June 2010 Archives

The other day I accompanied my five youngest children and three of the the neighborhood children along with their mother to the park. During a break in the shade, the 11-year-old boy looked at my left hand and asked "you're married?!?" I stared at him blankly for a second because I never had a child ask me this with such interest. Ever. He was genuinely intrigued by my answer. (Of course my immediate second thought was to answer "yeeeaaah...I guess you can say that...by the grace of God..." But that's another story altogether. Or is it?)

Cisco chimed in "you ask me that everyday! I keep telling you my Dad's not my step-dad, my mom's not my step-mom!"
"I know, I just wasn't sure. Everybody-most people-have a stepdad or a stepmom."
Then Matthew went on to ask what a stepparent was and how he would be afraid of having a stepparent.

Interestingly enough, I thought his mother was married because she referred to her live-in boyfriend as her "husband". I have been seeing this more and more-"this is my husband. This is my wife,". No, you're not. No ring, no license, no same last names, kids perhaps, but nothing holding you down whether you want to leave or go.

Facebook is an interesting place because you really see how people's lives are unfolding through their status'. I know I'm no exception. I currently can see an old friend who has children with their live-in significant other and the relationship is not doing well. Come the end of the school year, that person is leaving. Lots of people are replying that it's not good to stay for the sake of the children. I believe there is truth to this. A relationship that can't be saved won't get better because there are children. But while I think children are not necessarily an incentive to stay in a lousy relationship, they are a good enough reason to assess what the problem is and turn a lousy relationship into a good one, if it's at all possible. Marriage is a good reason to do this, period. Do the same rules hold true when there is no marriage? I want to say "no." If the original idea when a couple first got together, when love was easy before life made it a bit more challenging, was never to commit, why would that change for the better when the rose colored glasses are removed?

Of course this brings me back to the very logical reason why abstaining until marriage just makes plain old sense. Why have children, be tied to people that it may turn out you don't even like? Marriage certainly is not a sudden sure all; it's hard. I know there are little things each day that when you are so wrapped up in this other person's life, it's so easy to feel slighted by common, everyday mistakes. What happens when you take commitment out of that equation? If I were cooking dinner, doing laundry, taking care of children each day for someone who won't commit, I'm sure by month six, I'd be throwing the spaghetti at his head instead of placing it lovingly in front of him each night. By month six and 2 days, each and every moment would be a chorus of "why won't you marry me? Why won't you marry me? Why won't you marry me?" "Oh, you like those white socks? Imagine if you married me you'll have that everyday for the rest of your life!" By month 7, all respect I may have had for this man will be lost, and the disdain I have will clearly show. By month 8, I'll be so resentful that I'm being used, I'll be off doing "my own thing".

I know, I tend to lean towards being a shrew, so maybe I'm not the best example. However, I'm not that extraordinary in many ways, and I'm sure many relationships have followed this same path.

When I was trying to decide this morning between going back to bed after I got the teenager up for her Regents and seeing the husband off to work, I procrastinated by reading article on the lovely Helen Mirren.

In it she talks about feminism and sexuality (as if there's another subject talented actresses talk about these days).

I was almost pleasantly surprised when I read this:

On women's sexuality in the seventies and eighties: "The Playboy Mansion, coke, and the rise of all tha--[Robert] Guccione and [Hugh] Hefner always pushed it as liberation, but it didn't seem like that to me. That was women obeying the sexualized form created by men--though maybe we always do that, because we want to be attractive. But I was kind of a trailblazer because I demanded to do it my own way. I'd say, 'I'm not having it put on me by someone else.'

Yes, exactly. She gets it, at least some of it. Hugh Hefner isn't what God intended for women, but just what Hugh Hefner intended for women. And it's distorted. But then she added:

I didn't want to be the sort of puritanical good girl with a little white collar who says, 'Don't shag until you get married.' "

Oh well. Missed the point. People are so worried about seeming "religious", "puritanical", "judgmental" that everyone is losing sight of "practical". Being stuck with for life, trying to raise healthy children with someone you don't like because you didn't care enough to get to know them before you started reproducing just makes no darn sense. Maybe for the Helen Mirren's of the world who have access to more material goods that can help, but not for the average working person who needs the teamwork and extra hands of two parents.

When deviancy from the ethos becomes the ethos, calling virtue bourgeois, the servant is deprived of his royal dignity as a child of God, and the king is absolved of his duty to revere those he governs. --Father Rutler

I know many of you prayed hard for us, and I can honestly said God is listening and has granted many, many graces.

This has been a difficult year and this story isn't over. Time and God will tell what's in store. I've learned a lot about myself, marriage and relationships, turning to God and humility. That part is a blessing, I do know that much.

At this point, I'm tired of thinking, tired of wondering, tired of worrying. I've just put it all in God's hands and asked Him to take the reigns.

Priests will soon be 'inundated' with exorcism requests, asserts author

“Soft forms of occultism are like Wicca and New Age,” he explained, adding that “Harry Potter contributes to that with over 400 million books being sold.” The popular book series, he claimed, has helped educate “younger generations in the language and the symbolism of the occult.”

Although many young people have treated the books merely as “entertainment,” he observed, “it actually leads them more deeply into occult practices.

I have a lot of respect for Fr. Euteneuer, so I don't want to undermine anything he has to say, but I can honestly say that I have sadly, known many people who have opened the door free and clear for Satan in their lives, and I can't think of one who did so via Harry Potter. Sometimes I wonder if people get so caught up in issues like Harry Potter and dress wearing because they are easy roads to take in our spiritual lives. Or maybe I'm not that wary of Harry Potter because even though I enjoyed it, I thought it very silly and the people I associate with find it equally silly.

HT: Patrick Madrid via Facebook

The First Things article everybody's linking to today:

There is nothing wrong, or course, with fantasy or with what C.S. Lewis called Sehnsucht, the inconsolable longing in the human heart for "we know not what." What makes Kinkade’s cottage painting so dispiriting is that rather than being created to challenge or even inspire, to evoke in some way the desire for Heaven, it’s intended only to comfort. It’s sentimental.

Sentimentality, as literary critic Alan Jacobs says in a recent interview with Mars Hill Journal, encourages us to “suspend judgment and reflection in order to indulge deliberately in emotion for its own sake.” Reflection reinforces and strengthens true emotions while exposing those feelings that are shallow and disingenuous. Sentimentalists, however, try to avoid this experience of reality and try to keep people from asking questions by giving them pleasing emotions they have not earned. The shameless manipulation of our emotions, says Jacobs, is the ultimate act of cynicism.

One of the commenters links to this article, "The Painter of Lite™"

Sentimentality, [Mark] Jefferson admits, can be harmless. A penchant for Hallmark cards and posters of kittens playing with balls of yarn is not in itself a mortal sin. But when the misrepresentation of the world takes on a particular consistency and brittleness, darker consequences are possible. “The unlikely creature and moral caricature that is someone unambiguously worthy of sympathetic response has its natural counterpart in a moral caricature of something unambiguously worthy of hatred,” Jefferson concludes.

Which is why some observers have noted a relationship between sentimentality and brutality....

Sound familiar?

"To live in perpetual want of little things is a state, not indeed of torture, but of constant vexation."

--Samuel Johnson

There's a Care Calendar out there calling my name, so I'm racking my brain trying to come up with a good freezer meal and coming up with... nothing.

What do you recommend? The ideal meal would be something easily reheated in the oven (or even the microwave), moderate in the way of carbs, and peanut/ tree-nut free. I think other folks are going to have the Italian angle covered, so I'd like to stay away from the lasagna/ baked pasta arena.

Any ideas?

Over the years, St. Anthony has located many lost items for my family and friends, often in rather creative ways. Yet there are some things that are never found...

A nice article on how St Anthony of Padua, whose feast day is today, became the go-to saint for finding lost things.

P.S. Saint Anthony, Hammer of Heretics, Doctor of the Church, Friend of Jesus, please help me find that special pen that went missing in April, and count it not among the Objects that Should Stay Lost. With sincere hope, your little sister in the faith, Peony Moss

After I posted my Seven Quick Takes at Jen's, I followed one of the links back to this post at "So Much to Say, So Little Time", in which the writer mentions that her Wilton instructor was recommending canned icing.

I personally think that the Wilton instructor deserves the stocks or the ducking stool for that idea, so in the comments section I did a little ranting and raving. (At this moment it's still in the moderation queue.) Here's what I posted:

Here via 7 quick takes, and your “Wilton instructor” is full of something inedible. And I say this as an alumnus of the course as taught at Michael’s! Canned icing is not only disgusting tasting, it’s not the right consistency for cake decorating! Ick!

There’s three kinds of cake icing used in the Wilton classes: buttercream (the “basic”), royal (dries hard, used for elaborate make-ahead flowers) and fondant (that dough-like stuff often purchased in packages). I don’t think they get to royal and fondant until Classes 2 and 3.

Buttercream: Sometimes in the class they recommend that you use buttercream icing made entirely from shortening because it’s cheap, stable, and reusable. I wouldn’t use an all-shortening icing on a real cake, though, unless you were planning to serve it in Iraq or someplace like that.

For an actual cake, here’s a good basic recipe:

Wilton Buttercream; I recommend the following adjustments:

– This recipe makes just enough to ice and lightly decorate a standard cake recipe. You won’t have much room for error (and won’t have enough to make roses or basketweave.) If you double it, you’ll have plenty and you can freeze the rest.

– Beat the butter and flavorings together first and just a dab of the milk. Don’t bother with the “colorless” vanilla unless you want a truer white icing.

Add the sugar. I have the best results with Domino’s. The longer you slowly beat your icing, the better it will taste. (Stand mixer helps.)

Slowly add your milk a tablespoon at a time, watching the consistency of the icing.

– I don’t like using the corn syrup unless I am making thin icing for writing.

– The higher the fat content of the milk, the better the recipe will turn out. Half and half (the real stuff, not soy) or even cream is great.

– Shortening makes the recipe stable, stiffer, and a purer white. Butter makes it tastier, a little softer, and a less pure white. You can adjust your ratio — so if you double, you could use 1/2 cup shortening and 1 1/2 cups butter. Keep the heat of the day in mind, and the fact that butter has more water in it than shortening. I wouldn’t use all butter until you’ve had more practice.

– Consistency is important! As you beat your icing, watch its consistency. Stiff icing is about the consistency of Spackle. If you’re making roses, this is what you want, so when you attain STIFF consistency, take some out of the bowl and set it aside. Add a bit of milk until you get to MEDIUM, which is what you want for your shells, stars, etc, and is the consistency of regular peanut butter (Jif, not the organic peanut butter )

THIN is what you want to ice the cake and to do outlining, writing, teeny dots of yellow in the middle of flowers, Corelli lace, etc. It is the consistency of pudding. I only use corn syrup when I’m doing writing and lace. I’ve been known to use butter-only for thin icing and butter-shortening for the medium and thick consistencies.

Your icing will never look as smooth and perfect as it does in the Wilton books, so don’t stress. To do the photo shoots, they use royal icing on Styrofoam cake dummies and then sand the icing to make it perfectly smooth.

Hope this helps! This is a great recipe to get you going with cake decorating, and I’ve had nothing but compliments making it. For flowers, I’ve used it for drop flowers, roses, and mums (and made them ahead of time and frozen them and then put them on the cake.)

For chocolate icing, add cocoa powder and adjust the consistency with cream.

To make black icing, start with chocolate and then add the black color.

For red, don’t bother with any color but No-Taste Red.

“Rose Petal Pink” is a lovely subtle pink color. The other pinks are Barbie bright. You can also tone down colors using Ivory — nice effects.

Oh, you can also add meringue powder to stablize your icing. Use 1 Tbsp/ recipe.

You can make and color your icing in advance; just store it in the fridge and then pull it out the morning you’re going to decorate. Keep in mind that your icing colors will get a big deeper over time.

Crisco will give you better results than generic shortening.

Experiment with extracts — I love, love, love 1/8 tsp almond extract in my icing! Coconut is delish as well. When I said “don’t bother with colorless vanilla” I meant to use regular vanilla if that’s what you prefer

Hope this helps,

Peony Moss

++++++++

For advanced, Rose Levy Berenbaum is a pro baker who has a recipe for Italian Meringue Buttercream that is supposed to be good for piping. I’ve never tried it myself, but the one time I used a similar recipe just to frost a cake, the icing was so tasty I nearly put my head in the bowl to get every last molecule.

--1--

We did it! The Virginia Mosses moved last week and are now unpacking. Now I need a nickname for the new place. I do plan to do a garden, but not until next month...

--2--

'cause at the end of this month we're off on a road trip to visit my parents.

--3--

Helpful hint: If you live in Virginia, DO NOT forget to renew your driver's license. If you do, when you go to the DMV, make sure you bring your driver's license (and your marriage license, if you changed your name when you got married) because your previous driver's license is no longer good enough proof of your identity.

--4--

And don't forget your cell phone, so that when your child gets sick at school you'll find out about it right away and not when you return home to get your driver's license and your marriage license and find the parent you listed as your emergency contact using a Band-Aid and a used envelope to leave a note on your front door.

--5--

Now that we're back in a house with a yard, the rhubarb chronicles will begin again! Remember those four plants I was growing back in the PGMP? They came with us when we moved. One went to my pal Iris and two lived on my back deck in whiskey-barrel planters, where one died and the other two hung on but failed to thrive.

But now I've got a nice spot of ground for them, and they're going in this weekend! Pie for sure next year!

--6--

I made a strawberry rhubarb pie last week.

Oh. My.

Rhubarb pie really is an amazing restorative. "Maybe things aren't as bad as you thought."

--7--

First Zappos purchase!

I LIKE:

Malindi by Crocs

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