LuLaRoe - More Than Just Leggings

For about a year now, I've been hearing people raving about a company called LuLaRoe, and their "amazing" leggings.  Some women I know especially seem to go nuts over the ones that come in crazy and bold patterns.  Not really being a legging girl myself, I never saw a reason to look into the craze.

But I was recently contacted by a reader, Courtney, who is a consultant for LuLaRoe.  What she told me about the company was intriguing.  It is a Christian company that strives to make modest clothing for women - especially moms - that's both comfortable and fashionable.   I poked around the internet a bit, and learned that they in fact have much more than just leggings!  They also make dresses, skirts, and tops, as well as clothing for girls and juniors.

So I took Courtney up on her offer to test out a few of their items to see what I thought.  The following is my honest review, so you can see if you too would be interested in giving some of their clothing a try.

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LuLaRoe has an interesting business model.  They only create about 2000 pieces of clothing in each of their (many) specific prints/fabrics.  And the consultants are not able to choose the exact prints they receive for their inventory.  This means that each of them end up with a totally unique collection of items.  So if you're hunting for an exact style and print, it may take you quite a while to track down!

Nicole Dress

This is a pretty simply-constructed piece.  I love the longer length of the sleeves.  It comes about to the knees, and has a nice drape to it.  And lucky for me, Courtney even had one in stock in my favorite color!

My only complaint is that the material felt a bit thin.  With such a light color, I was worried if the dress may be slightly see-through (my husband assured me it wasn't).


Lola Skirt

I tried a black lace version of this skirt.

I like that a section of the lace hangs down below the liner of the skirt.  I think it adds some visual interest, and also ensures that you notice the lace detailing.  If the whole skirt were lined, the lace may well get swallowed up in the sea of black.

This skirt has an elastic waist, so I know I can wear it anytime - pregnant, post-partum, etc.  And I think it could work as part of either a casual or dressy outfit.  No complaints about this one - I like it!

Amelia Dress

This style is definitely more elaborate and structured than the Nicole dress.  The skirt is pleated, the arms have a bit of gathering at the top, and the material is more substantial.

Oh, and it has pockets!

I had heard that a lot of ladies like to wear this one backwards, with the zipper in the front, so that they're able to nurse a baby in it.  In case you're curious about that, here's what that would look like.

Tom was taking the photos and kept saying "elongate your neck!"

ummm....I'm not sure what I think.  It might look a little funny this way?  But maybe if you didn't know it was "backwards," you wouldn't be able to tell?

I insisted to Tom that it would look stupid if I untucked the top part, and he didn't believe me until I showed him.

yep

The funny thing is, when I first tried everything on in the mirror, I really preferred the Amelia dress.  But looking at the photos, I actually think the Nicole dress suits me better.  Tom is always telling me I don't have a great sense of what looks good on me!  Perhaps I should start photographing my outfits each morning :-P

Leggings

And lastly, Courtney surprised me by throwing in a pair of LuLaRoe's famous leggings.  These ones were just plain black, which is perfect actually, because the only time I wear leggings is to add some extra warmth underneath a skirt.  I don't need the fun patterns, because no one would really see them anyways!

I have to say - these leggings are every bit as comfortable as people say they are!  They are somewhat high-waisted, which means they stay up really well, and you don't have to keep hiking them back up your hips all day.  But they aren't so tight that they create bulges around your middle.  I was impressed with these leggings, and will definitely be getting a lot of use out of them.

***

If you want to learn more about LuLaRoe, or order anything for yourself, please check out Courtney's Facebook page.

You can also contact her at llrcourtney@gmail.com or by phone at (724)317-8469 if you live within 2.5 hours of her house in Dunbar, PA and might be interested in hosting an online or in-person LuLaRoe party.

Recent Quilting Projects

I'm so grateful for the local quilting group I've discovered.  I enjoy having a craft to work on, and I think I'm just burned out from knitting (not that I was ever very good at it).  It's just a great little break for me to be able to to get away one (and sometimes two!) evenings a night to just sit and quilt with other ladies.  I'm the youngest one in the group by far, and I stand out from the other members in various other ways....but in some ways, it's really good to get a glimpse of the world outside of my little bubble.

I finished my baby quilt, which was the first project we all did in the group.  Right now, it's hanging on a quilt rack in Stella's room, adding a pretty pop of color to the corner.  At some point - when I figure out what the heck I want to do with Stella's bedroom - I hope to hang it on her wall.

I mentioned before how our instructor was having us slowly make a queen-size quilt via "mystery blocks of the month."  The idea is that she tells you ahead of time how much to buy of various fabrics (of your choosing), and each month, hands you the pattern to assemble one square.  By the end of a year, you can join the blocks all together to create a quilt.

Well, instead of moving on to a second project like most of the other quilters, I've just been working on my blocks-of-the-month (which my instructor was nice enough to give me all the patterns for at once).  Fabric isn't cheap, so I want to use what I have, and wait awhile before I spend a bunch of money to start a new quilt.

I have 7 out of 12 blocks finished so far... (colors chosen to match our now-purple bedroom)

DIY Jewelry Hangers: Pretty and Functional

So, I sort of have a jewelry storage problem.  It's not that I have too much jewelry - oh no no, of course not!  It's simply that I don't have enough space to store my massive collection*  ;-)

Tom had been offering to make me some sort of earring hanger for a long time, but I kept saying I was alright with what I was already using (an overflowing compartmentalized velvet-lined (a.k.a. total dust-magnet) tray).  Really, it just wasn't working well for me.  I had trouble finding whatever pair of earrings I was hunting for each morning, and many of them got buried (by other earrings or by dust?  I can't really say.) that they became forgotten.

Luckily, this past Christmas, my darling husband went out on a limb and decided to whip together a pretty frame for displaying my biggest earrings, and I realized how very handy it was.

It was an easy little project for him.  He "re-purposed" the wooden frame from a picture we no longer wanted (if you don't have one already sitting around, you can always find tons of ugly pictures at thrift stores for a couple bucks and just buy them for the frame), and painted it purple to match our bedroom colors.  Then he bought a small piece of wire mesh, cut it to size with tin snips, and used glazier's points to hold it on the back.  Easy peasy.

Close-up of the back so you can see how the glazier's points are pressed into the wood

It's been a great solution for organizing all my biggest earrings.  Now that I can see them, I've been wearing them all much more often.  It only works well for hook-back styles, though.  My smaller or post-back earrings still live in that dusty old tray.

After the success of the earring holder, I was looking for a good way to hang some of my necklaces as well.  In the old house, I had put a row of seventeen big nails in the wall to hang them from:

Old necklace storage

I didn't mind it, but Tom thought it looked sloppy, and asked me to please not make seventeen holes in the wall of our new house!  I kept trying to think of a better way to hang necklaces that would be practical but also in my style.  Eventually it hit me that I could combine my old nails-in-the-wall method with Tom's pretty frame idea.  What is marriage about, if not compromise, huh?

Behold my new necklace frame!

Ten holes now, not seventeen.  Are you happy, honey? :-)

This was incredibly easy  to make.  I searched thrift stores for awhile until I found a similar-looking wooden frame that was roughly the same size as the earring one.  I gave it the same purple paint treatment, and hung it up empty on the wall.  Then I just nailed nails right into the wall inside the space of the frame, and hung all my big necklaces from them.


And now both sides of my dresser match.

Please ignore those ugly peach walls (with matching peach trim around the doors- really, who does that?!) - I'm dying to re-paint them, but other projects are taking precedence right now

Thanks for reading about my little project.  I hope it inspires someone who might be looking for a way to display or organize their jewelry.



*Don't worry, I'm not a compulsive shopper - most of these were gifts from my mom or husband, over many years! 

Why I Don't Hate My Body Anymore

For the first time since adolescence, I think I'm finally becoming comfortable with my body.

It happed like this.

Like so many females, I spent my pre-teen and teen years longing to be thinner.  Wanting my body to resemble the women's figures in magazines and movies, or at least to fit into a smaller pant size like the other girls.  Searching after that elusive "skinniness" every teen talks about.

I was on my high school's crew team, which is a very demanding sport.  I was fit, I was healthy, I could row like a beast (funny - that word used to be a high compliment for us back in the day, but I'm not sure that I'd like to be called a beast anymore!).  Even though my body could do so much, I cared only about the way it looked.  And it still didn't look skinny enough.

In college, I went for runs everyday: 3-6 miles long, sometimes more.  I ran two full marathons, two half marathons, and countless smaller races.  I ate more healthily than ever in my life.  Really, I was in the best shape I will probably ever be.  But even at my lowest adult weight - you know, that number that you would have to work really really hard to keep over the long term - I still didn't feel thin enough.  I just wanted to have a waist.  For my body to go in at the middle!  Maybe not the ideal hourglass proportions, but something that at least suggested that type of female figure. 

The skinniest I ever was.  And I think this photo just caught me at a good angle.

 
I've finally accepted that I never can have that.  To be specific: my frame just won't allow it.  My ribcage and my hipbones have barely an inch between them, and there's no room for me to ever have a waist, "unless", as Tom jokes "you have a couple ribs removed".  My legs, despite the fact that I barely get any exercise these days are still extremely muscular - more so than many men I know.  Some people might envy them, but they're just not very feminine.  It's how I'm made.

I debated posting a bathing suit picture for modesty reasons.  But I think it's relevant to the story I'm telling.

Marriage was the first step in helping me to accept the body I was given.  When you marry and begin to share your body and your life with another person, you come to see that the body has so much more value and meaning than just an appealing outer covering.  We have a body because we are meant to use it, to give it, to serve others with it.

Plus, my husband loved me and loved my body.  So it couldn't be completely terrible, right?

During pregnancy and childbirth, your body gets stretched to its limits (metaphorically, I mean...but actually in a literal sense as well!).  It wasn't until I had grown a tiny human inside of myself for nine months, used my body to painfully bring that human into the world, and then spent the next year further nurturing him with the milk that I was miraculously making that I really understood what I was capable of.  My body can do amazing and wonderful things!  This is what my body was made for - what everyone's body was made for: to allow them to carry out their vocation.  Whatever that may be. 

My vocation right now is to be a wife to my husband, to birth babies, and to do the work of raising them.  My vocation is not to have an hourglass figure. It's time to give myself permission to not have to be thin.  As long as I'm doing my part to keep my body reasonably healthy - i.e. able to perform my duties - I think I'm doing what I should.

I wanted a picture of me wearing a baby, but the only one I can find has me eating a cookie...right after I finished talking about being healthy!

I won't pretend to understand the deep mysteries of personhood....about the fact that we don't just have bodies, but that we are bodies.  But what I do know is that if my body is "me", it seems useless to keep going through life hating myself. 

A Week in Feminine Dress

I participated again in A Week in Feminine Dress over at The Catholic Lady.  Stop by to see what her readers and I have been wearing.

As I was looking over my photos before sending them to her, it occurred to me that I've finally found my own personal style.  I know what sort of clothes I feel happy in now, and that's all I let myself buy and keep.  I'm attracted to bright colors and bold prints.  I like clothes that with a bit of a boho feel to them, and I accessorize with colorful jewelry.

For too long, I let myself be limited by what the latest styles were - in other words, the often disappointing selection for sale in the stores.

I was twenty years old when I decided to start increasing the number of skirts in my wardrobe, and to otherwise strive to dress more femininely (previously, I was a self-professed "jeans and a t-shirt kind of gal").  That was almost ten years ago now.  Over that time, popular styles have gone through several periods where it was almost impossible to find a skirt that wasn't a mini-skirt or a top that didn't show half my chest.  I would be out shopping, searching in vain.  And then I'd spot the one skirt in the store that was slightly on the longer side and get so excited by my victory that I'd just buy it right away without a thought to whether I really and truly liked the style and the fit.  So I amassed a closet full of clothes that may have met my impression of feminine, but just weren't fun to wear.

And when you don't feel pretty in the majority of your wardrobe, you begin to just feel frumpy.  I would find myself wearing a preppy polo shirt, or a pink lacy top, or a silky floral skirt and just feel as if I was wearing a costume.  I was dressing like someone else, instead of like me.

I suspect this might be one reason some women hesitate to start wearing more skirts, even when they're attracted to the idea.  They imagine that they must dress to fit some mold, or some very specific notion of "feminine."  They know they don't want to look like they just walked out of Little House on the Prairie, or a Jane Austen novel, or the Duggar house (God love 'em!).

But the good news is, you don't have to look like anyone else!  Think of all the ways women have found to dress over the centuries in ways which fit their unique personality, yet still respect their feminine nature.  There's a look for everyone, and I guess my advice is to just pick pieces that you love and stop following the latest trends.

I'm pretty sure the reason I finally arrived at a point where I feel that my wardrobe is all truly "me" is because I stopped shopping at the retail stores.  When Sly was born, I quit my job, and we suddenly had to survive on a teeny tiny tiny budget.  I had already been using thrift store clothes to supplement my wardrobe, but at that point I had to learn how to start shopping at them exclusively - or else get no "new" clothes ever.  At thrift stores, you're not bound by the current hot trends.  Everything in there is at least a year old (sometimes as much as thirty years old!), so you have a wide range of styles to browse and try on.  You get to know what you like, what works on your body.

It does take some time to build up your wardrobe with clothes that are "you", and weed out those that aren't.  But when you arrive there, it feels so great to be truly comfortable and satisfied with almost everything you wear!


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Addendum:
If anyone is looking to enhance their wardrobe with some beautiful feminine styles from eShakti (see my review of one of their dresses here), you can use the code "extraordinaries" to receive 10% off your order through July 21st.

Pretty Things: Dresses and Blossoms of Orange

I've been hearing a lot of good things about eShakti around the internet recently, so I was very pleased to get a chance to try out one of their dresses.

They have a huge inventory - mostly dresses and skirts.  One of the best features is that their clothes are completely customizable, if you're looking for something a little different.  You can change the neckline, hemline, sleeve length, etc. to suit your style.  AND the dresses have pockets!

The quality is good, and the prices are reasonable, though more than what I'd usually spend for clothes.  Ok, let's be honest, pretty much the only clothes I buy these days come from thrift stores.  But if in the future I have a special event to go to or some birthday gift-money burning a hole in my pocket, I would absolutely consider another eShakti dress.

Here's the dress I picked.  It's custom-fit since I did specify all my exact measurements, but I did not choose to change the shape at all from the original style.  I love the dress, though if I did it again, I'd probably have the sleeves cut to cover the shoulders a little more.

Why no, my skin has not seen sunlight for months...why do you ask?

I picked out a lovely orange summery dress.  I knew it would be smarter to look for a style that I could actually nurse a baby in...but the few dresses that seemed conducive to nursing were just not "calling my name."  People have told me that orange is a good color on me, but it's difficult to find nice-looking orange clothing (at least in the thrift stores).  I saw this pretty orange dress, and just had to get it.

I really don't have much of a waist, but this dress makes it look like I do - ha!

pockets!

The shape is simple, but the dress is very well-made of sturdy soft cotton.  I love the big tucks along the bottom of the skirt.

I have a few weddings to attend in the late summer/early fall, and this should be perfect!

Check out eShakti on:

Facebook

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*****

There is an ugly bush/tree thing in our backyard that's been on my mental "hit list" for the garden since we first moved in.  We decided that this summer, we're not doing anything with the outside of the house or the yard, since we already have so many projects to deal with inside.  We're going to give everything this one summer to grow and bloom and defend its right to stay.  But this particular plant was so unattractive that I had already decided it would have to come out next spring. 

And then it bloomed.  It turns out it's a mock orange, which makes very attractive little mock orange blossoms.

But you can still see the ugly shape underneath!

Last week, I went out each morning to cut off some flowers to put in containers around the house.  I gave several bunches of the blossoms away to friends as gifts.  I love having fresh flowers around.

So now I'm torn.  Does one week of beautiful flowers make up for fifty-one weeks of having a scrubby bush-tree thing taking up space in our yard?

One more thing to consider:  Our elderly next-door neighbor has lived in their house since she was a girl.  She told us that her father had planted a whole row of mock oranges along the property line, and this one is the only one left (though it seems it was actually on our side of the line, based on where the fence got put in).  She surely has a sentimental attachment to it, which I do respect....But she's not the one who has to deal with it!

House and Curly Girl Updates

*Just because I always write about stuff when it's new and exciting, and then forget to record any new developments!*

House-Hunt Update

Today while he was at work, Tom discovered a piece of paper through a random occurrence which he took to be a "sign from God" (but which didn't seem all that out of the ordinary to me -haha).  On it, he learned about another possible program to help first-time homebuyers.  If you're buying within the city and are under a certain income level, you can qualify for a special grant to assist with downpayment/closing costs, and a very low percent down.  Tom took this as an excuse to break our little rule about scanning the real estate sites "just for fun".

And he found a house - for an amazingly low price - that has everything we require in a house (it's old with unique charm, a big front porch, hardwood floors, an adequate backyard, off-street parking, enough counter-space in the kitchen, three bedrooms + attic bedroom, 1.5 baths, as well as a pantry and linen closet!  You don't know what luxuries those last two are unless you don't have them!)...and we can't stop thinking about it now.

I know it's bad, and we shouldn't let ourselves think about houses, especially when I just said two weeks ago that we're not ready to buy yet!  I mean, even if we could make it happen, by the time we get all the paperwork together and figure out some of the intricacies of homebuying, I feel like this place may well have already sold and we'd be left feeling so discouraged.

But we drove past after dinner to get a feel for the area.  It's in a nice-looking neighborhood in a part of town we'd been starting to talk about  as a good compromise area for the two of us - Tom likes the city, I like the suburbs near where I grew up.   It's a nice meeting point of the two.  This house is just *barely* in the city.  So enough to qualify for the good mortgage deal, but not enough to not feel city-like at all.  There's a beautiful big park (with grass! and trees! not just concrete like the park near us now!) right down the road.  And a friend tells me that there are some homeschool co-ops right in the neighborhood.  Sounds pretty dreamy.

Anyways, Tom's gonna call the agent tomorrow just to see if there are any offers on it already.  If there are not...I think we're going to contact someone to help us determine if this could be realistic for us at all, or if we're still just trying to jump in way too early.  I'm trying very hard not to get any hopes up, and just assume that it's not going to happen right now.


Curly Girl Update

Many months ago, I wrote about discovering Curly Girl, and the new way I had started caring for my hair (which is wavy, but not actually curly) to help work with its natural texture.  I continued helping it to be wavy all summer, though 99.9% of the days it was just clipped up off my neck because it was so hot.  Now that it's finally cool enough to wear my hair down again, I've been mostly going back to the old blow-dry-it-smooth method of the past.  Tom loves the waves, though, so begged me to wear it natural for a wedding we went to on Saturday.

(it's interesting to see how much more pronounced the waves are versus the first time I did Curly Girl, in above linked post)

Anyways, even though I'm now shaming the Curly Girl method by using an evil blow-drier most of the time, I'm still following the washing directions.  I only have to get my hair wet in the shower every three or four days.  Once a week, I use a sulfate-free shampoo to clean just the scalp.  The other time, I use a hearty finger-scrub and hot water on my scalp to get out the oils.  And I follow up each wash with conditioner to the bottom half of the hair.  I'm barely washing my hair these days, and it doesn't get greasy!  It's excellent.  And having to dry my long thick hair isn't nearly as frustrating when I only need to do it twice a week.

Anyways, break out of the cycle of harsh shampoos, and your hair will thank you! (ok, it will be really really greasy for a couple of weeks, while it gets the message that you don't need it to overproduce oil anymore.  But eventually...it gets really nice).

The Isolation of the Modern Housewife and Mother Part II

Read Part I here.

I've been reading a book for a couple weeks now which I find utterly fascinating.  It's called Never Done: A History of American Housework, written by Susan Strasser.  The book goes through the history of women's work in the US.  The predominant trend is that jobs which were once done through much manual labor and products which were made at home from scratch have been one-by-one taken up by industry, and turned into consumer products, which must be purchased.  With the obvious benefits this has brought in some ways (hey, no one ever complained about doing less work!), it has also meant an increased isolation and loss of a sense of purpose for many women who stay home.  Women used to be personally responsible for so many of the necessities of life.  Just washing the clothes (at a time when people wore many fewer than today) took an entire day of heavy labor.  Ironing took another whole day.  Food was often grown at home, or at least prepared and cooked from scratch three times a day - over an open fire which took constant tending.  Water had to be carted in and out of the house 8-10 times per day (more if it was laundry or bath day).  Fiber was spun and woven into cloth, which was then cut and sewn into clothing that women often designed themselves.  There were no idle hands.  When women got together, it was for sewing circles or quilting bees.  And so much more.  It's really made me think twice before complaining about all the work I have to do around the house.

I've been pondering so many of the facts and trends I've been reading about, and talked Tom's ear off incessantly with my "revelations."  I am tempted to quote about half the book, but I'm going to restrain myself.  I'll leave you with just this one for now.


"...as women joined the organized labor market during the decades before the Depression, the differences between motherhood and paid labor developed into problems.  Mothering produced nothing tangible, whereas even sales workers - obviously not "productive" in the old sense - brought home paychecks.  Full-time paid workers came home to recover from their jobs and to provide themselves with the essentials of survival, welcoming the products that freed them from the arduous labor of producing those essentials.  As adulthood came to be identified with the economic independence that paid work offered and that gave people the means to buy things, mothers came to be excluded from the activities of other adults.  They met each other in groups organized around their children's activities, not around their own adult work, as the sewing circle had been.  Social life organized around spending money at movies and restaurants offered no place for small children, thereby excluding and isolating mothers even further." (pg. 239)


If you have an interest in history, non-fiction, or understanding what it means to be a housewife, I would heartily recommend the book.

A Week in Feminine Dress

I recently participated in the "Week in Feminine Dress" challenge on The Catholic Lady, run by my friend Colette.  If you're looking for inspiration in dressing in a feminine, elegant, and modest way, her blog is a good place to start!

Militant Breastfeeding

I've breastfed both my children, and plan to do the same for any children I might have in the future.  There was never any question that I would choose breastfeeding as the way to nourish my babies.  Why pay money for an inferior food source, when my body makes a great one for free?

I've never read books about breastfeeding, or taken classes about how to do it...in other words, I never took it up as an an important "issue" to support or to spread the good news about (as I've done for other mommy topics like cloth diapers or using a doula).  It was just the natural thing for me to do as a mother, like most of my ancestors before me have surely done.
 

I understand that it's not always easy or possible for women to breastfeed, and I don't spend time worrying about the decisions of other women on feeding their babies (breast or bottle?  on-demand or by schedule?  mother-led or child-led weaning?, etc.).  Because, well, it doesn't really affect me or my kids personally.  I trust that most mothers love their kids, and do what they believe is best.

I don't get rapturous about ("the womanly art of") breastfeeding, calling it "beautiful" or focusing extensively on the special bond it produces between mother and child (although I wouldn't disagree with those who do).

But when it comes to breastfeeding in public - in other words, when it comes to allowing other people to be aware that you feed your baby in just the way that nature intended - my feelings seem to become more and more militant as time goes on.
 

I have to be in the company of other people sometimes, and I have to bring my kids with me.  If the baby is hungry, I need to feed her.  This should not be a problem.  And yet many people find the sight of a woman breastfeeding to be indecent, disgusting, or at least inconsiderate.  Despite the fact that they probably don't actually see any of the breast (unless perhaps they're looking really closely, or watching for a long time), some people become uncomfortable with the idea of a woman nursing a baby anywhere near them.
 

So while I am absolutely not the type of person to ever be in the vanguard of controversial public displays, I find myself trying more and more to muster up the courage to breastfeed in public without a nursing cover.

...but still discreetly, of course!  I'm not trying to offend.  I'm just trying to show, through my comfort and naturalness, that feeding a hungry baby with that food which is perfectly designed for human babies is a completely normal and sensible thing.  I don't want to give the appearance of being ashamed of something which is in no way shameful.

I am fully in support of these basic facts: Breastfeeding is natural.  Breastfeeding is the normal and ideal way of feeding babies.  Breasts exist for the purpose of feeding babies.
 

I am interested in digging a little more into the history of when these obvious truths started to seem...not so obvious.  It is clear that a big part of the problem today is that breasts have become so incredibly sexualized, that people have trouble conceiving of them in another way.  And most of the negatives reactions against breastfeeding mother aren't actually concerned with the exposed flesh or "immodesty."  Rather, it is because she is using her breast in a way which is not sexual or objectifying.

These cartoons sum up what I mean perfectly:

It's perfectly acceptable to many people to be subjected to barely-concealed breasts in every ad, commercial, and personal encounter throughout the day...but present them with an image of a mother feeding her child - probably revealing much less naked breast, if any at all - and suddenly, they act disgusted and offended?  It's not the breast itself, it's what the breast is being used for.
 

*****

I do have a fondness for images of the nursing Madonna.  But this has less to do with seeing Mary portrayed as the ideal of Motherhood, and more to do with the very humanity shown in this most basic of acts.

 *****

Some bits and pieces I've gathered about breastfeeding trends in the past 200 years:

In Europe throughout most of the 1800s, women who could afford to sent their babies to a wet nurse.  St. Therese (French) and all her sisters were raised this way, and their parents would only see theie babies on occasional visits.

In America, breastfeeding by the child's own mother has always been more common.

Towards the middle of the 19th century and through much of the Victorian Era, strong ideals of a "cult of domesticity" and a very specific and separate "sphere" for women developed.  Rather than working alongside a husband doing the tasks required to run the property, women were left alone to manage the homes and regulate family life, while husbands went out to work in an office or a factory.  Nursing one's own children became an important aspect of proving your worth as a woman and a mother.  Recently, the Daily Mail published a series of old photographs (actually, daguerreotypes) of women breastfeeding babies from the mid 1800s.  Even in an age of much stricter ideals of modesty (wait, do we even still have ideals on modesty?), breastfeeding was not only considered an acceptable practice, but one to be lauded.

The first formulas came out in the 1860s, and by the turn of the century, formula feeding had become considered more socially proper, and was the norm for those who could afford it.  [did the woman's movement have some influence in this shift?  That's something to look into]

By the 1950s, only 20% of women breastfed, most of them poor or non-white.

During the 1960s and 1970s, there was a movement, started largely in the "hippie" community back towards breastfeeding (as well as natural birth).

And today, it has become in some ways the "trendy" thing to do, especially among white women and the upper-middle class (almost three-quarters of whom breastfeed, at least for some time).  It's essentially the opposite of the pattern in the 50s.

With many mothers in the workforce today, pumping and storing milk has become more common, as have special areas at the workplace designed for privacy while pumping.

Feel free to fill in any gaps in this rough timeline, because I find this to be a very interesting social and historical topic for study!

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But again, it doesn't matter if all of society is doing whatever the trendy thing is in regards to breastfeeding or not.

Women have breasts.  Breasts make milk.  Milk feeds babies.  

Just let me feed my baby when I need to without calling me gross or indecent!  Geez, it's hard enough already to be a mother.

American Girl Dolls ain't what they used to be

Last night, my aunt gave Stella one of the greatest gifts ever for a little girl: a Samantha American Girl doll!  She too young to care about it yet, but if she's anything like I was as a child, she will love it in about seven more years!  My aunt had been given the doll for free by a young woman who had "never played with it at all" and didn't want it anymore.  Whaaaat?!  Better yet, I still have my Felicity doll from childhood - though she is certainly not as pristine as this new one -  so now Stella will have both (or, perhaps, her and a future sister will each have one).  I'm pretty excited about it. 

As someone who grew up poring over each American Girl catalog that came in the mail, reading the books, and memorizing each doll's details...imagine my shock and horror when I discovered that Felicity and Samantha don't even exist anymore.  In official AG lingo, they've been "archived."  Ugh.   As everyone knows, American Girl dolls are their many furnishings, outfits, and accessories are absolutely not cheap.  It's possible that - despite Stella's future inevitable begging - I may have decided not to invest further in Samantha or Felicity's "collections."  But I hate to know that they aren't even available anymore.  That was such a dream of my childhood!

And not only that, but since my own girlhood (in the early 90s), the "message" and focus of the company has really changed.  It used to be about getting girls interested in American history.  Encouraging them to read the stories, and engage with their heritage!  Girls would be able to relate to the doll as someone their own age, and imagine themselves dealing with the challenges of previous times.  Reading the stories of the original characters, and gazing longingly at the images of their beautiful accessories taught the eight-year-old me a fair amount about daily life in different periods of our nation's history.  And now that I think about it, may well have played a role in sparking my current interest in learning all about "daily life" in earlier time periods, especially the duties and roles of women.

One glance now at the American Girl catalogs or website, and it's clear that the focus and marketing has shifted to their "modern" dolls.  The dolls that can dress the exact same as you, and be specially made with your exact hair, skin, and face type.  The doll who will be your best friend/identical twin.  You can braid each other's hair and have sleepovers!!  Instead of reading about Felicity witnessing the stirrings of Revolution in Boston, Kirsten enduring a dangerous wagon trek across the country, or Addie being a slave, you can now read about girls who are just like you, facing the exact same boring modern "problems" as you do everyday. 

I see that Mattel bought the Pleasant Co. in  1998.  I am sure this is when the original intention of the dolls really started to go by the wayside.

Anyways, here are some articles which discuss this much more eloquently than I can:

Even More Terrible Things are Happening to the American Girl Doll Brand Than You Thought
American Girls Aren't Radical Anymore

Fine China and Elevating the Daily Family Dinner

 

A couple Sundays ago, we were on our way home from Mass and noticed a sign in our neighborhood saying "Vintage Sale."  We excitedly followed the arrows, hoping that the signs weren't just leftovers from a sale that had already taken place the day before.  We finally found it.  We knew it by the stacks of boxes overflowing with glassware and china on a little back patio of a tiny Pittsburgh house.  We made it just in time, it seemed, as the guy was in the process of packing everything up.  He told us that the sale had been going on the day before as well, but he'd hardly had any customers.  He was ready to give up and call it a day.

Most of what he was selling was dishes, glasses, and old china sets.  He explained that his wife had always hoped to start a business selling vintage items, so had collected the pieces for years.  For some reason, the business had not panned out.  He was happy to finally be getting rid of all the boxes that had been cluttering up the basement.

 Justin - that was his name, I just remembered - remarked that all this stuff would have sold immediately in New York, and for a lot more money.  We asked what he meant, and he explained that they had lived there previously, and only moved to Pittsburgh a year or two ago.  It made me feel bad to hear that people in my hometown doesn't appreciate nice things or antiques as much.  Although...I guess I'm thankful in a way too, since it means I've been able to find so many great things at real bargains over the years.

I love vintage housewares, and there were lots of nice things.  But I'm trying not to bring excessive clutter into the house, so I have to be pretty picky about my dishes these days.  There was one set of nice china that kept catching my eye.  I found myself walking back over to its box, and peering in, picking up pieces to look at more closely.  It was calling to me...but I already have a set of nice china, plus my everyday Pfalzgraff dishes.  I really did not have a use for it.

White with pale green and grey floral pattern

I said to Tom, who was kid-wrangling on the other side of the pile of boxes, "I think I really like these dishes...but I can't justify buying them."  Tom agreed that we did not need them, and gave me the "are you done yet?" look. Then Justin whispered to me, "what if they were free?".  My eyes lit up.  "Hey Tom!...what if they were free?"  And Justin echoed - much to my amusement, -"Yeah, Tom.  What if they were free, huh?"  haha.  Well, we were sold.

I mused about possibly just making this second set of china into our new "everyday dishes", and packing away the Pfalzgraff ones.  Justin told us that his grandmother used to do that as well.  She would even bring her nice china with her for picnics.  All her friends were shocked, and asked why she wasn't worried about breaking it.  She would tell them, "Well, who am I saving them for?  The next wife?"

I like that attitude.

So the next day, I unpacked all the new china, washed it off, and went about replacing my regular dishes in the cabinets.  There's nothing wrong with my Pfalzgraff dishes.  I did pick them out originally, when my mother insisted that I should have a set of them for a wedding gift.  But I don't know.  Maybe I've just become sick of them.  The colors don't actually match the color scheme of my kitchen or dining room, though.  And I feel like the pattern is just a bit childish and whimsical.

My former everyday dishes

It's been nice having some pretty china to eat off of every day.  I feel like it helps to elevate a casual family meal to something a little more special.  Which really, it is.   

Another thing I've been trying to do more often is put food into nice serving dishes for the table.  I'm not to the point of putting condiments or dressing into special little bowls or anything - they can stay in their original store-bought bottles! 

Some of my pretty serving bowls

But instead of bringing the whole pot or pan straight from the stove or oven and setting it on a trivet at the dinner table, it's nice to scoop the contents first into a pretty bowl or plate.  I find that when I do this, dinner is just more pleasant somehow.  It seems less rushed.  It becomes less utilitarian - just a time during which to get food into our bodies - and more about the experience of enjoying the meal in the company of family.

But Sly still gets a plastic Peter Rabbit plate, because I'm not completely reckless with my china!

Also, it's easy to remember to bring out the nice china when guests are over, if that's all that's in the cabinet to begin with ;-)

Shabby Apple Gift Certificate Giveaway!

I'm pleased (and a bit jealous) about the opportunity to offer my readers the chance to win a $15 gift certificate to Shabby Apple.  This is a great source for feminine attire, vintage-style dresses, and modest clothing.  I often find myself paging through the site, pining over all the beautiful things!

Sea Breeze dress

We do things the old-fashioned way around here: leave a comment telling me about one of your favorite products from the site.  I will choose a comment at random next week as a winner!  Good luck :-)

Important Notes: This giveaway is only available to readers in the US.  Also, Please please please!  If your e-mail address isn't linked to your blog profile, make sure you include it in your comment so I can get in touch with you if you win.

How To Be a Gracious Hostess

 Let me say this upfront: I am a bad hostess.  But I'm learning.

So often when we've had guests over in the past (whether for dinner, a party, or to spend the night), I find myself getting stressed out over very selfish things: they're making a wreck of my house!  They're eating all my food!  They're taking forever in the bathroom and I really really want a shower now!


Slowly, I am starting to learn what true hospitality means.  It's much more than just allowing people into your home.  It means learning to generously share your home and your possessions.  There's a skill to it.  You need to show your guests how welcome they are, and how happy you are to have them.

Here are the two biggest tips that I've discovered:

1. RELAX, and let your guests treat your house like their home.
Before guests arrive, I spend the day making sure the house is cleaned and tidied, all the laundry is done, and the pantry is stocked.  In other words, I bring my house to an artificially high standard of cleanliness, and then unrealistically desire it to stay that way the entire time friends are visiting.  I've found myself literally following guests around with a broom and dustpan, cleaning up crumbs as they make them; or washing every dish the second it's done being used.  [Some of you reading this may have first hand experience with this, and I want to offer an apology.  How extremely rude and unwelcoming I was!]

If I'm trying to impress people with how clean it is....well, that's silly.  They're either friends or family, so it doesn't really matter to them - they won't be judging me by my abilities as a housekeeper.  Guests feel more welcome in a messy home with a generous hostess than in an immaculate one ruled over by someone behaving neurotically.

Anytime people are relaxed and enjoying themselves, some mess is expected.  It's ok.

2. "Bring out the good china"
I mean this both literally and figuratively. 

We've only had an actual set of matching china for a short time (purchased cheaply on Craigslist, mostly so I had something to fill the new china cabinet), but when we got it I resolved that I would actually use it.  Nice serving pieces don't do anyone any good if all they do is sit in the cabinet looking pretty and gathering dust. 

It's easy to fall into the trap of saving these things for a "special occasion" or for "really important guests."  But who's more important to us than our close family or our most intimate friends?  I know we don't need to impress these people.  But that really isn't the purpose of our nice things - aren't they meant to be used to show people that you respect and care for them?  The people who are our most frequent guests are probably the people who mean the most to us - shouldn't any meal you invite them to be treated as a "special occasion"?  So break out the good plates, the nice cloth napkins and tableclothes!  Guests will appreciate the effort you make for them. 

I just thought of this, but when I offer friends coffee or tea, I really ought to serve them in one of my many fancy teacups, instead of just the chipped everyday mugs from the cabinet.

About four years ago, I bought a bottle of mulled wine at a winery.  It was summertime, so I decided to save it for a nice winter night when I could warm it up and share it with friends...but not too many friends, because a bottle of wine is really only enough for three or four people...and it would have to be just the right grouping of close friends...and it would have to be snowy and cold out when we drank it...and so on and so on.  I came up with such unobtainable plans for this stupid bottle of wine, that it ended up sitting on the wine rack on top of the fridge for years.  The label peeled off, and the thing was covered with dust that was glued in place by cooking-oil-laden kitchen air.  Tom kept pressuring me to just drink the dang thing and get it out of the house.  Finally, some friends invited us to dinner, and asked us to bring a "wintery drink."  It wasn't exactly the scenario I had dreamed up, but I brought the wine with me.  And guess what? It didn't taste very good anymore.  Despite that, the four of us still had a good time just observing the ritual of sharing a bottle of warm mulled wine on a chilly day.  I definitely learned a lesson from this, and have since tried to put it in practice. 

Don't save things, waiting for the perfect occasion.  If you have a good friend over, pull out the cookies saved in your freezer, the bottle of nice whiskey...whatever it is you're tempted to save or hoard, because this is the occasion you've been saving them for!  I guarantee you will have more fun sharing it with friends than consuming it all alone in front of the television.


So there's my bit of wisdom, only learned very recently.  I'm still not a very good hostess, but I'm trying.  Does anyone else have stories or tips about showing hospitality?

The Domestic Goddess

"The Domestic Goddess honors her position in the home.  She looks upon her career in the home as the most important career in the world.  Creating a happy marriage and family life and raising honorable children are the greatest contributions she can make to the well-being of society.  Even though she does nothing more than live her daily life, if she does it well it is of immeasurable value.  No success compares to the success in the home; no failure a worse failure."

~ from Fascinating Womanhood, by Helen Andelin

Improper Toddler Talk, Date Night, and Thoughts on Modest Dress

Tom and I both have a lot of trouble remembering that Sly is listening to everything we say, and is wont to repeat it.  We're good about not swearing or saying anything on that level, but our speech is still peppered with somewhat less-offensive words I just don't want to hear my toddler using.

Me: "That sucks"
Sly: "Sucks! sucks! hahahaha"
-Tom and I exchange looks-
Tom: "Christine! Look what you did!"
Me: "Oh crap!"
Sly: "Crap! crap!"

And today over lunch, Sly repeated a charming little phrase that he had heard Tom use: "secret butt hair".  Lol.  Don't even ask how we got on that topic...

Another word that Sly has picked up recently is "hate", which can be frustrating.  Now that he has a word for the concept, he's decided that he hates various things.  About a week ago, he began inexplicably to hate one of his winter hats, and anytime we try to put it on him, will yell, "Sly hate it!" and throw it to the ground.

*****

Tom and I went to the symphony last night, having been given tickets by a friend who couldn't go.  Actually, there was some sort of mix-up with that.  When they scanned our tickets at the door, they almost turned us away.  Apparently, this friend gave us his tickets, but then called the hall to exchange them for a different performance - so our tickets were null.  The admissions people felt bad for us, though, and let us in anyways.  Tom needs to call that guy up and give him a hard time.

We realized that it's the first time we've been out together with no kids since Stella was born (over three months now)!  So I suppose it was a date.  But my dad, who was watching them for us, tells me that Stella screamed non-stop for the last hour, and refused to take the bottle of milk which I so lovingly and painstakingly pumped for her...so it might be the last date we have for a little while.

"My plan worked - now Mommy has to stay with me all the time!"

The concert was nice - they played Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony and some other stuff (haha - am I offending any classical music lovers by calling it "stuff"?).  I certainly appreciate the value of classical music, and when I listen to it, I am aware of the tremendous genius of some of the composers, and the talent of the performers.  Yet in practice, I feel like I often treat it as not much more than "pleasant background music."  But I have seen this Symphony performed before and own a recording of it, so I was familiar with the music, which always makes it more enjoyable.

It was exciting to get to wear a dress for once, since I wouldn't have to worry about nursing Stella for the evening.  But I regret the decision I made.  Tom always asks why I never wear anything like the standard "little black dress" when we go out.  So, since it was also his birthday, I decided it was time to finally honor that wish of his.  I wore a dress that my mom gave me a while ago because it was too tight on her.  I never really checked it in a full length mirror, since we were in a rush to get ready - I just threw it on and asked Tom quickly if I looked okay, to which he gave a strong affirmative (ha!).  Anyways...once we got to the concert hall, I caught a look at myself in a mirror, and suddenly became very self-conscious.  The dress was just...not appropriate.  I'm not a huge modesty nazi or anything, but I do have a line, and I think that dress crossed it.  At intermission, we saw not one, but two couples from our church.  And I was too embarrassed to go over and talk to them :-(.  So yeah...it's time to remove that dress from the closet.

When I pick clothes, "modesty" is not a quality I necessarily look for.  This is because I have such a hard time pinpointing or defining what that really means.  Not that it's a bad virtue to strive for, by any means.  It's just difficult for me to say definitively that this garment "is" or "is not" modest.  There are so many factors involved, and I don't think modesty can be your only consideration in dressing.  If I had to give names to they the qualities I chose in my clothes, I would say I look for items that are reasonably "classy" and "feminine",as well as having a color/shape/style which appeals to me personally.  And if clothes are truly classy and feminine, I think they're de facto fairly modest.  After years of dressing this way, it's helped me develop more of an instinct about what is or is not appropriate for me.  If I can say "I don't feel classy" or "I don't feel feminine" in a particular outfit, then I will not be comfortable, and it's probably also not very modest (or else it's a drab, shapeless, grungy outfit of some sort, which I should also be embarrassed to wear in public!)

Goodwill Haul

Ever since a friend introduced me to the absurd concept of the "haul" videos that litter Youtube - where some chirpy teenage girl shows you all the ridiculously unnecessary, expensive, and inappropriate items she bought at the mall with daddy's credit card - I've joked that I needed to do a thrift store "haul" video sometime, as a parody.  I don't actually have the time or inclination to set up a video camera for such a silly thing right now, but I thought I'd share pictorially the results from a recent "lucky" trip to Goodwill I had.

Really, this is all just part of my plan to convince more people to start giving thrift stores a chance!


So, here we go..

An interestingly-colored long silky skirt with velvet trim ($3.99).  Tom HATES this.  I tried it on at Goodwill, and he gave it double thumbs-down.  Teeheehee.  But there was just something about it...it reminds me of something women would wear in the 1850s.  If it was a little longer, I might try it on with the petticoat from my wedding to pouf it out more.  Also, it was very well-made from good-quality fabric, and I appreciate that.

A fun navy-and-white sequined Boho skirt, slightly past knee-length ($3.99).  Tom did like this one a lot.  It's probably too cold now for shorter cotton skirts, though, so this will be saved for summer.

 Super girly pink dress, 18-month size ($0.25). It was priced at $3, but the lady marked it down for us since a jewel-button is missing.
Cute gray monster mittens ($2). Maybe Sly's hands will be big enough for them next year.

Cool ship picture printed on fabric ($1).  I LOVE ship paintings.  If we don't find a good place for this, I might take it up to our cottage at Lake Erie, as that seems a fitting place for it.  It was priced at $5, but the lady marked it down because of some light staining.

Parenting with Grace by the Popcaks ($0.99).  I've been curious about this book for awhile, so it was nice to find my own copy.  I think it's funny how dated all the outfits are on the cover.  Totally 90s.


Total cost: $12.22.

I'm aware that these items may not be everyone's style at all.  But at Goodwill, one man's trash TRULY is another (wo)man's treasure.  I was pretty pleased with everything, and it will all get good use.  But don't say it's because my local Goodwill must be a "good one" or something.  Not true!  You just need to take the time to search, and be willing to check back often.