StudiObrien

I am hopelessly attached to Michael O'Brien's books.

His Father Elijah was the first I read, about nine years ago. I became a zealous fan, pushing it on everyone I know. I've since read all of his novels (and have reread most of them several times) and I've loved each one of them (though they are not all in the style or genre of Father Elijah.) I'm always saddened to reach the end of his books ... I don't like having to put him away on the shelf. I miss him when I'm between books.

He's a gifted writer and artist, (be sure to take a look at the Byzantine page ... it's exquisite), and if you haven't yet visited his website, StudiObrien, you're in for a feast.

Plan to linger with a cup of coffee.

Nothing to say

I am brain dead this morning, and therefore, have nothing to say. So, I decided to look back at last January, and see what I had to say on this day last year. Apparently, I was brain dead last year as well. What is it about January 30th?

I was in the midst of a major attitude about Anne-with-an-e's math, and was wondering when she would ever use the multiplication of fractions in real life.

This is what I said a year ago:

Today, at the Real Learning discussion boards, I posted this complaint, er ... question:

I'm looking for some real life applications for my daughter for multiplying fractions ... something she can grasp, something beyond the very unreal examples in math books.

Here's how my daughter and I would both respond to the following problem in her math book:

"Larry ordered 3/8 of a pizza. He gave Pat 1/3 of his pizza. How much of a pizza did Pat get?"

She and I would both say this sort of thing:

"Do you think Pat is a guy? Or his wife? And why would someone order 3/8 of a pizza? That's ridiculous. I might order by the slice, but never in fractions. Pat must be a guy friend, because Larry certainly would give his own wife more than 1/3 of 3/8 of a pizza. Are you hungry? Let's get something to eat. Then maybe we could write a story about a hungry mother and daughter who abandon math, join forces to open a pizzeria and hire people to do all the stuff that makes them lapse slowly into comas ... i.e., the measuring, the math ...."

... I do think doubling or tripling is easy for her to see, but what we're missing is when will one use things like this:

1/3 x 3/8
3/4 x 2/3
4/21 x 7/9

and the countless other examples in any math book? What's the point of these? Who uses them?

... When in real life do we do this? When in life do I do this? Or shall we chalk it up to "needed to move on and pass SATs down the road ...."

As you can see, we're big on the living books, literature, history, and oohing and aahhing over science that involves life forms, but the math? Not so much.

The only things I've been able to figure out in answer to my question:

I can think of instances in which we'd need to divide a fraction, and since in the universe of math we divide by inverting and multiplying, we just have to know how to do the pluttification before we can do the division.

Anyone? Anyone?

Several anyones, notably and kindly, Liz, Ron R. and the girls' sweet Aunt Nancy (all of whom probably roll their eyes at me, and assume the tone of one talking to a six-year-old: "Now, Karen, dear, just think about it ....") pointed out that there are a few connections to real life (though I must confess I still find them to be mostly tortured connections.) My friend Tim made me laugh out loud with his comment about just turning up his iPod.

And so, where does all this reminiscing leave me?

With no computer time left.

The Merton Institute

To receive The Merton Reflection for the Week,
visit The Merton Institute for Contemplative Living.

The reflection for the
week of January 29:

We prescribe for one another remedies that will bring us peace of mind, and we are still devoured by anxiety. We evolve plans for disarmament and for the peace of nations, and our plans only change the manner and method of aggression. The rich have everything they want except happiness, and the poor are sacrificed to the unhappiness of the rich. Dictatorships use their secret police to crush millions under an intolerable burden of lies, injustice and tyranny, and those who still live in democracies have forgotten how to make good use of their liberty. For liberty is a thing of the spirit, and we are no longer able to live for anything but our bodies. How can we find peace, true peace, if we forget that we are not machines for making and spending money, but spiritual beings, sons and daughters of the most high God?

From: Thomas Merton. The Monastic Journey. Patrick Hart, editor. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1978: 62.

Visit Suzanne for the Loveliness of Candlemas

Don't miss Suzanne's beautifully woven tapestry of entries for her Loveliness of Candlemas fair today.

We've been married for 23 years

Today.

If it weren't a Sunday (which takes precedence over the feast of the day) we'd be celebrating St. Thomas Aquinas today.

Instead, we're celebrating the Resurrection, and another sort of resurrection:

Ours.

We were married in 1984, with no idea of what "marriage" actually meant ... we didn't want children, we didn't have faith, we didn't need a church. We stood in front of a judge and said, "I do," but what, really, did we plan to do?

God, tricky fellow that He is, gave us a few suggestions. Faith crept up on me, and it turns out we did want children, but we didn't get to have them right away. We wept together when we lost our first one. We wept again when we lost another. We grew closer than ever. Oh, you sneaky Deity.

I ventured further into faith, and then we had a baby -- one we got to hold -- our tenderhearted Anne-with-an-e. I was received into the Catholic Church, when she was a toddler, and then we had another baby, our sweet Betsy.

And then we lost two more babies. We wept together again and again. And then -- oh, joyous day! -- Atticus was received into the Catholic Church. What do you know? We did need a church.

And, with a finally-shared faith, we lost another baby. We wept again. But, we surrendered. We trusted. We kept going.

So, there we were: children, faith, a church. What more could we want?

God, sneaky fellow that He is, surprised us again. He gave us Ramona.

And so, here we now are, twenty-three years into this thing called marriage. We are everything we thought we would never be. We are parents. We have faith. We are Catholic.

And we are profoundly happy.

If not for the Resurrection of Christ, we would not have had our own resurrection. How do I thank my God for all this: for my husband ... for my children? For my resurrection?

It's beyond my ability to express what God has done for me. I shake my head in amazement, and I recall Mary's words:

The Almighty One has done great things for me,
and Holy is His name.

Great things for me ....

Holy is His Name ....

I'm speechless at His gifts.

Thank you, dear God, for Atticus, and for Anne, and Betsy and Ramona, and for all of our saints in Heaven.

Thank you, God.

And happy Anniversary, Atticus. I love you with all my heart.

What Ramona's doing

Is there anything better on a Saturday morning than watching a "Little Bear" DVD and eating a honey sandwich?



And, if you're the four-year-old daughter of an English teacher and a writer, I guess you add this to the equation:

Little Bear (to his friend, Emily): I wish I wasn't sick.

Ramona, (to the TV): I wish I weren't sick ....

Deadline for Loveliness of Candlemas ....

Get your entries to Suzanne, at Blessed Among Men, today for the "Loveliness of Candlemas Fair."

Candlemas is also known as the Purification of the Blessed Virgin, or the Feast of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple.

More on WWII

A quick post to refer you to a wealth of book ideas. Check out this thread at the 4Real Learning Forums. Thanks to Mary,at Our Domestic Church, Irene, and Erin, at Seven Little Australians, for giving me new ideas and more titles to hunt down at our library.

Mary also referred me to this great site: Teaching with Historic Places: Lesson Plans on The War Relocation Camps of World War II: When Fear was Stronger than Justice

Thank you! I learn so much, and am able to find so many great resources, thanks to the women at 4Real.

Sight for the blind

Today is the feast of the Conversion of St. Paul!

Late did I love Him, but I celebrate, today, the beauty and miracle of conversion.

God has been unspeakably good to us. We don't deserve it, but His faithfulness never wanes, His love and His mercy endure forever.

For more conversion stories, visit this link, or this one, or this one, or this Happy Catholic one.

Oh, my ... I need to get off the computer. If I start reading all the great individual stories that are out there, I'll never convert to Mom Mode today.

(Image: Caravaggio's "The Conversion of St. Paul")

When they're older

Last night, I was thinking about my girls, and about how fiercely and deeply I love them. I thought about what an imperfect mother I am, but of how forgiving they are of that. I thought of how the last thirteen years have raced past us, so full and so rich. And I thought of the times I have squandered "this moment" ... and then I thought of this post from last year.

So, I'm sharing it with you now.

I got to thinking about something last night, just after I settled a dispute between Anne-with-an-e and Betsy (or was it between Betsy and Ramona? Or had Ramona been annoying Anne? Ahem. You get the picture.) I was tired, and when one is tired, even the littlest irritations loom large. A few tiny disagreements suddenly feel like near-constant bickering, picking-on, finger-pointing and tattling. Oh, my, the behavior of children. I mean, it's so ... immature.

I felt a little overwhelmed (did I mention I was tired? So much depends on a good night's sleep ....) Yes, I thought, this is the stage of life at which I'm currently parked:

My children are walking, talking, reasoning (mostly), sharp little tacks who constantly delight me but are also capable of draining my mental energy. They're all quite verbose (wonderfully, exquisitely so on the good days and "Do-you-ever-stop-talking?!" on the bad) and that's what can get me. It's not a physical exhaustion, but it can feel so. It's mental fatigue: the dragging of a mind forced to think of 17 different ways to say, "Be kinder," the sluggish tongue that must -- one more time -- wrap itself around the words, "Go tell your sister you're sorry. And please don't ever do that to her again when she's in the shower." It's the ambushed brain that can't take one more joke that involves body parts or functions.

This is where we are, I thought. But when they're older ....

"Uh-oh, stop right there, missy," I told myself. "Don't start playing, 'When they're older,' because it's a lose-lose proposition."

"When they're older" is the trap that entices you to long for a different stage of life. I've sometimes fallen into it, but it's not a good place to live. Because, you see, if I live my entire life in the "When They're Older" trap, before I know it, they'll be older. And they'll be gone.

It goes something like this, looking back to infancy:

When she's older, she won't wake me up every night.

(But she also won't coo and gurgle in that delicious way. She won't linger at nursing and enclose me in her eyes, telling me I'm her reason for being.)

When she's older, I won't need to carry her everywhere and then my back won't ache all the time.

(She also won't be portable enough to be cuddled, held and snuggled no matter where we are or what we're doing. She won't fit neatly into one arm and I won't be able to scoop her up to celebrate that she just mastered skipping.)

When she's older, I won't have to listen to "Why? Why? Why?" all the time.

(She also won't have that same awed look on her face that she got when she saw her first penguin at the zoo. She won't study caterpillars and ants for extended periods and she won't be delighted by pointing out water towers, having just learned what they are. She won't have that squeaky voice that personifies "ironic" when she says "Awwwww, look at that babeeee! He's so cuuuuute!")

When she's older, I won't have to listen to body function humor.

(Well, I can just keep hoping on this one.)

When she's older, she won't pick on her sister. She'll be too mature for that.

(And she'll be too mature to sit on my lap, play hide-n-seek, wear her hair in ponytails, jump rope, get that incredible shine in her eyes when she kicks a soccer ball and she'll no longer be more delighted by my company than anyone else's in the world. She'll have discovered there are other things and other people who are important to her.)

When she's older, she won't be so moody.

(Oh, wait. That's a woman-thing. That'll continue. That's okay.)

I've always found "When They're Older" to be counter-productive. Oh, sure, it might seem to comfort me at the time (and don't get me wrong, there's a place for the "This too shall pass" philosophy) but most of the time, "When They're Older" is the opposite of comforting -- it's agitating. It forces us to live in and for the future. And when we do that, we miss so much of today. This Moment.

Rather, I must embrace that my children are just that. Children. They're going to be childish. And my sometimes-ambushed brain has to shore up to take one more joke, one more poor choice, one more tattle. I have to remind myself that bad days make it feel as if this happens all the time, but I know that it doesn't. Because on the same day there's been tattling, a poor choice and a joke that only a daddy can appreciate, there have also been cuddles and hugs and beaming looks of love. There have been discussions that run deeper than I thought a ten-year-old could handle and insights so moving that I've gotten a glimpse at the woman my daughter will become. There have been tea parties and read-alouds, girl-talk and cookies in the oven.

There has been the delight of "I'm so glad they're this age. I'm so glad for now. I'm so blessed by today. I'm so in love with this moment."

Today, I won't fall into the "When They're Older" trap. When they're older, they'll certainly be more mature.

But they won't be here.

And I'll miss them. So very, very much.

Feast of St. Francis de Sales

Doctor of the Church and patron saint of authors, journalists, and the deaf.

"Oh what remorse we shall feel at the end of our lives, when we look back upon the great number of instructions and examples afforded by God and the Saints for our perfection, and so carelessly received by us! If this end were to come to you today, how would you be pleased with the life you have led this year?" ~~ St. Francis de Sales


Prayer of St. Francis de Sales

Lord, I am yours,
and I must belong to no one but you.
My soul is yours,
and must live only by you.
My will is yours,
and must love only for you.
I must love you as my first cause,
since I am from you.
I must love you as my end and rest,
since I am for you.
I must love you more than my own being,
since my being subsists by you.
I must love you more than myself,
since I am all yours and all in you.

Amen.

from Diane to Margaret

Diane put it all so beautifully.

As many of us grieve with Margaret and with others over the loss of a precious baby, I direct you to Diane's beautiful post.

Lord, give us the grace to always trust in Thee.

Ramona says ...

... as I settled in yesterday with the latest WWII read-aloud for Anne and Betsy:

"Well, since it's my job to play, I'm going to go do that now."

It's so nice when each child does her job without even being asked.

March for Life

The 34th annual
March for Life
is today.

Because they really are babies.

Click here to see incredible 4-d
ultrasound pictures of babies
in the womb.

Artsy Craftsy Times

Betsy, Ramona
(and, for a little while, Anne-with-an-e)
did some spin art.





I worked with Anne
and Betsy
on 4-H pillows.





Ramona
drew her
first flower garden.

Things to love on a Sunday

Mass

My daughters in their Sunday finery

The look on Ramona's face while she chooses a donut

The frosting on Ramona's face as she eats a donut

A little nap

A holy hour

Coffee. More coffee

Atticus's homemade bread and beef stew

Ben and Jerry's New York Super Fudge Chunk

Merlot

My children's love of our Sunday family time, even when it's something as simple as watching a video and eating ice cream

An embarrassment of riches

Ramona, on monkey bread

(Or rather, on the frosting:)

While licking the frosting bowl, Ramona said, "Oh, Mommy! I just can't bear stopping eating it!"


Here's the quick Saturday morning recipe.

Ramona's Picture Books This Week

Gennady Spirin's A Apple Pie is an elegant alphabet book. Yes, elegant ... the illustrations by Gennady Spirin, which accompany this traditional 17th century rhyme, are beautiful, as is all of Spirin's work.

And, not only did Ramona enjoy the detail and whimsical word choices on each page, Anne and Betsy enjoyed the beautiful script and the mini-history lesson about the alphabet. An afterword tells us that in the 17th century, "I" and "J" were used interchangeably, so there was not a separate page for "I" (although this book does include one ... "Inspect the apple pie.") This book goes on the "acquire a copy" list.

Ramona's other favorites this week:


I Loved You Before You Were Born, by Anne Bowen, is the sweet story of a grandmother who anticipates and plans for the birth of her grandchild, expressing her overwhelming love with the title phrase.




A Visit to the Zoo is a fairly typical photos-from-a-zoo book, but Ramona loves it. Anything with photos of animals? She's there. Plus, she has so much fun typing the word "zoo" into the computer at the library. So, we always search for the word "zoo" and always come home from the library with a zoo book or two or three.



Demi's Mary is an astoundingly beautiful book. But then, everything Demi illustrates is astoundingly beautiful. To see such love and care applied to a children's book about our Blessed Mother does one's heart good.

Home of the Brave

I don't usually use words such as "sad, dark and haunting" to describe a picture book. But Allen Say's Home of the Brave deals with a sad, dark and haunting time in our country's history.

The book tells -- in beautifully rendered symbols, images and dreamlike sequences -- of a Japanese internment camp. A man, seemingly caught in a nightmare, encounters an abandoned camp and children who chant, "Take us home, take us home!" This was perhaps the most affecting image for me ... the children, and their sense of abandonment and desolation.

My girls were somber as we read. We had talked a little bit about what the camps were, but this was their first literary encounter with them. We talked a bit afterward about prejudice, discrimination, and even about current debates over racial profiling.

Home of the Brave is not a happy book, but it's an excellent one. I can't say I'm happy we read it, but I think it was important for us to do so.

It will be remembered.

WWII in picture books

We've been enjoying some picture books this week.

I've never thought of picture books as solely for little people (which is why I have no qualms about reading them with all my kids, preschool to teen.) They are an art form in their own right, and -- well done -- can be masterpieces. If the language is properly concise and economical, they can be a kind of illustrated poetry.

So, I always look forward to including picture books in our homeschool, whatever we're studying. Here are three that we've enjoyed in the last few days:

Boxes for Katje, by Candace Fleming is a wonderful book. I think I first heard about it from Lissa (no surprise there) but somehow didn't get my hands on it until recently. It tells the story of a young girl in Holland. Amid post World War II devastation, Katje's family and her village struggle to stay warm and get enough to eat. Then one day, a box arrives from America. A little girl named Rosie is participating in the Children's Aid Society's effort to get badly needed supplies and food to thousands of Europeans. What happens after that is a testament to the generosity of the human heart. It also reminded me, funnily enough, of this thread of Danielle Bean's. Katje and Rosie, though they live an ocean apart and have never met, indeed form a true, loving and enduring relationship.

Always Remember Me, by Marisabina Russo is based on the amazing true story of the author's grandmother, mother and two aunts and their separation during WWII. All four women survived, and were later reunited, after enduring the horrors of concentration camps and death marches. It is told so sensitively and so beautifully, within the framework of "Oma" sharing the story with her granddaughter.

The Orphans of Normandy : A True Story of World War II Told Through Drawings by Children, by Nancy Amis is another touching story based on real-life experiences. In 1946, the author's great-aunt came into possession of a journal, written and illustrated by little girls who had been forced from their orphanage home, La Maison du Clos, in Caen, France, in an effort to remain safe during the Allied invasion of Normandy. The 100 little girls, and their teachers, walked for more than two months, waving white flags all the way, before reaching the safety of Beaufort-en-Vallee, 150 miles away. The narration and illustrations in this book are the actual words and drawings of the girls.

All three of these books are in the "not to be missed" category. And, need I add that if you are in any way the kind of mommy who sometimes cries when she reads aloud, you had better station a box of tissues nearby when you start on this stack.

It wasn't Alton after all

Ramona brought me her tiny plastic toaster. The edges looked a little rough, as if it had been scraped with something.

"Mommy, look what happened to this."

"Hmmm ... what happened?"

"Well, I was rubbing a lot of toy food over it, and it got like this."

"Oh ... well, why were you rubbing food over it?"

"It was my zester."

Now, the average cooking mom would think, "Oh, isn't that sweet? She's remembering things I taught her when we were together in the kitchen. She knows what 'zesting' means. What a good mommy I am. I'm really doing well."

But, I (not thinking of myself as the model cooking mom) thought this: "Oh, my. We really have been watching too much Food Network."

As I recounted the whole thing to Atticus, I remembered that I actually had zested something with Ramona, and perhaps she really did pick up on that from me, and not from Alton Brown.

I asked her, "Where did you learn about zesting?" and she answered, "From you, Mommy. From Lucia bread."

Oh, joyous day! This sometimes-domestically-challenged mom is actually passing on a few things culinary and domestic to her daughters after all.

I'm off for a zestful day.

A Rosary mission

Donna-Marie Cooper O'Boyle has begun a wonderful project: she is collecting new and used Rosaries, which she will send around the world, in an effort to promote this most beautiful and efficacious prayer.

Donna writes:

If you would like to donate used or new Rosary beads to be sent around the world in my ministry to promote the Rosary, please send them to me at: PO Box 773, New Milford, CT 06776 USA. Please do not send broken Rosaries at this time because I am presently not able to repair them. Please say a prayer for this ministry.

For more information, visit her website.

My knitting, such as it is

As sheepishly promised, here are the various projects we've been working on.

Betsy tries her Knifty Knitter hat on Mr. Putter, the cat.

I do love this fuzzy hat that I made for Ramona. It was extremely easy using a Knifty Knitter.

This is the doll scarf I knitted for the girls. I used knitting needles for this. Real knitting needles!

Here is the incredible widening scarf (see how cleverly I hid the flaws in the first picture?) How did I add stitches? I have no idea.

Now, I'm working on little scarf for Anne-with-an-e. Novice that I am, I have only one set of needles, and Betsy pilfered them, insisting that I teach her to knit. So, with my only needles involved in Betsy's project, what was I to do?

I improvised, with the help of the wonderful Jennifer, of the S/V Mari Hal-O-Jen. On this thread at the 4Real Forum, Jennifer suggested using chopsticks, sharpened in the pencil sharpener. That's exactly what I'm doing. Take a look:

I was so impressed with Jennifer's ingenuity and resourcefulness.

I'll keep you posted on our projects.

And, I'm thinking I may just want to eat Chinese this week.

Ramona the Mime

Ramona was pretending to be a mime.

Ramona: The mime is running through the kitchen! Now the mime is skipping! The mime can skip sideways!

Me: Mime, honey, could you hold it down for a few minutes so that the girls can concentrate on fractions and percentages?

Ramona (rubbing eyes, sporting a frown) : ___________

A prayer before going online

The website of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa
features a wonderful prayer to St. Isidore, patron of internet users:

Almighty and eternal God, who created us in Thy image and bade us to seek after all that is good, true and beautiful, especially in the divine person of Thy only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, grant we beseech Thee that, through the intercession of Saint Isidore, bishop and doctor, during our journeys through the internet we will direct our hands and eyes only to that which is pleasing to Thee and treat with charity and patience all those souls whom we encounter. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Reversing our crankiness

We were cranky this morning.

We were all rather cranky except Atticus, who by all rights should have been cranky, because what looked like a snow-day-in-the-making was merely a late-start-day at school.

After Atticus shoveled several inches of snow off the driveway, downed a cup of coffee, and grabbed his peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich, he headed cheerfully out the door and general crankiness continued.

The girls and I did our morning prayers. That always helps us to focus, and reminds us of our priorities and that it's important to be kind to one another.

Then, I put on one of the best battlers of crankiness known to man: music.

It has power to soothe the savage.

(I know that's not the complete quote, but at our house, it fits.)

A personal favorite, a song that helps me to pull back, reflect, tear up and ooze with love for my children is Michael Card's "All You Are" from his Sleep Sound in Jesus album.

That's just what I did: I teared up and oozed with love. And isn't it amazing that Mom's attitude flows out and over and around everyone else?

Amazing.

And scary.

I'm trying

I've been following Jennifer's sewing adventures, and I'm feeling envious. And a little inadequate in the mommy department, but that tends to happen with a number of things domestic.

Last week, at a 4-H meeting, I felt truly inadequate. At a previous meeting, our leader (a really lovely woman who would probably know how to design, create and sew a new sofa) said, "Be sure to bring your sewing machines to the next meeting!"

Ummm ... this assumes that I have a sewing machine. Oh, but, wait! I do! My sister recently gave me a small mending machine that she had bought, but never used. All I had to do was get that thing ready to go for our next meeting. (Okay, yes, I must confess that it had been sitting in the box for the two months subsequent to my sister's generous gesture.)

The day before our 4-H meeting (you knew it would happen the day before, didn't you?) I got it out, figured it out, and was inordinately proud of myself. Betsy happily stitched away on scraps of fabric, practicing a new-found skill. I patted myself on the back for having a sewing machine to tote to the meeting.

Once at the meeting, my pats on the back turned to furtive glances at the machines around me. Real machines. Big, intimidating machines. Machines that screamed out, "I know what I'm doing! I sew on a regular basis! I am the best of all possible machines, because I belong to a mother who knows how to sew!"

Not only did I have a pipsqueak of a machine, but I had allowed Betsy and Anne to pick out completely different fabric colors, so I had to change the bobbin and thread several times, which slowed us down and left Anne as the only one who didn't complete her project at the meeting. A real sewing mom would have thought to guide her children toward fabrics in the same color family, and my friend, J., had done exactly that. She knew what she was doing.

I whined to her, "I'm miserable at this stuff! Will we have a 4-H project that involves philosophy? Theology? I'm there. That I can do. This stuff? Not so much."

She laughed and told me I was doing fine, which perhaps I was, but I couldn't stop feeling like the Kindergartener in a college level class.

None of this is meant to deride the wonderful machine my sister so sweetly donated to me (somehow the word "donated" seems so appropriate as it calls to mind charity and the needy.) If it hadn't been for her thoughtfulness, I wouldn't have had a machine at all, and would've appeared truly needy, having to beg others for the privilege of using their machines. Would I then have faced the humiliation of hearing things like, "No! Not like that! You'll break it! Don't you have your own machine somewhere? Are you really a mom?"

So, I am really and truly grateful for the gift of the sewing machine, and it actually did a very nice job on Betsy's pillow. I'll post a picture of them soon (after we finish Anne's ... eventually ....) and maybe you can all assure me that I'm not a complete failure at some of this domestic stuff.

I've been consoling myself lately with teaching myself to knit. I've been inordinately proud of my efforts in this area as well, even though there's no reason to be. The hat I made Ramona was done on a Knifty Knitter, which anyone can do. The doll scarf, which I did with real knitting needles, looks pretty bad in places, and mysteriously widened at the end.

But, I'm proud of it all anyway, because, with a little help from The Mary Frances Knitting and Crocheting Book, I figured out how to cast on stitches and once I did that, the basic knitting that I did as a child came back to me in an instant. It was fun, and I can already see how people become addicted to these kinds of hobbies. There's such satisfaction in the finished product, even a bumpy and crooked one.

I have shown Atticus each little triumph, fishing for compliments. He's quite ready with them, probably as amazed as I am that I'm doing something so delightfully domestic.

Not bad for a woman who would rather snuggle up with a good encyclical.

More on new year decluttering

Check out Mary Kochan's article on Catholic Exchange today. She has great ideas and observations about getting and/or keeping one's kitchen in working order.

Easing back into real life

Now that we're living in ordinary time, and the Christmas and Epiphany feasting have passed, it's time for "real life" again.

The holy days are over, the decorations have been packed away, and the realization hits that it's a frigid, January day. What's a homeschooling mother to do?

It's tempting to crack the whip:

"We're getting back into a routine! NOW."

But, experimentation and general cranky rebellion (from all of us) have taught me that the whip-cracking approach isn't the best for our family. I've found that easing back into the everyday works much better. Though dropping a routine can happen in an instant, picking it up again is a more meandering process, a reminder that routines are shaped and formed over time.

So, in the week (or two) after Christmas break, we creep back toward an ordered and more predictable life. We get on top of regular chore routines. We pull out math books (and remind ourselves that last month, we knew how to do this, therefore we shall not panic, knowing that a wee bit of review will cover a multitude of mistakes.) We think about science projects, and we hit the library for a new stack of great read-alouds.

We clean, we declutter and we sigh with contentment over newfound order.

For a few minutes, anyway -- after all, kids live here.

My all in all

What else is there for us but to be tranquil and at peace in the all-enchanting wonder of God’s mercy to us? It falls upon this paper quieter than the morning sun, and then, I know that all things, without His love, are useless, and in His love, having nothing, I can possess all things.

~~ Thomas Merton, A Search for Solitude. Journals, Volume 3. Lawrence S. Cunningham, ed. San Francisco : HarperSanFrancisco, 1997: 35.

For more quotations from Thomas Merton, visit the Merton Institute.

Librarian meets Homeschooler

The homeschooler's dream librarian, Adrienne Furness at Homeschooling and Libraries, has completed a deliciously long interview with the delightful Maureen Wittmann, a librarian's dream homeschooler.

The interview begins here and you can get to the next six parts from there.

Adrienne just switched over to a Wordpress blog, so be sure to update your links.

She's the daughter of a coffee drinker

Ramona's name for Pooh Bear's friend, Piglet:

"Pig-a-latte."

I think Betsy's right

Ramona (offering me some plastic food): Mommy, do you want a cracker?

Me: No, thank you.

Ramona: They are strawberry crackers! Now do you want one?

Me: Oh? Strawberry crackers? Well, that's different. Yes, I think I'd like one.

Ramona: And, if we double the offer, you'll receive ...

Betsy: Mo-o-o-om! She's been watching too much TV!

Happy to see you come, happy to see you go

As I noted in last year's post at this stage in the liturgical game:

We're now living in Ordinary Time.

Ordinary Time.

It sounds so ... well, ordinary. Yet what's extraordinary about it is the way in which it shapes my life. Following the liturgical calendar -- its seasons and its highs and lows -- really sharpens my spiritual life. It keeps me observant, on the lookout for what's coming next. "Ordinary Time" lets me coast, so to speak, to revel in the (okay, yes, I'll overuse the word) ordinary pleasures of our everyday life. We aren't preparing for a feast, or abstaining from anything in particular (unless you count breaking that Christmas vacation habit of chocolate kisses for breakfast.) We're just living day to day, ambling along, catching up on things neglected, falling behind when something irresistable captures our fancy.

These ordinary days will go on until Lent, when it will be time for me to turn inward a bit more, to reflect more deeply on the shape of my prayer life, and to prepare our family for the great, approaching feast of Easter. It will be time, once again, to teach the children, in a deeper way, about sacrifice, repentance, resurrection and joy.

I welcome Ordinary Time. After the preparations of Advent and the celebrations of Christmas, I'm ready to settle back into the ordinary. It's not that I don't love Advent and Christmas ... I do ... I'm not one who complains that the holidays are too hectic, too exhausting, too everything. I welcome Advent with joy, rejoice in Christmas pleasures and celebrate full-force through the feast of the Epiphany. But then, when the season is over, it's as if a wise mom has said, "Okay, that's enough now. Time to put these things away and settle down."

Mom knows we can't celebrate all day, every day.

With the same sincere joy that I welcomed Christmas, I welcome its passing. It's time to move on.

It's just like my dear friend Jack's grandfather used to say to the family at the end of a visit: "Happy to see you come ... happy to see you go."

That's the insightfully practical and oh-so-true wisdom of age, and of the Church.

(This post also appears on Catholic Exchange's "Friends of CE" blog page.)

Prayer and discernment

On this solemnity, the Baptism of the Lord, it seems fitting to talk about prayer. The Baptism of Jesus was the beginning of His visible, earthly work, and in this new liturgical year, which began with the first day of Advent, we have a chance for a new beginning in our earthly work as well.

Recently, I was praying about and attempting to discern God's will in several areas of my life. I headed out to a holy hour at church, and took with me a book by Fr. John Hardon, A Retreat with the Lord: A Popular Guide to the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of
Loyola, which I borrowed from my spiritual director an embarrassing six years ago.

In the book, I found a quick guide to discernment. St. Ignatius urges us to examine the people and things in our lives, and to ask God for His guidance concerning where they fall in one of these four categories:

• Things/people God wants us to enjoy

• Things/people God wants us to endure (or suffer)

• Things/people God wants us to remove (because they lead us to sin)

• Things/people God wants us to sacrifice (willingly give up, even though they don't lead us to sin)

I wanted to share this, because I found it immensely helpful in discerning several things, from the seemingly small issue of how to spend my limited online time, to larger issues with which I was wrestling.

I hope that this simple exercise in prayer and priorities will be helpful to you, too.

Homeschoolers can do this, too

Jan Brett is running a contest for a free school visit. Just go to this page for details. The winning school or library will receive a visit from the author.

Homeschoolers can enter using their library as their address (and, I assume, as the recipient of the free book.)

When you mix a four year old and HGTV ...

... you get this:

Me: Ramona, your new penguin calendar looks so nice in your room. I love the pictures!

Ramona: Yeah ....

Me: And the American Girl poster the girls gave you looks really good in here, too.

Ramona: Yeah ....

Me: So, we're done -- your walls have a whole new look.

Ramona, in stunned disbelief: No! We're not done! We need more color! We need texture!

After watching Animal Planet ...

... Betsy said,

"Despite all the surgery ... I'm hungry."

It's so much more convenient

Ramona, after a gooey breakfast of cinnamon rolls:

"Mommy, I didn't even need a napkin! I just used my tongue."

Also last year at this time

I talked about "Why I pray in the shower."

It started when Betsy was a baby and I thought I'd never have solitary prayer time again. But, the practice has continued through the years and it has served me well.

Of course, when she was a baby, I didn't always get showers that were regular or solitary, but, I did aim for them, and when it happened, a hot shower turned out to be a wonderful place to pray. It still is.

I start with a daily offering. Then, I pray for my children: that they will come to know God, love Him, and serve Him, and that He will provide holy spouses for them. (I used to draw this particular prayer out ... "If you call them to religious life, Lord, may they be open to the call ... if you call them to marriage, may their future spouse be a man of faith ...." Then, my friend Teresa told me that she always prays for "a holy spouse" for her children. That really covers all the bases, including praying for the sanctification of the Church Militant, so I adopted her perfect phrasing.)

Next, I pray for conversions (my own ongoing and those of others) and for specific intentions of friends and family. I finish by asking for the intercession of many saints, including all the patron saints of our family, and our little saints in heaven, the babies we have lost. I call on each of them by name and ask them to pray for their mommy.

By this time, I'm in danger of running out of hot water, so I regretfully end the shower and it's on to a cup of coffee.

I can't think of a better way to start a day.

Last year at this time

I had just discovered Amy's haiku blog.

The following month, the girls and I were all writing little poems here and there. Atticus chimed in with this cynical contribution:

I can count to five
I can count to seven, too
I can count to five

Books to read and things to do today

We'll be rereading Young Mary of Nazareth by Marianna Mayer today.

This book is loaded with gorgeous paintings of our Blessed Mother, and recounts some interesting tales of her life, some drawn from the writing of early saints and Christian mystics, and others from the author's imagination. My girls were captivated by it.

Visit Catholic Culture for ideas on this eighth day of Christmas.

Hmmm ... Atticus may enjoy the blessing for beer found on this page.

Today, we will pray the Magnificat, the Rosary, and the Memorare. We'll also bake more Christmas cookies, in honor of our Lady.

For explanations on why we call Mary the "Mother of God" or "Theotokos", please see this link (for a short explanation), this link (for a long explanation), this link (for a not-as-long explanation), and this link for Catholic Answers' explanation.

Have a blessed feast day!

Feast of Mary, Mother of God

New year's resolution: Stop posting last year's posts.

Note to self: Don't start that resolution until after Epiphany.

Note to readers: This was first posted last year on this day.

I dislike comparing myself to Mary, because it's akin to holding my Sculpey creations next to Michelangelo's Pieta and asking what kind of artist I am. The differences are glaring, apparent, painful to see and ultimately laughable. But, I do it anyway, because it's good spiritual exercise.

Mary was a wife and mother, as am I. Mary cooked meals, cleaned house, and did laundry, as do I. There the comparisons end.

I imagine home life with Mary and I envision peacefulness, a serene atmosphere pervading all, because she knew that the mundane tasks of each moment were a necessary part of the whole. The meal of the day, the washing, the tidying and the clean-up of dishes ... everything had import and was approached as such. She simply did it because that is part of what the mother of Jesus needed to do.

This year, I will strive to be more Mary-like in my household tasks, approaching them with greater serenity and acceptance, knowing that all things have import and that my duties as a mother and a keeper of our home are a necessary part of the whole.

I imagine affection, warmth and laughter in the home of Mary, Joseph and Jesus. (I loved the scene in The Passion of the Christ in which Mary and Jesus are joking and laughing together about tables and chairs.)

This year, I'll thank God for all the laughter in our home, knowing He is the author of such joy, and I'll strive to find and hold on to the humor in those inevitable homeschooling days that crop up (you know ... the ones that will not, at first glance, seem to hold any humor.)

Mary's faith was bare and heroic, as Romano Guardini writes in this amazing article, reprinted at Godspy. Again and again, she had to endure pain and separation and yet her faith did not, could not, waver.

This year, in my life and walk with God, when I feel distance from Him, though I can't resolve to have such faith (as only God can grant it) I can resolve to pray for it, to ask to be more like Mary in my faith.

I doubt that Mary would have blogged ... she would have pondered my mostly pitiable musings in her heart, rather than blabbing them to the world. She pondered, she prayed, she listened.

This year, though I'm not sure I can resolve not to blog (or blab, as it were) since I'm still in the throes of infatuation with this stuff, I can resolve to continue pondering things in my heart, and ask the Lord to make the answers to my ponderings clearer to me. If God however, asked me to quit blogging, I would. He'd have to be very loud and clear about it, though.

Like Mary, I pray I'll be listening.

(Painting: Polish Madonna)