An Undercover Opportunity for an FJer?

[aubrietta]

I received the following email from Nancy Campbell today. Apparently she's run out of slave labour and needs another one from now until Christmas.

Dear Above Rubies Reader,

I am urgently needing an Above Rubies helper to help in the ministry of Above Rubies here in Primm Springs, Tennessee.

I have girls booked up for the New Year and for the summer in 2012.

However, I need someone right at this moment who could stay right up until Christmas.

I am happy for them to stay on through Christmas, but I know most families would like their daughters to be home for Christmas.

If your daughter may be interested could you email me or preferably give me a call? Ph: 931 729 9861

Colin and I leave on Thursday morning to speak at meetings in San Antonio and will be away until Sunday evening. Therefore, if you can't get me at home this Wednesday, to talk about it and answer all your questions, you could try our cell phones:

Colin: 615 948 5958

Nancy: 615 428 9591

Or email me at nancy@aboverubies.org and give your phone number.

Thanks so very very much.

In His love, NANCY CAMPBELL

aboverubies.org

If you haven't already, you can subscribe to Above Rubies on their website because it's free and not only is it full to the brim of potential snark material. I appreciate that it costs them money to send it to a heretic like me every time I get my issue. You could too!

edited to break link

[Little_Eyes]

I soooo wish I could go! Think of the awesome ethnographical work this would be! Studying the crazy in it's natural habitat! I so wish I could do it, but alas, my heathen occupation as a student prevents me from doing so, simply because I'm not following my Godly authority and being a SAHD due to the fact that I need to maintain my GPA for graduate school.

[NurseNell]

Why do girls stay with them?

I'm much too old to pass as a girl or young woman. :cry:

[doggie]

well this should prepare the SAHD for her future get training to obey and be a source of free labor. What else does a fundy mom need?

[Vex]

I do love that these places pay shipping costs within the US. My fiance ordered 40 copies of the VF catalogue just for funsies. They sent all 40 copies, too.

Unfortunately, I live outside the US and they make you pay shipping.

[emmyfair]

I'd be terrible. I wear jeans, I'd point out everything the twit did wrong, and I talk back.

[vermonter]

As an unemployed recent college grad, I am sooo tempted by this. (Couldn't tell them the recent college grad part obviously!) Of course, there would be the slight matter of explaining to my friends and family why I was going to live in rural Tennessee with a crazy lady who is against everything I believe in... Most of them know a little about my fundie interest, but not that it goes to this level!

Also, I don't think I know nearly enough about the Bible/specific bible verses to "pass"- I'm a pretty regular churchgoing progressive Christian, but I don't have huge chunks of the Bible memorized!

I do think I'll start ordering copies of Above Rubies and the VF catalogue, though, now that I know it costs them $$

[gustava]

What are the duties of an Above Rubies slave?

[NurseNell]

As an unemployed recent college grad, I am sooo tempted by this. (Couldn't tell them the recent college grad part obviously!) Of course, there would be the slight matter of explaining to my friends and family why I was going to live in rural Tennessee with a crazy lady who is against everything I believe in... Most of them know a little about my fundie interest, but not that it goes to this level!

Also, I don't think I know nearly enough about the Bible/specific bible verses to "pass"- I'm a pretty regular churchgoing progressive Christian, but I don't have huge chunks of the Bible memorized!

I do think I'll start ordering copies of Above Rubies and the VF catalogue, though, now that I know it costs them $$

Think about it though. Think of the book you could write after the experience.

[nutella addict]

Vermonter I'm almost in the same boat, but I'm working part time and I think my parents and boyfriend (not to mention friends, boss, coworkers, students) would be appalled I was doing something so absurd - pretty liberal Christians mixed with a few agnostics around here. Besides my life is way too much fun. I wear pants and sleep at my boyfriend's house and listen to secular music. And I don't know if I'm a good enough actress to pull it off for nearly two months. Besides, having spent 4 years out of the country as an undergrad and another year as a grad student, well, they're HAPPY I'm living at home...

I am 23 though, look younger than I am, can knit, cook, clean, bake, do laundry, fold a fitted sheet so it's flat, accomplish basic feats of sewing, and recite some scripture. And sing a lot of hymns.

I'd still rather save up my part-time money and look for a full time job with enough of an income I could move out and get married...

[Linnea]

I have girls booked up for the New Year and for the summer in 2012.

My dirty mind totally took this the wrong way.

[Guest Anonymous]

I am 23 though, look younger than I am, can knit, cook, clean, bake, do laundry, fold a fitted sheet so it's flat, accomplish basic feats of sewing, and recite some scripture. And sing a lot of hymns.

Oh dear lord, HOW?!? Please go on Youtube and make a video. I can't fold a fitted sheet so that it looks reasonable to save my life. I try to fold them about five times, fail, get pissed, wad them into a horrible ball and try to stuff them in the back of the linen closet. Then I stare at them and feel ashamed.

[StarrieEyedKat]

I'm not nutella addict, but I do it similarly to this:

_Z5k9nWcuFc

(Go to :40 to skip a bunch of blathering)

[Guest Anonymous]

Well, I suppose I could have checked to see if it was already up there! Thanks StarrieEyedKat!

[Aurora]

Oh dear lord, HOW?!? Please go on Youtube and make a video. I can't fold a fitted sheet so that it looks reasonable to save my life. I try to fold them about five times, fail, get pissed, wad them into a horrible ball and try to stuff them in the back of the linen closet. Then I stare at them and feel ashamed.

Oh wow, so I was not the only one who read that and thought "I am so jealous of that particular accomplishment"!! I am OK with all the other stuff (well perhaps not the sewing either) :lol:

Let's just say I feel proud if nothing actually falls off the shelves into the hall when I open the linen closet door.

[Witsec7]

I'm not nutella addict, but I do it similarly to this:

_Z5k9nWcuFc

(Go to :40 to skip a bunch of blathering)

I do it the exact same way. But I will add this disclaimer, it is not the most challenging task I've faced in my life. Not by a fucking long shot.

[QueenMother]

Folding a fitted sheet is NOT the most challenging thing I've faced in my life.

If I could pass for a teen I would be so tempted to check this place out. How come she doesn't take middle-aged women? :lol:

[annalena]

God this sheet folding is something I'll never accomplish.

Damn, I want someone to go to Above Rubies SO BAD!!!! Please!!!

[longskirtlotsakids]

Um, what? THere exists a world where folding a sheet is challenging?

"It may seem awkward at first.... don't worry?"

Is there truly, truly a class of women who lay awake at night worrying about their ability to fold a sheet??

[MamaJunebug]

Folding a fitted sheet is NOT the most challenging thing I've faced in my life.

If I could pass for a teen I would be so tempted to check this place out. How come she doesn't take middle-aged women? :lol:

That was my vexed thought, exactly! :mrgreen:

A couple of things came to mind:

1. Lord'n'Master Colin doesn't want to look at another middle-aged woman. :lol:

2. Lady Nancy knows a woman near her own age would have her own opinions and if not her own opinions, at least her own way of doing things that might excel over Nancy's! :P

As to fitted-sheet folding. I figured that out on my own a few years back, good grief, I'm more of a homemaker than ever suspected! However, I have a superior method for sheet storage, fitted or not: I fold them longwise and hang them over saved drapery hangers from the dry cleaners, in a wardrobe. A closet would do.

The drapery hangers are wide enough to hold the sheets side-by-side, and there's enough space within the hangers that I can lay the folded pillowcases over the sheets. Voila! Freed-up shelf space and when it's time to change sheets, my valet need only reach for one drapery hanger to have everything he needs to complete the job.

(No, I don't have a valet. But I pretend I do. And he's as clever as Jeeves but handsomer than Stephen Fry. Younger, too. ;) )

[pixydust]

I can't fold a fitted sheet so that it looks reasonable to save my life. I try to fold them about five times, fail, get pissed, wad them into a horrible ball and try to stuff them in the back of the linen closet. Then I stare at them and feel ashamed.

Lissar, I'm the same way. I think it might be why you and I are going to hell. :lol:

[buddingmedievalist]

StarrieEyedKat, THANK YOU for that video! It makes so much sense!

[Sprocket]

Oh dear lord, HOW?!? Please go on Youtube and make a video. I can't fold a fitted sheet so that it looks reasonable to save my life. I try to fold them about five times, fail, get pissed, wad them into a horrible ball and try to stuff them in the back of the linen closet. Then I stare at them and feel ashamed.

Me too.

[nutella addict]

Haha oh man, I definitely threw that it as a wee bit of a joke, I mean I can do it, my grandma taught me to do it like in the video so I will if I help her or my mom with laundry, but I was making a list of fundy-approved skills for a girl my age hahaha. I definitely don't think it's the most challenging thing I've ever done, nor do I actually care all that much about doing it. If you were to see my bedroom you'd notice it's a disaster zone full of stacks of books, clothes all over, and an unmade bed. I certainly don't judge people who don't fold their sheets neatly, in my undergrad apartment I tended to just shove all the blankets in somehow and close the closet tightly. Even the ones I folded would unfold and tumble out because I could hardly reach the top shelf. So yeah, I can do those things but I was bordering on the sarcastic there, the way my friends and I would bemoan that we have all these skills we'd be better off marrying up in Jane Austen's time than writing all of our grad school papers. Obviously, it was a joke, we're happy to be well-educated and (hopefully soon) employed and independent young women.

Mind you, the job market nowadays does make all of us occasionally think it would be nice not to have to find a job, then we realize we'd be bored out of our minds sitting at home all day doing household chores and not using our academic skills.

[side note: I think this is the first day in a week where I haven't seen an article about how screwed recent college grads/young people today are...]

[starfish]

Someone show this post to MamaJune Bug, our resident undercover operative.

She could totally pull this off!!!