Weekend Link Round-up!

A bit of good reading from 'round the Web:

"The Courage to Rest":

When I began to try to live by the new, focused schedule, I found that more than anything it was an exercise in letting go of control. I understood on a visceral level why it’s monks and nuns who are known to have the most peaceful daily routines: because it requires great trust in God to walk away from your endless list of demands when there is still technically time to get a few more things done. It requires tremendous faith to rest.

"What’s Next on Sherlock? Steven Moffat Answers Our Lingering Questions About Season 3 ": For all my fellow fans. :)

"wordy wednesday: peanut sauce":  Yummmmm, I want to make this.

"New York Fugshion Week: Tadashi Shoji": This slideshow has so many things I want to wear. Especially the capes.

"Between Heaven and Earth": this analysis of the death of Absalom is just fascinating. (No, really, it is.)


Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Links! Prayer, books, Doctor Who fashion, and more!

Mama Monk's post, "It Should Be Short", is an enlightening and heartening post about prayer.

I don't remember if I've linked to Supratentorial's Read Aloud posts before, but if I haven't, I should have, because her recommendations often form the bulk of our requested-books haul from the library. Here's one that focuses on non-fiction Cybil-nominated books.

momco3 (of "Learning As We Go" fame) has a new blog that's strictly reviews of YA books. It's called "If You Liked That". I especially like her review of "The Hunger Games"; I think she's right on about who would be living in the Capital.

A little late for this year, but Know Tea's post on celebrating all twelve days of Christmas is a good one to read with next year's celebration in mind - and I especially like the keen observation about Dickens' Christmas ghosts.

Simcha Fisher's post "Bene, Bene, Bene" is, like its title, full of goodness.

A great article on the question, "should I marry a man who struggles with pornography?" Moore points out that the answer doesn't depend on the presence of the temptation, it's how the temptation is met:

What you need is not a sinless man. You need a man deeply aware of his sin and of his potential for further sin. You need a man who can see just how capable he is of destroying himself and your family. And you need a man with the wisdom to, as Jesus put it, gouge out whatever is dragging him under to self-destruction.

Yep. Whatever the particular struggle, the person to marry isn't the sinless one, because, welcome to Earth, you won't find someone like that. If you're going to get married, you're going to get married to a sinner. But you want to marry a sinner who knows how to repent. And who runs from temptation and towards Jesus. (And remember that whoever marries you is picking a sinner too.)

I think I linked to Geek Chic's Start Trek fashion post, but this one about outfits inspired by Doctor Who is EVEN BETTER. Yes, yes I do want to dress like the TARDIS. Thank you.

So, what good stuff have you found around the web this week?

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Links! themes on purpose, the Song of Songs, and the fashion of Star Trek

Shannon Hale writes about putting motifs and themes into her novels on purpose. An excerpt:

Many times I've been somewhere to speak and the introducer has talked about one of my books, outlining the themes and giving a really lovely review of the significance and resonance of the story. This is always very flattering, since most introducers just read my bio from my website or book jacket. But then so often she or he will turn to me and say congenially, "You probably didn't even know you put all that in the story, did you?" 

But of course I did.

This reflection, posted over on First Things, about the Song of Songs is both thoughtful and beautiful. (Hmm. Do you think a reflection about the Song of Songs could possibly be good and not beautiful? I doubt it.)

From the profound to the slightly-silly-but-still-fun, a post on fashion inspired by Star Trek.

Have a good weekend, folks!

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Links! culture, SAHMS, fashion, and more!

And Sometimes Tea talks about politics, but more interestingly (to me, anyway), she talks about how in our culture "I disagree" is increasingly being taken to mean "I hate you". (I also recommend the comment thread on this post.)

Jennifer Fulwiler writes about how "Stay-at-Home Moms Need Help". I can't agree with her more. And the comment thread on this article is even better than the comment thread on the previous article.

Betty Beguiles reviews the upcoming fall trends (can it be a trend if it hasn't happened yet?). Though I disagree with her opinion on dusters (dusters are AWESOME!), she has the rest of it pretty well nailed. And she's very funny.

Here's a cartoon from The Ironic Catholic that summarizes the nature of internet arguments.

Crochet is often wacky and colorful in bad ways, but I think this sampler afghan is wacky and colorful in all the right ways. Each square was designed by a different pattern author and uses different stitches but the colors are all coordinated. In its nature it's like an old-fashioned embroidery sampler, but due to scale it reads visually more like a crazy quilt. Speaking of, do you think I'm crazy for wanting to make it? I'm visualizing it in white and blue and green . . .

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Crochet FO: lace-trimmed top

I found a lovely tank top at the thrift store:

I like the intricate white paisley, it's a lovely lightweight cotton (perfect for our weather), and the cut is perfect. Except . . . it was a little low in front.
But then I thought: I crochet! I can fix that.
So I sewed a line of thread to the inside of the neckline in a running stitch and then crocheted a thick white trim directly onto the shirt. Here's the result:

I'm pretty happy with the result. I'm seeing crochet-trimmed items all over the place these days, and I get a bit of a kick out of the fact that I can do that style of embellishment just with what I have to hand.
Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Links! Potter, Ascot, Excoriation & More

First, let's start with our Harry Potter funny of the day. Would you give this kid credit for his answer?
It's always fun to gawk at the hats worn to the Royal Ascot. And I've got to say, I'm digging Topiary Lady's lace gloves.
It's also fun to gawk at the hats worn by the new Duchess of Cambridge. And I agree with the Fug Girls: the white coat she's wearing in the second, third, & fourth picture is gorgeous.
One more fashion-ish link - though it's more craft than fashion - Samurai Knitter's quarterly excoriation of Vogue Knits is one of my favorite Internet events. Caution for language. (The invective gets particularly creative when she discovers VK's suggestion that a 38" bust counts as extra-large . . .)
I've mentioned before that I love Anne Kennedy, yes? It's because she's always writing things that sound like what's going on at our house, only she makes it all sound so much funnier. You know a blog post is good when it starts with the sentence:
"My first answer to nearly everything my children ask me is always a full throat-ed and enthusiastic 'NO!!!'."
Semicolon writes about how "It Takes Darkness and Light to Make a Good Book".

Links! - Lent and Saints and Poetry and, and, and . . . I dunno. Lots of stuff. This one is long, folks.

I missed momco3 over the last couple of months! But she's back with a blog entry about what she learned during Lent. Go read!

Here are a couple really good posts by Simcha Fisher about the saints and how to think about their often-imperfect lives. The first one ends with a tagline that almost speaks for itself, "I like the way he did it better than the way you don't," and the second one is labeled "For Some Reason Saints Act Like Human Beings." I like this part:

God is the light, and the saints are various types of lamps: Some produce a lovely glow; some produce a brilliant beam. Some make more heat; others are better for atmosphere. Some are for ballrooms, some are for bedsides, some are for keeping traffic orderly. The light inside is the same, but different styles show that light in different ways. A surgeon wouldn’t use a Tiffany lamp in the operating room—but that doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with the Tiffany lamp. It’s just not the right one for that particular job.

I honestly think this is just as helpful an observation for Protestants as it is for Catholics, maybe even more so, as we tend to look more at the saints still alive with us than the ones who have gone ahead . . . and heavens knows, the behavior of the saints still alive can make you crazy sometimes. (Chief among them myself. Heh.) Anyway: great post, great thinking-through of the subject. Very helpful.

This entry starts slowly, but I love, love, love the end. Reminds me so much of Adam and me.

Apparently there's a Children's Poetry Laureate, and it's currently Mary Ann Hoberman, who wrote the wonderful "The Seven Silly Eaters" (current favorite storybook here at Casa Snell).

If I liked pink just a little bit more, I'd totally go for this needlepoint sampler. It's so cute!

"The less you have to give up, the easier it is," Kelly says in her post "Babies and Marriage". It's a neat meditation on having kids early in marriage, and the character growth that has to ensue.

My friend has a review of "Moulin Rouge" on the occasion of its tenth anniversary. I watched it about the same time he did - back in college - and remember it as both beautiful and disgusting. His review does a great job of explaining what's behind both of those impressions.

David Wilkerson (of "The Cross and the Switchblade" fame) died recently; Lars Walker has a tribute.

I thought the Duchess of Cambridge's dress on Friday was perfect, but I also loved this slide show of past royal wedding gowns, narrated by the curator of the collection.

Peace of Christ to you,

Jessica Snell

Lucy's Easter dress! (modeled over ladybug leggings)

One down, three to go!

curing the flu blues by making a Harry Potter t-shirt (Or: How nerdy is too nerdy?)

Since our homeschool is lax enough that we give puking first-graders a sick day instead of forcing them to do school, I've had a bit of extra time on my hands today. (Well, not really, but I'm pretending.)

In which I produced this:

In case you can't tell in the picture, yes, the letters DO sparkle. IIRC, I first saw this phrase on a t-shirt on Craftster (though I've seen it elsewhere since, so I don't know who came up with it first) and it made me laugh so hard that I became sure I should have such a t-shirt too.

This is my first time making something with iron-on letters, and I have to say that as a crafting experience, using them comes pretty close to instant gratification. Which is a good thing, because as you can see in the background of this picture, there's a laundry basket full of freshly-washed-linens-that-probably-won't-stay-fresh-for-long waiting for me to fold them and put them away so they can be used again tonight when the vomiting recommences:

Hey, I may not be optimistic, but I am pretty happy. This is one cool shirt. And it just makes me laugh every time I look down at it. Now all I need is a Harry Potter movie opening to go to . . . what? You say there's a while to wait? Hey! I'm finally early for something!

Peace of Christ to you,

Jessica Snell

links!

You might have heard about Steve Jobs refusing to let p0rn apps into the "app store" for iPods, iPads, etc. Someone twitted him about being anti-freedom, and Jobs answered that it was about freedom, it was about freedom from p0rn. (Doesn't that remind you of Augustine's comment about how real freedom of the will is the redeemed's freedom not to sin?)  Albert Mohler has an interesting commentary on Jobs' decision here.
Robin McKinley (who has written such lovely things as Beauty and Spindle's End) has a great post up right now on writing. A sample:

You may be trying to make the story do what you want it to do: you may really like the bit that comes next, or think it’s a really clever piece of plot, or it’s going to bridge that awkward transition between part one and part two, or you’ve been longing to stick the evil giant muskrat with the enchanted harpoon and you’re finally going to get to do it.

And you may very well not realise that that’s what you’re doing. Writing stories is hard* and one of the hardest things about it is the way EVERY FRELLING THING IS SO FRELLING FLUID. Every word you write may lead to almost any other word . . . and the word you wrote may already be the wrong word. Trying to translate that fabulous story that has taken over your brain and your life into words on paper . . . gah. It’s the worst. It’s the scariest. It’s the hardest.

Sarah, from Fumbling Toward Grace has a guest post up at There Is No Wealth But Life about why she wants to be a stay-at-home mom. I have to say, it's one of the best things on the subject I've ever read. I really liked this part:

There are people who make arguments from Scripture, or who try to blame all of society’s problems on the fact that fewer women stay-at-home anymore. While I’m sure that those arguments have some valid points, I think that ultimately they are unhelpful in aiding individual families in deciding what the parenting/working relationship should be for them. I think Catholic social teaching does have something helpful to contribute, namely the principle of Subsidiarity. What this means, is that prudential decisions ought to be made on the lowest level possible. In other words, within the parameters of what is moral, decisions about parenting and work ought to be made by individual families. Each family will know it’s situation better than anyone else will.

Finally, although it's sometimes worth skipping, (and although I actually like what Emma Watson is wearing here) it is for entries like this that GoFugYourself is still in my feed-reader.
Find any fun links recently?
Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Full skirts on dresses

I like wearing dresses, and now that I'm finally neither nursing nor pregnant, I can wear them again. But I'm coming to the conclusion that I'm going to have to make my own, because I cannot find what I like in stores. 

For instance, I look at a page like this (not that I'm going to spend that much because, y'know, thrift stores exist!) and I think, "What do you have against fabric? Use more of it, for heaven's sake!" And that's not a modesty rant. It's an anti-tightwad rant. 

At least, I think it is. Honestly, look at that. Now that I know something about sewing, I can recognize the one thing all of those dresses have in common: they use very little fabric, and that's solely due to the narrowness of the skirts.

Which, I'm guessing, ups the store's profit margin.

But who wants to wear that? People complain about dresses being impractical to wear, and I think, sure, when you're talking dresses like that. Dresses with full skirts, though, are pretty practical to wear. Something knee-length isn't even going to give you much trouble, if the skirt is full enough and the fabric has good drape. You have plenty of movement and even if you take a knee you're covered, because the fabric just falls into places around and between your legs.

But if you're stingy with your fabric, yeah, the dress is going to be impractical to wear. Even if it's cute as a button. (And for the record, I tend to really like how LOFT's stuff looks.)

I want to start a movement: Women for Full Skirts! (An acronym that sadly doesn't quite spell WTFs.) Oh well. I like sewing anyway.  And it's really not that important. But . . . I can't help thinking that if you're going to bother to make a thing, you ought to bother to make it well, make it so that it's pretty and it's practical. Form and function. Why make something that's not usable? I don't understand.

peace of Christ to you,

Jessica Snell

p.s. Some places do slightly better with the full-skirt thing. But that page just makes me want to go into another rant, which I would title: Women-have-waists-that-look-nice-when-their-clothing-highlights-them-but-those-waists-don't-start-directly-below-their-breasts-you-idiots.  Although that mistake is at least more understandable: sleeveless empire waist dresses only have to fit at the bust, whereas a proper dress has to fit at bust, waist, hips and possibly shoulders, making it less likely to be an off-the-rack success.   This also explains why the easiest way to get the silhouette of a properly-fitted dress is just to wear a skirt with a shirt. You can then have your fit at waist and hips with the skirt, your fit at bust and shoulders with the shirt, and the torso length problem solved by letting the skirt and shirt overlap if need be; that way the fit problems don't have to all be solved in one single item of clothing.

Okay, now I talked myself out of being mad at clothing manufacturers. They really are facing all sorts of problems when they try to make dresses blind, without knowing what body type they're going to have to fit.

But still . . .

on dressing identical twins identically

My two youngest daughters are identical (or, monozygotic) twins. They look an awful lot alike.

(And for the record: yes, I can tell them apart, but, yes, sometimes I mistake one for the other. Not often though.)

(Unless you count mistaking them from behind. That does happen more often. Their backs are much more identical than their faces!)

So, do I dress them identically? Sometimes.

The strongest current thought on identical twins – the advice you read in every book about parenting twins (all of which seem to be mainly concerned with fraternals, and only deign to give a paragraph or two to identicals) – seems to be to make sure, sure, sure they know that they are separate people. Make sure everyone knows they are separate people.

To which I think, well, of course they’re separate people. I’ve noticed. You’d have to be blind, deaf and dumb not to. But they’re also twins, and isn’t that allowed to be part of their identity too?

Like many things in life, my guess is that for them, handling their identities is going to be a sort of dynamic balance: I am myself, and that’s most important. But one of my important characteristics is that I have, from before birth, also been intimately related to her. Which makes me no less myself. In fact, it makes me more.

I recently read a book on identical twins (so good to finally find one!), written by an identical twin, that made me think the above is really true.

So do I dress them identically? The answer is: sometimes. Usually, they’re dressed differently, because they are, apart from being twins, younger sisters. Which means that they get their older sister’s hand-me-downs, and there aren’t a lot of matching outfits in there. 

But they’re also given matching outfits fairly frequently, and they look awfully cute in them.

And I figure that as soon as they care about what they’re wearing (probably in a year or so), I’ll let them choose for themselves whether or not they want to match. For now, I’ll dress them in matching outfits sometimes, and sometimes not (today’s a not).

The other thing about matching outfits is that (and I’ve noticed this is true of kids wearing school uniforms as well), sometimes they look more individually distinct when their clothes matches than when they don’t. When there’s no distinction made by clothing – let alone by coloring or height – what really makes the person individual stands out more strongly.  You can’t go by the easy things when everyone’s in uniform, you have to look deeper.

 And in some ways, though it’s been harder to get to know my twins (especially because of the exhaustion effect of twinfancy), I feel like I’m getting to know them at a deeper level than that at which I first got to know my singletons. I can’t know them just by their age or their gender or their developmental stage, because they match in all these things. I just have to get to know each one as herself.

And that’s kind of cool.

Peace of Christ to you,

Jessica Snell

treasure hunting at the thrift store

Today I got to go to the thrift store just with Gamgee, all sturdy and boyish in his camo hoodie.   Adam stayed home (bless him) working on his own project (weighted juggling balls – he wanted juggling balls that were compact but still had heft), and taking care of the girls.

            I love going to thrift stores. I’ve being doing it for years now, and I’m getting better and better at buying things we’ll actually use and love, instead of things I’ll look at and say, “why did I get that again?”

            It’s a treasure hunt, every time. And I always go with an idea in my head of what I want to keep an eye out for. Some are perennial: we always keep an eye out for Legos.

            Also, there are some themes that are perennial: things that are green or blue, especially if combined with white, will always catch my eye. Also anything botanical. Our household items tend to be blue, green, white or wooden, and if they’re decorated, it’s with leaves and flowers, with a definite preference for the edible or the aromatic.

            I like having a big general theme, because then I can move things around from place to place, and they always fit in and look peaceful. (Do other people do this? I think they must. Do you?) 

            I’ve learned – after much trial and error – to adopt a similar stance towards my wardrobe. Again, the base colors are blue and green, with white as my go-to neutral for tops and black for bottoms. I will go for true reds and certain shades of rose, but I try not to do too much of that, because they’re harder to match, and I just don’t want to wear them as often as I want to wear green and blue.

            I generally buy natural fibers, though I appreciate what a small percentage of spandex will do for the fit of a shirt or pair of pants. I’ve learned that if I buy clothes that aren’t mostly cotton or mostly linen or mostly silk, I just won’t wear them, because in SoCal weather, they’re just amazingly uncomfortable.

            I’ve learned too, through years of thrift store shopping, that though it’s fun to experiment, there’s a lot to be said for finding a couple of brands that just always fit well, and wear well. I keep my eyes open for Ann Taylor and Ann Taylor Loft. I’ve had good luck with St. John’s Bay shirts (the ones made from India cotton – so light! so pretty!). I discovered Lucky dungarees, and don’t want to ever go back as long as I can keep finding them at thrift store prices (can’t imagine swallowing the price tag of getting them new!). Banana Republic and Gap tend to fit well too.

            I know some people don’t like thrift store shopping because it takes so long, but I think having an idea of what you’re looking for cuts down a lot on the time. (Not that I couldn’t spend hours. I’m just saying, if you didn’t want to . . .)

            Today though, Gamgee and I spent almost an hour looking at the books. Mostly at the kids’ books. We bought a copy of How Things Work, and an old Arch Bible story book, and a book about knights, and one about the human body, and a prayers and poems book and – because Gamgee was there – one about dinosaurs and trains (yes, in the same book – someone knows little boys well).

            I also found a silver tray (I’ve been wanting a tray for awhile – I didn’t have a one) and a beautiful dark blue and orange silk linen (we also have a minor theme in our home of the international – mostly presents from well-traveled friends and family – and this silk looked very Thai to me). I’m not sure what it was meant for: it could be a shawl or a table cloth or a curtain valance. But it was very cheap (probably because it wasn’t actually labeled as silk – the label was gone) and I don’t think I’ll have trouble finding a place for it. It might end up on the apothecary chest which is currently (I’m not sure why) sporting a (green and blue) yoga mat for a covering.

            I also did find a pair of jeans, and a pair of shorts and a skirt. And I’m all out of Christmas money now. But it was a lot of fun.

            And it was very fun to spend a couple of hours with just my son. It was fun watching clerks and other shoppers talk to him and comment on how cute he was. Usually his little sisters get all of that attention from strangers, and it was fun watching Gamgee be the charmer for a change.

            Because he really is one. He charms me every day.

not that we're supposed to spend tons of time on our hair and clothes . . .

. . . after all, St. Peter's pretty clear about that.

But you do have to wear clothes. (A little girl at my church once made this very clear to me. "Good morning," I said to her, when I met her on the church steps. She looked at me very solemnly, and returned my greeting by saying: "We MUST wear clothes." "Yes," I agreed, "we must." Her dad, standing behind her, explained, "She wanted to wear a swimsuit to church today. We explained that she couldn't." "Ah," I said.) And you do have to keep your hair out of your face.

Anyway, there's a lady at my church who wears salwar kameez every now and then, and looks stunning in them. I complimented her on the bright red one recently, and she explained that she finds them on eBay. Well, I had a bit of discretionary money, so I looked on eBay, and found some, but was then very distracted by the saris. Ooooh, saris.

So I ordered a couple of cotton saris. I already have a very fancy silk one, which I've never worn, since I didn't have a shirt to go with it. Discovered in my eBay searches that most saris "come with blouse" which means that on the end of the long sari is a panel of fabric that you're supposed to cut off and sew into a blouse yourself. Found out my lovely silk sari did indeed have such a panel, and even had a sticker on it that said, "comes with blouse". Yep. So I cut off the panel, and I'm planning on sewing it up sometime after I finish my sister's birthday dress. (Um, I'm sewing my sister a Jane Austen-style dress for her birthday. There's a ball she wants to go to.)

Anyway, I ordered a couple of cotton saris. I figure if they work well in India, they'll probably be perfect summer-weather-wear in SoCal. And since I am so very white, I'll just wear a tank-top under them till I manage to make the requisite blouses. I hope no one is offended at a non-Indian wearing saris - they're just so beautiful, and seem so very sensible. I'm going with imitation being the sincerest form of flattery on this one.

I told my husband, "Instead of being the homeschool mom who wears jumpers, I'm gonna be the homeschool mom who wears saris."


So that's the clothes. Now, the hair. After chopping my hair off last summer, in desperation over heat and twinfants, it's finally long enough to braid again (yay!). I love braids, because I can do them once, in the morning, and then my hair stays put all day long. Plus, pretty! I like braiding my hair in a crown, and I can do a modified version of that at this point, so I'm happy. It's easy to tie a scarf over too, if I want to.

But what I'm really waiting for is hair long enough to do this:


Wow. Check out the rest of her videos too. I love it!

Okay, so there's the vanity post for, I hope, the year. Braids and saris. That's my plan for beating the heat this summer.

peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

shopping specific colors

Okay, so I like clothes shopping. And I especially like thrift store clothes shopping. Because it's much more affordable and less wasteful than new, of course, but also because it's more fun. There's so much more variety, so many surprises! You're not just stuck with the choice of whatever (probably ugly) style is popular at the moment.

But thrift store shopping, and any other kind really, can be a bit overwhelming. And there's always the danger of buying something you will never, ever wear. While there's lots of tricks for preventing this (only shop for what you actually need, think about which clothes you wear most often and buy similar ones, etc.), I came up with a new one recently that's been really helpful.

I've started buying only two colors, other than your basic black, white and denim. I picked my favorite two colors of course! For me, that's blue and green. I'm a winter, so I looked good in a lot of those lovely deep jewel tones, but I don't always feel like wearing all of them. I've found, for instance, that though I look well in burgundy, I often don't want to wear it. I don't know why; I just happen to find it a slightly depressing color.

But I always, always, always am in the mood to wear blue and green (the versions of it that go well with my coloring, that is). To me, wearing blue and green is shorthand for thinking about sky and trees, and that's just never bad. So I decided I'd just buy those two colors, and, hopefully, eventually, everything in my closet will match. (Though I admit, that there's been at least one instance since I instituted this rule when I bought something, well, pink. But I figure if it's gorgeous enough that I notice it when I'm not looking for it, well, I'll make an exception.)

In the short term, what it's done has been to make clothes shopping a lot easier. Thrift stores aisles aren't nearly as overwhelming if you're only keeping your eyes open for variations on two shades.

So . . . yeah! I'm sure everyone out there would pick a few different colors (and hey, maybe your "basics" would be tan and grey rather than white and black), but limiting my wardrobe to my favorite colors sure works for me!


peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell