What I Wore Sunday: Resurrection Sunday Alone

by Shannon

"Oh, the sweet joy this sentence gives: 

I know that my Redeemer lives!"

~"I Know That My Redeemer Lives"

I didn't intend on posting an Easter review until later in the week, but I have bad news — Cruncher is sick. He's had it coming out of both ends for three days (sorry for the TMI). He's pretty miserable, and we're having a tough time getting him to take in liquids. Stubborn little fella — I wonder whyyyy? This is the third-THIRD-third Resurrection Sunday he has been too sick for Mass. He usually only gets a stomach bug once a year, so hitting the same holiday three times is quite the feat.

Since Ryan is napping (tired from a three-hour vigil Mass, having a brave overnight guest to entertain, and getting up in the night to help a sick boy), and Cruncher is chilling in bed, I have time I didn't know I had today. No cooking a big meal. No traveling around town to visit friends. No having dessert guests over this evening. Too bad I have a big, beautiful cake and no one to share it with.... Aaaaand I'm a Debbie Downer on the most sacred day of the year. Sigh ... sorry.

Ho hum. Here's what I wore this morning to Mass, all alone, while worrying about my sweet little boy.

What I wore: walking into church; during Mass; after I got home; closeup on the veil; closeup on the shoes; and for the rest of the day.

Mass outfit deets:
Eternity veil: Liturgical Time (I feel a little odd posting pictures of me in a veil, but I thought I'd share since it was my Easter gift. The shop was amazing to deal with, her blog is just lovely, and I imagine they've gotten very popular since Jennifer Fulwiler's post a few weeks ago. I was excited to read Jen's post because I had been admiring a lady at church's eternity veil, and could never seem to catch her after Mass to ask where she found it. And I ordered mine before the price increase — woohoo! I had no idea I was getting luxury bridal lace. What can I say? I have good taste.)
Love knot earrings: Victoria Townsend, Macy's
Houndstooth spring coat: Beaubois, Goodwill
Faux wrap dress: Evan Picone, consignment shop in town
Tortoiseshell watch: Fossil
Everyone's favorite oxford shoes: Gianni Bini, Dillards

Mom uniform deets: 
Miraculous Medal: Tonini's (Wanted to wear it to Mass, but was in such a hurry between breakfast, getting ready, and Cruncher being clingy.)
Elegant sack top: Dalia Collection, TJ Maxx
Skinnies: Old Navy
First sandals of spring!!: Not sure. The brand has long worn off. Maybe Report?

Can you tell I'm an anxious mess in those photos? I'm pretty good at faking normalcy. I'll bet my mama can tell.

And now for a slew of pictures for my mama.

This year, I naturally dyed our eggs. My friend Gwenny taught me about red eggs last year, and I used food coloring then. I'm leery of toxins in food coloring, though, so I tried naturally dying from Spanish onion skins this year. I was able to snag a bag of onion skins from Meijer for free, since they just toss them. It was really easy to dye the eggs (lots of time, but not much effort), and I think they look better than last year's. The wreath around the eggs was part of our Lenten decorations, as a crown of thorns, reused for Eastertide as a nest. Sorry no other pictures of our big breakfast. I was too distracted. We had potato latkes with goat cheese, pepper bacon and mustard; baked oatmeal with maple syrup; fruit salad; and local coffee. Luke had Jello, Gatorade and toast.

1. Preach it, sister. This year, I went with Easter lilies, for obvious reasons, and
red tulips, because they reminded me of His Precious Blood. The little nests
were on clearance at Target last year, and I made the runner from some sale
upholstery fabric at Hobby Lobby, running me $6.

For the last three Easters, I have bought a new piece of art for our home. This year, I bought a vintage linen tea towel of the Cathedral and Abbey Church of Saint Alban. Unfortunately, the building is not home to Catholic worship, as it's now under the Church of England, but St. Alban is buried beneath. Between the linen, the fabric backing and the frame, I put it together for about $25. Oh, and I got lucky this year and found the Lindt lambs before they sold out. Too. Cute.

The rest of the goodies: books, books and more books; lion and lamb; spring puzzles and a Stow & Go — genius!; and a St. Luke figurine. We gave our overnight guest Robert The Seven Story Mountain and a book of short readings by Matthew Kelly. I was really excited to find a book on St. Francis of Assisi by Chesterton for Ryan, as well as Not Your Average Joe.

The loot in the hidden eggs: St. Francis coin; Sacred Heart of Jesus coin;
rosewood finger rosary; and St. Michael figurine. 

Peek-a-boo egg, hidden-in-plain-sight egg, bookworm egg and sleepyhead egg.

What Cruncher would have worn today. He's pretty opinionated about his clothes, so the last Easter he got sick, we all joked it was because he hated his outfit (because he really did hate it). This year, that's not the case. Oh, well. He'll wear it next week. 

What he wore instead. Or at least one of four outfits so far today, since he keeps getting them ... erm ... messy. Here he is looking for his eggs.

And here he is in outfit two, dueling with Robert. One minute, Cruncher is bouncing off the walls, and the next minute, he's groaning in pain. Such the boy. 

I feel HORRIBLE that I didn't think to get a picture of my handsome husband before he left the house last night. Like I said, he's sleeping, or I'd totally make him put on his outfit for a quick staged photo. I'm that kind of wife.

Linkin' up with Fine Linen and Purple tomorrow and Grace at Camp Patton today. Now I'll continue sitting in Chruncher's beanbag and asking him, "How do you feel?" every five minutes.

Inspired Dream House

by Shannon

Eek! Someone pinned my blog on a board labeled "Dream House." 

Sure makes me wish I was better at appreciating what we have.

Seven Quick Takes

by Shannon

"I have not been called to be successful, but to be faithful."

~Blessed Teresa of Calcutta

This is our blog's first dive into "Seven Quick Takes" with Jen Fulwiler at Conversion Diary. Knowing me, they won't be quick.

~1~

First off, this:

source: Catholic Memes

We will dearly miss him so, but he will continue to be an inspiration, which is such a blessing.

~2~

So, this happened tonight:

Yes, there was beer involved, but not nearly enough beer to justify it.

Speaking of beer, this is my companion tonight as I blog.

Ryan picked it out for me, this being his inspiration. Cruncher pretty much knows all the words to "The Saga Begins," because every 5-year-old Catholic boy should. 

~3~

This week is a break from school, so the before-and-after-school program asked us for $30 extra if we wanted Cruncher to attend a few field trips. I was thinking zoo (if we had a warm snap), art museum, science center. You know — the educational stuff.

Instead, he has gone to an animal shelter (not bad) and Build-A-Bear (pictured), and tomorrow is GattiLand. I repeat — GattiLand. For serious? It's the ghetto Chuck E. Cheese, and they call that a field trip? [Insert snarky comment about the public school system here.]

At least Cruncher likes his new bear, Nolen. (Yes, with an E.)

~4~

Got my boots! The brown ones are going back. But I'm getting the same pair. You see, I'm the type who examines things before I buy them, picking the item that looks least touched, and I refuse to buy something if there's anything that needs fixing. I always pull my groceries from the back of the shelf. So there are a couple things about the brown boots that aren't Just. Quite. Right. So, I'm going to give it another whirl. Kind of a gamble, but here's hoping. 

The black ones are great, though. 

Deets:

Cape: Vintage, consignment shop in town

Skirt, H&M, consignment shop in town

Tights: Target

Boots: Report, Zappos

Since it's the end of the season, I also bought a new coat. It's actually more of a fall-jacket weight, but I prefer my coats light for layering. 

I'm pleased as punch with it, and I've been able to test it out in the cold this week, since we had flurries twice! I was perfectly warm.

Deets:
Coat: Daughters of the Liberation, consignment shop in town

It was $30, and I gather the brand is sold by Anthropologie, so I'm pretty sure I got an amazing deal, especially since it looks as if it's never been worn.

~5~

I'm ahead of schedule on Easter prep because I'm actually using my planner this year. I'm usually scrambling through Holy Week, so I'm feeling pretty confident. We do a family basket instead of individuals, and I always fill it with books, so I went ahead to our favorite local book store yesterday to pick up everything. I can't enter that store without spending at least $20, and I found a couple additional non-religious books to give to Cruncher yesterday:

Cruncher's teacher has encouraged non-fiction stories since November, so the Ben Franklin book for $1 was a good find. Also, Ryan's had his eye on the Merriam-Webster Pictorial Dictionary for Cruncher, but thinks he might yet be too young for it. When I found this Mother Goose in Hieroglyphics book for $1.50, I knew Ryan would get a kick out of it. He actually said, "Oh, yay!" when I showed it to him. There's a key in the back to answer the picture riddles, so it'll be fun to see if we can guess the right words for the rhythms and rhymes. Also, Cruncher should be able to read most of the printed words on his own.

Next items on my Easter Preparation List: Cruncher's outfit (he wants a mis-matched suit), DIY plans for a door wreath and some sort of sacred artwork. I'm hoping for a new Stations of the Cross picture or a vintage icon of the Last Supper. I'd also like to get our front door painted before spring and start working on the garden around St. Patrick's Day.

~6~

It's Friday afternoon, and you realize you didn't plan head for your meatless meal. No worries — if you have a carton of eggs, you can make a frittata! A frittata is a fantastic way to clean out your fridge, getting rid of anything and everything that's about to go bad, or known as "borderline" in our house (commence singing Madonna here). Ryan and I love to serve frittata with tasty things, though, as we did this past Sunday. Here's the step-by-step, but you actually can use just about any combination of cheese, veggies and meat (or no meat) that you please.

Ingredients: Italian mix of shredded cheese, spinach (1 bag frozen or fresh), 9 eggs, 4 or 5 green onions, 4 oz. of goat cheese, 1/2 a cup of sun-dried tomatoes and 4 oz. of mushrooms

Heat an oven-safe skillet with a couple tablespoons of olive oil on a medium heat, and preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Wash the mushrooms, and slice them (unless you're lazy — ahem! — resourceful like me and bought the pre-sliced ones). Chop the white and light green part of 4 or 5 green onions and about half a cup of sun-dried tomatoes. 

Throw the veggie mixture in the skillet, and sauté until the mushrooms are a little soft. At this point, I added some pre-cooked breakfast sausage, but it's optional. Sauté until everything was warmed through. While this is going on, chop up the rest of your green onion, then throw the spinach and green onion in the skillet. The spinach is fluffy, so I threw a random lid on top to help steam the spinach. 

While the spinach is shrinking down, crack nine eggs in a mixing bowl, and pour in 2 or 3 tablespoons of half and half, milk or cream. Then throw in about 4 oz. of shredded cheese (I prefer white cheeses when including goat cheese), and whisk it up until mixed. 

The spinach should be shriveled up, so pour the egg mixture on top. Use a spatula to pull up the fried mixture so the eggs can seep underneath. No need to mix and swirl it. Crumble the goat cheese all along the top, like your dressing a pizza, and sprinkle some pepper up top. As it cooks, run your spatula along the edges of the skillet to keep it from sticking. When the entire thing is about halfway set (to where it's no longer liquidy, but the mixture still jiggles like jello when you shake the skillet), throw it in the oven for 13-15 minutes. 

Ta da! You'll know it's finished when it's a little brown around the edges and no longer jiggly.

Since our frittata was dinner for guests (though it would make a fantastic breakfast), we served some local truffles and caramels, toasted French bread, blueberries and cheeses. 

And a few pictures of our Sunday guests, Isaac and Tenille with their sweet children:

Our most recently baptized Godson, Little Bear.

I think Isaac was more than a little pleased to see Boo-Boo so enthralled with Cruncher's Star Wars toys.

A couple years back, we first met Isaac and Tenille was with Boo-Boo at our favorite bookstore. As all six of us hung out in the Catholic section, Isaac turned to us and said, "Do you go to St. Martin"? Why, yes we do.

Visit again soon!

~7~

I was talking about veiling with Ryan today, and it's just ridiculous that I care so much about what people think. I'm judging people for judging me, when I should be giving people the benefit of the doubt. After all, "You probably wouldn't worry about what people think of you if you could only know how seldom they do" (source). I need to remove the pressure to be successful in everything I do and not claim the power to control things. Trust God, and be the best version of me I can be.

"Blessed is the servant that does not think himself any better when people make much of him and exalt him than when they consider him worthless, ordinary and contemptible. For what a person is before God, so much he is, and no more."

~St. Francis of Assisi

Craft Binge

by Shannon

If I were a better blogger, I would stretch out this post over daaaays. But I'm not, so strap yourself in. This weekend was all about wrapping up some long-procrastinated projects, plus some Lenten inspiration. I tend to do crafts all at once, rather than one new project at a time. I like to call it Craft Binging.

Lent never fails to sneak up on me. By the time Shrove Tuesday arrives, I'm running to the grocery after work on Tuesday to buy latkes mix and meatless meals, rushing to Hobby Lobby for supplies, and desperately trying to decide between which penances to juggle for the coming liturgical season. This year was no exception, but I did manage to put off the crafting until the weekend. 

Four projects, clockwise from top left: "REPENT" letters for Lent prayer reminder, no-sew purple family-altar cloths, Scrabble-tile magnets and faux pull-down map.

I bought the letters and paint for the "REPENT" letters along with an "ALLELUIA" to bury, on Tuesday after work. Between frying potato pancakes and helping Cruncher with homework, I tore down all my winter décor and put up the REPENT with some Lenten-inspired items, but I knew the area needed some work.

By the way, those crowns of thorns (or mini grapevine wreaths) hanging down from Hubert represent each Friday in Lent, and we remove one each week to help Cruncher gauge how close we are getting to Easter. 

I had recently painted some unfinished wood with craft paint, and it had and almost chalkboard-like quality to it. While the dry-look worked fine for that project, I wanted REPENT to have more pop off the wall, so we'd really stop to take notice and reflect on the redemptive nature of the season. I gave glossy craft paint a try, and it turned out well.

After painting a couple letters, I found that applying heavy paint around the edges first and then applying broad paint strokes on the fronts made the process pretty fast and easy. Probably the easiest project of the day, but not without mistakes. I should have lightly sanded before painting. You can see the finish is a bit rough. (Though, Ryan says everything should be rougher during Lent — bah-dum-chhh.) Also, I should have let the letters dry on perhaps wax paper. My handy dandy archdiocese newspaper (the only paper we receive) stuck to the backs of the letters. In the end, not a huge deal, since the backs of the letters were to go up against the wall.

Before and after. I also no-sewed a cloth for this family altar. I had to be extra careful to ensure the hems were squared up, but the cloth resulted at exactly the right size. I'm happy with how clean and simple the altar turned out, perfect for Lent. I also no-sewed a cloth to place under some other blessed objects on the bookshelf. And I might do one more cloth for the coffee table, where we have a big family bible and a pillar candle inside a larger grapevine wreath.

Next up: Scrabble-tile magnets. We bought a fancy-schmancy wooden Scrabble board a few years back (complete with engraving), so the old, sad cardboard Scrabble box has been sitting in a drawer for too long. Ryan recently started using Scrabble tiles to help Cruncher cultivate his new love of spelling, so I decided our tired plastic letter magnets had to go and be replaced with nice wooden ones. Besides, we couldn't spell anything decent since there was only two of each plastic letter. Anything decent = Shannon. No fun! 

I used a hot-glue gun to reinforce the self-adhesive on the magnet strips. The magnets were easy to cut to size with plain ol' scissors. The worst part was picking off all the glue strings after the finished product dried. Well, I guess the worst part was actually the burns on my fingers. But it wouldn't be crafting if there weren't injuries, amiright? I love the smell of a hot-glue gun in the afternoon. You know the glue is ready for action when the gun makes that "I'll burn your flesh off, fool!" smell.

Old letters versus new. We gave most of those colorful letters away to another family a few weeks ago, but they keep cropping up all over the house. We're hoping that won't be the case with the Scrabble-tile magnets, because I figured out how to hang the drawstring bag off the fridge. Badabing!

Of course, when I went to implement the new magnets, I realized the fridge was a disaster. See that heart with arms and legs on the freezer door? That's from LAST Valentine's Day. I'm the most horrible mom on the planet because I don't keep all of Cruncher's awesome artwork, so I got rid of everything you see here except for the O Antiphons coloring page he worked on during Midnight Mass. I have an accordion file where I keep his best work. I put all of the thank-you cards in a photo box, and threw out everything else. Plus, I scrubbed the outside of the fridge (it was dusty — whaaaaat?), and I added a basket up top for Cruncher's lunchbox. Now I can breathe.

The last project is one I've been putting off the longest: a fake pull-down map for Cruncher's room. We moved our old computer into his room when he started school, and I thought a vintage-looking map would really top off the desk. I had already hung a shelf (that's the other project I painted with black craft paint) and added some collected items and some organizers. 

A real pull-down map to fit above that desk would retail for only about, oh, maybe $150. Since I have gobs of cash to spend, I rather like a challenge, so I decided to instead make my own. (Lies. All lies.) I did some research months ago and decided to go with this tutorial, but use 3M Command Strips. Well, it didn't work. The 3M Command Strips made the map look super wrinkly and sloppy. So, I rolled up the map and threw it in a closet. 

Today, I tackled the map once again! It was not a project without its difficulties (though there were no injuries). I did not take pictures of the process because it went so horribly (ripping the map, running out of staples for the staple gun, Ryan buying the wrong staples, me hammering in staples, ripping off one dowel rod and starting over, blah blah blah). The easiest part was the gel stain I applied to the dowel rods.

Doesn't look super awesome there, but wait until you see the dowels hanging on the wall.

I also added a little hook to the center of the bottom dowel, to really give it that retractable look.

Before and after! I'm really pleased with how it turned out. All the colors are jiving, the textures and layers are working, and — AND! — I can finally say I have a room in the house finished! That might be a first. 

And Cruncher's response when I asked him what he thought of his new map: "That's not new. We got that a long time ago." Well. Hmm. Can't fool him. 

Did you tackle any long-forgotten projects this weekend? Did you prepare for Lent before or after Tuesday arrived? Are you a craft binger, or do you spread the love of crafts across your calendar? 

See ya tomorrow. I have no idea what I'm wearing. 

By the way, I've linked up with The Pinterest Challenge (CHALLENGE, Challenge, challenge, challenge...) with Sherry at Young House Love, along with Bower Power, The Remodeled Life and Décor and the Dog.