Avoiding Real Housework By Cleaning Up My Feedly

If you’ve eagerly clicked through to see what ensemble I was rocking to Mass this week, please don’t close this tab in anger. Despite selecting a totally hot (in the most Mormon sense of of the word) outfit and wearing it all day in the hopes of taking a picture; didn’t happen. I remember thinking as I was helping the kids carve pumpkins, “Hopefully these pumpkin guts won’t be noticeable in the picture.” Now, I’ll never know whether or not pumpkin glop requires Photoshop retouching skills.

But, I did achieve the monumental task of cleaning out all the articles I’d been bookmarking in my Feedly account. (I know, collective sigh of relief everyone.) I don’t know why I still had articles sitting in there from more than a year ago, but once I started cleaning out, I couldn’t stop until it was done. It was so freeing! Meanwhile, I still need to get Teddy some clothes that fit out of storage… but one crisis at a time.

Now I’m not saying I’m going to start doing link posts all the time, but, I’m going to start doing link post some of the time. Unless of course there’s nothing good to share in which case I can just gripe about bloggers needing to step it up a bit.

First, this post from Melanie about children in Mass and our idea as Catholics of ‘the perfect Mass.’ The debate about children’s behavior and what parents should do will continue to rage on, (I already voiced my two cents here) but I loved Melanie’s point that;

“If you want to spend time alone in quiet with Christ, you can visit a monastery, go to Adoration, close the door to your room, walk in the woods. But don’t expect to get it during Mass because if you spend your Mass chasing that contemplative moment and giving every person who distracts you the stinkeye, you’re doing it wrong.”

I believe this story is making the rounds, but just in case you haven’t seen/ read it, the future of antibiotics and super bugs is absolutely terrifying.

“For a long time, there have been newspaper stories and covers of magazines that talked about “The end of antibiotics, question mark?” Well, now I would say you can change the title to “The end of antibiotics, period.””

We’re here. We’re in the post-antibiotic era. There are patients for whom we have no therapy, and we are literally in a position of having a patient in a bed who has an infection, something that five years ago even we could have treated, but now we can’t. …”

While the reporter annoys me by trying to guide the questions down a socialized medicine path, the article does mention the glaring problem with a medical system built around profits. 

“The fact that these are for-profit companies that we asked to develop drugs for us, then it should come as no surprise to us if the drugs that we’re asking to develop don’t make money that they’re not going to invest a large amount in making new ones.”

Get that? Hospitals are seeing super bacteria they can’t treat with any type of antibiotic on the market but because developing new antibiotics isn’t profitable, drug companies aren’t falling over each other to make new ones. It’s the same problem with trying to develop drugs for any disease or medical condition that’s faced by a small number of people. Unless you can independently raise money for research and development, the medicines and medical devices won’t be there because there’s no financial incentive.

On a lighter medical note, I enjoyed this post, and pictures by Brianna about what it means to be a medical needs family.  She so beautifully expresses what I’ve tried to do so poorly in the past; that despite what looks like insurmountable problems to outsiders our family is normal. It’s different from your normal, but we’re happy and every day is not spent worrying about some impending medical calamity.

“And it’s funny because this life I lead, in the day-to-day, is really very boring.  Wonderful, yes.  Joy-filled, absolutely.  But mostly just really normal.  Mundane.  Run-of-the-mill.  Our time is spent like most any family’s time is spent, in spite of there being a lot of us and in spite of having children with developmental delays and medical needs.

And it’s our life, and our family, and our story.  It’s what God’s given us.  It might not be the same as yours, but it’s ours, with its own unique set of challenges, and blessings too because did you see all those pictures?!  Those are my kids!  That’s our life!  God is working and shaping and directing and loving, through good and bad and messy and everything in between.”

Danielle Bean doesn’t blog often enough for my liking, but when she does she hits the nail on the head. I’d read the original article she mentions and it didn’t sit well with me, but I couldn’t put my finger on why. I appreciated her brief post and it’s reflections on human failings.

” [I’m] So tired that I tear up when I read Bradley’s description of how he and his wife regret putting discipline and outward appearances before love in their own family, despite the fact that I know these failures have little to do with homeschooling. The blind spots described here are not homeschooling blind spots; they’re human ones. We’re all blind. We all judge when we shouldn’t, make selfish and prideful decisions, fall down in our faith, and fail at love.”

Buried in my saved folder were a couple posts from Anne about reading. If you love reading like me, but often can’t figure out when to read or how to use those few precious moments, I found these posts to be very helpful.

How I Find Time To Read

Wine Flights, Book Flights

Inspired by Anne, if anyone is interested in a tortured heroine flight I recommend reading ‘The Scarlett Letter”, “Jane Eyre”, and “Madame Bovary”. Guaranteed to make you think twice before making any major life decisions on a whim or fleeting emotion.

Lastly, some of the coolest t-shirts ever.

I need to remember to clue in my husband in real life. He acts like he doesn’t see these things when I just blog about them. How convenient…

What have you been reading this week?