7 Quick Takes Friday (vol. 32)
Nominations for the Catholic New Media Awards are now open (picture me coughing nominateme into my fist while acting coolly detached).
I see that they have yet again missed an opportunity for the ironic hilarity of including a “Most Humble” category. I can’t believe they’d pass up such a chance to have some fun at the expense of the shamelessly self-promoting among us, who would see the ridiculousness of asking for votes in that category…yet realize the high chance of winning since few other people would be bold enough to go there. Or maybe that’s just me. I’ll shut up now.
A friend of mine just sent me this wonderful gift, and I had to share:
It’s a “verse purse” by Palmetto Handmade, a little pouch filled with cards with inspiring and thought-provoking Bible verses on them. I love the idea of having this with me to pull out a random card and think about it whenever I have a free moment, like when I’m waiting at the doctor’s office. Definitely put this one in your “gift ideas” file.
(This is not a paid ad, just a product I think is cool.)
I mentioned a couple weeks ago that there was a recent scorpion sighting. What I did not mention, however, that I am convinced that it was caused by mushroom-Feta breakfast casserole. Allow me to explain.
Last summer I was really into making this great breakfast casserole full of yummy mushrooms and Feta cheese. However, after the spectacular hospitality fail when a lovely casserole brunch turned into me asking my pregnant guest to jump repeatedly on a book to smash a scorpion while I ran and hid, I stopped making it. I’m not sure why. Maybe I just got lazy, maybe I associated it with the ego-checking trauma of the day.
Anyway, for the first time in almost a year, I decided to make it again a couple weeks ago. And that’s the night we saw the scorpion. In the panic that ensued from that scorpion being seen waaaay to close to my bed, I convinced myself that making mushroom-Feta casserole causes scorpion infestation and have not made it since. (And we haven’t seen a scorpion since then, even though I still haven’t gotten around to calling the exterminator. See! This is NOT a crackpot theory!)
So for those of you who find my site while Googling about scorpion problems: avoid making mushroom-Feta casserole.
I got some questions about where we got our great bookshelves that were pictured in the shot of my office I posted last week:
A few years ago we just found a local carpenter (I think via Craigslist) and hired him to custom build them for us (there are two more on the other wall not pictured here). I don’t remember how much it cost, but it was surprisingly cheap given how nice they are. If you can find a reliable carpenter, I highly recommend it!
Those of you who share my interest in the lack of cohesive communities in modern America (you can see all our discussions on the subject here) will find this interesting:
A friend of mine was wondering what she could do to bring the people of her neighborhood together, so she started a community theater. Their first performance is a couple weeks from now, and already it’s been a huge success in terms of bringing people together. They’ve had neighborhood bake sales to raise money, the local church has offered the use of its facilities for rehearsals, there have been all sorts of fun jobs available in terms of producing the play, and everyone is looking forward to bringing their families out for the performance in a local park at the end of the month. What a great idea!
I’ve lost so much weight/puffiness from the Saint Diet over the past few months that I had to replace my wedding ring! My old one was slipping off all the time, so I treated myself to this:
$12 at Target!!!
Am I officially the last person on the planet who has not switch from Bloglines to Google Reader?
I look forward to reading your posts!
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7 Quick Takes Friday (vol. 31)
Whew! This week has flown by. Yaya‘s visit (and taking a blogging break) left me tons of time for working on the book. Your suggestions have been so helpful — keep them coming!
Also, I was listening to my iPod a lot while I wrote and realized that I had a couple of songs on there that were essentially about writer’s block: These Words by Natasha Bedingfield and Square Pegs by Pain. I think I listened to the latter song about 100 times this week. Anyone know of any other good songs about writer’s block?
I feel that it is my duty to warn the people of Europe that the Yaya World Tour kicks off next. She’ll be setting the people of Germany and Czech Republic straight all next week.
Just heard that nobody will be drinking from the Cup at Mass in our diocese because of swine flu.
I’d be interested to know: How concerned are you about swine flu? On the one hand it’s not something we should take lightly, and I think that precautions like the one our diocese is taking are good ideas; on the other hand, I feel like there’s some Bored Media Syndrome going on here where they’re a little too eager to start throwing around ratings-getting ominous predictions.
So I did end up creating a prayer corner! I haven’t updated about it because my office has been so trashed that I didn’t want to take an “after” picture. But here’s the “before” picture:
I moved everything around to create some space over to the right. I’ll write more about it later, but I’ll say briefly that it’s been great. I’m so easily distracted, it really helps me block out distractions when I want to spend time completely focused on God.
A couple weeks ago I ended up getting a pretty serious virus on my computer that required me to have it professionally repaired. What’s funny is that my computer had been fine until I was looking up a recipe on Pioneer Woman’s cooking blog, and as soon as the page loaded my computer froze and all sorts of weird error messages started popping up.
In my panic-stricken state of mind while the computer was at the repair place, I got myself all convinced that the virus came from the Pioneer Woman. I began speculating to friends that the entire site is a front, put together by malicious 17-year-old hackers living in their moms’ basements who created this “Ree Drummond” character for the sole purpose of luring unsuspecting people to the site to put viruses on their computers.
Once I got my computer back safe and sound I decided that I guess it was just a coincidence that I was on PW’s site when the virus hit. But “Ree” had better watch out — I’ll be eyeing her next installment of Black Heels to Tractor Wheels for any suspicious inconsistencies!
I wanted to reiterate a good point that was left in the comments to that post about the documentary about the desert hermit. If you thought that was interesting, you should definitely check out the wonderful movie Into Great Silence. Here’s a preview:
I have decided that rice and beans is the perfect recipe: It’s cheap, quick, healthy and delicious. Here’s the super easy recipe I use:
Make rice. Dump in drained cans of black beans, kidney beans and diced tomatoes. (No need to heat — the heat from the rice will warm the beans.) Top with shredded cheese. Yum!
This recipe has replaced pizza as a Saint Diet-approved fallback for those nights that I need something quick and simple.
I look forward to reading your posts!
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Gluttony, addiction, and not listening in prayer
A lot of people have asked for details about what I’ve been doing on this Saint Diet I keep referring to. Here’s the scoop. I apologize that it’s a long post; there’s no short way to get it all down!
The Story
This past summer I decided that now was the time for me to finally deal with gluttony. Not only was my weight creeping up higher and higher after each pregnancy, but for as long as I could remember I’d had a real problem with overeating that I seemed unable to conquer.
I first tried to get this problem under control when I was 15, and had been trying — and failing — ever since. None of the zillions of diets or programs or mental strategies I tried ever worked on a long-term basis. Starting this past summer, however, I decided to try something radically different: I would ask for God’s help. I was sure that this was the missing piece of the puzzle, that by leaning on the Lord I would be able to get my tendency to commit the sin of gluttony at least somewhat under control.
I was surprised and disappointed — you might say, “crushed” — when things didn’t play out like I’d hoped they might.
I was incorporating prayer into the fabulous No-S Diet plan for conquering gluttony, and that took me a long way…but not far enough. After a few weeks went by I started to fail. A lot. I have so many vivid memories of sitting in front of a plate of food and saying a prayer begging God to give me the strength to not have extra helpings, pleading for him to let me stop eating when I felt full…and then I’d eat to the point of being overstuffed anyway.
I know, it makes no sense. Why didn’t I just stop eating if it were so important to me? If you’ve never experienced this I’m not even sure I can describe it. “Stop! You’re full! You’ve had enough!” one part of me would say; but some other, much more powerful force within of me would rise up and override all other thoughts, fixating on the food in front of me in a blind panic. It was truly a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde type situation, the Dr. Jekyll in me powerless to stop the gluttonous Mr. Hyde.
I prayed over and over again to ask God to help me stop overeating, yet it continued to happen day after day, week after week. Eventually I stopped praying about it.
Then, a few months later, I got in a regular habit of going to Adoration. I even got to the point where I would leave my list at home and try to just clear my mind and let the Lord lead me. And a funny thing started to happen: even though I had long since given up on the topic, I started to feel strong guidance when it came to my food issues. Through prayer and meetings with my spiritual director I got a loud, clear message that my bad eating habits were not just leading me to the sin of gluttony but leaving me tired, sluggish, irritable, and thus impacting my family and spiritual life.
After a profound moment in Adoration when I finally realized after 17 years of repeatedly falling flat on my face that my way wasn’t working, I admitted my powerlessness and turned the whole thing over to God. With no more plans of my own, I finally began just listening when I prayed about this issue.
And, sure enough, God had something to say.
Food Addiction
Shortly after that moment, a series of “coincidences” led me to discover the concept of food addiction. A rough summary of the theory is that some people’s bodies react to sugar- and flour-based foods like alcoholics’ bodies react to alcohol and that, like alcoholics with alcohol, these people need to surrender to the fact that they’ll never be able to eat those foods in moderation, that they must abstain from them completely.
It sounded pretty extreme. In fact, I probably would have blown it off I hadn’t encountered people who had had astounding results by putting it into practice.
I had the pleasure of corresponding with a blog reader who shared with me her own dramatic story of being chronically overweight, eventually topping out at 370 pounds and feeling suicidal. After she got the right information about food addiction she not only got down to a healthy weight of 150 and has kept it off for eight years and through two pregnancies, but her spiritual life grew by leaps and bounds as well (a version of her inspiring story written a few years ago is available in a Word doc here). When I joined the “The Body Knows” food addicts email list I encountered many other people who had almost identical stories to hers. Their testimonies were intriguing and compelling…and sounded vaguely familiar.
I prayed about whether or not I should consider doing some kind of food addiction eating plan, and the answer I heard could be roughly translated to, “YES!!!!!!”
After a lot of research and more prayer, I decided to go ahead and cut out all foods with flour and sugar, as well as other processed foods, just to see what happened. Unlike other times I’d done something like this as part of a short-term diet, this time I would do it indefinitely, letting God lead me day by day.
The Results
That was in late December, and the results over the past 12 weeks have been amazing.
- As the food addiction theory would predict, when I cut out the foods I was addicted to, the insane cravings went away. Not having those foods in my system tamed that Mr. Hyde inside of me, so much so that I could even serve my family things like biscuits or cookies without having one myself — something previously unthinkable.
- Gluttony has become manageable. I quickly realized that when there’s not a sugar- or flour-based food involved in a meal, I can act like a reasonable human being when I sit down to eat. Suddenly those voices that said “You’re full! Stop eating!” actually had some impact on my actions. Though I still have a tendency to be gluttonous that’s not always easy to overcome, with that powerful Mr. Hyde vanquished from the table it is at least now possible.
- I’m no longer yanked around by food-induced mood swings. Not only has it been easier not to commit the sin of gluttony with this new way of eating, but it’s been easier to avoid a lot of other sins as well. The post-meal “crashes” that I used to experience on an almost daily basis left me extremely vulnerable to angry, selfish, slothful behavior. I still have all my same bad personality traits, of course, but without the biochemical factors to exacerbate them it’s much easier to overcome them. (My husband says it’s been stunning to see how much more calm and “able to deal” I seem when he comes home in the afternoons.)
- I’m much more detached from food. When I used to think of detachment from food, I assumed that that always meant eating all things in moderation. For most people, that’s probably the case. It’s taken me 17 years of banging my head into the same wall over and over again to realize it, but I finally see that the way for me to be detached from food is to cut out the foods that I cannot control myself around. I am now able to enjoy meals in a spiritually healthy way — that is, appreciating and taking pleasure in them without obsessing about them — and I don’t even miss the foods I’ve given up now that they’re out of my system.
- There have also been some dramatic changes physically as well. I am noticeably less “puffy” (I get many comments on that), and less inflamed and sensitive to pain. Also, my body has started dropping weight like crazy, even though I wasn’t trying to lose weight. Despite eating more than the recommended calorie intake for pregnant women, I lost a few pounds during the third trimester, and am already down to a post-baby weight that it usually takes me months to reach (in fact, after baby #3 I never did get down to the weight I’m already at now). I’m trying to make sure I don’t get caught up in the dangerous “high” of the scale, but it’s been amazing to see how my body naturally began to release weight after I cut out processed foods.
- And, finally, my daily diet is so much more nutritious than it used to be. I eat so many more fresh fruits and veggies than I used to, I recently calculated that the increase in vitamins and minerals from my new way of eating is almost equivalent to taking a daily multivitamin.
The biggest lesson I learned, however, was about listening. In all that time I spent chattering at God about gluttony, ordering him to help me follow through with my plans to stop overeating, I thought I had all the answers; it never occurred to me that I might be barking up the wrong tree. It was only after I got still and calmly let the Lord guide me that I realized that my particular problem was one of gluttony and addiction, and that I couldn’t treat one without treating the other.
The lesson I’ve learned here has made me think about how often I do this in other areas of my life: I think I know exactly what needs to happen, so I pray to ask God to make it so, as if I’m the one in charge and he’s some kind of wish-granting genie. Considering the dramatic changes I’ve seen in terms of my relationship to food, it makes me wonder what else the Lord could do in my life if I spent a whole lot more time listening.
UPDATE: I posted some sample meals in #2 here.
7 Quick Takes Friday (vol. 25)
So I did not realize that I am surrounded by a bunch of gourmet chefs. Friends have been bringing us dinners almost every night since the baby was born (thanks again to Care Calendar), and every single one of them has been a 10 on a scale of 1-10. I need to find some way to convince them to keep doing this indefinitely, because it’s going to be a major hardship to go back to eating my own cooking.
To my great distress, we saw a scorpion a few weeks ago (“a few weeks ago” as in “IN FREAKING FEBRUARY DON’T THESE THINGS EVER HIBERNATE!!!!!”). It is somehow not surprising that Yaya was involved (longtime readers may remember this classic Yaya + scorpion story). I heard her urgently calling the kids to come out on the back porch and ran out myself to see what all the commotion was about.
When we all got outside she was forlorn, explaining that she’d found a scorpion under the kids’ toy box and tried to catch it for them to play with but, alas, it was gone now. Having long since given up on trying to have the age-old “Are scorpions appropriate playthings for young toddlers?” debate with her, I feigned disappointed and turned to go back inside.
Just as I was about to close the door, on a hunch I asked, “Where did the scorpion go?”
“Oh, it ran in the house,” she said casually.
Scorpion season has begun.
(New readers who aren’t familiar with my stinging arachnid saga can read the whole story here.)
After I published my 7 Quick Takes post from last week some of the comments made me realize that I might have made myself sound a little too pious with #7.
You see, the original version of take #7 was quite a bit longer, including a lengthy rumination on how I wish sushi restaurants would take a page from gaudy Texas steakhouses and have a deal where if you eat some unbelievably grotesque quantity of food you can get your meal free. I imagined myself signing up for some “Eat Everything on Our 10-pound Nigiri Sake Plate and Get Your Meal Free!” special, perhaps even wearing a sweatband like those people who enter eating contests professionally, a crowd of awed onlookers standing around and cheering me on loudly on as I stuff sushi into my mouth with reckless abandon.
It was then that I added the note about this perhaps not being the most appropriate musing for Lent.
I ended up cutting the eating contest part for brevity, leaving only the much more mild comment about my plan to eat a lot of sushi on a date night with my husband. So I don’t think there’s any worry of me being too strict with my Lenten observances. I’m still planning to do a great sushi dinner (hopefully on a Sunday and without being too gluttonous), I’ll just try to refrain from entering any eating contests.
I’ve been hearing all sorts of great buzz about Meetup.com. I know quite a few people who have found everything from playdates to exercise groups to book clubs through that site, and they’ve all had great experiences with the people they met there.
I thought I’d give it a plug since I occasionally get emails from readers asking for tips about meeting likeminded people in their area. From what I’ve heard, Meetup.com seems like a good way to meet nice, normal people who share your interests.
Our TV broke the week before the baby was born. In a different phase of life I might have considered taking this as an opportunity to just live without a television, but I knew that there are going to be some occasions over the next couple of months were I desperately need to break out a Veggie Tales DVD to keep my children from getting mutinous. At the same time my husband received some extra money for some work he was doing on the side, so we decided to use it to get a new television.
We decided to go ahead and get a flatscreen TV. We’d priced them a few years ago and knew that there were some tiny ones (the size that people sometimes put in kitchens) within our budget.
So I sent my husband and four-year-old son off to Wal-Mart with the famous last words, “Just get the biggest one you can in our price range.”
A few hours later I came downstairs from a nap to see my husband and son beholding a great monolith that had appeared in our living room. It was our new, huge flatscreen TV. I SEE FLATSCREEN TV PRICES HAVE DROPPED A BIT IN THE PAST FEW YEARS, I thought as I watched them “oooh” and “aaaah” at the vivid soccer game on the monstrous screen.
I gently tried to broach the subject of perhaps exchanging it for a smaller model, but they got all Gollum on me, all but clinging to it and hissing “My preciousssss!” when I tried to step near it.
I’m kind of used to it now, though I am occasionally struck by the irony of watching Sunday Night Live episodes about holy detachment or somber Lenten Masses on a huge flatscreen television that we purchased during Lent.
A breastfeeding update: the Medela skin shields are saving my life. They’re a tremendous help with the pain, especially on that one side that was really bad. Interestingly, I tried them with previous babies and they hardly helped with the pain at all because there was still an issue of excruciating pain from the underlying tissue feeling bruised. This time there is none of that underlying tissue pain (likely because of the diet), and only surface skin pain. So I am thrilled that I gave the shields another shot — it’s made the baby’s first few days much more pleasant than usual!
Speaking of the baby, everything is going well. Unfortunately she sleeps a lot during the day and is up a lot at night, though that will probably change on its own as she gets older and more alert.
I’ve been reading Seven Storey Mountain during our late-night feedings. I think I’ll look back on this time in my life with warm memories, recalling these nights of cuddling with the baby as she nurses, sitting in my silent house at three o’clock in the morning, reading Thomas Merton’s poetic story of leaving the world for the silence of a Trappist monastery. There’s something ethereal about it*.
* I realize that I will probably be using words far different than “ethereal” to describe middle-of-the-night feedings when I no longer have family around to let me sleep in and get naps throughout the day.
I look forward to reading your posts!
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7 Quick Takes Friday (vol. 24)
Here she is!
Our little baby “Joy.” She arrived Monday afternoon weighing 6 lbs. 7 oz. and was 19 inches long.
The short version of the birth story: The induction began around 8:00am. The combination of being sick with a sinus infection and frequent interruptions from people coming in and out made pain management difficult, so I went ahead and asked for the epidural around noon, even though contractions weren’t too bad yet.
Unfortunately the epidural didn’t get full coverage. There was a spot about eight inches in diameter on my lower right side where there was zero pain coverage.
The anesthesiologist obviously felt bad about it, so she added more medication to try to get it covered. Didn’t work. She added more and more medication but we couldn’t get that spot anesthetized. We did, however, get the rest of my lower body anesthetized to oblivion — at one point I saw the nurse set something big down on the bed and I realized with a jolt that it was my freaking leg. I lost all sensation, even pressure, in all my lower body except that one “hot spot.”
Being completely unable to move any of my lower body while experiencing the pain of pictosin-induced transition contractions will not go down as one of my favorite childbirth memories (though I did offer it up). As a sort of anesthesiology consolation prize, the anesthesiologist asked if I wanted some straight-up narcotics to “take the edge off.” I told her dump that and every other kind of pain-killing substance she had into my IV. As promised, the “edge” was taken off — along with any other possible care I might have had in the world.
The baby arrived a little bit later around 2:15 and, due to some combination of the narcotics and the grace of God, I didn’t have any of the stress I typically have in the first few hours postpartum. I was just thrilled to meet her and overwhelmed with happiness.
I can’t thank you enough for all of your prayers. When I was going through all the pain after the failed epidural I thought of how many people were praying for me and it really gave me great comfort. Also, my husband and I have both noticed a certain peace that’s come with this baby, even through the inevitable ups and downs of the first few days, and I think that your prayers have a lot to do with that.
I am so impressed with Care Calendar. It’s a free online service that lets people coordinate with one another about bringing someone meals. A dear friend set one up for us, and it’s been so handy to be able to log in and see who’s bringing us what for dinner and when. It’s also helpful to our friends to know when we need meals and what other people have already made. I highly recommend bookmarking it to use next time someone you know needs some help!
Also, I can’t believe how helpful it’s been to have dinner taken care of every night. I knew it would be nice, but I’ve been blown away by just how much it helps us to enjoy this time that we don’t have to think about what to fix for dinner.
Breastfeeding is going amazingly well in terms of pain. In one side the pain is about a 9 on a scale of 1-10 (better than a 10!), but on the other it’s only about a 4! This is unprecedented and unbelievable — I daresay miraculous. I think it’s due in some combination to:
- Your prayers.
- The Saint Diet. One of the drastic changes I’ve seen in my body since cutting out sugary and processed foods a couple months ago is that I’m less inflamed and sensitive generally.
- Approaching latch with even greater ninja-like precision than usual.
I still have major low milk supply issues as I have with every other baby, so I’m pumping and taking herbs to deal with that. I’m thrilled that the pain is better though!
New life brings out the weirdest behavior in people. On the one hand, everyone we’ve been around this week has been raving about what a beautiful, precious blessing our new little girl is. On the other hand, more than one person has expressed horror at the idea of future children — I don’t mean something like “it would be difficult to have another one too soon”; I mean if you saw a video of their face you’d think they had just heard about some horrific crime against humanity.
One person asked if we’re done, and when I said we’d like some space but that we almost certainly would have more children eventually, her face contorted into a look of disgust. She leaned forward and asked pointedly, “WHY?!” Yet moments earlier she was wiping a tear out of her eye while gazing at the baby.
I understand people feeling like more children would be too difficult for various reasons, but what puzzles me is the downright vitriolic reaction that some people have to the idea of future kids. Weird.
I am sooooo excited: as soon as we can get out, I’m having my husband take me out for a SUSHI EATING EXTRAVAGANZA. I have been craving sushi for nine months and haven’t been able to eat any of the raw fish, so our next date night (with baby in tow) is going to consist of me eating embarrassing amounts of food at our favorite Japanese restaurant.
(After I wrote this it occurred to me that planning to be gluttonous during Lent is not my most spiritually mature move ever. Hmm. I might need to re-think this plan.)
I look forward to reading your posts!
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photo by Alexandre Chang
7 Quick Takes Friday (vol. 22)
We have a date! Labor for baby #4 is scheduled to be induced the morning of Monday, March 2. That’s just a week from Monday!
One thing I’ve never gotten used to is that with induced labor you pick your child’s birthday. That seems so strange. Back before my clotting disorder diagnosis I had my first child with midwives outside of a hospital setting, and I loved being able to do everything completely naturally. I’ve come to terms with most every part of having a high-risk, induced hospital birth, except for the picking the day part.
I have to say, I do like the day: Texas Independence Day, which commemorates the date in 1836 when Texas declared independence from Mexico and became an independent country. Maybe some unknown patron saint of Texans prayed for a good date (like last time). 
I’ve been toying with the idea of liveblogging during labor on Twitter (or would that be “livetwittering”? “livetweeting”?)
Unfortunately I don’t know if I’d have access to wireless internet, and I missed an opportunity to find out. This morning I had an appointment with my obstetrician where we went over the induction process again, and then he asked me if I had any questions. Since this is my fourth birth and third induction I couldn’t think of any labor-related to ask about, and I felt like it would be just too unbelievably nerdy if my only question for him was, “Does the labor and delivery room have wi-fi?”
I wept tears of joy when I came across this article in the Wall Street Journal. Finally, I have found my people!
All my life I have felt misunderstood in regards to my feelings about cilantro. People hear me say that I “hate” it and they think that I mean to say that it’s simply a food that I don’t care for, in the same way that I really don’t like the taste of raw onions or ham.
Nay, when I sense cilantro on my tongue, it goes far beyond mere recognition that this is the worst taste known to mankind. It goes beyond just wishing that I didn’t have tastebuds so that I’d never be exposed to such a culinary assault ever again. Rather, I am filled with the knowledge that this herb is an abomination and see immediately that it is an affront to human dignity that we allow it to coexist on the earth with us.
It has been my great delight to find so many anti-cilantro websites, including online communities and even a poetry page where people who feel inspired to pen haikus expressing their loathing of this green scourge can have an outlet for their work (some profanity at that last link although, really, if you’ve ever tasted cilantro you know that they can’t help it).
Want to read two really interesting comment threads? I came across these when I was looking around in the archives for something else and just had to share.
- I wrote a post in 2006 talking about how I didn’t fully understand how/why Christ’s sacrifice could be payment for my sins since I didn’t do anything there — it wasn’t my sacrifice to give. “How do I make Christ’s sacrifice my own?” I asked. Here’s the discussion that followed.
- Here’s a follow-up discussion about why God doesn’t prove himself to us with on-demand miracles and why Jesus didn’t stick around in human form for all the ages.
Interesting, huh?
I feel like my city has finally jumped the shark in terms of political correctness.
A while back I was reading one of the local freebie family magazines in a doctor’s office and came across an article called The Importance of Fatherhood. In a moment of great naivete I forgot that I lived in Austin and thought this author might offer un-P.C. insights about what it means to be a man and men’s roles in family life. The article started off well, but then the author felt the need to throw in the caveat:
I don’t mean in any way to disparage nontraditional families…I’m not out to insult partners, co-parents, significant others, poly-amorous spouses or anyone else.
Poly-amorous spouses?! I feel like we, as a city, need to take a step back and think long and hard about the fact that poly-amorous lifestyles are now on the list of legitimate, healthy family structures that we need to tiptoe around when we speak about marriage and family life.
My energy level is so drastically improved from doing the Saint Diet stuff (the details of which I hope to post about soon) that I keep forgetting that I’m pregnant. Yesterday I was in the store, lifting my three squirming toddlers in and out of the grocery cart, and caught myself wondering why I felt slightly achy. Then I remembered: oh, yeah, I’m 37 weeks pregnant! Honestly, I feel so great that it’s easy to forget, even at this stage of pregnancy. (That has not traditionally been my experience of late third trimester!)
I look forward to reading your posts!
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7 Quick Takes Friday (vol. 21)
I’m sitting here, looking from the box of clutter in the corner of our living room that’s been there for weeks to the myriad stains on the carpet, waiting for the nesting instinct to kick in. Waiting…waiting…
Speaking of which, my doctor mentioned in passing today that we’ll probably schedule labor to be induced two weeks from Monday. ONLY TWO WEEKS?! It seems like it was just yesterday that I was writing this post talking about my nervousness about a brand new pregnancy. Even though I still have tinges of apprehension about handling four kids under age five, I’m excited to meet the new little one!
One of the interesting things about blogging is when you come across off-site discussions about your blog where the participants talk amongst themselves about your posts. It’s always an educational experience to see completely uncensored feedback about what you write — all the more so, I’ve found, on the not infrequent occasions when atheist forums link to something I’ve written. It’s no surprise that the consensus is typically that my writing not only drivel but indicative of amoeba-level intelligence, but what is rather fascinating is the sheer energy level that tends to be behind their opinions of my little site. Here’s a typical example, a recent discussion of one of my posts from last week (scroll down to see the comments, though be warned that there’s some profanity).
Anyway, I find that links like this from atheist forums always bless me with excellent opportunities to practice humility.
Every time I watch Top Chef I feel the uncontrollable urge to pick up the phone and call Bravo and pitch them the concept of a Top Housewife competition. I’m telling you, it would be HUGE (meaning: I would like it). I have this all figured out. Here’s how the first episode would go:
WARM-UP CONTEST (winner receives immunity for elimination challenge)
A series of timed skills tests where the last person to finish is eliminated:
- Fold 10 king-sized fitted bed sheets into perfect squares with smooth edges.
- Match up pairs of socks from a bucket of 500 mismatched socks that are all the same color but different sizes.
- Craft a Faberge egg to specification while holding an angry octopus in one hand and reciting the Gettysburg Address while someone screams in your ear. (This one inspired by how I feel about fives times a day.)
ELIMINATION CHALLENGE
Since it might violate various laws to include real children in this series, the conditions of having multiple young children will be approximated with various similar stimuli:
Contestants have 60 minutes to get a living room and kitchen completely ready for formal company. Prior to the episode, 12 drunk interns will have been turned loose to have a kegger and a massive food fight on the site. During the challenge, trained monkeys will be sent in to cling to contestants’ legs; a door leading to a room full of angry bees will automatically open at frequent intervals and need to be shut; the phone will ring constantly and contestants will have to answer and respond to trivia questions; and at random intervals a box full of toys will be dumped in the middle of the living room floor. Oh, and because it’s my concept, there will be scorpions involved too.
OK, so now that I’ve typed it all out I see that it might not be the biggest ratings draw in the history of television or anything…but, hey, I would watch it!
There seems to be a small but vocal contingent of people on the internet who have strong feelings about the words healthy and healthful. I’ve received more than one note on the topic, I saw that someone left a similar comment for Kelly the Kitchen Kop, and I’ve seen it other places as well. These folks claim that it’s incorrect to say, for example, “I ate a healthy meal,” saying that it should be “I ate a healthful meal” instead.
Now I’m all confused because, according to Merriam-Webster, healthy can mean “conducive to health.” If that’s the case, then wouldn’t it be a correct use of the word to say, “I ate a healthy meal”? If there are any language experts out there, please weigh in! I’ve been using the term a lot lately with my diet talk so I’m very curious.
An email from my dad from this week:
I know you lie in bed at night and wonder how center lines and other road stripes and signs reflect the headlights. Here’s a shot of a gate sign being created:
They put down a heavy coat of yellow paint and immediately the guy in the blue jacket spreads ground up glass on the paint. The glass is about like beach sand. They said that for long stripes, the paint truck spays the line then there’s a glass sprayer right behind the paint sprayer.
Proving that we are not only cheap but unromantic, my husband and I have actually considered making our official St. Valentine’s Day celebration a few days after the 14th so that it’d be easier to get restaurant reservations and we could get cards and gifts on clearance.
I could just see us gushing about our romantic St. Gilbert of Sempringham dinner or the lovely card (marred just slightly by the big 80% OFF CLEARANCE sticker) that I got my husband for Conrad of Piacenza’s Day.
I look forward to reading your posts!
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7 Quick Takes Friday (vol. 20)
I was speechless after reading Michael Dubruiel’s last column, written on Monday, the day before he unexpectedly passed away while working out at the gym. Go read it here: “None of us knows what the future holds…”
Lent is just a couple weeks away. If any of you have blogs and are looking for something tech-related to give up, I recommend considering closing comments and stats but continuing blogging. Though I don’t think I’m going to do it this year, I’ve done it for the past two years and have found it to be extremely fruitful in terms of having a healthy relationship with blogging. The reason I think it helped me more to close comments and continue to write rather than just not blog at all is this:
With comments closed and no Sitemeter stats, with every post I had to ask myself: What is my goal in writing this?
When I first started my little feedback fast it became strikingly clear that too often the real answer was that I wanted comments or links. By the end of Lent I could honestly say that I was just writing what I felt called to write, the main “payoff” just bringing glory to God and hopefully adding something nice to the blogosphere. It really changed my motivation for blogging.
Very, very big news over here: I finally found a fiction book I can read!
For some reason I have this bizarre mental block against fiction. For the past few years I’ve tried to get over it multiple times by picking up “even people who don’t like fiction like this!” books like Harry Potter or This House of Brede. No luck. I just couldn’t get into them.
But I finally found one that I enjoyed so much that I devoured it in four days last week. I’ll leave you hanging and just say that I’ll review it soon.
This morning I had yet another amazing meeting with my spiritual director. One of the many things that came up that I feel like I need to ponder more in the coming weeks is a passing comment she made after we’d been talking about the subjects of anxiety and then detachment:
“What you’re worried about is what you’re attached to,” she said.
It was one of those moments of being the exact thing that I needed to hear at just the right time. I thought back on something that had been stressing me out all morning, and realized that the real reason for my stress is that I’m way too attached to having that particular thing in my life. Lots to think and pray about.
Speaking of detachment (or lack thereof), I had to laugh at myself about the Culture 11 Ladyblog Awards a couple weeks ago. I had been trying not to get too hung up on my site’s performance in the Best Religion Blog category. They didn’t publish votes as they came in, so I had no idea how I was doing. I was doing a pretty good job of being detached about it…then, the day before the results were going to be out, I suddenly had this idea that, “I might have won! That would be really cool!” Peaceful ambivalence somehow gave way to “detachment is nice, but winning ROCKS,” and I anxiously checked the results page multiple times the next day.
Instead of the results, perhaps with a big “Yay! Conversion Diary #1 Bestest Religion Blog EVER!” banner at the top as my egotistical fantasies might have pictured, I see this: Culture 11 went out of business they day after all the votes were in. We’ll never know who won.
Point taken, Lord. Point taken.
I gave up coffee in the most ridiculous way last week: I was too tired to make coffee one morning, so I decided to just quit drinking it altogether.
I had cut down to just one small cup a day during pregnancy and had been toying with the idea as part of the Saint Diet, but it was still a rough transition to undertake on five minute’s notice. I have to say, though, I do feel much better without it.
This weekend I’m excited to be going to a blogger get-together that includes the Darwins, Melanie and Dom Bettinelli, Betty Beguiles and Literacy-Chic. I’ve met quite a few bloggers in person, and I never cease to be amazed at how much people’s true personalities really do come across in their blog. So far I’ve never had a bad experience meeting someone whose blog I enjoy. I’m looking forward to getting together with everyone tomorrow.
Anyone else have any fun weekend plans?
I look forward to reading your posts!
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