Ecclesia Domestica

Last weekend I had the opportunity to attend the Mid-Atlantic Congress, a conference for people who work and/or volunteer at Catholic churches.  It was super amazing!  I browsed exhibits from many wonderful ministries, I attended some great workshop sessions, and I got to hear the keynote address from Fr. Mike Schmitz - I even got a meet & greet with him afterwards!

it's fuzzy, because I was so excited to

meet him, my hands were shaking

Because I'm a support staff person at the church, and not a designated Faith Formation or Liturgy person, I chose my workshops based on what I was personally interested in as a Catholic woman & mama.  Of course, it turned out I learned a lot of great things to share with my coworkers in those departments, but I also took home a lot of ideas to use with my boys.  One of my favorite sessions was called "The Liturgical Life of the Family," and it focused on how we, as parents, can guide our children in a Christ-centered environment, which the Catechism of the Catholic Church refers to as "Ecclesia Domestica," or "the domestic church."

I have to admit, this is an area of mamahood I struggle with!  I am a cradle Catholic, so of course my parents taught us about our faith, openly talked to/about God, and took us to Mass & Sunday School.  And I am incredibly thankful for that, because being Catholic is the core of who I am!  But now that I am the parent, I am realizing I want to do more than that.  I personally feel that I've had my "conversion moment" just in the last few years, and I am hoping to set my kiddos up to start their relationships with Jesus a lot earlier than I did.

We go to Mass every Sunday as a family, and we send our kids to Sunday School (well, just Aidan now, but Leo will go when he's old enough).  On the home front, we do Bible Time every night, which my Aidan particularly enjoys, we say grace before meals, and I try to casually mention God and all His works whenever possible... all of this is awesome, but none of it is uniquely Catholic (except for the Bible version, of course!).  What I learned from the workshop leader was how important it is that our "Domestic Church" emphasize the Liturgy, to help our children really appreciate & gain something from Mass and everything else we do at church.

So, keeping that in mind, I created three tools to help us, as a family, root each day in our relationship with God: a simple Liturgical calendar, a "Saint of the Day" sign, and a family prayer note.

The calendar tells us if the day is Ordinary Time, a memorial, or a feast day.  February's is pretty plain, but it will ramp up in March, with the start of the Lenten season.  This, of course, matches nicely with the "Saint of the Day" board, which I will update daily for the kids.  So far, this has proven to be a great opportunity to chat about the celebrated person's story at breakfast each morning!  And the last item is where we can talk about what we want to ask God for, or ask Him to help us with throughout the day.  Aidan prays for a baby sister daily, so that stays right at the top of the list, but the other things vary based on what the day has in store.  And I sneak in a little parenting moment there, too, when we pray that God will give us (i.e. Aidan, but all of us) patience & self-control throughout the day ;)

Sweater Attempt #1

I have been crocheting for about 12 years now, since I taught myself from a book (i.e. my now-husband taught me how to teach myself from the book... but that's a different story...) when I was a sophomore in college.  And in all that time, I have wanted so badly to crochet a clothing item, but never felt up to the challenge.  I have, of course, made hats, scarves, and even mittens, but nothing more challenging than that.

I have been planning to try a clothing project for a long time, though, so I have a lot of ideas pinned and bookmarked - probably a closet-full, if I ever get around to all of them.  Some gorgeous, intricate fair isle cardigans that I'll probably never be good enough to make... some baby sweaters I'll definitely be working on... and this appealingly simple shrug I chose as my first-ever attempt.

This pattern called to me because it just seemed so manageable for a beginner.  It is made in one solid rectangle, then folded and sewn together to for the armholes.  Then it just drapes over the shoulders to serve its purpose as a cardigan.  I did not love the chunky yarn they used, though.  It is definitely beautiful fiber, and the final product looked gorgeous on the blogger; however, I tend to run hot and don't care for heavy sweaters, and I had this lovely green, lighter weight yarn that my husband had treated me to, from a real yarn store (as opposed to reasonably-priced yarn from JoAnn Fabrics or A.C. Moore), which I was saving for a "fancy" project instead of a baby blanket or something similar.

So, I used the pattern I had pinned as my inspiration, and I made up my own design.  I chained enough stitches for the required length, which turned out to be 175.  Then, for the border edge, I did 5 rows of single crochet in back loops only, to get that ribbed look.  The body of the piece was just normal double crochet.  And then I finished with 5 rows of sc blo again, to have the border match up when I folded.  Following the instructions, I folded & seamed, and I was all done! 

please ignore my awkward selfie... 

I didn't have enough yarn to make the piece as long as the pattern indicated, so mine is more of a shrug, less of a cardigan.  And it's definitely lighter weight, so it flows a little differently.  This project is definitely filed in the "thank God it's finally finished and I can be done with it" category.  But all in all, it's not as bad as it could have been, really.  And I do feel empowered to try another sweater attempt.  But I think this time I will follow a set pattern exactly, with the indicated yarn ;)

Basket Weave Baby Blanket

Happy Valentine's Day, y'all!  This post isn't really about anything holiday related, but it IS about one of my favorite ways of showing /sharing my love - handmade baby blankets!  So, I still figure it's a good day to share this blog post ;)

About a year & a half ago, I shared my first-ever attempt at cables, with this blanket for a dear friend of mine.  Well, last month, she & her husband made a very special New Year's Eve announcement, and I started planning a blanket for her precious little baby due this spring =D

Just like last time, she is waiting to be surprised at the birth, and not finding out the sex of the baby ahead of time.  Which, (A) makes me super jealous, because I always wanted to do that, and (B) means I wanted to keep my yarn selection in the "gender neutral" colors (don't even get me started on how silly that nonsense is, really, but... whatever).  My sweet husband took me to JoAnn's on our way home from a date night dinner, and helped me pick this fluffy, snuggly, buttery yellow yarn that was just screaming out to me from the shelf:

Bernat Baby Blanket yarn, "buttercup" color

Baby blankets are always kinda tricky for me, when it comes to picking the stitch to use.  On the one hand, they're small enough that they're a great opportunity to try a new technique.  But, on the other hand, I don't want to use any stitch intricate enough that little fingers will get tangled!  Because this yarn is so chunky & fluffy to begin with, I kept it relatively simple and went with a Basket Weave - one of my most favorite stitches!

Basket Weave is one of those things that looks super impressive, but is actually incredibly easy to do... it's simply repeating a pattern of strategically placed front-post-double-crochet and back-post-double-crochet stitches, so that you create squares of vertical stripes or horizontal stripes:

With yarn of a lower weight, you would do 4 of each stitch (i.e. 4 fpdc, 4 bpdc, 4 fpdc, 4 bpdc...), repeating for 4 rows, then doing 4 rows of the opposite pattern (4 bpdc, 4 fpdc...), to make the checkerboard.  Because this yarn is so fat, I only had to do 2 rows to make squares, but the effect is still there.

I ended up with a perfect-sized baby blanket, soft enough for snuggly tummy time, but secure enough to be safe & to survive frequent trips to the washing machine ;)  I can't wait to hear if Baby C likes it!

Hey, Cyster!

As I've mentioned a few times in my previous posts, I have been on a journey to improved health, which has made a gigantice impact on my day-to-day life, and which I am very grateful for.  I keep referencing my "Cyster Diet," but I know not everyone knows what that means, so I thought I'd explain just a bit.

I'm pretty sure everyone who knows me (and I don't think any strangers read my blog, lol) knows that I have Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, or PCOS.  I've always been very open & vocal about it, sharing my struggles & explaining it to anyone who cares to learn more.  So, just to summarize: PCOS is a hormonal disorder, which most commonly causes infrequent/prolonged menstrual periods, which are often anovulatory, and/or excess male hormone levels.  The ovaries fail to release eggs, which can form small pockets of fluid in those follicles - those are the cysts that give PCOS its name.  Other symptoms include infertility, gestational diabetes or pregnancy-induced high blood pressure, miscarriage or premature birth, high blood pressure, high blood sugar / type 2 diabetes or prediabetes, sleep apnea, depression & anxiety, and even endometrial cancer!  The tricky part about PCOS is that the exact cause of it is unknown, and there is no cure.

Because there is no cure, a lot of doctors just use "band aid" treatments to cover up the most egregious symptoms - most of the time, this means putting the woman on hormonal birth control to "regulate" the cycles, and telling her to lose weight (which is extra challenging due to the hormonal issues at play).  There's been a huge increase in PCOS research over the past few years, though, so I have high hopes for a cure soon, and in the immediate, there's a lot of helpful info for really treating or "reversing" the symptoms!

About 6 months ago, I stumbled across the first piece of exciting research: a study showing that going dairy-free lessens the symptoms in PCOS sufferers (AND calms a different, unrelated dermatological issue I deal with, to boot!).  Basically, dairy products stimulate Insulin Growth Factor, which raises the body's insulin levels.  Normal bodies can handle this; PCOS bodies cannot, because we are "insulin resistant."  This is really new information, and a lot more research has to be done to really "prove" it.  But the correlation was enough to inspire me to try it, so despite my love affair with ice cream, I went dairy-free in August.  The dermatological condition went away within a month, which gave me hope that the change was positively affecting my PCOS as well, but I continued looking into what else I could do.

In late September, I came across a website that changed.  my.  life.  The PCOS Nurse is a woman named Amber who is a registered nurse (and a personal trainer), as well as a PCOS sufferer (she uses the term "cyster," get it?), who used a diet change to reverse her PCOS symptoms, lose weight, and get pregnant naturally.  Most doctors/nutritionists/fellow-PCOS-ladies-on-the-internet will tell you that the best diets for PCOS are low-carb, like South Beach, Atkins, or Keto.  And, following this idea, I had been doing a high-protein / low-carb plan my mom follows for her diabetes.  It was ok, but I wasn't really losing weight or feeling any better.  So, after reading Amber's website and seeing how successful so many of her clients were, I dove in head-first, all-in on this new "Cyster Diet."

The Cyster Diet is based on the idea that it's not important to be low carb, but that it's more important to choose the right carbs - whole grains, fruits, etc.  And, most importantly, it is dairy-free (which I was already doing), and meat-free.  Both dairy & meat contain hormones, which mess up my already fragile endocrine system.  Even organic, non-GMO, "hormone free" products still have the naturally-occurring hormones from the animal, and even those small levels can affect a PCOS sufferer.

I started this dairy-free, meat-free, plant-based whole foods diet October 1st, and felt the amazing benefits within just a week or so!  My skin was clearer, I wasn't as exhausted/lethargic all the time, and the pounds started melting off.  I was nervous that going essentially vegan was going to be too tough for me, but boy, the tangible results were just so motivating!

The most important thing, more than any weight loss, is how this change in lifestyle has reversed my PCOS symptoms & helped me have a regular, ovulatory menstrual cycle - for the first time in my life!  After just 2 months of the diet, I had normal periods, with appropriate hormone levels, confirmed ovulation, and sufficient luteal phases.  And they've been regular ever since, 4 months in a row now!  Just typing that made me teary-eyed, I swear... it's just so damn amazing!  I am definitely staying vegan for the long-haul, as I just feel so much better, and I am healthier than I have ever been in my life!

Happy February!

How is it February already?!?  Time just flies, I swear... January was a whirlwind for us, getting the kids settled back into routine after Christmas Break, celebrating Leo's birthday, and navigating an altered work schedule for my husband (he's a 3rd shifter, but he was working days for 3 weeks).  Last weekend, I was sitting in my living room, crocheting a little bit after dinner, and I realized I didn't have a Valentine's Day mantel decoration ready - and that I had less than a week to make one!

Luckily for me, I have a SUPER easy method for creating crochet hearts, and I had red, pink, and white yarn in my stash, so I put down my other project and whipped up a holiday garland in no time (I'm talking less than an hour, for sure).  I made 8 hearts of each color, for a total of 24 hearts, using these simple steps:

1 - make a magic ring & chain 4 inside

2 - in magic ring, crochet 2 triple, 3 double, 1 chain,1 triple,

1 chain, 3 double, and 2 triple, then end with a chain 3

3 - pull the magic circle shut, and connect the sides with a

slip stitch in the center of the heart

Once I had the hearts done, I used the white yarn to connect them together.  I didn't want a very substantial string, so I just chained 5 to start, connected the first curve of the heart with a slip stitch, chained 5 more, and connected the second curve of the heart.  I then continued this method, chaining 5 between each heart, and working in a red-pink-white pattern.

I hung the garland on the fireplace, and I pulled the middle up to give it a "double dip" - partly because I think it's cuter, and partly so that my toddler doesn't tug on it while he's playing on the floor there ;)  But, either way, it looks adorable & it matches my door wreath, so I at least look ready for the holiday!