Poetry Friday: Emily Dickinson's To-Do List

Because I love to-do lists. Because life sometimes feels this way. Because I love Emily Dickinson so much.


Emily Dickinson's To-Do List
by Andrea Carlisle

Monday
Figure out what to wear—white dress?
Put hair in bun
Bake gingerbread for Sue
Peer out window at passersby
Write poem
Hide poem

Tuesday
White dress? Off-white dress?
Feed cats
Chat with Lavinia
Work in garden
Letter to T.W.H.

Wednesday
White dress or what?

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

The round up is at Poetry for Children.

Tell me you wouldn't share it

I especially love the way they look at each other with delight when they realize what's coming.



(from this YouTube page.)

From Today's Office of Readings

"Therefore, we ask that we may know what we love, 

since we ask nothing other than that you give us yourself. 

For you are our all: our life, our light, our salvation, 

our food and our drink, our God. Inspire our hearts, I ask you, Jesus, 

with that breath of your Spirit; wound our souls with your love, 

so that the soul of each and every one of us may say in truth: 

Show me my soul’s desire, for I am wounded by your love."

~~ St. Columban 

The Prairie Thief is Here!

Melissa Wiley's new book is out! 

Our dog barked wildly when the UPS man delivered it last night! 

We went wild, too! 

We didn't growl like Sydney does! 

We love the UPS man! 

And we are going to love this book!*

* We had the fun and privilege of reading an early draft of this book when it went by another name. We loved it then, and we'll love it still/again as The Prairie Thief.  And isn't that cover delightful? 

Bits and Pieces of Our Days

~ Books:

Ramona brought Tumtum and Nutmeg* home from the library. Illustrations like that always make me want to live in the curve of a hollowed out tree, or in a cozy cave (preferably spelled cosy), or on a charming white cliff (that somehow miraculously has wi-fi.)

Betsy is deeply into Jane Austen. Her pulse quickened when I came home from that used book sale with a set of the complete novels (although I'm pretty sure we already have each one of those books lying around here in some form. But there's just something about a used, complete set that's in good condition. A set of one's own is such an agreeable thing.) She recently ordered a Mr. Darcy mug. She says things like, "Heaven and earth -- of what are you thinking? Are the shades of Pemberley to be thus polluted?!"
[Updated to note: Betsy also just read Jane Austen: A Life Revealed and enjoyed it quite a bit.]

Anne-with-an-e is deeply into her classes and her job. The other day they got to listen to a little Dave Brubeck in class. Lucky girl. (Though Ramona would not be envious. Atticus has been on a huge jazz kick for some time and Ramona has tired of his hip, jazzy ways.)  In Anne's spare time, she's catching up with some stuff in one of her favorite genres: dystopic fiction. She just read Gathering Blue, which she's been meaning to pick up for a long time now, and she has a stack of other stuff with names I can't remember. She's started writing her own dystopic novel, too.

Atticus has been reading Hilary Mantel. He had to return Bring Up the Bodies (about Anne Boleyn) to the library before he'd had time to finish it, but he told me, "It's okay. I know how it ends." (Or perhaps he meant, "I know how she ends.")
[Updated to note: Atticus corrects -- it's about Thomas Cromwell.]

I just read a biography of Kenneth Clark (fascinating stuff) and The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh.** Love. Highly recommend. Passing it on to my teens.

~ Ramona has been: 

busy making a produce stand for her American Girl doll. Last night I found this sign in my bedroom:

Local Farmers Market Opening Soon. 

Date Unsure. 

Produce and Flowers! 

~ Schooly stuff:

starts next week.

I think.

We'll see.

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

 * Thanks, Sean Herriott, for recommending it.

** Thanks, Danae, for recommending it.

Latest Ramona Tweet

@Karen_Ed:

Ramona, opining on an "I Love Lucy" episode: "That kind of thing ALWAYS happens. If they would just communicate with their spouse!"

Quote for a Saturday

"Guard well your spare moments. They are like uncut diamonds. 

Discard them and their value will never be known. Improve 

them and they will become the brightest gems in a useful life."

~~ Ralph Waldo Emerson 

(h/t:  C. Hope Clark) 

Poetry Friday: Wendell Berry

The man knows whereof he speaks. 

The Peace of Wild Things 

by Wendell Berry 

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
...

(Read the rest here, at The Poetry Foundation.)

~~~~~~~

The Poetry Friday round up is here.

For the full Poetry Friday schedule, head to KidLitosphere Central.

The Only Trouble With Going to a Used Book Sale

... is that I'll buy books.

and a few more books.

And, if you were to peek over in that corner in my living room (try to look past the dog hair -- I do need to vacuum), you'd see another stack of books. 

Apparently I was compelled to purchase more books -- more old, new books --  to fill the spaces left behind by the five grocery sacks of books I had just gathered up for Goodwill. 

They are my one material weakness. I don't care what kind of car I drive, my furniture is creaky, my clothes are just here to offer coverage, and jewelry? Well, Atticus knows better than to buy me jewelry.  

But books? 

Complete Sucker, thy name is Karen. 

Back to School and Not Back to School

Yesterday my eldest daughter headed off to college classes. She's attending school here in our town, so it's not the seismic shift it would be if she were moving away, but's it's new and different. Between classes and her job, we'll be seeing a lot less of her.

My middle daughter also went to a college class (dual high school/college credit for a foreign language), is thinking about getting a job, is involved in various activities, etc., so she's getting busier all the time, too.

Anne-with-an-e and Betsy are "back to school" in a way we've never really been before.

Ramona stayed home with me. We cleaned her room and took board game breaks. Atticus asked if it reminded me of the days when Betsy and I would walk Anne to her Kindergarten class at the school across the street and then spend the morning together, just the two of us.

It felt a little too weird to remind me of anything I've ever experienced before.

Being somewhat unschoolish, I've always been content to just "start" whenever it suits us. But sometime back my girls wanted things to be a bit more official. And Ramona is a big fan of official.

I'm philosophically opposed to school starting before Labor Day so, years ago, I chose the day after the holiday to be our annual, official kick-off day. But, as with most things in life, I've found that the more official things get, the more likely they are to be full of letdown.

Remember this post? I talked about "lowering my standards" for First Day Expectations. My main expectations always come down to two things for the first day:

We go to Mass. We go out for breakfast.

(Evidence here, here, and here [although in this one, I neglected to mention Mass. Did we not go? I can't remember a year when we didn't start the first school day with Mass, so either I was sloppy in my recounting of the day, or something was amiss.] And here.)

Everything else is gravy. (Or cream in the coffee.)

I've never expected us to move from summer languor to school year rigor in 0-to-60, though Anne and Betsy are experiencing some of that in a way that Ramona and I can still skim over. Still, since I have a ten-year-old, full-time homeschooler, and a 16-year-old, part-time homeschooler, I'm going to hang on to my unschoolish ways awhile longer, and savor what I have, while learning to deal with what's new and different.

So, we are both back to school, and not back to school at our house. We are adjusting. Sometimes we are a little dizzy. We might need more Masses. More breakfast out. Definitely more coffee.

Most of all, as has always been true, we need each other. And we're here for each other.

Some things never change.

(Photo courtesy of Stock.xchng.)

St. Jane Frances de Chantal

Some calendars show August 18th as the feast day of St. Jane Frances de Chantal, while others celebrate her day on August 12th.

Whatever the feast day, can you imagine what it must have been like to have St. Francis de Sales as your spiritual director?

I've long felt a special attachment to St. Jane and I'm not sure I can articulate why. I can't say we share a great deal in common. I didn't marry a baron, didn't lose my husband after only seven years of marriage. I've not become a nun or founded a religious community.

But, St. Jane strikes me as so real, sturdily grounded in her faith. She lived through dark nights and spiritual dryness, but she grasped that her faith was not rooted in her feelings about faith. Her faith was rooted in Him. The reality of hanging on, even when we don't feel like hanging on, always resonates with me. ("Faith is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted," said Clive Staples Lewis.) 

I love this:

When she was 32, she met St. Francis de Sales (October 24), who became her spiritual director, softening some of the severities imposed by her former director. She wanted to become a nun but he persuaded her to defer this decision. She took a vow to remain unmarried and to obey her director.

After three years Francis told her of his plan to found an institute of women which would be a haven for those whose health, age or other considerations barred them from entering the already established communities. There would be no cloister, and they would be free to undertake spiritual and corporal works of mercy. They were primarily intended to exemplify the virtues of Mary at the Visitation (hence their name, the Visitation nuns): humility and meekness.

-- Saint of the Day.

The emphasis above is mine. I love that even though she wanted to become a nun, she listened to her spiritual director's counsel and put off following that dream. Three years later, he proposed the thing that would become the rest of her life.

"If we patiently accept through love all that God allows to happen, then we will begin to taste even here on earth something of the delights the saints experience in heaven. But for this we must serve God willingly and lovingly, seeking to obey the Divine Will rather than to follow our own inclinations and desires. For the perfection of love demands that we desire for ourselves only whatever God wills. Let us implore the good God unceasingly to grant us this grace!"

~~ St. Jane Frances de Chantal

(Find more quotes from St. Jane at the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales.)

(From the archives, 2010. For more on why there's some confusion about St. Jane's feast day, see the comments on the original post.)

Top Ten Reasons My Blog Has Been Languishing

10. It's been hot this summer. Everything is languishing.

9.  My friend Paula was visiting from Chicago -- I was busy with her and Ramona was busy with Paula's daughter. I begged to accompany was forced to go with Paula to a cool old furniture shop and consider buying a gorgeous cedar chest that I don't really need.

8. I didn't buy the cedar chest but the mental wrangling took all my energy.

7. We had a bat in the house. Eeeeeek! We had a bat in the house! The screaming, the running, and the  feelings of disgust took all my energy (and just after I'd regained it following the cedar chest incident. Not fair.)

6. We have been shopping for a car for our teens. We've made do without a teen car so far, but we're finally all going in too many directions.

5. Visiting used car dealers should qualify us for an enormous discount off our time in purgatory. (This doesn't technically qualify as a reason for blog languishment. I just had to say it.)

4. We've been finishing up various summer activities: a cool "outdoor classroom" hosted by the Game and Parks Commission (in which Ramona romped in a delightfully big mud puddle), horseback riding, the water park before it closes. I'm trying to remember the meaning of the words "cook dinner" and we've been adding and dropping classes at the college for Betsy's early enrollment: Spanish! No, French! No, Spanish! (We've just registered, and this is crazy, but pick a language, and call me maybe....)*

3. I had to clean out a closet and put up some new curtains in the dining room because, you know, when you're writing a book it's easier to invent unnecessary organizational and cleaning projects that make you feel you're accomplishing something than it is to stare at the screen and ponder just the right word for that sentence in chapter seven.

2. On the subject of writing, a book, well, I'm writing a book -- and I have only so much room in my brain/time at the computer, and often I've spent it all on the book, which leaves my poor little blog out in the cold (or is it languishing in the heat?) If I spend entire days and nights at the screen, Ramona looks like this:

and asks, "Mommy, don't you love me anymore?" 

1. I wonder if that cedar chest is still there....

~~~~~~~~~~

*To be fair to Betsy, a fair amount of the switching was my doing, covering bases in case one or the other of the classes doesn't take off due to low enrollment. In other words, I'm making my daughter look indecisive for comic effect. This is totally unfair of me, although (in all fairness to me, as long as we're going for fairness) she did waffle a little, due to various considerations.  But it's my blog and it's hard enough to find things I can share about my teens without violating their privacy, so when I find something I can say, I say it. Even though I fully expect to hear, "Mom!" 

Introverts and Catholicism

Expect more to come -- at this point, I'm just getting started with some Google searches:

Catholic Church Introversion

And I just added this book, Introverts In the Church, to my wishlist.

Some Bloggish Housekeeping and Relevant Radio (Tomorrow Morning)

The bloggish housekeeping is the kind of housekeeping I do best, so here goes.

1. I finally added -- in the sidebar -- an option to easily subscribe to my posts via email. Why did this take me so long? Because I'm an idiot. I don't think of these things. When the 733rd person asks, it's time to think, "Huh. Maybe I should figure out how to do that." (I think it's always been available on the "Subscribe in a reader" page, but sometimes people like to find it upfront, page one, and since I don't post every day, the email link is a nice option.)

I also changed the RSS feed to take you to all possible options. It's about time. (See idiot remark above.) I think it used to be that way but then Blogger changed something on me. Yeah, that's it. I'll blame it on Blogger.

(Clearly I'm delusional about being a good blog housekeeper. If a blog were a home, I would now be pulling my 1980s blender out of the cupboard and saying to you, "Look! Isn't it nice and shiny? Think of all the things I'll be able to do with it! What did you say? What's a food processor?")

2. I talked about this awhile back, but here's the link to articles and tidbits that I share. This stuff is also in my sidebar.

~~~~~

Let's move away now from my horrifically embarrassing technical failures blog housekeeping to the radio:

Tomorrow morning, August 10th.
8:40 a.m. Central Daylight Time.
Relevant Radio.
Talking to Sean Herriott.
Always like talking to an old friend.

~~~~~

And now if you'll excuse me I have to defrost my avocado green refrigerator.*

~~~~~

*Ok, no, I'm not really that bad. 

Speaking of Friends Who Write, Lissa and Quinn Have Some Stuff to Say

Melissa Wiley's new one, 
Fox and Crow are Not Friends
is out today!


I no longer have a child who is stepping into reading (more like plowing down the bookshelves) but naturally we'll get it. Because no one is ever too old for any kind of book. Ever. And everything Lissa writes becomes a beloved favorite of ours.

And we're eagerly awaiting The Prairie Thief at the end of this month. It will be the first selection (thanks for your organizational prowess, Danae) in Ramona's book club this year. We had the delightful privilege of seeing some early drafts of it, so it will be great fun to compare to the final product.

~~~~~~~~~~

Someone I've never met but nevertheless connected with (because the internet is funny that way ... because I lurved her first book, Notes From the Underwire, which literally in this day of wantonly tossed virtual LoLs made me laugh out loud ... because she's an incredibly talented writer and blogger ... because she blogged about writing a book on homeschooling and I left her a comment ... because we then emailed a few times about how differently people can and do educate their children at home ... because the internet is funny that way ...) is Quinn Cummings.

She's on my mind today, too, because her new book also comes out today, and there are Lissa connections -- I remember telling Quinn something like, "If you find my homeschooling style even vaguely interesting, you really should interrogate Lissa because if I am vaguely interesting, she is vividly fascinating fun. As luck -- and, you know, because the internet is funny that way -- would have it, Lissa was in the middle of her Shakespeare stuff and she and Quinn met and Lissa ended up making a cameo in the book. So fun! Because the internet is helpful that way.

So, the book:

The Year of Learning Dangerously: Adventures in Homeschooling. *

I already know I'm gonna love it and that it will make me laugh and think and blog.  Because, y'know, Quinn is a Renaissance woman that way. 

~~~~~~~~~~

* If you have questions for Quinn, leave a comment on one of her blog posts. This one, for example, explains her Blog Book Tour and also expounds on one of the best analogies for homeschooling that I've ever read: "Live-directing the Olympics." Yes. 

Everything I Love About Jama

... is in this post.

Jama Rattigan is celebrating her blog's 5th birthday with a great post, some great lists* (oh, how I love lists!), some great giveaways that are all about Julia Child (whose 100th birthday is being celebrated all over the place), and some adorably amazing handmade jewelry.

Also? Jama actually includes me in her Author/illustrator Recipe Archive. I love anyone who sees me as someone who can actually blog about food. (Of course, the recipe I shared with Jama came from Atticus ... Shhhh ...)


You can enter Jama's contest by leaving a comment on her birthday post.  I'm off to do that right now.

~~~~~~

* Lists such as:

5 Things I Wish I’d Known at the Start
5 Stages in “Soup of the Day” Evolution
5 Best Things About Blogging
5 Highlights of 2012
♥ 5 Reasons to Love Alphabet Soup Readers ♥

(Oooh, I feel a Blog Post of Lists coming on....)

What I Will Be Missing When Atticus Goes Back to School

Here's the frittata he made the other night. I'm no foodographer -- I have a humble little camera -- but trust me, this was delicious.

Oh ... I'll miss the whole man, too, not just his cooking chops. Don't be silly. Of course I will. But, oh, how I'll miss having dinner cooked for me every night.

Poetry Friday: Sort of Like Going Fishing With Billy Collins

The poem is called "Fishing on the Susquehanna in July" and although it's August here (but it's August everywhere, isn't it?) it still feels like July, calendar divisions and page-turns being the arbitrary things that they are. Tis soupy and sultry, the days calling out for iced drinks and air conditioning and sprinklers and flopping on furniture while whining about the weather.

Seems the quintessential time to try to "manufacture the sensation of fishing on the Susquehanna" with beloved Billy Collins, while sitting in a cool, quiet room.

Fishing on the Susquehanna in July
by Billy Collins

I have never been fishing on the Susquehanna
or on any river for that matter
to be perfectly honest.

Not in July or any month
have I had the pleasure--if it is a pleasure--
of fishing on the Susquehanna.

I am more likely to be found
in a quiet room like this one--


(Read the rest of the poem here, at Poets.org.)

~~~~~

The round up this week is at On the Way to Somewhere.

"I do not know which to prefer ..."

The beauty of blogging, or the absence of it.

Sorry.

I'm in a "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" sort of mood.

I've been AWOL from the blog again.

This time we were melting in Oklahoma with my sister and brother-in-law. (It's 112 degrees there today. I miss you, dear sister, but I'm happy to be home.)

I'll get back to blogging in a day or two.  In the meantime, here's the next book on the summer reading list:

Tamar Adler's An Everlasting Meal: 

Thanks to promptings from my friend, Danae, and Lesley at Wisteria and Sunshine, I picked it up. It's exquisite. I tried to describe it succinctly to my sister, but could say only, "She has a graceful relationship with food ... do you know what I mean?"

If you don't, you must read.

A touching review of After Miscarriage

Therese Heckenkamp posted a review on her blog -- find it here.