Stained glass

The light was hitting the stained glass at our parish at great angles last Sunday. I love stained glass and I love watching the light illuminate different parts of it. My childhood parish also had a lot of stained glass. 

Angel food

I made Martha Stewart's angelfood cake recipe and it traveled to two different houses with whip cream and strawberries. It's really special to have people appreciate your food. Next time I just won't take it out of the oven ten minutes early (even if it it looks done), because there were some parts that could've cooked better. 

I was on TV!

I wrote about the pregnancy blessing I went to here on this blog in December: 
http://martajuliemaria.blogspot.com/2013/12/pregnancy-blessing.html

While I was there, I was interviewed for a TV show Ecclesia which aired Jan 7th. You can see me speaking in the video here at 8:30 minutes (I speak at 10:40): 
http://www.ecclesia.pt/programa/noticia.php?noticiaid=98608

or here:

The two best articles on motherhood

I know I'm sick when I take a bite of a chocolate bar and get so grossed out I have to put it away immediately. I never imagined reaching that point. I've been home all week with the flu and although I'm feeling better now, I still can't breathe out of my nose or even write articles for my posting schedule on CatholicStand.com. Oh well.

I can read articles though. I've been reflecting on motherhood a bit and I reread my two favorite things I've ever read about motherhood: 

"To The Mother With Only One Child" 

and "Robins", 

both by Simcha Fisher. I especially love the "collision of two worlds" in the first article and the "two indisputable facts of the life of a mother" in the second. I love almost everything Simcha writes. She makes me laugh out loud and she's really talented. I'm also reading her NFP book on my kindle and it's fabulous. 

Birthday

We bought balloons the morning of and were all giddy to host some of my handsome husband's friends over for his birthday dinner. It was hard work and we both felt sick the whole next day, but it was worth it. A highlight for me was making his cake together in the morning... a joint effort! 

Christmas: check

Before we took down our Christmas tree, we had some friends from our (old, sniff sniff) youth group over for cookies and tea. It was really cozy and really nice to have them finally come over. Apparently, according to my parish priest yesterday, Christmas season was only done yesterday (Jesus's Baptism) and I should've waited to take down the decorations? I'm over Christmas already... Can't wait for spring and... a baby! (ah!)

Families Support Each Other

Families Support Each Other

1 Comment January 8, AD 2014 | Julie Machado

A man shared with me recently that at his swimming competitions when he was a little boy, he would watch his teammate embrace his coach at the end of competitions and think of his own father. Although his father never went to his swimming competitions (only his mother), the image of his teammate embracing his coach at the end and his own father’s absence has always remained with him.

Keep reading at: 

http://www.ignitumtoday.com/2014/01/08/families-support-each-other/

Family Established sign

Here's how I made our family established sign: 

I painted a gray base of paint on the size board I wanted:  

Let it dry. Then I painted brown over the gray: 

Let that dry too. Then I sanded the brown with sandpaper, so that the grey showed up in a "rustic" way: 

And finally, I traced over the letters I printed out from Microsoft word with a ballpoint pen. Then I painted in the letter outlines I could see in the wood. 

And I displayed it with pride! My initial plan was to nail coat hangers at the bottom of the board. But since we don't want to make such permanent holes in the wall of our rental apartment, that step is on standby for a while...

Pancakes for two

My sister shared with me the amazingly simple secret to fluffy pancakes: whipped egg whites. I whipped just one egg white with our normal recipe (substitute whipped egg whites for eggs in recipe) and we had the fluffiest, yummiest pancakes for two... with whipped cream and strawberries! Plus, the chocolate chiffon cake I made for yesterday for New Year's Eve. The best breakfast to start the year off right...