Endorsements for Through the Year With Mary: 365 Reflections

I'm so grateful for these beautiful endorsements.  Many thanks to Jennifer Fulwiler, David Mills, Lisa Hendey and Josephine Nobisso.

~~~~~

"Karen Edmisten has put together a collection of reflections that is sure to draw anyone closer to the Blessed Mother. Each day's quote is powerful enough to ponder for hours, yet brief enough to read amidst the hustle and bustle of daily life. Through this collection we deepen our understanding of Mary, and perhaps even ourselves."

-- Jennifer Fulwiler, Conversion Diary.com

~~~~~

"A moving collection of insights into the Blessed Virgin, some of which stopped me in my tracks and made me say 'Oh, yes, that’s it.'  

Through the Year With Mary not only helped me know the Mother of our Lord better, but to feel her love more intensely."

-- David Mills, Deputy Editor of First Things and author of Discovering Mary.

~~~~~

"I've seen many books on Our Blessed Mother, but Through the Year with Mary: 365 Reflections now holds a special place in my heart. By compiling this versatile treasury of priceless Marian quotes and sharing her own personal reflections, talented author Karen Edmisten has created a resource that will keep me coming back day after day for inspiration. A special thanks to Karen for giving new words to my longstanding love for Mary and for drawing me closer to Jesus through His mother and my favorite intercessor. This book belongs in every Catholic home, classroom, parish and library."

-- Lisa M. Hendey, founder and editor of CatholicMom.com and author of The Handbook for Catholic Moms

 ~~~~~

 
"Fiat! Fiat! Fiat! With insight and reverence, Karen Edmisten crafts heartfelt and profound words that reveal the essence of the words of others, affording the reader an accessible relationship of response to Mary, Mother of The Word."

-- Josephine Nobisso, author of The Weight of a Mass, Take It to the Queen, and Saint Juan Diego and Our Lady of Guadalupe

And I'm equally grateful for these reviews:

Sarah Reinhard
Catholic News Agency 
Karen's Adventures in Mommyland
Ponderings

Feast of the Archangels

A devil's food treat on this angelic feast day. Ours turned out wonderfully. The recipe is here.  (We had a slightly smaller brownie mix, so threw in a little extra wheat flour and we used a homemade frosting.)

St. Michael the Archangel, defend me from this cookie.

On the radio again

I'll be on Relevant Radio's Morning Air show tomorrow, Thursday, September 30, talking with Fr. Rocky from 7-7:30 a.m.

You can listen online here , or find your local station through this link.

Hey, Who's the Funny One Around Here?

The preface:

Do they still do those silly things in high school, such as "Most Likely to Succeed" and "Best Dressed"? They did them when I was in high school, and in my senior year I came in second in the "Most Witty" category. I was stunned because a.) I didn't think anyone in my large high school actually knew who I was and b.) If that many people did know me, why didn't I win and isn't it suspicious that the yearbook editor who was in charge of counting the votes came in first? (Of course, I harbor no bitter feelings. I'm merely being almost-witty.)

Fast Forward:

My kids, after hearing this story, love to work it into conversations in various ways, always at my expense.

Current Ramona story:

The other day, the cat was batting something around and when I checked on what it was, I said, "Oh, it's nothing. Just Mr. Potato Head's tongue."

"Cat got your tongue?" Ramona immediately quipped.

I laughed and said, "That's funny -- I should've thought of that!"

"Well," she replied dryly, "you are only the second wittiest."

Reviews: Roots of the Faith and Take Five: Meditations with John Henry Newman

"Theirs is a landscape that will seem strangely familiar. In fact, sometimes it'll seem almost like home."

Mike Aquilina is referring here to the Church Fathers, and in  Roots of the Faith (more of his usual five-star work), he helps us survey the landscape.

Gregory of Nyssa on purgatory? A must-read passage.

Women and the Christian faith? Aquilina notes:

We can see a hint of what made Christianity so revolutionary, and such a threat to Roman society, in that famous last verse: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female." Right in the Church's most sacred writings, we find a dangerous notion that cuts at the heart of a firm Roman belief.

And what about St. John Chrysostom ... misogynist or one of the first and greatest defenders of the sacrament of marriage as we know it? Fascinating details and full coverage are included.

This is a terrific book packed with readable stories that are backed up by research and documentation. John Chrysostom is quoted as saying, "Learn the power of the type, so that you may learn the strength of the truth." Roots of the Faith is firmly planted in the strength of the Truth and reminds us that in aligning ourselves with the fathers of the Church, we are in the good company of home and family.

~~~~~

Take Five: Meditations with John Henry Newman, by Mike Aquilina and Fr. Juan R. Velez

You know how much I love quotes.  This book is full of profound and moving quotations from Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman. Each quote is accompanied by a short intro (which adds context), brief reflection questions, a Scripture quote, and a memorization passage.

As I sat in the dentist's office, waiting for my kids' teeth to be filled and sealed, I began reading Take Five and quickly found at least a dozen quotes I'd love to post. But I'll offer just one, from Meditation 42, "Think of the Martyrs": 

I myself thirty or forty years ago found it impossible to stem the current of popular feeling, which was adverse to me, and found that patience and waiting was all that was left for me; but what a trifle of a difficulty was this, compared with ... three centuries ago [when] the weapons of controversy were of a deadly character ... the rack, the gibbet, and the axe.

It's the kind of book you can pick up when you don't have much time. The only problem with that is that once you pick it up, you don't want to put it down. Alas, my kids' dentist appointment ended, and we had to move on. But I'll be picking this one up again and again.

News from the Inbox: WriteGuide -- Individualized Writing Courses for Homeschoolers

I received a note from Benjamin Ludwig at WriteGuide.com with some details about their individualized writing courses. Although our family hasn't actually used them, a friend of mine had a great experience with them, so I thought I'd pass the information on.

Their website fully explains how they work and also contains some helpful samples of  correspondence between a student and a writing consultant.

Again, I haven't personally experienced a WriteGuide course, but I'm always on the lookout for writing courses that can actually work, and the methods used at WriteGuide look very much like what we do here at home: constant back-and-forth and revise, revise, revise!

News from the Inbox: Good Counsel Homes and Lumina

Prolife News:

An additional way to help during these 40 Days for Life -- Check out and consider donating to Good Counsel Homes. From their website:

Good Counsel, a nationally recognized nonprofit, founded in Hoboken, NJ by Father Benedict Groeschel, CFR, and Christopher Bell, for homeless pregnant mothers and single mothers with babies, operates five homes in New York State and has helped replicate programs in eight states. Good Counsel also conducts post-abortion counseling and a referral network. Additionally, Good Counsel operates separate national Helplines for post-abortion and crisis pregnancies.

Another outreach from Good Counsel is Lumina, which offers post-abortion help:

A ray of light in abortion's darkness!
Living with the pain of abortion can be overwhelming. Feelings of anxiety, panic, grief, guilt and shame can often seem insurmountable, but there is a way out of the pain. You do not have to suffer alone! Countless women and men have reached healing through Lumina's services, which include group programs, Entering Canaan Retreats, referrals to professional therapists, post-abortion ministries, and clergy members trained in post abortion stress. A network of women and men who have walked through the pain of abortion are also ready to accompany you through the darkness, into the joy of a renewed life.

We know that no matter what your beliefs you can experience many conflicting emotions, if you, or someone close to you has had an abortion.

We also recognize the resistance of society to acknowledge these feelings, the result of which is suppressed emotions with nowhere to turn and a feeling of being crazy and different from others.

During These 40 Days for Life ...

... please remember to pray for all women who have had abortions, and remember these words from Pope John Paul II:

I would now like to say a special word to women who have had an abortion.

The Church is aware of the many factors which may have influenced your decision, and she does not doubt that in many cases it was a painful and even shattering decision. The wound in your heart may not yet have healed. Certainly what happened was and remains terribly wrong.

But do not give in to discouragement and do not lose hope.

Try rather to understand what happened and face it honestly. If you have not already done so, give yourselves over with humility and trust to repentance. The Father of mercies is ready to give you his forgiveness and his peace in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

You will come to understand that nothing is definitively lost and you will also be able to ask forgiveness from your child, who is now living in the Lord.

With the friendly and expert help and advice of other people, and as a result of your own painful experience, you can be among the most eloquent defenders of everyone's right to life. Through your commitment to life, whether by accepting the birth of other children or by welcoming and caring for those most in need of someone to be close to them, you will become promoters of a new way of looking at human life.

Read more here, and read all of Pope John Paul II's encyclical, Evangelium Vitae, here.

For more on 40 Days for Life, go here.

This Was the Sky

as seen and photographed by Ramona yesterday. We managed a quick overnight getaway to one of our favorite state parks. All our prayers for fair weather were answered with a resounding, "I Am God and I Present You With Seventy Degrees!" 

More later ....

Well, They ARE a Lot Alike

This morning, Ramona and I were at a park. One of the swings was twisted, and as she unwound it, Ramona said:

"I wonder if the wind did this -- or a teenage boy."

Poetry Friday: I'm Hosting, and Apparently I'm Predictable

I believe I have hosted Poetry Friday only twice before. Each time I shared a Richard Wilbur poem. I didn't actually realize this until tonight, when I found myself planning to share a Richard Wilbur poem. I did a search on my blog for all the other times I've shared Richard Wilbur and I discovered my pattern. Not one to mend something that isn't broken, I'll continue to share Richard Wilbur with you as part of my hosting duties.

In the past, my host-day poems were The Writer (one of my all time favorites) and The Beautiful Changes.  Today it's this marvelous poem:

The Reader 
by Richard Wilbur

She is going back, these days, to the great stories

That charmed her younger mind. A shaded light

Shines on the nape half-shadowed by her curls,

And a page turns now with a scuffing sound.

Onward they come again, the orphans reaching

For a first handhold in a stony world,

The young provincials who at last look down

On the city’s maze, and will descend into it,

The serious girl, once more, who would live nobly,

The sly one who aspires to marry so,

The young man bent on glory, and that other

Who seeks a burden.

(Read the rest here -- just scroll down, past The Writer, but please, please listen to him read The Writer. The audio link is right there.)

For more on my obsession with interest in Richard Wilbur, see all my posts here.

~~~~~~~

Please leave your links with the Ever Helpful Mr. Linky:

Ramona on Screwtape, Senior Tempter

Yesterday when I was reading The Screwtape Letters with Anne and Betsy, Ramona (whom I did not think was paying that much attention) said, "Wait a minute! Why did he say that going to church is a danger? I don't get this book. It's just not making any sense."

I said, "Oh, honey! Don't listen to Screwtape! He's a devil -- everything he says will be backward and twisted. He lies!"

"Aaaaahhhh," she said, the light dawning. "Now that makes sense."

Then she added, "Devils remind me of weeds. They suck the life out of all the pretty things!"

A Tiny Miracle

Just about a month before my deadline for Through the Year With Mary, on the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, I still needed about 16 quotes to finish up the book. I was feeling in a bit of a panic. I had exhausted every source, stripped every mine, and pounded my head against a wall. (Let's hope that I even said a prayer to the Blessed Mother, asking her to intercede for me. I'm pretty sure I did, but I tend to block out emotional trauma, so who knows what I was saying or praying?)

What suddenly happened on this great feast day?

An angel disguised as a human, homeschooling mom, Suzie Andres, sent me an email with two or three dozen of her favorite quotes and said if I needed any more info, to let her know. I frantically calmly asked about the sources, thinking perhaps I had some of them around the house. (Because, as you may or may not know, every quotation used in a book must be photocopied and documented from its original source -- one can't simply pull something from the internet and call it settled.)  Suzie told me not to worry and before I knew it, quotations and pertinent copyright material had been photocopied and dropped in my mailbox.

So, thank you Mary, and thank you, Suzie for that final push in bringing this book of beautiful words about our Blessed Mother to fruition.

On the Radio Tomorrow

I'll be on Sacred Heart Radio tomorrow morning, chatting for a few minutes with Brian Patrick on the Son Rise Morning Show. Hope you can tune in -- I'll be on at 7:20 a.m. (central time) to talk about Through the Year with Mary.

How to Not Write a Book About Mary and End Up With a Great Book About Mary

What I mean by "not writing" the book is this:

Although I wrote a brief reflection or prayer for each day, the real pearls are the quotations, the words of those much wiser than I.  An example:

"Were each woman an image of the Mother of God, a Spouse of Christ, an apostle of the Divine Heart, then would each fulfill her feminine vocation no matter what conditions she lived in and what worldly activity absorbed her life."  

~~ St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross

One hardly needs to add anything to such beautiful and challenging words (though I added thoughts anyway.) The quotations are really the heart of the book. They're the great part.

But finding 365 quotes that have not been heard countless times already was no easy task. It sounded easy when I signed the contract: "Quotes! I adore quotes! This will be rapture! A breeze! Fun that is work, work that is fun!"

Ahem. Nothing is ever as easy as it sounds.

Tomorrow, I'll share with you a story about crawling through the last stages of the compilation, and the way in which a friend came through with a tiny miracle for me on the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary.

My New Book is Shipping!

My newest book, Through the Year With Mary: 365 Reflections is available now through the publisher, Servant Books, or on Amazon.

More details soon .... 

Twitter Warning

Updated at 9:30:
Just checked my account, and all seems well!

~~~~~

Please don't go near my Twitter account -- a horrible amount of hacking going on over there. You don't even have to click on tweets or links ... a hovering mouse on code can do it.

On Connections Again

I've talked before about "making connections" in our homeschool. (Some examples are here, here, here,  here.)

Connections are still important to us, and they still seem to happen spontaneously, providentially, delightfully.

Today's example:

I'm reading The Screwtape Letters with Anne and Betsy. In Letter XI, Screwtape describes to Wormwood the four causes of human laughter:

I divide the causes of human laughter into Joy, Fun, the Joke Proper, and Flippancy. You will see the first among friends and lovers reunited on the eve of a holiday. Among adults some pretext in the way of Jokes is usually provided, but the facility with which the smallest witticisms produce laughter at such a time shows that they are not the real cause. What that real cause is we do not know. Something like it is expressed in much of that detestable art which the humans call Music, and something like it occurs in Heaven—

We spent a fair amount of time talking about joy, the laughter with friends and family that erupts, bubbles over, is out of proportion to the circumstance. The relationship to music.

Soon we moved on to another book I've long loved and am sharing for the first time with the girls, Ray Bradbury's Dandelion Wine. Have you ever read it? You must. You must. 

Twelve-year-old Douglas Spaulding is experiencing something as the book opens:

And he knew what it was that had leaped upon him to stay and would not run away now.

I'm alive, he thought.

What is it? I asked the girls. What is he feeling?

It's hard to describe ...

You know it when you feel it ...

That joy ... laughter ....

The first day of summer ... Christmas ... a best friend ... the breeze when it's just right .... 

"And it reminds me of a part of Our Town,"  I said.

Yes! I know the part you mean!

And then Ramona chimed in: "It reminds me of this phrase: 'drink the wind.' You know, Mommy? Remember that?" 

I do.

I remember.

We're connecting.

I've always thought of cooking as an art

... and over at Faith & Family Live today their guest blogger -- Jeff Young, The Catholic Foodie -- mentions that chefs are artists.

I completely agree. My husband is a culinary artist. He dabbles, he experiments, he creates and delights. Alton Brown is a modern day da Vinci -- the perfect blend of science and art. I have friends, too, who conjure beauty in their kitchens in ways that take my breath away.

I have enormous respect for kitchen art. I love to experience it, much as I love seeing a Van Gogh face-to-paint. Take note: I said, "I love to experience it." Drink it in, so to speak. But not necessarily to create it.

My artistic abilities, you see,  lie elsewhere. So, why didn't it ever occur to me to ask a simple question:

"May I please be excused from art class? Cuz I need to go to the writing lab. Pen and paper and keyboards await me, and I do so much better with those than I do with a spatula."

Oh, wait. I forgot: As a mom, my life is a liberal arts education, not an opportunity to pursue advanced training in a specialized field.  I am therefore forced to take Kitchen Art even though I don't want to and will spend the rest of my life moaning, "Wheeeen will I ever uuuuuse this stuff?"  (Please don't point out that I use it every day to feed my family.  I'm trying to prolong a weak metaphor here. Cuz I'm in the writing lab. And that's what we do.)

In all seriousness (I am serious in all of the above, by the way, but I am also pathetic, so I'm trying to change the subject), I loved Jeff's piece today, and especially loved this:

Cooking is work. But it is also an art. You have to practice. And when you practice an art, you are really just playing intentionally.

This is quite apt, because I always feel that I'm merely playing when it comes to my time in the kitchen. Playing at being a cook, playing at being a grown-up, playing at being a mom. But I play intentionally, as Jeff says, and intentional play leads to improvement in one's endeavors, so much so that sometimes I feel like a real cook, a real grown-up, a real mom, a real artist.

And on those days, I'm glad I took the class.

Just grade me on a curve. 

Ramona, on God as an Artist

Ramona went with me to walk the dog this morning. It was a perfect and crisp sixty degrees. The mild, morning sun shone on us and I remarked that I thought Heaven might be this temperature. "Sometimes," Ramona added. "Sometimes it should be warmer."

"Well, yes," I conceded. "But I think that for me, Heaven will feel like this, and for Daddy, it will feel like a 90-degree day, with plenty of humidity. And I think, in Heaven, we'll be able to stand in the same place and we'll each feel perfection."

She agreed and we ambled on contentedly. We watched some butterflies for awhile and then got to talking about God's mind and Creation.

"How did He think of it all?" I asked her.

"He's really, really smart," she said. "And it's kind of like an artist. Like the world's His painting or something."

"Yes!" I said. "I agree with you! Just like a painter who imagines something beautiful and then gives it to us as a gift. That's kind of like God's creation. It's His mind at work, huh?"

"Yeah," she said. "I think He got out his oil paints for butterflies. And watercolors for the rivers and stuff like that."

I knew she was on a roll, so I prodded for a little more. "What do you think He did to make dogs?"

"I think," she said thoughtfully, "that he took one feather from every angel's wing and made dogs. Because I think dogs are angels."

"Oh! I like that idea. What about cats?"

"For cats?" she asked. "He used a couple of spices."

Poetry Friday: "Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? -- every, every minute?"

from Thornton Wilder's Our Town:

Emily: Good-by, Good-by, world. Good-by, Grover's Corners ... Mama and Papa. good-by to clocks ticking and Mama's sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new-ironed dresses and hot baths ... and sleeping and waking up. Oh, earth, you're too wonderful for anybody to realize you. (She looks toward the Stage Manager and asks abruptly through her tears): 

Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? -- every, every minute?

Stage Manager: No. (Pause.) The saints and poets, maybe -- they do, some.

~~~~~~

Anne-with-an-e just read Our Town, a play I fell in love with when I was in high school, when I was really too young to fully appreciate it. Still, there is much in it to be appreciated when one is that age, and Anne appreciated it to the fullest extent possible for one so young.

The play was inspired by Edgar Lee Masters' Lucinda Matlock, and the works share common themes about life -- both the mundane and profound aspects of it, and the ways in which those are intertwined.

The stuff of saints and poets.

Lucinda Matlock
by Edgar Lee Masters

I went to the dances at Chandlerville,
And played snap-out at Winchester.
One time we changed partners,
Driving home in the moonlight of middle June,
And then I found Davis.
We were married and lived together for seventy years,
Enjoying, working, raising the twelve children,
Eight of whom we lost
Ere I had reached the age of sixty.
I spun, I wove, I kept the house, I nursed the sick,
I made the garden, and for holiday
Rambled over the fields where sang the larks,
And by Spoon River gathering many a shell,
And many a flower and medicinal weed—
Shouting to the wooded hills, singing to the green valleys.
At ninety-six I had lived enough, that is all,
And passed to a sweet repose.
What is this I hear of sorrow and weariness,
Anger, discontent and drooping hopes?
Degenerate sons and daughters,
Life is too strong for you—
It takes life to love Life.

~~~~~

You'll find this week's Poetry Friday roundup at Wild Rose Reader.

What's Been Working Around Here, Re: Food

Hmmm. I see -- from this post, at this time last year -- that I often get a handle on meal plans and cooking this time of year. It's all the planning that goes into kicking off another school year, I guess. My organizational skills spill over into the kitchen, at least for awhile. I'm sure I'll fall off the food wagon again, as I always do, but in the meantime, I'm happy in my autumn kitchen. Isn't this one of the loveliest times of the year to cook and bake?

Stuff we're enjoying:

Oven Candied Summer Tomatoes -- Atticus found this recipe.  If you've been overrun with tomatoes and are tired of them, this recipe will revive your love. Delicious. I roasted some yesterday and will be roasting more, and more, and more ....

No Bake Oat Peanutty Oat Treats -- Who doesn't love a no-bake cookie?

Shrimp Pasta  -- I use about half the olive oil and twice the shrimp. Everyone but Ramona (who is a vocal non-fan of shellfish) loves this dish.

Southwestern White Chili -- I leave out the green chiles and throw in a (drained) can of red kidney beans in addition to the white. Atticus and I have loved this for years and now the girls love it, too. (Except Ramona ... are you sensing a pattern?)

Hot and Cold Sesame Noodles -- Thanks to Rachael Ray and my friend Bridget, who gave me the recipe. (Ramona doesn't like this, either. Did I say this is the list of stuff that's working? Well, for four out of five of us.)

And, one more Rachael Ray recipe I love: That's Shallotta Flavor Spaghetti.

Every Mom Needs a Recharge

And that's what I'm talking about over at Faith & Family Live today: my introversion, getting some time alone, and starting fresh:

He does it a couple of times a year. Packs the kids up and loads them into the van. As I deliver a final hug, I whisper to my husband, “Drive carefully—you’ve got my whole life in that van.”

He indulges my concern, smiles, promises to be careful, and tells me to enjoy myself. Then he whisks my girls away for an overnight father/daughter getaway. I shut the door and face an empty house.

Then I do a little happy dance.

Read the whole thing here.

#1 Lie Writers Tell Themselves:

"It's okay that I'm not writing this down ... I'll remember this idea."

No.

I won't.
I never do.
Sigh.
Must carry paper and pen while walking dog ....

I'm going to go write that down.

Quote on the Memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows

The heart of Mary became, as it were, a mirror of the Passion of the Son, in which might be seen, faithfully reflected, the spitting, the blows and wounds, and all that Jesus suffered. 

~~ St. Lawrence Justinian

The Feast of the Triumph of the Cross

"O Mary, Mother of sorrows, at the foot of the cross you became our mother. I am a child of your sorrows, a child of Calvary. Let my heart be united to the cross, to the passion of Jesus Christ, and teach me not to be afraid of my own trials and crosses."

                                     ~~ St. Bernadette Soubirous

 (Painting: Mystic Crucifixion, Sandro Botticelli, c. 1497)

Improv Everywhere

Naturally I missed this when it first made the rounds but thanks to Pie for Breakfast I found it. Just showed it to the girls and Betsy said, "Who are they, and how do I join them?"

They are Improv Everywhere. 

And as Matt did (I was late to his party, too), these guys just make me happy.

Sometimes the world is just a good place to be. 

Beauty on a Saturday Morning

We spent yesterday morning at the Joslyn Art Museum. A visiting exhibit of Impressionist artists ends today and we'd been meaning to get down there for ages. I'm so glad we did.

We saw the gorgeous On the Heights by Charles Courtney Curran. This painting makes me feel, quite simply, happy:

 

And John Singer Sargent's Dolce Far Niente. He does amazing things with light:

Breton took our breath away with Fin du Travail:

A companion exhibit of some post-Impressionists included one of my favorites, Van Gogh. When Ramona saw this she said, "Oh, I know! That's Van Gogh. He has a very distinctive style." (I'm a proud mommy.) I'm not sure whence my affinity for Van Gogh's distinctive style came, but a little piece of my heart seizes up every time I see one of his works in person: 

The girls were also happy to see some old favorites at the Joslyn, such as this Renoir:

and this Cassatt:

We had hoped to see this Bouguereau -- The Knitting Girl -- but it was not out yesterday:

The Greek pottery reminded me that I need to do more Keats with the girls:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Beauty is truth, truth beauty ...."

And now I'm off to attend to another kind of beauty as I get some homemade bread in the oven.  Have a blessed and beautiful feast of the Holy Name of Mary!

Memorial of the Most Holy Name of the Blessed Virgin Mary

In dangers, in doubts, in difficulties, think of Mary, call upon Mary. Let not her name leave your lips, never suffer it to leave your heart.            
                
                ~~ St. Bernard of Clairvaux

Poetry Friday

Ramona announced to me the other day that she'd like to memorize another Emily Dickinson poem.  Last year, she was smitten with I'm Nobody, Who Are You? Today it's The Moon. The whole poem is below, but it's much lovelier when paired with a photograph at Daily Dickinson.

The moon was but a chin of gold
A night or two ago,
And now she turns her perfect face
Upon the world below.

Her forehead is of amplest blond;
Her cheek like beryl stone;
Her eye unto the summer dew
The likest I have known.

Her lips of amber never part;
But what must be the smile
Upon her friend she could bestow
Were such her silver will!

And what a privilege to be
But the remotest star!
For certainly her way might pass
Beside your twinkling door.

Her bonnet is the firmament,
The universe her shoe,
The stars the trinkets at her belt,
Her dimities of blue.

For a peek into our past encounters with Emily, and for more ideas on sharing poetry with children, see the article Home Appreciation, by Susan Thomsen at The Poetry Foundation.

The Poetry Friday round up is being hosted today at  Picture Book of the Day.

Lowering My Standards

There's a Dave Barry quote on my fridge:

"Sometimes people ask me, 'Dave, what is the essence of parenthood?'
I always answer, 'Lowering your standards.'"

Sometimes people ask me (not really, but let's pretend for the sake of a blog post), "Karen, what is the essence of the first day of homeschooling?"

I always answer, "Lowering my standards."

First days come with high expectations. Curriculum has been sifted through, assessed, and weighed. Books have been bought and neatly stacked on shelves. Shiny new school supplies have delighted one and all. Lists have been made, schedules labored over, planners filled and chore charts posted. Children have been prepped. Earlier bed times! Up and at 'em! Today's the day! This is going the be the best school year of our lives!

And then it arrives.

Someone struggles to get out of bed, and so it begins. Math is still hated. Chores are forgotten. Pencils break. Hopes are dashed all day long. Nothing is perfect and nothing has changed.

Unless you change one thing: your expectations.

This sounds like the plan of a defeatist loser, but I'm going to contest that charge. (Maybe I just don't want to admit that I'm a defeatist loser, but, hey, I'll let you be the judge.)  Long ago, I gave up the idea of a perfect first day. It doesn't fit with my personality, because I've known for a long time that I'm so far from perfect that I don't even know what a perfect day looks like, much less am I able to plan one.

So, I plan on a good day rather than a perfect one. A fun day, with some new disciplines mixed in. A day that reminds us of why we homeschool and why we hope to keep doing it. A day that starts with Mass in the morning, and always includes breakfast out (a real treat around here). A gentle introduction to the math we need to tackle, reading some good books, praying in thanksgiving at the end of the day for the blessing of our family and our days together.

Our first day this year:

~Mass and McDonald's (that actually qualifies as "breakfast out" for my kids)
~Violin and piano
~Anne-with-an-e read 15 or 20 pages of Our Town
~Math all around!
~Ramona's read aloud (which we're all enjoying): Emmy and the Incredible Shrinking Rat (thanks, Johnna!)
~Workbooks for Ramona (sigh. She loves them. The more the better, she thinks.)
~Read some Screwtape Letters aloud with Anne and Betsy and talked about "taste" and "having opinions on things" such as music, and so I dug up this quote from C.S. Lewis on humility:

There are two musical situations on which I think we can be confident that a blessing rests. One is where a priest or an organist, himself a man of trained and delicate taste, humbly and charitably sacrifices his own (esthetically right) desires and gives the people humbler and coarser fare than he would wish, in a belief (even, as it may be, the erroneous belief) that he can thus bring them to God.

The other is where the stupid and unmusical layman humbly and patiently, and above all silently, listens to music which he cannot, or cannot fully, appreciate, in the belief that it somehow glorifies God, and that if it does not edify him this must be his own defect. Neither such a High Brow nor such a Low Brow can be far out of the way. To both, Church Music will have been a means of grace; not the music they have liked, but the music they have disliked. They have both offered, sacrificed, their taste in the fullest sense.

But where the opposite situation arises, where the musician is filled with pride of skill or the virus of emulation and looks with contempt on the unappreciative congregation, or where the unmusical, complacently entrenched in their own ignorance and conservatism, look with the restless and resentful hostility of an inferior complex on all who would try to improve their taste -- there, we may be sure, all that both offer is unblessed and the spirit that moves them is not the Holy Ghost.
                                     ~~ from his essay, "On Church Music"

It was a good day. Not perfect. But good. Very good.

And we had cookie dough for lunch.

So, slap the loser label on me (that lunch alone qualifies me) but know this: I love our first days of school.

One Year at a Time

This week we'll begin our eleventh year of homeschooling.

I, for one, am a little stunned.

~~~~~

In the spring of 1997 we were househunting. A friend told me about a place, for sale by owner, that sounded perfect. I called the family. Yes, we could come look at it, the mom told me. "We homeschool," she said, "so we'll all be here."

You homeschool? I thought. What kind of weirdos are you?

I remember the trepidation I felt as we knocked on the door for our tour appointment. What aberrant creature would answer the door? Would her children look pallid and wan from the lack of sunlight and fresh air? Would they know how to say "Hello" or "How are you?" or  would they skitter back to their corners and closets at the sight of outsiders?

It's no surprise to most of you that the mom was very nice. The children spoke. They were allowed outdoors. This family had simply opted out of a system in order to do what they thought was best for their family. Hmmm. Interesting.

I'd been Catholic for a couple of years at this point, and was meeting new people all the time. Two of my new friends had actually tried homeschooling and both had quit. Still, I was getting more intrigued all the time.

By the time Anne-with-an-e was in preschool, I thought of homeschooling as "something on my heart" but I never thought we'd actually pursue it. Atticus, a public school teacher, had no interest in the idea. My "Don't Ever Homeschool" friends sat me down and gave me the straight scoop as they had experienced it. I was not discouraged.

The fall that Anne entered Kindergarten, I still despaired of my husband ever supporting the idea of homeschooling. But, that was a year of many miracles and not only did Atticus enter the Church in the spring, he also agreed that homeschooling would be a great thing to try for Anne's first grade year.

Yikes. We were actually going to do this thing.

Anne-with-an-e was not initially thrilled. She was convinced she would miss out on "that chocolate milk in little cartons." She thought she'd never see her friends. She even told one of my friends that her "stupid mom wants to homeschool." (Yes, a wee, little talk followed that incident.)

But in no time at all, Anne came to love all the pleasures, flexibilities and opportunities that homeschooling afforded. We had a terrific first year, and we committed to a second year. Then a third, and a fourth, and here we are.

This week we'll begin our eleventh year the same way we always begin -- with Holy Mass, breakfast out, good books and math, walks and talks.

And gratitude for the gift that homeschooling has been to our family.

I've always said that we'd do this one year at a time, and I meant it.

And so -- for one more year, our eleventh -- we begin.

What kind of weirdos are we?

Happy ones.

Ramona, on the Afterlife

Ramona: Y'know, Mommy, I kind of can't wait for Heaven.

Me: I know, sweetie. Me, too.

Ramona: I mean, things are pretty good here, but there ... well, there it's gonna be like living in a dollhouse, and chocolate rivers, and things like that.

Poetry Friday: Morning Song

Here's a small taste of a kind and delicate poem by Marcia F. Brown. These are the first and last stanzas, but you'll thank me if  you click over to read the whole thing and immerse yourself in her morning.

Morning Song
by Marcia F. Brown

Here, I place
a blue glazed cup
where the wood
is slightly whitened.
Here, I lay down
two bright spoons,
our breakfast saucers, napkins
white and smooth as milk.
...
I carry the woman with the lost child
in my pocket, where she murmurs
her love song without end:
      Just this, each day:
      Bear yourself up on small wings
      to receive what is given.
      Feed one another
      with such tenderness,
      it could almost be an answer.

Read the entire poem here, at The Writer's Almanac.

The Poetry Friday round up is being hosted today at Susan Writes.

It Feels Like Autumn, Thus I Am Compelled To Post This Quote

"What'll we do with ourselves this afternoon?" cried Daisy, "and the day after that, and the next thirty years?"

"Don't be morbid," Jordan said. "Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall."

~~ F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby