The weekly “little of this, little of that” feature here at Like Mother, Like Daughter!
Care to hear all about my latest major nesting project?
I've had in mind for a while now that I really wanted to deep-clean and reorganize my little galley kitchen. (You just CAN'T bring a new BABY into a house with a kitchen that hasn't been properly CLEANED!) But I knew it would be such a project and wasn't sure whether we'd actually be able to get to it. It had to be a weekend affair: I was going to need full-on support of another adult, and The Artist has been busy many of the recent weekends, spending his Saturdays working.
Then, on a recent Friday morning, when I was mixing my bread dough in the morning, I somehow managed to drop my whole jar (about 1.5 cups, I'd guess) of yeast into one of the lower cupboards. But I didn't just drop it. I flung it, apparently with some kind of uncanny twisting motion, such that — though it landed in the far back on the floor — it managed to coat every item on all three shelves of the cupboard with a fine layer of yeast. Pots at the back of the top shelf somehow had yeast in them. Dry yeast: a substance fine enough to be difficult to clean up, but certainly gritty enough to make itself known underfoot.
A blessing in disguise. Suddenly, my pipe dream project became a top priority, and our Saturday plans were set!
In the morning, The Artist unloaded everything — everything — out of that little space.
Another blessing: it was that one weekend when New England got a taste of spring, before we fell back into winter mode. So I was able to open the window and the back hall and air out while I cleaned (all my other windows are still insulated! I was willing to sacrifice what was left of my little galley kitchen window's scraggling bit of insulation). The fresh, bright breeze felt so. good.
The Artist took the kids to the park while I attacked the space.
A preliminary vacuuming. Then climbing up on the counter and cleaning from the corners of the ceiling and upper moldings, to the top shelves, and all the way down, with soapy water and sponge/paper towels. (My only regret at the rest of the family being out: there was no one present to photograph me squatting up there with my 8 month belly.) (Don't worry – I was very careful and forced myself to go slowly.)
(Yes, that drawing up there came down eventually for a cleaning before all was said and done.)
Then scouring out the sinks. And scrubbing down all other surfaces. Sweeping, then wet-swiffering. Hands-and-knees scrubbing of floor corners with rags. Q-tips were deployed.
By the time I was ready to put things back in, The Artist and the kids were back and we'd all had lunch, and I'd spent a fair bit of time mulling over the best arrangement. After 2.5 years here, I was better equipped to make decisions about where things really need to be in order to be efficient and ergonomic. It's a tricky conundrum, isn't it, that one has to commit to placing items in the kitchen as soon as one moves in! Those are hard decisions to find a chance to revisit!
I made sure every item was clean before it went back. Down to removing crustiness from the shakers of my spice jars.
I culled a cardboard box worth of items to dispose of/pass along. A separate bag of recycling.
I am a new woman.
In other news: this week's links!
We've had some excitement around LMLD land recently (more on that soon!), so I don't have much to recommend this morning. But here are some thoughtful and poetic pieces for you:
- On Beautiful Women from David Warren. My mom wants you to know that, if Warren wasn't on our list of resources for the male reader that we published a few weeks ago, he should be! “This short post is a treasure,” she says.
And, from the Archives:
- How to Get the Kids Doing Dishes… and Opening Up.
- The Library Project: Warm Family Life
- Soaked Oats Granola Bars
- Seven Strategies for Dinner with the Barbarians
priest's wife @byzcathwife says
Observant Jewish women must clean like you did to prepare for each Passover- because of the possibility of yeast! 🙂
Many blessings and prayers with the baby
DeirdreLMLD says
Haha yes, that’s funny! And thank you!
Margie says
Definitely nesting season at your house! Glad you got everything back in order. Baby will be here soon and a clean kitchen too! Sounds like a win win.
Aimee says
The dinner with the barbarians post caused me to begin asking my children if they were barbarians when they showed deplorable manners. Yesterday, I was reading a book in which a Chinese character referred to the Mongol barbarians. My 6 year old wanted to know if they were messy eaters !😀
Mrs. Bee says
Where I come from, there was a tradition of big Lenten cleaning, very much Jewish-style, at the end of which the priest would come and bless every room of the house so it would be “ready” for Easter. So, in a way, you ended up doing something quite liturgical!
And Is that the kind of excitement that’s brought by a new baby???
DeirdreLMLD says
Spring cleaning just feels right. Seasonally, liturgically, baby-preppingly… 🙂 (Now I just need it to actually be spring!)
And mmmmhmmmm you’re on to something, Mrs. Bee!
Faith says
Deirdre, I commend you on taking on this huge task at this time with spirit. The yeast certainly seemed to have a mind of its own. I had a similar syrup episode but arthritic knees were my challenge the day I forged into cleaning mode. A hand clamper-grabber tool(gift from hubs) became my friend. It felt so very good after to get it all reorganized. The kitchen is always such a big job at the best of times and how wonderful to get it done before the wee one arrives. Good job!
Faith
P.S. Love to view your art work Deirdre – so beautiful!
DeirdreLMLD says
Thanks so much, Faith!
Molly R says
Doesn’t it feel so good to have every inch of the kitchen clean? And of course knowing that you are now one project closer to being able to have the baby. 😉
DeirdreLMLD says
Yes! The imminent baby is so great for the to-do list! I love it.
Sarah says
I so know what you mean! I’m currently spring cleaning / organising my way through lent. It requires effort to psych myself up for the challenge bug then the pleasure from completing it is so great!
We’re also raising a growing family on a tight budget and I’m on a mission to get pleasure from the ordinary things. That’s all there seems to be time and money for so we need to enjoy them!
Xx
Catie H says
Well said, Sarah!
Lisa G. says
The David Warren piece is lovely. As for these funny blessings that come along, isn’t it funny how they happen? I had one not long ago; something couldn’t see how to make time for, and then – it had to happen, so it did!
Catie H says
Well done, Deirdre!! You must have slept so well that night!
Your kitchen looks radiantly clean. What a lovely way to welcome Baby!
Enjoy the rest of your nesting/preparing for Easter – how perfectly timed!
Lauren says
You are totally nesting and it’s awesome that that’s what you wanted to use your energy for! I can relate. I am 5 months pregnant and the second I was past morning sickness I started a 40 bags/Lenten deep clean (from Bowls of Lemons) and now my house is perfectly clean. I even repainted some furniture (outside) and washed or sewed new upholstery for my rocking chair, high chair and bench cushions. It makes me so happy every time I look around at a tidy, decluttered house.
Wendy-May Jacobs says
I read the David Warren piece On Beautiful Women – there is much to enjoy in it as he honours many aspects of beauty that often go overlooked, and those parts are tenderly and beautifully written. But afterwards I found myself uneasy, somehow, in the recollection of the article, so I re-read it.
The realised that the reason I felt uncomfortable was his labeling of ‘Good women’ and ‘Bad women’. Bad Women, in his eyes, seem to be women that he finds himself illicitly attracted to, particularly if they are ‘young and gorgeous’. He seems to find it simple and easy to label such women ‘bad’ rather than taking responsibility for his own responses. What really bothers me is that I read the article and initially didn’t question these assumptions at all. Ouch.
This kind of default blaming of women for their attractiveness is not biblical (well, not in a good way, it is biblical only in the sense of the rape of Tamar, or the dismembered concubine, not biblical in a way that should be emulated). It results in institutions like the Magdalene Laundries, in Ireland (where I grew up), where girls are ostracised and punished for ‘getting themselves into trouble’, sometimes for their whole lives. The men who had a part in this are nowhere to be seen.
I have lost my initial enjoyment of the article, and am left feeling disappointed and sad, and a bit angry.
What does anyone else think?
Leila says
Dear Wendy-May,
Maybe you are right.
Since I follow him and have for a long time, I have a sense of where he’s coming from, which I would describe as a place of respect for the order of things. However, he did not define his terms (basically, “bad” and “good”). From the context, I assumed by “bad” he meant “spoiled” to the point of “morally bad” — spoiled, precisely, by pornography.
I can imagine myself writing about “bad” and “good” men. However, men bear a responsibility for protecting the goodness of women that is not the case in the reverse… except in the way that solidarity demands that each person protect every other one. But men have a special calling for it.
So in the end, while I think you are misreading some of it (for instance, he finds good women who are young and attractive… but also in other states… so it’s not youth and attractiveness *per se* that he deems “bad”), I do think he ought to have either chosen to forego those categories altogether or explained them better.
In the end, I think what he is saying is that pornography leads to moral destruction (badness). And he is a man, so he is lamenting this result in women, who ought to be beheld in beauty. I think that some would question even this way of looking at things — the “beholder” and the “beheld”, but as you know, I am more interested in the complementarity of the sexes than their equality (which I take for granted). But I think that the whole of human experience and history (and Scripture — see the Song of Songs) is more on my side on that one…
But I agree that he does not *quite* take enough responsibility here, other than in overall tone, for which I gave him credit, perhaps not, ultimately, deservedly.
Wendy-May Jacobs says
Dear Leila
Thank you so much for taking the time to reply to my comment so thoughtfully – it is greatly appreciated. I wasn’t quite sure that you would… there are rarely dissenting comments made on your blog so I felt a bit awkward about it!
I have to say though that I am still quite unsatisfied by your defence of the article! I agree of course that pornography leads to destruction. But if a woman is ‘spoiled by pornography’, is that not in direct proportion to the failure of the man in his vocation to guard the goodness of this woman, to ‘behold’ her as Christ would have beheld her? Pornography only exists at all because of the ‘badness’ of men (as it were, using the language of the author). Surely a kind of humility is required, therefore, in order for a man to write about this, a sense of ownership of this sad, bad dynamic, rather than the casual sense of entitlement to judge that he conveyed (to me).
I have followed your blog now for several years and in so many ways I have found it an enormous blessing. Anything that supports and encourages the building of strong, worshiping families is a gift from God. You are also ‘mothering’, it seems, many young women who do not have other such role models in their lives – this too is a beautiful thing! I have followed with interest many of the suggested links and articles, including reading (not quite finished yet I admit) Guardini’s Spirit of the Liturgy which I would NEVER otherwise have come across. So thank you.
However I also need to put on my armour each time I engage with your blog. There are occasions (not every time) when people I love – chaste, holy, committed followers of Christ – are summarily dismissed (either directly or through suggested links), as being disordered, or indulging in a lifestyle choice brought on by the spirit of the age. Their voices are dismissed as having no value in the eyes of the church, despite their faithfulness. Their presence in a family is seen as a pollutant. Their very existence is an embarrassment, an affront to ‘purity’.
I can only assume here that this is because you have not walked alongside someone you love in the lonely experience of coming to terms with a sexuality which is not binary? If, say, a child of yours had been through this journey I cannot think that you would write about it this way. I realise that this is an assumption, and sincere apologies if I have got this wrong (really). But God can be (and is) glorified in the lives of his people who are not heterosexual. When did you and I decide to be heterosexual? We didn’t, we were lucky enough to have been born this way. The ‘right ordering of things’ according to Genesis 1 can work really well if men and women fit the mould, but it doesn’t work for everyone, and the Kingdom of God is big enough and rich enough and flexible enough to make room for other moulds too.
Some of these faithful brothers and sisters have experienced the most brutal rejections from their families, from their culture, and they are often living in a state of post-traumatic stress when it comes to Christianity. Their grace in hanging on in there at all reminds me of the grace of the black slaves in the plantations receiving the Christian faith from the slave-masters who did not even believe that they were human. It does not seem as if you are speaking from experience when you deal with these areas, it seems more like propaganda. Because so much of what you write about is written with a depth of wisdom and experience, your casual dismissing of some lives really stands out. I am quite sure that this is not your heart (you are clearly a loving and compassionate person), but this is how it affects my heart.
Anyway, this is rather a long response… not even sure if this is the appropriate forum for this. Thank you for commitment to the things of God. God bless you and yours.
Leila says
Dear Wendy-May,
Somehow you impute the brutal behavior of others to me… I have never posted nor said anything that could remotely be taken to condone any such thing. The rejecting, callous figure is a bit of a straw man, it seems to me — trotted out whenever someone has the temerity to point out that there are certain givens in life. That there is a political movement designed to marginalize and define as “haters” anyone not in conformity with its doctrines is a fact — and this it is that I oppose.
I am happy that you find a lot of good here, but I confess that I am not sure how to react to your assumptions about my life, experience, and loved ones. Certainly if any other sinful behavior were under discussion, I don’t think I’d be attacked quite this way (with my message equated with that of slave owners or what have you). For instance, God forbid a loved one of mine should kill a child in the womb — should I then be looking to set up a political movement to rationalize that action? Hmm… actually, since precisely that has already been done over the past 45 years in our country, maybe now is the time to reassess before we completely succumb to the next phase. In any case, you won’t find me succumbing without a whimper, and perhaps it’s that to which you object.
Sexuality IS binary. I’m not sure why that is a dirty word or how it got that way. Certainly “from the beginning” it is so — God created man, He created them male and female, *in his image*, and made their bodies for each other, for a holy two-fold purpose that can never be superseded but goes to the depths of our being — and, by the way, which images His love for His church, another reason that it is inscribed in creation itself to be *binary*. He creates each and every soul, not according to a “mold” but according to His Mind. He didn’t set things in motion — He is intimately involved in each person’s life and nothing can exist at all without His keeping it so.
The whole of history up until this moment shows that man has understood himself this way. The family is the bedrock and irreducible cell of society, now under attack. The disorder of the present convicts itself.
The burden of proof is on anyone who says otherwise.
On the other hand, I have never “casually dismissed” suffering of any kind, and if you are going to make a claim like that, I’d like to see some evidence.
I’d even venture to suggest that a lot of the suffering and PTSD many undergo in this area comes precisely from a lack of clarity on what Christianity teaches, rather than an excess. When certain interest groups misrepresent, for their own reasons, that teaching as “hateful” and harsh, is it any wonder that people are confused? The teaching of the Church brings peace and love and mercy!
I am happy to discuss this further by email — feel free to contact me at leilamarielawler at gmail.
Wendy-May Jacobs says
Dear Leila
You are right, I DID make assumptions about your life and your family, and I’m really sorry about that (particularly since I was aware that I was making assumptions at the time). And this must feel like an attack, which it is not.
Neither do I equate your message with that of a slave-owner – not even remotely remotely. The point I was trying to make is the faithfulness to Christ of many LGBT people despite having been rejected by the church (and rejection by a mother IS brutality). This has (in my mind) a parallel with the grace of the slaves in encountering the Christ of their masters.
I am not a political movement, I don’t have a particular agenda, I am just a Christian woman, wife, mother, friend, trying to live out my faith and serve my family and the church and the lost where God has placed me (like you are, I suppose), getting it wrong some of the time I know.
I will reflect on the things you have written further and email you (if it seems like that would be a fruitful discussion, for both of us). In the meantime, please accept my apologies for having seemed like I was attacking you. That was not my heart.
Best wishes
Wendy-May
ps Just as I finished that last sentence, here in England, a message popped up about the safe arrival of your new grand-daughter – big congratulations to you all!
Leila says
Dear Wendy-May,
I know it’s not in your heart to attack me. Normally I would just let your apology stand and not do much replying other than to say thank you for your obviously sincere words.
But I find, for the sake of others reading, that I must do more than that.
This is the danger of our discourse in these days — that we don’t discuss principles, but everything is cast in emotional terms, with the holders of time-honored and scriptural precepts portrayed as motivated by a rejecting and hateful spirit. The terms “rejection” “brutality” and “lack of empathy” automatically put the discussion on an uneven plane. Yet, I trust that we agree that it’s wrong to steal from someone, even if we personally know a thief; I assume that even if a close family member withheld wages from a worker, say (a sin that cries out to heaven for vengeance), no one reading this would be remotely tempted to ascribe the reaction against him as rejection of him as a human being, but as the only healthy response to his action.
I accept your apology for the reason you give — that I know you don’t intend it. Yet — when you use the terminology LBGT, in this latest comment, you are using politically charged letters that *imply* bigotry on the part of those who oppose the movement, and when you repeat “they are rejected by the Church” you state something that is not true EXCEPT by the terms dictated by that movement, terms that intentionally distort the wording and message of Christian teaching — again, for political ends. This is hardly fair.
There is no sense in which a *person* who commits disordered acts is rejected by the Church. (Obviously, I can only speak for the Church as the body of Christ, identifiable by her known teachings. As to mothers, I don’t know, but I’ve never yet met a mother who didn’t mourn for her lost child and his moral suffering; I suppose one could be found who utterly rejected — and that would be wrong indeed.)
The *acts* are rejected, just as any sin must be rejected by the body of Christ! That the persons committing the sins have chosen to make those sins their identity, and thus have involved their persons, is hardly the fault of the Church! She can’t be blamed if SHE tries to separate the two, but the sinner won’t allow it! If someone said “I AM a liar — this is my identity,” then he has ejected himself from the body of truth.
Sin has no place in Christ, who came for us sinners precisely to bring us to be with Him forever. Every single one of us. With the help of each other, unfailingly proclaiming the truth and supporting with prayer and love, we will have the courage to overcome whatever stands in the way of getting to Heaven. “Better to cut off your right hand… ”
You might not be aware, but it’s been a goal of the LGBT and Q movement to equate treatment of gays to that of slaves — to make the moral argument against sodomy equivalent to that against slavery. The leaders of the movement well understand that no one wants to be called (much less be) a racist, and they have wildly succeeded, in that anyone who dares speak out against their agenda is, at best, labeled a bigot. Surely you can see how this shuts down any conversation without the side doing the shutting actually making an argument!
But the key here is *consent* and indeed, morality. It’s wrong to own another human being. It’s wrong to commit unnatural sexual acts. There is something incredibly detached from reality in making slavery an image for “victims” of “binary sexual views” — as if a human being forcibly enslaved by another is in any way analogous to a person who chooses to commit a sin and define himself by that sin. Making this parallel is to dishonor the memory of slaves.
None of this is in your heart. None of it is even in the hearts of most of those who are confused about sexuality. What is in your heart is genuine, if misguided, concern. Yet, all of it is there, in your comments. Perhaps you are not even aware of it — nor are you aware of the danger that accepting all of it represents for the souls of those who seek to force Christians to somehow go back on perennial teachings; danger for women, who, no matter how redefined “spectrum-sexuality” becomes, will, thanks to the stubbornness of nature, be the bearers of children; and danger for children themselves, whose innocence has been stolen from them in this brave new world.
Danger, danger, when we let go of the moral law. Let us love the sinner and hate the sin. (Is this such a quaint and outmoded statement?) Let us reaffirm that God made man and woman for each other, and that there is goodness in accepting these givens, even if there may be a struggle and suffering. Let us not be afraid of anger when we stand firm in God’s precepts and speak out about them. If He is for us, who will be against us?
Maybe you will visit me when I am in jail 🙂
God bless you from the bottom of my heart,
Leila
PS. Really, feel free to email me.
Wendy-May Jacobs says
Dear Leila
Thanks for this. I appreciate (and honour) where you are coming from, though I think too that we are in some ways speaking at cross-purposes.
It dawns on me that we have very different experiences of the Church. I grew up in catholic Ireland where every aspect of life was closely controlled by the Church.
I will indeed email you in the fullness of time.
God bless you too, from the bottom of my heart,
Wendy-May
Alea says
After seeing the picture of your galley kitchen, I’m even more impressed by your cleaning spree! I don’t think I could have stood sideways in your kitchen when I was 8 months pregnant!
I loved the connection made above to the Jewish custom of cleaning yeast out of the house before Passover. How oddly fitting that you would fling yeast about your kitchen this time of year!
DeirdreLMLD says
Alea, you can see on this link how I do barely fit into it: this is a shot from when I was pregnant with my Peabodee, two years ago: http://www.likemotherlikedaughter.org/2015/04/bits-pieces-42/