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. 

New Perspectives on NFP

I finally got around to reading Simcha's book The Sinner's Guide to Natural Family Planning.

I avoid ever paying full price for a book (I know, I know - it's good to support the author.  But it's also hard to fit in our budget.), and I didn't expect this one to show up in our library anytime soon.  I hoped to borrow it from a friend, but they were all reading Kindle versions (darn that new technology!).  I finally buckled down and bought it on Amazon (it's selling for a really reasonable price, so if you're still curious about it, buy it!) because I wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

I have to admit, I expected to hate it. Maybe I even wanted to hate it.  Despite all the reviews claiming that Simcha finally spoke the truth about the challenges of NFP instead of rhapsodizing about what a magical beautiful thing it is, I suspected that she must still be secretly "propagandizing" NFP - something I believe to be a legitimate, but often over-rated practice.

I was pleased to discover that this wasn't true.  She spoke a lot of sense in this book, and shared a great deal of wisdom - gained over the years of her marriage.  More than a guide about dealing with the challenges of NFP, I would say that this is a guide to how we fallen humans can live out a Christ-centered marriage.  Even though my husband and I are not using - and never have *really* used - NFP, there was still a lot for me to learn here.

It's an age-old truth, but something which has continually impressed me is the fact that with age and experience often comes wisdom.  Recently, I've gained a bit of understanding on something about NFP that used to baffle me.

I've shared some of my thoughts on NFP before (see here and here), so you might know that I'm pretty down on the way it is is commonly "sold" by Catholics.  I think people want so badly to provide an appealing alternative to contraception (which is always immoral) that they talk up NFP as being a positive thing, rather than the morally neutral tool that it is.  It's kind of like saying, "isn't it awesome that I got sick on Sunday and was dispensed from the obligation to attend Mass?!"  No, actually.  You may have been perfectly sinless in missing Mass, but it kinda sucks that you had to be sick, and I don't think it's anything to be thrilled about - even if it means you finally had a chance to pray five Rosaries.

At least some portion of my distaste for NFP came about because I just could not understand the motivations a lot of people had when deciding they needed to postpone another pregnancy.  Yeah - pregnancy and children are exhausting, but...who said life was supposed to be easy?  The primary purpose of marriage is procreation.  I suspected that NFP was often over-used by Catholics.  I tried very hard never to presume anything about particular people, but something always seemed "off" about the fact that pretty much every couple we heard about seemed to be using NFP to intentionally plan out each of their conceptions.  What ever happened to just accepting babies as they came - even when they came close?  Do you really need to jump right back into charting and postponing the second after you give birth?  Why do the midwives have to write down what sort of family planning I'm going to use at my 6-week post-partum checkup, and why won't they accept my answer when I tell them "none"?  I never understood the fear I sensed in other women over the thought of another pregnancy.

But then I gave birth to my third child.

When my first two kids were born - I mean the moment they were born - my very first emotions were this intense mixture of relief and "joy that a man has been born into this world" (Jn 16:21).  But when my sweet little Linus came out, I just felt numb.  Joyless.  Tom was weeping in happiness, our doula was praising my hard work and smiling at the beautiful baby we helped create, the nurses were all fussing over him.  And there was me just lying there, staring straight ahead.  Stiff with dread.  All I could think was "how many more times?  How many more times do I have to go through pregnancy?  Through labor and childbirth?  I don't want to do this for the next fifteen years straight.  I would like to never have to go through this again."

I'm not saying any of these thoughts were entirely rational.  And they weren't very holy.  But they were very human.

Even after we brought him home, my transition to caring for three kids - as I've mentioned before - was not easy.  It was NOT EASY.  For me to even admit this means it was a significant hardship for me. I am a person who is usually able to deal with stresses and challenges fairly well - I may get frazzled, but I never feel defeated.  But there were days this time around when I was not sure I could handle it.  When I felt like I was drowning.  I felt like I kept putting out feeble "calls for help", yet no one understood or listened.  Everyone expected me to be strong like always, and adjust to the new baby as easily as I had with the first two.  No one realized that I needed to be taken care of.

This expression of despair captures about how I felt

Tom and I have said from the beginning that we wanted a "big family" (whatever that means.  We don't have an ideal number - we're just thankful for what we get).  And we still do.  So it was hard for me for the longest time to understand why people could feel the need to postpone another baby unless there was some major major crisis in their life.  Why waste those fertile years?  Why go through the struggle and the hardship of trying to abstain and figure out God's plan each month, when you could just live out your married life naturally and let the babies come as they would?  Our grandmothers didn't have NFP to fall back on, and they had huge families, and seemed to be happy enough....

But I had begun to notice a trend on comment boards and internet forums.  In many cases, the people who were either the most critical about the use of NFP or the most fanatically impressed with it were rather young - with maybe one or two kids.  The ones who had the more measured and reasoned perspective on it were those who were older and often had many children: People who had endured the exhaustion and wear-and-tear of many pregnancies, but also felt pleasure and relief as their kids grew old enough to help and began to blossom into unique and wonderful people.  People who knew the anxiety and despair of an unintended pregnancy, yet had also found that those unplanned children were one of their life's greatest blessings.

I was talking to Tom only a few weeks before Linus was born about how I wouldn't be surprised if my perspective on welcoming new children continually changed as our family grew.  I realized that we could conceivably hit a point where we just felt too overwhelmed and as if we could use a break between pregnancies.  And now for the first time, I've had a taste of what that emotion is even like.

So I think I've gained some perspective now.  Every family and every person is different, and sometimes people really feel that they could use a "breather" between the babies in order to be a better parent.  (and I'm sure there are any number of other legitimate reasons for postponing a pregnancy, which I'm not mentioning now).  Most people wouldn't go through the struggle of practicing NFP unless they believed they had a legitimate reason.  Perhaps if they're honest with themselves, not all of those people do have legitimate reasons.  But maybe those reasons don't have to be as dire as I once thought.  If things hadn't settled down significantly for me this time around, maybe I'd be considering joining the ranks of those many confused women attempting to make sense of their wacky post-partum fertility signs right now...

But I am dealing better with everything.  Though life is still very busy with all the projects we're doing around the house, I think the toughest portion of the transition to having three kids has passed, and we've found a new rhythm.  (And um, can I just brag right here for a minute about my amazingly easy third baby?  He goes to bed at 9pm, wakes up once at 6 am to nurse, then goes right back to sleep until 10am or so.  It must be God's special gift to me!)  

So here's about how I'm feeling now: At this point, if someone told me "you are going to be handed a new baby in nine months", I'd say, "ok - things might be a little crazy, but I'm game."  But if someone told me, "starting today, you will have to suffer through another nine months of pregnancy, and then endure the travails of childbirth, and then have another child to take care of, making you the mother of four under five", I'd maybe flip out a little.  I really....don't like being pregnant (Tom is encouraging me to remove the word "hate" from my vocabulary).  But I do love new babies :-)

I still don't want to use NFP, and I still think it's important to think of it as something that is definitely less than the ideal.  But it's presumptuous to assume we will never have a reason to consider postponing a pregnancy.  Who knows what the future holds.  Who knows how my perspective will change as I gain experience and insights.  Seriously, I only have three kids now.  In my circles, that's a small family.  What do I really know yet about life and marriage and child-rearing?  Not much!  But I'm continually learning and growing.

It's Sheenazing! ...and Snow Days

So it looks like someone nominated my little blog for the Sheenazing awards (Best Blog by a Mom category)!  I have no illusions* that mine even approaches the awesomeness of many of the other great Catholic blogs that got nominations, but I am honored that someone thought of me and that I hereby get to put a cool icon of the ever-admired Venerable Archbishop Sheen in my sidebar!

Feel free to vote for me at A Knotted Life, and make sure to check out some of the other great blogs who received nominations.



***

In other news, I suddenly came down with a nasty sinus infection two nights ago.  These sorts of things often hit me when I'm pregnant and my immunity is low.  I'm sneezing and coughing like mad, and my head is filled with pressure.  I still hesitate to say I'm "sick", since I have certain personal guidelines about what that means.  It's annoying to deal with, but I can still function.

But many of you will be proud to know that for the first time in my life, I backed out of two events I was supposed to go to yesterday (with my Catholic moms group, and which I was looking forward to) solely out of consideration for other people who I could potentially infect.  I'm slowly learning.

It's just as well that I've been staying in the house the past few days, since this is what it's looked like outside.

My husband and a number of his co-workers were given permission to work from home all week because of the snow and cold.  I've had very mixed feelings in the past about his work-from-home-days.  It's been mostly nice this time around, as Tom can help a bit with the kids during his breaks, and is already home an hour earlier than usual.

But it can be a little frustrating (for both myself and the kids) to have him in the house all day but *not* really available.  He leaves messes that I'm not used to dealing with during the day, creates more dishes for me to wash, asks constantly what we have to eat or snack on (I know for a fact that he eats at least double when he's at home than when he's at work - what the heck?), and won't let me run the washer/dryer while he's on conference calls (since he takes them in the basement, away from yelling children).  Yesterday as I was feeling all yucky with my cold, dying for a nap and literally crawling up the stairs to bed, Tom stopped me and asked me to make him lunch "before I left him with Sly"...and I have to say I was fairly annoyed!  All I had to do was heat up leftovers in the microwave, but still :-P

But marriage is about sacrifice, and I shouldn't complain too much, since he did take over the duty of sending naughty children back to their beds at naptime while I got to rest, and he even cooked dinner for us tonight (frozen pizza..heh) while I caught up on reading blogs!


* If you happened to read my first draft where I misused the word "allusions" instead of "illusions", I beg you to charitably chalk it up to pregnancy-brain, rather than stupidity!

Our Sort-of "Babymoon" in Phoenix

Tom and I visited our friends in Phoenix, AZ over the Thanksgiving weekend so we could become the godparents of their new baby.  It was such an honor to be asked, and I'm very happy to have a godson now.
 

We left our kids with Tom's parents for four whole days.  We've never been away from Sly for more than one night, and have never been away from Stella overnight at all.  I was worried that they might miss us or have a tough time adjusting, but I was totally wrong.  Each day we called to see how they were doing.  Stella was apparently in a better mood than ever, and learning all sorts of new tricks that I've been unable to help her do for all of her 15+ months (such as walking for real, and climbing down stairs).  Sly would be put on the phone to say hi to us, and then quickly say, "I'm done talking to you now" and hand off the phone to the grandparents!  Geez - so much for missing us, kids!

It was nice to get away by ourselves for a bit, though.  Anytime Tom and I find ourselves out without the kids for whatever reason, we joke that we're "on a date," and make sure to do the little things we never get to do anymore, such as holding hands or (in my case) actually having a car door held open for me (since Tom isn't busy loading a kid into a car seat!).  So we called this a four-day-long date, including the boring parts in the airports and everything in between.

On a date.  Tom doesn't like flowers in his hair.

Pheonix was, of course, quite different from my hometown of Pittsburgh...

Positives: It was interesting to see all the new flora and fauna.  I have never been to the southwest before, nor have I ever seen a desert in real life.  My mind kept imagining the early settlers who first came across this land, and what they must have thought about it, and how they would have lived.  There is a lot of cowboy and Native American history there, and it was fun to learn a bit about it.  Also, we ate some delicious meals.  There are a lot of great bars and restaurants to check out.

Pony express statue

Saguaro cactus

Negatives: We could sit outside in short sleeves in December.  Many people might see this as a good thing, but I don't think I could ever stand living somewhere that didn't have seasons.  Yes, I may get sick of the snow and cold come February....but at least I get to experience it each year!  And there's no grass there, except for the few places which are artificially watered like crazy...which seems somewhat ecologically irresponsible to me.  Also, there's hardly anything there that's old.  Almost all the buildings are 1950's or newer, and just not architecturally interesting to me at all.

Can't you just picture a western movie taking place here?

Believe it or not, I'm only 5 or 6 months pregnant, or so....(I lose track all the time).

Mountains!  Palm trees!

Pretty much every plant in Arizona can seriously hurt you, as we found out the hard way (Tom is doing a re-enactment)

Expressing Romance to Your Spouse

Tom was feeling sick this morning, but decided to go into work anyways.  When I finally rolled out of bed and got the kids down to the kitchen (oh, about 10am....I know, it's bad), I texted him to ask how he was feeling.

Tom: "Tired, weak, and sluggish, but other wise fine.  Thanks you for asking, though...you asking makes me feel a little better already ;)"
Me: "That previous comment didn't sound like you at all...you MUST be sick!"

Not that I necessarily want my husband to be that sappy with me all the time, but a little sweet comment here and there surely wouldn't hurt.  I feel like he was much sappier with me while we were dating.  I know that things change, and definitely our love is deeper and more tested now after several years of marriage.  But it would be nice to see that love-struck look in his eyes every now and then.  To hear him say how much he loves some little thing about me.

Sometimes I ask him to be more romantic towards me, and he has no clue what it is I want.  He asks me for examples, but I feel like that just defeats the purpose.  Romantic gestures, to me, means doing something sweet and unprompted for the one you love. 
 
We realized long ago that we have different "love languages" [take the quiz, if you haven't already - It can be very enlightening!], and this is probably part of the problem.  Because I have to constantly remind myself that, "Hey, when Tom scooped the cat litter after dinner, he was letting me know that he loved me...even though to me, it just seemed like a chore he should be doing anyways." And he has to constantly remind himself, "Hey, if I want to make my wife feel loved, I should actually sit next to her while we watch this movie instead of on the other side of the room where I'd be more comfortable." 

After the "butterflies" of the early days of a relationship start to fade away, you realize that love really is, as they say, "an act of the will."  It is choosing to put the other's good ahead of your own.  Maybe during this phase, romantic gestures don't just happen spontaneously anymore either.  I know when we were dating, I would very often scratch Tom's head for him, just because I knew he liked it.  Now I never do.  I used to not have to think about it - I just wanted so much to be close to him and make him happy.  Maybe romance becomes an act of the will as well.  Maybe you have to go about them much more consciously than in the past.

Of course...if one spouse started doing this regularly, I would think it could stir up some of those old lovely "feelings" (feelings aren't love, but they can make love easier) in the other.  And then maybe the romantic gestures would be reciprocated, without having to think about it.

Can romantic gestures generate deeper love between spouses?  Maybe.  At the least, they could probably lessen friction and misunderstandings.  So it's something to work at.

Has anyone tried to do this consciously in their marriage?  Any tips?

A Lesson in Dealing With Husbands

My husband biked home from work this evening at the usual time.  He panted into the house, especially exhausted and sweaty after the long chug up the hill.  As he walked in, he started complaining about how busy he was at work all day, barely having a chance to take a break, and only eating "one spoonful of peanut butter" and "a pack of ramen" - the only food left in his stash at his desk.  I'm sure I didn't help matters by immediately asking him for a favor (to crack my back for me) once he put his stuff down.  And though he obliged, he was being a little brusque and, as I perceived it, rather short with me.  I was going to say to him, "I know you had a tough day at work, but can you please not take it out on me?".

Me: [while Tom was walking the other direction] "I know you had a tough day at work..."
Tom: [stopping] "Huh? What did you say?"
Me: "I know you had a tough day at work..."
Tom: [genuinely] "Wait.  You're actually showing sympathy?  Wow...that's such a nice change."

And, of course, that totally shut me up.  He truly thought that was the end of my sentence.  And it really made him feel good.  And you know what?  Just showing sympathy and then stopping - not adding a "but..." at the end of the sentence: it works so much better!  He was so happy that I understood him and cared about him instead of nagging him as usual, that his mood instantly became so much lighter.

Living the Dream

For as long as I can remember, I've wanted to get married and have a family - husband, kids, a home of my own.  It began as mostly a default, when I was young.  Mommy and Daddy were married with a home, and so were the aunts and uncles and all the families I knew - that's just what people "did", it's what I knew.  Naturally, I thought, I would do the same one day.  As I began to grow up - specifically, as I became aware that I was growing up - the desire for a family became stronger.  This dream of mine was an interesting mix of a desire for greater autonomy (wanting to make my own way in the world, find a man of my own to love, establish my own household rules, decorating scheme, etc.) and simultaneously a longing to return to childhood (maybe I was too old to play hide-and-seek anymore, but, hey - my kids wouldn't be! I could pass on so many great memories, games, etc. to children of my own).  Once I was college-aged and out in the dating world, it seemed like a possibility that was closer and closer.  I began to actively store up ideas, asking questions of other parents, reading books about strong marriages, taking note of family traditions worth emulating - basically just trying to figure out what things were important for families, and what environment and practices I wanted to establish in my future home.

Even now, I'm constantly taking in new information, imagining how I want our home and our family to be.  I've been thinking so much of this beautiful future I've planned out, that it didn't even hit me: I'm already there.  This revelation struck me several times over the Christmas season.  The life I always wanted?  It's here.  I have it.  It's not 100% perfect, of course, and I hope I never expected it to be.  But I already have the right husband (sure we fight sometimes, but he's a good man and we are good for each other.  Our relationship is slowly, but surely, improving), I have a comfortable house (sure, it's "just a rental", but we've turned it very much into our home, and we're fortunate to live here), I have children (perhaps not the full brood yet, but these two already mean the world to me).  And those little traditions and treasures I hoped to teach and pass on to them?  Well, that's started happening too.  Over Christmas, Sly helped decorate the tree, we made pomanders, I had him add straw to the manger, etc. etc.

And yet much of the time, I just didn't "notice" that so many of the things I'd envisioned were already happening.  In my mind, I was dreaming about future Christmases, when we'd have (hopefully) more kids, and older kids, and all the fun things we could do then.

I spend too much time conceiving this "great" future, and so never let myself fully enjoy the present that I'm living in.  A present that, perhaps, is only as "ideal" as it is because of prior plans and dreams of mine.  But if I'm never going to appreciate it, then what's the point of planning and creating something at all?

To help explain what I mean: the other day Tom and I were sitting in our (new) living room after the kids' bedtime, just talking for several hours.  It was a real luxury we allowed ourselves, since so often in the evenings we feel the need to tackle chores and projects around the house.  I said to him, "you know - this room, even though it's nowhere near "finished" - is really cozy.  In fact, our whole house is pretty nice and cozy.  How many friends have come over and told us that?....but how often do we actually stop and just sit and be and enjoy it?  We're constantly thinking of new projects we need to start, and ways to make it better, and so we never actually appreciate what we have now."  He completely agreed with me.

Enjoying or not enjoying my house is one thing, but where I really need to be careful is when it comes to my family.  I rarely take the time to just relish the little moments with my family that are happening now.  It's fine to look forward to the future, but only if I remember to stop and notice all the blessings I already have, and to be thankful for them.

Sharing a Bed

I found this graphic pretty amusing.  I thought Tom might agree, so sent him the picture.

Here's his response:
"Dude, it really wasn’t bad at all until the baby belly came along.  Since you’ve been sleeping on your side, the horizontal space you take up has been enormous, though mostly due to limbs outstretched onto my side.  I can’t tell you how often I’ve come to bed to find you sleeping right down the middle with your limbs all splayed out on my side… a few times, I’ve actually contemplated getting into bed on your side because there’s often enough empty real estate over there to build a strip mall ; )"

I guess at least I have my pregnancy as an excuse for now.  But I've definitely heard Tom complain about this exact situation before (I usually blame the cat, who likes to sleep beside me in that "uncharted territory" labeled above).  Regardless, the gradual transition in our approach to sharing a bed has been interesting.

I remember those blissful early days of marriage, where we just couldn't snuggle close enough to each other all night.  We had a full-size bed for the first few weeks, too, and it seemed like plenty of room.  We were just wrapped around one another completely.  One time we even decided to "fall asleep kissing" (?).  And we did....don't ask me how we managed to breathe all night...oh, silly newlyweds, we were.

Now, in our upgraded queen-size bed, we feel a bit cramped.  There's more bickering over "whose side" we're each on, and definitely less frequent snuggling.  Eh, that's just how it goes, I guess.  We'd rather be able to sleep comfortably than be clung to all night.

On a few happy occasions, we've stayed in hotels with king-size beds.  It feels like heaven not to "have" to touch each other!

And this is one of many reasons why we could never ever be a "co-sleeping" family.  Adding a kicking, tossy-turny baby/toddler into the mix would just make Mommy really cranky.  It's one thing to lay with the baby in the bed when you're nursing in the middle of the night, and just let the baby and yourself fall asleep (the only way to ever get enough sleep, in my opinion)...but as soon as that little person starts moving around more and demanding their own fair share of bed, it's time for them to go back to their own, I say!

Today

Four years ago today, my good friend Tom called me up to ask if our previously-planned "just friends" tour of a historical house could be upgraded into a "date"

...and the rest is history.

Ancient History: Me and My Hubby

For about a year now, I've been very slowly going through all my digital picture files, and choosing the best ones to set aside for printing.  I first got a digital camera in 2004, and for two years, I was really good about printing out copies to put in physical photo albums.  But I kinda ran out of steam, until Sly came along, and gave me a whole new reason to get passionate about saving memories.  So now I basically have five years-worth of photos to catch up on.  Ugh.

It. Is. Taking. Forever.

Anyways, as I was sorting through some of my backlogs today, I was really struck by something.  So, Tom and I have known each other since 2003, our freshman year of college.  We became friends, and remained that way throughout college.  As the years went by, we became increasingly close.  And then one day - really, it was actually as sudden as "one day" - almost five years later, we both realized we had feelings for each other.  And soon after, we started dating.

But looking back at some photos of the two of us from our "just friends" days, I am incredulous, asking myself, "how did we NOT REALIZE that we liked each other??"  Anyone besides myself would look at some of these pictures, and be sure we were a couple in them.

A Christmas party

A party at Tom's place

Halloween

At a bar with friends.  Please ignore Tom's terrible facial hair.  And don't worry, as soon as we did start dating, I informed him that he could never have a mustache again.

Out with friends again

  

Helping to cook for a Newman Center event.  We both volunteered to cut onions together in the back room so we could talk about something privately.  I don't even remember what it was now.

Dancing in Tom's apartment at his fancy Ides of March party.

At a friend's Hollywood-themed party

Posing as a dorky 50s couple

This last picture shows me with a bunch of friends at my Cottage, the weekend I finally realized that Tom was the guy for ME, and not for the many girls I'd tried to set him up with over the years.  By the end of the weekend, just four of us were left.  After Tom busted out a bottle of whiskey and insisted we all share it, we all inadvertently got drunk on a Sunday afternoon (!).  It was then that it dawned on me - all in a flash.  It was so clear.  Tom and I were so alike.  We made so much sense.  We were supposed to be together.  I realized that for a while, I had had feelings for him, and just hadn't recognized what they were.

As they say, "in vino, veritas."

A Wedding Countdown Craft

My best friend is getting married next summer, and since I am to be her matron of honor (yay!), I feel like I need to go somewhat...above and beyond to help her out with the preparations. I was thinking about how it must be tough for her to wait so long for this much-longed-for day to arrive, and that it would be nice if she had something to help her count down the days. Something that could serve as tangible proof that the day was, in fact, slowly getting closer.

I know lots of engaged ladies have an ongoing "wedding countdown" of some sort. So I decided I should make her something cute and crafty to help her count down the days. I was hoping for something where she would have to either cross off, or remove some object each day. Figuring there would be a treasure trove of ideas online, I Googled "wedding countdown." Every single hit was just some sort of stupid electronic countdown application! I searched again with "wedding countdown craft." There were only two ideas, and both were too simple, and just not what I was looking for.

So, for almost the first time ever, I actually conceived of a craft idea by myself! And - with some assistance from my gracious husband - managed to pull it off!



Wedding Day Countdown Butterfly Mobile

Materials:
Butterfly paper punch
Card stock (pink, orange, purple, white, and brown)
Bronze-colored marker
Craft Glue
Large embroidery hoop
2 spools of thin white ribbon
Glitter (purple and white)

I chose three colors that I know she likes. The pink/orange/purple for the fronts of the butterflies, and white paper for the backs. Also, brown and white to write the name of each month.

This punch was expensive ($10), but worked very well. And I'm sure I can find more uses for it in the future.

Cutting the paper into strips first, and then staggering the shapes helped a lot.

Punched butterflies waiting in bowls.

I wrote out the names of all twelve months on white paper, mounted on the brown. I also made plain brown rectangles of the same size for the backs (so I could sandwich the ribbon between).

I glued the butterflies on, sandwiching the ribbon between a colored one and a white one. I used each color of butterfly for four months of the twelve months. After the strand had the appropriate number of butterflies to indicate the number of days in that month (29, 30, or 31), I glued on the month's name at the top.

I wrote the day of the month ("1", "2", etc.) on the colored fronts of the butterflies, and the number of total days left until the wedding ("365", "364", etc.) on the white backs. I didn't want the two numbering sequences to be confusing, which is why I used different colors for front and back.

Here you can see the top of my "March" strand, where the dates are listed on the colored side. Each strand started with the 1st of the month at the bottom. The intent is that she will cut off one butterfly each day.

And here's the back of another strand, counting down the TOTAL days left until the wedding.

After I made twelve strands (representing 366 days in all, since next year is a leap year), they were hung down around the embroidery hoop. (We glued the ribbons to the inner part of the hoop, and then glued the outer hoop over the entire thing.)

Tom gets all the credit for the meticulous assembly of this! For both the "tent" of ribbons above (which led to a hook for hanging), as well as for positioning all twelve months around the hoop.

After it was all glued in place, I decorated the bare spots of the hoop with "special" white butterflies with dots of purple glitter on their wings.

I also created a special middle section. Since her wedding is on the 9th of the month, I needed an additional short strand to represent those last 9 days. On these butterflies, instead of the date on one side, and the number of days remaining on the back, I just wrote "9 days left", "8 days left", etc. And then I created a big fancy WEDDING DAY butterfly for the end (not pictured: their names and the wedding date are written on the back).

A close-up of the fancy Wedding Day butterfly. After all the work I did, it's kind of a shame that she'll just be slowly cutting this mobile to pieces all year! But I figure she can at least keep the big butterfly as a memento, converting it into a Christmas ornament or something.

The completed project!

7 Quick Takes Friday (Vol. 4) - Royal Wedding, and Other Things

1. I didn't watch the royal wedding. I doubt we even get a channel that televised it anyways. Plus, it takes something really special to get me out of bed so early in the morning! But I've enjoyed looking at pictures online. I'm happy to see the news actually focusing on something HAPPY - a wedding, a celebration of life and love - for once.

2. I always sorta wanted an autumn wedding, so I could wear a dress with lace-y sleeves. But I suppose Kate (or Catherine, as she's now called) pulled it off in April, so maybe I could have too.



3. My April wedding dress.



4. Did everyone read the Bishop of London's sermon from the wedding? Good stuff there!

In a sense every wedding is a royal wedding with the bride and the groom as king and queen of creation, making a new life together so that life can flow through them into the future....

A spiritual life grows as love finds its centre beyond ourselves. Faithful and committed relationships offer a door into the mystery of spiritual life in which we discover this; the more we give of self, the richer we become in soul; the more we go beyond ourselves in love, the more we become our true selves and our spiritual beauty is more fully revealed. In marriage we are seeking to bring one another into fuller life....

Marriage should transform, as husband and wife make one another their work of art. It is possible to transform as long as we do not harbour ambitions to reform our partner. There must be no coercion if the Spirit is to flow; each must give the other space and freedom.

5. I am guessing from all the talk of it on Facebook that it is the feast day of St. Catherine of Siena today. I don't mean to sound like a Total Traditionalist Catholic Snob, but we have the old Liturgical Calender in our kitchen, and it says her feast is tomorrow. As far as I know, it's appropriate to observe either the old or the new feast dates...

Anyways, she is my patron saint, chosen at Confirmation. I feel as though we should commemorate her in some small way....Any ideas?

6. Speaking of recognizing the Feast days of Patron Saints, that is something I'd like to institute in our family - especially once Sly is older, and hopefully joined by some siblings. I think the feasts of the Name-Saint of each child should be recognized in some small way, at least. Even if it's just reading their story from Butler's Lives of the Saints over dinner, and allowing that particular child to choose a special dessert for the day.

7. I've only seen the first two episodes (out of seven), but I've started watching the PBS miniseries Downton Abbey. So far, I'm loving it. It looks at the lives of wealthy aristocrats and their servants living in a big house, and trying to deal with the crises of the inheritance. Very similar to the situation in Pride and Prejudice, the parents have only daughters, and a distant relative is set to inherit the entire estate after the death of the father.


The whole series can be watched streaming on Netflix, if you have a subscription. I hate watching movies on my computer screen, though, so I'll be having them mailed to me in the usual way.

Check out more Quick Takes at Conversion Diary