Darin Grimm picked a story I was afraid to publish.
Darin Grimm
The subject has torn our country apart. We cannot seem to settle it. The night before this story ran, I recited Psalm 56:3 to myself so I could sleep.
Who would have dreamed Darin, a farmer and president of AgChat Foundation, would be a fan of this post?
“It takes a VERY devisive topic, and presents it in a compassionate way,” he said. “A way that I saw shared by a couple of people that I’m pretty certain see this issue differently than you do.”
There are more stories brewing that scare me. But this one was first.
Darin’s Reader’s Choice is:
Whisper
click to read Whisper
One month from now, January 22, 2013, will mark 40 years since Roe v. Wade legalized abortion in the United States.
Call Ariel K. Price a bookworm, and she’ll consider it a compliment.
Ariel K. Price
Ariel is an editor, writer, and reader. Her passion for words is her life’s work.
She’s also a feminist. Here’s an excerpt from her comment when she first read the post she selected for Reader’s Choice:
“This is why so many men don’t take feminism seriously: they just see a bunch of angry women who want to hurt them. As a feminist, I know it is in my best interests to show love and graciousness to men, while also fighting for my equal treatment and respect.”
Exactly. Ariel’s Reader’s Choice is:
The MOB Confronts Cattiness Against Boys
click to read The MOB Confronts Cattiness Against Boys
Had I been born a decade earlier, odds are I’d have bounded into the 80s as a spry 20-something yuppie with color swatches tucked safely under my right elbow. I’d have been ready at a moment’s notice to whip out the swatches and illuminate women to their correct seasonal palette.
fuchsia
In case you don’t know, Color Me Beautiful is the most successful of all color typing books. First published in 1980, Color Me Beautiful is to color analysis what The Godfather is to mobster movies. All subsequent books advising women of their best colors owe their existence to Ms. Jackson’s four seasonal palettes. Depending on the combination of your hair and eye colors and your skin tone, you are either a Winter, Spring, Summer, or Fall. The colors that make up your seasonal palette are the colors that look best on you.
Modern fashion advisors (Stacy and Clinton) try to buck the system and deviate from Ms. Jackson’s palettes. They say you can wear any color you want as long as you choose the right shade. This is America; you can wear any color you want. Some colors that aren’t in your seasonal palette may even look good on you. But you and I and Ms. Jackson aren’t interested in good; we want best.
We want to wear the colors that look best on us.
As Paula Reed writes in Style Clinic, “Find out what colors light up your face, bring out the color of your eyes, and flatter your hair and wear them—all the time.” Touché!
Ollie Jean Owen
Ms. Jackson and I have been together now for years. My mom picked up a first edition Color Me Beautiful book at a garage sale. Mom was a Bargainista before Bargainistas were cool, but that is another post. Prior to my mom, the book belonged to Ollie Jean Owen. I know this because Ollie signed the inside cover. I wonder if she read the book. Maybe color theory didn’t stick with her or she thought she’d mastered it. For whatever reason, Ollie’s copy landed in the garage sale pile. Little did she know she sold a diamond for a dollar that day. If she’s still around, I hope she’s wearing her palette.
Mom color analyzed me, a teenager, as soon as she acquired the book. I was and still am a Winter. Mine is the only palette that includes pure black and white. Orange is dead to me. My yellow is lemon. My browns are limited to chocolate so dark it looks black (also my favorite flavor at Baskin-Robbins).
Although I’ve known for close to three decades what colors I’m supposed to wear, staying within my palette has been a process. Four short years ago my closet was an overflowing mess. Nothing to Wear? by Jesse Garza and Joe Lupo initiated the detox. It remains my favorite closet purging book. It’s So You! by Mary Sheehan Warren was a godsend, as wasI Don’t Have a Thing to Wear by Julie Taggart and Jackie Walker.
pick your palette
Sheehan Warren offered an updated color chart based on Ms. Jackson’s palettes. So did Garza and Lupo in their 2008 book Life in Color. But you know there ain’t nothing like the real thing.
For wardrobe color correction, I returned to Ms. Jackson’s pages.
Today I love and wear every item in my closet, and every one is in my palette. Well, almost every one. I keep a favorite mistake, purchased on a shopping trip to Chicago with my BFF. She’s a Spring. The blouse spoke to me from the rack with its vibrant reddish-orange, stained-glass design. I HAD to have it. So while my fair-faced friend bought two black dresses meant for a Winter like me, I bought a shirt that should be worn by a Spring like her.
With the exception of that blouse, the rest of my closet sings of navy, true red, fuchsia, blue, indigo, emerald, black, and white. It’s been a good year for jewel tones. Ms. Jackson would be proud, and so would my mom.
When it snows, she has no fear for her household;
for all of them are clothed in scarlet. Proverbs 31:21 NIV
My Yellow is also Coldplay with their strange, mesmerizing song.
What’s your best color to wear?
What’s your favorite mistake?
I love that our culture still reserves a time to celebrate Jesus’ birth. But the churning of the holiday season is a mixed bag for me, and I’m not the only one.
After I published the bah-humbug-ish post Saving Duck this past Tuesday, my best friend, my closest cousin, and my brother all contacted me within a three-hour period. These people are more dear than I deserve, so their concern could be a coincidence. Just in case, I thought I better clarify.
First, I’m okay. You’re okay. God willing, we’ll all make it through.
Second, this is not a retraction of my thoughts from my last post. The unrealistic expectations of a perfect Thanksgiving-Christmas-New Year’s are destructive. They steal our joie de vivre and drain our bank accounts. We question our faith and our sanity.
Now I know there are a few of you who would prefer I only write about shiny, happy things. I appreciate that, and I wish I could meet your demands.
But I can’t.
It’s not my intention to be a negative Nelly. I do write about fun stuff as well from misread song lyrics to missing underwire, from discontinued lipstick to dismissed hair accessories. But to me, it wouldn’t be honest or helpful to present as if everything is sunshine and roses (or pink poinsettias) when it’s not.
Yesterday I hung out with some Christian girlfriends. One caught my attention when she said, “I don’t really like this season. I mean I like Christmas, I just don’t care for all that goes with it.”
Her courage struck a chord. One by one, every woman recounted personal stories of how painful the holidays can be. My December dread didn’t seem so abnormal after all.
The wisest of all the women shared a story from when her kids were younger. She and her husband piled their little ones in the car and drove across three states to visit a relative for Thanksgiving. The trip wasn’t a surprise visit; the relative knew they were coming. Imagine their shock to arrive just in time to stand in the driveway and wave good-bye. Grandma had made other plans to go out with friends for Thanksgiving dinner instead.
don’t be a turkey
“We laugh about it now,” said my friend. “We joke and say, ‘Remember when Grandma left us on Thanksgiving?’ But at the time, it wasn’t funny.”
This is in part why we need other people in our lives. It’s why we need to tell each other the truth. It’s why some of us write and read and comment. How good to know we’re not alone. Others have walked this road or on it with us now. Many have survived. Maybe we will, too.
Walk on, pilgrims. Walk on.
Yet I still dare to hope
when I remember this:
The faithful love of the Lord never ends!
His mercies never cease. Lamentations 3:21-22 NLT
Remember the Duck Index two posts ago? How we’re going to do more of what we want to do and say no without guilt to everything else? Yeah, I talk a big game.
two ducks are better than one, image by Richard Broderick, creative commons license
No sooner did I write those words than the calendar page flipped and tossed me into the most wonderful stressful time of the year.
The time-sucking, sanity-sapping specter of shopping, cards, decorating, overeating, and road trips seized my duck with the sole intent to lop off his head, smoke, and serve him for New Year’s brunch.
I suspect the true target is me.
The marksman crouches low in the dried cattails along the late autumn shoreline, his quiver full of guilt-tipped arrows. Silently, he pulls back his bow and launches the Dickens three-pronged attack.
Zing! The arrow of Christmas Past hits me in the chest. Memories of years long gone by and loved ones lost steal the air from my lungs. Zip! He hits me again. Christmas Present lodges squarely in my left shoulder. Pain shoots across my back with the knowledge that I can’t possibly do all of the things I’m supposed to do to make this the best. holiday. EVER. Pop! Christmas Future pegs me right between the eyes. My head aches with premonitions of a time when I’ll be too old, alone, and destitute to jingle even the tiniest silver bell.
I’m not dead yet, so the duck slayer gingerly lobs the Martha Stewart arrow. It’s carved of Quaking Aspen wood, finished with Peregrine feathers on one end and a rare, Native American arrowhead chiseled from Yellowstone Obsidian on the other. It slices through the skin on my right arm like a whalebone-handled table knife acquired at a tag sale in Connecticut slices through artisanal butter. I bleed enough to ruin the linens of an otherwise perfect holiday table setting, but the injury’s not fatal.
Korean Arrows, image by garryknight, creative commons license
The archer selects the Good Christian Men arrow in an attempt to finish me off. This arrow screams as it flies at me, “Rejoice already! What’s wrong with you? Rejoice! Rejoice! It’s what good Christians do!”
I’m drowning in guilt when here it comes, the mother lode. The hunter lets fly the I’ll Be Home for Christmas arrow. True, I’ll be in someone’s home for Christmas. My home now? My home back then? The home of my relatives or in-laws? Could home be an illusion that exists if only in my dreams? Perhaps I should pitch a tent along the interstate. Set up camp under the Eads Bridge on the banks of the Mississippi.
The archer is ready with more ammunition. There’s the You Busted Your Holiday Budget and It’s Not Even December Yet arrow. The You’re Going Out to Eat on Christmas Instead of Cooking a Meatless, Organic Feast of Locally-Sourced Winter Vegetables? arrow. And new this year, the special edition red, white, and blue Happy New Year’s Dive Off the Fiscal Cliff arrow.
I shudder, quite sure my punctured carcass will be thrown onto Frosty’s compost pile to melt into oblivion. When what with my wondering ears do I hear?
“Quack!”
Oh, sweet horn of Gideon.
“Ree, ree, ree, ree. Quack!”
My duck is safe and hungry. He chatters at me to get up.
I leave the hunter and his arrows behind to follow this simple, ingenious, waddling creature. I watch as he steps into the water and floats. Can you do that?
He glides along the surface, his body the motor, rudder, and hull. He scoops up the bread crumbs I toss. He inverts and dives. He shakes off droplets, tucks his head, and rests. He flaps his wings and flies.
Surely He will save you
from the fowler’s snare
and from the deadly pestilence.
He will cover you with His feathers,
and under His wings you will find refuge;
His faithfulness will be your shield and rampart. Psalm 91:3-4 NIV
Boomer explained a concept I must share with you. Something she learned from her yoga instructor. A practice called the Duck Index.
image by cursedthing, creative commons license
Many years ago, Boomer’s instructor gave her this advice: only do what brings you the joy of a three-year-old feeding a duck.
“We all have to do things we don’t like to do,” said Boomer to my class. “We can’t only do the things we enjoy.”
True. We all deal with dirty dishes, smelly laundry, complicated tax returns.
“But imagine the happiness of a three-year-old feeding a duck,” she said. “We can choose to do more things that give us that kind of joy.”
Boomer put the joy of a three-year-old feeding a duck on a scale of one to 10, with 10 being the greatest. She called the scale the Duck Index and began measuring experiences against it. She started saying no to as many things as she could that didn’t rank six or more on the Duck Index.
No to another volunteer opportunity when her volunteer hours were already maxed out. No to lunch with a demeaning colleague. No to a last-minute dinner with friends when what she needed was a night off.
“I could have done those things,” she said, “but someone would have paid for it. Either I would have paid for it in resentment and fatigue. Or those around me would have paid for it because I didn’t really want to be there.”
Sometimes saying no without guilt is difficult. But the more I do it, the easier it gets. The more it makes sense.
Do I want to do this? Do I have to do this?
If I don’t want to and I don’t have to, who will pay if I do it anyway?
Can I say no to this, so someone who wants to do it can say yes?
Can I say no, so I can say yes to what I want to do?
“Shoulders back and down. Don’t wear them like earrings,” said Boomer as our class continued. “Pay attention. You control where your shoulders sit.”
I am not the center of the universe. I am not in control of all the events in my life, but I am not a martyr or a victim either. I can place my shoulders back and down. I can say no without guilt. I can say yes to what brings me joy. So can you.
Pay attention. Your duck is waiting to be fed.
As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Ephesians 4:1 NIV
It happened when I guest posted with the cowboy blogger. It happened when I guest posted with the baseball blogger. And today it’s happening again as I’m guest posting with the mommy blogger.
Dana of Mastering Mommy Brain
I’ve written a post I think must be my very favorite so far—and I have to let it go to debut on someone else’s site!
I’m verklempt. But I can think of no better place for my little post to be today than on my friend Dana’s all-things-motherhood blog Mastering Mommy Brain.
Fly and be free, little post. Go spread your wings and do your work to bring courage to the mommies out there, left and right. They are true super heroes. Little do they know their own strength to direct the future of our country.
I’m just an American citizen who discovered she, like every other American citizen, has a voice with which to speak about issues that matter to her.
Notice I didn’t say I discovered my opinions. I wrote about controversial topics like Food, Inc., Roe v. Wade, and Chick-fil-A before the election stage was set. My views have been formed by my beliefs, experiences, and observations. Same as yours have been. I simply began to voice my views more formally and in good faith that civil discourse would rule the day.
My sharing has been met with applause in some camps and disdain in others. There have been retweets and hate tweets. I’ve been unfriended and blocked. I’ve picked up a subscriber or two along the way.
Funny thing is, all this posting and dialoguing takes place outside the context of real life.
My closest friends see me as a person, not a 600-word opinion. We don’t hold identical beliefs. Do I love them any less? Of course not. What kind of friend would I be if I did? Two of my best friends don’t even read my blogs. Another nearly stopped reading once she realized we see things oh-so differently.
These women humble me and keep me real.
Perhaps I am the neighbor who offered a coat and waited with her for the fire truck when her preschoolers locked her out of the house in the snow. I am the postpartum disaster who fell asleep on her living room couch while she rocked my infant son. I am the wardrobe coach who commandeered the dressing room as we shopped for clothes for her to wear when she returned to work. Or the lady who lunched beside her and spoke freely of losing loved ones to disease. Or the nomad who lost her spaghetti colander in the move.
At the end of the day, at then end of the election, regardless of who wins or loses the White House, we will all be left with each other. Does that mean we stop voicing our opinions? Stop talking about issues in order to preserve the peace?
Silence is certainly a strategy. But as my husband told me, your friends love you for who you are. You are free to speak with respect and without fear in their presence and they in yours.
They love you none the less.
A friend is always loyal, and a brother is born to help in time of need. Proverbs 17:17 NLT
One Thing Remains by Kristian Stanfill. Reminds me of true unfailing love.
Is it better not to speak to preserve the peace or to speak trusting your friendships will hold fast?
I used to be a good cook before I started blogging.
trinity of gingham
My cookbook collection is outfitted with three shades of Better Homes gingham and Seduced by Bacon. I’m of Italian heritage, and I married into a Midwestern farm family. My stockpile of recipes is hearty. Well-loved. Often made. Until I started blogging.
When I write, my time flies out the window.
Some of you think my mind goes with it, but that’s just the blood sugar plummeting. I’m hypoglycemic; it’s not pretty when I don’t eat.
A couple weeks ago, I realized I’d had hot dogs for lunch three days in a row. I don’t have anything against hot dogs. I like hot dogs. Eating hot dogs once in a while should be a requirement for all good Americans. Right up there with voting. By the way, have you registered yet?
how about corn dogs?
I digress. Back to lunch. It’s time to get off the hamster wheel of writing all morning, stopping to lunch too late only to discover there’s nothing in the house to eat except hot dogs. On Facebook, I joked that grocery shopping had moved to the top of the to-do list. But I know my problem is bigger than that.
I like to write. I like to cook. I need to eat. I can pick two of the three.
Wait a second. I know a lot of women who blog about cooking. They write, cook, and eat. But how?
I asked some of them for help. What sweet salvation they delivered. During the next few weeks, my family will be cooking and eating seven eight of their best recipes. These recipes are easy to make with ingredients that are easy to find.
Explore their sites, preview the recipes, then come back to see the results of a good cooking revival at my house. This promises to be one delicious series!
Welcome wickedly witty guest blogger, my sorority sister Kim Drew Wright. Today Kim shares a glimpse of the Real Wives of Richmond, Virginia.
He opens the door, takes off his jacket and gives me that look. The one that says, “Why is the house still a mess? Why isn’t dinner ready?”
Instead he says, “What have you done all day?”
I’ve: gotten the kids out of bed, scrambled eggs and poured milk, let the dogs out, made pb&j sandwiches to put in plastic, let the kids help even though it would have been quicker if I did it myself, reminded them to brush their teeth, cleared the breakfast dishes, been saddened by the morning news, braided hair, mediated an argument, picked out clothes, nagged that they are going to miss the bus, yelled to go brush their teeth, tied shoes, found jackets, walked to the bus stop, told them to have a good day, hauled dirty laundry downstairs, unloaded the dishwasher, wiped down the table, loaded the dishwasher, scrubbed stains from shirts, thought about calling my mother before it’s too late, let the dogs in, put laundry in the washer, sent an email about a PTA fundraiser, counseled a friend having marital issues, volunteered at the school library shelving books in order, put the clothes in the dryer before they mildewed, wiped pee off the bathroom floor, forgot to eat lunch, tripped over an abandoned babydoll, tried to remember a conversation from 1982, cleaned up dog puke, ran to the store for miscellaneous items you needed, joked with the cashier to make her day easier, ran into a friend who wanted to do lunch sometime—I think she’s having marital problems, put my tennis shoes on and ran around the neighborhood because according to you a woman my age has to exercise an hour a day just to stay the same weight, gave the dogs a treat, folded laundry and carried it upstairs, took a shower, shoved my skinny jeans aside, answered 11 emails about the fundraiser, considered getting a job with a paycheck, petted the dogs so they would know they are loved, walked to the bus stop, gave our children hugs, gave them a snack, reminded them to wash their hands first, shuffled through school papers, encouraged them to learn from their mistakes, signed up to bring in cookies for a class party as soon as I got the note so the teacher would know I appreciated her, sorted through the mail, swept under the table, screened calls from telemarketers, picked up socks, shoes, jackets and backpacks forgotten in the foyer, listened to our children, reminded them to do their homework, updated Facebook with something cute our children said so I would never forget, yelled for them to turn off the TV, was ignored, took the trash out and, just now, sat down with that book I’ve been wanting to read for 3 months.
“Nothing important,” I say and get up to start dinner.
She carefully watches everything in her household
and suffers nothing from laziness. Proverbs 31:27 NLT
Presenting Steven Tyler and his little band Aerosmith with Crazy… because that’s how we feel on days when we do nothing important.
Crazy Steven & Tyler
What did you do all day?
Kim Drew Wright is a freelance writer, devoted wife, and frazzled mother of three. Most notably, she has excellent taste in dogs.
Scrunchie. Fabric covered rubber band. Vintage hair accessory. Friend of the weary and downtrodden, color-treated and conditioned Gen X tresses.
scrunchie fierce
“Do they still make those?” said my stylist when I mentioned tying my hair up in a scrunchie for yoga class.
“I don’t know if they still make them,” I said. “But they’re magical.”
My hair stylist is in her twenties. She doesn’t know the power of the scrunchie.
In my hair history, I’ve owned sponge rollers, velcro rollers, hot rollers, steam rollers, curling irons, crimping irons, banana clips, bobby pins, barrettes, crab claws, and an ocean of ponytail elastics. I have not owned a Flowbee, and I’m resisting the urge to buy a flat iron, though my BFF swears by hers. Her flat iron, that is. Not her Flowbee.
pair of scrunchies
The scrunchie has staying power.
I’ve saved two from the 90s. I keep them safely stashed behind my collection of plastic, hotel shower caps. Secret weapons of my hair care arsenal.
Scrunchie A is a cotton calico gem from 1992. It boasts a saturated red that glows like rubies. Bought it on clearance at the Gap for $3. (I remember all my significant fashion purchases the way I remember song lyrics.)
I wear it to the pool. The cotton dries fast, and the bright bathing suit colors of this past summer breathed new life into the 20-year-old accessory.
Scrunchie B, my favorite, is a silk-covered leopard print. It’s fierce.
My sister gave it to me in 1995. Little did we know animal prints would become the new neutrals. Thank you, Ballard Designs. Ordinary scrunchies may fall by the wayside along the runway of trends. The leopard scrunchie goes to yoga class.
Don’t get me wrong. I still care about my appearance. I want to be presentable, respectable, approachable. You and I, we have to wear clothes in public, so we might as well put some effort into it. And we need to do something with our crowning glory while it clings to our heads.
But I find, as the decades roll by, there are compromises to be made on the personal catwalk of life.
good-bye glamour
Comfortable shoes instead of stilettos, so the plantar fasciitis doesn’t anger the wicked sciatica. Untucked shirts and higher rise jeans, so I can belly laugh with abandon rather than sucking in my tummy or perpetually donning Spanx to squash the muffin top. Sweat pants worn occasionally even though fashion experts rage against them and the flip-flops.
Best regards, Vogue, Glamour, Elle, Stacy and Clinton. I’ll keep my scrunchies and wear them when I must. Because to me, they’re the epitome of style: comfortable, confident, magical, fierce.
Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting;
but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. Proverbs 31:30 NIV
