The Kids Come First

By Joy Pullmann

This week my husband and I made a big decision. It was to take a big pay cut and leave a job I enjoy so I can keep my kids from outside childcare. Right now, as readers know, my husband stays home with the kids most days while I work most days. I am comfortable with my children being cared for by their father if not always by me. But he will go to graduate school this fall. For a few months, I was not exactly sure what we would do with the kids, but my plan involved finding regular childcare, from either an extended family member or some nice local lady. I was not extremely pleased with the idea but was ok with our three little ones spending about 15 hours a week with someone who was not their mommy or daddy.

Long story short, another job offer came along, and I've been given the gift of cutting our income in half, which still pays our basic expenses, while continuing to do some of what I love. But, most of all, I don't have to outsource my children. And that means the most to me.

#7QT: Eating Your Veggies

My constant uphill battle in life is eating enough vegetables - how many are required? And what kinds? And why the same old boring peas and carrots dance?

{one}

Women should eat 2.5 cups of vegetables a day. The US Dept. of Agriculture recommends 1.5 cups of dark green vegetables, 5.5 cups of red & orange vegetables, 1.5 cups of beans & peas, 5 cups of starchy vegetables, and 4 cups of other vegetables.

Cooking Light published a good serving guide:

Lightly Active: An average of less than 30 minutes of exercise a day

• Women ages 19-30: 2 cups Fruits + 2 1/2 cups Veggies = 4 1/2 cups TOTAL

• Men ages 19-50: 2 cups Fruits + 3 cups Veggies = 5 cups TOTAL

• Women ages 31-50: 1 1/2 cups Fruits + 2 1/2 cups Veggies = 4 cups TOTAL

• Men ages 51+: 2 cups Fruits + 2 1/2 cups Veggies = 4 1/2 cups TOTAL

• Women ages 51+: 1 1/2 cups Fruits + 2 cups Veggies = 3 1/2 cups TOTAL

Moderately Active: An average of 30 to 60 minutes of exercise a day

• Women ages 19-50: 2 cups Fruits + 2 1/2 cups Veggies = 4 1/2 cups TOTAL

• Men ages 19-30: 2 cups Fruits + 3 1/2 cups Veggies = 5 1/2 cups TOTAL

• Women ages 51+: 1 1/2 cups Fruits + 2 1/2 cups Veggies = 4 cups TOTAL

• Men ages 31+: 2 cups Fruits + 3 cups Veggies = 5 cups TOTAL

Very Active: An average of 60 minutes of exercise or more a day

• Men ages 19-30: 2 1/2 cups Fruits + 4 cups Veggies = 6 1/2 cups TOTAL

• Women ages 19-50: 2 cups Fruits + 3 cups Veggies = 5 cups TOTAL

• Men ages 31-50: 2 1/2 cups + 3 1/2 cups Veggies = 6 cups TOTAL

• Women ages 51+: 2 cups Fruits + 2 1/2 cups Veggies = 4 1/2 cups TOTAL

• Men ages 51+: 2 cups Fruits + 3 cups Veggies = 5 cups TOTAL

{two}

If you're feeling like you're in a rut, check out which vegetables are in season.

Source

The benefit of knowing what is in season can help you understand why certain vegetables are more fresh, and why their prices vary.

{three}

For those who like an extra crunch, eat raw. This is the easiest option, with the least amount of prep. Carrots with hummus, broccoli with dressing, tomato, cucumber or sweet pepper slices, or spinach salad with pine nuts and a hard-boiled egg for lunch.

You can also add raw sprouts, avocado, cabbage to sandwiches; I'm a big fan of paninis, but hamburgers and deli meats work well too.

The benefits of raw vegetables are many, but if you're like me, they're to be enjoyed in moderation. Some vegetables benefit from a bit more preparation.

{four}

Like sweet potatoes and zucchini! If you'd prefer less of a crunch, steaming is always a fine option. There is also baking and roasting, which works well with potatoes, kale and asparagus. There are many ways to "perk up steamed vegetables", like adding a chile-lime butter mixture on top. It's also a wonderful excuse to add alcohol to vegetables: whiskey-glazed carrots, anyone?

{five}

Perhaps one of my favorite ways to add vegetables into pasta dishes: leeks, spinach, broccoli, peas, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, zucchini, kale, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, carrots...

If you are feeling extra healthy, you can fix zucchini or summer squash into pasta!

Source & recipe

{six}

A few more usual suspects to inspire more vegetables in your diet:

• kebabs
• tacos
• salsa & guacamole 
• smoothies
• soup
• slaw
• soba salad
• tomato & mozzarella tart
• cheesy broiled tomatoes

{seven}

A few of my favorite idea spots:

Bon Appetit magazine
Colorful Eats
Cook's Illustrated magazine + The New Best Recipe cook book
How To Cook Everything cook book
The Kitchn
Real Simple (the current food editor wrote a pretty fabulous cook book as well)

Tres bon! Joining in with Jen & co. Any more ideas for us?

Paper Bags and Lipstick

By Rebekah Randolph
A Mad Tea Party

Are human bodies good or bad? Glorious or shameful? Nobody knows anymore, and our culture's confusion leaks into Christian attitudes towards modesty, including how it relates (or doesn't) to a woman's beauty.

Modesty is a thorny topic and believe me, I don't intend to define it; for some useful opinions, you might want to read Simcha and Challies. I am more concerned with the extremes to which we go as we pursue virtue.

On one end you have the prevailing message we know so well. A body is meant to display, to manipulate others with. Work it, girl. One the other end you have paper bags; if we assume that godly people should aspire to the world's exact opposite, we all end up in shapeless sacks. Yet that is not godly either! The Lord loves beauty. I wrote something on that way back when, but you don't have to take my word for it. Just read the dang Bible. Beauty's goodness—even feminine physical beauty, forsooth—pops up everywhere.

I am pretty passionate about this because when I was younger, I somehow came up with the idea that beauty equaled blatant sexuality, so to glorify God with your appearance, you probably shouldn't try to make your body beautiful. That might be an exaggeration (it is) but more or less, that summed up my attitude towards physical attractiveness. Though nobody actually told me that I should look askance at beauty, I inferred it from what I did hear about modesty.

Going on TV = Basically Not Worth It

By Joy Pullmann

This afternoon, I was scheduled to go on a TV program to talk about government preschool. I told the producer I couldn't make it to a TV station to record, because my husband is taking a test from 1 to 5 (therefore gone with our only car) and the show window was 2:30 to 3:45. Luckily, we could do the show over Skype, as long as I had a hardline connection.

Pertinent detail: The children nap from 2 to 4. Also pertinent: Our router is located in our unfinished basement, so I had to rig up some makeshift background. I duct-taped a navy sheet to our heater vents.

Apparently, Baby Bunching Is a Thing

By Joy Pullmann

I had no idea there was a name for our inability to schedule conception, which has resulted in three babies in four years. But, apparently, there is. It's even trademarked, and there's a book coming. It's called "baby bunching."

According to other women I chat with, older women will often go deliberately for baby bunching because they have fewer good years of fertility left and they want to get kids in while they can. Some want to get the birthing years over with, which I am quite sympathetic to (I'm playing with the idea of "four by 30" but I hate pregnancy so much we'll see if we make it...or, which is more likely, if we continue to have children constantly despite my hoped-for 30-year cutoff). Other, less-organized people like me, keep having these kids during what are obviously highly fertile years, and we won't kill them, so we love them instead.

How to help in times of grief

By Tammy Ruiz
Guest Contributor

When Mary asked to wrote a post for this blog, we discussed possible topics and one she floated was the awkward aspects of social relationships after death and how to minimize those. As I am currently living that situation, I thought it was ideal.

I work as a nurse caring for women and families after pregnancy loss and infant death. I spend time with each mom talking to her about how to reenter her previous social relationships. While different deaths create different dynamics, it's good for those around us to peek into our worlds. I may write about the bereaved moms I care about in another post but I want to share something from personal experience today.

I am a 48-year-old Catholic mom and nurse. One year and a few weeks ago I had a bustling house with seven people in it ... I got up on a Saturday morning ready to run to the store to get my husband some soda - he hadn't felt well the night before (he thought he had the flu) and opted to sleep in the theater room lest he get anyone else sick. I went to check on him only to find him dead on the floor. He was young and seemingly very healthy...he was a recently retired Marine Officer who had run marathons - his death was a huge shock.

Tammy Ruiz at her husband's funeral

Because of my work, death was not totally foreign to me, but (of course) nothing prepares you for a life change this profound. In the immediate aftermath of his death, I was so touched by the outpouring of kindness...but even when experiencing it myself, I considered "What parts of this are helpful, what am I really looking for from people?" because I wanted to be able to share what I learned at some point. One day - in the midst of card /flower/fruit basket madness - I realized that as much as I really appreciated each kind gesture, my most primitive need was to know that 1) people had heard the news and 2) it was important to them.

Yes, when the rubber really met the road, I just really wanted to know that my loss was important - whether people expressed themselves grandly or simply, I really did want to hear from them. Even though I would have liked to talk to everyone on the phone, I certainly didn't have time or emotional energy for it, so receiving a combination of cards and calls was ideal. I hardly read the preprinted text of cards, I just wanted to see who wrote it and if they added anything...it could have been a Congratulations on your Bar Mitzvah card for all I knew (one goofy friend did send one of those and it made me laugh). I found it most comforting when people told me that I had been on their mind ever since they heard the news. It was very encouraging to know I hadn't been forgotten.

One last comment about gestures of kindness...in tough economic times, many people have significant financial challenges and there is no shame in it. Please don't feel obligated to do more than you can afford. I received a few gestures that were so sacrificial they were like the widow's pence...while they warmed my heart, they also broke it as I was very concerned that my friends would suffer from it. Your prayers and words of kindness will be treasured by those who really care about you - please don't spend your Cheerios money on flowers.

There were a few people who I considered myself "close" with who I never heard a word from. The understanding gracious side of me realizes that they may have been afraid or uncertain, but my needy hurting side said "we were friends for 30 years and you couldn't reach out at all? really?" The worst for me was a friend who said NOTHING to me then sent a form letter solicitation asking for funds for a missionary trip. I resisted the urge to tell her exactly what I thought about that; in my state of mind, it wouldn't have been tactful.

Rebuilding came in different stages from "Immediate Crisis" to "Dust Settling Over Chaos" to "Calmer Transition" to "Remaking my Life"; waves of grief sent me back to crisis for short spurts, but mostly I moved forward. In the last few months, I have noticed a trend that I want to share.

Being an integrated person is one of my goals, not compartmentalizing different parts of my life into boxes. I am right now STILL a bereaved widow but ALSO a young(ish sort of) person newly single who has a new relationship. I met my husband when I was a teen and we were grandparents when he died - he will ALWAYS be a part of my life...his death will ALWAYS be profound to me. If I waited until those things were no longer factors to fully create a new life for myself, I would wait forever and I have decided not to do that.

I get an overwhelming sense from people that they are willing to talk to me about EITHER my old life and grief OR they want to talk to me about my new life, but few people are willing to do both. For me the most painful example of this was at a social gathering where I sat in a group of five, two married couples and me. Awkwardly, they began to share stories of their courtships and marriages and I felt like a big sore thumb...if I want to participate, do I refer to my former marriage or new romance either of which will make them uncomfortable. I went for the 'new romance' and I got a death-stare multiplied by 4. The flip side of that experience was a coworker who dodged behind doors to avoid me after Dave died yet as soon as I started dating she approached me all full of encouragement and congratulations.

I have come to really value the few people who are brave enough to let me really be myself...a person who is just as likely to cry over a memory as I am to gush over a rose from my boyfriend. Maybe to some folks, absorbing the fact that both of these factors are (and will remain for the foreseeable future) real to me seems terribly weird. Yes it is, but let me assure you, when your spouse dies suddenly and young, a LOT of things are weird. To this day I use words that I can still barely believe apply to me even as they flow from my tongue "single mom," "widow," "late-husband," "estate, "girlfriend/boyfriend." (I really need new terms for this...my "boyfriend" is a military Colonel and Special Agent...I feel silly using this to describe him.)

If you have a friend going through this and really want to be there for her (or him), be a person who does not put up the walls I so frequently perceive ...let them be real and whole even when that means you aren't sure what the heck will come out of them next. If you are reading this and it terrifies you because you can't imagine your husband dying suddenly, while I will tell you that yes, it IS horrible, God won't leave you to experience it alone...He will be close in a thousand ways that you can be thankful for (like NOT having told my daughter to "go check on your dad") and He won't leave you to suffer alone.

Tammy Ruiz has been a nurse for 28 years and spent most of her career in Neonatal Intensive Care. For eight years, she has been a Perinatal Bereavement Coordinator - caring for women and families suffering miscarriage, stillbirth, neonatal death and SIDS. Part of her work involves assisting parents in preparing for births when the baby has received the diagnosis of a life limiting condition (often called "Perinatal Hospice"). In addition to her nursing education, she studied (but did not become certified in) Clinical Pastoral Education at a Catholic Hospital in the Midwest. She has been on EWTN and speaks regularly to physicians and nurses on the topic of perinatal loss care. Her career was both fragmented and enhanced by having 14 different jobs because of moves for her husband who was an active duty Officer in the USMC. A convert to the Catholic Church, she was recently widowed after 26 years of marriage. She has three quasi-adult children and one super-cute grandchild.

The Need for Self-Care

By Julie Baldwin

Last Sunday, I drove two and a half hours to a beach in Alabama with my husband and a friend, chatting and laughing and singing along to the radio and our CD collection. A couple hours later, we were driving back to New Orleans, with white sand stuck to all the crevices and skin (and in our hair), sunburns, and conversations that would dwindle off as a favorite song came into play.

Once we crossed back over the border into Louisiana, I asked my husband to drive because I was so tired. The waves had been strong and full, white-capping and carrying our bodies forward and onward. It takes strength to stand up against the tide, even when you dig your feet into the sand and swear you shan't move. But moving isn't the problem - it's where you end up. Let yourself get swayed, and you'll end up 20 feet down the beach. But maybe that's where the adventure starts? As I sat on the sand in the late afternoon and watched the sand crabs dive into their holes, I thought: this is self-care.

Self-care "refers to actions and attitudes which contribute to the maintenance of well-being and personal health and promote human development." Self-care starts with self-awareness.

What are you able to do? What do you want to do? Why are you feeling this way?

Nursing on CSPAN

By Joy Pullmann

One day, I had a radio interview. My husband usually minds the kids while I work, but this time he had to be away, so we hired a new babysitter for the morning. Right before the interview, I put the kids in their swim diapers and ushered them all outside so I couldn't hear them but they'd have a good time.

My toddler son chose that very moment to throw a wild tantrum. Note it was a new babysitter, and my son's tantrums are like a heavy metal rock concert packed into one child, complete with live bat-eating. 

Radio shows have regular commercial breaks, and I was set to be on this show for a whole hour. So at the first break I rushed downstairs, phone on mute, to rescue the poor babysitter. Turns out my son wanted to be done with water (heaven knows why--he's obsessed with water) and was demanding a diaper change. And *I* had to do the diaper change, not the babysitter we'd hired for this very reason. So I'm frantically tearing his clothes off and trotting my pregnant self up and down with new clothes and a diaper, when the commercial break ends, mid-change. So I rush upstairs, trying not to breathe hard into the phone, and switch back to interview expert. Next commercial break, my kid is still sitting there, at least only whimpering now, half-diapered. I finish him up in two minutes and tell the babysitter to read them books, right before dashing upstairs again and holding my breath in to what I hope sounds like normal breathing. 

Along the same lines, Mary (from this blog) recently told me of a very well-educated mom who works part-time from home with her three kids. This venerable lady recently went on CSPAN when her newest was only two months old, so when he was hungry she just topped him with a blanket and nursed him on air.

Privacy for Mom Bloggers

By Laura Christine

This Felicitous Life

In the blogging world, writers maintain widely varying levels of privacy.  Some bloggers write anonymously, posting no pictures or other identifying information.  Others reveal their and their children’s full names, birth dates, pictures and locations. 

Privacy is an especially important topic for those of us “mommy bloggers” who post about our families’ day-to-day lives.  Blogging implicates not only our own but also our children’s privacy and security.  I don’t claim to be an authority on what others should or should not publish.  However, I do want to share three issues that I think all bloggers should consider:

The DIY Lie

By Amanda Allen
Guest Contributor

I suppose I was impatient, or perhaps we can blame it on nesting, but I put together most of our baby furniture by myself. The crib was wrestled into place while my husband was at work, as were the short bookshelf, both of the tall bookshelves, the china cabinet, and his desk. I really enjoy putting together flat-packed puzzles, and rejoice in the clean Scandinavian lines of the finished pieces. However, a lady well into her second trimester should really not be grappling with the upper section of a china cabinet all by her lonesome, no matter how Swedish the furniture, or how brave and strong the pregnant lady. I never did anything dangerous, just unnecessary and a bit dumb. Sure, it was empowering, but some things are meant to be done by two people; the cartoon man in the instruction booklets told me so, and he was right about everything else.

I’ve never been much of a feminist, and if my education taught me anything it was the extreme importance of the traditional family, but the one great lie I swallowed was the superiority of the Do-It-Yourself life. In high school, and in my first year of college, I assumed that I would get through school, then work and live “on my own” for a few years before getting married and starting a family. I thought I needed to prove myself, through some arbitrary series of tests or obstacles, before my opinions and experiences would be legitimate. I thought I had to brave the great unknown alone, and earn my way back to real life with stories and scars. Apparently I needed to be a pirate, but not even that, because an individual pirate is part of a ship’s crew. According to my model, I would have been alone in a rowboat.  A rowboat I built myself. Probably purchased from Ikea. I would have been one lonely Viking.

This is an unreasonable picture of single life, as my unmarried peers can attest. No one really lives on their own, or works on their own, or goes to church on their own, and our value as individuals does not depend on our ability to function in a vacuum. Had my path run otherwise, I would be living with my parents or with roommates. I would have co-workers and friends and neighbors. I would be learning different lessons, but I would not be any more or less a whole person. Trials we call down on ourselves because of pride win us no prizes, whether married or single, working outside of the home or in it. My sad little DIY fiction was based on the idea that what I really wanted to do, get married and have a family, was not enough of a challenge, simply by virtue of being what I most wanted to do. It doesn’t mean that I’m not good at other things, that I couldn’t have survived “on my own,” but why should I have to? My godmother once said that one of the nicest things about getting married young was not having to make all the tricky life decisions by yourself. You still have to make them, though, there’s no getting out of that.

My little family moved recently, back to the town where my husband and I went to college, and it feels like cheating. This town has its troubles, but it is home. We know people here, we like the smell and feel of the place. We arrived and emptied the moving truck into the living room, and then began sorting and re-assembling our life. My cousin helped me put the baby’s furniture back together, and it took less than half as long as when I did it alone. No, I didn’t get to rig up a clever system for holding up the other end of the crib pieces while I tightened bolts, but cousins are more interesting than chairs and stacks of magazines anyway. You can talk to them, and when you’re done you can go for a walk, or get a cup of coffee.

There is no “inauthentic” life experience, I’m not cheating or taking the easy way out by continuing as part of a community I joined, rather than one I founded. I’m not cheating by staying at home with my baby, writing, creating, praying, feeding my family. The work of life is hard, but it is for people I love, in a place I love, and that makes it more, not less, real. I can buy my furniture flat-packed and efficient, and I can put it together alone when I’m feeling stubborn, but I can’t approach life this way. The pieces are too big.




Amanda Allen is a wife/mother/artist/Orthodox Christian living in Hillsdale, Michigan, recently returned from exile in Ohio. She can be found at maroonish.tumblr.com and her blog archives are here. If you visit her, she'll make you soup or knit you something, or possibly both.

Adventure Is Out There!

By Julie Baldwin

This one's for the independent gal, wondering where her life is going - wondering what's she's doing, and if she's missing something, and where her time is truly going.

Adventure is out there! And you are fearfully and wonderfully made. You are not intended to stand still, unless it is to feel the breeze or catch the rain. You are never "stuck" - and if you find yourself waiting, use the time well.

10. Read a book.

What is more precious than developing your mind? Catch up on old favorites (Ella Enchanted, anyone?) and new finds. Move away from the laptop and your phone, and just fall into the coziness of reading (or listening to books on tape, if that is better!).

9. Drink and be merry! 

Sometimes, a good beer can just hit the spot. Or chilled red wine with dinner - divine. Even better - visit a winery, or a brewery, or a distillery, if that's more your flavor. Take a friend (or family member), sign up for a tour, and enjoy yourself.

8. Find purpose in your work.

Why are you working in that job? It is one thing to make money (which is a very important); it is another thing to find joy. Yes, there are hard days, and there will be worse days, but what makes you keep at it? What makes you tick? How do you feel after doing a good job? Do you need more feedback? Are you open to criticism? Talk to your boss; be on the same page so that you can be the best member of the team possible.