Look at me! I'm crafty!

So I saw this D.I.Y on Pinterest and really wanted to try it out. My mom and I went to Michael's for the first time and, since the stamps were on sale, bought some. The candles were less than a dollar each; I got white and off white.

1.) Put ink on stamp

2.) Roll candle across stamp (covers about 1/2 the candle)

3.) Line up the stamp with the print on the candle and do the other half

4.) Let sit for 24 hours

The finished product :

I messed up a bit but I still like how they turned out :]

Also at Michael's, I bought a 'photo cube' with the intent of putting photos in it and using it as decoration on my desk at college this fall. Instead of using photos, however, I decided to use some scrapbook paper :

I really like how it turned out!

I'm planning to get a few more but instead of displaying pretty designs I'm going to use plain backgrounds and write a different quote on each square.

Have a great day =)

The Beauty of Silence

So this past week, I went on a retreat at Franciscan University of Steubenville (whooo!) called Franciscan L.E.A.D. (Leadership, Evangelization, and Discipleship.) It was exhausting, but there are so many things I learned from it and so many great experiences that I had, that it was hard for me to pick one thing to blog about. One of the most important things that I learned from the week was the beauty of silence. We had an entire silent night, starting at about 10 p.m. and ending at 10 a.m the next morning. Honestly, it was the hardest thing I have ever done. Not only were we not allowed to talk, we weren't allowed to write notes, and we were even told to avoid making eye contact with each other.

So I had a lot of struggles with this. First of all, when some nice boy held the door for me, I couldn't say thank you, or even look at him, and I felt like a complete jerk. Also, things kept popping into my head that I wanted to say to people, but I couldn't talk to them. So at last in my desperation to talk, I found myself talking to Jesus. Instead of thanking someone for holding the door, I thanked Jesus for sending that person there to hold the door. Instead of telling my roommate "It's so hard to be silent for so long!" I told Jesus.


Basically, it was just an eye opening experience for me. I realized that during the hustle and bustle of my every day life, I sometimes forget that God is right there with me because I let other things block me from seeing him. I learned how truly important it is to forget about everything else for just a short time every day and just sit with God and talk to him in prayer and LISTEN to Him. No noise, no thoughts running through my head at a million miles per hour, no fancy pious words. Just real, authentic prayer.

Spinach and Almond Omelette/Scrambled Eggs

Hi guys! So I've been really into making spinach and eggs lately. I wanted to add something else, saw the almonds and... this happened.

Ingredients:
- spinach
- almonds
- olive oil
- salt
-eggs


Directions:
1. Get the water out of your spinach! I was using frozen spinach that I had already cooked; once cooked spinach holds in a lot of water and that's not gonna work for cooking into eggs so I like to double up a paper towel, spoon in some spinach and squeeze. I usually do it a second time in another paper towel just for good measure.


2. Mash up your almonds! I used 1 serving ( a.k.a 1 oz. a.k.a about 28 almonds). I put the almonds in a plastic sandwich bag, placed that bag in another bag, placed the bagged almonds into a mortar and smashed with a pestle until most of them were in tiny bits. Some almonds remained whole but...it's all gooodddd. :D


3. Put the spinach and almonds in a bowl [or measuring cup] with a little bit of olive oil and some salt and stir so they are all mixed together.

4. Now while you are doing all this you can have you skillet heating up at a low heat so that by the time you're at this step you can just throw it all in. I just put this mixture into a hot skillet to let everything heat up (since my spinach is cold from being stored in the fridge). This really only takes a few mins.

spinach&almonds

5.  Transfer out of the skillet to a separate bowl.

6. Get your eggs ready. I used 3 egg whites so I cracked the eggs and separated the white from the yolk. I put the whites into my measuring cup with a bit of salt and whisked a tiny tiny bit.

7. This was going to be an omelette but I have yet to master that skill :/ so these are gonna be scrambled eggs. Once your eggs start to cook, toss in your spinach&almond mixture and finish cooking your eggs.

8. Put in a bowl, add desired amount of salt, eat and enjoy :)

The Naked Truth About Modesty (Full Version)

A really really really really REALLY good video. A bit long but still really good. Try to watch it all the way though.
At the end they talk about sports and I don't fully agree with it. I think sleeveless jerseys are okay and if your a swimmer you wear what's most fitting to swim.

"Grief Should Be Like Joy..."

As a graduation present my mom bought me A Book of Religious Verse. Around the same time I picked up The Oxford Book of English Verse and The Oxford Book of American Verse (for free!) at a book sale; as you might expect, I've been reading a lot of poetry and it's been showing up on my other blog. One thing that always strikes me is how God unites everybody together. I just find it so awesome to read this poetry written in the 1500's that is filled with thoughts and feelings I too have experienced.  Our God is an eternal God. He never ever changes. He inspired the same love and devotion 1,000 years ago as He did now as He will 1,000 in the future! We are all connected as being creatures of the same glorious Lord and by striving to serve Him.

This poem just really helped me through the day yesterday. I've been posting poetry on my other blog so I thought I'd give it a break and share it with you guys!

Sorrow

by: Aubrey De Vere (1814 -1902)

Count each affliction, whether light or grave,

God's messenger sent down to thee; do thou

With courtesy receive him; rise and bow;

And, ere his shadow pass thy threshold, crave

Permission first his heavenly feet to lave;

Then lay before him all thou hast; allow

No cloud of passion to usurp thy brow,

Or mar thy hospitality; no wave

Of mortal tumult to obliterate 

The soul's marmored calmness: Grief should be,

Like joy, majestic, equable, sedate;

Confirming, cleansing, raising, making free;

Strong to consume small troubles; to commend

Great thoughts, grave thoughts, thoughts lasting to the end.

"Grief should be like joy...confirming, cleansing, raising, making free" that's my favorite part. Sorrows allow us to show our love to our Savior; it raises us up to Him. It frees us from the luxuries and vanity of this world and teaches us to live for what really matters. 

O Death, Where is Your Sting?

Awkward OOTD, Tea & Looney Tunes!

Hey guys! So let me start off by saying how difficult to take ones own blog photos o.o 

Shirt - H&M, (new!) Sweater - Tj Maxx 

Brand-Spankin'-New-Skirt - Target

I was balancing my camera on a PowerAid bottle and using the self-timer. Not the best photos but I really liked this outfit and wanted to share!

Shoes - Target

I wore this out to ... dunch? linner? a 3pm meal with some friends & my boyfriend.

I don't go out very often and it was just so nice to hang out, relax and just talk to people.

Afterwards, my boyfriend and I hung out at a park and then he took me to confession because I had really wanted to go for awhile.

After he left I wrote a new post for my other blog. I realize when I give up on myself I don't only do harm to myself but I don't allow myself to glorify my God. 

I finished the night off with a big ol cup of tea out of my new favorite mug ($4 from Marshall's!) and Looney Tunes =)

Have a wonderful day/night/evening whenever you read this & may God bless you!

Noooooooo!

I ordered an iced coffee today and when I looked at the cup I couldn't help but laugh!

 

"Syrup: NO!!!"

"Milk: NO!!!"

In my head I just heard a big, dramatic "nnooooooo!"

It's a little thing but it made me smile.

:)

Thank You for the little things.

Have a wonderful day!

Being A True Lady

So yesterday I was hanging out with some of my friends and I said something to one of my guy friends about chivalry. His response was to go on a bit of a huge rant about how "Chivalry is DEAD! and it's women's fault! You look at all these magazines about how to get soft skin and then all the other women think that they have to be like that and they think they're a failure if they aren't!" And even though his rant kind of came out of nowhere, I think he has a legitimate point. If the idea of chivalry is partly for the sake of women, what happens to chivalry when women forget what it means to be a woman?

Chivalry! :D

Society today is always trying to make women and men the same. It suggests that the dignity of women comes from acting like men and accomplishing the same things as men have accomplished. But what happens to chivalry when there's no real distinction between men and women except their physical features? Can chivalry continue in society if society's definitions of "woman" and "man" are always changing? I don't think it can. If men and women are really pretty much the same as each other, why is it important to be chivalrous? To modern society, it's not.


The media has also put false ideas of womanhood into the heads of women everywhere. The media tries to suggest that the dignity of women comes from their physical beauty. If a woman doesn't have the kind of physical beauty that the media says they should have, they think that they don't have womanly dignity. This idea of womanly dignity is clearly wrong because a woman is not merely a physical being. This definition of the dignity of woman doesn't account for the whole of what woman is, and so is incomplete and drastically incorrect.


Rather, womanly dignity comes from the virtue of the woman, not from her accomplishments or her physical beauty. Society and the media do not define the dignity of a woman. The definition of womanly dignity is found within a woman herself in her virtue.  In his letter to the Colossians, St. Paul said, "Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience."  He didn't say, "Clothe yourselves with really cute clothes and really awesome achievements." Not that there's anything wrong with either one of those things. They're just not as important for a woman as having true virtue. The best example of a woman with true virtue is, of course, Our Lady. Church tradition holds that when men saw Mary, her virtue was so beautiful and apparent that they didn't even notice her physical beauty. So if we truly want to be the best women we can be, we should strive for virtue above all else. 

That is why it's important to act like a lady and dress modestly. No one is going to be able to see the virtue of a woman if they're too busy looking at their body. The beauty of the clothes we wear reflects our inner beauty. When we dress immodestly, we are letting our bodies define us, not our inner beauty. When we try to act like a man instead of a lady, we are basically letting men define us, and I'm sure no feminist would ever be remotely even okay with that. 


So let's bring chivalry back by acting like true women of God. :)


P.S. Sorry for saying inner beauty, it's really a rawther corny thing to say. :P

O Time...

As I sat at a picnic table in front of my old school building I was just thinking how fast things move. 6 years ago I was an angry little 7th grader forced to start at this "weird school full of religious sheltered kids" now I'm a graduate of that same school who finally appreciates the beauty of the Latin Mass, choral music, and how the truths we learn all point to He who is Truth itself. I've learned to see everything as being connected and ordered to our end. In another 6 years I'll be a college graduate and maybe even married; after another 6, I might have kids and so forth until I'm dead and gone. What will my earthly accomplishments matter then? What will anything matter unless it has been redeemed by Christ? All my efforts will be a waste unless they are for the glory of God or repentance for sins.

I don't like change. I don't like new places and new people; it scares me. How amazing is it that our God is eternal, never-changing? No matter how drastically things change around me, He will remain the same. O Lord, You are my shelter :)

my old school building

Water

"Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again; but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst; the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." - John 4:4-5

This past Saturday, I went on a girl's retreat with my youth group. The theme was water. I just wanted to share three major points from that day that I think are important. 

1. Water = Life

Water is absolutely necessary for survival. Some people, however, don't have easy access to this basic need. In some third world countries, women will walk for three hours to the nearest place with accessible water. Even then, that water might be contaminated and undrinkable. On the retreat, we took a walk to a nearby creek with some buckets to go get water and carry it back so that we could understand what the women in third world countries go through. The funny thing is, we actually met this man who was from Ethiopia whose family back home has to deal with the very issues we were talking about. He talked to us about it a little bit, and then taught us how to carry the water on our head.  I just think it's so cool how God put that man there that very day to help us learn about this crisis. Turns out, it's actually a real pain in the butt to have to walk to go get water and then carry it all back without spilling it. There were a lot of times on the way back that I just wanted to dump out all the water from my bucket, but I pushed through and eventually made it back. For me, it took the experience of actually having to go get water and carry it all back to really feel compassionate for people suffering from this water crisis and want to make a difference. If you want to help end the water crisis, go to the website at the end of this video and donate. Or, if you're broke like me, prayers are always good. :)

2. The Holy Spirit is the "water" for our souls

The Holy Spirit gives life to our souls in the same way that water gives life to our bodies.  Our spiritual life begins in Baptism by the Holy Spirit's outpouring into our souls. We continue to receive the Holy Spirit as we receive the rest of the Sacraments. The Holy Spirit is truly dwelling in us. This doesn't mean much, however, if we don't invite the Holy Spirit to change us and work through us for the glory of God. We need to allow the "water" that is the Holy Spirit to flow out of us so that the rest of the world can have this life-giving water as well. (Ha, well, get it? like water comes from a well?)


3. Water doesn't stop moving
In nature, water never stops moving. The waves in the ocean move, the current of the river moves, and even the still pond water moves because of the water cycle. Likewise, the Holy Spirit doesn't stop moving in us, forming us to be the children of God that we were created to be, and achieving God's purpose for us. But sometimes, we don't notice this. Sometimes it feels like we're far away from God or that the Holy Spirit has abandoned us. It's hard to pray because we can't tell that God is really listening. I know that it felt like that to me for a while this year. It was just so hard to pray that I started to fall out of the habit of praying daily and didn't spend nearly as much time with God as I should have. I kept trying to find that close relationship with God, but I couldn't help but feel like there was a big wall between God and me, and I didn't know how to knock it down. Finally, during worship at the retreat I just started sobbing and crying, but not out of frustration or sadness. I received the gift of tears. God gave me the gift of tears to show me that the Holy Spirit was still working in my life, I just didn't know how. I just needed to trust. Through my flood of tears, the Holy Spirit knocked the wall between God and me down and freed me to live joyfully, finding life in the Living Water.

Graduated!

My Lord, thank You so much! Thank You for bringing me to a place where I could learn the truth about You and fall in love with You more and more. I thank You that I learned how knowledge and truth are wonderful tools to lead me to You Who are Truth itself. Thank You for forming my mind and uprooting wrong ways of thinking. Thank You for the most wonderful people I've met and awesome conversations about You and Your ways. 

I thank You for the promise of what's to come in college where I hope to learn ever more about You and how to glorify You with the skills and talents You have given me. I love You! Everything is meaningless outside of You, my Love and my Life.