who else really likes paint by numbers?

rahab!

jehu dropped his green on accident.  guess who found it first?

some people will eat anything.

yesterday i found her digging the apocalyptic sledge out of a crack and stuffing her face with it.  i ♥ babies.

heritage homes 2011

my favorite national holiday strikes again.  interesting thing to note, the houses were smaller this year, but so much more loved!  the big houses on harrison were cold, empty, and actually dirty in comparison.  these were a joy.  the were also mostly family homes.  what was unique about this home were the dormers up top.  it had four of them.  most even had windows along the sides, as well as the front.  and they all had sky lights.  being upstairs was like being in an aviary.

plus neat little gardens tucked along the sides.  with all the original woodwork and character, plus library and gourmet kitchen, i have to give this house to my mother-in-law.  it is the perfect grandma house.  especially with the built in captain’s beds upstairs and tiny triangular windows lurking everywhere.  just fun.

this house was also fun, but mammoth fun.  the lady i toured with snapped it right up.  so i’m afraid becca, you’re going to have to fight her for it.  transom windows all down the halls, a bathroom sink the size of a bathtub, and a full basement speakeasy with murals from the 1920′s.  but i couldn’t get over the sink.  seriously.  this style, but a double.  same faucet, only two of them.  i want one.  or more.

lydia, the lady i was with, couldn’t get over the island.  (she wants one.)  “miranda, take a picture.”  “i can’t take a picture, you’re not allowed to take pictures.”  “cry me a river.  hand me the camera.”  and there you have it.

what i didn’t like about the house was it’s bizarre eclecticism.   lydia loved it.  but i like houses to have a heavy duty continuity.  kind of like prisons.  that and i did’t like the screened in porches on the front.  it has the same effect as giving a perfectly good house a lean-to.  although the one on the side was much nicer.  it had a solid, “built-in” feel with pocket doors opening onto the kitchen, dining room, and living room.  just a nice space all round.

and this cozy little cottage i’m giving to my mother.  it was rather horrifically decorated with asian themes, lots of mirrors, spaceship interpretive chairs, and a dining room entirely filled with a black, pearl inlaid behemoth table, matching chairs, hutch, and buffet.

but they knew how to garden.  you had no idea this yard was here from the street.

a perfect oasis.  where the man of the house had retreated for the long haul, book in hand.

the french doors open into a sunken parlor.  and that’s lydia perusing.

the caribbean cottage.  definitely the most innovative.  this was the only house inhabited by a lone couple and they were weekend warriors.  they did some crazy shiz in there.  which, unfortunately, i can’t show you.  i think the living room was painted knock out coral, the dining room yellow with teal accents, the bathroom was turned into a plant jungle, the upstairs was all whites and mosquito netting on perpetual honeymoon.

what was really clever was how they cut all their six-panel doors in half upstairs to make mini, double doors.  which don’t get in the way in tight spaces.  and then they took over the whole back yard for entertaining since the place was on the small side.  and yes, megan, it’s for you.

and for me, the no-nonsense four square.  also a family home and completely savaged by ultra modern decorating.  i couldn’t choose between this house and the last one.  this one is my kind of efficiency.  but seriously, ugly.  i did like their floor to ceiling glass doors in the dining room.  they rolled away to create seamless indoor/outdoor eating.  with lots of children outdoor eating (and a hose) is a must.

the back yard studio and ikea swing set.  how grim is that?  whatever you do, don’t have fun on it.

and my favorite house.  big, open, and impeccably decorated.  which means i’m giving it to sarah.  she wouldn’t have to lift a finger.  my favorite was the small parlor off the living room.  those are the windows you see in the picture, they wrap around both sides too.  and get this, the walls were upholstered.  yes, dreamy.

all in all it was jolly fun.  some of the decorating on the tour was a bit exuberant.  but it really only told you that the people who lived there loved it – and they were spotless!  i would take a well-cared for home with injudicious decorating over an indifferent one any day.  some of the nicer houses i’ve been in left me with the impression that the people didn’t actually live there.  they lived where they worked so they could afford to visit there at night and pay someone else to hang their pictures.  anyways, maybe i will see you next year.  warm spring suburbs are what’s up.

thinking neked

i glanced down at my “perfectly round pot belly” the other day and thought, “hey, you and i should become friends.”  you can’t beat them join them and all that.  but then i got to thinking, who said i had to beat anything?  who’s making the rules around here anyways?  yeah, i’m onto you now.  you can talk all day about female body image, but until you are prepared to replace your thinly veiled apologies with an actual force to be reckoned with, don’t think it will amount to much.    you’re still playing their ball game, their rules.  “everybody is different, love your body, love who you are, we’re truly sorry you’re not smokin’ hot, that’s okay, embrace your curves, and you have a lot of them.”  meanwhile, back at the ranch, this is what a swimsuit model really looks like.  (i’m assuming those are plastic because from my experience in concentration camps, those are the first to go.)

i was chatting with a friend about my previous post on dresses.  how a christian woman’s adornment is a chaste and quiet spirit, something that i think we are capable of mirroring on our persons in the way we dress.  in our culture you can wear a dress as a public display of submission, demonstrating the beauty of it at the same time.  she pushed it further and said that as christian women we should also be redeeming and reclaiming sexuality.  “moms” should be desirable.  how?  well here goes.  fruitfulness.  the entire history of art embraced and elevated the fruitfulness of women.  as something lovely.  something amazing and glorious.  as well as quintessentially feminine.

we make people.  we are cool like that.  oddly enough this is no longer reflected in the modern ideal of beauty.  i was listening to a talk on birth control by janet smith.  she referenced a study where men found fertile, average looking women more attractive than “sexy,” infertile women.  because it’s a lie.  a flat stomach is just the badge of the foolish woman.  a woman who tears down her house with her own hands.  a woman who will not give herself up for the sake of another.  fortunately there are enough idiots to go around and she can lure them in easy enough with a push-up bra.  they only figure it out when it’s too late, and by then she’s taken them for all they’ve got.  which reminds me of what the “oracle” once said.  what all men ultimately desire is rapprochement.  being made one.  now since men are dumb they think this means that if they can have sex with it they will be happy.  but what it actually means is finding a woman who will submit to his authority and honor him, becoming one with him.  sex is the fruit of this relationship, not the cause.  to the contrary, the girls that will have sex with you on a whim will use that same sex to own you and to ruin you.  it’s called sleeping on the couch, until she eventually takes that too.  on the other hand, the girl that won’t have sex with you until you give her your whole life and every red cent you will ever earn, she’s the one who’s going to treat you right.  my favorite, “don’t you know how that happens?” retort;  “why yes i do.  and apparently i’m getting a lot more of it than you are.”  fruitfulness and submission go together and they are both beautiful.  fear and a flat stomach are ugly little friends.  “if i’m skinny, maybe they will like me.  if i wear enough make-up, maybe i will still look young.  if i don’t ever have any children i can keep doing what i want.”  yeah, paint the sepulcher all you want sister, “but in the end she is bitter as gall, sharp as a double-edged sword.  her feet go down to death; her steps lead straight to the grave.”  so i say rock the gut.

  

love being a woman, love bestowing life, love being feminine.  don’t cry the next time you’re pregnant because you “just got skinny.”  rejoice.  and see if that is not what is truly attractive.  i got to thinking about this because i do exercise, and don’t get me wrong – i do believe we should maintain our bodies as opposed to letting it all go south.  i just noticed that the stomach is the last to cry uncle.  why?  because maybe it’s not supposed to.  maybe the female body has a stomach.  really?  get out.  women can be fit, trim, and healthy and still have a tummy.  because women have tummies.  instead, we have let ourselves become convinced that our belly is our arch nemesis.  because we have believed the lie that the ideal shape is a barren shape.  my husband, on the other hand, he has a six pack – because he does his job, and it doesn’t happen to be bearing children.  he works for a living.  he fights the world on my behalf and it makes him hot.  women don’t look good in their husband’s pants and they don’t look good in his body.  my body gives life, when i use it for what god intended it, that is what makes it lovely.  that is what makes me beautiful.  not when i try to force it to become something it’s not.  besides there is nothing more beautiful than a pregnant woman, truly.  so if you need a better alternative standard of beauty than “being fat is okay, some people are like that.”  try, “i make people, and i’m sorry you’re a dried up shell of a woman desperate to be loved.”  unless you don’t think that is very nice.  in which case, don’t ask me.  i’m not very good at that kind of thing.

p.s.  and back to wearing dresses.  pants are a communist ploy.  can you rock the well rounded shape when it’s hanging over your belt buckle?  no.  please don’t try.  it fails every time.  just ask my dad.  i dare ya.

“mommy, i got the baby and put her in a bucket.”

everybody wishes they had jael for a big sister.

i know, she makes me nervous too.