Our Hearts Are Restless

Hi y'all!  I've spent the last few weeks working on the launch of Restless Independent , my new blog for young adults.  RI has (or will have) how-tos, notes from the young adult trenches, recipes, lists, resource dumps, infographics, and guest posts.  Check it out! In the meantime, I'm mulling over the fate of Our Hearts Are Restless.  I still have a ton of book blogging I want to do, and I'm not sure that will always fit well at RI.  So OHAR may turn into a lit-focused site, basically an opportunity for book reviews, what-I'm-reading posts, author interviews, and book tours.  Faith might come in a bit too, since I'm trying to keep RI fairly non-denominational.  I just don't know!  If I'm going to keep up two blogs, though, it'd better be pretty straightforward.  So I'll keep working on it.  How does Recusant Books sound as a rebranding title? In the meantime, pop on over to Restless Independent and tell me what you think!

CC0 Public Domain via Pixabay The current condition of the world forced me to turn over a conundrum in my head on the way to Mass after work.  You can probably, like me, list the locations of the last half-dozen major acts of international terrorism, the recent ethical and moral rulings of SCOTUS, and at least three of Pope Francis’ confusing statements.  There’s a lot happening in this world, and with the help of mass media, we see little that is good. Many of my friends and colleagues have no optimism left.  Accurately, perhaps, they predict an oncoming storm of chaos, fear, amorality, and death.  In the current day and age, many feel that the world is rolling down a steep hill, picking up speed as it nears destruction at the bottom.  Hope has faded into a dull resignation.  But when I hear comments like “This is the end of civilization as we know it” and “Martial law is coming”, and I listen to the underlying tone of despair, something in me...

If you are currently in college, just flipped your tassel, or - like me - are still struggling with calling a new apartment "home", p lease enjoy this guest post from one of my good friends, Amy Marter.  Amy just graduated as Valedictorian from Christendom College, with a BA in Literature and a minor in Classics.  She is working for Our Sunday Visitor for a second summer, volunteers at the Catholic Writers' Conference, and will attend Catholic University of America this fall for a MA in Literature. CC0 Public Domain via Pixabay A Patron Saint for College Nomads If there is one practical skill that I have gained from my college education, it has been that of packing. After four years of moving into dorms and returning home for breaks, I like to think that I have mastered the art. There is an exhilarating liberation that comes from the decision that all of one’s necessary earthly possessions can fit into the back of the station wagon. It gives rise to freedom to ro...

Hello y'all! My writing schedule may be sporadic this month. Between friends visiting, new kittens coming home, the Indy 500, my parish choir concert, and finishing a major freelance project, I will be lucky if I get time to go grocery shopping!  It is going to be an awesome few weeks.  Who needs food anyway? My lovely roommate and I are just a few days from bringing home our kittens - her grey tabby Finnegan Patrick and my calico Lady Portia.  So far, Finn is a package of Energizer Bunny-esque entertainment; Portia is a fluffy, only slightly more lady-like snuggler.  Both are equally susceptible to the lure of the laser light. IT'S SO FLUFFY I'M GONNA DIE! Last week, I spent my Friday night going on an adventure.  I'm frequently busy, but I don't often breach my comfort zone, so this was a good change.  Juventutem Michigan, the local chapter of an international young adult group focused on the Extraordinary Form, held their spring Mass and ...

Hi y'all!  Thought I'd share another recipe over here, although I'm not quite as good in the kitchen as my lovely roommate over at Starving Inspired . If you've met me, you may know that I'm not fond of either wine or beer; I hate the taste of alcohol, so I'll only drink something that cuts the alcohol burn with a strong flavor.  Hence, my propensity for hard ciders and margaritas, which are about the only drinks that don't remind me of cough syrup. A near escape from tipsiness with a glass of rum punch has entrenched my resolution to keep tight control of my alcohol consumption.  I hate feeling like I'm not in control!  With careful parameters, though, I do enjoy the occasional drink with friends.  When I visited Christendom recently , a girlfriend and I made a late-night Walmart run before heading back to her house.  Besides getting myself food for the weekend, we also grabbed ingredients for homemade margaritas.  The recipe  turned out to b...

Once upon a time , I was dead set on being a professional musician.  A degree in arts administration with a minor in trombone performance awaited me, and I would hear of no other possibility, no matter how hard my parents tried. Then, the summer of 2010 happened.  My parents dragged me, kicking and screaming, to the same week-long program my two older sisters had previously attended at a little liberal arts college in Virginia.  "It's just a week," they said.  "Think of it as a vacation."  Some vacation!  Classes began and ended with prayer.  We had daily Mass, daily adoration, and an introduction to the depths of the liberal arts and Western civilization. Midway through that week, I sat in the back of the chapel, looking at the monstrance.   I can't leave this behind , I realized.  I knew, with overwhelming certainty, that this place was where I belonged.  The next few days were one long existential crisis, as I fought with myself t...

Creative Commons CC0 via Pixabay Every summer during a decade of 4-H, I did time in the kitchen, working my way through cookies, muffins, cakes, pies, yeast rolls, breads, and more.  Although I never made it to the State Fair, I learned the basics.  Plus, baking skills are inherited on both sides of my family, and our annual Epiphany Open House puts the whole family to work mixing, rolling and baking over a thousand cookies for our friends. While I didn't cook in college due to tiny dorm rooms, the freedom and flexibility of having my own apartment has opened whole new vistas for baking adventures.  Over the past eight months, I've gone through many pounds of flour, brought sweets to baby showers and office parties, and shared a fresh, homemade loaf of bread with new friends.  Not only have I discovered how much I enjoy baking, I realized that I might have a talent for it! German chocolate cake in process, March 2016 There's a lot I'm still learning. ...

Over the last few years, I have developed an interesting relationship with St. Joseph.  In all honesty, I pester him about everything from guys to freelancing to "help me get everything done that I need to get done today."  He's the patron saint of pretty much everything that's relevant for single young adult Catholics.  And having a spiritual father in addition to my earthly father equals the best masculine support system I could ask for. Our friendship started during senior-year chaos, grew through a summer of panicked job hunting, and solidified during my transition to independence.  I figure he could handle it, but I still feel a bit guilty about throwing all the difficult bits of my life at him. Recently, I realized just how well St. Joseph understands me.  Before Christmas, God threw the inspiration for a major writing project at me.  We're talking the kind of God-curve-ball that feels like a ton of bricks dropping on your head.  My respo...

Best part of being independent?  The freedom to grab my roommate and hop down to The Ark for a High Kings concert!  These guys are spectacular musicians first and foremost, and just all-round fun people who made a lovely effort to connect to their audience. Photo credits all courtesy of my lovely roomie . We were so close to the stage -  The Ark  is a lovely little venue, very comfortable and intimate, and we were just three rows back from the guys.  I may, possibly, have been fangirling just a bit...and maybe slap-happy and a bit hyper...but hey!  It's not often I get to enjoy an evening of blood-pumping, dance-worthy Irish music from one of my all-time favorite bands.  Just hoping none of them noticed me gazing up at them in a slightly idiotic fashion. Stunning accordion skills, lovely harmonies, tinwhistle talent that makes me want to either go practice or throw mine out of the window in despair, bodhran playing that made my wrist...

My lifestyle these last few months has been quite different from my gregarious, frenetic college career.  I'm no longer surrounded by a group of like-minded individuals, I don't have a few girlfriends in my room every evening, and distraught post-breakup souls don't knock on my door for a hug.  (Although they still do call for advice sometimes.)  I don't bounce from class, to running a club meeting, to counselling a friend, to editing someone's paper. The status quo of my life is solitude, enforced by distance from family and old friends.  A normal evening is spent between cleaning the apartment, cooking, and working on freelance projects at my desk.  My weekends usually involve grocery shopping, singing in the parish choir, testing new recipes in the kitchen, and curling up on the sofa with a book or movie.  Every now and then, I'll volunteer at my parish or be invited to a get-together at a new friend's house. While I'm still a choleric-sanguine , ...

For my own sake, I have decided that it is high time to pick up the pieces and post something cheerful on this blog!  2015 ended in a depressed slump, as a chaotic month of chasing my tail over freelance projects switched gears into mourning the loss of my grandmother.  2016 has potential to be quite interesting, as I begin my first-ever full year of "adulthood" (which is quite a relative term if you think about it.)  No more bouncing back and forth like a ping-pong ball between home and school; no repeat of 2015's school/graduation/job hunting/frantic moving/wait I'm an adult now-ing.  I hope. I'm looking at a year of 8-5 Monday-Friday work weeks, punctuated by the occasional holiday, weekends in Indy, and perhaps a few adventures here and there.  Happily, the benefit of an office job is that it gives me evenings and weekends to do (or choose to not do) stuff in.  Right now, that means balancing freelance commissions with a burgeoning social life.  ...

…even though I ignored them until I moved out and THEN discovered just how much sense they made. 1   Turn around and look at the kitchen before you leave it! Any dishes you missed?  Stray spoons?  A hotpad you could put away?  It makes life easier in the long run.  Thanks, Daddy. 2 Shake the crumbs out of the toaster when you’re done. Yes, it does get nasty when you don’t do that for a week…or two months.  Sorry about all the complaining, Mommy! 3 Open your windowshades and make your bed in the morning. Okay, I haven’t thoroughly gotten into the habit of this yet, but I’m definitely starting to see the value of coming home to a lit, neat-looking room. 4 Saturdays are for cleaning. Oh, how I hated this custom as a child…now, I’m so happy for Saturdays because I can catch up on all the chores that just can’t get done during the week.  And then I can start off the new week with a clean, neat apartment, which som...

I needed a clever way to give y’all an update on my life as an Anachronistic Millennial.  Thus was spawned In which I give you all the current “ings” of my life! Reading : A coworker lent me two fairly new books, which I have to admit is a little out of my usual style!  The first was The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes and Why , a non-fiction study of disasters and how they affect the human mind. It was an absolutely fascinating work – the author, Amanda Ripley, delved into everything from psychology to physics.  The other was a recent Pulitzer Prize novel, All the Light We Cannot See .  This was occasionally a rough read, since it takes place during the traumatic times of World War II, and sometimes gets a bit graphic.  Not my favorite style—this new fad of first-person present tense can be irritating—but on the whole, the work was a well-woven series of vignettes with a feel of realism. Watching: One of my coworkers had ...

Over at Will Write for Tomato Pie, Erin has kindly invited me to write a guest post - so go read about my "Word Addiction!"

Hello y'all!  I'm absurdly excited about my first post over at CatholicMom.  Click on the pic and check it out!

This is the weirdest experience of my whole life.  Okay, maybe not, but it's awfully close - I had an entire Saturday with no plans .  No homework to do, no wedding planning, no travel, no family or friends nearby, no urgent tasks.  There were a few things that needed to get done (some necessary shopping, a little apartment cleaning) but really, I had hours to waste.  Lord knows I needed the rest after last weekend's wedding frenzy, and the last six weeks of non-stop running to get moved up here.  But I've been vegging out all week, and need to "recalibrate" as my dad puts it. So today's been a mix of boredom and spurts of energy.  I got up for morning Mass at the parish I think I'll join; came home and enjoyed a leisurely breakfast with my roommate.  I baked a pineapple-blueberry dump cake, then went out for a slow shopping trip for a few necessary items.  After a late lunch, I've done basically nothing except shift some stuff around in ...

Hello!  Sorry for the long silence over here.  It's been a crazy week, between funeral prep, packing, a trip to the State Fair, visiting my grandma, attending the funeral, driving to Michigan, and settling in at my new apartment and job.  So yeah, I've been growing up with a vengeance in the last few days. There's been ups and downs, all lessons learned for the future. Sunday, after driving up, I attempted to iron a blouse for my first day of work.  It melted in 0.75 seconds.  So now I can't use the iron because it has very interesting blue melted gunk on the soleplate.  Thanks, polyester. And I wore the wrong shoes to work the first day.  See, my office building is about a mile long, and the chapel is at the other end.  I didn't expect that the walk to noon Mass was going to be quite so...penitential. I keep getting lost on the way to and from work, although I'm rather proud of myself because I keep finding my way back.  I'm telling ...

Hi, y'all!  Pop on over to The Starving Inspired for a video tour of our new apartment in this foreign country called Ann Arbor. Facts I have picked up recently - it's not blue and gold/yellow, it's "maize", and it's EVERYWHERE.  Also, the town is colloquially known as A2, there are college students everywhere, I plan to stay indoors on home game days.  And I'm pretty sure I won't be able to find a good tenderloin.  I'm telling you, this is a whole new world, y'all. Yep, I'm skeptical.  Aladdin looks like one of those sketchy Rome tour guides anyway.

Linking up with CatholicMom again today! Moving out is quite the challenge.  For some silly reason, I expected the process to be basically like going back to college.  Not so much...there are ties being severed in a way I haven't experienced before.  It will be a very difficult transition, but I think I can make it. A few small successes this week as I get ready to move - just baby steps, but they're helping the list get a little shorter. Martha (my new-to-me VW station wagon) got blessed this week!  The old blessing has some lovely phrases in it.  It mentions the holy angels surrounding and accompanying the car, and asks that "just as by Your deacon Philip You gave faith and grace to the man of Ethiopia as he sat in his chariot reading the Sacred Word, so, point out to Your servants the way of salvation."  And maybe it's all psychological, but I have felt better driving Martha now that she's blessed.  Driving solo in a new vehicle, which was ...

Remember those awful conversation-starters like "If you were alone on a desert island, what three books would you want to have with you?"  Here's a new one: If you were facing the most challenging transition of your life so far...what books would you want in your Emergency Reading Kit? I've included practical books, spiritual reading favorites, a little Shakespeare, fiction favorites and newbies, fairytales and poetry: I chose books that I knew I would want to be readily accessible, no matter what else I unpacked.  They're essentials for the mind, heart, and soul, to keep me sane through the first few weeks of this life-shift.  As I'm thinking about it, there are more I should have included, but this will be a good start for now.  Here's a breakdown of my Emergency Reading Kit. Practical books: Betty Crocker's Cookbook  is a family favorite, with all the essential, basic recipes I could ask for.  There's a lot of love i...