Injured Man -- Guest Post

Lynzie and I are gone to England so my friends are running the show! I'm so excited to welcome my friend Nahria as a guest blogger today! Nahria lives in Indonesia and has been an online friend for several years.

Have any of you ever seen that American legal comedy-drama television series? If I'm not mistaken this drama was started way back in 1997, way back when I was still in college!

Would you stop if you see an injured man? Maybe that's the moral of the story from one of the episodes in Ally McBeal I watched years ago. Ally became one of the bridesmaids of the daughter that her firm represented. The wedding started normally, until the moment the priest took the bride and groom's vows...

Suddenly Ally cut in and said, "May I speak to the bride first?"  Everybody in the church was stunned but Ally is Ally with her "be yourself" attitude, and she insisted to speak with the bride.

Then she and the bride-to-be entered a room and Ally started to talk saying, "I have met with the groom before and he is a great lover but he doesn't know how to touch a woman." (a.k.a abusive) Just that. The bride, being told like that by Ally, just kept quiet and went back out to the church saying, "I'm sorry, but the wedding is off."

The church audience were shocked, then looked at Ally with their, "it's-your-fault" look.

Later on, her colleagues asked her why did she even do that. Ally just answered, "will you stop if you see an injured man?"

Well...it goes the same with life, doesn't it?

Most of the time we just keep quiet when faced with a moral issue. From small things like seeing people throw something out of their cars or seeing old people trying to cross the road to big things like (maybe) not paying your credit card bills or watching someone you love get bullied.

The question is: why we don't speak up? Why won't we stop if we see an injured man?

What if "the injured man" is us? 

That is something we need to think about, isn't it?  

Lessons From My Mother's Journal -- Guest Post

Lynzie and I are gone to England so my friends are running the show! I'm so excited to welcome my friend Laura as a guest blogger today! Check out her blog: My Corner of the Woods.

“I don’t know who will suffer most and how to ease their pain.”

My mom died when I was 9.  My family never talked about it.  Not when they knew it was coming and not after she died. I don’t remember even knowing she was sick – except that on Friday I noticed the whites of her eyes were yellow and I looked at her and said, “Mom, your eyes look funny.”  Sometime that weekend she pulled me into her bed.  She was wearing a wide-ribbed navy blue turtleneck and I think she had her stockings on and she hugged me and said, “No matter what happens to me, I’ll always love you.”  On Tuesday in art my class made get well cards for her and I asked Dad if we could take them to her at the hospital. “Tomorrow,” he said.  But tomorrow she died.

We never went back to visit her grave, never spoke much of her sickness or death or even her life.  It has always seemed kind of strange to me.  Maybe it’s because I’m her only daughter, I don’t know, but it has always been weird.  Who was she, this woman who was my mother? In recent years my father has alluded to me being like her when I talk about cooking for my family and how we enjoy being together, but I don’t really know what he means.

Yesterday my daughter brought me a pile of stuff that my youngest had pulled off a shelf and one of the things was my mother’s journal. So I opened it, and started reading. There wasn’t much, and it was all written a few months before she died.  “I don’t know who will suffer most,” she wrote, “or how to ease their pain.”  Interestingly enough, she knew in May that she had cancer in many places in her body; she knew she was dying.  In her last entry in the journal, she spoke of her struggle with a friend and how she didn’t want to be a burden to people. Her final words struck me: “I hope I never drag other people down when I’m down. There is just so much to appreciate and enjoy if you take time.”

I’ve never forgotten her final words to me, and I pray I never forget her final written words either.  Who knows what tomorrow will bring?  In the meantime, there is just so much to appreciate and enjoy if you take time.

This article was first published on, My Corner of the Woods. Reposted by permission of the author.

England Outfits!

Lynzie and I leave for England in just two days!!! Woo Hoo!!! We've been busy sewing the last couple weeks and I told her everything has got to be done by tonight! She's not quite ready to do her big outfit reveal yet, so I might add her pictures to this post later on, but here are the two outfits I made to take. 

This dress, minus the spencer jacket, was my ball gown from 2013. I lowered and widened the neckline and fixed some of the fabric-covered buttons on back. Then I made this spencer jacket to go over it. It's my favorite dress ever and the one I plan on wearing when we visit Bath Abbey for church on Sunday.

My favorite part of this dress is the lovely set of fabric-covered buttons on the back. (I replaced the plastic ones.)

This dress is made from silk that I got on an excellent deal earlier this summer. I made a pelisse to go over it from some sari fabric a friend gave me last time I was in England.

I admit, it was a little scary cutting into this beautiful fabric---but it all turned out ok.

Here's a sneak peak at Lynzie's dress. She wants to do a photo shoot later today so I'll put those up when I can. 

The next week or so will be filled with guest posts from some of my friends and family. I hope you'll check out all their hard work and leave lots of sweet comments. I sure appreciate my guest bloggers!

Linking with: