Poetry Friday

Jump over to The Writer's Almanac for my pick today, a poem by David Budbill -- it's only five lines long, so I'll just tell you it's called "September Visitors", that it's perfect for bidding farewell to summer weather, and that it reminds me of what my friend Jack's grandfather used to sing-song about company: "Happy to see you come, happy to see you go."

Poetry Friday is being hosted this week by the always lovely, always delightful, always eloquent Sara Lewis Holmes.

Homeschooling Notes: Ancient Egypt With Ramona

Ramona and I have been reading about ancient Egypt. This week, thanks to the Book of Artrageous Art Projects, we mummified Barbie. Here she is getting ready for her ceremonial wrapping, with some of her most treasured possessions (lovingly selected by Ramona) surrounding her: 

And here she is, properly wrapped (we skipped the cleaning, oiling, salting and 70 days of drying), surrounded by lip gloss, two cakes (one chocolate, one vanilla), butter, an egg, coins (bus fare, Ramona says), her driver's license, a hairbrush, a ponytail holder and a can of Coke: 

Princess Shopsalot (name thanks to the Klutz book) 

now rests in materialistic peace in her Ramona-decorated sarcophagus: 

~~~~~~~~~~

The next photo has nothing to do with ancient Egypt, but is simply to show you that when Ramona decides to stage a Pet Beauty Pageant, Sydney not only wins, but is also named both Miss Congeniality and Miss Most-Patient-Dog-Evah. 

The Night I Visited My Sister's Book Club

I love my sister.
I love Skype.
And now, thanks to my sister and Skype, I love my sister's book club.

None of the women are Catholic.
They all bought my Rosary book.
They read it.
They invited me to join them in Oklahoma (via Skype) for their discussion.
They asked me great questions.
We laughed.
Atticus stuck his face in the webcam.
My girls all ducked in to say hi.
And then we talked a little more about prayer.
They lifted their glasses (a lovely white wine, I think -- Chardonnay, ladies?) and we toasted books and prayer and sisters and husbands who stick their faces in webcams.

I love my sister.

Okey-dokey, Let's Talk About Mass

Recently a reader asked me about Mass and boys' behavior and what to expect. Specifically:

Reader says: "I would like our children to be fully involved, engaged and enjoying it. At the moment, I feel that all they do is sit there quietly, not particularly participating and simply waiting it out."

Mrs. Ed says: Sitting quietly is highly underrated. If two boys are sitting quietly in Mass, you're doing something right. Waiting it out is better than fighting it out. Or sighing it out. Or sleeping it out.

Reader continues: "...lots of his school friends don't attend Mass or any worship services. So, he now pronounces loudly -- and frequently -- how boring Mass is, how dull it is, that he doesn't want to be Catholic any more, etc. ... Do 8-year olds generally 'enjoy' and participate in Mass? What about 6-year olds?"

Mrs. Ed says: First of all, huge disclaimer: I know NOTHING about boys.

But, it's not at all unusual for children to get bored during Holy Mass. Hang in there, Mom! Most children get bored. They just don't get it yet -- that's okay.  Keep the big picture in mind. You're on a journey with them, and it's a long haul.

In my rather limited experience, most children get really revved up about their first Holy Communion, both in preparation for it and when it actually happens. Sometimes that excitement carries them for some time -- how many of us have seen our first Communicants beg to go to daily Mass so they could receive Jesus again? It's lovely, and sweet, and energizing but it doesn't always last. Again, hang in there. You haven't ruined them.

As the kids get a little older, boredom seems to return again for a time, but that's part of the long haul, too. We have to keep pulling back the curtain, showing our children a little more about their faith as they grow and mature, offering them new ways to experience God. It's a lifelong process of growth. It's a relationship. That's the real issue. How do we keep helping them nurture that relationship so that it will grow over the years?

But, back, specifically, to Mass with kids. One of the things I've always tried to do is to let my children see my own desire to be at Mass. It's always helped to completely center the day around it -- Sunday is for Mass, no exceptions, no excuses when we're out of town. We just go. We remain faithful to God no matter what, and no matter how we feel on a particular morning. Most of the time, I long to be at Mass. But I also think it's okay to be honest with children (those who are old enough to understand) about the fact that sometimes even we grown-ups don't feel like going. We all get tired, overextended, etc., and have those days when Mass can feel like one more thing to do. By being honest with our children about this, we can set an example about how to handle temptations. We show them that we're willing to submit our wills to God's, and we're helping them learn how they can do that, too.

It has always helped our family, too, to make Sunday a special, fun, family-centered day. We do things together -- walks, game nights, movies -- we relax, we eat donuts. Atticus often cooks a special dinner. I think when children come to associate Sunday with all kinds of other close, loving memories, it helps them to associate it (and Mass) with God's love, too.

When Ramona was five, I wrote this:

to celebrate Holy Thursday she drew a picture of Jesus and His apostles and then starting gift-wrapping things she found around the house, because "people should have presents when we're happy." Did she understand all that we would feel and remember at last night's Mass? No. Did she understand that we were happy that Jesus gave us the Eucharist? Yes. The rest will come.

.. I watched Ramona yesterday, when she drew her picture of Jesus. Her eyes were shining, and she was brimming with joy. And I thought, for a moment, that one of the reasons the Church wisely gave us Lent and penance, Holy Thursday and Good Friday, is that we grown-ups sometimes forget to shine.

I want to strive to have my children see me shine. (I fail often, but it's worth striving for.)

We've tried to share with our kids that our faith is a huge part of our lives -- it is woven through so many things that we do, and Mass is one more part of that. Celebrating feast days, saint days, baptismal birthdays, doing fun activities that bring the faith alive -- these things can truly make a difference in helping kids to get excited about their faith. Have fun with your faith, and your kids will, too.

A friend of mine recently hosted her first meeting of a boys' club at her house -- they talked and read about archangels, made cardboard swords and ice cream bucket-lid shields, and when it was time for snacks, the boys all got to stab their devil's food cupcakes before they ate them. I laughed out loud when I heard this. I must admit that it never occurred to me to have kids stab their cupcakes. But, this is apparently the sort of thing that boys live for. (It's a good thing I didn't have boys. Really ... a very good thing.)  Great activities and ideas are all over the place -- just start Googling, or check out some of my archives, especially those under "Liturgical Year." (But not if you have boys. We've never stabbed our cupcakes here.)

Those are some initial thoughts, though I know I've just scratched the surface. I'd love to follow up on some of the following:

• Letting go of an ideal about what I should get out of Mass when I'm there with children

• Sensitive kids and Mass 

• Homemade aids that can help young children through Mass

If anyone has anything to add to the conversation, please do!

(Part II is here.)

Bits and Pieces of Our Days

Food stuff lately:

I can't remember where I found this link, or who gave it to me. Or if I just obsessively Googled Nutella one day. But we made these Nutella-Mallow Pillow Pockets from Picky-Palate.com and they were so good. So, so good.  I am inarticulate about their goodness. So, so good.

I don't usually get excited about marshmallow-anything, but the marshmallow subordinates itself entirely to the Nutella and it's a win-win situation. I didn't have puff pastry sheets, so we subbed shells, and it worked out great:

Flaky, chocolatey, sugary goodness.

In other food news, we recently realized that Kentucky Fried Chicken had never passed our children's lips. This is not because we're especially healthy eaters but rather because we're cheap. Quick, fried chicken generally comes from the grocery store's deli rather than from the Colonel. But, we had KFC for dinner recently and my girls, always pro-grease, approved.

Also, Atticus keeps asking me to stop making the crack cocaine of granola bars but I can't stop.

~~~~~~~~~~

Both of my older girls just attended a college fair. BOTH. OF. THEM.

~~~~~~~~~~

The older girls also volunteered to help lead a youth group and they are learning a lot about the junior high psyche. Even though those early teen years are not all that far in their own pasts, it's one thing to endure that stage of life and quite another to try to govern it in another human being. I think they've discovered that "junior high psyche" and "junior high psycho" sound eerily similar.

~~~~~~~~~~

Ramona and I are reading A Little Princess. Thinking "Ramona" and "Princess" reminded of this post from 2005, the year I started this blog. Time's winged chariot and all that. Life rushes by too fast, and I just keep holding on, hoping that I'm not blinking too much and missing something.

~~~~~~~~~~

Movies of late: Just watched The Fugitive with Anne and Betsy. Watching Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South with Betsy, and we're due very soon for another installment.

Sharing News From Everywhere, But Mostly From My Inbox:

My Inbox is your Inbox:

Sue Elvis is giving away three copies (e-reader versions) of A Little Way of Homeschooling: Thirteen Families Discover Catholic Unschooling.  If you don't have an e-reader, don't sweat it -- did you know you can download the Kindle app for your Mac or PC? It's free. I had a lot of free Kindle books long before I got a Kindle (which I now own only thanks to my mom's generosity ... sometimes when she upgrades to something new, I reap the benefits.)

Winners will be drawn on October 1st.

~~~~~~~~~~

Sally Thomas is the best. She just is. Go take a look at her site, Abandon Hopefully: Catholic Humanities-Centered Homeschooling (for parents of college-bound high-schoolers and others).

~~~~~~~~~~

Holy acting, Batman! It's an acting studio whose mission is training artists to "become excellent actors and powerful couriers of truth and beauty through media to the world." Holy Wood Acting Studios sounds intriguing -- an endeavor to cultivate and nourish the the vision Pope John Paul II spoke of in his Letter to Artists.

~~~~~~~~~~

Little Sisters of the Poor asked for help in spreading the word about their Vocation Discernment Day.

~~~~~~~~~~

A Lay Day of Fasting for Priests in October -- more information can be found here.

Nonsense

These three lines from Matt Cook's "Nonsense":

Driving was a function where nonsense was not permitted.
When the traffic light turns green, you absolutely must go,
Whether or not it is the truly beautiful thing to do.

make me think that perhaps we are related.

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

~~~~~~~~~~

The round up can be found at Picture Book of the Day.

Book Review: Attachments, by Rainbow Rowell

You know how sometimes you really, really want to read a certain kind of book?

And you know how you conjure in your addled, overextended, tired gray matter exactly the book you want to read? Kinda like this:

"It should be witty," you tell yourself, "and intelligent. Sweet and funny. It should be romantic and full of heart," you say, with an emphasis on the word heart. You can hear the italics as you talk to yourself, because those italics are important. "And soul," you continue, upping the ante to italics and boldface. "It should be about best friends, and real life conversation, and the kind of guy you'd marry because he falls in love with you purely on the basis of your repartee."

Then you sigh.

And you think about how you desperately want to see something in your local bookstore that is not about vampires, unless it's a retrospective summary of Dark Shadows, 'cuz that would at least bring back some fun and merry memories, but, y'know, all that current vampire dreck is unreadable, so you go back to conjuring the perfect book for this week's reading.

"It should mention the Indian Hills theater in Omaha -- yeah, that's it -- and it should have a full and complete understanding of the tragedy that was the demolition of that building. It should -- no, it will -- wholly grasp that one can grieve the passing of a movie theater. That movie theater. Moreover," you say to yourself -- and you're talking much faster now, because you're on a roll -- "if it's really the book I want, it will totally get the fact that Tom Cruise isn't actually attractive at all, but that Tom Cruise movies are generally enjoyable."* It is dreadfully important that your imaginary-perfect-book-for-this-week gets this factoid of life.

And then, once you've conjured this book, you know how you hope that that book is, in point of fact, out there somewhere? Because you're really in the mood for that book. You want it to be a book you'll call your sister about and say, "Kathy! You have to read this book with your book group! You guys will lurve it!" And you don't want to have to write this book yourself (eh, yeah, as if you could, because as everyone knows, you are really only the second wittiest.) But you just so desperately need something to read right now that isn't ugly or cynical or political or stupid.

And so one day you pick up the Omaha paper and you see Rainbow Rowell's column and you're reminded that, oh, yeah, she wrote a novel. And it sounds really cute. And ... oh, my gosh ... it could be that novel.

And so you get your hands on it.

And guess what?

It is.

~~~~~~~~~~

*See p. 39. And all the rest of the pages while you're at it.

(For grown-ups, by the way. Language -- just thought you should know, in case such bothers you.)

A Homeschooling Meme

Pam, from Everyday Snapshots (a lovely blog!) passed this meme along -- thanks, Pam!


1) ONE HOMESCHOOLING BOOK YOU HAVE ENJOYED

(One???? Here's my overlong list.)

Books that initially convinced me I could handle homeschooling:

Family Matters, David Guterson
Better than School, Nancy Wallace
Catholic Education: Homeward Bound, Kimberly Hahn and Mary Hasson
Designing Your Own Classical Curriculum, Laura Bergquist

Books that initially influenced my style of homeschooling:

All of the above, plus:

How Children Fail, John Holt
Teach Your Own, John Holt
School Proof, Mary Pride
A Charlotte Mason Companion, Karen Andreola
Real Learning, Elizabeth Foss


Books that nourish me, especially when I'm feeling burn-out:

All of the above, plus:

A Catholic Homeschool Companion, ed. by Maureen Wittmann & Rachel Mackson
Homeschooling with Gentleness, Suzie Andres
Homeschooling Our Children, Unschooling Ourselves, Alison McKee
101 Devotions for Homeschool Moms, Jackie Wellwood
Seasons of a Mother's Heart, Sally Clarkson

The homeschooling book to which I contributed a chapter: 

A Little Way of Homeschooling


2) ONE RESOURCE YOU WOULDN'T BE WITHOUT

One??? Fie on one!

My laptop.
My husband (for his sounding board qualities, which are superb.)
The library.
My friends (for their sounding board qualities, which are superb.)



3) ONE RESOURCE YOU WISH YOU HAD NEVER BOUGHT

Everything that looked shiny and life-changing in a catalog but turned out to be just another dull bit of scripted curriculum.



4) ONE RESOURCE YOU ENJOYED LAST YEAR

One??? Fie on one!

Our theater experiences.
Reading Betsy-Tacy books with Ramona.
My friend, Johnna, who provided an art class for our little homeschool group.
Book discussions, over coffee, with Danae and my girls.



5) ONE RESOURCE YOU WILL BE USING NEXT YEAR

One?? Fie again!

Lectures, and lectures, and lectures, oh, my!
A cookbook.


6) ONE RESOURCE YOU WOULD LIKE TO BUY

Rather than buy one, I would just like to hire a resource, preferably a resource that does laundry, dishes, and vacuuming. This will not happen.



7) ONE RESOURCE YOU WISH EXISTED

A self-cleaning house, self-cooking meals, and self-washing laundry.


8) ONE HOMESCHOOLING CATALOG YOU ENJOY READING

I didn't buy a single thing from a catalog this year. I may actually be getting over my obsession.

Or I may just be broke.



If you read this, and you want to do it, consider yourself tagged. 
:) 

Life and Faith in Hell's Kitchen

A great story about:

the Sisters of Life, a small order of nuns celebrating its 20th anniversary this summer. The sisters take traditional vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, but they also take a fourth vow "to protect and enhance the sacredness of human life." According to Archbishop Timothy Dolan, once the sisters connect with unwed pregnant women in need, "the battle is half over." 

The sisters are the hands and feet of Christ as they care for women in crisis:

There the women can stay as long as six months prior to giving birth and up to a year afterward, some holding down jobs, others studying. Meanwhile the sisters go about their lives of prayer, contemplation and occasional rollerblading. The nuns "rely on providence" – i.e., donations – for food, baby clothing and strollers. They excel at recruiting "Josephs" for heavier household chores. "Our motto is that no man leaves without doing us a favor," says Sister Rita Marie, the local convent superior.

The rooms are spartan and lights go out at 9 p.m. Following Cardinal O'Connor's vision, the nuns take a healing approach. They don't keep records of who is Catholic and who isn't, they don't try to convert anyone or arrange a baptism unless asked, and they don't even require that the women pray.

Since the first guest arrived in 1998, 150 babies have been born at the convent. The sisters take heart in "the beauty of a mother coming to the understanding of the dignity of her calling and how that gives life back to her," Sister Rita Marie explains.

Read the whole thing here.

Attention to Souls

(This post first ran in 2009.) 

There are a few blogs I read that are written by priests. One might think that because our vocations are so different there isn't much we can learn from one another. But one would be mistaken. One priest's blog that I read regularly often speaks to me in my vocation as a mother.

Father* writes:

"Spiritual attention to souls." This is a wonderful line, absolutely wonderful. In the Gospel today, St. Mark speaks of the pity of Christ, that he looked upon the people because they were like shepherdless sheep. Do our parishioners feel the same way?

I apply this to my motherhood. Am I paying spiritual attention to the souls entrusted to my care? Do I ever leave my children shepherdless sheep? Have I left them in any way? What am I neglecting? How can I better shepherd them?

Is our Mass simply functionary? Is our seat in the confessional always empty? Do we try to shed our duties yet demand respect for our position?

When, as a mother, have I demanded respect for my position even while putting my own desires first? Is the "seat in the confessional" of my vocation -- my open, listening ear, my heart, my willingness to be fully present to my children -- empty?

Or, as St. Josemaria writes, is the altar the "centre and root" of our lives? We all feel the tension here. We all have days when the confessional is hot or the music at Mass is terrible or when we would like to do something for ourselves but the phone just keeps ringing.

Christ is the centre and root of my life, and it is through my vocation -- through marriage and motherhood -- that I serve Him. When there is tension, how do I approach it? Resolve it? When the tedious chores seem neverending and the bickering is building to a crescendo and when I would love to duck out of my duties for just a little while, or (oh, wouldn't it be heavenly?) go on a retreat -- or, who am I kidding, just have a day off, for goodness's sakes -- what do I do? How do I handle it? Who and What is at my center? Do my children feel the tension when it arises?

Even with the tension, how well do we do with this mission of having the "spiritual attention to souls?"

How well indeed?

What a beautiful examination of conscience this priest has provided. He may think he is writing for priests, but he is writing to each and every one of us who wish to serve God. And, oh, how much we all have to learn from one another in our seemingly disparate vocations.

*The original post had a link to the blog, but Father no longer maintains the blog. 

The Girl's Got a Point, Especially When It Comes to Waffles

Ramona: Mommy, can I have waffles for breakfast?

Me: Sure.

Ramona: And I'd like them with chocolate syrup and whipped cream. Is that okay?

Me: Sure.

Ramona: Yeah, because, after all, part of growing up is learning to make your own decisions.

(Photo thanks to grongar at Flickr.) 

Feast of the Most Holy Name of the Blessed Virgin Mary

"In fact, the more I looked at it, the more it seemed to me that God virtually always comes to us through some creature. And when he does that, some glow of his glory is left on the creature, like the radiance on Moses' face (cf. Ex. 34:29-35). But at the same time it remains clear the glory is God's, not something the creature could claim for himself." 

~~ Mark Shea, Mary, Mother of the Son, Vol. I 
as quoted in Through the Year With Mary, 365 Reflections 

Mary, you shone with the glory of God, 

never claiming merit for your virtues. 

Help me to always deflect praise and glory to our Father. 

I'm at Faith and Family Live Today

You may already have read it here, but if not, you can go read it there.

Somehow I Knew That Was the Answer

Me: Ramona, what are you doing?

Ramona: Laughing. Maniacally.

Poetry Friday: Fall, by Edward Hirsch

We haven't yet reached the days of dusky gold that I know are to come, but I have felt the shiver of that shift -- the way, "Everything/Changes and moves in the split second between summer's/Sprawling past and winter's hard revision," and I know that autumn hovers, and is falling ....

Fall
by Edward Hirsch

Fall, falling, fallen. That's the way the season
Changes its tense in the long-haired maples
That dot the road; the veiny hand-shaped leaves
Redden on their branches (in a fiery competition
With the final remaining cardinals) and then
Begin to sidle and float through the air, at last
Settling into colorful layers carpeting the ground.
At twilight the light, too, is layered in the trees
In a season of odd, dusky congruences—a scarlet tanager
And the odor of burning leaves, a golden retriever
Loping down the center of a wide street and the sun
Setting behind smoke-filled trees in the distance,
A gap opening up in the treetops and a bruised cloud
Blamelessly filling the space with purples. Everything
Changes and moves in the split second between summer's
Sprawling past and winter's hard revision, one moment
Pulling out of the station according to schedule,

(Read the rest here.)


The Poetry Friday roundup is at Secrets & Sharing Soda.

Active Momming Equals Sluggish Blogging

We've been busy.

* Started school this week. As usual, we started with Holy Mass and breakfast out.

Anne-with-an-e dove into Huck Finn, and Betsy is tackling The Scarlet Letter. I put together a blog, just for us, and it will be a central gathering place for our ideas, links, activities, etc. I don't know why I didn't do that long before now! The girls already love checking in on it. I called it "The Planning Unschooler."

This year, our first day even included us crashing for naps. I can't think of a better kick-off for the Greengables Homeschool.

~~~~~

* Anne-with-an-e and Betsy saw Skillet and Daughtry in concert, thanks to some super generous friends who invited them along. They were over-the-moon-happy before, during and after. Betsy's day was recently topped off when band member Korey Cooper replied to a tweet.

~~~~~

* We spent some time over the weekend at a living history thingy (why yes, that is the official name, as evidenced by this sign):

We watched a friend participate in a period dance demonstration, toured the grounds of a military fort, watched some butter-churning, lace-making, and weaving, and visited the blacksmith and the tinsmith. then we put Ramona in the stocks and called it a day.

~~~~~

* Our parish is implementing Family Formation and we recently had our opening Mass and kick-off night. I think it will be a great thing for our church community -- I was thrilled to see this approach come to town. I first heard of it years ago when a friend of mine moved to Minnesota, and it makes such consummate sense.

~~~~~

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to quit blogging and go back to momming for the rest of the day! 

A Deliberate Life

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, 

to front only the essential facts of life, 

and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, 

and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."

~~ Henry David Thoreau 

Shortly after I started this blog, I considered alternate names for it -- I humbly acknowledged that "Karen Edmisten" is not particularly clever, and I daydreamed about what I might've named my blog had I given it more thought before I hit the "Create Blog" button. My favorite alternate-universe name was A Deliberate Life.  It summed up what I want my world to be: Deliberate. Thoughtful. A life with love and purpose. Conviction.

"Deliberate" also tends to conjure the notion of "A Plan." But I've never been terribly good at plans, and certainly not at anything like The Five Year Plan.

But not to worry, because "deliberate" and "planned", it turns out, are not at all the same thing.

I can think of numerous deliberate lives that were not particularly planned.

Take Robert Frost, for instance. Although he went to Dartmouth and Harvard, he never earned a degree. He worked at a variety of jobs just to make a living. A biography at Poets.org notes that "Frost drifted through a string of occupations after leaving school, working as a teacher, cobbler, and editor of the Lawrence Sentinel." From the outside, before anyone knew that Robert Frost would be Robert Frost For Heavens' Sake, he might've appeared to be something of a slacker. A job hopper. People perhaps shook their heads over the college dropout.

But he was deliberate.

He was a poet. It's who he was, and he knew it.

Van Gogh was an artist. He was a mess, but he was an artist, and he knew it. Blessed Teresa of Calcutta fed the hungry for Jesus, even when she felt dry and far from His embrace. It's who she was. Marie Curie was a scientist, Madeleine L'Engle was a writer. Though difficulties and sufferings came upon them, they lived deliberately. They knew the essential facts of their lives.

At my house, we will embark this week on our twelfth year of homeschooling. My life has been full of meanderings, changes, about-faces, and periods when I appeared undoubtedly to the world to be a slacker. But, since my conversion, I have been living that deliberate life. Unquestionably still full of twists and turns, alarming developments -- such as becoming a mother, becoming a Catholic, becoming a homeschooler -- and messy days and sometimes anguished nights. But deliberate.

I know who I am.

And I can only hope that as we continue to follow this adventure that is homeschooling -- as we look at the final year of "high school" (whatever that is, really), and college, and job and life possibilities, and the swirling middle of the teen years for another daughter, and at an age that the world calls "fourth grade" for yet another --  that I can pass on to my cherished children the essence of the soul-calming peace that comes with knowing how you want to live.

I followed Jesus because I wished to live deliberately, 

to front only the essential facts of life, 

and see if I could not learn what Jesus had to teach, 

and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not loved Him. 

Poetry Friday: Short Order Cook

Sometimes life is just this simple, and just this hard, and just this rewarding:

Short Order Cook 
by Jim Daniels

An average joe comes in
and orders thirty cheeseburgers and thirty fries.

I wait for him to pay before I start cooking.
He pays.
He ain't no average joe.

The grill is just big enough for ten rows of three.
I slap the burgers down
throw two buckets of fries in the deep frier
and they pop pop spit spit...
psss...
The counter girls laugh.
I concentrate.
It is the crucial point—
they are ready for the cheese:

(Read the rest here, at The Writer's Almanac.)


The round up this week is at The Miss Rumphius Effect.