Announcing Seven (days) Of Skirts

SOS! Calling all girls, ladies, feminas, and women!

Our culture has almost seen the extinction of a very rare breed of person. Nearly nowhere to be seen, this type of human is very close to being wiped out completely. So difficult is a sighting that when one does catch a glimps of this unusual specimen of humanity, the stares and comments like "So, are you mormon or something?" or "You must be a homeschooler." from bystanders nearly drive it back into hiding.

This disappearing person is a woman.

A womanly woman. A feminine, chaste, discreet, modest woman! A godly woman who cares about obeying the commands of the word of God and the minds of her brothers in Christ more than the pressures of the world that try to influence her to dress seductively and immodestly, following after the trends in Hollywood's movies and New York's runways.

I've been inspired to do a little project I call SOS, or "Seven (days) Of Skirts". I know this is incredibly short notice... but occasionally I like to do things spontaneously. Impulsive, perhaps, but it adds spice to life! :)

You are welcome to join me in this project. Here's what I am doing:

I will wear a different skirt every day for seven days. I will prove to myself and whoever happens to read my posts each day that being modest CERTAINLY doesn't mean being frumpy and ugly and unattractive. And for fun, I'm also doing a different hairstyle with each outfit.

I happen to believe that you can also be modest in pants, capris, and knee-length shorts (like bermuda shorts) as long as they are not tight (Tight clothing is NOT modest. I get so sick and tired of seeing girls wear tight-tight-TIGHT clothing and still claim they are 'modest' because they aren't showing any cleavage or their belly button.) But that's a different topic. :D Anyway... I chose to do this project and wear only skirts with my outfits.

If you think about it - when you see a silhouette of a person wearing a skirt, you would think right away that the person is a female. If you see a silhouette of a person wearing pants, you have to study their shape to discern whether the figure is a man or a woman. Especially if they have short hair.

Feel free to join in this project even if your day 1 is my day 6 or 7. It doesn't matter when you join. The point is to do seven days of skirts, even if your days don't line up with the calendar week.

You are more than welcome to use the SOS header at the top of this post with your posts as long as you link back to my blog with this link (you can do hyper-link format)
(http://jewelsbyjulia-lauren.blogspot.com/search/label/Seven%20%28days%29%20Of%20Skirts).

And I'm thinking of doing a SOS in the Fall when I'll give you huge advance notice, so don't worry if you don't have the time to work up blog posts for this challenge.

So here goes Seven (days) Of Skirts! SOS!

Day 1:

Skirt: Handmade by my mom
Shirt: Hand-me-down, I think originally from Target
Hairstyle: A bun, done with an EZbun hairpiece (see ezbun.com)
Shoes: Wal-Mart

Jewelry: Jewels by Julia :)

Long skirts are so flattering. :)

 EZbun hairpieces are a great idea, but they're very difficult for me to use as I have hair that falls below my hips in length... so when I use mine, it becomes a shabby-chic-'messy'-bun! :D But who says everything has to always be "perfect"?

Usually I do not care for profile shots of me... but I liked this one. :)

 Isaiah 26: 3

Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.

Have a wonderful week! (I know I will!) :D

The Atlanta Homeschool Expo 2011

Today my whole family and I drove alllll the way up to the Cobb Galleria centre to "spy" on the Homeschool Expo. ;) We've been vendors at the GHEA convention for the past 3 years and wondered if it might be worth our while to try out the homeschool expo too. (we decided we'll probably try somewhere else... possibly the big FPEA convention in Florida).

Originally we were going to visit on Friday and then hit Friday Frisbee on our way back home, but we decided (fortunately, in my opinion) to do Frisbee and the convention on separate days. So we went today, Saturday.

We had great difficulty finding a parking space when we arrived just after noon, but we made it and then traversed a partially underground tunnel (cool!) to get to the convention center itself and the exhibit halls.

While Mama asked about using a wheelchair (her ankle has been bothering her with flare-ups recently with her RA - please keep her in your prayers) my brothers and I gawked shamelessly like country bumpkins at the shiny marble floors and huge, high, circular ceiling in the entryway of the convention center. It was most impressive and living in a small town like we do, we don't see much of the like very often. ;)

I have almost no pictures of our day except for the striking bouquet of artificial flowers in the foyer (see above)

And the stairs & escalators going up to the second floor (see below)

Because once we signed up at the registration booth I heard about this 'scavenger hunt' the convention was doing. My ears perked up when I heard about the prize.

An iPad.

Uh-huh. That's why I decided it might be worth a shot doing the little scavenger hunt thingy. I actually won my first iPod Shuffle (that, sadly, found a watery grave when I left it in the pocket of the hoodie I wore at the gym and it went through the washing machine) - in a contest a few years ago at my orthodontist's to see who could get the most words out of the letters in "I LOVE MY BRACES". My total was over 780 words. (Including things like "Cobra" and "Olive") :D Yeah, it took me 3 days.

So... I sort of had some luck winning Apple products in the past so I have a wild hope that I might win one this time.
But get this - I only had until 3:00 to turn in the scavenger hunt list! So I buzzed around the exhibit hall and, booth-by-booth, asked people if they were on the list. There were clues about each vendor you had to write down, but it was faster to just go down the rows and ask people. Some people were very helpful and just signed their initials and vendor name right away and some made me discover which clue went with their booth.
It would sound like this... I would walk up to a booth and ask "Are you on the scavenger hunt list?" And they would either say yes, or no. If yes, I continued "Great! Do you know which one you are?" Handing them my list of clues. Some people said yes and proceeded to add themselves to the list, and some people replied "Do YOU know which one we are?" And made me figure it out on my own.

What is it about people giving pretty girls a hard time? Especially the young guys running the college booths and various bored old men with odd senses of humor??? :P *sigh*

And then after I'd found about 43 of the people on the list (out of a possible 60 or so, I think?) one vendor helpfully told me that you only needed 30 to submit your list! And lo and behold, I checked the top of my sheet of paper where some stuff was listed in fine print... and it was so. *facepalm*

The end of the story is that I got the scavenger hunt submitted by 2:45 PM, nicely before 3:00! Yay. Now I just have to pray that my sheet gets randomly drawn as the winner. If I win, the iPad will become our family iPad and all will share it equally.

But guess what - I heard from the man running the registration booth that they only had about 15 people turn in scavenger hunt sheets. So the odds are pretty good!

~*~

I'm pretty exhausted from my busy weekend, and glad that we are planning on staying home tomorrow and doing some Bible study on our own (Daddy is teaching to us out of Hebrews, chapter by chapter). Frisbee really tuckered me out this week and although some of the stiffness got worked out in walking around the exhibit hall this morning ... I'm still achey and sore and just. plain. tired.

So this is what I hope the rest of my evening will be - Quiet. Relaxed. Peaceful. Perhaps finishing my Jane Austen novel by the light of a cozy lamp. That's what I'll be doing. :)

How was your weekend? What have you been up to? I'd love to hear about it in the comment section. :)

Have a blessed Sunday!

Interesting Anecdotes in the Life of Me

There! That's a good one. I'm trying to work on thinking up good post titles. This one fits that bill rather well. :D Post titles, to me, are the most difficult part of writing a blog post... how do you express the heart and summarize all the points of a wonderful article in that short amount of space?

(Anecdote: a usually short narrative of an interesting, amusing, or biographical incident) 

Anyway, for the first interesting anecdote... my mother has figured out that we save time, money, gas, and energy by only going grocery shopping once a month. So yesterday we made our monthly trip to the great world of groceries and stocked up on everything we will need for the month. Whew! It was a very hot day and it seemed like it took a really long time to get the groceries all loaded into the back of the van... but in reality it only took me, my mom, and one of my brothers 2 hours to buy all our groceries for a WHOLE MONTH. :) We take a special trip back to town whenever meat is on sale to buy it then, which saves even more money - meat is so expensive at full price! And occasionally we will hop back to the store about half-way-through the month to procure a few more fresh fruits and vegetables. But with all the produce we've been getting from our garden that hasn't been necessary the past few months! :D

As for the second intersting anecdote...  

 I've been reading Persuasion by Jane Austen over again. My favorite movie adaptation of this book is the version starring Amanda Root as Anne and Ciaran Hinds as Captain Frederick Wentworth.

 Love that scene ^ where Captain Wentworth unexpectedly enters the confectionery(?) shop in which Anne is taking shelter from the rain.

Look at the pair of them... they just are Anne and Capt. Wentworth!

Confession: I have always wanted to write a letter or journal entry with a *real* quill pen. Like the beautiful one Anne uses in the movie.

 I watched the movie with Sally Hawkins and Rupert Penry-Jones as well, but it just wasn't the same. the supporting actors weren't as amusing and it was not as true to the book as my favorite version.

 The only slight disappointment for me in the movie is "The Kiss" ergo, the proposal scene. The background was all wrong... a busy street with a circus parading by! In the book, if I remember correctly and will rediscover quite shortly, Captain Wentworth takes Anne into a garden or something and they are quite alone when she indicates by "a word, a look" (or more) that she accepts his offer of marriage.

 Sigh - and that long nearly 8-year separation was all the fault of that annoying Lady Russell! ;) She had the best of intentions but couldn't have been more ill-advising!

Well, I was going to write a bit more and include pictures of the green beans and tomatoes we've been getting from the garden, but that will have to wait for now. Stay tuned! :D

 We will be having a busy Friday as we're visiting a homeschool convention in Altanta for the day and going to Frisbee on the way back home, but on Friday morning make sure you check out the devotional post I wrote for Meditations of His Love!

(and Pssst - there's a giveaway over at Practically Pink for flexi-8 hair clips! And one at Virtuous Girlhood for a curling iron.)

Have a blessed and beautiful weekend!

UFO- Ultimate Frisbee Obsession

Last Friday, we drove an hour away to the Frisbee field, where we had a most stirring game of Ultimate Frisbee. The temperature was a balmy 90-something degrees and the air was so humid that it felt pleasantly like thick pea soup against your skin. (:P) The sun gently toasted our faces and made us radiate the heat back in return. By the end of the game all our T-shirts had gone a shade darker with perspiration.

But it was so worth it.

Ultimate Frisbee? Bring it on! :D

A view of the frisbee players walking back after a point had been scored. If you know me you can probably spot me in this picture.

The opposing team waiting for the throw-off to start the next point. Boy, there were some really awesome players there this week! Look at all the tall, lean guys.

A leaping catch by 'Frisbeeman'. See the little guy in red on the right? He was awesome - he caught like 4 or 5 points!

V. leaning into his throw, and making sure he gets it off before Sky can get in his way. (There's my brother Steven in the background. )

The frisbee flying down into the end zone with little D. in hot pursuit!

The frisbee zooming towards the knot of players in the end zone again. (Note the water bottles near the orange cone marking the corner of the end zone... a very necessary part of Ultimate Frisbee in the summer)

Everyone relaxed but alert, waiting for the girl in yellow to throw a pass. (I'm in this picture too. Hint- I'm wearing pink) The tall guy in cutoffs in the middle of the shot is my brother Mark.

B. making a catch just before M. can jump in to block her.

Best shot of the game - Frisbeeman himself about to throw with Mr. T ready to block him if he can. Look how excited all the players in the background are... ;)

End zone - Lil' D. is reaching up to catch but I think the man behind him blocked this one.

Me getting ready to throw behind the zealous attempts of Sici to block the pass...

Oooh, I wish this pic could have been a few seconds earlier. M. and Frisbeeman went up for the frisbee in the end zone but M. yanked it into his grasp before Frisbeeman could get to it... here they are coming down.

A cool (If slightly blurry) shot of one of the girls about to catch the frisbee.

Mr. H. about to catch the frisbee. Sky is trying to thwart it but Mr. H. got in front and made this one, despite his broken hand!

Uhh - not sure exactly what's going on here, for the frisbee is almost certainly behind someone, but it must be exciting 'cause I'm running. So glad I put my hair in a bun for this game... it was hot enough already without wearing what feels like a long fur scarf down your back! ;)

Here's Steven getting ready to throw off a long bomb.

Arrrgh! I could have maybe made this catch IF I had dived for it, but I've never done that before, and wasn't confident enough about it to attempt it in the split-second I had to make the decision. Plus I sorta didn't feel like getting grass stains all over my Guy Harvey T-shirt. ;) Sky (on my right) almost had it but the frisbee ended up landing smack dab between us. Rats. :P

I guess you could say I both won and lost... for the first 1/3 of the game or so I was on the team that ended up losing, and then I got traded to what ended up being the winning team for the last 2/3rds. :) My brothers were each on one of the teams, so at least I got to play with both of them. :D I love playing Ultimate Frisbee, regardless of the outcome - but it's fun when you have a hand in the win. :D

If you live in Georgia and like to play Ultimate Frisbee, you should hop on over to Frisbeeman's blog and read about the games that go on almost every Friday.

Have a wonderful week!

A Country Girl at Heart

Lately, I've blogged mostly about the more cosmopolitan side of me.
(Cosmopolitan: adj, 1. Well traveled, cultured, sophisticated, urbane, etc...) The part of my personality that enjoys black & white photography, ultra-cute technology, poems, chic interior decor, and shopping trips.

But there's a whole other side of me too. I'm not all girly-girl, photographer extraordinare, and stylish interior designer.

I live in the country on 13 acres of woods tumbling down a rocky hill, in a log home. We raise chickens for their eggs and are considering raising up a batch for meat. We hang our laundry on the line. We've harvested basket after basket of three kinds of lettuce, tons of tomatoes, oodles of onions, and bunches of beans from our garden already, along with a nice amount of green peppers, a pumpkin, and a few squashes.
We can't even see our neighbors through the woods when the leaves are on the trees (about three seasons out of four).
The loudest things we hear are the cicadas buzzing in the woods at night and our roosters crowing in the morning. No road noise or traffic to speak of.

Here are the little darlings... some of our Buff Orphington hens and our 'extra' rooster, Constantine. (Named by my history-loving brother Mark after the great emperor himself) We think he's a Partridge Cochin... he has feathers on his feet. :D

We have another rooster that's a Buff Orphington who isn't in this shot. We called him "Oddly", because we only ordered hens, and oddly enough, he's a rooster. :D

The buffs are known for being 'broody'. They're grumpy wanna-be-mommies and they sit on the nests waiting to peck any hand that tries to steal the precious eggs below them... but we've found that if you grab them from behind you can lift them off with not much trouble. So I wrangle chickens with the best of them. ;)

My brothers Mark and Steven have the main care of the chickens, and go to work landscaping with Dad, while I do the bulk of the housecleaning and helping out with the dishes & laundry and all the cooking. They do the outdoor, I do the indoor. It's a nice division of labor. :)

Our garden is Daddy's paradise.

 He has done an amazing job this year raising up beautiful plants that give off bountiful produce. The tomatoes, especially, have been incredibly fruitful, and the green beans were (and continue to be) great! :) What's coming on now is a jungle of lush squash plants spreading out their broad-leafed vines in a wild ramble across the garden paths. Daddy loves plants, and there is ample evidence of his green thumb in our garden. :)

 Today, we plan on going up to play Ultimate Frisbee with a big group of our friends that play every Friday during the warmer months. It'll be a lot of fun. Frisbee is one of the games that gets me all pumped up and excited ... and oh, dear, very competitive. :D I was super-athletic when I was younger (not as much now) and still enjoy a close game of Ultimate Frisbee. I'll see if I can get one of my parents to take pictures of the game today so I can give you all a glimpse of how much fun it is! :)


And lately, my brothers and I have been highly enjoying this guy:

 Perry Mason! He's a defense attorney in L.A. in the late 50's - early 60's. There are complete videos of almost the whole first season of Perry Mason on IMDB.com (internet movie database) that you can watch for free online with only a few interruptions from commercials. We've been loving it. Perry Mason always manages to pull out a victory over his arch-nemesis, prosecuting attorney Hamilton Burger, and his sidekick Lieutenant Tragg.

My favorite character in the show is Della Street, Perry Mason's secretary. My youngest brother and I think she and Perry Mason should have gotten married, they make such a cute couple! :D But apparently they were just good friends in the series.

Well, I hope you all have a great weekend! I'm off to bake a tasty treat to bring as an after-game snack to Ultimate Frisbee.

Pirate Loot {and other goodies}

Yesterday my Mom and I went shopping in 'civilization'... we went, we saw, and we conquered! :) And we came back with a whole load full of treasures in the hold... eh, make that the back of the van. :D

First we went to a friends' house to recover my sneakers. I'd left them behind when we played Ultimate Frisbee last week. (oops!)

Then we went to Smith & Davis ... where, I am thrilled to say, some of my jewelry is for sale now. We checked on the display to see how they'd laid everything out and looked to see what had sold. It looked pretty nice in there. :)



 I ended up selling them two of my stands to display the earrings on. But Daddy can make me another wooden one and I can order another copper rack from Fire Mountain to replace the one I sold. :) The section of the glass case to the right of the stands there is full of exclusively my jewelry...

pretty cool! :)

So, after we'd seen that, we got down to business and shopped 'till we near 'bout dropped. Whew!

Here's the glitteriest of my loot:

I took advantage of the 50% off sale at Hobby Lobby on their beads and stocked up a little bit... and I also found some beads at Jo-Ann fabrics that I'd been looking for, teal acrylic faceted clear ones. Very cute. :)

 At Ross, I found the prettiest skirt I've seen in a loooong time. It's absolutely adorable and twirly at the hem - and it makes me look so slim! (always a good thing) ;) I actually got two of them, one in black & ivory and one in brown & white. (The brown one is pictured below)

Photo credit goes to my sweet Mom for this shot. :) Modeled by Yours Truly. 

 And I was in Hobby Lobby walking down the aisle when I did a double-take. Does this chandelier on the canvas look familiar, by any chance?

It should. It's the same one that's on my blog header! :O! And it was 50% off. :) So... I got it! Now to find the perfect place to hang it... ;)

Mom and I decided in favor of assembling a delicious fresh lunch from the selection at the Publix deli... and guess what we had for dessert?

Sugar cookies with sprinkles. Boy, does the taste of those bring back memories or what? I grew up getting my 'free cookie' at Publix every time we went to the grocery store when I was little - and I usually got a sprinkle cookie.  *nostalgic sigh*

Mama has wanted to get some nice photo albums for a long time so we can actually do something with the thousands of printed photos of when us kids were younger, and she found some at Ross that are perfect!

Lastly, a photograph of an interesting perspective... my laptop sitting on my jewelry worktable with the glittering beads reflected in the glassy black screen of sleep mode. I just thought it was neat. :D

Oh, and if you haven't seen it yet, pop over to Meditations of His Love (a devotional blog I write for with some other young ladies) And check out it's brand-new makeover!

Blessings,