And Then I Said “Younger Self, listen to me”

Too much, women lie to each other to soften the blows of life.

We—you and I—do it. Not so much anymore, but when we were in the throes of our twenties, we did it. I get why we did it, because when our best girlfriend is a puddle of hurt and anger at our feet, we just want to make it go away.

You’re fine. It wasn’t your fault. You did your best. You’ll get over this. Something/one better is waiting.

What we–you and I–have learned is that none of those words are helpful. When someone’s life falls apart, it’s not a thing to be gotten over. We can’t just leave pain behind us, like it never happened. Neither can we pick up our brokenness and carry it with us. We have to mend.

The thing is, mending is hard work. It requires courage and strength and faith.

So we have to be careful what we say to our sister girl in the puddle of hurt and anger at our feet. It’s not our job to make it like it never happened.

Our—yours and mine—friend is having some of the worst trouble of her life. There are no easy ways through the trouble, nothing to do but walk straight through, and for a while.

At your age, we—you and me—would have saddled up the posse and rode into town to make it all right. We would have used our words of fire and anger to declare that this will not stand.

We would have slowed her healing and hurt her more than helped.

Crosses are part of life and they have to be carried. If we try to save people from their crosses, we only make the way longer and harder.

So the other day, when she said she wasn’t sure she could survive the pain in her heart, I told her the truth: You—the person you are today—are not going to survive this. But I promise that you will defeat that death and rise again wiser, stronger and more whole.

She won’t walk this alone. I will be a witness. I will raise my hands in prayer and call down the power of Heaven. I will give her space to reflect in her darkest days. And when she rises triumphant, I’ll be there to rejoice.

I wish I could say that we–you and me–learned this from a book.

But we didn’t. We lived it. You still have those times ahead so just remember that you have chosen your sisters well.

You are all women of the Resurrection and you know the way.

We’re posting as part of Suzanne Eller’s livefreeThursday! See more posts on Twitter at #livefreethursday

Gummy Bear Stew

George is a legitimate Oregon outdoorsman.

He fishes. He crabs. He hikes. He hunts.

And he is the inventor of Gummy Bear Stew, which like all good ideas, was born from a mix of necessity and ingenuity.

Last summer, George took his son Jack and his nephew Hayden on a weekend camping trip. They unpacked the tent, the clothes, the sleeping bags and the camp stove. Then they unpacked the beer and the gummy bears and rested.

They are male, after all.

When George went back to unpack the food for dinner, he realized that somehow his keys had gotten locked in his truck.

He could have called his wife Angie, but it was getting dark.

So first, he built a fire. Then he drank some more beer. Then he cut the tops off the cans and turned them upside down.

He melted the gummy bears in the bottoms of the cans, stuck a spoon it in and called it dinner.

If you’re thinking Ewwwwww, I’m with you.

But the children must be fed.

We camped with George and Angie this weekend, and you better know Gummy Bear Stew was on the menu. Any kind of candy is fair game. Our stew had Gummy Bears, Sour Patch Kids, Rolos and marshmallows.

This is not haute cuisine. And it tastes about how you imagine—like a melted Halloween candy bowl. If you don’t eat it fast enough, it hardens into a Gummy Bear Stew lollipop. One taste and my teeth almost fell out.

But camping moms know that the food rules are a wee bit different in the woods. And not 20 minutes earlier I was the mom who yelled “Don’t give me that natural bug spray crap! The baby needs DEET!!! NOW!!!”

The kids ate that stuff up. And then bounced off into the woods with flashlights to search for windigos and stump trolls, too amped up on liquid sugar to be scared.

Dishes

At some point in my growing up years, the household chores got divided along gender lines.

My brothers did all things outside and trash related. I was in charge of the kitchen.

Although I do find immense satisfaction in a completely clean kitchen, and no one loads a dishwasher like I can, there were moments when I was 16 that I hated it. I wanted to be in charge of trash, something that happened every other day, but my brothers were no one’s fool.

When I came back home for my first college break, they gleefully stepped aside so I could resume my duties. I wanted to at least share them with whoever had been in charge of the dishes while I was gone, but nothing doing. “It’s your job” my brother said, patting me on the back, grabbing a soda and heading for the family room.

I made a vow that in my own family, things were going to be different. None of this genderized division of labor in my home!

I thought of this last night as Shea and I made our way through For Better And For Ever, a marriage preparation guide for engaged couples. We are training to join our parish’s sponsor program, so we need to go through the book ourselves to prepare to help others navigate the pretty tough topics and questions.

This is an interesting thing to do after ten years of marriage.

Somewhere, we have similar books from our Engaged Encounter weekend. I kept them because wouldn’t it be fun to look at them in the future and remember where we started?

Yeah, or scary.

Because we were so young. And idealistic. And we really had no idea what was going to happen next.

Take for instance the division of duties. I was determined we were going to share it all. No traditional 1950s housewife over here.

Shea does dishes. I do dishes. The rule generally is the person who didn’t cook cleans the kitchen. The truth is that he will offer to do the dishes when I am just too tired. And he did them every night of all three pregnancies. I keep the kitchen clean during the day because I’m home. It’s a pretty fair trade. We both like a clean kitchen.

But I do not take out the trash. Or pick up the poops. Or water the garden, pull weeds or mow.

I make sure that Gardener Cory shows up to mow, so that’s something.

I do laundry, pay bills, vacuum and yell at the kids until they dust. I make beds and clean bathrooms and grocery shop. I master the coupon apps. I shop for shoes and clothes and school supplies. I do doctor’s appointments and manage the family calendar. I take care of sick kids and sick dogs.

Shea brings home the bacon. This is a big deal. It’s what keeps me at home, running the Command Center.

I am very happy with this arrangement. Shea is very happy. But last night we realized that we have the very thing I was determined not to have—a fairly traditional marriage.

Why wasn’t I going to have it, again?

I can’t remember.

And there you have it.

Safer Anti-Aging Skin Care

In the words of that immortal beauty sage, Truvy Jones: Honey, time marches on and eventually you realize it is marchin’ across your face.

Sisters, that day is here.

I am not going to fight aging. But neither am I willing to sit idly by.

I have amazing genes on both sides of my family. My mother and my aunt look nowhere near their ages. Good stuff.

But the good stuff could always use a hand up.

My problem is, have you looked at anti-aging stuff lately? No Bueno. As if skin care conglomerates believe women are willing to take the risk of dangerous chemicals and toxins to look younger for a few more years.

One of the biggest mom job make-up companies—Mary Kay Cosmetics—refuses to disclose their skin care regimen ingredients, despite pressure from several watchdog groups.

I attended a “party” with one of the top sellers in our region in the last few months and she gleefully explained that the make-up remover will not just remove make-up from your face, but crayon from the wall and red wine from the carpet!

My face stopped her cold.

“Yes?” she asked.

“Why on earth would I put that on MY FACE???!!” I asked.

Here’s my line of thinking—if the make-up is so petroleum based that I need an industrial strength cleaner to get it off my living, breathing skin—then I’m O. U. T.

Even Arbonne, which touts its all-natural status, is not completely clean. Only 9 of their products have been evaluated by the EWG’s Skin Deep Database, which ranks safety based on ingredients. And the sole anti-aging product scores in the most dangerous category for developmental and reproductive toxicity.*

If you don’t know Skin Deep, it’s worth a visit. I have the app on my phone, which allows me to scan bar codes of products and instantly see whether they are safe based on cancer, allergy, and developmental and reproductive concerns.

This is how I know that most of the anti-aging products available in stores (from Walgreen’s to Nordy’s) are not safe.

You know already what Dana and I did. We made some ourselves.

Regenerating Skin Serum

I got Natural Beauty ($15.95 new) on Amazon. I ordered all the oils from Amazon, as well, using my Prime membership for faster shipping. And they have the 2 oz glass bottles ($21.99 for six). I did not buy the dropper tops because I thought that would be messy. I bought the pump tops and they work great.

Recipe:

Add all oils to bowl. Mix well. Transfer to bottle ($2.66 each).

4 teaspoons kiwi seed oil ($9 for 2 oz, $.75/tsp)

2 teaspoons rice bran oil ($13.50 for 12 oz, $.19/tsp)

1 teaspoon pumpkin seed oil ($13.99 for 8 oz, $.30/tsp)

1 teaspoon argan oil ($9.95 for 1 oz, $1.65/tsp)

1 teaspoon borage oil ($14.49 for 4 oz, $.60/tsp)

1 teaspoon vitamin E oil ($5.50 for 4 oz, $.23/tsp)

5 drops essential oil (optional)

Total cost (excluding essential oil): $8.82

Apply over a clean face morning and evening. Follow with sunscreen in the morning and anti-aging face butter at night.

Anti-aging Face Butter

Holly Berry Dairy is one of our local goat milk soap and lotion makers. She just started making fabulous unscented body butter, which is not yet available on her website, but for this recipe any natural and unscented lotion or body butter will work. The folks over at Goat Milk Stuff also make an unscented tub of lotion.

Recipe:

To 2 oz of unscented and safe, natural lotion, add the following essential oils**:

6 drops sandalwood

6 drops helichrysum

6 drops geranium

6 drops lavender

6 drops frankinsense

Mix thoroughly. Apply morning (follow with a sunscreen) and evening over Regenerating Skin Serum.

Some of these oils are the most expensive essential oils on the market, with a combined cost of $254.50 as purchased from DoTerra. But a .5 oz vial has 228 drops. So a $75 vial of helichrysum can make 38 batches of anti-aging cream.

Yes, the initial overall investment is a big gulp–$336.92. But I made my first batch in May and am only half way through. So if each batch lasts four or five months, we are looking at a cost of $70/year for a natural, safe and effective anti-aging regime.

Come on, ladies. We’re worth it!

*I can, however, highly recommend Arbonne’s baby sunscreen and their mascara, which both scored a 1 on the Skin Deep scale and work wonderfully.

**All of these oils are available for purchase from our very own DoTerra website at http://www.mydoterra.com/danaalvarez/#/

Summer Boom

Back in California, we had summer thunderstorms.

But nothin’ like what happened on Tuesday.

If we lived somewhere flat, I’d have been huddling in the cellar. Because there is no that the sky can be these colors without mayhem following.

This was the beginning... — This was the beginning…

Sustained wind at 40 mph? Blowing all the newly mown field grass and dirt up the street?

Up to 100 lightning strikes per hour?

An inch of rain in an hour?

“Hasn’t been like this since I was a girl” said my neighbor who has lived here her entire life. “Did you bring it with you?”

The rainbow came in the middle — The double rainbow came in the middle

And my husband, standing outside with the camera. No matter our cell phones were blaring warnings to stay inside, downstairs and away from windows.

The dogs were not impressed. Sugar retreated to my closet and stayed there til morning. Lizzie, who is too stubborn to follow Sugar’s example on principle, had to get the fur scared off her on the balcony by a huge boom of thunder.

It was a fine and awe-inspiring display of the majesty of the heavens. Take a look. These pictures are basically the same view over the course of an hour.

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