Linking up with Kelly.

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This week I released a set of hand-painted watercolor prints, available as gifts to anyone who donates $20 to my sister’s marathon fund. She will be running the NYC Marathon in November and is raising money for Autism Speaks. Click here for more details!

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Last weekend I went bike riding around the city. I had never ridden a bike through New York traffic before, so that was interesting…it was a lot of fun, though. We started in Central Park and rode up and down Manhattan for about sixteen miles, mostly along the Hudson. We stopped in the East Village for lunch at a Venezuelan restaurant I like, Caracas.

I am used to riding a super simple bicycle with no hand brakes or gears, and the bike I rented had hand brakes…and I fell within about one minute of getting on the bike. I’m just not used to braking that way! My instinct is to pedal backwards, and that actually made me go faster on this bike. Luckily I just fell the one time, and it wasn’t in traffic or anything, so it was all good.

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I never made it to any of the Love and Responsibility events hosted earlier this summer—I wanted to go, but I was always either busy or sick on Tuesday nights. But some of the talks are available online now, so I found and watched Jackie Francois and Bobby Angel’s talk (it’s the second video on the page). It’s worth watching! They have a great perspective on dating, the single life, and discernment.

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This Sporcle quiz made me laugh out loud. It reminds me a lot of my experiences traveling in China…there were so many imitation brands that were just slightly misspelled from the authentic version. My favorite:

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The Planned Parenthood scandal is sickening, and it’s even more sickening that the story is not getting much news coverage, that the dismemberment of children and the harvesting of their organs is barely considered newsworthy. It’s easy to become numb to the fact that this is going on within our society when it’s brushed under the rug, when people avoid talking about it. So I’ve been trying to read more about what’s going on and what can be done. There are efforts to defund Planned Parenthood—New Hampshire, Louisiana, and Alabama have already done so! No matter what you might hear, PP is not necessary for women’s healthcare. (And never has been.)

I’m hopeful that the grim realities of the recent videos will make people wake up to the atrocities that are occurring. This is genocide, the killing of innocents. It’s tempting to turn away, but now more than ever we need to pay attention. Jennifer Fulwiler wrote a great article, “Why My Support for Abortion Was Based on Love…and Lies,” that sheds light on how good, well-intentioned people can buy in to the pro-choice mentality. It can be really difficult to break out of that mindset, but there are people doing a lot of great work to give support and spread awareness—like Abby Johnson’s organization, And Then There Were None, which provides support for abortion clinic workers trying to leave the industry.

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This is a little late, but great news for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles: Fr. Barron was appointed auxiliary bishop! If you’re not familiar with Fr. Barron, he works a lot with online media and has managed to reach out to large numbers of people, spreading truth about the Church with quality videos. I think that will make him a great fit for LA. (You can see one of his videos for free right now on his website!)

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I am going camping this weekend. Wish me luck: I am generally considered “indoorsy.”