No, Sam. I won’t stay with you.

~ Laura ~ Leave a comment

The problem with many pop songs is that we listen to and sing them without thinking about what we’re saying. Let’s elaborate with a little story.

“Stay with me” (by Sam Smith” is a song that’s been on a LOT lately, and I have most certainly enjoyed singing it. Some of my favorite parts of the weeks I was still working were belting like crazy on the way home. Windows down, hair down, sunshine, and music blasting . . . much of the time it was country music, but I do listen to pop music. Except for the kind that makes me have a heart attack or is super graphic or gross.

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We were singing this song or talking about it at home here, and my brother was like “Um, did you know that song is about a one night stand?”

WHAT?

No.

I have been singing this song for weeks. How could I not know that?!?!?!

But it’s true. Apparently I never listened real well to the beginning of the song, because here’s what he says:

 

Guess it’s true, I’m not good at a one-night stand
But I still need love ’cause I’m just a man
These nights never seem to go to plan
I don’t want you to leave, will you hold my hand?

[Chorus:]
Oh, won’t you stay with me?
‘Cause you’re all I need
This ain’t love, it’s clear to see
But darling, stay with me

[Verse 2:]
Why am I so emotional?
No, it’s not a good look, gain some self-control
And deep down I know this never works
But you can lay with me so it doesn’t hurt

So basically he’s “just a man” which justifies the one night stand because he “still needs love”. He knows he needs self control, but we all know that never works, so why won’t the girl do him a darned favor and stay with him?

Let me tell you why:

Because smart women who value themselves don’t stay with losers who lack self control.

Of course, smart women shouldn’t get into that kind of a relationship in the first place. Nothing good comes out of one night stands, so it’s honestly quite pointless. We’re made for love, yes. We do need love. And one could argue that love is all we need.

But one night stands are not love. They are, much of the time, the result of drugs or alcohol and other things which inhibit our sense of good judgement.

So, Sam. You do need love. We all do. I would just suggest you start looking for it in other places.

And folks, I would suggest that you take a peek at the lyrics of some of your favorite songs before you start belting them. Just a warning before you start belting awkward lyrics at a stop light 🙂

To Life,

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Body Wash: Hippie Style

~ Laura ~ 6 Comments

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My latest hippie adventure has to do with body wash. I’ve been making it for quite some time, but ran out months ago and never made the effort to make more. Until now!

I don’t make body wash because regular stuff makes my skin super dry or because of certain chemicals I’m afraid of. The novelty of it is just fun, and I like making my own things. That’s partly why I’ve made my own laundry detergent too! Here’s how I do body wash:

1. Procure soap.

I don’t know what the name of this one is, but it’s my favorite! It’s Olay brand and comes in a yellowish-orange package with coconuts on it. Smells divine and is wonderfully moisturizing. You can get it for $1/bar, but could get lesser quality bars for cheaper (or this one with coupons).

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2. Grate or cut soap into small chunks.

This is surprisingly easy to do! I grate it until I get to the end then cut it up (see first picture up there) so I don’t grate my hand off.

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3. Add to pot with ~2 cups water, and turn up heat to medium.

Different bar soaps will come to a different consistency, and that’s been the hardest part. This particular bar comes out thin – kind of like a thin cream. Feel free to experiment with water amounts!

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4. Stir until soap chunks have disappeared, then let sit.

A whisk works nicely, but you can use any ol’ spoon. Or an oar. Whatever stirring agent you have lying around that won’t melt. Turn off the heat and let it sit for a while is what I read online, but I haven’t found the point behind that. I strained mine into a heat-proof bowl and let it cool so it wouldn’t melt my container.

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5. Viola! Prepare for storage & use.

I made 6 batches of this at one, so it made about 2.5 liters, or an orange juice container full, however you’d prefer to measure. Since it is somewhat thin, I put some in a spray bottle for regular use. If you want it thicker, I would suggest looking into different types of recipes with glycerin or castile soap.

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Sound super weird? I dare you to try it! This bar is moisturizing and smells heavenly, AND lasts a long time! If you’re into more au natural things, you can use a natural soap or whatever bar fits your preference. Let me know if you have questions or a different hippie project I could try out.

To Life,

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Life Lately

~ Laura ~ 2 Comments

When I last posted, I was on a roll. My latest articles became some of my most popular – very quickly . . . and then I didn’t write for 10 days.

I’m not going to make excuses, because there wasn’t a conscious reason. It just kind of happens sometimes. So what’s been going on?

SFLA flew me out to D.C. for the kick-off training weekend for the Wilberforce Leadership Fellowship. It was rather impressive, and I’m honored to be counted among this year’s fellows. SFLA provides all kinds of resources to campus groups, which I did not know the depth of! It’s wonderful to see an organization committed to giving more than our hearts to the movement. They bring professionalism and best practices to the table, which I absolutely love. As part of the fellowship, they pair you with a mentor for the year, and I was matched with Peggy of Heartbeat International. It will be wonderful to learn from someone so closely involved with the pregnancy help movement!

10533734_10152479599545141_6387888710786783414_nOne of the speakers they brought in, Jeanneane Maxon of Americans United for Life, tweeted what she was doing, and a self-described “hard-core pro-abortion militant” replied asking if it was preschoolers for life meeting. SO! We took a pro-life selfie to share with her 🙂 She accepted that we are legitimate students.

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My internship with RealOptions comes to a close this week just as soon as I give my final presentation. It’s been a wonderful learning experience. I was responsible for researching data systems and will be presenting my case for support for the best program available. It was also wonderful to be able to shadow their clinic directors and talk with their campus outreach coordinator!

For a while I’ve been saying that my goal is to run a life-affirming pregnancy center, but more and more I keep coming in contact with the rising issue of unity within our movement. Almost every organization I’ve been involved with has had issues with unity, and it’s widely known that the pro-life movement in general has issues with this.

We have people who carry huge bloody signs outside clinics yelling “don’t kill your baby!!” and then people who refuse to do anything but pray. Having direct contact with this outside clinics makes the whole situation so real. And I’m confronted with the fact that our lack of unity stops us from doing the work we’re called to do. I firmly believe our movement needs a greater focus on best practices, with an increased number of professionals. We need to ask the question “What is the best proven and logical way to go about this?” not “Abortion is bad. What is the farthest I’ll go to stop it?”. As you can tell, there’s a whole post coming on this.

Otherwise?

I represented Benedictine while tabling at the NAPA Institute Conference. That was neat!

Books . . . I love you. It’s been so long since I’ve read this much and I can’t wait to share some On My Bookshelf posts about them!

Also, I made cinnamon rolls. Want to come have coffee?

Summer is coming to a close, and I’m looking ahead to the school year. Books are on their way (most expensive ones yet!), and we’re cooking up all sorts of plans for Ravens Respect Life! Time to enjoy time away with extended family, finish a few books, and soak up some sun before the trek back to Kansas.

Thanks for reading!

To Life,

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An open letter to Americans about kids

~ Laura ~ 12 Comments

Did you see this article: “I’m Not Prejudiced, I Just Don’t Like 25% of Humanity”? In it, Haley talks about how (in general) America has become anti-child. People get mad if kids are disruptive in a restaurant. Crying on flights? How thoughtless of the small monster! And if they fail to be silent in Mass? Get. Out. Ya’ll just better stop raining on my parade.

Dear America: You can do better.

Thinking about it, it’s no surprise that people write things like the “26 Important Reminders Why Birth Control Exists” Haley linked to. Kids are just these little tasmanian devils that eat your money and steal your soul, not to mention your sleep. So it would make sense that people don’t like them.

I come from a big family, and I’ve been around big families my entire life. While I’m not a mom, I’ve cared for kids and grown up knowing that while kids can be hard, they are worth it. And doing all the reading I do now has only helped cement that belief.

So when I read that buzzfeed list of why to use birth control, I honestly had to laugh. It’s sad, yes, the comments people made on it. They are so afraid of kids that crayons on the wall bother them? What? I mean, look at that smiling face when kids say “I love you”. Menacing! Artwork on the car? Terrifying! Yes, there’s a limit to where kids should be allowed and how they should behave. But come on. Baby smiles are so precious, even if it’s because they just farted. Yes, I said that. Maybe kids will put oatmeal in their hair and spread bodily fluids all over their bed. Maybe they will scream and you can’t figure out why.

Maybe they will make other people uncomfortable, but that’s okay. We need to get uncomfortable.

We need to realize that while it’s not okay for kids to totally misbehave, we need to cut them some slack. Kids have so much pressure to be perfect. “Sit still” you hiss at them, or “Write your name perfectly 10 times”. Since when did we have so many crazy expectations for kids? Where are the days when kids roamed the neighborhood and made memories with friends? Some of my fondest childhood memories are of getting dirty in the mud in our backyard. We would play restaurant or re-decorate a recycled Christmas tree. I had the freedom to be creative. Yes, that did turn into a big mud fight that got on our house once. We had to clean that one up! My brothers tried to eat snails and worms too. Many of my dolls received haircuts, and my favorite blanket is in shreds. Childhood is just kind of messy.

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But so what?

It’s an absolute shame that when we see kids now, we see only what they take away from us. We have our perfect little sanitized life and if there’s an itty bitty dirty hand involved oh my landa would ya’ll get the Purell STAT?!?!

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What about if we stopped complaining so much, and talked more about how they enrich our families and communities? Tell me about the time the kids surprised you with breakfast in bed. The homemade cards. The messy baby kisses. Honestly, when I read the buzzfeed thing I was cracking up. The kids (for the most part) are being kids! They’re going to be messy. They are not always going to be quiet.

Shame on us if we can’t see the beauty in that.

If you don’t have experience with kids, I can see why you might be afraid of them. From my limited experience, I’ve gathered that it’s a lot of work. If you’ve never seen those precious baby smiles and the laughter of little kids filled with glee, completely oblivious to our messed up world, you’ve missed out on something. And I’m sorry you’ve only seen the bad parts.

But that is not a valid excuse. Just because you don’t have good experiences with kids doesn’t mean you can make sweeping generalizations about them. Hating kids doesn’t say anything about them, but it says a lot about you.

So take some time to get to know families, especially families who openly love their kids and will let you see a glimpse of family life. Help a mom out when she drops something with a baby on her hip. Anonymously pay for a family’s dinner when their kids are behaving. Make dinners. Babysit. Challenge yourself to see the good. Who knows?

You might just fall in love with baby smiles.

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What’s your take on this?

To Life,

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P.P.S. Please don’t get mad at me for giving excuses to parents who are failing to control their kids. That’s a whole different can of worms.

 

Summer Reading List

~ Laura ~ 2 Comments

Hello again NAS ladies! It’s nice to be back with a quick summer post. We’re taking a break from this series for the most part over the summer, but here’s one for ya! Thanks Jen and Morgan for keeping the group alive and thriving.

Summer reading list: Do I have favorites and good recommendations? Oh. Yes. Did you ever do those summer reading things at the library where you got a free (usually lame) book if you read a certain number? I remember those! I also read 100 books just because I wanted to one summer – and I still have that list somewhere!

I love to read. I read mostly fiction when I was younger (Swiss Family Robinson was a favorite and so were those diary-type pioneer day books and the Borrowers). I would stay up into the wee hours of the morning just to finish one more page which turned into the entire book being read in one night.

I still love to read, but I now read a lot of non-fiction. I read a lot about my faith and this summer have been reading about leadership as well. Stories are still nice, but I’ve yet to find a fiction book I really like at this point in my life. Reading is how I learn a lot, so I tend to stick to books I can get something out of.

Without further ado, here are some books I’ve read or plan to read soon!

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1. Something Other Than God: How I Passionately Sought Happiness and Accidentally Found It

This is the story of Jennifer Fulwiler’s atheism to Catholicism conversion. It’s not a standard “Ooooo, I finally found Jesus and now I’m sooo happy!” kind of gig. It took her a long time to come to terms with standard misconceptions, and it was absolutely awesome to see her life be transformed from a high-earning techie to a Catholic mom. I easily finished it in a couple days because I enjoyed it so much, but will probably go back and re-read it sometime.

2.How to Win Friends and Influence People in the Digital Age

Mwahahaha! Here I come world 😉 Just kidding. Though this books sounds somewhat manipulative, it is one of the best books on leadership I’ve read. Seriously. You should read it even if you’re not planning on being a big leader because it has some great points on how to be a good person and friend. It’s a completely secular book, but it brings in principles that I found easily compatible with my faith.

3. St. Peter’s Bones: How the Relics of the First Pope Were Lost and Found . . . and Then Lost and Found Again

This one I’m still in the middle of, but it’s a really interesting historical look at ancient Christianity. An interesting short read!

4. Surprised by Truth: 11 Converts Give the Biblical and Historical Reasons for Becoming Catholic

This book sounded neat online, but when it came, it looked like an old book that might have been written on a typewriter. So I was wary as I started it, but it is SO GOOD! It’s the stories of various people who converted to Catholicism, many of them being Protestant ministers of some type beforehand. It’s so, so cool to see what led to their conversions. This one I highly recommend!

5. Worthy: See Yourself as God Does

I debated getting this book for a while after finding Amanda’s blog, and I’m glad I finally got it! Sometimes I find her writing style to be a little challenging to read, but this book was a great reminder. It had some awesome nuggets to highlight and underline!

6. Viability

This book is required reading for the Wilberforce Leadership Fellowship I was accepted into, and we’ll be discussing it this coming weekend at the training summit. It’s inspiring and thought provoking and begs the question: How viable are we making the life movement? What if it is going to be around for another decade? Have we set it up for the long haul? It asks the tough questions and addresses so many issues I witnessed firsthand. I highly recommend this book and guess what? It’s available as a free PDF with that ink!

For more books I’m planning on reading, check out that picture above! Do you have suggestions?

To Life,

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P.P.S. Most BOOK LINKS ARE AFFILIATE LINKS WHICH MEANS IF YOU BUY STUFF FROM MY LINKS AMAZON WILL GIVE A SMALL PORTION TO ME. THANK YOU!