Top Ten of 2021

Well, it's that time again, time to wrap up the year. I always find it interesting what and where people read. Most people read on Facebook, and these were the posts with the most reach (in descending order, from greatest to least):

When Fun Isn't Fun Anymore
Payson Vacation
Afghan #65
Afghans 61 and 62
Real Life Marriage: Keeping My Marriage
Best Books of 2020
33.
Real Life Marriage: When the "Stuff" Comes Up
I Need Him.
Real Life Marriage: Deciding Versus Sliding

On my blog itself, the posts visited most often were (in descending order, from greatest to least):

Yoga Revolution (Yoga with Adriene) Review
The Three E's of Trauma
A Review of Yoga Fix 30
I Need Him.
Good Communication: Self-Aware and Selfless
The Importance of Parental Support for Marriage
The Strong Woman
Self Care is My Responsibility
When the Weight is Too Great to Bear
Marriage, Year Two: The Highs

Interesting that "I Need Him" is the only crossover post. And apparently my top posts are still from previous years. Oh well.

I hope you all enjoyed reading, and see you next year.

P.S. If you have a favorite post from the year, please feel free to share in the comments section. Thanks!

Afghan 67

Another one hit the post office!

This blanket is from another pattern off the 20 baby blankets list from which I have been working. Knitting with Chopsticks specified using an additional color (gray), but I did not have it, so I doubled up on the Red Heart spring green. I also used Mainstays white and pink. The bead and bubble stitch were new to me. (I had to re-read the instructions every time I came to a row of them!). They gave the blanket nice texture, I think. I started this blanket around Fourth of July and thought it looked like a watermelon. I gave it to a baby set to come Christmas Eve, so the green and pink seem like a riff on Christmas colors. Maybe this is an anytime blanket!

The size of this blanket seemed larger to me. Mine measured 34 by 55 inches, with 115 total rows. (The author of the pattern measured her blanket at 41.25 by 51.25 inches.) I used my ergonomic J hook for this blanket. It is pretty much the only hook I use, and it works great! I am just thankful I can still crochet and keep crossing blankets off my list!

The Paradox of Christmas

Christmas is a paradox. I have not really thought about it much until this year. This year, the pain of the season has come with a vengeance, and more because of external pain rather than person pain. Friends have lots babies. Friends have lost parents and grandparents. Loved ones have loved ones who are gravely ill. Pets are lost and dying. I have felt bodily pain from ongoing health issues and a few procedures. Isn't this supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year? Because this year, it certainly isn't.

Christmas brings up many feelings. For those with intact families, it brings up special memories and the chance to relive them. For those separated from their families by death or by choices (either theirs, or those of their family), it brings up pain. For families with good boundaries and the ability to enforce them, it brings closeness and warmth. For others, the stress of the season leads to more arguing and bickering and fighting. Or maybe the season brings such a mixture of feelings that it is difficult to delineate between them. Some would rather skip over the season than feel such overwhelm.

As I ponder what Christmas means, though, I think about Jesus. Born as a baby, but still perfectly God, he had to know that he would one day die. How did that affect him? What about Mary? She knew that her baby was God. Simeon prophesied to her, "'And a sword will pierce your own soul too'" (Luke 2:35, NIV). Did she know what that meant? She gave birth to Jesus in pain. Then she lived through the pain of watching him grow up and be crucified. How did she manage?

What about the people of Bethlehem and its vicinity? They lost all their sons two years and younger because of Herod's fear of Jesus becoming greater than him, and subsequent wrath (Matthew 2:16). That had to be exceedingly painful!

Christmas is a paradox, in so many ways. Some years just bring that to light more than others. The paradox of Christmas is eternal, though. Christ come to earth as a baby to die for our sins. Hope, and a reminder that we are hopeless on our own. Life and a reminder that all of us are doomed for death. We cannot have the one without the other. As I, and many others, struggle with pain this Christmas, may we remember Jesus' pain, and that because of Jesus' pain, sorrow does not last forever. Sorrow "may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning" (Ps 30:5, KJV). Either in the morning of a future day or future time, or in the forever morning of living with Jesus in heaven forever.

Merry Christmas to all, in whatever season you may be. Know you are loved, by us, and by the eternal God!

Savor

The breath caught in my throat. It almost hurt. I saw the lights in the windows. I saw the decorations, but I was glued to my phone, trying to cram in my readings for the day, reviewing my to-do list, adding items to the grocer order, walking quickly because I was already late. I just want to enjoy this season, yet it is flying by. I want to stay, linger, stand and stare. Revel in the beauty, but just like that morning, for the most part, I am not. I'm rushing, flying around like there is no tomorrow. There may, in fact, be no tomorrow. We're not promised it. Isn't that more reason to rest, relish, enjoy today? It hasn't been for me. It has been one more reason to get things done, to hurry and scurry so maybe, just maybe, if there is a tomorrow, and tomorrow is less busy, I will get the chance to rest. That chance never comes, though. The time I find, I fill, because I live in scarcity. It is not a good way to live.

I have already given up many things this season: baking plans, event attendance, etc. I have not even listened to Handel's Messiah, which is a family tradition. We got our Christmas cards out late. We used labels rather than hand-addressing (and let's be honest, cards went out mostly because my husband made the labels and put on most of them). I have "wrapped" most gifts in bags. My husband and I chose not to exchange gifts this year. Still, the season is crazy.

Believers have a saying, "Keep Christ in Christmas." What is left when we take Christ out? Mas, the Spanish word for more. I feel like that has become what Christmas is about: more. More events. More gifts. More cards. More. More. More. The simple beauty of the season gets lost.

I cannot fix my scarcity mentality overnight. In reality, there is still a lot to do. For the remaining time until Christmas, though, I am trying to savor what I can: the lights, the sights, the songs. I double back on my walking route to see the store window decorations downtown for a second time. I actually look in the windows. We keep the Christmas lights burning in our tree to whatever hour we stay up. I take lots of pictures. The season is flying by, but I can still savor it, or at least little bits of it. This I seek to do, not from a place of scarcity, of worrying about losing the season, but from a place of enjoyment. This season really is beautiful, and worth soaking in.

In Defense of the Traditional Female Gender Role

If you would have told me I'd be saying this a few years ago, I would have said, "No way." If you would have told me I'd be married even a few years ago, I would have said, "Nah." But things change. People change. And so while what I'm about to write may shock a few people, it's a result of the above mentioned ability to change. And this is it: Maybe a woman's place really is at home.

I always railed against the idea of the domestic housewife. I wanted to do more. Be more. I felt that being "just" a housewife was menial, demeaning. I subscribed to the biblical idea of complimentarian gender roles, in that I needed to submit to men in leadership, and a husband if I ever had one, but thought I could do that and be an aspiring career woman. Well that changed.

I returned to my full-time (plus!) job just two weeks after my husband and I got married. I attempted to keep the same pace and focus, but things just weren't the same. I wanted to work, wanted to help, but also wanted to be home to care for my husband. I felt very guilty when I got home after him or had to have him make dinner because I was late. He was totally willing to help cook when he could, but I felt that as a wife, cooking was my job.

I had career aspirations, things I wanted to do and accomplish. I still have them, kind of. I have things I want to do and explore. I like learning. All pales in comparison to wanting to be a good wife, though. Career takes at least second place, if not third or fourth or lower.

My husband has taken on some of the household chores as we've been married longer. He says it's only fair if he has time and I'm working full-time. That makes sense, but marriage isn't all about fairness. I know that household chores aren't my husband's favorite. It blesses him if I do them. I want to bless him.

The more I talk to wives and moms, the more I find women in the same situation as me. They find that they cannot work full-time and keep up with their house and family as they want, so they work part-time. One woman told me that she lost all career motivation when she got married and subsequently became a mom. She might still work, but she is not as interested in the prospects. Several of the bloggers I follow had dramatic career changes after marriage and child bearing. It's a trend.

Marriage changes things. Marriage changed (and is changing!) me. I like working. I think I might be bored if I stayed at home all day and didn't see an outside soul. But I don't think work is what I was created to do as a wife. Home is where my heart is. Even if/when I am working that is my place, and that is where my greatest focus lies.

Mug Cake Month

I have gotten back into making mug cakes this month. (If you are not familiar with mug cakes, they are single serve cakes made in a mug, usually cooked in the microwave, but sometimes in the oven.) Mug cakes are not the be-all, end-all of desserts, but they are convenient and they keep life interesting. (I am bad about making dessert, eating it once, and letting the rest go to waste.) I have made mug cakes before, but I found a wealth of new mug cake recipes on Pinterest, and have been going off those. So without further ado, here are a few winning recipes (with my adjustments) that I have found so far:

Cinnamon roll microwave mug cake (Kim's Cravings)

Mix:

1/4 c whole wheat flour
1/4 t baking powder

Stir in:

3 T whole milk
1 T unsweetened applesauce
1/4 t vanilla

Top with 1 teaspoon cinnamon sugar and swirl into batter with a knife. Microwave for 1 minute, 30 seconds.

Banana bread muffin (Skinny Taste)

*I made this one in a bowl. Bowls also work for mug cake recipes. 

Mash:

1 banana

Stir in:
1/4 c whole wheat flour
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t vanilla 

Add in 2 T of water if the batter is dry. Microwave 1 minute, 30 seconds for a gooey cake, or 2 minutes for a more firm cake.

Single serving brownie (Brooklyn Farm Girl)

Mix:

2 T whole wheat flour
2 T Cocoa
1 t cinnamon 
1/2 t baking powder

Stir in:

1/4 c applesauce 
2 T water

Microwave 1 minute, 30 seconds.
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If you have any fun mug cakes, please comment, or send them my way. I enjoy experimenting!

Real Life Marriage: Traditions

'Tis the season to be jolly? Or is it? Thanksgiving through Christmas is a great time of year, but it can also be difficult. There are lots of demands on time. Families can clash. Stress and strife can reign, but they don't have to. We can choose how we go through the holidays. Traditions help us do that.

My husband and I hold very similar values, but come from different backgrounds. The longer that we are married, the more we navigate our own traditions. So far, we have not come up on any real conflicts, but we recognize that the holidays can hold conflict, and we try to avoid it. How? By combining traditions where we can, compromising where we can't; and by making new collective traditions that are special just to us.

Let me give some examples:

Combining: Both of our families open one present on Christmas Eve, so this tradition is a no-brainer. When we host Christmas, we go with our joint tradition. 

Compromise: My husband's family decorates for Christmas after Thanksgiving dinner. This is a little stressful for me, especially when I have just cooked a meal. Since my husband does most of the decorating, though, I let him have at it. (Truthfully, he does a better job than I do.) As far as family goes, we are still figuring that out, but we agree that we should alternate between families, where feasible. Since I like staying home for the holidays, my husband proposed that we give ourselves the off-year holidays.

Collective: My best friend gifted us an ornament made from our wedding program for our first Christmas. Last Christmas, we decided to make a tradition of buying an ornament to represent each year. Last year, we purchased one with masks and sanitizer due to the COVID pandemic. This year, we purchased one that had to do with our weekly traditions (more on that later, maybe). Each Christmas, we take photos to use for a card, and we work together to send out the cards. Around Christmas, we also choose a new marriage devotional practice for the year and purchase a new book, if needed. These are our traditions. 

Traditions aren't be all end all. Being black-and-white about them does not help holiday stress. Having them gives us something to look forward to in the season, though. The traditions help us shape our own identity. We do them while they work, and when they don't, we have grace, or we start new traditions. That is the beauty of real life!