30 before 30 updated

Someone has pointed out to me that I could seriously shorten this list by condensing it down to "be more Catholic and travel more."  They may have a point...

Anyway, here is an updated version.

1. Create this list.  (This totally counts, right?)
2. Pray the Divine Office every day for a month (or at least morning and evening pray). - I think Lent would be a wonderful time to try and do this, so I'll give it a go then.
3. Go on a silent retreat.
4. Attend a Papal Mass - I did technically attend a Papal Mass at World Youth Day in Madrid, but since I was having fun with heatstroke or exhaustion or something, I don't remember anything.  I know it was a bit wet and windy... (I have been informed that there was a huge thunderstorm and it has been referred to fondly by others as the night the Pope's hat fell off).  Which brings me onto my next one...
5. Attend (another) World Youth Day.  Now since there's only going to be one before I'm 30, I'm a little limited.  Krakow it shall have to be!  Only slight potential issue there is health...  I would love to go but may have to think a bit seriously about it.

6. Attempt couch to 5k - I think I can cross this one off.  I did attempt it, and completed the first week, but my knees don't like it.  I might give it another go one day, but for now I think it may have to be it.
7. Visit Auchswitz
8. Go on a road trip
9. Spend New Years in Times Square a foreign country
10. Pilgrimage to Rome - I've visited Rome a few times, but always just as a tourist.  I think going mainly for the religious side of it would be wonderful.

11. Read 100 new books - I think I should start a new page and keep track of what I've read to see if I can succeed with this!
12. Sell something I've made - Done this Christmas!  I sold two pairs of fingerless mittens.

Right, now for some new ones...

13. Visit Assisi.
14. Get my honours degree
15. Go to Disney (World, land, Paris, I don't care, I just want to be a princess!)
16. Find a job I actually want to do/have
17. Figure out my vocation (as if it's going to be that easy...)
18. Read every book CS Lewis has written Just looked at his bibliography.  Yeah... That's not happening.  Editing it to: Reading all of his signature classics.
19. Walk the Camino (or at least the last section)
20. Go to work with an Ash Wednesday cross on my forehead.
21. Make enough items of clothing for myself to be able to wear a different outfit every day for a week.
21. Make a full costume for myself and attend MCM comic con wearing it. (Currently thinking either Ariel or Anna)
22. Dye my hair proper full on Ariel pillar box red. - this is in progress...!

23. Figure out my diet/what makes me ill
24. Attend Goodwood Revival
25. Do a short course at London College of Fashion - I'm thinking Millinary
26. Dance on stage at Wembley Arena (for the second time) - doing on the 7th March at Flame 2 (previous time was at Flame), although I cannot divulge any more until then as I have been sworn to secrecy!


27.
28.
29.
30. Keep this blog going

I've decided that I'm intentionally going to leave 27, 28 and 29 blank for now, so I can add a new one in each of the remaining years until I'm 30.  Hopefully inspiration will hit at some point then...

So how about you? Have you got a 30 before 30 on the go?
Fancy giving me a hand with any of mine?

Let me know!

It's quiet around here...

Oops,

Okay, so my plan to blog regularly seems to have gone on a slight hiatus. In my defence, I had only phone access to the Internet for a week, but have been back in the land of the wi-fi since Friday, so I really should have posted by now.  Bad blogger.

So what have I been up to?

Well, on the 13th I had a super blessed day.
I had already booked the day off work on account of travelling up to Leeds to go to the Youth 2000 retreat (more on that later). Consequently, when, on Wednesday, I was invited to an assessment day on the Friday morning, I was able to say yes without having to worry about trying to get shifts swapped or getting someone to cover my shift or anything like that. I could just say yes! (The assessment day was at a super exciting place, but I'm still no closer to knowing how it went or whether anything will come of it, so I'm going to stay quiet about it. If nothing else comes from it, at least I got a free pen and pencil!).

Right, interview over, and heading home to pack to go to Leeds/Manchester (the former for Youth 2000, the latter to visit a friend). The original plan had been to drive up with a couple of my friends - the lovely Bekah (she of the beautiful sunrise analogy) and Ari. Bekah was going to drive, so since I had no idea when I'd be back from London, I suggested they should just head up by themselves and I'd drive up by myself and join them when I could.

Turned out they were running late! So it all worked out perfectly and the three of us headed north together.

Pretty good for a Friday 13th, right?

Friday to Sunday were spent in Leeds at the retreat, on which I will try to remember to write a post later. For now I'll just say that it was an incredibly blessed time where I got to see many lovely people again, and meet some fantastic new people.

The time in Manchester was wonderful.  We had a couple of day trips out to visit old friends and a day wandering around the centre. I made very successful gluten/lactose free pancakes (which were yummy) and from this recipe and even showed our friend's little sister how to make real pancakes that didn't just come out of a bottle! I told her that that is the cheating way of doing it.

Since coming back I seem to have spent a large amount of time baking!
I made a sticky toffee cake for Ellen (one of my sister)'s birthday, which came out rather successfully in the shape of Mickey Mouse's head/face (aren't silicon cake moulds wonderful things!)

This was a bit of an experiment, as the recipe I used is for a traybake, so I wasn't totally sure how it would translate to a cake cake. Since it is now almost all gone, I guess the answer is, pretty good!

I also made cupcakes, which were then decorated. All of the above was done with the assistance of my 4 year old niece Elsa... I mean Rosie.

Turns out she's really good at beating eggs! I corrected her fork holding the first time, but she did it all herself, and she did it totally herself the second time. She also made really good hearts for some of the cupcakes, whereas I spent my time making an Anna and an Elsa.

(Yes, she looks like a minion, no she's not supposed to be, otherwise Rosie will get very cross...)
I also apologise for the quality of the photos, and promise that I shall attempt to be better at remembering to use my good camera in the future instead of just going for my phone...

Anyway, I think that's enough for now, so I shall leave you with a link to my current favourite recipe book. Cake Angels is a lovely book full of all sorts of yummy gluten, wheat and dairy free cake/traybake/cupcake recipes. Yummy yummy yummy.

(I definitely need to try out more of the recipes soon!)

So how has your past week been? Do you have any good gluten free baking recipes to reccomend? Let me know in the comments below!

Here comes Lent...

Uh-oh, Lent's coming again.  Really soon.  What am I going to do this year?

For some reason, everytime I realise Lent's just around the corner it sends me into a mild state of panic.  What should I give up?  Should I do something instead?  I just don't know!!!

Okay, calm.  This is not a time to panic, this is a time of purification, of sanctification.
A time to try and make yourself a better person.
Think New Years Resolution, but better (well, actually I've never been a huge one for NY resolutions, so that's not much of a comparison for me...)

It's a time to look at your life.  What are you overly attached to?  What do you feel like you couldn't cope without?  Material things?  Food? Maybe it's time to try and deal with that attachment.

Traditionally for Lent you should participate in fasting, prayer and almsgiving.

Fasting:

I've already done a post on one idea for fasting, although of course there's always the ever popular giving up chocolate or cigarettes or whatever may take your fancy.
I've already given up quite a lot lately in terms of food, but this Lent I'm going to try and make sure I only snack on food I've made myself.  It should be healthier, I'll hopefully lose some more weight, and save some money.  And, of course, while I'm busy making food with my own hands, I can spend more time being thankful for the food I have, for the kitchen in which I can make it, and for the very fact that I'm able to make food.

Almsgiving:

Almsgiving is giving to the poor.  Donating to charity.  Doing something out of kindness.
So this could be a good opportunity for taking something up.  Perhaps you could find a local soup kitchen and donate some time there. Perhaps you could just give some money to charity. Next time you walk past a homeless person in the street you could offer to buy them some food or give them a coffee?
This Lent I'm going to try and do at least one RAK (random act of kindness) per day. I've no idea what they will be right now, but I shall try and keep the blog updated with what they are and how I do.

Prayer:

As one of my 30 before 30 is to try and say morning and evening prayer every day for a month, Lent seems like the perfect time to start.  Mind you, I say this often, and often fail fairly quickly, so let's find out whether having told you guys I'm going to do this will give me the encouragement I need.

As an additional thing, and I may do a fuller post on this in the future, lately I've been feeling a pull in my heart towards veiling during Mass and in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament.  Whether this will be a long term thing I really do not know, but to help with my discernment, I have decided to ensure my head is covered whenever I go to church during Lent.

There are some fabulous blog posts around regarding this topic, and I've linked to a few of my favourites below:
http://www.lauramcalister.com/2013/07/16/should-i-veil-a-debate-between-me-my-brain/ - This pretty much feels like where my brain is at right now.
http://www.conversiondiary.com/2013/02/notes-from-beneath-the-veil.html
http://chastityproject.com/2014/05/veiled-sake-angels/

So how about you?  what are your plans for this Lent?

Are you woman enough to give up makeup?

So this post from Life Teen on 102 things to give up for Lent came up on my newsfeed the other day and it got me thinking.

Now some of the things on the list I don't do anyway (spitting gum onto the pavement?  Disgusting), so obviously can't give up, Others on there I don't feel like I need to give up (I mean Pizza? come on - and I don't eat it much anyway on account of the whole funny diet thing).

One or two of them were things I regularly do anyway.  I regularly give up (most) makeup for lent, restricting myself to concealer, mascara (or for special occasions - although then I make myself have the mentality that it's the same as putting on pretty clothes.  It's to look different to normal, not because I don't like the way I look.

This is something that I think we, as women, particularly in the modern world, struggle with a lot. And I used a huge number of commas in that sentence. My GCSE teacher would not be happy with me... Anyway, yes.  Struggle.  We are told so often that we have to look perfect.  We have to look beautiful and totally put together at all times.  If we're having a bad hair day, or have a breakout, or are larger than a size 8, or have an unusually shaped nose, we're just not good enough.

I went through the whole of my school career hating my hair. People constantly mocked me for it, and it has taken me a long time to come to terms with it.  Even now I tend to have it tied up a lot if I don't feel like it's perfect when it's down - fun side of that though is that I've learnt a lot of new things to do with my hair, so it's getting to the point where I tie my hair up because I like the way it looks. For those of you who know me though, it's worth saying that this has never applied to the colour of my hair.  I like my natural hair colour, I just prefer the various shades of red it's been over the past 7 1/2 years...

It's so easy to look in a mirror and point out your flaws, but that's not how we should be living. My eyes are too small, my nose is too big, my pores are too visible, the shadows under my eyes are too dark. Maybe if I slather my face in makeup these faults will be hidden and people won't notice.

The whole "no-makeup selfie" thing actually made me really sad.  The idea that people are having to be brave to post a photo of themselves without makeup on is just... well, is that really how life should be?

I find that, from time to time, particularly if I've been wearing a lot of makeup regularly, I get to a point where I'm wearing makeup because I don't like the way my face is without it.  The first time I really noticed this was shortly before lent one year, so I figured, since lent is the perfect time to give up things you are overly attached to, it was the perfect thing to give up that year.  I've pretty much repeated the practise every year.

So here's my question.  How attached to your makeup are you? Do you wear makeup because you prefer the way you look with it or because you don't like the way you look without it.  If the answer is a completely honest yes to the first part, then feel free to carry on.  If the latter, then maybe this is an area of your life you should look at.

Maybe this is the year you challenge yourself to be woman enough to give up makeup for lent and learn to love yourself for who you truly are.

Hmm... this post went in a completely different direction to how I originally planned, so I shall just have to do another one soon!

Confirmation Classes, Ten Ten Theatre and Love

This weekend sees the kick-off of the confirmation course for my home parish. I've been involved here since I came back home after my year at SPEC (well I couldn't let my skills learnt there go to waste now, could I?)

We've had to start off a little differently this year.  Normally we head off to the fabulous SPEC who up until last year were based not too far away from us.  Sadly they have moved (although their new home grounds are beautiful) and are currently unable to provide residential retreats. Instead we invited TenTen Theatre to come and run a retreat day for us.

The day was spent looking at love.  How we learn about love, how love affects us, what is and what isn't love.

Although it wasn't mentioned all day (at least as far I know, there were a couple of points during the day where us catechists were kicked out for discussions) I kept thinking about 1 Corinthians 13:4-7. You know which one... Yeah, y'know, that one.  The one that's all sappy and lovey-dovey and over used for weddings.  Yeah, the one that's all about love being patient and kind etc etc.  Yeah, that one. The one about how beautiful and easy love it.

Except it's not.  It's really not saying that love is easy. Pretty much the opposite in fact.

Fun fact for you.  As a child I was in the church choir.  We sang at loads of weddings.  I used to love it. Partly because we got paid (which is always fun), but also because I just love weddings.  I love looking at the dresses (and would occasionally draw my dream dress on a piece of tissue/scrap paper), deciding what music I wanted at my wedding, and deciding what readings I was going to have.  Or more to the point, deciding which were way overused and would just be tacky. Right at the top of that list was 1 Cor 13:4-7.

Then I went to a retreat at Ampleforth Abbey.  And you know that expression "Mind Blown"? Yeah, that pretty much sums up my attitude towards that passage.
The monk (and much to my shame I have forgotten which one it was) told us that whenever a couple come to him wanting this reading, he tells them to go away, read it again properly, and then come back to him.  It's not about love being sweet and pleasant and easy, it's hard and tough and difficult.

Love is always patient, Love is never jealous, it is never rude, it is always ready to make allowances.

Not just when you feel like it, not just when you're in the right mood. Not even just when the situation deserves it.  Always and Never.

Always and Never.

So now, I want this reading at my wedding (y'know, if it ever happens).  Pretty much anything else is up for discussion (well, as long as it's a Catholic Mass), but that has to be a reading.  Oh, and I want the priest to discuss that in the homily.

I once heard someone very wise say that when you can replace the word love with your name, you are truly love.  So although I fail (and I fail often), I aim to be able to say "Ann is always patient, Ann is never jealous..."

Always and Never.