Mid August Daybook

Flowers at the local French cafe

Outside my window::

Sunny and breezy—great late summer weather.

Listening to::

The Rings of Power soundtrack. I’m very excited for the show to start on September 2!

Wearing::

crops and a gray t-shirt—a uniform of sorts for me.

Grateful for::

Conversations with Di, Patty, and Johnny.

Good Echo results!

new knitting projects

Pondering::

Functional fitness. As I wrote in the last daybook , this is important in just keeping up the house and doing regular things, but it’s also important in giving my body the tools it needs to “get through” things. If I’m stronger at the outset then I have less to lose if/when I get sick.

Like right now, I have a sinus infection. Wheeeeeee again. I’ve had a lot of them sine 2020, and that’s unusual for me. I had a long-overdue sinus surgery last December, but that didn’t seem to solve the problem the way it normally does.

So right now I’m on Cipro, which is a great, super powerful antibiotic which will clear up the sinuses—but will also mess with my tendons. So that is a bummer when it comes to the whole “functional fitness” thing, because I really do not want to rupture a tendon.

This means that my workouts have to change—I can’t be doing things like treadmill workouts. So I’m doing gentler things, but things that my body still needs, like yoga/stretches for my body, especially my legs (because my legs get really tight), and things I can do that don’t put a lot of stress on my knees or Achilles’ tendon, because these are the areas that tend to get grumpy with me. I’ve gotten some permanent injury to my right knee because I didn’t listen to my body when I’ve been on Cipro, so I don’t want to repeat that.

It’s a fine line, but it’s one that I have to figure out how to manage, and I think I have a good plan for the next two weeks that I’m on this medication.

Reading::

The Silmarillion,* The Book of Lost Tales (Part 1),* (yes, lots of Tolkien right now!) The Crossing* (my parents are really into this book series and so I’ve started reading them too), and Memories Before and After The Sound of Music.*

In case you’re wondering how I read multiple books at one time—I was an English Lit major in college (and Political Science), so I’m very good at reading multiple books at one time! I’m reading Silmarillion almost like I’d read it for a class; I take it slowly because there are a lot of names and places and things to remember. I try to read 1-2 chapters a day. The other books I’m not reading like that. But I’m very good at juggling books and plot lines.

Creating::

A '“stupid easy” shawl with some of the gorgeous yarn I bought on the yarn crawl!

The pattern is Casapinka’s “Woven”, which I had bought and forgot about in the wilds of my desk, but as part of the house reorganizing/decorating project, I was going through papers and found it, and then decided it would be perfect for this yarn. Ravelry notes here. I still have two shawls to block as well.

(Yes shawls are my favorite thing to knit. They’re so diverse and you can have o much fun with yarn and technique! BUT color work is also really fun. And I’m liking cowls. So cowls/shawls are my favorites right now.)

To live the liturgy::

Today is the feast of St. Bernard, Doctor of the Church and Abbot. Did you know he wrote “O Sacred Head Surrounded” (or “now Wounded” in some translations)? I didn’t! I love that hymn. He’s also featured in Dante’s Paradiso. (The last part of the Divine Comedy. If you haven’t read it, I recommend it!)

Around the house::

Still going on the big project but things are coming together! Yay!

From the kitchen::

I will make another load of Sourdough sometime this month to incorporate Diane’s suggestions to my last attempt! I’m actually really excited. I need to feed Sammy the Starter today.

Plans for the week::

All day doctor extravaganza on Monday for yearly testing. WHEEE. Since I’m on Cipro I won’t have to do the six minute walk, which I sort of hate anyway, so that’s a plus!

Maddie: Seven Months!

Brace yourselves, everyone. Maddie is seven months old. Ahhhh!

Here’s the monthly update!

CAN DO:

Sit up for a good amount of time!

Blow raspberries and babbles a ton. She loves blowing raspberries!

Getting really close to crawling!

Mama thinks she’s getting another tooth, and she has her first dental appointment!

Say Maaaaaa….we think :)

Feed herself!

Recognize people in pictures

Playing peek-a-boo!

LIKES:

Giving Duke some of her food. (She’s eating some solids, and she will drop things for Duke to eat. He loves it.)

FOOD! We love food!

Giggling

Here she is her in favorite chair! She can sit here and supervise whatever Mama is doing.

Seeing people. She’s so, so social. And then talking to them.

Audiobooks!

Her pool

Watching English Premier League with Dad on Saturdays

Still loves playing with her feet

Going outside

When grandma (our mom) blows bubbles at her on FaceTime!

Songs

Adventures. She goes on a lot of them. Car rides are so fun!

She and Duke are very good buddies. (Duke is their dog)

At the local coffee shop with Mom and Fishie!

DISLIKES:

Being ignored, ha!

She doesn’t seem to like bananas—as in eating them as they are. She likes them pureed, and she likes to play with them, but eating them? Nope.

Cold food—still not a thing she enjoys!

Sleeves!

When she can’t see her mama—although with the peek-a-boo playing she’s getting OK with this. :)

Gallery:

One month

Two months

Three months

Four months

Five months!

Six months!

Last Saturday :)

Sourdough!

Last weekend, I made my first sourdough loaf!

I know, I know, everyone was doing this in 2020. But I didn’t have a starter in 2020, and I didn’t want to mess around with making one.

So when I visited Diane and crew this summer, I made a point of asking for a sourdough tutorial, because Diane makes it frequently. And she obliged me!

Patty enjoys the fruit of her mom’s labors—sourdough and penne with homemade sauce!

I wrote it down carefully. I asked questions. I was given some of her starter, which was carefully placed in my suitcase.

I fed it for about a month, every other week. And then this weekend, once I had all my equipment, I made it.

And it was yummy!

The nice thing about it, I think, is that you don’t have to knead it—at least not in Diane’s recipe. You do stretch the bread a few times, which is like kneading, but it’s not the intense kneading you need either by hand or with your stand mixer. That was nice.

Starter after sitting out all night…

I was a little worried after adding the flour and water because it seemed so dry. But Diane said it was OK!

It looks dry but it’s FINE!

And indeed it did become more and more “dough like” as the process went on.

After the first fold

After the second fold, about to go into the proofing basket. Lovely!

It went into the floured proofing basket and flopped perfectly into the Dutch Oven…..and came out looking so pretty! And it was delicious!

It has a nice crust, sharp but not so sharp you can cut yourself with it. It’s chewy, but not too chewy. In short, it’s good bread, and I might be addicted to making it now. Next time I will let it rise a little longer so that it’s a bigger loaf with a slightly more pronounced sourdough flavor.

If you want to try Diane’s recipe, here it is! (With my notes) (NOTE 8/9/22: The document has been updated!)

Have you ever made sourdough? How’d it turn out?

Everybody Hurts

(And yes, I did choose that title based off the song.)

One of the things I’ve come across a lot in 40 years is the idea that if you are financially well-off/secure, that you don’t suffer. It’s gotten to the point where I feel like I need to write about it here, to disabuse folks of this notion.

It’s usually not put that baldly, but that’s the gist of a lot of things I hear. Like, “Oh, a homily on suffering at a wealthy parish? They don’t need it!” Or “Well you’re financially secure, you don’t know what suffering is like!”

That’s…just not true.

Let’s start with the obvious and quote Scarlett O’Hara: “Money does help.” Yes, it does help. When my family was dealing with me being in the ICU, we weren’t worried about how we were going to put gas in our cars or keep the electricity on. True statement. Money helps.

However—my parents had a child in the ICU. A child they were being told was going to die. They had two other children to take care of at the same time, and potentially prepare them for the death of their sibling, while they were dealing with the possible death of their daughter, and maybe thinking they were going to have to plan a funeral. And at the same time, they were also dealing with my siblings’ schoolwork and teachers and all that jazz.

Yes, money was helpful—but they were suffering.

Life doesn’t look at your W2 or your 401(k) and go, “you know what, I think I’ll leave you alone because you have a good bank account.”

There are lots of different types of suffering, and financial poverty isn’t the only kind. There’s emotional suffering, physical suffering, combinations of all these things! Saying that being wealthy/well-off/ middle class negates any possibility of suffering “just ain’t so”.

This also goes with the whole, “Oh you’re thin I’m so jealous” thing.

Diane and me, May 2005

Folks. Look at that photograph. This was taken about a month and a half before transplant. I felt awful in this photograph. We’re at my grandfather’s surprise 80th birthday party, which I went to because it was his 80th birthday, even though my body was like PLEASE LAY ME DOWN AND LET ME SLEEP.

I weigh maybe 90 pounds here. The week after this party, I went into the hospital for almost a month. The sweater I’m wearing is an XS and it’s still hanging off me (look at the sleeves). Diane has a healthy paleness about her. I look sick. I was not healthy. In the hospital I was fed TPN (nutrition through an IV line) and lipids (fat!) to get me to gain any weight. This is NOT HEALTHY IN BIG CAPITAL LETTERS. This is a person near death.

And yet I had people telling me that I looked so thin! And making comments about how they had hips, and I didn’t, in a way to make themselves feel better about their bodies! (Seriously, they did this.)

I WAS DYING.

And people were looking at me, being jealous of my thinness.

That’s a problem, folks.

So please don’t think that because someone is financial secure/thin/good looking/happy, her life is just all sunshine and roses and awesomeness.

Everybody hurts.

August Yarn Along--Christmas knitting takes off!

I went on my first “yarn crawl” on Monday and so that was a lot of fun! A crawl is basically visiting a bunch of shops that are all participating in the event; it’s a great way to visit new stores and get discounts and other goodies, like….TOTE BAGS.

The bag with….

My goodies inside! :)

The Carnation Yarn Trail runs through Michigan, Ohio, and Kentucky, and man, it’s extensive, as you can see on the map (scroll down)—it goes from Grand Rapids, MI, to just outside Louisville, KY! A lot of knitters will visit stores as a vacation or a fun thing to do with their yarn buddies, but I “just” visited two stores, though I am keeping this list for future reference.

First I visited 614 Knit Studio, which is on the north side of town. I’d never visited it before but it’s so gorgeous that that’s going to change! The top photo is of their ‘baby yarn’ wall and I bought almost all of the teal yarn for a dress for Maddie. I also picked up some Malabrigio Rios in Anniversario for me (that’s the pretty multicolored yarn!) that might be (yet another) shawl. :) Shawl knitting is my love language! I also got a shawl cuff so I can experiment with different ways to wear my many shawls, and some blocking pins that I think will work a lot better than the ones I currently have, which are sort of fiddly.

My second stop was Yarn it and Haberdashery, which is my “regular” local yarn store. I got the dark blue yarn you see in the photo for a Christmas project. (You can see the project on Ravelry here), as well as the knit picks needles so I can cast on a baby blanket without waiting for a current knit in progress to be done! :) (Yes I have a second niece coming, she needs a blanket! Yay babies!)

In progress we have:

*Chocolate Lily, where I have just finished the main body increases. That means there are two more sections to go before it’s off the needles!

*Christmas project (see link above)

And things that need blocked: Quindici and Take It All. (Seen below—quindici is the one done in blues)

Whew! That’s a fair bit of knitting and finishing to do.

Onto reading!

Above, The Silmarillion surrounded by the projects that need finished. :)

I’ve been meaning to read The Silmarillion* for awhile, but it wasn’t until a week or so ago that I decided to be serious about it. Thanks to this great reader’s guide, I’ve been making progress! This is very different from the Lord of the Rings books in that it’s very dense—I’m taking a ton of notes in the margins—but rewarding to read.

I’m also re-reading Cardinal Pell’s prison journals*.

End of July Daybook

It has been so long since I’ve done one of these, but I saw that Elizabeth Foss has re-started them over at her blog and that gave me the impetus to go ahead and write this one! Because I like them and it’s been way too long since we’ve had one!

Outside my window::

It’s a sunny day, the grass and trees are green and thriving (see above photo!). It’s only going to be 81 today so that mens I can sit on my porch and read without frying to a crisp. This is excellent.

I am listening to::

In the car, it’s the Six * soundtrack. It’s so fun. I’ve also been working on learning Scottish Gaelic, so sometimes I tune into the BBC Scotland (Alba) channel and get a mix of Scottish music and talk radio—sometimes in English, sometimes in Gaelic. I’m really good at picking out the word “and”! (which is agus).

I am wearing::

You know, when the world shut down in 2020, it was so easy to get into the “I am not going to get dressed” thing, right? I’ve never been a person to leave the house in my pajamas, and I’m still not. But yes, my favorite leggings and a great t-shirt are sort of my summer uniform, along with a fun lipstick. (One of my New Year’s Resolutions? Wear more lipstick. It sounds really funny and sort of silly, but I love doing it now!) Generally my hair is up. When I’m dressed like this I feel like I can get a lot of things done, which is always a good idea!

Grateful for::

Talking to Maddie and my sister this morning—Maddie is blowing raspberries and it’s so cute.

Good weather

The local farmers’ market, which I remembered to visit yesterday!

A new baby to knit for

a local yarn crawl to attend!

Pondering::

Two big projects—but not writing projects. One of them is a wholesale overhaul of my apartment. The other is about gaining back muscle strength and endurance post COVID lockdowns.

The apartment is something I’ve been wanting to do for awhile, and this has two parts: the really deep clean + organizing, and then the decorating part. The two are sort of dovetailing because as I deep clean/sort/donate/organize things I notice things that need replaced or things I need to get to ensure things are running smoothly around here. The other part is replacing broken things with things that I, in some cases like better, like the lamp below:

This lamp is perfect!

The goal is to have the cleaning and organizing done by Labor Day. I think I can do it! The decorating will take a bit longer as I look for things that are good fits, like the lamp above. There was a lamp there that didn’t really fit the space or my style, but I kept it because I hadn’t found anything else I really liked. As soon as I saw this lamp (from Target) I knew it would be perfect, and it is. So then I was able to get rid of the old, broken lamp!

Another part of housekeeping is having the energy/stamina to do it, because I don’t always. If I get sick, the entire system collapses, so I need a better system, for starters, but that also feeds into the second project—getting my stamina back. Lockdowns did a huge number on my overall fitness, and so I’ve decided that I’m really going to re-focus on that. I’m doing Take Up and Read’s Well and Good summer program, and that’s been really helpful in addressing certain issues I’d been having. I’m not trying to lose weight—at this point, I want to be strong and be able to function on a daily basis, for myself, but also for Patty, Madeleine, and my new niece!

So I’ve been working out three times a week—the goal is to build that up to 5 days. The workouts vary but I can already seem changes in my stamina and strength, which is all for the good. And if I have more strength, I can do more around the house as well! It all works together.

Reading::

The King’s Pearl*, about Henry VIII and his daughter Mary; Mansfield Park*'; Taste: My Life Through Food*, and Theology of Home III: At The Sea. *

Creating::

a shawl—I’m in a yarn club so every quarter members get a special kit with an exclusive pattern, yarn for the pattern, and a knitting notion. I’ve been knitting through kits I have, and this is the one I’m on now—hopefully I’ll have it off the needles by August’s Yarn Along! I’ll have full notes there too.

To Live the Liturgy::

Today’s the feast of St. Martha!

Around the House::

See above! :) But right now the laundry is going as I write this.

From the Kitchen::

When I visited Diane, she taught me how to make sourdough bread and gave me some of her starter. I am most likely going to bake my first loaf with it within the next week. Fingers crossed!

Patty observes the process!

Plans for the week::

As we head into August my schedule is lovely and clear. August has two medical days—an Echo as part of my yearly transplant testing, as well as the whole day testing/doctor visit extravaganza. But other than that, the month is so clear and I love it.

My Jeopardy Episode--Online!

So many of you will remember that I was a Jeopardy! contestant back in 2016! (You can read all about that here.)

I have FINALLY found the episode online! So if you want to watch it, here you go!

(I can’t embed the video because there are restrictions on it, sadly. But that link works!)

It's a Summer Sale!

Ave Maria Press is running their big summer sale from July 11 to July 24 on their website! Use the code SUMMER22 at checkout to save 25%!

So of course that means it’s a great time to stock up on Living Memento Mori!

Get copies for yourself, and for friends and family! This is a great time to do it and support your local Catholic author.

Seventeen

Me and my first niece, the Maddie Bear!

There’s something about this transplant anniversary that just hits differently. Maybe it’s because it’s seventeen, which is getting up there in transplant years, and it feels more remarkable. I think it’s because some big things have happened in this transplant year.

My sister became pregnant, had Madeleine, and I got to meet the sweet little girl, who is my first niece! Then my brother and his wife announced they too are pregnant, with a girl, so I’ll have two nieces by the end of January 2023. Wow!

Something about nieces just hits differently. Maybe it’s because of the genetic connection. Maybe it’s seeing my siblings become parents. Maybe it’s both? It’s undefinable, I think. It’s just a special thing, to be an aunt. It’s different than being a godparent, which I also love!

How can you resist Patty? You can’t.

And I turned 40, which, to be honest, wasn’t something I was sure I’d see. But I did.

When I was twenty-three, my sister hadn’t met her husband. My brother had met his wife, but they weren’t dating. Diane, Patty’s mom, wasn’t married yet (although she was dating her husband) so her kids weren’t even thoughts. (Well maybe they were thoughts. haha.) My godson was seven years old.

So many things hadn’t happened yet.

Thanks to Suzanne (my organ donor) I was able to see all these things, and more.

Maddie: Six months!

I CANNOT believe that Madeleine Grace is six months old! Holy moly!

We’re leading off with a picture of her in the Stanley Cup Champion Avalanche onesie that people at the grocery store dearly loved (as well as dearly loving her cuteness).

Here’s what she can do, what she likes, and what she dislikes, at six months!

CAN DO:

Feed herself bottle pretty much independently 

Sit in high chairs/ shopping cart! (See above!)

Laugh! 

Trying to crawl 

Brush teeth 

Look for objects when she drops them

Very vocal! Especially when she is not paid attention to

Sleeps with her pacifier and will grab it to self soothe, she likes chilling in her crib before we get her.

She LOVES:

Baths and the baby pool! (Hoping to do “big kid” pool soon)

Balls 

Sitting in the high chair 

Duke the Doggie—She laughs when she sees him and when he gives her kisses

Falling asleep to audiobooks.  She will turn her head toward Alexa when Mom hasn’t turned it on yet.

Tummy time.  She just loves to move!

Going to the park and watching all the bikers/ walkers. 

Playing with her feet

Going on a adventures 

The lotion song, or basically any song (Melanie has many, many songs for Maddie, they’re all adorable)

Playing with her feet 

Being outside 

DISLIKES:

When mommy is out of sight

When other people put her bed 

Sitting too long— she gets bored 

When people are talking but not to her (ha! This sounds a lot like when her mother was little :) )

When she is tired

When she drops her bottle / ball 

Staying still for diaper changes (Her Aunt Emily also struggled with this. :)

Photo Gallery

newborn

One month

two months

3 months

4 months

5 months!

Six months, cowgirl!

Yarn Along: Digging into the stash!

I don’t know what it is about vacations but it always seems to give me mental clarity. Does this happen to you?

One of the things I was thinking bout when I was in Texas (which I will write about soon!) is knitting. I didn’t bring a knitting project with me, but I was thinking about what to do with some yarn I have and hadn’t used. That lead me to remember this kit that my parents got me for Christmas, for a shawl called “Take It All.” The kit uses one main color (that’s the ‘natural’ color you see) and a mini-skein kit for the contrasting colors. I thought that would be a great project to work on. I wanted something pretty simple but also fun, and this checked all the boxes. (You can see a version of it knitted up here)

I also decided wht I’ll be knitting next, so I have my updated “knitting queue” ready to go. It can be so overwhelming to have yarn for so many projects, and to have a huge Ravelry queue, so sometimes it’s easier for me to write a “top three” list and then work down that.

My Ursina sweater is sort of in limbo because I have to learn how to do magic loop! So I’m taking a short (I hope) break from it. I finished my Quinidici shawl, and that was a lot of fun. I especially liked working with La Bien Aimee’s cashmerino yarn! I used Winterfell, Hegelia, and Nymeria for my Quindici. (I bought the yarn with birthday money—a very good expenditure if I do say so myself!) I actually have a ton of Nymeria left so I’m thinking about doing another quindici with two other colors…hmmm! (You only use a little of the second contrast color in this project.) I mean, waste not want not, right? :)

As far as reading: I love visiting a little independent bookshop whenever I visit Diane. So we made a trip to the Blue Willow Bookshop!

It’s so adorable and it’s home to lots of amazing things. I bought two copies of the 200th anniversary edition of Emma for Di and I….she’d never read it, except in its Baby Lit version:

Johnny: Emewee, are these the same book?

(Yes I have multiple copies of Emma, don’t judge.)

When I do the full Houston write up I’ll include book links.

What are you making/crafting/reading?

Recipe: Diane's improvised pasta sauce--toddler approved!

While I was in Houston Diane made some amazing food, including her sourdough (which she taught me!) and this improvised pasta sauce. We all liked it so much that I told her we had to write it down because it was that good.

You can see that Patty enjoyed the fruit of her mother’s labors!

Diane’s Improvised Pasta Sauce

Makes enough for one pound of pasta (we used penne)

1 jar of marinara sauce

2 fresh tomatoes, quartered

jarred mined garlic or fresh minced garlic, 2 tbsp.

Extra virgin olive oil, about 2 tbsp.

salt to taste

Pinot grigio, 1- 1 1/2 cups

heavy cream 2/3 c.

basil, fresh or dried (Diane has a basil plant so we used fresh)—as much as you want.

Heat the extra virgin olive oil in a pot, then add quartered tomatoes. Bring to a simmer. Once the tomatoes are soft, add the garlic and cook for one minute. Add wine, cook until about reduced by half. Add marinara sauce and basil leaves, bring to a simmer and let simmer for 1-2 minutes. Take off the heat, add cream, taste and adjust seasoning if necessarily. Use immersion blender to blend (Or a regular blender).

You can either use fresh or let cool and put in the fridge for later use.

"Our human rights derive from our humanity"

While in Houston, I (of course) went to church with my cousin and her family, and heard an amazing homily, centered on the decision in the Dobbs case. I took so many notes I thought I’d share them with you. It was a long homily, so this is just a taste.

Rogier van der Weyden, The Magdalene Reading. The National Gallery, London.

“The government does not and cannot give us rights. Our human rights do not come from the US government, our human rights derive from our humanity, and derive from the fact that we are human….{The Declaration of Independence states that] We hold these truths to be self-evident. We are endowed with those rights by our Creator and these rights are inalienable…

“To enjoy liberty, we must enjoy the exercise of the right to life. There is no pursuit of happiness without life. It’s inalienable…

“Legal does not equal just. We have the obligation to overturn unjust laws and to come to the aid of the oppressed. Slavery, women’s inability to vote, racial segregation and Nazism were all legal.

“We need, as citizens, to participate in the democratic process. There is much more to come. We must pray. Changing hearts and minds is a much more formidable task [that what has just been done]. We must have charity in all things and we need to treat everyone with respect. We must continue to work and build a culture of life. We must care for people, and show the mercy and forgiveness of God to everyone.”

Deo Gratias!

On the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, it is so appropriate that one of the worst SCOTUS decisions in history is overturned, joining Dred Scot and Plessy on the ash heap of history.

Every since I was old enough to know what abortion was, I—and so many others—have prayed and worked for today. This is a victory for the pro-life movement, and I don’t think it’s a bad thing at all to take today and celebrate and give thanks for this.

I am happy on a more personal level as well. If you’ve read my book, you know that I have often had people tell me that people with genetic diseases are not “worthy” of living, because our lives are too hard or we suffer.

Ninety-six percent of babies who are discovered to have CF in utero are aborted.

Today, that number will begin to decrease, and more people like me will have a chance at life.

It’s important to note that Dobbs doesn’t make abortion illegal in the United States. Instead, it throws the matter back to the states (which is where it should have been all the time.). Every state can determine their own abortion laws.

This is not the end of the pro-life movement. In the words of Winston Churchill, “It is the end of the beginning.”

We know that there is work to do to change perceptions. We know that more pro-family legislation is needed, and we need to continue to support the work of maternity/crisis pregnancy homes, pro-life charities, and other supportive networks.

If you want to contact your state legislators about this, be sure to do it politely (always, please, especially if you’re calling them).Let them know that you support legislation that helps the vulnerable. See what your state already has and then work to support it, financially, materially, or with your time. I’ll be compiling a list of resources later, but you can always start with the Sisters of Life, who do such great work in the US and Canada.

And let’s stop talking about how children are barriers to our lives, OK? Let’s stop talking about how women have “fewer rights” then men. Women, it’s time for us to stop believing the lies that the sexual revolution taught us. Sex is not free. Having sex with multiple partners is not liberating. Let’s reject this mindset for the lie it is. Let’s teach our daughters that. Let’s not continue to perpetuate a lie—which is really a malicious, twisted lie—that sexual freedom is a good thing, that we are “entitled” to do whatever we want, when we want it. That’s a perversion of our freedom.

There are certainly times when women find themselves in situations that they didn’t expect. The pro-life movement is there for them. We need to champion life in all its stages, and Dobbs gives us the framework to start doing that legislatively—but it also gives us the freedom to start doing more outside of the statehouses, to step up our advocacy and demonstrate that it’s truth that sets us free.

Women deserve better than abortion. Children deserve better than abortion. We all deserve better than a culture that takes innocent lives and treats them like garbage, and cloaks its satanic mission in words like “care” or “health decisions” or “choice”.

Today is a victory for life.

Let’s celebrate it, and then continue our work.

(NOTE: normally, I let the combox be totally open. But I will delete any comments that have bad language on this post, OK? I would do that anyway, but….just a reminder.)

"Life, London, this moment of June"

OK, I’m not in London. (The quote is from Mrs. Dalloway, one of my favorite novels.)

And June can actually be a really hard month for me, because there’s been a lot of medical crap that went down in June. (And I actually have a squamous cell carcinoma that needs removed—that’s next month—that I just found out about, but honestly, I don’t really care, we’ll handle it)

But this June? This June has been pretty fun.

Patty discovers…THE TENT.

I’m going to see Patty and her siblings!

Peanut (Patty’s newest sibling) is growing well! S/he is due in October.

It might be really hot, but it’s super pretty. This I the view from my porch. I love sitting here and reading at night. Right now I’m re-reading Emma* as part of the Jane Summer Re-Read.

Tiffany and I went to see the Columbus Symphony play at a local church as part of their summer night music programming. Cheaper tickets, don’t have to drive downtown, and don’t have to pay to park? Count me in. It was a beautiful program!

How’s your summer going so far?

Maddie: Five Months!

Folks, I can’t believe Maddie is five months old.

I just cannot.

Do you see her teeth?!

Here’s the round-up!

New Things

 -two teeth! And a third is emerging!

-has rolled back to front!  (Once but rolls on her side all the time)

- can pivot on her belly!  Very close to crawling.

-starting to laugh!

-can pass toys back and forth between hands

-starting to sit up unsupported

Likes

-being on the floor (aka, the Maddie Olympics)

-being in her carrier

-seeing the world

-new toys! Loves knocking over her blocks, the rolling bell.

-caterpillar coffee time! (Caterpillar==her chair. It’s the best.)

- being read to (if she can stay still for it). I loved reading to her when we visited.

-grabbing everything mommy and daddy have (clothing, glasses, food, drinks)

-has pet Duke and Bella. (Duke is their dog, and Bella is their kitty). Bella is neutral on the subject, but Duke licked her feet!

-stroller, as long as she’s looking out!
-playing with her owls in her crib (The owls are a paper banner of….owls (ha!) that are hung on the room-facing side of her crib. She has now discovered she can play with them. I think they might not be long for this world now that she has found this out.)

-listening to audio books to help her fall asleep.

-dancing/ singing to music

-looking in the mirror

Dislikes

-Being held or restrained (unless it’s in her carrier)- she wants to move!!

-Putting her arms in sleeves.

-Being tired

-hungry… again (tired+hungry=hangry baby!)

-wearing her sleep mittens (she will bite them off!)

-having her nails filed.

-being left in her crib too long after waking up (see wants to see people, above)

Monthly photos:

"Thank you, Ma'am"

As you all know, I am an Anglophile, and so I loved the Platinum Jubilee Extravaganza last weekend! (Well actually Thursday-Sunday). So I thought I’d share some of my favorite photos and videos, because we all need some happiness and cute, right?

From the Party at the Palace:

*Paddington and the Queen kicked off the party

* the West End segment! (the WHOLE THING, which we didn’t see here in the US)

There was a CORGI PARADE!

Royal kids stealing the show!

The flypast on Thursday:

Photos:

The Cambridge kids (L-R: George, Louis, and Charlotte) make their carriage debut at Trooping the Colour

Louis was a crack up the entire weekend.

With the queen on the balcony at Buckingham Palace

This is TOO CUTE

Charlotte and George (sandwiched between their parents) at the Party at the Palace on Saturday

The final balcony appearance of the weekend, after the Jubilee Pageant

Catholic Girl Problems

So I had to read at Mass on Saturday night—Pentecost Vigil. No biggie. I did my job, I pronounced “Bitumen” correctly (that word is not fun to say), and it was time to receive Communion.

As a lector, I am sitting in the front row on the right side of the church. So, I’m fairly visible.

I go up to receive communion. Now, I have done this for 32 years. That’s over 1,600 communions roughly. I have received on the tongue pretty much exclusively for the past 12 years, no problems.

So I get in line.

Then, the following:
Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion: (ECMH) (Holding up the Host) The Body of Christ.

Me: Amen. ( I open my mouth. the EMCH extends his hand, holding the Host, toward my mouth. The DEACON appears, and STARTLES the EMCH.)

THE HOST FALLS.

ALL OUR EYES meet in total panic and confusion.

ME: Where did it go?
Deacon: It went…down your dress. (With discreet hand motion indicating it went….south.)
Me: OK. (To EMCH) Let’s try this again.

EMCH: The Body of Christ.
ME: (receiving in the hand this time) AMEN.

I head back to my seat. I look at the floor I just walked over. No host there. OK. So Jesus is….on my person.
I begin discreetly patting down my dress, wondering if the Host got caught in the folds or the lining or the flounces…

And then I see.

The Host is IN MY BRA.

That’s right. Jesus—Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity—has taken up residence in my bra cup.

(Did I mention I’m in the front row?)

My dress neckline is a shallow v-neck. So very discreetly (I HOPE), I reach into my dress and remove Jesus from my bra. I then consume the Lord.

I don’t know if Jesus thought that I needed extra grace this week or what, but I totally want to crack up laughing and I’m wondering, OK, what do I do with my bra now? Is it a relic? Am I a relic?! WHAT IS HAPPENING?!

(What makes it even more humorous is that usually we have altar servers with patens to catch any Hosts that escape like this. We were short one altar boy, I think, on Saturday. So if the altar boy had been there, this wouldn’t have happened! But it did!)

So after Mass the other lector asks me, “What happened during Communion?” I tell him. He cracks up.

Mom asks me the same thing as we head into the parking lot. She starts cackling, and then laughing so hard she cannot breathe. And then I’m laughing.

I mean, the ways of the Lord are indeed mysterious. But I had never thought that The Lord would…decide to fly down my dress.

Whatever Lord. Whatever.

My Writing Process

I’m currently working on another writing project (Yay! All will be revealed later!)and I thought I’d share my writing process with you.

I generally write in the afternoons but sometimes I change that to the morning. The morning is usually me reading email, perusing the Web while I have breakfast, writing in my journal, and catching up on the news (although not nearly as much news as I used to read—this is a good thing!). This is also usually when I write blog posts.

I work on big writing projects in the afternoon, and I use pomodoros to do this. I usually write for 1-2 hours (that’s 2-4 pomodoros) and then I’m done for the day. I don’t have word goals, I have time goals.

I work on a rough draft until it’s “done”, in the sense that I’ve reached the end of the story I was trying to tell. I do not re-read at all during this stage. I might read the last few lines of what I wrote the day before, in order to get back into the groove of my train of thought, but that’s as much as I’ll do.

The second phase is the LET IT SIT phase. I like to let big projects (like books) sit for at least a month, so I can let it coalesce and I can get appropriate distance from the project. After a month (at least!), I head into the third phase, which is revising. During revising, I’m pretty critical, but I don’t delete anything; I keep a document called “scrap”, where I’ll place sections that I’ve cut. (I don’t delete them because I might want them later!) Revising is generally a slower process than writing because I’m being more critical and I’m trying to shape the document into something cohesive, as opposed to the “word vomit” of the first phase.

After revising, we hit the second Let It Sit phase. This is also about a month. At the end of this phase, I have choices. I can either ask a writer friend to look at what I’ve done so far and offer feedback, or I can do another round of revising before I offer it to someone else to read.

These are my basic steps. What happens after step five is fungible. I might let it sit again, I might think about submitting it somewhere, I might do a lot of things. But the first five stages always happen.

So there you go—my writing process! Questions? Drop them in the comment box below and I’ll answer them.

Travel Tips: How I Travel With All My Medication and Medical Stuff!

I don’t leave home without my pink InPen, obviously. :)

A lot of people assume I am a “bad packer” because I always have to check a bag—I can’t do any trip with just carry-ons. That’s not because I bring a lot of stuff for fun—it’s because I have so much medical stuff to pack! Traveling is easier now that it was pre-transplant because I don’t have to bring machines with me, like my aerosol machine and nebulizers, and all the parts that go with that. But I still have quite a few things that I have to take with me, so I thought I’d give you my tips and strategies in case you ever need them.

The first thing is my big bag of meds. I probably started doing this about 10 years ago. I keep all of my medications (except my vitamins) in a large zip top bag. (I use one of these). That way I can just grab the bag and go (this was actually done in case of random hospital admits. My parents would be able to just grab one bag and take it to the hospital without wondering if something was left behind.) When I travel, I do put my supplements and vitamins in here, as long as they fit. If the bottles don’t fit, I just put them in plastic bags. The reason I take the bottles along is in case I need a refill or something happens (always be prepared!), I have the pharmacy bottle and people can see exactly what I take. It’s also good in case I get stuck somewhere longer than I had planned; this way I have all my meds with me at all times.

Once I’m at my destination, I don’t have to carry my meds around with me, because they’re morning and evening meds, so I just take them with breakfast and whenever before bedtime is at my destination. (In Denver, I took them whenever we got back from my sister’s house.)

The big bag of meds on my insanely covered kitchen table!

Second is my insulin and other diabetes things.

I always carry in my purse my glucose meter (just in case my continuous glucose monitor has a hiccup) ,as well as backup insulin (both types), pen needles, and my emergency glucagon kit (this is “emergency glucose”, basically.) I keep all of these things in one of these pouches and that pouch always lives in my purse. I also try to remember to keep candy in this pouch in case I need it. I make sure my glucose monitor has lancets and plenty of (non-expired!) test strips. I will also keep two cartridges of short acting insulin for my inPen in there when I travel, so if I had to reload it when I’m out I can do it easily. (The inPen is the pink item in the top picture.)

Here’s what goes in the blue pouch: Pen needles, backup insulins, emergency glucose (in the red case) and my glucose meter. There are more pen needles inside.

For traveling, I have to bring more insulin. I take two kinds: short acting (right before meals) and “intermediate acting” that lasts for about 10-12 hours. These live in the refrigerator until I need them. When I travel, I take the supply I need and put them in one of these pouches* (do you see a trend here with pouches?) These pouches are great because you don’t need ice or ice packs! They work with cold water and keep insulin cold for up to 45 hours. These are fabulous and they come in tons of sizes!

So what I do is prep the pouch the night before and then stick my insulin in there. I pack waaaayyyy too much insulin—I’m getting better about that!—but I’d rather have too much than not enough. It stays in a refrigerator once I get to my destination (if you don’t have a fridge, you can use the pouch—there are instructions for continual cooling included) and then I prep the pouch again the night before I leave. When I get home, the insulin that I took with me is first in line to get used at home, so that way there’s no issues with waste or things not being cold. (My insulin can be used at room temperature as well, as in, it’s not “bad” if it’s at room temperature. I just use it first. But not all types are like this, so check yours!)

The other things I pack are: keto urine test strips, and a backup continuous glucose monitor, in case the one I’m wearing comes loose or gets accidentally removed. I also pack alcohol wipes. I put the monitor and the alcohol wipes in their own plastic bag and hopefully I won’t need to use this, but better safe than sorry!

The third thing I pack is candy or something that will raise my blood glucose if I need it. This is usually candy or a non-diet drink (like regular Gatorade that I’ll pick up at the airport if I’m flying). If I’m staying with someone I usually ask them to get me regular orange juice just in case I need it. (Or really any kind of juice, orange juice is my current favorite.) For the trip to Denver I put a few boxes of Sour Patch Kids in my luggage and in my carry on backpack, and picked up some additional candy and Gatorade at the airport. (This is also useful for taking my meds, since some of them are really nasty if taken with plain water! Steroid, looking at you.)

You can see, this is quite a bit of stuff; it all goes in my carry-on, which also holds my makeup and anything else I don’t want to risk being lost (like jewelry) and my chargers, which I need for my phone, but also my cochlear implant charger. My extra CI battery goes in my eyeglasses case, which is also in my carryon, as well as my contacts. (I have two CI batteries; one that is the backup and one that’s being used. I try to rotate them daily so they don’t wear out quickly. A battery can last up to 24 hours when fully charged.) In case you’re wondering, I use an LL Bean backpack as my carry-on, because it has lots of compartments and it’s extremely sturdy.

And that is all the medical stuff I pack! Whew! I really find that the pouches are great in keeping my organized, so I highly recommend those. I don’t use any pill boxes because I can remember what I need to take and for me it’s easier to just dole out the meds individually each day. This is my system, and it might not work for you, but I hope that some of these times are helpful!