Walking through Midnight Mass.

It's a new Mooradian tradition to go to Midnight Mass, let me tell you how it goes.

You walk into Church, all the lights are out and you see the decorations.
                        
It's all so amazingly beautiful!

You are there an hour or two early because we have to have good seats, so now you wait and wait, and wait.
                       

The priest comes in, the song starts and it seems like nothing could be more right in the world right now.
                     

Pretty soon a little sibling or two is asleep, so you have become a headrest.
                  

It's past Midnight and you are straving.
                           

You get home, the kids are in bed, but it's to early in the morning to fall asleep, so you just watch a movie until the kids do wake up.
( you might look a little like this)
                    
But in the end, it is all worth it, every bit of Midnight Mass is glorious, it gives you enough fuel to face the coming day, I mean coming year.

Merry Christmas and Whistle while you work,
Emma

Christmas Eve: What to expect this Christmas.

Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.
                               
Man I wish that my Christmas Eve's went like the poem, but they don't. Christmas Eve's at the Mooradian house are pretty crazy. The kitchen is full of delicious smells and messes of dirty dishes.
                                       
Gifts are hastily being wrapped, it's not too pretty, but it works we still love opening the gifts the next day.
                                       
Naps are being taken so that we all stay awake during midnight Mass.
                            
Outfits are picked out for Mass, discarded, picked out, discarded, and then picked out again, just to be thrown into the closet, and finally the perfect outfit is picked out.
                           
Presents are put underneath the tree, and finally it's time for bed, ( after Mass that is) Everybody bundles up in blankets and pj's all going to the same bedroom for one night a year. So this is how our Christmas eves go.  On to what to expect for Christmas, the gifts and the food it's all great, but it's not what Christmas is all about.  There is one thing to remember for Christmas and that's Christ.

                       
Christmas is all about Christ's birth, His coming into the world and saving us all. The only happiness one can find on Christmas is through the Savior of the world. Tear into your gifts, and your food, but give thanks to God for His Son and for your blessings, and your family.

Merry Christmas and Whistle while you work,
Emma

fan-girl reactions

To all of my nerdy fan girls out there, this is for you,


When you make a joke or reference that nobody gets because it is something nerdy only people in your fandom would understand.
                                              
                               " I was the only one who understood that, yay me!"

When you make a joke or reference that someone does get because they are part of your fandom.
                                            
When someone asks about your fandom and you get to explain everything to them.
                                           
                          You now have a chance to open their eyes to your world.

 You are excited, but you got to act cool so as not to scare them away.                                
                            
                             *hides excitement and tries to act professional.*

When you miss a joke or reference to one of your fandoms.

                         
                                         I am so disappointed in me.

When you find a bit of trivia or some cool fact about your fandom you didn't know before.
                                      
                                              *fist-pump* YES
Hearing a phrase, and breaking out in song, for example, when a nerd hears, " Let's get down to business." We think,
                                 
                     To be honest, singing this song helps me be more productive.

A new episode of your favorite show comes out.
                                 
                 
When a new episode( season) of your favorite show doesn't come out, I'm looking at you BBC Sherlock.
                   
              Now I have to wait, and wait, and wait for the next episode.

Watching dozens of episodes/movies back to back.

                
                                      This is the life.
Coming out of a movie marathon.
             
             I'm pretty sure at least a few years have passed.

Well, that's it for now! I hope you enjoyed it :)

Whistle while you work,
                               Emma

You know you watch The Great British Baking Off to much when.....

So over the last year I introduced my family to The Great British Baking Off. I've been a fan of the show for a while now, so I wanted to share with my family the greatness of the show, little did I know what would happen afterwords.
                                       
Any-who, I walked downstairs this morning to hear my little sister, Sofia, singing Jingle Bells with Paul Hollywood's( one of the judges) name in it.
                                                
Although I'm sure he would be tremendously honored, it was a little weird.
I've also heard my brothers debating whether or not Mary Berry's( the other judge.) name is really Mary Berry.
                                            
I'm sure she as well would be tremendously honored.
After watching the show, we talk about it a lot, who we want to win, who we want to loose, and we think that we've become world famous chefs as we critique the people on the show.  Although in reality I have tried some of the recipes, and I have failed. I am 100% sure I would not make it through the first round, it would be a mess. I love to cheer on my favorites, and to not cheer on my least favorites. I cry (inwardly) while they cry ( outwardly) and I laugh when they laugh. I've probably become too attached to this show than humanly possible and it's probably not healthy for me.  I super duper hate that they won't put the past seasons on DVD I came in halfway through. If you too want to come in halfway through it comes on at 6:30 on PBS, Sunday nights. I hope that you too can become emotionally attached to it so I'm not the only one! :)

Whistle while you work,
                                 Emma

Today I'm Thankful for My Struggles

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and I think it's fitting that I tell you all what I'm thankful for. I am thankful for my struggles.  Yes, you read that right. There are other things that I am thankful for of course,  my faith, my family, my friends, my home, but I do feel thankful for my problems too. One of my main struggles is taking things slowly, I am the kind of person who jumps headfirst into a situation without a plan, it usually ends with someone helping me out of the hole I dug. I also want people think and function like I do, a million things are always going through my head, and I do get angry when others can't keep up. Another struggle is following a pattern/plan. I like to crochet and knit without a pattern and make it up as I go, I do this with food as well, I would rather cook and see what happens than cook with a recipe. ( I should probably learn how to fix that, because I will be going to culinary school next year, and I don't think that they'll let me do that.) And as it normally goes, the food and craft doesn't always turn out like I want it to. Which leads to the problem of writing, specifically school, I have a 10 page paper that I am dreading with all my heart. Mainly because I would rather write my opinion, ( like on my blog) than write what someone wants. Which makes me great at creative writing but horrible at any other kind of writing. The reason that I am thankful for these things is because they make me the only me there is out there.  Yes, they are quirks, but once I put all my struggles out on my plate, and accept them, I can let God in to fix some of those problems, and make me the Emma Mooradian that He wants me to be.  Go and stuff yourselves full of turkey and pumpkin pie, consider your struggles and let God help.

Happy Thanksgiving, and Whistle while you work,
Emma

Salvation Sunday: Remember remember the 5th of November; Catholics and Guy Fawkes.

So, this post is a little late, seeings as it is the 6th and not the 5th. First thing first I'll give a little history on Guy Fawkes, Guido Fawkes became a Catholic when his mother remarried a Catholic man after the death of her husband. Once Guido grew up he went to fight the Eighty Years war with the Spanish. The Eighty Years war was fought between Catholic Spain and the Protestant Dutch. Guido changed his name to Guy during the war. When Guy returned to England, he and 12 other men devised the gunpowder plot, the plot to blow up parliament and King James the first. This plot failed, Guy was caught, and sentenced to death. Guy met a gruesome end when he jumped from the gallows, breaking his neck, to escape being hung drawn and quartered.
                             

                             
Most people probably only know Guy Fawkes for this mask.

Over all Guy Fawkes was a failure, his plot failed and he died. Yup, I would call that a failure. But was he? Let's back up a little and talk about Guy Fawkes being Catholic. What should we as Catholics think of Guy Fawkes? Obviously we know that trying to blow up the king goes against Church teachings, but let's put King James into the spotlight. Why would a Catholic man try to kill his king? Because King James was oppressive to the Catholics,  being a Protestant king himself. What should we ( Catholics) do when we are being oppressed by the government? Stand up for ourselves. And no, we should not blow them up, that would not be good. We should never go down without a fight, even if it isn't a physical fight, maybe it's a debate or maybe it is a physical fight. In modern day times it may seem like we won't be oppressed, but we are being oppressed, by the media, by the government, and by other religious denominations. Today ( or really yesterday) in England people celebrated Guy Fawkes day by burning a dummy that looked like Guy Fawkes.  They believe that they beat Guy Fawkes back in 1605, but did they? He seems like a failure, but Guy Fawkes' face ( mask above) is the face of rebellion. By wearing the Guy Fawkes mask people say that they will go against the government, against oppressors and the such.  He seems like a failure, but he's not, even today hundreds of years later he is making an impact. So the Church doesn't approve of Guy Fawkes' actions but I tip my hat to him. Whenever you are being oppressed remember a certain English man who stood up for his faith. Always remember remember the 5th of November.

Whistle while you work,
                            Emma

Inside out inspired outfits

I'm not really a fashion blogger,( mostly because I normally wear loose jeans and an old t-shirt)  but because we are only a few days away from Halloween I thought that I would do costume-like outfits. I love the movie Inside Out.
                                         
It definitely is one of my favorite Disney movies, so why not dress up as the characters?

My first outfit is Bing-Bong inspired
                          
                                   

                                 

This is what happens when the dog decides that she wants to be part of this post. 

The next outfit was inspired by Sadness.

 

I would honestly wear these outfits day to day, ( but they aren't loose jeans and an old t-shirt) however they do make good costumes. 

Whistle while you work,                                                                                                      

Emma                                                                    

Fall is ( almost) here!

School has started so fall draws nearer. And here in Kansas we still don't have cold weather. Somehow this greatly disappoints me. I love the cold weather and the things that I love about cold weather are.....

                         
Pumpkin spice coffee, or actually coffee in general. Our local Hyvee gas station has $0.99 hot coffee in the fall/ winter.

                         
Sweater weather is great, it's chilly enough to wear a light sweater but still warm enough to wear shorts.

                       
Fall colors are awesome and I love stepping on crunchy leaves, I will go out of my way to step on a crunchy leaf.
                     
It is officially apple cider weather, and that means apple scented everything, candles, febreze, and perfume. There is a little market in Topeka that makes the best frozen apple cider, and apple cider doughnuts!
                          
It is also officially cinnamon weather. To me cinnamon is the smell of fall and winter alike. So that means it's time for cinnamon candles and cinnamon tea.

                       
The smell of fall is next, while it does smell like apples and cinnamon, I mean the smell of nature in the fall, it smells wet, like leaves, and it smells just like chilly weather.
                          
I actually don't go too much bonfires, but the idea of a bonfire or even a fire in a fireplace is cozy and warm.
         
In a nutshell I love everything about fall! It very well may be one of the best seasons of the year. If only we could get some cold weather here in Topeka.

Whistle while you work,
                                Emma

Salvation Sunday: To feel your child's face.

This title sounds weird, I know, but stick with me. Imagine a blind expecting mother, unable to see her child when going to sonograms. Now watch this video,

The first time that I watched this video I cried, can you think about the sheer joy this mother felt? This was a commercial put out by huggies diapers, and when they put it out the probably were not intending to be super pro-life. But if you think about it, what if every mother had the chance to see, or feel her child? Could anyone consider an abortion after they saw a beautiful child's face? Seeing this video made me want to slap it into the faces of those who are pro-abortion. That little baby in the video is NOT a clump of cells.  Maybe there is somebody that you know that needs to watch this video, if so show it to them, say it's a diaper commercial.  Could you imagine what might happen if we got hundreds of people to watch this video? Just a thought!                                                          

                    

Whistle while you work,                                                                                           

                           Emma                                                                                          

Salvation Sunday: Gird your loins.

So today in Mass we heard the phrase "Gird your loins."  So what exactly does that mean?  A rough translation is tighten your belt. But what did Jesus mean? Surely He didn't just want us to tighten our belts. He meant be prepared. What do you as soon as you get in a car? Buckle your seat-belt. You are being prepared in case of an accident. Putting on any kind of belt is a sign of being ready for almost anything. So really Jesus is telling us to tighten our belts, He wants us to be ready for when He returns. We don't know when He'll come back, maybe today, maybe tomorrow, maybe a thousand years from now. I really hope it doesn't happen any time soon because it sounds a little scary. ( A subject that I will touch upon in maybe another blog post.) Everybody tighten your belts, go to confession and Mass often and be ready!!!

Whistle while you work,
                                Emma

Thrift store goodies.

So this past weekend I went thrift store shopping with my mom, and got some great stuff.

We will start with yarn, yes yarn, brand new yarn actually. Which is a great find for me because I usually have to pay about 5 to 7 dollars for one skein of yarn.

First is this reddish-purple color.

I bought three skeins in this color, I think the average for the skeins was about $1.75 for all three.                                                                                               

            

Next is the beautiful dark purple, it is pretty big compared to the last skein. I only bought one, and it was $1.50.                                                                                

                                                

                                             

Here is a dark green one, also $1.50 ( I am not sure why I made that face, I guess I was somehow disgusted by the yarn?)                                                                  

The final yarn I bought was this mustard color, it was the most expensive at $1.99. I love how well the color goes with the purple.                                     

The other goody is this Ireland sweatshirt, I saw it and had to have it. It combines my favorite things, Ireland, and sweatshirts. I washed it and then have not taken it off since then. I think it was $1.99. ( I am not exactly sure on that price) 

Also I love this shamrock design! So cool! 

But the biggest news of all....... yes, we got a dog, we convinced mom to get us a dog. So Iggy ( I absolutely hate the name!) joined the family.           

Whistle while you work,                                                                 

Emma