The Sheenazing Blogger Awards are over. Thanks so much to everyone who took the time to vote for Carrots! Congrats to all the winners! Carrots didn’t win, but I did get this awesome pic from the awards host, Bonnie, to add to my sidebar!
I am truly still floored that I was on a ballot next to some of my favorite bloggers!
Coming Up in the Liturgical Year: Lent! I need to get organized and put up a post on Lenten resources pronto. Lent is definitely sneaking up on me this year. I’ve gotten a few emails asking about a revivial of the Little Holydays link up and the answer is yes! A Little Holydays link up for January/February is in the works with Molly Makes Do and Dualing Moms and will include plans for Lent as well as January/February feast days, Candlemas, etc.
Book Love: I’m a little behind in my Reading Goals for 2013. I’m still finishing up my last January book: Emily of New Moon by L.M. Montgomery. If you’re like me, and cried when you ran out of “Anne” books, you will fall in love with Emily! Next up, the unabridged Les Miserables! I have to admit, I’m a little intimidated by the ginormousness of it.
On the Homestead: Carrots and radishes!
The image above should be titled, “The Doomed.” Last weekend was a bit grim as far as homesteading goes. We slaughtered our 7 meat birds and it was as bloody and gruesome as you might expect. Benjamin summed it up nicely….:
The Quotable Benjamin:
“Thanks for becoming food for us, chickens! You are SO brave dying!”
Lately on Carrots:
Carrots is about to reach 600 likes on FB! I can’t believe 600 people would want to keep up with my ramblings! Thank you!
There are some really insightful comments on the first part of my “Catholicism: Empowering Women for 2000 Years” series on the topic of Marian doctrine. If you haven’t read some of the great contributions to the discussion in the comments, take a minute to check them out. I am always so impressed by how respectful and kind my readers are to me and to each other, even when you disagree. That is not the case for every site and I know that I am terribly lucky to have such an insightful and kind readership! Thank you for making the comment box a place for discussion where we can truly have productive conversation. You are the best!
Speaking of comments, friends, I just don’t think I can keep up with what has been my policy from the beginning: a response to every single comment. Responding to comments has started to take up more time than actually writing new posts! I love responding to comments but Daniel helped me realize that I really can’t keep this up. I will still try to respond to any comments that have questions and as many other ones as I can, but if I’m not able to respond to one of your comments, please know that I did read and appreciated it! I just can’t make responding to every single comment a priority over writing or family. I know you’ll understand!
Links:
America’s Baby Bust: The Wall Street Journal (Such an interesting piece on population decline that Christy posted to FB!)
When to Cut the Cord: Better than Eden (I found this post by Mary so informative and it really convinced me to add a request for delayed cord cutting to our birth plan for Baby Gwen.)
You can also find me over at Mama And Baby Love talking about building raised beds for gardening this week!
Instagrams Worth Sharing: (I’m carrotsformichaelmas on IG)
Can you believe I found this adorable Beatrix Potter scene at Goodwill? I had planned to do a Peter Rabbit themed birthday for Lucy last year but then the pregnancy nausea was too much for anything but last minute cupcakes and some flowers from the garden. Maybe this year!
She insisted on wearing these boots and hat one morning last week. I love this little cowgirl so!
Date night makeup!
Piggy-tails!
Winter roses (camellias) picked by my sweet little boy. Who could ask for more?
Hope you’re staying warm this weekend!
Love,
Haley
P.S. Have you subscribed to Carrots so that you don’t miss a single post? You can subscribe via email on the left hand side bar or via RSS. You can also follow me on Twitter (@haleycarrots), Pinterest (haleyofcarrots), FB, and Instagram (carrotsformichaelmas). I love connecting with my wonderful readers!
Oh that Benjamin. He is fantastic!
I have to agree! 🙂
Um. Those flowers do NOT look real!!
Hilarious quotation from Benjamin.
And – I love Beatrix Potter!!
My parents have a few Camellia bushes and they are absolutely one of my favorite flowers of all time! B has quite a knack for choosing the prettiest blooms for mama 🙂
Our doctor said that the hospital is instituting a new policy to wait one minute before cord clamping! Although it might take longer than that, I don’t think you’ll have any issues adding it to your birth plan. Hooray!
That’s good to know! TMH is usually really good about honoring birth plans in general but I’m glad to know that my request won’t differ much from hospital policy.
Oh, processing our chickens was hard. And the turkeys I had a really hard time with since they were around so long. It’s times like those when I toy with being a vegetarian much to the husband’s dismay. You definitely appreciate your meat a whole lot more, that’s for sure!
Thank you so much for the link! I’m so glad it was helpful!
Agreed! I’m glad our kids know what a sacrifice it is to have meat on the table. I just loved your post and found it so helpful. Thank you!
I have a couple questions for you and they are totally different subjects:
1) With the cord for baby #3 – how does it make you feel about babies #1 and #2? I’m a little upset about not having this info for my first but my husband always says that we make the best decisions we can at any given time with the information we have. I just wanted to know how you were feeling…
2) How do you choose the blogs you read and how many of your followers do you follow back? I’m torn about this so I’m looking for perspective from my fave blogs.
Thanks!
1) Honestly, I’m not one to hold onto guilt about decisions in the past. I have my mothering struggles, but holding onto guilt isn’t one of my worst faults. I’m with your husband, you just have to be the best parent you can with what you’ve got at any given time. I was explaining recently to a friend about how I was told by B’s pediatrician to start giving him rice cereal at 3 months and I proceeded to make other bad food decisions for him out of ignorance. Lucy, on the other hand, didn’t taste a thing but breastmilk until 7 months and then proceeded to have fruits, veggies, and protein as she became interested. I don’t think she had a bit of gluten until age 1! My friend responded, “Wow, you must feel so GUILTY.” And I realized, that no…I didn’t feel guilty. Although I regretted some of the decisions I made out of ignorance, I was trying to be the best mom I could when I had Benjamin and I was trying to be the best mom I could when I had Lucy. I just knew more the second time around. So, I’m actually more excited about offering this opportunity to Baby #3 than I am upset that I didn’t know about delaying cord clamping for Babies 1 and 2.
2) I think that’s worth of a whole post about my favorite blogs. Really, I just try to follow whatever peaks my interest and I remove a blog from my reader if I realize that I don’t usually end up reading it. I try to follow a lot of my readers and some of my all time favorite blogs I have discovered because the bloggers have commented on one of my posts and I clicked over to check out their blog. Sometimes it takes me forever to add someone to my reader, though, just because I keep forgetting. Abbey’s Surviving Our Blessings blog is one of my favorite but it took me months to remember to finally add her. Obviously, I need a better system!
-I just love that quote from Benjamin! Sounds like it could make the whole gruesome scene easier knowing that your child understands and appreciates the whole cycle.
-Your carrots make me want to run and dig mine up. It would be my first time grabbing them up and I’m already itching to get out there. I hope they’re as awesome as yours are.
– awesome Goodwill find!
It is special knowing that he gleaned that idea from the process…but it’s REALLY gross, haha. 🙂