Meeting with Lacy

Yesterday I had the privilege of meeting with the talented Lacy of Catholic Icing.  Being an artist, she had wanted to "get her hands on some clay" for some time, so I was glad to show her how I make my beads.   When we realized that we lived only an hour and half away from each other and that we had the "Steubenville" connection, we decided that we needed to get together soon!

Lacy lives in a cute old farmhouse decorated Lacy-style...purple! Her house is very charming and unique, but I'd have to say her children are the most charming of all.  Our kids enjoyed playing together for half the day while Lacy and I got work makin' beads.

First I showed Lacy how to make a simple flower cane (above). Then we moved onto a more complicated rose made with blended petals using the skinner method.  The sequence of photos below shows how the skinner method is done.  This was the first time I had done this method too.  I've seen this method many times, but I don't use this method on my beads because it only makes a small amount of blended clay at one time. 

First we started with two pieces of rolled out clay- the pink and the white. After forming them into a square, we sliced them diagonally and put together a new square with each color. 

Then we rolled it through the pasta machine many times--folding it in half each time. 

After folding and rolling about ten times, it started to look like this.  We rolled the clay into a "jellyroll" to make the petals for the rose.

Here I am making the center of the rose. Lacy says I should always wear my own art- or at least some funky jewelry made by some else. I agree. My neck looks too bare- some big, chunky clay beads would really give me the eccentric artist look!

The finished rose.  It turned out very well! Lacy is a natural at cane work. Look at her work below.

Can you believe this was the first day she had ever made polymer clay beads?!  I just love her signature cupcakes at the bottom of this photo.  And her stars and stripes are so fun and patriotic! Way to go Lacy!

I think this is a start of a good friendship- and to think- we met on the Internet through our blogs! Just goes to show bloggers are REAL people- and they make great friends- on and offline.

Deceptively Delicious Part II

After several days of trying these Deceptively Delicious recipes, I've come back to report on them.  In my first post about Jessica Simpson's book, I promised to share my findings on my sneakiness.  First of all, the instructions to make the purees ahead of time, is the best advice EVER.  I find that now the vegetable purees are in my freezer, it is sooooo easy to just throw them into anything and everything I am making.

As far as the recipes themselves, they are ok.  The chicken nuggets were alright, but what a pain to make! The sweet potato coating was gooey and very awkward to work with.  Plus, my kids did not gobble them up the way they do with the regular kind.  The rice balls were a flop. They took way more time than I wanted to spend on them and my kids didn't even like them.  The turkey meatloaf was great, but my favorite recipe so far was "Buttered Noodles". They were made with yellow squash and tasted amazing! Everyone ate happily and obliviously.

The reason I am glad I went the whole ten yards to read the book thoroughly and stash a month or two worth of vegetables in my freezer is because it enabled me to serve vegetables all time when I normally wouldn't have gone the extra mile.  I now serve vegetables during morning, noon, and nighty-night too and my kids have no idea! For breakfast, I either put pureed cauliflower or spinach in with our normal scrambled eggs.  If we have pancakes, I put beet puree in with the regular batter mix.  I'm even throwing in pureed vegetables into our regular brownie mix.  Don't get me wrong, I still will serve vegetables every now and then, so they don't forget how they taste (and hopefully start to enjoy them).  At least now, I can find some peace knowing we are getting a well balanced diet--without the constant struggle.

A New Way to Pray (for me)

In the past several months, I have been hearing and reading a lot about the kind of prayer that involves *listening* to God.  I don't mean "hearing" him in the metaphorical sense, but actually stopping everything, to hear His voice in the silence of the heart.  This kind of prayer is mysterious and baffling to me. I didn't understand how it was done, but I know it is essential to my growth in my relationship with God. 

Frank, from Why I Am Catholic, mentioned a powerful book on prayer written by Sister Wendy in one of his blog posts. I wasn't planning on buying the book, but while I was buying some other books off Amazon, I stumbled across this one and decided to get it it. I am so glad I did.

I didn't know that this book was going to teach me everything I needed to know right now about contemplative prayer, but it is. I am learning a new way to pray that is above and beyond the lower level of prayer that I am at right now. It is very excited to me!  Sister Wendy says it hard at first and it takes time to develop, but I am willing to try.  I really want to know God as a close friend and this is the only way to deepen our relationship. 

This kind of prayer is the silent kind. No words, prayer books, no beads, not even any thoughts are needed to enter into a true meeting with God.  "You are just there to stand in His presence and let Him take possession of you" (Sister Wendy on Prayer, p. 44).  The key is to abandon myself.  I have to be able to let go of all that binds me to this earth and be an empty vessel to have God fill me. Of course, it may sound pretty easy to Sister Wendy to do since she is a hermit who spends 7 hours straight each day in contemplative prayer, but she says our circumstances in life do not matter when it comes to putting ourselves in the presence of God. We bring with us all our circumstances: motherhood, sickness, happiness, depression, sinfulness, etc. to prayer and lay it down.  We don't have to be a hermit or "feel holy" to pray.  "We retain possession of our self hood and offer it to God.  It is the offering that matters, the will, the choosing....You bring yourself in whatever state you are and offer that to God. There may be very little satisfaction in this.  All you may be conscious of are your own feelings, but God does not ask us to pass a test of how beautiful our feelings are.  He simply wants us to pray," (Sister Wendy p. 43).

I thought, if this is the case, I can handle it.  I just have to be prepared to not feel any huge ecstasies with God.  He comes to me on his own terms, Sister Wendy says. I tried this contemplative prayer this morning. It wasn't easy and I am terrible at it. My mind kept racing and I had to keep reminding myself to come back into God's presence and empty myself. However bad I am at this, I have faith that God will meet me where I am.  He chose to reveal this intimate type of prayer to me and it must mean that He wants more of me.  If this is the case, who am I to refuse?  I will keep on trying and wait to hear His voice.

Bows 4 Life

You may have heard of this website, but I wanted to share it with you in case you hadn't.  Bows 4 Life is an online shop that sells very cute hair bows of all kinds for girls.  The mother who makes these quality bows gives 10% of all sales to pro life organizations.  You can also donate $5.00 for a bow to go to a girl in Mother's Theresa's Orphanage.  "It will make each girl feel pretty and bright as she is told and retold that she is a daughter of God, His little princess!". 


I thought this was such a sweet idea. I have a few birthdays coming up for little girls and I know exactly what to give them.  Along with their bows, I will enclose a note saying that $5.00 was donated in their name for another little girl to know that she is special too.

Rosary Video

This a beautiful video that shows the importance of praying the rosary with amazing photos and sweet music. I saw it on another person's blog and had to share.  With my son giving up his afternoon nap recently, I don't have my scheduled quiet time for my afternoon rosary.  This is a good reminder of something I need to put back into my daily schedule.

Deceptively Delicious

My mother in law recently gave this book to me and I was excited to try it.  I had wanted to do some "sneaky chef" type stuff because my kids, especially my three year old, hates almost all vegetables.  It's hard enough to get them on the table sometimes in an appetizing way- even for Eric and I- not to mention getting the kids to actually eat them! So, I hoping this will get us all eating more of what we should be eating.

According to Jessica Seinfeld, the first step to deceiving your way to a healthy, kid friendly meal, is to make all the vegetables ahead of time and freeze them in 1/2 cup portions.  Never having actually tried any of these recipes, I bought $40.00 worth of vegetables and spent the afternoon steaming, roasting, and pureeing twenty-some bags of vegetables.  Later on I thought, gee, maybe I should have just done a couple bags and tried the recipes to see if they actually worked... But no, I'm an all or nothin' kind of girl!

For dinner, I made flat bread pizzas. The secret ingredient: pureed spinach. The verdict: EXCELLENT! This one's a success for us! I especially loved that I could put  anchovies and olives on my individual pizza without hearing, "my slice tastes fishy- gross!!".  It was probably the easiest recipe in the book, but I took pride as my son (after trying to scrap off the spinach) told me it was a very good pizza.  Of course, we had to reassure him that the green stuff was just part of the sauce and it doesn't taste like anything (not a lie).  After a bit of wining, he finally took a few bites and had to agree it was good- despite the appearance of green bits in the sauce.  I hoping the chicken nuggets I am making tomorrow have the same effect. They are made with pureed sweet potato! I will fill you in on the progress of the twenty-some meals I will be making with the secret ingredients in my freezer ;)

Pregnancy News

I just went for my 20 week ultrasound and it is very clear that we are having a boy! His name will be Jude Thomas.  The ultrasounds are definitely the best thing that happens at pregnancy! It's like you can get see what's really going on in there. 

Jude Thomas definitely won my heart.  He was so precious! He was sleeping throughout the whole ultrasound with his legs up over his head and his hands over his face.  He's a very flexible little cuddly guy! I have to get to go in for another ultrasound in a couple weeks so they can get a clearer picture of his heart since he was facing the wrong direction.  Can't wait to see the little guy again!