7 Quick Takes in 3, 2, 1!

--3-- I Have 20/20 Vision!

Yesterday I had Lasik surgery done at the urging of my mother and husband. My last pair of glasses cost more than our iPad, so it made sense for us to invest in the surgery. It will pay for itself in just a few short years.

Today I am getting used to crystal clear sight and depth perception. That is one amazing procedure, I can tell you. I am feeling a bit drained and my eyes are not quite up to an extended session on the computer, so I'm going to truncate my post today. Only 3 for me today!

--2-- Since I skipped out on my Wifey Wednesday post this Wednesday in the preparation for being out of action this week, I thought I'd post several marriage positive takes to make up for it. The first one is for Couple Prayer. It's a nondenominational (not Catholic) resource that promotes couples praying together.  Research shows that couples that pray together tend to stay together. Couple Prayer is a program that you can purchase for individuals or for groups.

--1-- Retrouvaille

If your marriage has reached the crisis point or it has resolved into an uneasy truce, there is more for you. It can get better. You can rediscover your passion and love for one another. Retrouvaille is a weekend lifeline for couples for whom the stress of marriage has robbed them of each other.

From the website:

Retrouvaille_™
... a lifeline for Marriages

A program to Help Couples Heal and Renew their Marriages.

• Do you feel lost, alone or bored in your marriage?
• Are you frustrated, hurt or angry with your spouse?
• Are you constantly fighting? Or, do you simply shut down?
• Have you thought about separation or divorce?
• Does talking about it only make it worse? 
  ... Retrouvaille provides marriage help!

7 Quick Takes

1

Have I mentioned that I love my laptop? I am able to integrate writing around family life a whole lot better with it. At this very moment I am on my way to the little town where my spiritual director lives. It is absolutely awesome. My husband is driving, the kids are chatting, and I am blogging. Wild.


2

I had a revelation about Hell and God this morning as I contemplated dragging my carcass out of the warm bed into a 55 degree house. Our thermostat is cranky, by the way, and tends to shut off if it is jostled. We have five children, two dogs and four cats. We jostle. Cold mornings are a regular occurrence, but that’s not the point.

The point is I had no desire at all to get up out of bed early nor to brave the chilly floor and house. I was lolling in bed, eyes closed, listening to the radio in the dark, attempting to muster the desire to muster. Inevitably I dosed off for a second. It was only for a second, but I had that panicky startled wake up and determined then and there to get a move on. I reached up and turned on the light.

My eyes, totally given over to the dark, suffered the light. It was barely painful, but in addition to the cold and the fatigue, I felt the eye ache on a personal and a resentful level.

That’s when it hit me. Though Hell is described as a torment, Heaven would be an even worse torment for those who hate the Light. It would burn and ache and drive spears into the souls of those who hate it.

These are my thoughts first thing this morning. Can you tell I am in dire need of Confession here?  What a crank! I sincerely hope to be more cheerful as soon as I clean out some muck and goo.


3

Loving That Post-Confession Feeling!

Ah, much better. I feel like a million bucks. It’s a good thing this post is in 7 Quick Takes format or I’d have to trash the first two because of the abrupt change in tone. Like life, these little blurbs can take a complete turn around in authorial attitude rather well.


4

At breakfast my oldest daughter, age 7, asked Father if she could start studying for First Communion and First Confession. She’s been asking about it at home for several months now and we’ve wondered if she is ready, second guessing ourselves. Father settled the matter rather quickly after asking her several questions to determine her readiness. In addition to her, he asked us several questions about Simon. Father is going to work with us to get Simon able to use the iPad in the Confessional to assist their communication. Simon is talking but his diction is such that he is incredibly hard to understand. Father, knowing this, is eager to use the technology that will make Simon able to do it now when his heart is ready rather than waiting on his speech skills to catch up. We are very excited to announce we are starting Sacramental Preparation at our house!

5

Honestly, I don’t know why I haven’t learned to write stuff down. My husband will say, “Oh you need to blog that!” and I’ll smile and agree and I won’t make a move to jot the incident down. I always regret it when Friday comes. “Honey, do you remember that thing we were going to put in the 7 Quick Takes?” “Yeah, it was funny. What was it again? Did you get it written down?”

No.

6

Pretty soon I’ll be moving this blog over to Wordpress. I’ll have my own domain name and everything. Jeff Young at The Catholic Foodie is helping me make the transition, so you can see his name as a blog contributor. Wouldn’t that be the coolest thing ever? Maybe I should ask him for some insights about food meeting faith.

7


For the next few weeks the Podcasts will be exploring modern marriage and the problems we experience. We (Tim and Rozanne Ohmes and my very own husband Andy and I) will be touching on Genesis and the Theology of the Body as we discuss struggling with NFP.

This week Rozanne and I will first attempt to give you the best cure we know for marital ills: praying together. For my Wifey Wednesday post this week I’m going to give you links, suggestions, and the stats on couples who pray together. The Podcast on Wednesday at 9 p.m. Eastern will go into more depth about Couple Prayer. You won’t want to miss it.

Goody Goody Gumdrops: Easy Christmas Candy

Sheila's over here getting eaten alive by trolls on the blogosphere. One even strayed over to bite me for saying essentially the same thing (she says it way better). I do advocate practicing accommodating hubbies on this side of the sheets first so that the shouts of delighted surprise emanating from the bedroom doesn't wake the neighbors. (Those would be your shouts, by the way. Hubbies are generally very accommodating to accommodation in the bedroom.) All of this oppressive politeness and Neanderthal niceness seems run of the mill to me, but you never know what will tick people off. Makes you have to work hard for it.

Hubby and I on a vacation in Europe

At any rate, since being sweet to your husband is this year's outrageously offensive behavior, I thought I'd be even more scandalous and advocate cooking again.

I know this cooking habit of mine is downright stereotypical of me, but I can't help myself. My husband eats. My children eat. Even I have been known to eat. My family is referred to as the "Plague of Locusts" among our friends. We descend upon a kitchen and leave dishes spinning in our wake. If I didn't cook, just imagine the effort entailed in feeding the Martin Hordes. I'd have to strap five children in their age appropriate car torture devices and appear with them in public. I'd have to comb hair, wipe faces, and even wear shoes! Anything but that! Have you seen my shoes? Cooking is my only recourse against such horrors. 

I wear them because he likes them!

It doesn't help that I'm cheap. To move Martins, we must use a vehicle. The vehicle has about 6 round trip town runs in its tank. I have to tell you that what I cook, for the most part, is better than the food we can afford once we feed this member of the Martin Family.

Most restaurant food isn't worth the gas.

So, now that I've got my daily recommended allowance of snark out of my system and have once again implied that I seriously believe that wives should at least act as if they like their husbands, I guess I should give you the candy recipe. I adapted it from a magazine that advocates, among other anti-happiness propaganda that wives should have boyfriends to practice being nice to. I guess that makes sense. Since we gals are supposed to treat our husbands authentically (i.e., rudely, impulsively, irrationally), we have to make nice somewhere or we'd lose all social skills before our divorce.

Gumdrops
 

6 tbs (8 envelopes) of unflavored gelatin

1 1/2 cups cold water

2 1/4 cups boiling water

6 cups sugar

Sugar to coat

extract to taste (5 drops butter extract, 3 drops mint extract is super yummy!)

food coloring as desired (try some of the neon colors)

Don't hate me because I'm sweet!

Begin boiling 2 1/4 cups of water. Coat 2 8x8 pans with cooking spray and set aside. In another pot, sprinkle gelatin evenly over cold water, avoiding clumps. Let stand for 5 minutes. Pour boiling water into gelatin and water mix. Stir until dissolved. Add sugar. Gently boil mixture for 25 minutes. Pour mixture into the 8 x 8 pans. Add extract and coloring and stir gently until uniformly colored. Chill for 4 hours or let stand overnight. Coat a knife with cooking spray (this is important) and cut gumdrops into cubes. Coat in sugar and let stand for a few hours for the sugar coating to crystallize. Store in an airtight container. Tastes great! Ships great!

On the Battle Ground of Marriage

Gird your loins, ladies. Sheila Wray Gregoire is calling us to battle! I can't say enough about this woman's take on marriage, both her words and the guest bloggers she invites to write on the topic. Although not a Catholic source, she is excellent in understanding and expressing the ways that Christian marriage is the battleground on which you will fight for your eternal life--yours and your husband's.

Click here to go to the blog To Love Honor and Vacuum
Don't forget to tune in each week for Wifey Wednesdays

Here's one quote from her latest Wifey Wednesday post: "God’s Word doesn’t say that marriage is designed to bring us happiness. In fact it says that it will be an area of struggle and hardship. Genesis 3:16 He told the Woman: 'You’ll want to please your husband, but he’ll lord it over you.'"

And another: "If Satan attacks married people first and foremost through their spouses, in order to render their hearts useless to God, doesn’t it make sense that two strong believing Christians may have more problems within their marriage than non-believers? "

She gets it. She really gets it. I would like to encourage you to read her insights, discuss them, and then get busy battling your temptation to fight fire with Hellfire (letting your husband's sins be an excuse for your own). Even if your husband is not behaving in a way worthy of a Christian man, you are to behave like a Christian woman. Remember, always, that you are serving God by your service in marriage. It isn't about what he deserves from you, it's what He deserves from you.

Get to it, ladies. The war is on!

Be a Prayer Warrior

To Get Started Today:

3 Steps to Make an Immediate Improvement 

in Your Marriage

1. Apologize
Even if you are only responsible for 1% of today's problem, apologize for it, then say no more. Even if he's a jerk about the apology, you have done your best to heal the matter.

2. Do More
Do three things every day that you don't want to do, just to please your husband.
Again, pleasing him is your surest bet to pleasing Him. Face it, we treat strangers we will never meet again way better than we treat our spouses. It's time to break that bad habit.

3. Smile
Make your face a friendly place. Sometimes our face is a bad representation of our innermost selves. You may be worried about tomorrow's schedule, but your face reads as grouchy. Check your expressions a few times a day. Let a smile and an open countenance open doors in your husband's heart.

These improvements are meant to improve YOU first. You are a major component in your marriage and are responsible for YOUR behavior. God is responsible for changing your husband. Be an avenue of change and grace for the marriage so that God can do His work. You can't change anyone else but you, even in your own marriage. Truly, the secret to a better marriage is prayer. The best thing you can do is to pray for your husband, for his good, for his blessings to increase, for God to pour grace and love into his soul. Let God in. Pray and make room.

Pray and Make Room

Do I really care about style?

Tomorrow's installment of the Wardrobe Project is not going to hit the blogosphere on time. I dislocated or broke a rib and have had to take Advil, a medicine with a previously undocumented side effect: generating unclear and verbose blog posts. Meanwhile, I have readied this portion of the project--a look at my attitudes toward the body and the adorning of it. 

If you had asked me even as little as a year ago if I really cared about style and dressing well, I would have given you a mixed answer. For years I cared enough to sometimes flip through a magazine, to try to put an outfit together once in awhile, but I didn't care enough to put any kind of real effort into it. Forget about accessorizing (I'm still working on that). A few years before that? Meh, if it was cheap, it fit, didn't make me look fat, and wasn't too terribly ugly, I'd wear it.

All of that has changed. I do care. I see the importance and am willing to put forth the effort. To understand the change in my outlook, I need to take you on a little journey. I will also need to tell you that my husband and I have discussed sharing this aspect of our lives with you to help those of you in your own hopeless moments find some hope.

Three years ago this November, I was lying on a hospital bed with a raging MRSA infection that had mysteriously made it into my bloodstream, bowels, and urinary tract. I was in indescribable pain which the morphine dulled just enough to allow me enough breathing room to think. My systems were shutting down. I was quarantined. Visitors to my room had to be gloved, slippered and gowned to prevent the spread of infection. My children were not allowed to visit.

After two weeks of increasing illness, on a Thursday morning before the end of her shift, one of the nurses came in and asked, with tears in her eyes, if I shouldn't send my husband to collect the end of life paperwork he was going to need. Looking into her eyes I knew she felt enough of a connection with me after the last few nights together as she watched and encouraged me while I fought to stay ahead of the pain. I didn't have to ask her to bring the pictures of my children. She went to the counter and brought them over before she left me to cry over them by myself.

My baby was not even four months old.

When my husband returned, we talked over things for a bit, then he left on his errand to get the paperwork. While he was gone two things happened. He turned around halfway there, knowing he wouldn't need the papers, and my unrelenting pain changed from eating me to just hurting me. It still hurt horribly, but I was no longer teetering on the edge of screaming. Something had given way in me. I was going to live.

When my husband came back again this time we both said simultaneously, "You won't need those papers," and "You won't be needing those papers." Then he smiled and said, "You are going to make it." He held my hand as I fell asleep.The blood tests taken that afternoon revealed that the infection had simply disappeared. The infectious disease doctor visited with us late the next day to tell us he was no longer needed on the case after 24 hours of  being MRSA free. He shook his head and said, "I've never seen anything like this." I was still sick enough that it took me another three days before I'd recovered my health enough to be released from the hospital.

Real Life Isn't What You'd Expect
If this were like a Lifetime Movie, you'd expect an experience like this to bring a couple closer. What it did for us was emphasize how we'd not learned to pull together. When I came home, both my husband and I were exhausted by the whole ordeal, so we both checked out, each expecting the other partner to take up the slack.

It wasn't good. My husband's work schedule was such that he spent a lot of time alone at home--time he filled at the computer. My slow recovery meant that I was not meeting his expectations with the children or the house upkeep. I sank into a depression yet somehow found the energy to argue with him constantly over my disappointments and his shortcomings, while valiantly overlooking my own.

Here's the connection with fashion. My husband wanted, among other things, for me to dress nicely and be pretty for him. I, on the other hand, had an unhealthy disdain for things of the body and expected "better" of my husband. To sum it up, we both had unrealistic and selfish expectations of our marriage. We both wanted our own needs met without consideration of the other's. We were both heading for a marital trainwreck. The brush with mortality merely opened up the throttle.

Next week: The Trainwreck

Believe It or Not, It's Controversial!

REWIND WEEKEND: As I am off on retreat this weekend, I thought I would rerun some of the marriage posts. We can all use a refresher course on being sweet, after all. (Me included and me especially!) 

Until recently, two good friends and I had an unspoken rule: never bad mouth your husband. The rule is still in effect. We just simply got around to actually talking about it.

Imagine! Three women working, schooling, sewing, cooking, watching children together and not talking about something. Well, it happens. Especially over a topic so potentially hazardous: respecting men.

Don't think the topic is so touchy? Try broaching it among the gals sometimes. If you are male, brace yourself for the look. (You know the one I mean.) If you are female, better just brace yourself. You are in for a diatribe about how backward, oppressed, brainwashed, and just so ickily Catholic you are.

Or maybe you are in for the worst of all, the whispers...Her husband won't even let her talk about him! What!?! Oh, the Poor Thing, and all those children, too!

Male bashing is a sport. On the commercials, sitcoms, and other television drivel, the woman has to take charge and take action in the face of the ineptness of men. Cue the canned laughter, please. He's at it again! Movies, too, especially "family fare" present the bumbling but well meaning father as the standard. Men are childish, we are told. Men can't function without us women, they say. This swill is swirling all around us. We are steeped in it. As a result, women bash their own men. Why not? It's fashionable. It's funny. It's a conversational gimmick, "Oh you'll never believe what he's done now..."

Meanwhile our girls are hearing it all, and our boys are swallowing it.

Back to my friends and I and our unspeakable rule. You'll first need to understand that we sometimes do charity work together, sewing Blessing Blankets for crisis pregnancy centers, sending stockings to soldiers at Christmas, that kind of thing. Working with your hands sets your mouth free. There's a whole lot of conversation covering a whole lot of ground. Plus, we're all Southerners by birth or by association, so for us talk ain't cheap, it's precious!

Well, around November, an acquaintance and her children joined us and ours and worked right alongside us. It was exciting! Here was a new person, with new stories to hear, new kids to get to know, new jokes! It was great!

Until It happened.

She bashed her husband. Not a terrible bash, simply sharing an embarrassing moment of his that I am certain he would not want shared. Especially not with a stranger. So I smiled, caught her eye briefly, and changed the subject. Just the way my mother taught me.

First, you may need to let me teach you: It's a polite Southern way of saving another person's face. One is to ignore a gaffe, smile, and change the subject. It's gentle. It's subtle, and for Southern women, it's unmistakable. You know you've messed up and are being given the grace of an instant replay. It's best to take it. Like being offered gum or a mint. You take it. It's a nice way of saying your breath is bad.

It didn't work. I don't know if she was locked in a habit, but it was almost as if she couldn't help herself. The more I tried to change the subject, the more she offered her husband upon the altar of mutual feminine scorn. It became awkward, so I invented an excuse to briefly leave the vicinity, hoping the conversation might reboot with the interruption. It didn't. I felt terrible. I knew I had probably already ruined any chance of her liking me, and I was sad to be unable to move her mentally from my "acquaintance" category to the "potential friend."

She tried the same conversational gambit with the others throughout the day. And with the same results. The good thing that came of all this awkwardness was that afterwards we three finally broached the subject of male bashing. We spoke our unwritten rule for friendship and realized we all three carried the same litmus test, "Are you trustworthy with your men?"


For me it's like this: I just can't be friends with a woman who would betray someone's trust. Even if that someone is a man. Even if that someone is her husband. In a purely selfish vein, I know that if she's going to do that to him, one day she'll do it to me. And yes, as a mother I don't want my children hearing this type of conversation about a husband and father. As a wife I don't want my husband to overhear me involved in the tearing down of another husband.

But most importantly as a woman and in my small way, I feel duty bound to protect other women's sons from senseless attack. I know how ugly women can be. I thank God I am not a man for that very reason (among others). In all, men are different, a little strange in their thinking, but loveable just the same.

So ladies, if you want to be my friend, you know the rule.


Related Posts:
http://gardenofholiness.blogspot.com/2009/04/attitude-tips-for-wives-and-moms.html

A Husbandly Hero

When I was young and stupid(er) and dating, I wasn't thinking about marriage. I wasn't thinking about the characteristics of an admirable man who could be the father of my children. In fact, thinking didn't really factor into the process. I dated by chance whomever came along. Discernment never went much beyond registering a gut level attraction. In light of that I'm pretty lucky to be married to the man I married because the men I dated, with very few exceptions, would have turned that car the other way...
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/facing-crash-vancouver-man-sacrifices-self-to-save-pregnant-wife/