That Frank Churchill Life

Most of you know by now that I got a chop-job done to my hair. Actually, it wasn't as bad as all that. After deliberating on whether to get bangs or not, I decided to go with it and get a little length off at the same time. I am happy to say that, though the reactions have ranged from, "WHOA. You...really did that?" to, "It looks AMAZING!", I am happy with it. And that's really all that matters. The fun thing about having bangs is that I can leave it down and it looks styled, I can put it up and leave the bangs down and it looks styled, or I can brush the bangs to the side and it looks ... styled. Pretty good qualities to have when you live a life on the go. So I thought, "Hey, why not just do a blog post with a couple Ways to Wear my new hair?"

And then my bangs decided not to cooperate and to act flat and then split down the middle. Like, really. Why do they have to have a cat's personality? At any rate, I combed them somewhat-into submission and took my iPhone selfies for your viewing pleasure. Also, open shipping-container doors make pretty good backdrops. #factoid

It Can Go Down:

I love them. They tickle sometimes, but I love them.

"Half the time my hair looks awesome but the other half I look like a simple-hearted Catholic school-girl who says Hail Marys thrice a day." -in a message to my best friend

It Can Go Up:

'Dem bangs.

I can brush them to the side for a youthful hipster look:

I can pull an Audrey Hepburn Roman holiday lookalike:

Which of course must be followed up posing as the Italian Barber:

 It is a very good sort of haircut and I didn't even have to go all the way to London for it.

Why I'm Not All About That Bass

Otherwise Titled: In Which I Use The Word "Sex" Twenty-One Times

//Source//

As a self-proclaimed "curvy girl," I find the popular trend of embracing every body type quite encouraging. I was always that girl who knew it would be impossible, even as a skeleton, to fit the mold of "the fashionable figure" and as I've grown up and realized that such a standard is not the only standard of beauty, I've learned to love my body. For the most part. That isn't to say there aren't (many) days where I wish my arms weren't so flabby, my belly was flatter, my calves smaller, and so on. Because of this, I'm encouraged when I read an article like the one about a size 8 model who was angry when the company for which she modeled photo-shopped her down a few sizes, or when I watch a video like Colbie Callait's "Try", which features the singer-songwriter wearing no makeup and has has had over 21 million views since it came out a month or two ago. I think it's amazing that our culture (despite all the things in which it is failing) is finally scooting over and making room for girls with curves or without curves, tall, short, plump, skinny, shapely or dumpy, willowy or compact.
But for all this, we still have a problem. The problem is that the pop-culture is embracing body types all right...and drawing them right into the sex-appeal trap. There was an article published recently that made its rounds through my Facebook feed. This article was titled, "Modest is Not Hottest" and covered the fact that if you are looking to be thought of as "hot", then yeah, modesty isn't the place you'll look for it. She's really right. I agreed with some points this girl made and disagreed with others, but the thing on which I think we'd both agree is this:

The object of the positive body-image movement is totally wrong.

This problem was brought into focus for me a couple weeks ago, when my soon-to-be sister-in-law, Abigail, asked if I'd heard a song by Meghan Trainor called "All About That Bass". I had not but after she mentioned it and told me that the woman who wrote the song is fighting to "bringing booty back", I went online and looked up the lyrics, curious to see what a song by a curvy girl, about curvy girls, had to say to the world:

"Yeah, it's pretty clear I ain't no size two,
But I can shake it, shake it
Like I'm supposed to do.
Cause I got that boom-boom that all the boys chase
And all the right junk in all the right places."

Wow. The joke about this song is that Meghan Trainor thought she was being counter-cultural. She thought that, by defying the long-held view of "skinny is pretty" that she was defying culture, when in fact she was only replacing the wrong view held by sex-culture with another wrong view. In essence, Trainor is calling skinny girls names and saying, "You're not sexy. I am." And the whole entire point of this song that was meant to break out of the molds, is that it this song is playing right back into the same mold. Girls don't really want to be told, "You TOO can be sexy!" Sure, it's nice to know that we have "It", but deep down, having sex-appeal is not the thing that will satisfy us in our quest to find our identity.

Identity Crisis is practically the entire point of the downfall of modern culture. You want to know why traditional marriage is breaking down and we have states legalizing LGBT marriages by the bucket-load? Because we've been fed the lie and talked backward, forward, and from side-to-side that we are sexual beings only. Shoes are now "sexy." A huge floppy sweater colored like your grandmother's couch-covers is now "sexy." Morning hair is "sexy," breath mints are "sexy", Tropical islands are "sexy," chocolate cake (the cake, not the person eating it) is "sexy," and next up, they'll probably be telling us that eighty-five degree weather is "sexy". The adjective has come to mean the same thing that "beautiful" used to mean and that bothers me. When we, as a culture, believe that we are made for nothing more than sex, life gets super confusing. So I, as an unmarried twenty-two year old woman, am useless unless I'm sleeping around with men (or women) (or both)? Is that really what today's culture is telling me? Pretty much. I get angry.

Identity in our culture is changing ... only in shape. Skinny is being ousted by voluptuous and one day, skinny will reign supreme again, followed by another curvy-swing because nothing has really changed. Sex is still the goal of many of the people who are involved in the positive body image movement: "I am sexy, you are sexy, all God's children are sexy." There are some who are on the right mental track, but too many others are still stuck on the merry-go-round that is Trying To Be Sexy.

As a Christian, I've got a special identity because I know that I'm a spiritual creature and that I'm body, soul, spirit, and all the rest. Yeah, sex-appeal is probably shoved in there somewhere as one of my less-important qualities, but it's a tiny piece of the elaborate person I am...that you are...that each of us is. Taking out of the picture the idea that we're only sexual creatures, body-image would barely worry any of us. I mean, this current form is going to last only...what...eighty years out of the whole eternity I will exist? There's so much more to me than eighty earth-years, but according to pop-culture, that's all I have. According to pop-culture, my booty better matter or I'm completely sunk.

I think we've got something going on here. We've got people reevaluating standards of beauty and that's a great thing. But instead of purchasing "All About That Bass" and gloating over the fact that we actually have butts, let's fight to redefine beauty as something deeper than sex-appeal. Beauty is way more than whether a man will look twice at us or not. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines "beauty" as:

"the quality of being physically attractive; the qualities in a person or thing that give pleasure to the senses or mind"

The qualities in a thing. There are way more qualities in a woman than her measurements, her body shape, and her makeup. And we'll never really change culture when we settle for anything less than the whole picture.

Your world is pretty small if you're all about that bass.

Autumn Styles: Peeking Ahead

If I have one flaw in my relationship with summer (besides high humidity and mosquitoes) it is the fact that summer fashions don't thrill my heart as much as those belonging to autumn. Maybe it's because I don't have the fabulously toned arms to rock a sleeveless top, or the fact that I cringe whenever it's strictly necessary for me to wear shorts. Maybe it's the hellish temperatures that make me wish wearing no clothes whatsoever was passable in society. ;) Whatever the reason, by this second week of August, I am always ready to break out the jeans, high-heels, sweaters and my magenta trench. So what sorts of fashions am I looking forward to trying this fall?

I've recently been inspired by Ginnifer Goodwin in Once Upon a Time:

She's feminine, practical, and stylish -- all things I will be needing to consider while continuing my nannying job this fall. Not so much digging the pixie-cut, but it looks just fair on her. One thing I've learned with a summer of nannying: I want my clothes to be kid-proof and cute. Also, Ginnifer Goodwin is a fellow (albeit petite) curvy-girl so I can take styling cues! The costume designers did such a good job bringing her personality into her wardrobe ... love it. 

Skinny Jeans & Heels & Boots:

Inspired by many curvy fashionistas, I want to try a pair of skinny jeans this year -- especially with boots or high heels. Another curvy friend and I plan to shop for a well-fitting pair together. I hate the painted-on look; I want a pair that will go well with longer tops (I would love to get a sweater-tunic) and stuff well into boots. Also, you can't beat skinny jeans and a trench-coat or blazer.

Cardigans

Also inspired by Ginnifer Goodwin and my love of all things vintage, I want to get a couple of short cardigans to pair with skirts and dresses.

Silk Neck-Scarves

Always one for that Hepburnism, I have ordered a few silk scarves and will be styling them this fall as a way to expand the versatility of my wardrobe.

Say hey to the guy creepin' on Grace Kelly

Hats

I really want to get a couple of different hats to wear this fall. I will be getting bangs of some sort "put in", if that's how you say it, next weekend and I'm looking forward to trying different styles of hats/headbands/etc.

 Yes. I am ready for autumn. This is going to be fun.

In Defense of True Love

With three friends getting engaged just this weekend, I decided to write an open letter to all the couples I know ... in defense of true love. 

Photo Credit: Daniel Tate

I saw the ring.

I saw the hope, brighter than your diamond, flash out at him; at the world; at me. No, it was something deeper than hope.

Love.
True love.

People don't believe in true love anymore and I lose my patience--what little patience I had to begin with--for these so-called realists. Those people--the embittered, jaded souls that they are--don't believe in true love because I guess they've never learned all of its pieces.

I've never known what it is to share that connection with another person, to let my soul entwine ivy-wise with theirs till the slightest tug hurts like fractured bone. I've never known what it is to live in dread of dread ... to lie awake at night worrying that the one my soul loves will be worrying: a mutual incapacity to think of anything apart from what that person might think of the thing in question.

I've never known it but I have seen it. Seen it in people like you. So I believe in true love because you've taught me. And those who don't believe in it? Can't believe in it? They just don't realize that true love hides under the nettle-leaf of a thousand courtesies.

To see a cup of water in the night, given by a clumsy, sleep-drugged hand, they call kindness.

They see you give up your own identity, that name which had been yours since birth, and bind yourself with a round silver promise to another human. You take his name and his heart and they call it a ceremony.
He fixes the brakes on your car and they call it a "to-do list".
They see the cup of coffee he made just perfectly and they wonder aloud why it wasn't a dozen red roses instead.
They see you lose a heated argument and let him have the last word and cry tears of hot release by yourself as you drive to the grocery store and they call it proof that the charm of your chemistry has faded; they don't realize that love, like any living thing, needs buffeting to set down roots.
In a moment of breathless, faithless crisis--a moment when he doesn't show a sliver of the infatuation he lavishes now, a moment when life has become like Sinai's forty years-those realists will draw close and whisper poison-wise,
"See? His love wasn't true love. Go on and leave and look for it elsewhere."
They don't see that the greatest material of which true love is knit is commitment and tenacity.
Your everyday choice to do his laundry, his bills, to share his interests, his people, his bed ... they name it "routine" and scorn it as they scorn the goodbye hug and "I'm headed home" calls.
They dub your patience "being used to him" and his quick out-the-door kisses "absentminded."
And those times he makes you laugh till your sides hurt and mascara inks your tears they'll call "good days" as if all the days between had ignoble titles.

They mean well, I guess, in their worldly-wise, weary-boned way ... but they can't know it is true love. They don't see that the service, the ceremony, the coffee and car-repairs and arguments and desert-treks, the routines and familiarity and absentminded kisses and "good days" ... these are the truth in the thing we call true love.

True love as I see it, as you've shown it, is a breaking yourself in half and giving that piece over, a breaking of one into two, a fitting of two into one: two lives, two souls, two personalities and wills and throbbing hearts. To make this love work, one must be malleable and able to fold in a thousand pieces, to build pieces on a thousand pieces to become whole again. A constant breaking, a constant healing, a constant no-longer-me-and-you but 'us'.

A thing without a name--those thousand pieces--are soon forgotten, disbanded, dissolved. The realists stole the name and cast it to the four winds and they can no longer see. So bind yourself under one name with a promise, call what you have by its name: true love. Defy the realists and better yet, teach them to see the beauty of your threads as you weave them day by day by live-long day.

I saw the ring.

I saw the defiance.

It made me smile and hope.

Queso Fresco: How to Make It

"The poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese."

-G.K. Chesterton

Cheese-making belongs to that class of mysterious household arts from which many shrink alongside homemade croissants, folding fitted sheets, and whether balsamic ought to be stored in the fridge or pantry. How does one make cheese? is the question many seem to hold at arm's length as if proper admittance of such a question might mark one as an eccentric. Surely it can't be terribly difficult if Bedouin trampers can make it in their wine-skins while trotting about camel-back … and yet there was that one article discussing the vehement battle fought to secure the name of a certain type of cheese as belonging only to cheeses made in a certain set of caves somewhere in France. So maybe it is difficult?

I have tried my hand at making goat's cheese before to small failure. It wasn't that the cheese didn't work so much as the fact that it didn't taste like the cheese I had eaten elsewhere. It didn't taste like chevre. Huge surprise, considering I didn't buy chevre culture (or any culture at all). It turns out that the cheese one can make without cultures and rennet is loosely called “queso fresco” which sounds like Spenglish for “fresh cheese” which is the essential character of the thing. We have begun a goat share program which has helped with cutting down on the gallons of excess milk that seem to collect around the house, but there was still plenty of extra and Mama requested that I preserve our lives by making cheese in the few days I am home between iGovern camps.

She had purchased cheese cultures and rennet last year but it seems that you are supposed to store those accoutrements in the refrigerator, not a kitchen drawer. Ehehehe. Then it was queso fresco again for me. I rolled up my mental sleeves, Mama laid out the cheese-making things, and there I was. The secret about queso fresco is best said in the words of the blogger at Serious Eats: “It's almost as easy as making a pot of tea. Except you need cheesecloth.”

In faith, she's right. All you need to make goat cheese is unpasteurized (or very lightly pasteurized) milk, a large pot, some vinegar or lemon juice, and some cheesecloth. Heat one gallon of milk, stirring occasionally, till wisps of steam come off the surface, or to 180 degrees Fahrenheit. Remove from the heat, stir in 1/2 cup of the vinegar or lemon juice and let it sit for a while till curdles form. Strain the curdles into a cheese-cloth-lined colander, then tie the corners of your cloth into a bag and "hang" your cheese by sliding a wooden spoon through the knots and dangling it to drip by weight so it isn't a soggy mess. Then you take it down, mush a lot of fabulous flavors into it, and voila: you've made queso fresco.

I have made five batches in the fifteen hours, resulting in some pretty darn fabulous combinations. First three batches were:

Mediterranean Herb

(cheese salt, fresh basil, oregano, and thyme)

Garlic & Cracked Pepper

(flaked pink sea-salt, micro-planed garlic, cracked peppercorns, a dribble of olive oil)

Pistachio & Chives

(cheese salt, minced chives and chopped pistachios)

And because I was feeling adventurous with today's batches, I took a fruity botanical route with:

Apricot-Cayenne-Mace

(dried apricots, sprinkles of dried ginger, cayenne, and mace, and chopped borage flowers)

Boysenberry

(macerated boysenberries in honey, cheese salt)

Mama went to the store today and brought home crackers and sweet cherries and we had a royal feast upon her return. I cannot wait to get back in town and try out our other flavor combos we brainstormed today (lemon-dill and orange-basil?). I also received the good news that Mama ordered three new cultures as well as citric acid which means that we'll be able to make mozzerella and real chevre among other things. Ohhhhh yessssss. And if it couldn't be any better, my friend Brittany (whose company I've been able to enjoy in our home this week) read to me an essay by Chesterton on "The Neglect of Cheese in European Literature". It is hilarious.

Let the hunger games begin.

Surprise, Surprise! (I haven't died)

Life has been sparkier than a bundle of Independence Day firecrackers SO I thought I'd give you the low-down in a concise list of highlights:

Sarah is interning with Generation Joshua for the summer. We miss her.

I am nannying 3-4 days a week and stuffing family life and my writing in the cracks.

Daniel and Abigail Taylor are engaged after two years as an "official couple". <3333333

I am working the iGovern camps with Generation Joshua again this summer! So excited.

My Cinderella-retelling, The Windy Side of Care was just published in the Five Glass Slippers anthology by Rooglewood Press! Interested in reading it? Check out the book's Goodreads page and add it to your "To Be Read" list.

It might have been an age since I wrote a fashion post for this blog, but I've guest-posted about how to achieve a Cinderella-inspired makeup look on Clara Diane Thompson's blog!

I am super busy rewriting my mystery, Anon, Sir, Anon, due out this fall! If you like classic English murder mysteries, you'll want to keep an eye out for this one!

And last but not least, I'm attempting to post a vlog on The Inkpen Authoress so if you'd like a verbal catch-up, try heading that direction!

Adventura: 3 Favorite Memories

I know you want more of Romania but I'm finding it difficult to proceed very far without PICTURES (Matthew, ahem) beyond those I took with my  own tablet. The other team members who were playing Trip Photographer are dating and at each other's homes and therefore are sort of MIA at the moment ... and yours truly is wishing she'd taken less pictures of the Decebal Head and more of the people I love.  Also, there is just so much that went into the trip that today, I'm going to simply share three favorite memories:

//Butterfly Whispers//

One morning in Arad we were given the opportunity to visit a small children's day-center down a twisting, forgotten street of the city. This charity doubles as a dentist's office and ministers to the neighborhood/street children. There were only a few children present that early in the morning: a few gypsy boys, the British care-giver's daughter, a gypsy girl (Corinna), and the daughter of a Romanian caregiver.
My favorite part about working with children in other countries is that the language barrier is not as much of a problem as with the adults. The children have no scruples against chattering at you in Romanian and are equally fine if you speak to them in English. There is no need to understand each other, really, because isn't the desire to play on a slide or chase each other around a room a universal theme? When the language barrier became too frustrating, the little girls would simply plant their feet and shout, "OANA!" till the Romanian woman came running to translate for them and explain the rules of a game rather like Ring-Around-The-Rosie. The three little girls seemed to gravitate toward a different member of our team and I found myself the chosen friend of a tiny, shy girl named Roberta. Roberta and I played chase for the longest amount of time. She was Oana's daughter and the cutest little thing I'd ever seen. At first she wouldn't let me pick her up but by the end of a solid half-our of tag, she was nestled quietly in my arms. We walked to the window and Roberta began to point outside and whisper in Romania about what she saw and what she wanted to do. It was the sweetest thing: the tiny whispers and the fact that she spoke in Romanian made me feel as if I was holding a fragile little butterfly in my arms and she was telling me things I'd like to know. We soon followed the others outside in "The Secret Garden" and my fearless little Roberta was whispering to the pet dog and pelting down the rickety slide, sliding recklessly on her belly into my arms. By the time we left, we had gotten rather attached and there were actual tears in Roberta's eyes as I set her down for the last time and waved goodbye. I couldn't help but feel glad that she was one of the children who had a steady, dependable parent. <3 I never got a photo of her but Mrs. Edmonston did manage to get a bit of a video and you can see a glimpse of my dear little Romanian butterfly:

Visiting The Children's Home

//Makeshift S'mores//

You will have heard of Stefana, our friend from last year. Stefi is one of the sweetest, most transparent young women I have had the delight to meet, and we only grew closer this trip. Leaving her was like leaving one of our best friends here in the states. I am so blessed by her testimony, her spirit, and her friendship. We spent several nights at Betel hanging out with friends local to Arad, and on the last night, I'd cracked open the bag of marshamallows I'd brought. Several sources had told me that they don't have marshmallows in Romania ... this is sort of a falsehood, for they do sell them. But they don't taste the same, they're expensive, and they are certainly NOT Jet-Puffed or whatever that good brand is called. ;)

Stefana has a sweet-tooth the size of Russia and was super excited when I brought out the marshmallows. She laughed and told us that she had tasted a marshmallow before but had never toasted them, though she'd seen it on movies. Then I had an idea: there was a kitchen in the church. Certainly we could roast marshmallows over the gas stove? We hurried into the kitchen, flipped the light-switch, and toyed with the knobs on the gas stove. Unfortunately, the gas had been turned off for the night and we didn't know Romanian stoves well enough to bother trying to get it back on. That was almost the end of our marshmallow roasting adventure, but at the last moment Alaina and I searched for a candle, found a tealight and some tiny matches, and lit a little blaze (not before I'd coughed and blown it out once, blown it out with one match, and otherwise foiled the candle several times). I speared a marshmallow on a fork and showed Stefi how to roast a marshmallow. It caught fire and she squealed but we blew it out and continued. It's rather tricky to toast these things over a tealight blaze! :D When the marshmallow was suitably gooey, I handed the fork to Stefana and watched her experience a toasty marshmallow for the first time in her life. She adored it and we laughed over the absurdity of our positions at eleven-thirty PM, crouched in a dark kitchen in Romania toasting marshmallows over a tealight. Stefana roasted her own (and possibly a third) and we let some of the gypsy women who live with friends of ours try one. (They said it was too sweet.) In the end, I gave Stefana the last half of the marshmallow bag and her eyes lit up with girlish excitement. She told us that she was going home to her husband in a few days and that she'd save them so they could have a date of toasting marshmallows over a candle. My work there was done.

//Give the Lady a Camera//

The trouble with travelling with a group of people you like a lot is that you always want a group photograph in nearly every spot and there really isn't one particular team member you'd like to cut out of the picture and force to snap the photo. At one particularly Alpine meadow spot, we pulled our little caravan over and arranged ourselves for a picture. We were about to send Sabine (red shirt, far left) to take the photo since he wasn't one of the Zaharias or the Americans, but then someone noticed a little old lady selling cheese at a stand. She saw our predicament and offered eagerly to take the picture. Amy (with the lingual aid of Pastor John) taught her how to work the camera and the little old lady cracked us up by arranging us, telling us to smile, and taking the picture. Amy went forward to view the product and, struck by the funny little scene, I whipped out my tablet and took a photo of the pair. 

This lady is sharp. She started jabbering about something and pointing and Pastor John said, "She see your iPad. Want to take a picture." I handed her my tablet, taught her how to use it (she was grinning ear-splittingly the whole time) and hurried back to the group. She took one photo and I helped her check it out. Not satisfied, our new friend demanded I show her how to take another and she went for Round Two. We thanked her, said goodbye, and packed back into the cars, but I'm certain I will never forget the little old lady selling her cascaval. <3