{bits & pieces}
Making a home takes a lot of thought!
Let’s take bedding. This will be a really trivial example, but I know you are up for it.
How many beds do I have in my house? I’m not sure I even know… 9? not counting cribs or the pullout sofa or mattresses stowed under the beds in case of a sudden influx; all of which do need sheets and so on?
That’s a lot of bedding. One day I was looking at a pair of cute pillowcases in a thrift store and I thought, well, why not mix and match? Only the pillowcases and the tops of the top sheets show, and sheets don’t wear out the way the cases do.
To keep the cases that go with the sheets from wearing out first (which is what happens), I use them on the bottom of the two pillows on the adults’ beds. Where the single beds’ pillowcases have worn out, I just have been using whatever thrifted pillowcase is available (and that works well — I like the look of the vintage ones I have found).
I also started buying pairs of white ones at Marshall’s or TJMaxx when I came across them, especially on clearance.
But I find my OCD twitching when I can’t find the matches for my double beds, though I try to keep them together in the laundry. What’s to match, you might ask? Well, some have one kind of little trim, others have a slight weave variation, and so on… it’s impossible to contemplate them not matching exactly without danger of hyperventilation!
One even later day in the life of my housekeeping (that is, about three weeks ago), I wondered if I could just buy white pillowcases in bulk. In the same vein as having non-unique socks, a good supply of identical pillowcases is quite liberating.
Of course, the challenge is evaluating the quality, but I took the plunge. These are fine, and come in packs of 12. (Edited to say, actually, the ones I ordered are no longer available in that quantity, but I am leaving the link here so that I can find it again. Maybe you can go in with 10 of your closest friends — it would be cheaper!)
They are not satiny, particularly, though a lot of the reviews say they are, and they are not percale, but they are cotton and certainly not microfiber [shudder]. (I suppose I could have ironed them… not really… )
As you can see, I still have my flannel sheets on my bed… I’m hoping that can change soon… spring is not too far off!
bits & piecesLeila Miller put together a book, Primal Loss, that lets adult children of divorce say what they really think. I am an adult child of divorce and I can say without hesitation that this book offered me insight about and healing of the trauma I suffered as a child and still bear the scars of today. She wrote a post to respond to those who denigrate the message of the book: You’re Not Mocking Me, You’re Mocking Them. An important, well researched article about the pervasiveness of aborted fetal parts in our medical supply (and elsewhere too, but that’s for another time). Do we give in? Or do we resist? I wrote about this too, here.Another life-affirming post from John Cuddeback: When a Man Proposes.The Doublethinkers by Natan Scharansky. Scharansky spent nine years in Soviet prison.“In the democratic society in which you live, can you express your individual views loudly, in public and in private, on social media and at rallies, without fear of being shamed, excommunicated, or cancelled?”
Just an FYI: Neonatal equipment can transmit toxicity to developing babies’ endocrine systems.A list of dough sizes by weight! Hooray! I personally would go ahead and round up or down these measurements, but they are nevertheless extremely helpful when you are like me and totally winging it when it comes to mixing dough, but needing to know what the heck size buns, pizza round, loaf, bagel, or what have you, to form! Or for that matter, you have an oddly shaped pan or a recipe that you’d like to convert from one sort of shape to another.Could Alexander the Great’s father be seen as great also? from the archivesOne question was — have you planted your seeds too soon, Auntie Leila? Well, it is unusually cold here! However, the sap is flowing and soon I hope to set up my little DIY greenhouse, where I can move my cold-tolerant seedlings and make room for my tender ones! It’s good for mother to be in the kitchen — but that doesn’t mean you can’t be efficient! Learn how to stash away certain ingredients and prepared items to streamline your food prep. 12 Things to Stash!Lent is a good time to begin a simple prayer life with children. liturgical livingAll the saints who give spiritual advice tell us the same thing: we must pray! Start with five minutes a day (there’s your Lent for you!) and here is a suggestion fit for “liturgical living”: if you aren’t already praying the Office of Readings in the Liturgy of the Hours, perhaps occasionally you could use the 2nd reading, which is usually a little sermon or treatise from a Church Father, in your prayer. I can’t tell you how many times this reading has struck an arrow right into my heart! You can find the Office here — look for “Office of Readings,” click, and scroll down to the 2nd reading (of course, praying the whole thing is a good idea too!). (We can discuss the Traditional Divine Office vs. the Novus Ordo Liturgy of the Hours another time.)
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