I had braces twice. (I also had really bad teeth, not just not pretty, but crowded and likely to cause me problems later). The first time (in 5th grade), the orthodontist only put braces on my front 4 teeth top and bottom, and the second time (in 8th grade) on all of my teeth. So that might be what you're seeing in…

We pray for things like wellness for the sick and help for the needy, as well as people in the parish. But Washington did just legalize gay marriage. I believe the policy in my parish (I haven't been there in a while, I'm in college in Iowa) is to just not perform gay marriages, but leave the government alone about…

I'm so glad I grew up in the Seattle-area. My Catholic church never even mentioned birth control or abortion (or gay marriage, for that matter) that I know of. I think they knew my fellow parishioners would have either thrown a big fit or just left. I never heard a priest mention abortion until I was in college…

This is how to be a true Catholic. From another Catholic. Thank you.

My boyfriend and I both really dislike conflict, so we actively work to solve the problems that come up. We had a rough patch this summer, when we were essentially living together in his studio apartment and together 19+ hours a day. It ended up with us being annoyed and argue-y all the time. BUT: it took 3 weeks of…

I went to google that one, and it was horrible. But, I guess the world is less horrible overall (or at least equally horrible) because when I change "women should not" to "men should not" (scientific curiosity) I got some pretty sexist stuff there?

But Kate is such a good name! I'm a Katherine turned Katie then Kate, because you get a nice easy nickname but also a professional sounding name. Also my mom named me for the Taming of the Shrew. so there's that.

Yeah, I read the first two. I had to stop and take an extended break after those, though, cause it was making me literally sick to my stomach how horrible they are.

Yeah, and the characters think it's BDSM....it's hardly kinky, let alone BDSM. It reads like a 15 year old who'd just learned was sex was wrote it. And included the awkward giggles.

As someone who had only read Regency-era romance novels (also better written than this) and is basically as vanilla as vanilla gets in bed, it seemed like a fair (if horribly written) intro to kink. But once I realized it was barely the tip of the iceberg, it seemed much less good. Not that I thought it was good to…

I remember being suuuper creeped out by this book. This and Coraline, which may have merged a little in my memory. But seriously: SO CREEPY!

I am slightly embarrassed to admit that every time I saw this book I wanted to read it/buy it at the school book fair (and my mom allowed this, somehow) because I was convinced it was actually about dolphins. More than once. I was extremely disappointed to realize it was not about dolphins at all. My mother the…

You know, there are very few times I feel genuinely lucky to have divorced parents (other than when they're squabbling about each other to me) but this is one of them. I got to see both sides. My dad, who remarried, assigned chores based on gender (whether he did it intentionally or not I'll never be sure, but I…

Marcus Zuzak's tumblr provides proof that Death will in fact be narrating. Since he is kind of the best part.

Well, I'm just looking for ideas now, since any wedding will be at least a year or so out (boyfriend hasn't proposed yet, since we're in college at the moment), but I love love love this. And $200-ish is not very expensive, really. Thanks! Honestly, this dress would be gorgeous in any of the colors offered.

Can I ask where the picture of the one with the pink edging comes from? And if it comes in blue or is super expensive? Because if it comes with the sash/ edging in blue omg I want. So my coloring. so link please?

it's stories like these that make me even more positive that I will be (as another commenter down thread put it) doing double dutch birth control until I'm married. Because 99% and 97% is better than 99%. Right now, babies NOT an option. After I'm married, if accidents happen or I'm the 1%, hey, at least I have a…

Can I just say that either this guy and his wife are magically good at Natural Family Planning (which is really quite difficult to be) or totally bullshitting all of us? Like, come on, a Catholic family with only 3 kids who don't believe in birth control? Where are the other 9 children you should have as the result of…

I mean, my mom got pregnant with me the very first time she and my dad had unprotected sex. Like, the day she went off of birth control. So it's definitely possible to know what day you get pregnant, and if you do the math right it's likely you'll be in the right range anyway. My mom didn't predict me precisely, but I…

I was a very boring high school student, and my mom was a lot of my friends' teacher, so there wasn't even any kissing until senior year, and that with a guy who turned out to be horrible so it never got past second base. BUT: fast-forward to the beginning of freshman year of college and I've met the guy I'm still…