Only A Mere Woman

           Sometime last summer I started making my own ginger bug and ginger beer. (Yes, there is a slight alcohol content, but you would have to practically drown yourself in it in order to get drunk.) Anyway, I figured I'd share my experience with you. Ginger bug is basically the sour dough starter of some homemade fermented drinks, typically 'soda'.             I have noticed that I am significantly less bloated and my digestion is better when I drink 6-8 oz at least every other day. Ginger could also help ease painful and long periods! Actual study:  https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25298352/   My post-childbearing periods have been significantly better than my pre-childbearing periods, but I have noticed they're even better when I've been consistently drinking my ginger beer.            First, I used these blogs as my references: Joshua Weissman has a nice simple post on how to make the bug, and then the beer once the bug is ready. I tend to follow his proporti

On the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, I gave my fiat .  We found out God had given us a surprise baby at the end of October. I was not pleased. My last pregnancy was horrific - full of so much physical, emotional, and mental pain. I did not think we would safely make it to the end of it. I have nothing against more babies - in fact, this past year was the first one ever where I felt anything that could be considered "baby fever". I had everything against pregnancy.  The first few weeks actually weren't that bad. I was able to keep the nausea at bay with lettuce and cucumbers, for the most part. And I was even able to manage my insomnia, thanks to a tip from a friend about adding calcium if extra magnesium wasn't helping. Unfortunately, that didn't last long. I ended up with pretty constant nausea, and my digestion wasn't moving like it should have, which made everything worse. The depression and anxiety didn't seem to spike much, which was a blessing, tho

    With the holiday gifting season rapidly approaching (Order your gifts now! The small businesses and carriers will thank you!), I thought it might be a pertinent time to finally type out my recent revelation in regards to the two different kinds of givers/receivers I've noticed. First, some background, because I have been bothered by  thinking about this question for a very long time...       Spring semester of my freshman year, Dr. Damian Fedoryka gave a talk at Christendom about giving gifts. (The link will show you it was actually much deeper than that, but my brain got stuck on his opening example. Also, I should probably listen to it again, because at the moment I very much disagree with the premise laid out in the article. Sorry JPII) His opening story (as I remember it) was if you were a girl on a walk, and some old guy picked a flower and offered it to you, what would your response be? One of the girls in my class answered saying she would say "No thank you,"

      Just going to start this off by saying my uninhibited scrolling of Facebook, Instagram, those clickbait articles on You Won't Believe These 40 Things, etc. isn't helping. I can tell it is making it worse. This feeling of aimless overwhelm. The scrolling definitely lends to the feeling that I was in the middle of something, and can't remember what. It turns out that the human brain desperately needs closure, and the endless scrolling that social media affords is really doing us a disservice. I can feel the scrolling killing the creativity that treating my depression/anxiety was actually allowing to come back.      This post isn't really going to have a point, I don't think. I just need to get stuff out, but not like in a diary. Out where real people can encounter it. Though I'm turning comments off because I can't add to the input overwhelm right now. Which brings me back to social media. I know I need to have boundaries with it, limits, but I'm not

 9 years. 5 kids. 1 baby interceding for us before the face of God. I still prefer his company over anyone else. I guess you could say it's been a fruitful marriage. What you don't see, though, is how God has been using our personal pain and brokenness to pour grace into our hearts and bring forth healing. Unity. Safety.  Safety? Yes, safety. All my life I've felt rejected and ridiculed for being too much, yet not enough. But this man? He is the embodiment of unconditional love. He has seen the depths of my woundedness, and suffered as I've wrestled with my inner agony, more often than not wounding him also in the process. Yet, he's still here.  He's still here. In spite of my inner darkness, he still holds me and assures me that he will love me forever. No matter what.  A lifetime of perceived rejection is a formidable obstacle to overcome. Vulnerability and trust do not come easy. Yet, after all these years, after all my unconscious attempts to test him, to pu

This is a post about miscarriage. If you aren't up for reading it, totally fine. Here are some resources, though. I wish I had known about them before.  This is a Google doc that you can print out. Please share wherever you can, especially your parish office. Miscarriage Info Document for printing/copying and editing  (I may add more, but my emotional energy for it has ebbed.) However, if you don't have time or inclination to look through it, this site is the best I have seen so far.  CatholicMiscarriageSupport.com  (This site wasn't available when I lost Julian.) I'm not looking for pity. I just need to tell my story. I know how important it is to hear the stories of others - we need to know we are not alone. I pray this might help someone else. Our fifth pregnancy was our first where we were both like "YES. We are ready for this." The positive pregnancy test wasn't a surprise. It's the only one I didn't take picture of. April 30.  We had decided

     I need to get this out of my mind, and hopefully it will help someone else who might be feeling the same way, and thinking similar thoughts.      I don't view death, or the potential for death, the same way that it seems the vast majority of society does. Part of that is the depression, because it can be really, really hard to get up and keep going every day when there's a slew of intrusive thoughts constantly tearing me down and tempting me to self harm. The thought of death isn't so scary when it would mean the end of such suffering. Part of it, I think, is a result of being neurodivergent. For me it falls under the categories of "Facts of Life: things that just are and cannot be changed." Everyone is going to die. That's just the way it is. It is sad, but life goes on, there's nothing we can do, so what's the point of dwelling on it?       Many think such an attitude is callous, insensitive, unsympathetic. They might question whether I ha