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Measuring Cups
When we moved in the spring of last year our cheap measuring cups were one of the many things we did not bring with us. A little over a year later Josh bought me some nice metal ones… for our anniversary.
I was quite pleased. I think that I will probably take them with us the next time that we move.
And yes, I am a little impressed with myself for living for over a year without measuring cups. Alas, it means that I have no idea how to recreate Josh’s favorite cookies ever since goodness knows how much of each ingredient I really used!
House Lust
This week I have skipped over posts in multiple blogs that I regularly read.
My eyes automatically switch into the not-really-seeing-but-waiting-for-change-in-order-to-start-focusing-again look as I scroll down the page. I resume reading only after the stream of pictures has ended and there is nothing like a house in sight.
You see, a lot of the bloggers I read have great taste in houses. And they post about their dream houses with a passion once reserved only for wedding dresses and baby shower games.
Don’t get me wrong, these posts are lovely. That is precisely the problem for me. Others can look at houses for motivation to save money, inspiration for updating their current home, and even simple enjoyment of their beauty.
But domestic luxury is just a little too much for me to handle, and the hangover comes right along with that first tipsy smile at that lovely front porch. I wouldn’t offer drinks after dinner if a certain aunt was at the table, and I don’t feed myself home and garden magazines.
Sometimes I think it is crazy that I act as if pretty pictures of houses were some addictive substance that I need to ignore. After all, there is nothing wrong with having a lovely home and a wonderfully beautiful yard with gorgeous flower beds and the perfect swing and… ehem… where was I?
Anyway, as I was saying, there is nothing wrong with having a nice house.
The problem is that not all of us can keep things in perspective. Sometimes after rolling my eyes at myself for my ridiculous skipping-over of yet another post I will find my eyes alighting on a different perspective. I read about how one couple works themselves sick because they would rather give up today with each other in order to have that house sooner rather than later. I read about an otherwise devout Christian woman who thinks nothing of skimping on charity because of the costs associated with her house. I read about another woman who hopes that she doesn’t get pregnant earlier than planned as it would delay her home renovations. I read about yet another woman who cries over the fact that she and her husband are settling on a house with only two bathrooms.
Seems like Josh and I will start with a little fixer upper
And then I remember our current economic crisis. What about all of those people who played into the whole house lust catastrophe? Oh, of course it is far more complicated than that. But I personally watched people who thought–no, wait, they did not think! that is precisely the problem!–that the nice house was something they needed.
And all the sudden skipping over a few posts doesn’t seem so silly. Sure, it is nice to get ideas for simple Christmas decorating in our apartment, and it is certainly wonderful to steal ideas from bloggers far craftier than I when it comes to making a small space home.
Wait. Did I just type “small?!” I clearly am not strong enough to read house-dream posts without falling for the lie that my apartment is small and I should be pining for the day that we can justify moving into a house. My apartment is not small.
Sure, I’d like to have a nice little house with extensive gardens (yes, that “gardens” is indeed plural)…
…But… I would rather be happy today.
So I skip a few blog posts here and there and instead fill my mind with, well, just about anything else.
How about you? Does house lust make you happier by inspiring you to work harder, or even just through the momentary pleasure of looking at what might someday be yours? Or are you confused about who would even post about random houses in the first place?
Electronic Affection
A few days ago I saw the Bright Maidens topic of “Public Displays of Affection” specifically “in the Digital Age.” I did not think much of it until I logged into Facebook and remembered one of the comments bemoaning spouses posting on each other’s wall.
My chest tightened just a bit as I unconsciously held my breath while reading my friends’ expressions of affection.
I have only been married three short years, but I find it impossibly amazing that this love exists! I have it. And if that weren’t miracle enough, so do so many of my friends.
I look at one friend and silently gasp with joy at the fact that he has found someone perfect. Someone who has made him happy. Overwhelmingly happy.
I look at another friend and want to cry in awe of how his wife still adores him despite their worlds being entirely upturned in their marriage which is no longer than mine.
I look at my husband and I wonder how it can be true. How can he have such a strongly positive emotional reaction to me? And how can he still be willing to act as if I am of utmost importance regardless of how he may feel?
I have had friends whose electronic displays of affection departed into pathetically raunchy. Today they are divorced. Somehow they hardly seem worth thinking about. There is nothing surprising in juvenile confused lust falling apart.
What is shocking–breathtakingly, mindboggling shocking–is how so many friends of mine can dare to publicly express a lighthearted, passionate love as if it were guaranteed to last forever. How can they post pictures holding each other as if it were the most natural thing in the world to be infatuated and unafraid?
I look at the frequent kisses in one friend’s photo albums and am amazed at how comfortable they are with this thing called romance.
I see another’s picture of a love note left by her husband on their refrigerator and have to smile at how she can joyfully share it with her world.
I watch the banter of another couple and know that their marriage too will last for another day.
They say that children are more secure when they see their parents comfortably affectionate with each other. Perhaps I am a child but the whole world seems more secure to me when I see evidence that the couples I love are not merely going through the motions–they are so happy in love!
The truth is that most of my friends are not especially open about their romantic relationships. While I may be the queen of TMI, I doubt that I type nearly enough about how wonderful Josh is. And this is precisely why I am so thankful for the friends who, while in the minority, manage to fill a significant space of my electronic world with their displays of romantic affection.
This thing we call betrothed love is so very special. I cannot be anything other than thankful for those who cannot conceal their gift.
Just A Little Pill
Today I had a wonderful day. A wonderfully normal day. Sure, a healthy woman would probably not recognize it as a good day, but for me it is simply splendid to have the sort of day of which a normal woman would think nothing.
I made breakfast. I cleaned the apartment a little while listening to my favorite Litany of the Saints several times. I went for a run and was able to run about 2 of the 3.5 miles with only minor pain. I was able to think enough to catch up on some long-overdue emails. I made supper (while taking pictures for a future blog post) and went to Adoration… where I was able to, get this, not only pray but also read! And then I got to go to Mass and a veneration service with no awareness of the great effort it normally takes me.
All of this was possible because of a little pill I took last night.
I know that it has potentially horrible side-effects, but my good Catholic doctor tells me not to worry about them and that they just have to put that stuff on the patient info sheets. And, you know, my doctor does know a whole lot more about these things than I do.
But, just for fun, let’s revisit these potential side-effects…
Abortion/miscarriage. There isn’t actually any proof of this one, but some very respected (if fringe) medical doctors have published books in which they explain why it is likely that this pill will increase the chance of miscarriage, before a woman even has a chance to know that she is pregnant.
Birth defects such as congenital heart defect.
Cancer. This pill may lead to an increase in uterine or breast cancer.
Stroke.
Heart attack.
Blindness.
Hair loss.
Etc. Etc.
I’d rather not have to deal with any of those, but the pill makes me feel oh so much better while I take it!
Of course soon I will have to take the break without the pill. Since I will then feel horrible and not be able to work if I take nothing, I will take alternative pills. They won’t make me feel as good, but at least I will be able to get through my day until I can collapse into bed at 6:30pm.
The other pills have their own, different, list of potential side effects:
Abortion/miscarriage. Unlike the first pill there is actually substantial evidence that this drug increases the chance of having a miscarriage, especially if taken the way that I take it. The patient education sheet says “THIS MEDICINE MAY HARM THE FETUS.”
Heart attack.
Stroke.
Heart failure from swelling.
Kidney failure.
Life-threatening skin or allergic reactions.
Serious stomach bleeding.
So, is it immoral for me to take these little pills?
Does it matter that they are not the birth control pill? The first is “bioidentical” progesterone (prescribed by all the good Catholic doctors and taken by just about every other good Catholic woman who is trying to follow the Church’s teachings for gynecological health issues) and the second is naproxen (aka a common painkiller that is available over the counter and you would might take without thinking twice).
I can’t find a way to make sense of the fact that people would be horrified if I were “on the pill” but have no objection to me taking these pills. I’d love to read your thoughts. They may give me something to read in future years if I die slowly of cancer rather than a heart attack. 
It was only a matter of time
When I posted about monogamy and healthcare some people responded negatively. Some silently shook their heads, and some rolled their eyes. But all knew that it was only a matter of time. Clearly, one day I would at best end up harassed by disbelieving healthcare providers, or at worst end up dead due to inadequate healthcare.
The only question in your minds was precisely how long it would take, and whether I would still be here to post about it when it happened.
Well, it happened. And I am still here.
In the past several months I have had many healthcare appointments broadly related to gynecological issues. In addition to my typical awareness that not everyone sees the world the way that I do, I was especially prepared for one appointment. The doctor I was going to see was an expert in gynecological surgery, not merely for endometriosis, but for gynecological cancers. It made sense to expect someone who works with the damage of cervical cancer to be rather strident about preventative measures!
I briefly thought about what I would say about Pap tests but I did not have much time to worry about that aspect of discussion since I was more concerned about the real reason for my visit. So I didn’t think about the question more until the doctor was going through my chart.
She said it looked good.
The doctor was perfectly satisfied with the fact that I had one a few years ago with healthy results. Shocking, eh?
I did not realize how shocking it was until a few days later when I went to an appointment with an NFP instructor.
Since I am in the business of TMI, I must tell you that this particular method of NFP collects very detailed background information. In addition, we had hours worth of previous in-depth conversations that should have left no doubt in the instructor’s mind about exactly how abnormal I am.
So I was quite surprised when she stopped in the middle of her routine questions and told me that I needed to have a Pap test.
I immediately considered the obvious issue of whether she might know something that I do not. So I asked her if there was some reason other than STIs. She simply stared down at her chart and mumbled that “you’re supposed to have them regularly.”
While she refused to look at me I reminded her that I had another appointment to see the NFP-only doctor to whom she had previously referred me. She continued to look down as I said that I would discuss the issue with the doctor.
And then I tried not to die of suppressed laughter for the next hour of the appointment.
When we got outside I asked Josh if he understood what had happened. He did understand that the instructor was concerned about STIs, though he did not share my assumption that she was considering the possibility that Josh is clearly too good of a husband to be true.
So there you have it. I finally got a little taste of that wretched medicine of disbelieving healthcare providers. Who knew that NFP instructors would turn out to be more skeptical of chastity than actual doctors?
Just a note: if I were reading something like this I would be horrified. I would wonder whether anyone was going to tell the poor blogger that chances were good that she was risking her life over a delusion and refusing to accept medical care that could save her life. After all, if her NFP instructor saw evidence of STIs on her chart, then isn’t it incredibly naive to imagine that there was no risk of having been unknowingly infected by her husband?
So, in case you are like me, I shall spare you all that by letting you know that not only are there alternate explanations for my symptoms (like, you know, maybe messed up hormones related to endometriosis!) but that I have had these symptoms since long before I met Josh. So you should be worried about him, not me. Do you feel better now? ;-)
Edit: in the months since I wrote this post I had appointments with the NFP-only doctor to whom I was referred. And would you believe it? A different explanation was found for my symptoms and no Pap test was ordered. I may yet live to write more snarky posts!
I am thankful 10/30/2011
For my sister. All of them, actually, but right now for the one who was able to take truly precious time to visit me this weekend.
For Butternut squash. It was on sale for $0.99 per squash and makes me very happy. Satisfying autumn food, here we come!
For Halloween. I never appreciated this holiday until 2005 when I spent it with Josh’s family. Fun, fun, fun. Something about candy, fire, and funny costumes is just better than dressing up like a Saint whose name you share and eating healthy “treats” with the other kids at church. Just sayin’, so don’t shoot the messenger! The point is just that normal happy Halloween is a whole lot more fun and I am thankful to have a taste of the sweet, corn syrupy happiness!
For my in-laws. They are wonderful, and that is pretty much all there is to it.
For pine cones. The other day Josh brought me home some cinnamon pine cones which was pretty funny. After all, you don’t buy pine cones, you pick them up off of the ground to start fires! But we’re now apparently solidly urbanified and I smile every time I see them because awww Josh was thinking of me!, and they’re so nice and woodsy.
How To Raise A Happy Housewife
Apparently there are people out there turning to the internet to find out how to raise their daughters so that they will grow up to be happy housewives.
Because I am incredibly wise and experienced in this area I would like to fill in some advice which is missing from the world wide webz.
Don’t.
No, really! I mean it. If you want your daughter to be a happy housewife, do not raise her to be one. Keep her busy with the normal activities of American children and pretend that you care about her mind and furthering her education. Then someday she will perchance happen upon the concept of being a housewife and find it intriguing, appealing, and just a tad exotic (though goodness knows she won’t admit that last one to herself!).
Sure, she won’t be competent at first, but struggling through those first few homemade dinners and figuring out what to fill her linen closet with will be an adventure. As her confidence grows she will find it all so fulfilling!
If your daughter is raised to be a housewife then chances are, since she is your brilliant daughter, that she will be good at it. And if she is good at it, then it isn’t going to challenge her. And if it does not challenge her, she will be bored.
And a bored housewife isn’t going to be a good housewife, now is she?
Of course she might be one of the rare ones who finds ways of coping by making everything just a bit more challenging than it needs to be. She won’t just make her own laundry detergent (that is so housewife 102!), she’ll grow her own organic soap nuts. She won’t dream of asking you to babysit because she would never neglect her precious babies by leaving them with anyone, including their grandparents.
Alternately, she might spend her days teaching other women about homemaking in order to save herself from the mind-numbing boredom.
And this isn’t what you really want for your daughter, is it?
So, if you want your daughter to be a happy housewife take my advice: whatever you do, do not train her to be a housewife.
Let her discover the depth of pleasure that can come from housewifery when she is old enough to learn it herself. She won’t thank you for it, but she will be happy. And you might even get to play with your grandchildren while your daughter perfects the art of canning inferior lemon curd which she made in the microwave.
NaPro? Not For Me
There are few times in life that I have been thankful that I am not an especially helpful person, and this is one of them. You see, if I were the helpful sort then I would have countless people to apologize to for ignorant advice regarding NaPro. You know the sort of flippant “oh! Don’t worry about that gynecological issue! We have a Catholic answer to all of your problems and it is called NaPro and and and!!!?”
Oh wait, you don’t know NaPro? With greatest apologies I must ask you to excuse me. This is one of those annoying posts that is only readable by a very limited audience.
Furthermore, even though I won’t try to explain NaPro here, I must say that this post is about why NaPro is not the right choice for me. It could still be perfect for you, and that is wonderful. I strongly believe that we need more options for every area of women’s health, and NaPro could be a great option for some people. One of the things I have learned from exploring CrMS is that I am an unusually challenging health case. But that just means that NaPro can provide a good resource for those who are a bit more “usual.”
Despite the fact that NaPro isn’t a good fit for me, I hope that those who believe it to be worth their time will continue working well with it in every aspect, whether as a physician, teacher, or patient. This post isn’t about you, it is about me. It is about me, my body, my religion, and what I’ve learned since the first time I saw those women in white running along the beach.
As recently as this past May I thought that NaPro could be the answer to all of my gynecological health issues. My hope in NaPro was one of the many reasons I did not make a mad dash to a pharmacy for the pill as soon as I got health insurance. After all, I wasn’t just suffering from a childish belief that somewhere out there was a magical non-pill natural cure for me: I knew there was a real system of medicine which could address all of my concerns. All I had to do was save up something like $1,000,000.00 and I could be on my way to Omaha for salvation. ::Cue chorus of angels::
Of course I wasn’t quite that naive, but NaPro makes some pretty big claims, and it is easy to overlook otherwise glaring issues when you so want something to be all that it could be.
But then a bit more exposure to NaPro info and CrMS made me realize that it just isn’t for me.
To understand why NaPro is not (for me) worth seeking out, one would have to understand what would be worth such great effort.
- A cohesive healthcare system that is truly distinct from the options available to me at my local hospitals.
“NaPro” is…? I still can’t find the answer to this. Perhaps I just don’t understand what a “women’s health science” is, but “NaPro” seems like it is its own patchwork of random things, much like the treatment I can get from local doctors completely covered by my health insurance. I do not need a special name to make me feel better about surgery, the typical hormones, and experimental uses of various drugs.
Which brings me to the second thing that would make NaPro valuable:
- Ultimate expertise in the conditions with which I need help (like maybe endometriosis?)
Simply put, treating endometriosis for endometriosis’ sake is not a focus of NaPro. If one were going to the effort to find an incredible expert in endometriosis, then it would make much more sense to seek out the type of experts who make the treatment of endometriosis their entire work.
I could find no evidence that NaPro doctors have more success than other specialists for surgical treatment of endometriosis in terms of pregnancy, much less pain reduction.
Which brings me to my next issue:
- Gynecological health, and not merely reproductive health.
Don’t get me wrong, reproductive or “procreative” health (the ability to conceive, carry, and give birth to a healthy child) is incredibly important. But completely aside from the fact that this is actually a comparatively small part of women’s health time-wise, it is not my primary concern. My largest issue is getting my body to function with the most basic tasks, not obsessing over fertility treatments.
Because of NaPro’s hyper-focus on the procreative, it does not appear to have much to offer me other than fertility drugs for the sake of seeking pregnancy. This was the part where I finally began to understand why all of the other “NFP only” doctors prescribe the pill for women with chronic pelvic pain. It just does not make sense to always go around prescribing pregnancy and fertility drugs which are in themselves at least as harmful as the pill.
And speaking of fertility “treatments” and things I can’t dance lightly enough around:
- A Catholic healthcare practice where I could relax my moral alertness and not question anything offered.
NaPro encourages, and apparently sometimes requires, things which I believe are immoral. Don’t get me wrong, I am not suggesting that they are violating the clearest of the Church’s teachings. In fact, I don’t know of anything they do that directly contradicts the explicit directives of the US Bishops. So it is all good, right?
But my conscience isn’t ruled merely by how up-to-date the bishops are on all nuances of the lived reality of fertility treatments. To borrow from the hackneyed example: abusing indulgences was wrong even before the pope wrote my bishop a letter telling him to clean things up.
I realize that there must be broad disagreement about what is moral in these areas, particularly when the Church has not had time to catch up with current practices. But the point remains that NaPro holds no advantage for me over any of my local Catholic hospitals. It is not (and most likely cannot be) some bastion of perfect Catholicism. This is not a reason to reject it out of hand, but it does mean that it is not especially worth seeking out for moral reasons when there are many other Catholic resources.
Yet one promising thing about NaPro is that it is so closely connected to CrMS. And who wouldn’t respect Catholic healthcare that places a large emphasis on fertility understanding that enables people to follow the Church’s teachings?
This is precisely why I value:
- Healthcare based on a profound understanding of not only the theoretical fertility cycle, but also my unique body.
Unfortunately CrMS does not work for me. I can see how it could work for most women, and would be well worth its existence simply to serve women with a certain personality type, if nothing else. But it is insufficient for my body for the purpose of avoiding pregnancy, and somewhat silly for other purposes.
This was very hard for me to accept at first because I have never thought of my fertility cycle as especially challenging. I have many troubling issues, but a few of these actually lend themselves to making fertility awareness easier. Because of this, the greatest challenge of learning CrMS was the effort it took to see why my FCP could not see what was so obvious to me. The simple answer is that the CrMS obfuscates my fertility signs by zeroing in on precisely the wrong aspects of my symptoms.
Again, I realize that this system is quite adequate for most women. But the fact that it is so ridiculously inadequate for me does not give me reason to put faith in the health system which has grown up with CrMS. I have even more issues with CrMS in general, but the most essential is the question of why I would want to follow a system which declares itself superior to other forms of NFP, and then, without adequate instruction for their correct application, turns around and requires me to utilize tools perfected by other methods?
Lastly, something which isn’t a criticism of NaPro at all, but more of a reflection of where I am at this point.
- I want healthcare which treats me as efficiently as possible without being unnecessarily invasive or experimental.
It is good that NaPro tends toward the experimental side of things. After all, if no one ever tried anything new… BUT at the same time, I am tired of being a lab rat. Also, I had just a little dose of the NaPro approach this summer and the invasiveness is the last thing that I need at this point. I was quite willing to have surgery because I needed it, but the fact is that the NaPro style seems heavily geared toward invasiveness in every area. This goes along with the experimental aspect and makes sense for figuring out new treatments, but my body has been through enough without subjecting it to pointless over-treatment.
And this, my dear readers who have skimmed to the end, is why–even if I suddenly turn into a helpful person–I will not indiscriminately recommend NaPro as the Catholic cure-all for women’s health issues.
If those of you who are dedicating your lives to NaPro wish to comment to clear up any way in which I may be misleading a hypothetical interested but ignorant reader, please do so. I won’t take offense, and will indeed be flattered that you imagine my writing to be so fascinating that any but the most ardent devotee of NaPro would bother to read this post!
Hubris
The thing I love about the word “Hubris” is that only people who embody it use it. Life would be so much simpler if all words worked that way!
And I can’t help but thinking that it is the perfect word to describe why people post about not posting. Meta-much?
I really do try not to laugh at myself while blogging
No, really. As much as I love to read others’ interesting explanations for why they were blogging less, or exuberant declarations of all the engaging posts they have planned, I still think that there is something incredibly arrogant about assuming that there are people pining for new posts. Sure, there have been countless times when I have checked others blogs for nonexistent updates, but it is not as if their apologies for absence are actually directed at me. Which I guess just brings me back to the fact that I secretly believe that others all blog for themselves, even as some find it impossible to believe that I ultimately blog for myself er, I mean for Josh.
And yes, I do talk to myself in my head in precisely the same way that I write here.
But back to why I haven’t been blogging. We all already knew that, right?
I’ve been sick pretty much forever. Before being hired for my current job one of my fears was that I wouldn’t be able to work because of all of my health issues. As it turned out I was incredibly blessed with a job which I could handle quite well most of the time and with only minor difficulty a few days of the month.
And then my responsibilities changed. And then they changed again. And now I can’t handle anything. Add in the fact that I am an Introvert with a capital “I” and I am impressed that I can even talk to Josh for a few minutes at the end of a work day.
Surprisingly enough I have been content and–dare I say it–mostly happy. There is peace and relief in the realization that there is ultimately no need for me to be alive. Because of that, even if my life does not meet my standards, it is entirely alright.
I realized recently that if asked what I did this past year the only thing I could say would be “I wasn’t on the pill.” Basically I’ve just been sick and not done the only reasonable thing to remedy the situation. And yes, my dear sane, non-psycho-Catholic readers, I do realize the insanity.
Josh counters that I also managed to work and pay off debt, but really? I’ve done nothing.
I suppose that I can celebrate lessons learned, but that sounds rather active. And at the moment all I’m up for is periodically pretending that I am fine. Because if I can make myself believe it, then it will be true. Right? Right.
And now I guess this is the part where I tell you about all the fabulous posts I have planned. As it happens I have been sitting on some pretty great guest posts. But otherwise? Um. Well. I hope you like posts about chronic/women’s health issues and marriage, because that’s all I’ve got.
Now, about you. If you happen to read all of this I would love to hear about how you have been these past few months. If you have a blog then there is a good chance that I have kept up with reading it but remember aboslutely nothing. And, um, that’s not a joke.