January: The Holy Name of Jesus

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The name Jesus was given to the Holy Child at God's command (Luke 1:31). The Holy Name is all-powerful because of the Person who bears it; we honor it because of the command of Christ, that we should pray in His Name and because it reminds us of all the blessings we receive through our Holy Redeemer. Hence St. Paul was able to write to the Philippians: "...at the name of Jesus every knee should bend of those in heaven, on earth, and under the earth" (Phil. 2:10). By means of this devotion we also make amends for improper use of the Holy Name. 


Invocation
Blessed be the most holy Name of Jesus without end!

Hymn in Honor of the Holy Name

Jesus, the very thought of Thee

With sweetness fills the breast!

Yet sweeter far Thy face to see

And in Thy presence rest.

No voice can sing, no heart can frame,

Nor can the memory find,

A sweeter sound than Jesus' name,

The Savior of mankind.

O hope of every contrite heart!

O joy of all the meek!

To those who fall, how kind Thou art!

How good to those who seek!

But what to those who find? Ah! this

Nor tongue nor pen can show --

The love of Jesus, what it is,

None but His loved ones know.

Jesus! our only hope be Thou,

As Thou our prize shalt be;

In Thee be all our glory now,

And through eternity. Amen.

-Roman Breviary

Indulgence of 5 years; plenary indulgence once a month on the usual conditions, for daily and devout recitation of this hymn. (115)

Prayer of Petition

O Divine Jesus, Thou hast promised that anything we ask of the Eternal Father in Thy name shall be granted.

     O Eternal Father. In the name of Jesus, for the love of Jesus, in fulfillment of this promise, and because Jesus has said it, grant us our petitions for the sake of Jesus, Thy Divine Son. Amen.

Act of Reparation for Blasphemies Uttered Against the Holy Name

O Jesus, my Savior and Redeemer, Son of the living God, behold, we kneel before Thee and offer Thee our reparation; we would make amends for all the blasphemies uttered against Thy holy name, for all the injuries done to Thee in the Blessed Sacrament, for all the irreverence shown toward Thine immaculate Virgin Mother, for all the calumnies and slanders spoken against Thy spouse, the holy Catholic and Roman Church. O Jesus, who hast said: "If you ask the Father anything in My name, He will give it to you," we pray and beseech Thee for all our brethren who are in danger of sin; shield them from every temptation to fall away from the true faith; save those who are even now standing on the brink of the abyss; to all of them give light and knowledge of the truth, courage and strength for the conflict with evil, perseverance in faith and active charity! For this do we pray, most merciful Jesus, in Thy name, unto God the Father, with whom Thou livest and reignest in the unity of the Holy Ghost world without end. Amen.

     Indulgence of 500 days once a day; plenary indulgence once a month, on the usual conditions, when this prayer has been said devoutly every day. (100)

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What I'm Loving Wednesday

I saw this on this kind of love blog, and thought it sounded like a fun thing to do. So here's what I'm loving this Wednesday!

I'm getting about 8 packages in the mail this week, and I love getting mail! It makes me super happy - and the stuff I'm getting is ranging from food to makeup and makeup tools.

I'm currently loving/obsessed with ebay. Honestly. Why did no one ever tell me before how awesome ebay is?! I have scored some great deals this week (see the above post).

Okay, every time I see this, I chortle. Literally. This is frakkin' hilarious.



Last thing I'm loving this Wednesday: I am for Life Facebook Challenge. Starting February 13, change your facebook profile picture or twitter picture to this:

Okay everyone, I'm headed off to do some schooling with the kiddos. Have a great day!

Nothing Drives Me to Swear Like...

...doing laundry.

Honestly, doing laundry drives me to swear. And drink.

Between the sorting, and folding, and well...you know how laundry usually goes, right? Yeah, I hate it all. I've actually let the last two clean loads of laundry sit in the baskets, and just picked clean clothes out of the baskets. My husband is no help either, because he doesn't care if he picks his clean laundry out of baskets.


In other annoying things news, the computer I'm on won't let me comment on my own blog posts (awesome, thanks!), and I'm sure it's the browser I'm using (firefox) but I just haven't really had the time/inclination to figure it out. So, to everyone who commented on my tea/coffee post, thanks for the advice!

Lent is coming up wayyyy too fast, and I still haven't figured out what I'm giving up. Everything I think about just doesn't "sound" right. What are you doing?

If you haven't checked it out yet, like my page over on facebook, or follow me on twitter. I'm over there a lot more.

Hoping you are well - God bless!

Coffee vs Tea

I love coffee. Correction: I used to love coffee. Well, I still do, I think. I don't know. Read on.

On Christmas Eve, I started to develop a pretty awful cold/cough. (It still is persisting, but it's about done with.) Consequently, I started drinking lemon tea with honey, or lemongrass tea with honey, or mint tea with honey. Anything to start making my throat feel better and not like someone scraped it up with the bristles of a toothbrush. I wasn't drinking coffee at all, because the harshness of it made my throat feel worse.

Anyway, at the beginning of this week, I decided to try having a cup of coffee. Big mistake. It tasted awful! I thought, well, maybe it's because this cold is lingering. So I kept trying throughout the week, and it kept tasting awful.

So now I guess I'm a tea drinker instead of a coffee drinker. I've only been using the pre-packaged tea bags for now, but locally we have a tea shop that sells loose tea leaf. Anyone out there also drink loose-leaf tea? What's your favorite? For caffeine addicts like me, what have you found that gives you the jolt of caffeine you desire? I appreciate your comments and help!

Facebook

I've created a facebook page for the blog: https://www.facebook.com/oxyparadoxy. I appreciate if you'd like the page, shared it with your friends. Also, I'm only 4 followers away on twitter from 300 followers, so check me out there: https://twitter.com/_thehellwithit.

Naturally Curly Hair Care

I know, this is a major departure from my usual postings, but it's something I've been wanting to do for awhile. But, back story first: I'm a reviewer on Amazon Vine Program, and as such, I get items to review for them (for free). I've gotten books, food, appliances, etc. Well, in August of 2011, I received Suave Keratin Infusion 30 Day Smoothing Kit. I naively thought that it would smooth my coarse curly hair. Wrong! It straightened and stripped my hair, leaving it very damaged. (After receiving so many bad reviews, Amazon actually stopped selling it. Some women had such damaged hair that their hair melted!)

At any rate, after this happened, I was so distraught that my hair was so damaged. My hair would not curl like it had before. I waited the 30 days, hoping it would grow out and start being healthy again, but it became worse than ever. My hair was frizzy (besides the regular curl halo), limp, and basically just awful. I put so much product in my hair trying to get it to look "normal".

This first picture is of me at Christmas 2011, and I had put a lot of time and effort into getting it to look like this:

As you can see, my hair is not very curly (not normal).

When I went into my stylist, she cut off a lot of hair (I had been trying to grow it out), and told me there was one section of hair she wasn't sure would ever go back to normally curly.

 This is after my hair cut. 

I was very upset that nothing seemed to help my hair. After probably 6 months of this (and pulling my hair back into a ponytail a lot), I was researching and talking with friends who had starting a mostly natural hair care program with their curly hair. I decided to give it a shot.

I started by stopping shampooing my hair (I was only shampooing twice a week anyway, so that wasn't a big deal). Every day, I conditioned my hair with coconut conditioner, then after my shower, squeezed a bit of argan oil (One N' Only Argan Oil from Sally's Beauty Supply) through my hair, then squeezed out excess moisture with an old cotton tshirt of my husband's (the cotton doesn't encourage breakage like regular towels do), then squeezed through a little bit of leave-in conditioner (Mixed Silk Leave-In Conditioner from Sally's Beauty Supply), then let air dry.

This is a photo on day 11:

 As you can see on the right-side of the photo, that area was the trouble spot that refused to curl very well. BUT! This photo shows how big an improvement in my hair just in 11 days. You can still see that my hair is fairly dry/damaged, but it was still better than it had been.

This is 3 weeks in, daily conditioner and leave-in conditioner & moroccan oil.

  After awhile of that, I realized that my hair was becoming too oily, so I did some more research and found a website that advocated even more natural hair care, so I decided to try that. So, instead of conditioning every day and doing no kind of cleaning, I switched to rinsing the ends of my hair (every day) with a dilution of apple cider vinegar and water. Every 7-10 days, I made a solution of baking soda & water, dumped it on my crown and roots, massaged it into my hair, rinsed it out; then rinsed the ends with the apple cider vinegar/water.

This picture was taken in August, after about 4 months of the baking soda/apple cider vinegar routine.

At this point, my daily routine is to rinse my ends out with a solution of 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar + 1 cup water; then rinsing out with water. After my shower, I squeeze out excess moisture with my hands, then if it's too soaking wet, squeeze out the rest with cotton tshirt. Then I squeeze through leave-in conditioner.  Every 7-10 days (honestly, when my hair starts to feel a little oily), I use a solution of 1 TBsp baking soda + 150 ml water dumped on the crown of my head and roots, massage through, then rinse out very well and follow up with the apple cider vinegar solution. If I have to be somewhere right away, I'll use a hair dryer with diffuser attached. If I don't, I'll let it air dry. Here's a picture of my hair now:

I just had a trim before Christmas this year and my stylist said my hair is super healthy, has been growing really fast (something I noticed as well), and I shouldn't need to be back until March-April. I'm very happy that my hair is so much healthier now than it ever has been. It feels better and curls better.

If you're looking for a way to get your curly hair to be healthy, then give this a shot. Don't expect results right away, and the curve can be steep, especially if you wash your hair every day/every other day right now. (Which, btw, is pretty bad for curly hair to wash that often! It strips all the moisture out of your hair!)

If you have questions, leave them in the combox, and I'll try to answer them as best as I can. Here's some questions that I've gotten since I started my "routine":

Does your head itch?
No, not after an adjustment time (which, for me, lasted about a week).

Does your hair smell like vinegar?
Surprisingly, no. If you rinse well, your hair shouldn't smell. If it does, you need to rinse a little better next time. 

How much time does this add to your haircare routine? 
It actually takes me less time now in the shower than it ever has. I have a small bottle of apple cider vinegar that I keep in the shower, and a glass to pour it into to add water to.

Disclaimer: I claim no responsibility for your hair. Use your best judgment and common sense. In other words, if you fuck up your hair, I'm not responsible.