wearing skirts

I was talking with my neighbor (who homeschools and is super cool) about "those homeschoolers". you know the ones... anyway I started thinking about women who only wear skirts & dresses. I used to be one of them. I fully believed the only way to dress completely modestly & femininely was to wear skirts and dresses (like- we went to Rome and I didn't put a pair of pants on the entire trip - in DECEMBER). Let me just tell you how big of a head I got about it. I would look at all the other women at the store, or wherever, and think how I was the only one wearing a skirt and how I was such a God-honoring example of womanhood and everyone else was misled or feminists. I don't think this is how all the "dress-only" women are, but I can definitely see how it can happen with the mindset. *don't worry some of you that I know now... my judgmental dress-only philosophy didn't last that long* lol

And, who decided that pants were immodest, feminist attire? I mean, sure they weren't marketed with the homemaker as the original target audience and men wore them first. But, so what?

Anyone heard of the "Feelin' Feminine Challenge"? Its a blog challenge to only wear skirts for 1 week and to blog about how you feel and are treated whilst participating. I've considered doing it. Maybe I still will... I like wearing skirts sometimes (I have a whole closet full). I do feel prettier and more feminine when I do. BUT I feel like I can't do anything while I'm wearing a skirt... and I have to get up and down off the floor a lot and stepping all over a skirt while trying to stand up and hold a baby is not fun, feminine, graceful, or safe. And going up and down the stairs while carrying something? not so much. I guess it would depend on skirt length. Hmmm... the more I think about it the more I think pants are the homemaker's best friend! So free-ing. I guess I'm just one of those people who doesn't like to have to think about my clothes after I put them on in the morning. And maybe I have weird sensory issues, but I hate HATE getting into/out of the car in a skirt... its just feels... icky? And, I think Mike likes me better when I remind him of the girl he met at wal-mart in jeans (more on that later) than a bent-out-of-shape prairie girl who wears skirts all the time.

If you are a skirt/dress only woman... I think you are super cute and i secretly probably envy you

I was on the receiving end of this judgment recently- except much more blatantly than I ever was about skirts. It was about homebirth/hospital birth. the superiority tone and condescension was astounding. I even apologized to my sister after that (who was not involved in the discussion at all) because she is always telling me how judgmental I am. It really turned me off to all things homebirth for a while. And I was actually glad I had a hospital birth after that so I could keep a sliver of humility (even though I would love a homebirth more than anything, I don't think its in the cards for us).

its a lot harder to find time to blog when you only have a desktop computer. (Faith broke our laptop- its getting repaired now and was still under warranty YAY)

Its been a while

Been a while since I posted something, huh? Things have been crazy lately - my grandpa died last month. He was 97. I had gone to visit my family early in March when my sisters' had spring break. The day before I got there the doctor put my grandpa back on hospice and the day after I got there he went to the hospital. I did get to see him for a few minutes the day we got there. They found out he had contracted RSV so I couldn't see him in the hospital. I only got to see my mom for a few hours. It was sad. He died a week and a half later . I didn't think I would be able to go back because plane tickets would be so expensive, but amazingly it was only $99, booking 2 days in advance! I actually laughed when I first saw the price because I thought it said 1,000 instead of $112 or whatever it was. You can see pictures of my grandpa's life here. I'm going to miss him... but he loved the Lord, so we know where he is. :-)

YAY so Faith and I got to go back to Wichita and just our luck she got the worst cold the day before we were supposed to fly. She had 102deg. armpit temp and refused to nurse for 18 hours and just wanted to lay her head on my chest all.day.long. It was sooo sad. I thought she had been sick before - it was nothing compared to this. all the doctor gave me was cough medicine with codeine and tylenol. My friend suggested the chiropractor, so out of desperation I took her. Right after that started the 18 hours of not nursing so I was pretty mad at the Chiropractor... but in the morning (the day of flying) she was almost 100% better. No fever, she was nursing like normal and even wanted to get off my lap for a little bit!

She did ok on the planes... twice we had the seat next to us empty and twice we had someone sitting next to us. Yikes is it hard to contain a curious baby to 10 inches of space, but luckily she slept through at least 1/2 of every flight.

Faith is almost 11 months old now!!! She has been walking since 9.5 months and rarely crawls anymore. And just recently (yesterday) started wanting/eating solids. I'm a little sad about it actually. I'll give her a piece of food from my plate and she will eat it off my finger, then walk around in a circle and come back for more (if she isn't in her high chair, which is most of the time). She is so funny. She has 6 teeth... and I think she is about to get 2 more, which would make it 6 on top and 2 on the bottom. haha

we have been going to two churches since november. One is on Saturday and one is on Sunday. It's a little tiring. The one on Saturday is a "Sabbath Fellowship"... torah observant, Messianic. We like it, but its like 2.5 hours long and there isn't any space to walk around with a baby without everyone hearing/seeing you, so its stressful... very stressful. The one on Sunday is a family-integrated church and we have gone there for over a year and I love it... well, I basically just talk in the "nursing circle" out in the hall for the entire service. And no one is really our age, but all the kids our age go to those rock concert churches ;-) (not a big deal to me, but guys are different. I think Mike wants to find another video-game & football loving father. haha) Plus, I really like the fact that we are all "forced" to sit in the hall with our noisy babies and chat instead of putting them in a nursery and be able to listen to the sermon (bec. rock concert churches have nurseries lol). Does this even make sense? I need to go to bed. nothing against rock concert churches in general, if thats your thing.

Oh, and Faith broke our laptop. In a moment of weakness (or distraction), Mike was letting her bang on the keyboard. When I get on it the screen is froze and its making a clicking sound. I turn it off and back on - nothin'. Luckily we still have it under warranty. Its probably the hard-drive. Which means we lose everything, but I think its all either on this computer or still on the camera (because all I ever do is upload pictures).

Oh oh, and my younger sister is getting married in Jan I think. Its weird, even though by then she will be a year older than I was when I got married. She is in nursing school right now.

Speaking of "nursing" school -hahaha. I'm applying to be a LLL Leader. yup. I love LLL. I'm excited!