Move Update

Every other time we have moved, people have said, "We will miss you." but this time almost everyone has immediately said, "Can we come with you?" or "I would love to come!" Many of our friends are seriously thinking about moving to the Austin/San Antonio area in the next couple years.

For those of you who thought we were already on our way to TX: My family is staying one more week in CA. We were planning to leave yesterday, but it worked out to be easier (and cheaper) to stay here longer. Why? It looked like the closing date for the house would get pushed off a week, when Dad called U-haul about a moving truck and found out that he could save $1000 by waiting a week before renting the truck (so many people are moving out of CA that they had a shortage of trucks). Not only that, but Dad's business trips also needed to be changed to different days, which fit in perfectly with us waiting one week before moving.

One of our friends told Mom about a map online showing migration within the US, county by county, in 2008 (the patterns have not changed much since then). Here is the exact link. I combined the maps of several San Jose-San Francisco counties to make one map and several Austin-San Antonio counties to make another. The red lines represent outward migration, and the black lines represent inward migration. It seems odd to apply the term migration to humans, but it describes the way we move perfectly. Go to the link and click on any major city and you will see that large amounts of people move in/out depending on whether they are liberal/conservative, concentrating in certain areas.

OUT

IN

I can't wait until we are done with the leaving and packing, and are on our way to TX.

Lauren Ashley

Feelin' Feminine Challenge

(Note: I just looked at Feelin' Feminine and this month they are not doing the normal all-skirts challenge, but instead doing a challenge to use all-natural ingredients instead of chemical shampoo. I will be doing the all-skirts challenge anyway in hope that you will join me next month.)

Through Feminine Farmgirl (a blog I follow) I found out about the Feelin' Feminine Challenge. The challenge is to wear only skirts/dresses for an entire week. I will be joining the challenge in August and will be posting pictures of what I wear every day here. I know that some of you do not have blogs, but you can still join the challenge anyway (please leave a comment to this post that you are doing so). If you do not have a blog, you are welcome to post comments about what you think of the Challenge.

Below I have copied information about the Challenge and Mission from the Feelin' Feminine website.

 Our Mission:

To encourage, inspire, and challenge young ladies to rediscover the treasure of dressing in a feminine manner. So we may be an example in a world where true beauty has been lost – in a world where beauty is defined by the culture. We hope to convey a message that true beauty is an inward appearance of the heart and spirit that is shown outwardly in dressing in a manner that is and directs all radiance and honour to our Maker, and not one for self-gain.

The Challenge

The challenge is to wear only skirts/dresses for an entire week of seven days, and then post a photo of your outfits (head to toe) on your blog. If you don’t have exactly seven different skirts, that’s alright. Mix and match with different shirts. We can be not only feminine and modest, but frugal too!

What is on the inside will show on the outside so dressing in a feminine manner in this way shows what we desire and strive for at  heart. Why dresses and skirts, you ask? Read through the website. Dressing in a feminine manner doesn’t mean you must lose your respectability. It means you value your respectability and wish to honour to the Father and to yourself more than the whims of society.

If you want to “personalize” your outfit a bit more you can add a hat, a scarf, a headband, a matching purse  – whatever you like! You can also style your hair in different ways each day. We do want to encourage you to remember our focus is not to be fashionable or blend in with the world, but to be set apart in our dress.

While there are no outfit ‘requirements’, we do ask, for the sake of our mission, writers, and readers please make sure that your dresses and skirts are at least knee length and that none of your shirts are sleeveless. Show us pictures of daily activities of you in your skirts.

I’ve heard a lot of ladies tell me that they don’t like wearing skirts because they can’t be active in them. I very much so disagree. I’ve worn skirts everyday since 2005 and they haven’t stifled my activity in the least. I still do all the things I used to do, but in a more mindful and ladylike way. Try it.

Already Wear Skirts?

If you already wear skirts on a regular basis, please don’t let that stop you. Participate anyway! This is for all ladies – ask your mother, sisters, grandmas, aunts, and girlfriends to do it with you! Post a flier at your church – email us, we will send you one to print out!

The Goal Of The Challenge:

As our Mission Statement says we want to encourage, inspire, and challenging young ladies to rediscover the treasure of dressing in a feminine manner. Do some evaluating of yourself at the end of the week and compare it to your regular way of dress. These questions should help you along:

How was the experience for you?

Any particular stories?

Did wearing skirts rather than pants affect the way you felt?

The way you felt about yourself?

The way you acted?

The way you carried yourself?

Were you able to go about everyday activity as freely as pants?

How did people respond?

After the challenge do you desire to keep wearing skirts more regularly, or were you desperate to wear pants again?

If you’d like to have your answers to the above questions share on the site, please gohere to do so. We’d love to hear them.

The Challenge usually “officially” takes place at the beginning of each month for a week. We will post an article with a link to the host-blog so you can join in with other participants. This certainly does not mean we only want you to actually do the challenge then or don’t do it because you missed the first day. We always want to see photos and always want you to join us, no matter how late in the week!

I hope you join me!


Lauren Ashley

Trip to Auntie's Slideshow

Here is a slideshow I made of pictures from when I visited Uncle Allen, Aunt Rachel and Aunt Aimee in 2004 and 2006. (Uncle Allen isn't in any of them because he was taking the pictures.)

Making slideshows is a lot easier (and faster) than scrapbooking!

Lauren Ashley

P.S. Please don't enlarge the slideshow to fullscreen, it will be blurry. I tried uploading a larger size of the movie, but it didn't work.

Scrapbooking

A couple days ago my Mom, siblings and I went to a friend's house to work on our scrapbooks. This is not something we normally do (the last pictures put in my scrapbook were from eight years ago). We had a (large) box of photos which were kept to be put in the scrapbooks, so we had more than enough to work with.


Here are a few of the pages that I ended up making.

I can't remember how old I was in these pictures, probably 6-10 years.

Me 6-12 months

While looking through the photos on our computer, Mom and I found a program to use when creating slideshows. Instead of scrap-booking some of the pictures we will just make several slideshows and put them on CDs.


These pictures are from when I visited my Uncle Allen, Aunt Rachel and Aunt Aimee in Nashville in 2004 and 2006 (Uncle Allen isn't in any of them because he was taking the pictures).





Lauren Ashley


P.S. My Mom also wrote about scrapbooking on Her Blog

Latest News!!!

We are moving to Texas!

So far my family has lived in six different states, spending anywhere from one to three years in each place. Our four years in California has been the longest we have ever stayed in one place.

Now we are moving halfway across the country to Texas. And we have two weeks to pack.

Here are pictures of the house.

A pool for the hot Texas summer

15 acres, a pond and trees (plenty of room for goats and chickens)

Lauren Ashley

Independence Day

Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it. ~Thomas Paine

I prefer liberty with danger to peace with slavery. ~Author Unknown

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. ~Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759

Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth. ~George Washington

It is easy to take liberty for granted, when you have never had it taken from you. ~Author unknown, sometimes attributed to M. Grundler

There are two freedoms - the false, where a man is free to do what he likes; the true, where he is free to do what he ought. ~Charles Kingsley

I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations. ~James Madison, speech, Virginia Convention, 1788

We on this continent should never forget that men first crossed the Atlantic not to find soil for their ploughs but to secure liberty for their souls. ~Robert J. McCracken

Men fight for liberty and win it with hard knocks. Their children, brought up easy, let it slip away again, poor fools. And their grandchildren are once more slaves. ~D.H. Lawrence, Classical American Literature, 1922