Pinterest Success

I saw this mantilla on Pinterest:

 And needless to say, I was enchanted and could just imagine wearing this to Mass during the Lenten season. Since I already have a black veil, I decided to recreate it myself. I also decided that I wanted to add three drops of blood. I am really happy with the way it turned out! See:


It's in about the same position as the one above. I'll upload more pictures once I get to wear it.

Have y'all done any fun or creative things this Lenten season?

Saint Anne, Saint Nicholas, and I

For those of y'all who don't know, Saint Anne is the patron saint of mothers and Saint Nicholas is the patron saint of children. I'm including them in this post because I was frantically praying to them on Friday after work.

I'll start at the beginning of the story. On Friday I worked an eight hour shift at the clothing store that I work at part-time. When I went out to my car I noticed that the car next to me still had it's motor running and appeared to be empty. That's when I noticed the little boy, who looked to be about two or three, and the baby, who looked to be maybe six months old. My first reaction was shock, how could someone leave there two young children alone in the car? After absorbing the situation for a minute, I got back out of my car, marched back into work and told my manager about my discovery. We located the mother, who had been shopping for about half an hour before I found her kids in the car, who promptly told us that she had left the car running so that they would be warm and not to worry. I'm not a mother yet my self but when she said that to us, I felt physically ill. So I went back to my car, sat there, and watched these two babies to make sure they were safe. At one point the baby started to fuss and the two year old reached over and calmed the baby. By this point I was crying and praying with all my might. I sat and watched those babies for forty-five minutes before their mother came out of that store. An hour and fifteen minutes they sat in that car by themselves.

As I sit and type this out, I wonder why I didn't call the police, it just didn't cross my mind at the time. Like I said, I'm not a mother yet, but I already know that I could never leave my children in the car like that. If I can't be bothered to take the time to get my babies out of the car and into the store, that new pair of jeans just isn't happening. It still blows my mind, an hour and fifteen minutes.....

What do y'all think? What would you have done?

The Elephant in the Pew

                       I'm sure your first question is "Why would an elephant be at mass?" Not your first question? Man, I need to work on my mind-reading skills. I'll ask my mom for some pointers. But on a more serious note, the elephant that I'm referring to is veiling or wearing a mantilla to mass. If you have done this or even just been in the same pew as someone who was then you know what I'm talking about. There seem to be two stock responses to a woman who walks into mass with her head covered.

A) "Why are you doing that?" " Didn't you know we aren't in the Dark Ages?" " Vatican II abolished/destroyed/freed you from the slave hood of the veil."

B)"Good for you!" "I am so glad to see a young woman wearing a veil!" "You are so brave!"


                    The thing is, I don't feel enslaved by my veil. I feel empowered, set free. When I pin my veil on before I walk into church it focuses me. I'm reminded that I'm not there to compete with the other women to see who is wearing the best dress or made the best pie. I'm there for my weekly date with Jesus. My veil is a sign of my womanly dignity. I can't really put into words what I want to say, but that's what more intelligent bloggers are for! So I'm going to link to a few blogs that say it better than I ever could. In the meantime, enjoy this picture of an elephant in church!




And now the links:

This link is to an article about veiling, the article is kinda long but really well written.
The Catholic Knight











Fish Eaters

This blog post is very concise and has great resources about wearing and making your own veil.

















Catholic Mothers Online

This last one is my favorite, it's written by a woman who converted to the Church and is very honest and beautiful. She also raises an interesting question, Have you ever seen a picture/statue of Mary without a veil or headcovering? Something to think about....

Lenten Meal Planning Monday

It's the age old question, what's for dinner on Friday? You know what sounds amazing? Steak........oh yeah, it's Lent. Never fails, the days that I crave meat the most during Lent are Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday. (I follow the old calendar, hence the extra meatless days) Fortunately, there is Pinterest! This website is an amazing source of endless knowledge. Case in point, I found three amazing recipes in the time it used to take me to log onto the internet back when broadband was still a thing. (Oh my but I don't miss that noise)


Number 1, Lemon Basil Pasta: That just makes my mouth water just by reading the title. Here's the link to the recipe: Deliciousness!    








Number 2,  Tomato Basil Soup: Extra bonus points for this one cause it's a crockpot recipe! Upside: easy, easy recipe. Downside: If you're a professional mom/wife you get to smell the amazingness that this soup is cooking all day...
You're Welcome!






 


Number 3, French Onion Soup Casserole: This recipe it extremely easy to throw together and scrumptious to boot! The only modification that I have to add to this recipe is I would at least double if not triple the amount of cheese. Oh and don't pour the onion juice from the skillet into the casserole, it has plenty of liquid to take care of itself.
Perfecto!
 



See y'all? Meatless doesn't have to be tasteless! What are y'all making for your meatless meals?

Seven Quick Takes

1. Have I ever mentioned that I am incredibly horrible at math? No? Ok well I am INCREDIBLY horrible at math. Take this morning for instance, I needed to be at the Chik-fil-a 30 minutes away from my house 8:45am to pick up a party tray for the club at school I'm the president of before I headed to work for the day. I decided to allot myself thirty additional minutes to roll out of bed and get ready. So when did I set my alarm for? 7:45am right? Wrong, alas my wonderful math skills prompted me to set my alarm for 6:45. But I'm actually extremely grateful, I had morning God Time for the first time in ages. This mistake may have to happen more often...
2. Can we just talk about how adorable M's nephew Monster is? I mean, if you haven't checked out M's sister in law, Cassie's blog, stop reading this and do it now! HERE Monster is the darling boy with ashes on his forehead in the first picture of Cassie's Ash Wednesday blog. So anyway, back to the point, I got an email from Cassie this week informing me that Monster was playing with his BIIIIIIG (BIIIG or Heavy Heavy in Monster's language mean very important) truck and was pretending to go get Nonnie, Big Poppy and Aunt Julia (that's his gradparents and me!) I'm telling you, that little boy is precious! He has such a little personality and knows what he wants. Children are amazing, that's all there is to it y'all.

Monster being goofy

1. Just a quick announcement, three (3) more months until I finally graduate from college and get into a semi set, more regular routine. Scratch that number, Two (2) months and twenty-six (26) days. Not that I'm counting or anything.....yeah.
2. I just want to say that I was taken aback when I heard about Pope Benedict's announcement of his resignation. I'm going to continue to pray for him and his continued health as well as the Church.This will most definitely me an interesting Lenten season. 
3. M, my sanity, my life, my love. We celebrated Valentines Day on Tuesday. Since Lent is a time of solemn reflection and mourning, we felt it would be more appropriate to celebrate before Ash Wednesday. With my crazy work & school schedules and M's project deadlines (he restores antique furniture with his father), and maybe a wee bit of procrastination, Tuesday was the day. So we went to Chili's and ordered steak and margaritas (yes margaritas for lunch, it was Fat Tuesday y'all!) and just spent time together. It was perfect. P.S. This was only our fourth date in six months, as in just me and him for any length of time. Too much temptation in alone time lol.

This is M, he is wonderful!

1. I just got home from seeing the movie Safe Haven and while I do have to say that it had some unnecessary premarital relations in it, the story line was good. It absolutely made me glad that my past is in the past and reminded me to be very thankful for M. 
2. I'm sure your #7 is that I'm finally done! My have I rambled this evening! My #7 is that Latin Mass is this Sunday, I know y'all are excited! But seriously, I have never found peace like the peace of Tridentine Mass

Have we discussed the fact that numbers despise me? Yes? Ok then, don't be too mean about my awesome numbering.

I'm linking up with  Seven Quick Takes today for my post. Swing by and check them out!

St. Jude, buddy, can you hear me?

OK, so first things first, my name is Julia and I'm Catholic, hence the saintly titles, and at the moment, quite frustrated, hence the St. Jude reference. OK so Saint Jude could be a bit extreme, I'm not sure if you would call my cause lost quite yet, but I'm just doing the best I can OK? OK.

 So I guess I should just tell you the whole thing, huh? Well it all started in a bar, no, it's not what it sounds like. So I went to a Catholic young adults' theology group, we're Catholic, so it's naturally at a bar. That's how we do. Well I happened to sit next to a wonderful, smart and somewhat opinionated young man, guy, gentleman, jeez, I don't know, member of the opposite sex. We spent the whole event (some five hours) talking about everything from family to college to religion and back again. I didn't know if he felt the same way but I really really liked him and thought we connected. Well it turns out that he did feel the same way and we ended up trading numbers. He closed the night by paying my tab & giving me a firm hug then he made me promise to let him know when I got home since the weather was getting bad.


      Get the picture? Now fast forward six months, there hasn't been a single day that we haven't communicated in some shape, form, or fashion nor was there a single Sunday that we didn't go to mass together. What I haven't told you yet is that M and his family are very traditional Catholic, i.e. wear mantillas, prefer Tridentine and Extraordinary form mass to Nordus Ordo mass, and dress modestly. What I discovered after going to mass with them a few times was that I was more comfortable wearing a mantilla, going to Tridentine Mass and dressing modestly.This isn't to say that M's family and those like them are a cult trying to gather followers. In fact the first time I wore a mantilla (which by the way I searched high and low for and bought myself) M asked me if I really wanted to wear it and told me I shouldn't do it just for him. I told him that he didn't have to worry, I wanted to wear the mantilla, which was 100% true. I had wanted to start veiling at mass for a long time, I had just never had the courage to do it before.



   I can understand where my family is coming from, they don't want me to be overrun by a strong-willed man, but I'm not. I am happier than I have ever been. M and I are planning a future together. We are planning on moving out to the country to live with his brother and sister-in-law to start out. Our big dream is to have a self-sufficient farm with cows, chickens, vegetables, and mostly pigs to generate income. Oh and babies, lots of babies.  Every time we visit his brother's farm we feel closer to God. We want that in our lives.

We are planning to be self-sustainable, I've already starting making my own shampoo, conditioner, and body wash. My brother has deemed these acts to be great offenses against his sense of well-being. Today when we got home from me picking him up from school he walked into the house and declared that the soap I was using to make my body wash smelled like an old folks' home and that he couldn't believe I was using a pot we use to cook in to make my body wash. OK, y'all, let me explain this whole body wash making business to you, you take six cups of water and boil it on the stove. Then you take three bars of soap and one by one melt them in the microwave then add them to the water. So the entire contents of the pot when my brother freaked out were water and .................soap. But unbeknownst to me, the soap that we use to wash said pot has a completely different make up and purpose from the soap that I was dissolving in the pot of water. Funny thing about that is that there are less ingredients in the bar soap I was using (Kirk's castile if you were wondering) than the blue Dawn beside our kitchen sink.


So yeah, I have definitely rambled on for far longer than I intended to. If you're the praying type please say one for me, I can use all the help I can get. Thanks y'all!