follow the example of the imprisoned men who daily struggled to live Godly lives in adverse circumstances. One of the things he worked on with them was the habit of profanity, since he was an ex-Navy man and he struggled with this himself. He had made such inroads in this area that one honor farm inmate, upon having his foot stomped on by a horse had called out, "Thank you, Jesus, for allowing me to suffer!" instead of the usual jailhouse fare. Father shared that story with everyone. Some time later, he was opening a window in the rectory and it came down and broke his hand. He got to the prison later that week and was telling the story of his bandaged and gruesome looking hand. The men asked him what he had said, hoping for similar inspiring words. "Well," said Father, "It certainly wasn't 'Thank you, Jesus, for allowing me to suffer!'"

4 - Speaking of priests, I heard an excellent homily today. He was commenting on divisiveness and split loyalties. He gave us the image of the torn temple veil. "We tend to focus on the torn sides of the veil, of the fact that the veil is no longer together instead of what is revealed behind the division--The Holy of Holies, God, Himself." Because the hydrocodone is kicking in, I am unable to recreate his words well. Just the basic idea that God is there when all else is swept away including our attachment to broken things, even ones that appear whole.

5 - I had to buy coats to get us through until our house is ready. The kids have tons of coats, but that box was packed in the middle of the heatwave and the chaos of suddenly finding a buyer for the Ugly Yellow Trailer. It's buried and unlabeled, like almost all of my belongings at the moment. Who knew that a month later we would still be in temporary housing, but needing coats and jackets after such a long and miserably hot summer. Thank you, God, that even endless droughts can be broken.

6 - We have purchased our first antique! Well it's only the first if you are not counting the house. We got a working and restored O'Keefe Merrit stove for about what a new stove would cost. Here's a picture of one that looks like ours but belongs to someone else who is selling theirs and has better access to a camera than we do at the moment.

7 - Feeling rather antique myself at the moment, I will sign off. Have a happy weekend everyone!

Thanks to Jennifer Fulwiler, a fellow Texan, for hosting

7 Quick Takes Friday

over at Conversion Diary.com

I have good news and bad news...

2011-10-06T08:48:00.000-05:00

The good news is that Hallie Lord (Betty Beguiles) and I communicated via Twitter and I am not the blogger who is riffing her blog. The bad news is that I am not the blogger who is riffing her blog because if I were that blogger it would be fixed or stopped by now. Since it isn't me stepping on toes, I can only hope, like any other Betty Beguiles fan, that all this will resolve quickly. If it was me, I would do everything I could to differentiate what I am trying to do from what she is doing and if that wasn't possible, I'd pull the series.

Here's why: for me, blogging is a hobby. For her, blogging is income. Hallie Lord is a freelance writer and author. She makes her living writing and the quality of our two blogs reflect that very clearly. She's like a fine wine and I'm like Diet Dr. Pepper. When it comes to fashion, we are Macys versus Kmart (okay, maybe Dollar General). I am not competition for her on any level and would love to send any of my 59 regular readers interested in style and fashion her way by pointing out the impressive quality of both her work and her carefully chosen advertisers. That's likely not all of the 59 of you because it's a rare day that any given post gets 59 views (I should probably put the regular in regular readers in quotes). All those 59 "regular" readers who know me, tolerate me for what I am--basically, a weird Catholic momblogger with goats and some wide ranging interests that hit some of you here, some of you there. One of those interest is currently seeing beauty through a Catholic lens and its role in my duties as a wife and woman. Weird, yes, but as I am well aware, I'm weird.

That said, there were enough similarities now that I've had some discussions with others who have pointed them out (yeah, I know, duh, but if you could get in my head you'd realize why it wasn't so obvious to me) that I will be making some changes, one of which is stating overtly where we're headed with all this. I will also point readers directly to Hallie Lord's blog (Betty Beguiles) throughout the series of posts here. Check out her advertisers (there won't be a direct link to them because when we bypass her blog to look at them, she loses the reference and the revenue), very high quality stuff!

The Wardrobe Project: Shop For Your Pear Shape

2011-10-05T07:18:00.001-05:00

The Wardrobe Project: Shop Your Pear


This simple dress uses color to frame this woman's face and draw the eye upwards.

If you are a pear shape, you have a lovely womanly figure. You are one lucky lady! You get to wear scarves, beautiful big earrings, hats, brooches, and anklets. Your collars can be exploding with ruffles and you get to sport sleeves as puffy and shoulders as padded as you like. Keep in mind one simple rule for dressing: God has already emphasized your bum, so you don't have to. Use your clothes to emphasize everything else.

Use the lines of an outfit and your accessories to draw the eye upwards towards the waist and face (your assets), downwards towards your feet and ankles (more assets), and away from the bum and hips. Some clothing rules of thumb to keep in mind: patterns, textures, spots of color, rosettes and other embellishments draw the eye; muted colors tone down an area.

Dos

Only the thinnest of pears could get away with the middle shirt as it will deemphasize the waist line,
but you can get an idea of the type of lines, color placements, and embellishments that will flatter your figure.

1. You are the Queen of Accessories! To emphasize your face, your get to use your best and favorite colors, attention grabbing scarves and brooches, patterns in the material, hats, large earrings, jewelry of almost any sort, ruffles, and other details. Your goal is to balance your exciting hips with visual excitement on your upper half. This means you will be accenting your upper body so that your face is the crowning jewel of every outfit!

2. Mute the bum and hips. You will look best if the darker colors and solid colors in your outfit are placed here. Avoid shine or bulk here, so leather and satin are both top options only. The lines of your clothes need to flow seamlessly and visually over you at your widest point, so choose weightier fabrics for your lower half which will allow an item to retain its shape as it flows over your curves. Knits and light weight fabrics will cling and emphasize, so save those fabrics for your tops. End your shirts and jackets above or below your widest spot. You can even wear a tunic, if carefully chosen in a weightier, nonclinging fabric in a neutral color.

3. Emphasize the waist. Pears have a waist! You can belt it, wrap it, and end a jacket here. Wherever there is a break in the outfit, a spot where the item ends or the color pattern changes dramatically, your eye tends to be drawn there. Your waist is a good spot to put a break. Speaking of breaks, be sure to watch your sleeves. When your arms are down, they should end, or break, so that they visually "point" to a lovely spot. If they do end up breaking right at your more voluptuous spots, roll them up! Another tip, when you are getting a dress, see if the waist has slight gathering on either side of the waist. This will be to your advantage as it will make you look slimmer.

Our lovely model and guest blogger, Maggie
(underage so we are careful with her identity)
demonstrates how to do some of these Dos.

The bright colors jump out and grab your attention.
The scarf adds emphasis to her face making her bust and shoulders more balanced.
Notice her sleeves are rolled up so that they hit her waist level.

4. Balance the bottom at the bottom. When choosing pants, go for a mid to high rise to lessen the risk of muffin tops and exposing your underwear when sitting, and steer away from a tapered leg. Go for straight legs, boot cut, and flared bottoms as long as you can get them without dragging the hem on the ground. Following these tips will make your legs look long, but they won't draw unwanted attention to your hips. Decorations around the hem and on the leg seams are also very fun.

Here, the sleeves end where they are just as wide as Maggie's hips, allowing for balance.
The scarf and earrings add emphasis to the face.
Notice, that the dress has gathers around the waist, slimming the waist.

5. Dresses. What better way to dress up than to wear dresses? Here are some tips for making you look just like a queen. The skirt should not end in the middle of the calf; it needs to either be longer or shorter where the calf muscle tapers. Be careful when going shorter! Don't go any shorter than right above the knee, and don't stop at the ankle unless you are wearing boots. Most women look best when the skirt ends just above the knee and when the skirt ends at the floor length. If the skirt is long, Pears can get away with a lots of ruffles around the hem. (This makes us Southern Belles very happy.)

Awesome shoes with a pop of color are
perfect for the Queen of Accessories, our Pear!

The End

1. Be sure the hems of your shirts, jackets, or any items end somewhere other than the middle of your bum. This will make it look bigger and draw the eye there. You will be drawing the eye away from your beautiful face.

2. The most important fit for you is the bum. Purchase your pants and skirts to fit very well through the bum. You can easily alter your waist yourself or spend a few dollars to have a seamstress take in an outfit. Consider alterations a necessary part of your charms and one of the hidden costs of your wardrobe, like dry cleaning (your curvy cousins, the hourglasses, will be doing this, too).

3. A fashion rule of thumb is to never buy anything without trying it on. Skirts can be tricky, because the look changes with different leg shapes. Your fabulous skirt might look mediocre on another Pearl because of this. That's why we try everything on before purchasing! Try to get a back view. If you can, have someone take a digital picture of your back view when you come out of the dressing room so you can see instantly the impression you leave behind in a potential purchase.

So Go Shopping!

Most women have a few shopping habits to break--shopping for the shape they want rather than the shape they have. This leads to frustration and a feeling that "Nothing looks good on me!" It will take awhile to train your eye to spot the gems on the hangar. Don't give up and don't despair! If you keep picking up clothing for another shape, voice out loud who the item was designed for, "This would look fantastic on So-and-so! She's an Apple," then hang it up and move on to an item designed for you.

Nothing breeds success like success. Go have a fun morning with a friend! Take this list, $25, a digital camera, and a friend and hit a quality used clothing store (one that only racks gently used items and sorts women's clothing by size) and search for one complete outfit or one fantastic item. Try on items that follow these rules then analyze what looks good and what does not to find out why you love or hate it. Talk over each item and what it does to add or detract from your graces. Giggle when it looks awful! Remember, if clothing doesn't look good--it's the fault of the clothes, not you! God has blessed you, so go bless yourself with a very good time!

Next Week...The Hourglass

Because it's Monday...

2011-10-03T06:44:00.000-05:00

...and I need more coffee...

I know I should post today

2011-10-02T17:35:00.000-05:00

and I am so not in the mood to write anything, but I've been working on not doing what I want to do. It's a spiritual exercise. Anything I want to do that isn't the best? Not doing it.

I want to sit on my butt and roam around Facebook or Plurk, catch up on the blog posts, enjoy a popcorn feeding frenzy and shut off my brain awhile. That's not the best way to spend the Sunday.

So instead I will share a strange little moment from Church with you. We've got our little choir. Those who follow the blog regularly know that I'm the director and it's made up of two families and sometimes (well, just the once, actually) my sister and her husband. We sit in the back, sing a capella, and wrestle with wee Martins. We have some fine musicians and excellent singers amongst us and every once in awhile we really nail a song. We sound like a choir not sitting in the back trying to sing around the slings and shoelaces of outraged children. Sometimes we sound heavenly.

Today was the day. We had a song end in the wrong spot of the Liturgy, so we chanted "O Radiant Light, O Son Divine." Chant is what we do best when we do our best. Today we managed it. As the beautiful song, beautifully rendered, ended, my husband and I looked across the aisle at the same moment and saw what God had done. Staring at us was a woman, wiping her eyes and crying.

Her heart was opened wide by the song. I don't know how I knew it and how my husband knew it, but we knew. He nodded his head at me and, without thinking it through, I went and sat next to her. (I asked first.)

She scootched. We sat. No big deal. She cried a little. I cried a little, too. At the Sign of Peace I had to go back to the choir pew for the logistics of being in position for Communion and the Communion Hymn. When I went to shake her hand to say, "Peace be with you," we hugged instead and she whispered, "Thank you!" in my ear.

I don't know, exactly, what happened there. I didn't even catch her name, but I'm glad of it, whatever it was.

And now that my 20 minutes of me time is up and I spent it with you. We sat. You read. No big deal. I hope something happened here, too.

7 Quick Takes

2011-09-30T06:32:00.003-05:00

7 of my favorite blog reads this week!

1 - Bad Catholic: What's It Like Being Catholic?

I'm often asked this question. And while I am under the blissful delusion that I can rant and rave on any subject of my choice, this one leaves me stumped. What's it like being Catholic? Well, it's like...well you see...hm...

It's like sex. (continue reading)

2 - Bad Catholic (again): Death Metal Ain't Got Nothing On Us

A long, long time ago, in a galaxy frightfully near, when I was caught in the awkward throes of middle-school, Black Metal and Death Metal were where it was at. In fairness, I attended a British military school in Germany, which sort of implies dysfunction. But regardless, a good number of my friends were infatuated with growing their hair and dying it black, painting their nails, doing drugs, getting schwasted, wearing dead/dying/skeletal/demonic guitar players on their t-shirts, and rocking their satanic symbols; for what's metal without corporate merchandise? Oh, how the warm memories return. There was the pentagram, the anarchy sign, the various nordic runes - which they assured me all meant Very Evil Things - and, of course, the upside-down cross. I was only a little larval-stage Catholic, but even then I knew the upside-down cross was funny. "Oh hey, upside-down cross. Real satanic guys, real scary and evil. Really sets off your brooding, church-burning hatred of weak Christian values. Christians everywhere tremble when they...oh wait." (continue reading) 

3 - The Crescat: Drum roll, please

... So without further ado, I would like to announce the winners of the 2011 Catholic Cannonball Awards in their respective categories... (continue reading)

Some of the best of the average blogs out there!

4 - A Catholic View:  Mom With Cystic Fibrosis Rejects Abortion, Has Triplets

Louisiana resident Kandace Smith is the latest hero when it comes to putting the birth and care of her own children ahead of herself — as she, while  suffering from cystic fibrosis, rejected abortion to have triplets. (continue reading)  

My oldest brother died when he was four of Cystic Fibrosis and my mother may be the oldest documented patient with Cystic Fibrosis ever. 

5 - Why I Am Catholic:  Hey Generation X: Be Rebels...Slow Down...Have Kids...Stick it to the Man...  

It's the Catholic thing to do. Or you can keep doing what you've been doing, as the survey below reports, and continue on the treadmill to oblivion. (continue reading) 

6 - The Curt Jester:   Atheism and Joy 

An AlterNet article by Amanda Marcotte reminds me of a question a reader asked me over at Google+.

Atheist lives are bleak and lack meaning. Those in the atheist activist community find this one particularly insipid...(continue reading)

 For your apologetics needs!
  

7 - Sacred Sounds:  The Duty of the Christian Musician

Recently I wrote a bunch of posts tackling the divisive issue of Christian Rock over at the ever-brilliant Virtuouspla.net. Basically I said - immaturely - that Christian Rock has become - thanks to the Almighty Need to Sell - a poor imitation of Pop music. That she often lacks Authenticity. That she conforms to a genre instead of attempting to write from the heart. (continue reading)

Thanks to Jennifer Fulwiler, a fellow Texan, for hosting

7 Quick Takes Friday

over at Conversion Diary.com

Know Your Shape: And Why All This Is Important

2011-09-28T07:58:00.000-05:00

Guest Blogger Maggie O is back! Margaret is a homeschool Junior, the fifth of seven children, growing up in the wilds of the Texas Panhandle. Her interests, other than style and fashion, include God, Mexican dancing, cooking, sewing, horses, and all arts feminine!

The Wardrobe Project: Know Your Shape

The first step to dressing well is to assess what you are trying to dress. That means measuring! For most women, taking measurements is going to create anxiety. You may have a hard time measuring for fear of what you might see. Remember always to see yourself as God sees and not as the world sees. A lot of times what the world is pushing as "fashionable" won't work for a lot of women. This is not your fault, this is merely a fault in the choice of clothes. You are beautiful in whatever shape you are. Your job as a woman is to bring out the natural beauty you have been God-given. One way to do it is through your choice of clothes. To start on making you look fabulous, we have to take measurements and find out what shape you are.

You will need a tapemeasure, a pencil and paper. The measurements you need are your bust, your waist, and your hips. Here's the how-to:

Bust When you are measuring your bust, try to put the tape around the fullest part of your chest. Take the measurement with and without your bra--use the larger measurement of the two.

Waist When measuring your waist, put it at the smallest part of your waist. This will probably be about half an inch below where your ribs end. Do not measure at your belly button!!

Hips When measuring your hips, put the tape right at the fullest part of your bum.

Write each measurement down like this: 36 bust, 27 waist, 42 hip (these are the measurements of a pear). Now, figure out your shape below. Most women are obviously one or the other, but there are variations. These instructions will work for most women, but if they don't send us your numbers and we'll figure out your figure for you. (andychrism@yahoo.com)

Hey, Lady! Are You Some Kind of a Fruit?

Hour-glass Your waist is less than 75% of your chest and hips, which are virtually the same. If that doesn't make much sense, try this rule of thumb: your bust and hips are within 3 inches of each other and your waist is smaller than either your bust or hips.

Pear Your waist is at least 75% of your chest, and your hips are at least 110% of your chest.If you don't want to do the math, you can look at your numbers and see that your hips are the largest part of your measurements and your waist is the smallest measurement. The bust is not large on a pear, so double check to be sure you are not an apple or banana before you make your final assessment.

Apple Your waist is at most 75% of your chest, and your chest is at least 110% of your hips. In nonmath English, that means your bust measurement is bigger than your hips and your waist measurement is bigger than your hips.

Banana Your waist is at least 75% of your chest and hips, which are virtually the same. In other words, your waist is within 3 inches of your hips and it is also within 3 inches of your bust.

So Now You Know

In all probability, when you found your size and shape you had a bad reaction. You might not be the shape or the size you think you should be. Let me quickly tell you why we are doing the project. When we started getting into the fashion culture, we noticed that the main message was that women have to be a certain weight and shape to be beautiful. When God put the first woman on earth He made her beautiful. Every woman is beautiful in God's eyes and that beauty has a purpose. As philosophers have pointed out, all Beauty points to God. A beautiful woman, if she is Godly, brings man closer to God. She does it by reflecting His Ultimate Beauty. If you feel you are not as beautiful as another woman, it merely means that you are going to be called to do something different than she. Your beauty, in whatever way it was made, has a purpose. Since Beauty reflects God, your beauty in whatever way you are beautiful has the ultimate purpose of drawing attention to God, not to itself.

So, if you are a mother, your beauty will draw attention to the ways that motherhood is good. You never know who is watching and getting the messages you are broadcasting. If people see you, a mother, dressing beautifully and carrying yourself like a queen, you are showing the world that motherhood really is good. If people see you walking around looking shabby, they are very likely to blame the fact that you are a mother on the fact that you don't look good. You don't have to look glamorous, but if you make sure your clothes fit and your hair is brushed and you have a little makeup, people are going to look at you and see what God has ordained as a blessing for human kind through your beauty as a mother.

If you are single, your beauty will make an impact on the world. Whether you are in a college class or if you are in the grocery store, you should wear your beauty openly and keep it sweet. Which brings me to my next point from Monica Ashour, Executive Director of the Theology of the Body Evangelization Team. In her talks, Monica shows us how we women, as women, are hiding, inviting, and exciting.

What Does She Mean by THAT?

So glad you asked...

Hiding We can't be flaunting all our endowments in the front window. In other words. We can still be attractive without showing the world everything we own.

Inviting We shouldn't wear sacks out of a fear of looking good. I know that almost sounds like a contradiction, but we have to find a balance. We have to make being a Christian look good because it is so good, but we have to make sure we are hiding enough to be exciting and make us a mystery, so that others will want to find out why we are like that.

Exciting The mere fact that we are women, beautiful in our receptivity, makes us exciting.

So, whatever shape you are, whatever weight you are, you are beautiful and you have to use that blessing and gift that God has given you. We are working on making the world see women as God sees women. Remember ladies, you are to be a gift to the world. Let your light shine and don't let anyone blow it out.

A Woman Is...Hiding, Inviting, and Exciting!

Tune in next Wednesday for the next installment of The Wardrobe Project: Shopping for Your Pear Shape!

Because it's Monday

2011-09-26T14:10:00.000-05:00

...and because my friend Hannah has finally passed the adult milestone of "Full Time Status" at her job.

see more Funny Graphs

Yes, youngling, keep telling yourself that coffee will help.

Happy Birthday!

2011-09-26T12:52:00.001-05:00


18 years ago today, you blessed our family by being born. Happy birthday, niece!

The Amarillo Scuffle Between Bishop Zurek and Father Pavone

2011-09-24T08:27:00.000-05:00

I am not an expert on this and I don't pretend to be. What I'm going to offer is the perception of Amarilloans, myself included, on the matter. This is what I'm hearing from the people, Catholic and nonCatholic, in the diocese and my own personal opinion.

People in Amarillo helped to raise money for a seminary that was going to be built here, bringing Pro-Life minded young men, their teachers and mentors to the area. We're predominantly Pro-Life, so the community got behind the plan. Then, with hardly a word of explanation, the project was suddenly tabled. None of us average Joes around here seem to know where our money went. The general assumption is that it went to other Pro-Life causes, but no one is happy about the lack of formal explanation or apology from Priests for Life. That has led to a slight lack of sympathy for Father Pavone's present predicament from some.

The Catholics and nonCatholics of the region seem to be, for the most part, supportive of the Bishop. We know him to be one of the good guys and a good shepherd of his flock. There is some comment, varying from wonder to increased respect, about his timing. Some are confused by his issuing the demand at a time when travel would interfere with a prompt resolution of the matter. Others have noted that there is no better way to cool someone's jets and reestablish the pecking order than to make a man wait on you. If this is an obedience problem then making Father Pavone wait for the Bishop will strike Texans as a bit of rough justice.

The current campaign for Priest for Life fundraising is rankling some folks here. The rumored threats (actualized yesterday with banner planes buzzing the town) from other circles to organize marches around the diocese--a Pro-Life diocese, mind you--is actively offending some members of the Pro-life community.

For my part, after the Black Sheepdog's shenanigans, I began to have concerns about all priests. I've worried specifically what Father Pavone is suffering from his popularity. I believe all priests are vulnerable to temptations, especially the ones who are burdened with a public ministry. While all this settles out, I believe that all good and worthwhile organizations can run themselves without their charismatic leaders, so I hope Father Pavone will take this time to pray and retreat from the world until the Bishop and he resolve things. I like Father Pavone. I really like that he obeyed when he was called to obey.

We need to let the Shepherd of Amarillo shepherd his sheep and pray for all of our priests.


Bishop Zurek with his predecessor Bishop Yanta. Priests for Life was brought to Amarillo under Bishop Yanta.

Father Frank Pavone

7 Quick Takes

2011-09-23T08:13:00.000-05:00

1 - Two science articles caught my attention this morning, so I thought I'd go with a scientific theme for today's post. I love science: running classroom science experiments, classifying plants on a nature walk, studying maps. Can science be a hobby?

2 - Scientists Reconstruct Brains' Visions Into Digital Video Whoa. Read about the experiment by clicking here.

3 - Neutrinos Clocked at Faster-than-light. Whoa, again! They'll have to reconstruct this one a few times before we totally rewrite modern physics. Read about the experiment by clicking here.

4 - If you are interested in physics, but don't have the math background to slog through the scientific journals, The Quantum Zoo by Marcus Chown is a very good read. It is, indeed, a tourist's guide to the weird world of particle physics. I checked mine out of our local library. It's one of the few books my husband and I, with our divergent interests, have both read.

5 - My son's science program, Behold and See 3 by Suchi Myjak, a Catholic Heritage Curricula Publication, is thrilling me this year. At the moment we're studying the properties and states of matter. We've just finished the third week of school and he has done his second experiment! Find it here.

6 - Speaking of science, I'm off to play with chemistry today: I'm making cheese. Mozzarella anyone?

7 - Here's another article for you (you have to click it to see what I picked), since I found myself short of scientific stuff to write about. If you've never googled "science" I'd recommend it. You never know what you might find.

Thanks to Jennifer Fulwiler, a fellow Texan, for hosting

7 Quick Takes Friday

over at Conversion Diary.com

The Wardrobe Project

2011-09-22T00:07:00.001-05:00

Destined for the Dressing Room Floor

Every woman has done it. We have gone to the clothing racks and picked out one stunning outfit after another, cute jeans, fabulous colors, and have wound up with a pile of rejects in the dressing room. Not only did the clothes not look good, but after that experience we didn't feel too good either.

Most women and girls suffer from poor body image.

Most women suffer from poor body image. Most girls suffer from it too. We look at magazines and the latest fashions and then find that we don't look good with the clothes we pick out under their influence. Somehow we can't figure out that the problem isn't our figures, it's what we're putting on our them that are making us look less than beautiful.

Ask most men and they will tell you, every woman is something pretty special. We are awesome. What we've got to figure out is our own brand of awesome. So let us now and nevermore address the whole anti-style (and anti-woman, frankly) push in some Christian circles with the idea that God, Himself, loves beauty. All of creation is exploding with it, down to the farthest galaxy in the remotest expanse of the Universe. Creation is, in fact, the raiment for the pinnacle of His creation (a woman, incidentally, if you look at the ascending order of creation in Genesis, from inanimate to higher and higher classes of animate) and the natural world was made not only to function, but to glorify the glorious. God loves you, Woman. Just ask Him if you don't believe me!

God loves beauty and He made you beautifully!

That's settled, then. God has created you, a gift to the world. God has given you a shape to attract the notice of your spouse and to potentially bear and nurse children. Not all women become mothers, but we have the same basic girly equipment. The equipment, however, comes in an endless variety of options--bigger, smaller, taller, squatter--that all follow certain themes. Clothing has the same endless variety of options and clothing also follows certain themes. This is neither a mistake or a coincidence. Some clothing will look good on some shapes and look ghastly on others. They are designed that way. Go figure! Clothes designed for one shape will flatter that shape and will look less than flattering on another shape.

So, ladies, the trick is to figure out what will look fabulous on your figure--then stick with those options in their endless varieties. I can't wear a standard T-shirt without appearing to gain 20 pounds, so I don't wear them. Period. I don't give it a moment's thought until there is a fundraiser with Ts at church or I spy a really neat slogan I'd love to sport around town, but then I remember my shape and realize that if the lettering is across the chest, no one is going to be reading it anyway. I'll buy it for my husband or a more T-shirt friendly friend, but I do myself a favor and save the money.

I'd like to save you some money and save you some time and distress in the clothing store, too. I want you to figure out your figure and then dress it beautifully on a budget. So, I've enlisted the help of some young ladies, gave them a budget, and some pointers, and will be sharing those pointers, the hunt, and the results with you.

Today was shopping day and we had some great finds. The outfits are pretty, modest, and stylish. The four girls came in under budget overall, with one going over due to a splurge on a jacket. We shopped at The Children's Exchange in Amarillo--a clothing consignment store for used clothing. It's possible to dress well without breaking your heart or your bank. We'll show you how.

We're calling it the Wardrobe Project. You'll be hearing and seeing more soon.

Four themes for infinite variation!

The Wardrobe Project: Posts Coming Soon...

1. Know Your Shape
2. Shop Your Shape
3. Dress(ing room) Rehearsals

Dear Maga and Paga: The Martins Go to the Fair!

2011-09-19T14:56:00.002-05:00

September 19, 2011

Dear Maga and Paga,

I hope you are well. Give Cathy our best. We're doing justfine here! In fact, we went to the Tri-State Fair today and the kids wanted totell you all about it. They are dictating to me their adventure! Enjoy...

Love,

Christie

Dear Maga and Paga,

I saw the animals. We went by the milk cows. We went to afarm show and I was on stage in the show. It was a magic show. I got a gumball. I saw some horses. I sawgrown up tigers and baby tigers. I saw big goats and baby goats. I saw a calf.Most of the baby goats were out of the cages. I saw enormous fans! There wasonly one baby goat in a cage. I got a pencil that can change its colors! And Ialso got a tiny pencil sharpener! I got paper bull ears! I got a small eraser!I got a coloring book with color pencils. We had a picnic! We got fruitflavored gummy faces! We brought cookies! The Ohmes' brought chicken! Webrought Oreo! We brought sandwiches! We brought water. They were washing a cow.The end.

Love,

John (7)

Dear Maga and Paga,

My feet hurt cause I was too tired and too rough. I was toobratty and too sad (nu-uh!) and I was crying (not even once!). Well, not much.I won a crown and a book and nothing else and um...Goodbye! Well, I saw acamel. I saw some horsies and I sawed some dog. A little doggies. And I sawedthe little goats. And I saw the horses. Then I saw some baby sheep. And I sawSimon in the parade. Yes, I did! (nu-uh!) Oh yes!

Goodbye,

Sissy Lucia (4)

Dear Maga and Paga,

Um I ate some chicken and I ate some yummy happy things whatwere smushy and stick on my teeth. I said, "Little piggy! Littlepiggy!" with daddy when I got home. I seen camels and the goats were bonking me on the horns and making mescratches and that was fun. I had lunch. Some cookies of sweet. And um...Idon't know what I'm going to say. We look at stuff. We saw the magic tricksthat disappeared with the egg and stuff. That's all I'm going to say, Momma.

I love and I have kisses and hugs and loving care and sharefor you,

Anna (5)

Dear Maga and Paga,

We saw a cow and he had a man with a he-haw boy (cowboy). Hewas washing the cow. He was saying, "Wash! Wash! Wash!" with the water!And it was a cow! And it was so funny! At the lunch after we go there I atesyrup (giggle). The big lion said, "Rawr!" and right in the littlelions. The baby lions and the big lions. And he barked his face off! He said,"Blfkjkrlejkljj!" and he runned around. It was so funny!

Love and kisses,

Sylvia (3)

P.S. And he hopped, too! You forgot the hopping!

The Beauty of Texas

2011-09-18T21:17:00.002-05:00

They say that when God was creating the world, the angels questioned Him about the High Plains of Texas. "O Lord, it is so dry in summer. So cold in winter. The water is too far underground. No one will want to live there, so who will ever see Your work here?" God heard their concerns, and then...

He made Texans.

Wyman Meinzer's West Texas from Wyman Meinzer on Vimeo.

What's with all the saints? And the nature of prayer...

2011-09-18T14:11:00.000-05:00

"I'm having trouble with praying to the saints. I know it's possible, I just can't see why it's necessary." This question came from a fellow convert. Her conversion, like mine, was emotional and total and nearly as instantaneous. God simply handed her the Truth of the Church and reduced her (and continues to reduce her to tears) at the beauty of 2,000 years of the Faith laid out like a welcome mat before her. We both (and indeed we all) have been graced with the one true faith; what we don't know is the details. This type of conversion of the heart means that the mind sometimes takes a little while to catch up, so my young friend will ask me questions on occasion, knowing I went through a similar process. Sometimes, I have looked into it already. Sometimes we have to go looking for answers and off we trot. This was what I found out in answer to her question.

Unlike me and my spiritual meanderings, she comes directly from a Protestant background, so Biblical references are helpful to her. I've listed them below so you can read them at your leisure. For the purpose of this explanation, I am going to assume that you, too, know the truth, but are hungry to know why it should be true.

The Prayers of Petition: Who Needs Them?

1) God doesn't need you. You need God.

First off, we need to understand that God doesn't need anything. He Is. He can do what He wants, with or without our input. Petitioning God for you and your own needs or even intercessory prayer (a prayer that asks God to do something for another person) does not turn God into a slot machine. Insert prayer, pull handle, receive blessing. As we all know, every petitionary or intercessory prayer is answered with either a yes, a no, or a wait awhile.We need to ask. God wants us to ask, but He has no need of the asking.

2) Prayer is a gift.

The act of prayer is not even our own. It is our response to grace. The desire to pray is placed in our heart. It is a sign that we are beginning to cooperate with the Will of God, no matter how imperfectly. It is often the person praying that God changes in order to answer the prayer. So, for example, even though you may be praying for a stubborn coworker who drives you batty, the answer to your prayer may look a little like this:

You haven't thought about that obnoxious co-worker much lately, but in the middle of an tense discussion with your husband you are suddenly graced with a vivid understanding of how petty you are being. You are given the insight to see that he is bothered by your demands, but is perfectly willing to do it your way to keep the peace. Not only do you see your own pettiness, but you can see a direct correlation between your pettiness and the pettiness of that coworker you've been praying for. The insight into your own character is in answer to that original prayer and if you could put it into words it would be something like: "Is it any wonder that this coworker bugs me so much? Everything he does pricks my conscience!"

I try hard to remember that there are an infinity of irritants in the world and most of them bounce off with little notice. It's the irritants that resonate with our own faults that catch and hold our attention. I know this may seem off the topic, but it really has a lot to do with the question of praying to the saints. It has to do with our needs, rather than God's. My point is that God does not need to be asked to act, and in a similar way, God does not need the saints to ask either. Neither do the saints need anything, being in Heaven already.

When we pray to God to change something in our life, we are responding to the grace to pray and are cooperating with His will. He will use our cooperation to change us, to make us more of who He created us to be.

3) Intercessory prayer increases our communion with the Body of Christ.

It is a spiritual no-brainer to understand that praying increases our communion with God. You have to talk to someone to get to know them better, so that sort of truth about prayer can be intuited without much research or contemplation. Something about intercessory prayer that might not be obvious is that we begin to commune with each other as we pray. Prayer is communication. When we pray for others part of our communication is our communion with God and also with the person we are praying for. In other words, we are strengthening our relationship with that person through God. Strengthening the bonds with another strengthens the unity of the Body of Christ here on Earth. It brings us together in community here and helps us remember that we are, in fact, related and necessary for one another.

Asking the saints to pray for us is the same thing, only with the larger Body of Christ. The saints don't need our prayers, being in Heaven already. God doesn't need our prayers, being God, nor does He need the saint's prayers. We have need of the saints, though. We need to be closer to those who have triumphed. We need to build stronger bonds with Heaven and the residents there. It helps us remember that there is our home, the more we call upon all the loved ones there.

Our focus should be Heaven. Our actions should be Prayer. Our life should be God's. Prayer helps us to make that happen. Prayer is so much more than what we bargain for and thank God for it!

Scripture Proofs (from this link)

I. We are One Family in Christ in Heaven and on Earth

Eph. 3:14-15- we are all one family ("Catholic") in heaven and on earth, united together, as children of the Father, through Jesus Christ. Our brothers and sisters who have gone to heaven before us are not a different family. We are one and the same family. This is why, in the Apostles Creed, we profess a belief in the "communion of saints." There cannot be a "communion" if there is no union. Loving beings, whether on earth or in heaven, are concerned for other beings, and this concern is reflected spiritually through prayers for one another.
Eph. 1:22-23; 5:23-32; Col. 1:18,24 - this family is in Jesus Christ, the head of the body, which is the Church.
1 Cor. 12:12,27; Rom. 12:5; Col. 3:15; Eph. 4:4 - we are the members of the one body of Christ, supernaturally linked together by our partaking of the Eucharist.
Rom. 8:35-39 - therefore, death does not separate the family of God and the love of Christ. We are still united with each other, even beyond death.
Matt. 17:3; Mark 9:4; Luke 9:30 - Jesus converses with "deceased" Moses and Elijah. They are more alive than the saints on earth.
Matt. 22:32; Mark 12:27; Luke 20:38 - God is the God of the living not the dead. The living on earth and in heaven are one family.
Luke 15:7,10 – if the angels and saints experience joy in heaven over our repentance, then they are still connected to us and are aware of our behavior.
John 15:1-6 - Jesus is the vine and we are the branches. The good branches are not cut off at death. They are alive in heaven.
1 Cor. 4:9 – because we can become a spectacle not only to men, but to angels as well, this indicates that angels are aware of our earthly activity. Those in heaven are connected to those on earth.
1 Cor. 12:26 - when one member suffers, all suffer. When one is honored, all rejoice. We are in this together as one family.
1 Cor 13:12; 1 John 3:2 - now we see in a mirror dimly, but in heaven we see face to face. The saints are more alive than we are!
Heb. 12:1: we are surrounded by a great glory cloud (shekinah) of witnesses. The “cloud of witnesses” refers to the saints who are not only watching us from above but cheering us on in our race to heaven.
1 Peter 2:9; Rev. 20:6 - we are a royal family of priests by virtue of baptism. We as priests intercede on behalf of each other.
2 Peter 1:4 - since God is the eternal family and we are His children, we are partakers of His divine nature as a united family.
1 Cor. 1:2; Rom. 1:7 - we are called to be saints. Saints refer to both those on earth and in heaven who are in Christ. Proof:
Acts 9:13,32,41; 26:10; 1 Cor. 6:1-2; 14:33; 2 Cor. 1:1; 8:4; 9:1-2; 13:13; Rom. 8:27; 12:23; 15:25,26, 31; 16:2,15; Eph. 1:1,15,18; 3:8; 5:3; 6:18; Phil. 1:1; 4:22; Col 1:2,4,26; 1 Tm 5:10; Philemon 1:5,7; Heb. 6:10; 13:24; Jude 1:3; Rev. 11:18; 13:7; 14:12; 16:6; 17:6;18:20,24; Rev 19:8; 20:9 - in these verses, we see that Christians still living on earth are called "saints."
Matt. 27:52; Eph. 2:19; 3:18; Col. 1:12; 2 Thess. 1:10; Rev. 5:8; 8:3-4; 11:18; 13:10 - in these verses, we also see that "saints" also refer to those in heaven who united with us.
Dan. 4:13,23; 8:23 – we also see that the angels in heaven are also called “saints.” The same Hebrew word “qaddiysh” (holy one) is applied to both humans and angels in heaven. Hence, there are angel saints in heaven and human saints in heaven and on earth. Loving beings (whether angels or saints) are concerned for other beings, and prayer is the spiritual way of expressing that love.
Top

II. God Desires and Responds to Our Subordinate Mediation / Intercessory Prayer

1 Tim 2:1-2 - because Jesus Christ is the one mediator between God and man (1 Tim. 2:5), many Protestants deny the Catholic belief that the saints on earth and in heaven can mediate on our behalf. But before Paul's teaching about Jesus as the "one mediator," Paul urges supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people. Paul is thus appealing for mediation from others besides Christ, the one mediator. Why?
1 Tim 2:3 - because this subordinate mediation is good and acceptable to God our Savior. Because God is our Father and we are His children, God invites us to participate in Christ's role as mediator.
1 Tim. 2:5 - therefore, although Jesus Christ is the sole mediator between God and man, there are many intercessors (subordinate mediators).
1 Cor. 3:9 - God invites us to participate in Christ's work because we are God's "fellow workers" and one family in the body of Christ. God wants His children to participate. The phrase used to describe "fellow workers" is "sunergoi," which literally means synergists, or cooperators with God in salvific matters. Does God need fellow workers? Of course not, but this shows how much He, as Father, loves His children. God wants us to work with Him.
Mark 16:20 - this is another example of how the Lord "worked with them" ("sunergountos"). God cooperates with us. Out of His eternal love, He invites our participation.
Rom. 8:28 - God "works for good with" (the Greek is "sunergei eis agathon") those who love Him. We work as subordinate mediators.
2 Cor. 6:1 - "working together" (the Greek is "sunergountes") with him, don't accept His grace in vain. God allows us to participate in His work, not because He needs our help, but because He loves us and wants to exalt us in His Son. It is like the father who lets his child join him in carrying the groceries in the house. The father does not need help, but he invites the child to assist to raise up the child in dignity and love.
Heb. 12:1 - the “cloud of witnesses” (nephos marturon) that we are surrounded by is a great amphitheatre of witnesses to the earthly race, and they actively participate and cheer us (the runners) on, in our race to salvation.
1 Peter 2:5 - we are a holy priesthood, instructed to offer spiritual sacrifices to God. We are therefore subordinate priests to the Head Priest, but we are still priests who participate in Christ's work of redemption.
Rev. 1:6, 5:10 - Jesus made us a kingdom of priests for God. Priests intercede through Christ on behalf of God's people.
James 5:16; Proverbs 15:8, 29 - the prayers of the righteous (the saints) have powerful effects. This is why we ask for their prayers. How much more powerful are the saints’ prayers in heaven, in whom righteousness has been perfected.
1 Tim 2:5-6 - therefore, it is because Jesus Christ is the one mediator before God that we can be subordinate mediators. Jesus is the reason. The Catholic position thus gives Jesus the most glory. He does it all but loves us so much He desires our participation.

7 Quick Takes

2011-09-16T09:02:00.001-05:00

Thanks to Jennifer Fulwiler, a fellow Texan, for hosting

7 Quick Takes Friday

over at Conversion Diary.com

1 - I broke my vow, made in 2009, to not engage combox trolls. This particular one was an apologist for divorce. The fact that people had the audacity to express sadness and regret over divorce was the fuel that fed her fire. On a silly impulse I thought I could point out the errors of her assumptions, the lack of charity and open-mindedness in her tone, and then we all could get back to a civil discussion. The fantasy world I live in doesn't even charge admission. Come by and visit some time!

2 - Speaking of trolls, don't you ever get tempted to respond to the run of the mill evangelical atheist's trump card argument of "Only stupid people believe in God!" with "You've got a point there!" Then adding, while smiling sweetly, "So, when did you become Christian?"

3 - I have all these lovely pictures of baby goats, of foundations being poured, of kids being cute. What I don't have is a clue where the wire that gets the pictures from the camera to the computer is. Pick a box, any box...

4 - I've lost 15 pounds this summer. Part of it was stress, part of it was activity, but the last 5 pounds was due to Light Weigh. Suzanne Fowler developed this plan. It's more about putting God in the empty spaces of your life rather than stuffing those spots with food. I'm working on Week 3 of the 12 week program and am learning so much about prayer and sacrifice that I wanted to let you know about it. It's worth a look.

5 - Newsflash: Men are stronger than women. After dumping the hay bale on the side of the road this week, we had to get all that loose hay put up because it was going to rain (can we get an AMEN on that?!). Baled hay can take a little rain, but unbaled hay ruins. My husband and I couldn't even work on this job together because of the craziness of our schedules lately. He worked on putting some of the hay in the barn, then ran off on another errand. I finished an errand and then took my turn. I worked for about an hour before I uncovered the only part of the bale still intact. It weighed way more than I could handle. By breaking every OSHA rule I could think of, I barely managed to maneuver it off the trailer and into the barn. I was a sweaty mess when my husband showed up to tag me out on the job. "That's in an awkward place," he noted, seeing my handiwork, so he picked up the remains of the bale and casually tossed it up onto the hay pile. It took me 30 minutes of grunt work to move that thing and he just flipped it up there like it was nothing. Awesome.

6 - Last week my third grade son wrote his first official book report. I'm certain that others believe in the sanctifying effects of book reports for first and second graders, but I decided that book reports could wait until he was seven going on eight. It's not as if scholars are crippled in high school because they didn't write a one sentence summary of The Cat in the Hat beneath an undecipherable picture in the first grade. The skill of story analysis can be learned more readily after the brain is capable of abstract thought. In the meantime, I feel that reading should be enjoyed long enough to become a habit before we make a chore out of it.

7 - Speaking of waiting, we decided to keep my 5 year-olds in preschool for now. One of them has Autism and the other has some maturity issues. As we've progressed into the third week of school and we have experienced success after success with school, I am happy with our family's decision. They both feel competent and smart and are so much more eager to try something new than they were last year. I've got my Kindergarten curriculum already purchased and waiting in the wings, but for now, it's staying in the box. The flexibility of homeschool is one of it's many charms.

Scott Hahn is blogging?!

2011-09-14T16:26:00.000-05:00

Scott HAHN is BLOGGING!

He's doing it here with these guys.

Just FYI.

Monday

2011-09-12T20:03:00.002-05:00

When I lived in town, a bad Monday meant a traffic jam on the way to work.

Round bale. Large. Heavy. Round.

In the country? A bad Monday means deciding to wear socks with my ugly sandals because I'm only going to milk a goat (for crying out loud) and then winding up at the feed store in them. It's a little humbling to wear socks with sandals at the feed store, but it could be worse. Farmers will be farmers, after all, so I know they've seen worse. What made it a bad Monday is that I had to go twice. I needed two large round bales of hay and can only haul one at a time. Yes they know me and yes, they probably noticed the lovely. black. socks.

With sandals.

Black socks. Ugly sandals.
It was chilly this morning, hang it!

What made this Monday a particularly ugly Monday was that I didn't tie down my bales and the first one was a mulligan. I made it all the way home, jiggity jig, thus lulling me into accelerating too fast for the second bale after stopping at the one and only stop sign on my route.

There was a split second when I saw the bale begin to move--it was staying still and I was moving away from it, more accurately--when the entire canon of law for motion flashed into my brain. An object at rest tends to stay at rest. Round objects at rest tend to stay that way, too, but when an object underneath a round object begins to move and the round object doesn't? That tends to look a whole lot like what we like to refer to as rolling. Once that process starts, then forces like momentum and pavement come into play. Which brought into play other actions like eyes widening, heartbeat accelerating, as well as the accompanying dash home to get help and hay forks.

As it turns out two teenage girls, two middle aged women, and a 10 year old boy are just enough people to direct traffic, fork hay off the road and back into the trailer, and tamp it down. Unbaled hay takes up a lot more space than it does while baled. You have to walk and stomp on it (a.k.a. mushing) or it won't quite fit.

Hay itches, by the way. Even through ugly, black, stomping socks.

I met a bunch of new friends today. All offering to help.

I'd like to especially thank Mrs. Joplin, the kind neighbor who stopped to ask if we needed help and when we refused the offer, smiled, left, then got on her cellphone to tell her husband to go lend those girls a hand. Mr. Joplin helped us load the last of it and tie it down. Thank you.

The other person I need to thank, I didn't actually meet. I was walking the last mile home because the Laws of Monday impelled me to leave the key in the "on" position while we reloaded 1,000 pounds of hay. (Because having a dead battery was just the way that adventure was going to end.) The other gals and the 10 year old boy who was with us hung around the van with the hood up and the trailer full of a messy pile of hay until a cowboy named Mr. King stopped and gave them a jump. I was almost home by then.

Walking in my socks and sandals and thinking very Monday-like thoughts.

A Sexual Revolution

2011-09-10T17:55:00.002-05:00

A Guest Post over at Bad Catholic reads like the life and times of the average American woman, until God and common sense intervene. Let's hear it for the boyfriend!

(click here to jump to the post)

When I was younger, I thought I was a revolutionary. Like most other people in my generation, I was encouraged to be different. I was encouraged to challenge the status quo for my own good and take control of my life. The third-wave feminists behind magazines like Bust! and organizations like “VOX” (aka Planned Parenthood) told me to reclaim my own sexual freedom and identity from a lifetime of sexual oppression. I didn’t think about how organizations such as this make some serious profits off of sexually active females. They convinced me that I needed to overcome a lifetime of sexual repression…long before I was even interested or even ready for sexual activity. They told me to challenge my religious beliefs and the morals my parents had taught me because it would liberate me. Smart as I thought I was, I fell for it. I fell for just about every single one of their lies.

They convinced me that I, still a virgin at age 20, was a victim of a male chauvinism. They fed me stories about the oppression of women through the years. They used the suffragettes as poster children for a movement that, in hindsight, would have probably shamed, shocked, or disgusted most of these women. These “pro-female” organizations presented themselves as a support line. They made themselves seem like they were intent on saving girls like me from a life of male oppression and outdated religious views that seemed to favor men. These people seemed so concerned about my well-being. I had no idea what they were all about. Comfortable as I was with these people, I soon started realizing that I was not completely like them. Supportive as they made themselves out to be, I began to notice how they reacted when they found out that I was a virgin.

(to continue click here)

Guest Post: How Being Catholic in a Small Town Made Me Ready for the Internet

2011-09-09T16:29:00.001-05:00

I grew up Catholic in a small townwhich was unfriendly to Catholics. I don't think most people knewwhy, they just didn't like Catholics. Those who knew why, all seemedto use this vein of reasoning: the Catholic Church is evil, thereforeCatholics are evil (or stupid). The big three proofs of the CatholicChurch's corruption were:

The Crusades - proves the CC wantsworld dominion over other religions (countries) by armed force ifnecessary.

The Spanish Inquisition – provesthe CC approves the use of torture to obtain confessions of wrongdoing from innocent victims who have displeased the hierarchy.

Galileo - proves the CC is opposedto scientific research and advancement.

I am not here concerned with debunkingthe above statements (and they are only three of very many) but I amhere questioning the underlying and unspoken premise. This premisebeing: “If I can show a problem in a part of the Church, then I canassign that problem to the entire Church. No one seemed bothered thatthese events all occurred prior to the founding of the United States! Why not blame the French for the atrocitiesFrank armies committed during the Crusades? Why not blame Spain forthe Inquisition? Why not blame rival scientists for the Galileoaffair?

I think the answer is quite simple: itwas easy. It created a “them vs us” mentality which requireslittle knowledge. It is comforting to be on the right side and toactively oppose evil.

But, I am not really writing about theunfairness of my childhood. Especially as I am guilty of the samething.

Dismissing a group for preconceivedtraits is becoming the norm today, maybe even the ideal. Groupidentity has ever been with us but it has multiplied exponentiallywith instant communication. Our world is full of divisions: glbt vsstraight, conservative vs liberal, old vs young, woman vs man,Republican vs Democrat vs Tea Party vs Libertarian, urban elite vshayseed-hicks, educated vs ignorant, socialist vs capitalist, rich vspoor, and a myriads more. All tend to use the same tactic againstopponents:

“I am intelligent, reasoned, cleverand correct. You are not because you are a part of the othergroup. Should you try to provide a defense of your position, I mayblithely ignore your defense because I am intelligent, reasoned,clever and correct and you are not because you are a member of theother group!”.

Despising any member of the rivalgroup is O.K. After all, if they were reasoned, intelligent, cleverand correct then they would agree with me. If not, they are an evilwhich must be suppressed. I need only find a few easily proved andmemorable examples of misdeeds of one to condemn the entire group forall time. Nothing could be any easier!

We need to just grow up! Look at whatthe other guy says; argue, debate, reason, disagree, question. Byall means do engage; do not merely dismiss. Ideas have consequences. It may not be fun. It will not be easy. But who ever said life wassupposed to be easy.

Tim Ohmes is a Catholic Revert, father of 7, amateur apologist, catechist, a/c mechanic extraordinaire originally from a town smaller than the readership of this blog (if you count my mom).

200 Million Girls Are Missing

2011-09-05T15:13:00.000-05:00

Here's why...

The three deadliest words in the world...

It's a girl.

I am better at this now (I hope)

2011-09-04T18:55:00.001-05:00

It wasn't more than a few weeks after my conversion from being an unrepentant heathen that my husband and I were treated to a homily about how we were to see Jesus in everyone we meet. Throughout the homily I doubtfully reviewed all the non-Jesus-like jerks I knew and wondered how this was even possible. My husband and I discussed it while threading through the post-Mass crowd. It became apparent that seeing Jesus-ness in others was second nature to him. I explained that I found people more annoying than Christlike, generally, and then he made the point that if I was redeemable, wasn't everyone? I didn't like the implications of that, but I had to concede his point. He suggested that it was their redeemability that I had to look for in order to see Jesus in anyone. Easy enough for him, I thought, as we made it to the car. I maneuvered to the driver's side purely because he'd out maneuvered me in logic. I shot him one of my patented "I'm done because you won this one" looks over the roof of the car before getting in. As was usual, traffic and people were swarming all over that parking lot. Just as I was to turn left into the main flow to the road, a little old lady in a baby blue Lincoln pulled out from a parking space and shot into the gap ahead of me. "JESUS!" I shouted, and then finished lamely, trying hard to recover from the preconversion habit of using His name as a swear word, "just cut me off..."

Catholic Blog Awards: And the Winners Are....

2011-08-30T09:35:00.000-05:00

Awesomeness on the Net!

I am pleased to announce the winners of the 2011 Catholic New Media Awards! I put a mark beside my personal favorites, but please understand that each and all of these are excellent. There are just so many hours in the day. Congratulations to everyone!

P.S. When they make a category for "Not Really a Momblog, Not Exactly Apologetics Either, but Raising Children and Goats in a (Mostly) Catholic Manner," I will be in the running!

a href="http://christian-miracles.com" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Signs, Wonders, and Miracles

Angels, Wonders, and Miracles of Faith

People's Choice Podcast

Catholic Answers Live!

The Catholics Next Door

iPadre

The Break

Son Rise Morning Show with Brian Patrick*******

Best Social Networking Site

Austin Catholic New Media

Online Catholic Network

The Daily Saint

CathInfo.com

Catholic Maynooth

Best Catholic News Website

Life Site News

Catholic World News

Real Catholic TV

Integrated Catholic Life

Catholic Lane

Best Overall Catholic Website

National Catholic Register*

Word on Fire Blog

Catholic Answers Live!*

Integrated Catholic Life

Why I'm Catholic*

Best Catholic Microblog

nunblogger

The Catholic Traveler

Sister Mary Ann Twitter

Best Catholic Video

Word on Fire Blog

Epic :120 - Catholics Come Home

Nine Days that Changed the World

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Diving Office - Liturgy of the Hours

Confession: A Roman Catholic App

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Scriptural Rosary App

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Reasons to be Thankful

2011-08-28T05:46:00.002-05:00

1) Air Conditioning
When my husband got off of work yesterday and joined me at the Ugly Yellow Trailer, it was 101 inside. When we left at 7:30, it had dropped to 100. This is my official recant of all my complaints about the air conditioner not working in that house. When it was running, it never got over 96 degrees. There is a big difference between 96 and 101. I am happy I only had two days of the latter.

2) Babysitting
As miserable as the heat and the 14 hour days were, I did not have to subject my children to either. Their grandparents subjected them to way too much candy and way too many movies instead. I missed their company, but I don't know that they noticed my absence much. They tell me How to Train Your Dragon was exciting!

Nanas are one of God's greatest gifts.

3) Friends
In the darkness before dawn yesterday, a van pulled into my driveway. I wasn't expecting anyone and I was alone, packing wildly, so I had a nervous moment until I recognized my neighbor and her daughter, hopping out and chattering cheerfully. They helped all morning and made it possible for the job of packing to be done by the end of yesterday. Not only are they the type of friends who help you move, they are the type who show up unannounced before dawn to do it. Rare friends, indeed.

4) Sunday
God made an entire day for rest. For that I am truly thankful.

Garden of Holiness

7 Quick Takes

The gift of remorse

The Annual Walk of Ninjas

Monday, January 23, 2012

I am temporarily without Internet...

An interesting thought...

Husbandly Wednesday

(from The Generous Husband blog)

Homesteading Stuff

Because it is Monday

Happy New Year and All That!

7 Quick Takes: Gifts

Ingredients Add to grocery list

Directions

Just in case

365...364...

Wishing You a Blessed Christmas

I have a confession to make

7 Quick Takes--It's Christmas Eve Eve! Get It Done Quick Edition

Wifey Wednesday: Twelve Years In

Pray for those who persecute you

It's Official!

Goody Goody Gumdrops: Easy Christmas Candy

Wifey Wednesday--Why Sex Is Complicated

7 Quick Takes: The Left Behind Edition

On the Battle Ground of Marriage

Just in case you were thinking this blogger has it together

The Wardrobe Project--Dress Your Apple Shape

The Mumble Rule

Candied Sweet Potato Casserole

The Awkward Pause: Witness like a pro!

Tea Drink--London Fog

The Wardrobe Project--Why I'm Late!

7 Quick Takes--Tah Dah!

5 Reasons We Are Unapologetically Celebrating Today, Yesterday, and Tomorrow, Too!

I'm a Stylish Blogger!

Splinters: The Nature of Time

7 Quick Takes

Do I really care about style?

7 Quick Takes

I have good news and bad news...

The Wardrobe Project: Shop For Your Pear Shape

Because it's Monday...

I know I should post today

7 Quick Takes

Know Your Shape: And Why All This Is Important

Because it's Monday

Happy Birthday!

The Amarillo Scuffle Between Bishop Zurek and Father Pavone

7 Quick Takes

The Wardrobe Project

Dear Maga and Paga: The Martins Go to the Fair!

The Beauty of Texas

What's with all the saints? And the nature of prayer...

The Prayers of Petition: Who Needs Them?

1) God doesn't need you. You need God.

2) Prayer is a gift.

Scripture Proofs (from this link)I. We are One Family in Christ in Heaven and on Earth

II. God Desires and Responds to Our Subordinate Mediation / Intercessory Prayer

7 Quick Takes

Scott Hahn is blogging?!

Monday

A Sexual Revolution

Guest Post: How Being Catholic in a Small Town Made Me Ready for the Internet

200 Million Girls Are Missing

I am better at this now (I hope)

Catholic Blog Awards: And the Winners Are....

Awesomeness on the Net!

Best Blog by a Cleric

Best Blog by a Man

Best Blog by a Religious

Best Blog by a Woman

Best Group Blog

Best New Blog

Best Written Blog

Funniest Blog

Most Entertaining Blog

Most Informative Blog

Most Spiritual Blog

Scripture Proofs (from this link)

I. We are One Family in Christ in Heaven and on Earth