Mr. Prof designer home

Mr. Brumfield and I attended a very charming airship party this weekend. Her Majesty's Ship Rapture was full of colorful characters -- airship pirates (allowed on, I understand, because they were the only ones with a map to our intended destination), mad scientists, automata, doctors, colonels, engineers, ladies and "ladies" -- we had a lovely time. Since I imbibed a bit too much of their patented elixir, I forgot to get any "daguerreotypes" of the decor but the Baron has been generous enough to share one of his with me.



This is the first class cabin (if you can't tell from the occupant -- a beautiful dancing automaton) which was very luxurious if a bit risque with it's red upholstery, a hookah pipe (out of sight), a writing desk, bookshelves, and a lamp that added a touch of the fantastic to the whole proceedings.

The crew quarters was more rough, with salvaged equipment that led one to doubt the stability of the engines, and science experiments that glowed, squirmed, and made one quite tipsy.

Mr. Brumfield and I went as engineers with the railroad in the American West -- saved us from having to maintain English accents, you know -- and allowed us to sneak on board with our weapons (side rule, level, pocket scale, stopwatch, and many pocket watches) which the lax security decided did not qualify as weapons of mass destruction. (Silly them.)

Our thanks to the sinister Doc Sinister, the Lovely Mdme Rosamund, and Lady Lucrezia of the wonderfully cast resin trilobite for a lovely event.

One excellent article I read this week that I really want to highlight is by Terry, who blogs over at Ornaments of Grace, called "Living in Neverland". Here's an excerpt:

"The medical and scientific community have concluded in recent years that adolescence-the final stage of childhood-ends at or around age 25. Yes, I said that 25 year olds are now considered adolescents. This is disturbing to me on a number of levels.

Given the progress and advancements of the last century it would stand to reason that this generation of young people would be better equipped to handle life and the responsibility of adulthood, not less. It's obvious that somewhere along the way we took a wrong turn."

• My friend, Renee, wrote a very sweet post as a adoptive mom who parents several sons from Ethiopia (they're currently in the process to adopt two more from Ghana!)
  
• Here's an interesting interview about transracial adoption with good advice for parents about teaching our kids that they are created in God's image! (I think it's good advice regardless of whether you've adopted transracially or not... he hits some very important points in this brief interview.)
  

• My friend Jazzy wrote an excellent "answer" to the oft-asked question asked of homeschooling parents: "What about socialization?"
• WOW! Christine writes a thought-provoking SELF-CHECK TEST for homeschooling moms. But frankly, for any parent, this is a convicting list of questions to ask yourself to see how your philosophy lines up with your practice!
  

• Amy writes about the importance of SIMPLY BEING THERE for your kids
• Terry tells why a mom being at home all begins with how the husband views her role as wife and mother
  

• Sallie wrote this interesting post recently: Why we avoid television viewing
• Here's a GREAT ARTICLE about why preschoolers need to be at home and why state-enforced preschool is a TERRIBLE idea.
  

[Ed. Note: I was excited to see the response to my earlier post, when I was trying to measure the interest in this idea of "What is Titus 2 Mentoring?" I'm going to slowly go about tackling this issue from a variety of angles through a series of posts. I'm honest enough with myself to acknowledge that I'm not very good at persevering and tackling all sides of an issue in a short period of time, but I will continue returning to this subject as my interest and your questions keep me motivated to keep writing, reading, and thinking about it. :) -Jess]


YOU AS THE YOUNGER WOMAN
The first way we will approach this subject, individually in our lives, and collectively as we study this subject here, is as the younger woman. Even if one has come to Christ as an older woman, she still must learn about biblical womanhood from the Word of God, and often, through the influence and wisdom of a more mature Christian woman.

So how do we, when we are the younger/less mature woman, go about being "Titus Twoed"? (Yes, I'm going to be using Titus Two in all sorts of interesting grammatical usages, so be ready for it!) How do we go about learning from older women?

I believe there are two basic elements: RESPECT and HUMILITY.

RESPECT HER OBEDIENCE
It is not easy to open up your life to another woman. We all make it to womanhood with some bumps and bruises from junior-high-type interactions that taught us that women can totally shred each other (often leaving us feeling completely incompetent, ugly, worthless, whatever). Right? I mean, let's just own up to it-- we women aren't always the easiest to be true, transparent friends with.

We women sometimes hold grudges more than we should. Too often, we allow a critical spirit and roots of bitterness and judgmentalism to grow in our hearts. And even if we don't externally say a word, many of us are quite good at critiquing and pronouncing internal judgments about the other women in our church, community, and circles of interaction.

Knowing ourselves and our own critical ways, we may take a long time to "warm up" to other women, suspecting them to be every bit as cutting as we ourselves may be. Perhaps you aren't overly critical of others... but perhaps you were hurt as a child or as a young woman and you find it difficult to trust anyone. Perhaps you're naturally reserved and have always found it difficult to truly open up to any other person. Maybe you don't even know the depths of your own heart, and find the prospect of being honest with yourself a big enough obstacle without adding in the fearful notion of opening up to someone else.

Whatever the case, we need to recognize that however difficult it is for us (as the younger/less mature woman) to admit the NEED for a mentor, it is that much MORE difficult for older women to risk their hearts by opening up their lives to us. And we need to respect them for that choice, to deliberately obey the Word of God and "teach the younger women". In so doing, a woman will have to be insightful enough to accurately assess their "victories" and "successes", humble enough to admit the areas where/when they didn't do well, and open enough to let you see the real them, warts and all. That's not easy for any woman, and we need to respect them for the risk they're taking in obeying this command of the Word of God.

HUMILITY: THE LEARNER'S POSTURE
We know up front that some "younger women" come with more initial knowledge than others. Perhaps you grew up in the church and have been fortunate enough to be surrounded by examples of godly women, being keepers at home, loving their husband and children. Or some women might come to Christ at an older age and already have practical experience of keeping a home, raising children, etc.

But most of us, particularly in this day & age, grew up with little or no examples in this area. We were entrenched in a society that valued a job- ANY job- over the job of homemaker. We were raised with messages that told us that men weren't any different from us, and that we were not only equal, but that our equality meant SAME-ness. With the rise of a feminist culture, we didn't see women wholeheartedly embracing their God-given responsibilities in the home. For the most part, we didn't see submissive women working at home, except in parodies and oft-derided 50's-era TV shows.

SO, with that in mind, let's just admit that as the younger woman,: WE DON'T KNOW IT ALL. Sometimes, it can come across like we do know it all. Perhaps we have earned a "degree" in early childhood education, psychology, or sociology and really do know about certain things; perhaps the woman mentoring us doesn't have a college degree at all. Without humility, that kind of relationship isn't going to work- the younger woman will feel like she knows it all, just because she read some books, and the older woman may feel intimidated by a younger woman who has a degree (as the world around us has certainly worked its harm on the psyches of older woman as well).

But if you haven't raised a child, and if you haven't been married for 20+ years, then you really don't know about how to do those things.... even if you've read four or more YEARS worth of textbooks with skads of statistics and facts. So we, as the younger women, must be humble enough to admit that there are things that we DON'T know.

We must be humble enough to admit that even though we THINK we know how we would "deal with that unruly kid" or "nip that in the bud if it happened in my marriage", until we've walked that path, we really DON'T know. I am confident that it is MUCH easier to say what we "would do" when we have never had teenagers, but even if we DO end up doing a good job of it later, it will take much more hard work than we realize on this side of it all.

All that to say, there are things we need to do if we're really going to benefit from Titus-Twoing. And I think two of the MAIN things we need to do are to be respectful and to be humble.


These are my general thoughts today. Any comments, questions, thoughts about this that you'd like to add? Or is there anything specific you'd like me to tackle as we go on through the series? Let me know; I always love hearing from you!

Well hello everyone! Haven't had anything profound to blog about lately, but I have been taking photos of my little home. Often, customers will ask if my home looks like my shop. Wellll, yes and no. So I decided the best thing to do was take some pics and keep them at the shop to show people how,and with what,I live. You will notice first off the lack of color. I LOVE white and use it everywhere. I also love oatmeal and blue and use those colors as accents. So, without further adeu, here is a sample of my little corner of the world for you to enjoy.

Blessings to all,

Shelley

There's an interesting auction going on over at Ebay -- of a foundry built in 1895.



King Cotton says We are fortunate to have obtained over 5,000 foundry patterns from the Glover Machine Works, in business since 1895 and was closed last year.



I don't know much else about it, but there are a lot of neat things that I think are very steampunk.

Glover Machine Works Listings on Ebay

This weekend, in honor of our annual birthiversary celebration (my birthday is the 13th and our anniversary is the 14th, celebrating 28 and 7 years respectively), and due to the fact that I will be mentally nowhere near blogging for the next 2 days, I'm going to begin what I hope will be an annual "Birthiversary Blogabration". How's that for combining words in an alliterative fashion? :)

[Ed. Note: picture at right from last year's anniversary celebration... Sunset on a bridge over a river in the middle of Asia after a lovely dinner and a donkey cart ride through the town we lived in]


Here are MY picks for my favorite one or two posts/series from each month from the last year of blogging (and since this is my first go-round you actually get a BONUS TWO MONTHS, because I actually began blogging last August, aren't you blessed?). PLEASE pick one or two and go browse and "ketchup" on some old reading... and while you're at it, leave me a comment and let me know what you think of these ancient writings... I always love to hear from you!

Allison, a newly married Making Home reader, brings this question today:

I am a young wife, ( I'm 19), and my husband and I have been married for not quite 4 months. The city we live in could be considered a "college-town," and my husband and I met at church while he was a student there. It is also my hometown, so until the day of our wedding, I lived at home with my parents and younger brother.

Now that I've given you a little background, my question is basically this - what should my relationship with my parents look like now that I am married? I realize that they are no longer my source of authority, but that my husband is. My question is not so much one of authority, but of time and relationship. How much time is appropriate to spend with them? What are some basic "Do's" and "Dont's?"


So what would you say to this newlywed? What advice would you give, from the Bible, from your experiences, and from what you've seen in your own life and the lives of others? I look forward to reading the advice you'd give to Allison!