Author Archives: maryjane

… work. Guess what I was doing yesterday morning at 4 am?

Wake up sleepy head Rose Etta.

Today is your debut. Welcome to planet earth!

My milk cow Maizy was due Feb. 26, so starting a week ago, I began checking in on her night and day every 3-4 hours. Rose Etta weighed in at 56 pounds and there were no complications during delivery—always a relief. Every thing about her is udderly perfect and momma Maizy always does such a good job delivering her babies. I was sooooo hoping for a girl!

I spent the morning with both of them, cleaning and washing up after the birth and getting Maizy milked for the first time in a couple of months. Once all my dairy chores were done, I headed to our design studio to finalize my next fabric collection, work on our MaryJanesFarm Sister Issue, finalize the front cover of our next magazine, work with Gabe on our new HeritageJersey.org website and Facebook page, and mess around with some burlap décor ideas for the next issue of my magazine.

Oh, and also work with Brian on a new mud room we’re finishing. The idea with our mud room is to convert our farm facility into a boot-free zone. And because we all have such awesome footwear, it seemed only fitting that our daily line-up of boots show up in a properly decked out zone. Our two bootjacks are gonna get a workout. I know I’ll be taking my boots on and off several times a day but you know what? Mopping up all the manure we track across our floors is far more work.

It has long been said that beauty lies in the eye of the beholder.

But in this modernized age, it feels more as if beauty is in the eye of the media, and the rest of us are scrambling to live up to strangely synthetic ideals. As a grandmother to several growing girls, this issue strikes a chord.

From movies and magazines to apps, ads, and even toys,

Photo by Anoni245 via Wikimedia Commons

“beauty” has begun to acquire a positively unnatural gleam that reminds me of polished chrome.

It may be glossy, but it leaves me feeling a bit blinded.

When, I wonder, did our notions of attractiveness become so sterilized?

When did we forget that “flaws” like freckles and frizz are where fabulous flourishes?

Photo by Joe Mabel via Wikimedia Commons

If you missed the viral online video showing a perfectly lovely woman’s artificial transformation into a plasticized photo model, you may be shocked at how the images we see in the media are contorted in ways we wouldn’t even imagine. Let’s just say that leg lengthening and eye expansions are par for the course.

Befuddling, isn’t it?

Suddenly, thanks to computer software programs, models are not only impossibly thin, they are just plain impossible.

In light of such surreal standards of appearance, it’s no surprise that today’s women (and their developing daughters) are losing perspective on what it means to be a living, breathing, beautiful being.

And that is what makes me love a new video produced by Dove. While I may not love every ingredient that goes into their products, the company’s Campaign for Real Beauty has its heart in the right place, and its latest effort is something special.

Here, we find moms and daughters who are taking the media into their own hands and reclaiming their place as beauty’s beholders.

You’ll want to watch this:

While thumbing through my collection of vintage magazines, I nearly fell off my stool when I spied this ad in an August 1929 issue of Hearth and Home.

The curative powers of radium??!! Isn’t that radioactive? Poisonous? I checked my dictionary to make sure … yep, “a highly radioactive metallic element whose decay yields radon gas and alpha rays.” But it looks like, in 1929, folks weren’t worried about a bit of radioactivity. Hey, it was apparently the cure for whatever ailed you with its “wonderful curative powers.” Ah, self-health radiation treatment. Here’s an excerpt from the text:

“The wonderful curative power of Radium has been known for years. However, the benefits of this precious, health-giving substance have in the past been only within the means of persons of wealth. Since the invention of Degnen’s Radio-Active Solar Pad, any man or woman, poor or rich, can afford this treatment which offers so much relief from suffering and disease.

Degnen’s Radio-Active Solar Pad is worn next to the body day and night. It pours a constant stream of radio-active energy into the system while you work, play or sleep, helping to build up weakened nerves and tissues to a strong, healthy condition. It creates a vigorous circulation of blood, thus removing congestion, which is the real cause of most diseases.”

The ad goes on to say that they’ll send you the “appliance” for free with the understanding that they won’t charge a cent is it “fails to give satisfactory results.” The “appliance” was apparently a belt with “several coats” of “actual radium.” The effects? I can only guess. “Thousands Have Proven the Marvelous Effects Without Risking a Penny {only their health}.”