Monthly Archives: July 2013

11 Things Meme Reloaded

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I’m redoing this meme in order to have something fresh for the 7 Posts in 7 Days challenge over at ConversionDiary.Com. The one I did last year is here. I was tagged by Ann of House of Estrogen.

Rules
1.) The first rule is to post these rules.
2.) Post a photo of yourself then write 11 things about you/your life.
3.) Answer the questions for you set in the original post.
4.) Create 11 new questions and tag people to answer them.
5.) Go to their blog/twitter to tell them you have tagged them.

OK… so let me find a picture I like.

Daniel and I.

OK… 11 things about me

01.) I’m a fraternal twin. My brother Sean (usually referred to as “the evil twin” on here) is 6 minutes older and 9 inches taller.
02.) I unashamedly sing along to whatever is on the radio when I’m in the car.
03.) I have kissed the Blarney Stone when I was in Ireland with my family in 1998. I don’t recommend doing it if you’re afraid of heights.
04.) I hate cooked vegetables. I love them raw though.
05.) I don’t have a smartphone. Reception inside the house is iffy at best and I’m not out of the house enough to justify a data plan. I live off my laptop instead.
06.) If I’m sitting anywhere (including traffic), I have a habit of twirling my hair.
07.) I love being in the water. I joke that I’m part fish.
08.) I’m an IXFJ. My N and S are almost exactly on the line and flip every time I take the test.
09.) I collect Celtic crosses.
10.) I love things to be organized but HATE cleaning.
11.) I can’t stand having long fingernails.

OK… my questions to answer!

1.) What is your favorite movie? It varies. I like the classic Disney cartoons like ??The Aristocats?? and ??The Sword and the Stone?? as well as ??Forrest Gump??, ??The Birdcage??, ??The Spitfire Grill??, ??Whale Rider??, and ??Saved??. (Same answer as last year because I’m not a movie person.)

2.) If you could go back and give your 16 year old self one piece of advice, what would it be? Hang in there. Life gets so much better when you hit college.

3.) Why do you blog? It’s cheaper than therapy and has allowed me to meet so many interesting people.

4.) What did you want to be when you grew up? Are you doing that? At different times, I wanted to be a princess, a lawyer, or a doctor. I’m currently a stay-at-home-mom and cat slave, so I’m definitely not doing that. The jobs I’ve had that I’ve loved have been working as a library assistant in seminary and working as an admin assistant for an import brokerage.

5.) M&M’s – plain or peanut? Mint.

6.) What was your first car? 1984 Volvo 240 GL.

7.) What is your favorite Halloween costume you’ve ever worn? My cat ears and tail from 2007 and 2008. My father-in-law actually wore my ears at his Ph.D hooding ceremony in 2008.

8.) What are your favorite blogs to read? Personal ones. The bloggers vary from Canadian pastors to Mormon housewives to authors like Rachel Held Evans.

9.) If you were to have a boy and a girl tomorrow, what would you name them? Aidan Michael and Hannah Grace. (Same answers as last year.)

10.) What was your favorite class in college? My advisor’s classes (European religious history and the cult of the saints) and “Making of the Modern Middle East”.

11.) What celebrity do you think it would be fun to be friends with? Still going with Pauley Perrette (“Abby Sciuto” on NCIS). She’s in her 40’s but can pull off the goth look so well. She’s also very much like her character on NCIS in her real life temperment — at least from what I’ve gleaned from interviews on TV.

OK… now my questions!

01.) What food would you never eat even if you were paid to eat it?
02.) What is your favorite Bible verse or quote?
03.) Should jello at church be in the proper liturgical color?
04.) What was your high school or college mascot?
05.) What do you wish you could do?
06.) What book should everyone read?
07.) What is the weirdest thing you’ve eaten?
08.) Pretend I magically arrived on your doorstep. How would we spend your ideal day?
09.) Manicure or pedicure? (Thomas, you might want to consult Alison on this one!)
10.) What is the best type of ethnic food (i.e. Italian, Japanese, Indonesian)?
11.) Grey or orange tabby cats?

Now for the tagging!

Beth Anne @ Beth Anne’s Best because she didn’t do it last year when I tagged her.

Thomas @ Fuller Life so he can have some interesting post topics for the 7 Posts in 7 Days challenge. (I also just totally want to see his answer on the manicure/pedicure question.)

52 Weeks of Blogging with a Purpose: If I Could Be Anything in the World…

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This week’s topic: if I could be anything in the world…

Easy. A child of God.

Oh wait… I should maybe explain this one.

I’m a convert to Christianity. *waits for jaws to finish dropping* It tends to surprise people because I talk a lot about God and I speak semi-authoritatively with regard to my faith. It’s totally all learned and developed over the last 18 years. I hit a point a few years ago where I had been Christian for more than half my life and I think that was when I felt like I wasn’t just pretending anymore. My parents are largely atheist/agnostic as are my evil twin, his fiancée, Jon’s sister, and her husband. For me to have the faith I do has meant lots of learning, lots of reading, lots of struggling with texts and teachings, and lots of having to get comfortable in my own skin.

I believe that Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and also true man, born of the Virgin Mary, is my Lord, who has redeemed me, a lost and condemned creature, purchased and won [delivered] me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil, not with gold or silver, but with His holy, precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death, in order that I may be [wholly] His own, and live under Him in His kingdom, and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness, even as He is risen from the dead, lives and reigns to all eternity. This is most certainly true. — Luther’s Small Catechism

Now go see Becky and what everyone else would be if they could be anything in the world.

The Simple Woman’s Daybook: July 22, 2013

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Simple Woman's Daybook

FOR TODAY July 22, 2013

Outside my window… cloudy. I’m kind of hoping for some rain as that may explain my headache earlier or it could just be the Rocephen shot from this morning.

I am thinking… that I really hope Daniel doesn’t get the cold that turned into bronchitis for me.

I am thankful… for my parents being able to get me home yesterday when I was in no shape to drive because of the bronchitis. I’m also thankful for access to good medical care this morning to get treated.

In the kitchen… chicken marinating.

I am wearing… a black t-shirt with white Freya fur and black running shorts.

I am creating… blog posts.

I am going… nowhere exciting this week. I’m kind of glad — I had enough excitement this weekend.

I am wondering… if Cullen will stop shunning me tonight.

I am reading… Newman’s Apologia pro vita sua still. It’s a long work and I haven’t gotten much reading time these days.

I am hoping… I sleep well tonight. I have to sleep sitting up because being flat or even tilted makes me start coughing.

I am looking forward to… feeling better and being able to breathe again.

Around the house… cleaning to do for tomorrow’s visit from the respite person.

I am pondering… way too many things internally.

A favorite quote for today… “God is love, and that love works through men ?? especially through the whole community of Christians.” — C.S. Lewis

One of my favorite things… naps. They are wasted on cats and on the young.

A few plans for the rest of the week: trying to get copyediting done, blogging daily as part of ConversionDiary.Com’s 7-posts-in-7-days link-up, interviewing respite people on Tuesday and Thursday, as well as Daniel having ABA on Wednesday and Friday.

Hosted by The Simple Woman’s Daybook

Me and NFP

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Katie at NFP and Me has a link-up for posts about NFP this week because it’s Natural Family Planning Week. Here’s mine.

One of my big rules for myself on this blog is that my sex life is off-limits. BIG boundary. Brick wall with razor wire over it.

Yeah… just drove a battering ram through that wall and am talking about it for the purposes of this post.

So.

When I was in college, I took a class in “Religion and Social Change” from the Sociology department and my professor was a complete jerk. When we hit Catholicism and were going to be discussing liberation theology, he devoted an entire lecture to perpetuating Catholic stereotypes like the rhythm method being “Vatican roulette”. If you want to know how bad it was, my little evangelical Christian self was sitting in lecture praying for him to STFU. I honestly didn’t know anything about Catholic teaching on sex other than pre-marital sex was banned and back in the day, the “rhythm method” was the method recommended to avoid having kids. I did know a number of Catholic women, however, who openly thumbed their noses at Church teaching and were on the Pill so I guessed that dissent was allowed.

Let me just make it clear: my former denomination and my current denomination have no opinion on birth control. My current denomination is pro-life (no abortion) but they’re fine with me being on the Pill.

Fast forward a few months to me going in for a pelvic exam before I got married where I was given samples of the Pill. I had a bad reaction but figured that it was a fluke. A couple years later, I got another script for it and it caused me to be incredibly nauseated. I tried the patch two years later. The patch also made me nauseous and caused bleeding so severe that they had to put me on progesterone pills for three cycles to try and stop it. The next year, my doctor found an incarnation of the Pill that didn’t mess with my system and I was happily on it for 4-5 months until I missed a dose and had to deal with breakthrough bleeding. By the time the breakthrough bleeding was over, Jon and I were pondering the idea of a family so I just never renewed my prescription. We had no problems conceiving Daniel and thoughts of contraception left my mind until after his birth.

For those new to this blog, let me put Daniel’s birth succinctly: he was born by emergency c-section at 29.5 weeks because I developed HELLP Syndrome. In addition to multiple organ systems threatening to fail, I also had a 30% placental abruption so I was also bleeding out when they opened me up. I was in the hospital for 6 days and he didn’t come home until he was 2 months old, a month earlier than they were estimating. My first order of business was getting back on my anti-depressants because I was so susceptible to PPD that I had a number of people watching me for it. My second order of business was getting back on the Pill because I did *NOT* want to be pregnant again after what had happened to me. My odds of having HELLP Syndrome again are around 20% and that scared the daylights out of me. I spent the next 2 1/2 years on the Pill.

So what changed?

In August 2011, I injured a muscle in the back of my leg and it took its sweet time in healing. Daniel was being treated for a blood clot that had developed from his central line while he was in the hospital so there was the potential risk of me developing one. After having a venous Doppler done (easiest ultrasound EVER), we ruled out a clot but it still unnerved me a bit that it was even a consideration because I was on the Pill. At the same time, I was getting to be good friends with a lot of Catholic women who were faithful to Church teaching, including Katie of NFP and Me. Reading her posts on the subject as well as what a few others wrote made me re-think the Pill. I’m one of those weirdos who reads the packaging insert for all her medications and the packaging for the Pill (at least Levlen) talked about strokes, high blood pressure, and a number of side effects. After the scare about a blood clot in my leg, I really did not feel comfortable being on it. Finally, I just didn’t refill it after I finished a month’s dose and after briefly going back on (and forgetting pills left and right), I have been free of hormonal birth control for a year.

I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t terrified of getting pregnant but what I’m really finding is that I’m not in favor of using artificial means to suppress pregnancy. My body told me exactly when it was ready to have a baby in no uncertain terms and I didn’t have problems with fertility because I listened to it. It begs the question of whether or not I could avoid pregnancy by listening to my body and learning what signs it gives for when I’m fertile. I had a really great Anatomy and Physiology professor in college who showed us full color slides of the hormone changes that take place in a woman during her monthly cycle so the idea of NFP actually makes sense to me. My current method (which may be added to eventually) is the Lady-Comp. Every morning, it goes off at 7:30 a.m. (though I can set it to go off within a window of a couple hours in any direction) and I stick the probe under my tongue to take my temperature. Once it records it, it shows me a green light if it’s an OK day to have sex and a red light if it’s a fertile day. At the moment, I’m only getting red lights as it’s my first cycle using it but my plan is to learn about STM in addition so I have some back-up that actually relies on my body instead of using condoms or something artificial. I’m not going to lie — the idea of checking my cervical mucus grosses me out — but there is science behind the reasoning for it so I’m willing to try it.

I realized my thinking had changed last year when I was going over my med list with the nurse at my doctor’s office (my med list is pretty extensive) and when I told her that I had gone off the pill, she asked why I didn’t just ask my nurse practitioner for a prescription to another type of birth control. It was a fair question but I remember thinking “why would I want to do that???” I’m not comfy with the risks associated with the Pill, I’ve had friends who had horrible experiences with Depo-Provera, the thought of an IUD being inserted makes me contemplate celibacy, and none of the barrier methods like condoms appeal to me. I’m on so much medication because I seem to be the repository for genetic conditions on both sides of the family that I’d rather not add ONE. MORE. PILL. to my daily pill box, especially one with that many side effects. I know what the side effect statistics are and I’m one of those *special* people who is statistically likely to be affected by them. I’m sure this question is going to come up on Wednesday when I go in for my yearly physical but I’m prepared to answer it and my nurse practitioner is on my wavelength enough that I think the words “I use NFP” will be sufficient.

So there you go… a non-Catholic kinda sorta secular view on NFP. Now if anyone knows of a good mason who can help to repair the gigantic hole in the brick wall barrier around my sex life, let me know. 🙂

7 Quick Takes: My Life As It Is Sung

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7 Quick Takes

I am feeling pretty flattened by a cold that may/may not be pondering a turn to bronchitis so thinking of unique and interesting Quick Takes is not on my list this week. Instead, please accept 7 songs that are speaking to me at the moment.

— 1 —

“Washed by the Water” by NEEDTOBREATHE. (Thanks, Kassie.) This is so incredibly relevant to my life as a pastor’s wife, especially when Jon’s parishes have gotten bitey. It’s such a blessing to know that I am “washed by the water”, that I’m a child of God through it all.

— 2 —

“Give Me Jesus” by Fernando Ortega. It’s a hymn that we sing in church and I love Fernando Ortega doing it because he limits the instrumentation to piano and guitar. It moves me because one of the things I want most in my day is just Christ’s presence with me.

— 3 —

“On Jordan’s Stormy Banks I Stand” by Jars of Clay. There’s been a lot of death among my friends in the blogging world lately so this one is on my mind. I lovelovelove it because it reminds me of the hope we have in being with God after we die and the fact that this world is not our home.

Speaking of such things, please keep praying massively for Dwija of House Unseen and her family The funeral for baby Nicholas is tomorrow at 11 a.m. and they will need much in the way of prayer for comfort, strength, and peace.

— 4 —

“Whom Shall I Fear” by Chris Tomlin. There was a shooting of a police officer in my small town in January and it was definitely a tough week for us. He was a K-9 officer and all of us felt so much pain for his canine partner who couldn’t understand why his master had departed. I was out for a late night Jack in the Box run (don’t judge) and this came on the radio. It was seriously perfect timing.

— 5 —

“Who Am I” by Casting Crowns. This has been a favorite since I heard it on the radio while driving back from Appleton when we lived in Minnesota. My father-in-law reminds me frequently to “remember not only who you are but whose you are.” This song answers that beautifully.

— 6 —

“The Way” by Jeremy Camp. I am not at all ashamed to admit that I sing along with the radio in the car. LOUDLY. 🙂 This is one of my favorites to sing along with whether it be on KLOVE, Air1, or a mixed CD. I may have also cranked up the volume and blasted it to drown out inappropriate music from other cars at stoplights… a few times.

— 7 —

“God’s Not Dead” by the Newsboys. This is another song I love to belt out in the car when it comes on the radio. I haven’t used it to drown out inappropriate music from car stereos at stoplights only because I didn’t have it on a CD… until now. 😀 With the confusion over the Pope offering a plenary indulgence for those who follow World Youth Day on Twitter, I thought it was appropriate for this week. By the way, the best line from the article linked in this Quick Take is from the last paragraph:

The worst headline came from the normally careful Slate: Pope Francis is not offering indulgences ??in exchange for Twitter followers.?? He has plenty of Twitter followers. But he??d probably exchange a few hundred of them for headline writers who actually read the story.

I love the wit of Fr. James Martin, S.J. and I recommend his book Between Heaven and Mirth very highly.

For more Quick Takes, visit Jen at ConversionDiary.Com.

Five Favorites: Miscellanea (IX)

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Five Favorites

One

Not a favorite. Let me be clear: this one is NOT a favorite. Dwija from House Unseen just lost her son Nicholas at 21 weeks 3 days gestation. Please send prayers, positive energy, good thoughts, or whatever you do to her and the rest of the Borobia family at this time. I’m wishing I lived anywhere within driving range so I could bring them food, take care of the littles, hug them, and cry with them. Such is the nature of bloggy friendships — we may never meet in person but we know each other by our souls.

Two

Jenn’s Litany Run. Jenn has discerned her vocation as being a nun with the Norbertine Canonesses but in order to enter in August, she has to be debt-free. She has $33K of student loans to pay off and someone has offered to match any donations between now and July 31st. That means that $25 becomes $50, $100 becomes $200, and so on. Go on over and toss a few bucks her way.

Three

The shirt mentioned in #4 on Kelly’s Five Favorites this week. Kelly commented that she needs a shirt that says “socially awkward and unable to shut up.?? If that shirt is ever printed, I seriously need a copy. I seem to be putting my foot in my mouth this week and just opening it to switch feet.

Four

Robitussin. I’m fighting allergy crud that has migrated to my chest so I was up until 4 because breathing hurt. Robitussin is getting rid of some of the crud. I saw my nurse practitioner today and it’s apparently not an infection so I’m on orders to get intimate with my inhaler to deal with the breathing issues and she ordered up some Tessalon pearls to help with the cough. Robitussin has helped though.

Five

Trader Joe’s Honey. One thing that irks me is the fact that a lot of the honey you buy in the grocery store isn’t from the US and some of it isn’t honey. There was an investigation by one of the Seattle newspapers in 2008 or 2009 that showed antibiotics in honey that was imported from China and as I was working for an import brokerage at the time, this didn’t surprise me. One of the store brand honeys that they tested that was what it said it was came from Trader Joe’s so I’ve been buying my honey from them if I don’t have the option of getting it from the beekeepers themselves.

Go love up Hallie and the others.

52 Weeks of Blogging with a Purpose: If I Were To Win the Lottery…

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The topic for this week: if I were to win the lottery…

[+] I’d take the cash option. I’m with Becky on this one. It’s more money than I think I’d ever see in my life and I would be investing it so that the amount grows over time, especially if it was hundreds of millions.

[+] I would pay off all our debt and that of my parents and in-laws. Both sets of parents made a lot of sacrifices for my husband and I and it’s the least we could do to help them out. As for our debt, it would be nice to wipe the slate clean and not have a car payment, student loans, or credit card bills.

[+] I would set up a trust for Daniel. Best case, he will have something to help out when he gets older. Worst case, it would fund his care if something happened to Jon or me.

[+] I would re-train as a respiratory therapist. I actually do better when I am working because it gives me some structure and I’d love to be able to do something I love. Unfortunately, this means re-training so I’d like to be able to do so without having to figure out financial aid.

[+] I would give a huge chunk away. I would definitely tithe it but I’d also want to do things like build schools in third world countries, help to re-hire laid-off teachers in Sacramento, fund a preeclampsia study, fund autism research, and make a large number of Kiva loans. I’d also help out a bunch of families with their adoption expenses.

I don’t think I’ve ever bought a lottery ticket on my own but it’s nice to dream sometimes.

Now go see Becky and what everyone else would do if they won the lottery.