The Secret Diary of Elisabeth Leseur - Book 52

I started reading this book last January I think! I read the first third fairly quickly, then I started using it as a morning mediation for a few months and would only read an entry or even just a few lines at a time. Then I dropped it altogether, but decided I'd pick it up again during Advent and I'd make it my last book for the Read 52 in 52 challenge.

This book, to me, is right up there with St. Francis de Sales' Introduction to the Devout Life in terms of practical, profound spiritual advice. It is so deep and so beautiful and has so many powerful quotes and words of inspiration that it almost overwhelms me.

Elisabeth Leseur was a French woman who lived in the later part of the 19th century and around the turn of the 20th century. She married a man she loved deeply, who was however an avowed atheist. Under his influence she gave up her perhaps lukewarm Catholic faith, but somehow, something happened that made her go back to Catholicism. She became extremely devout and very, very wise because she had to deal with the fact that her beloved did not share in her faith and she also had to constantly move in circles that rejected what she held so dear. But these were refining fires for her soul, for she keep a secret diary, one her husband only discovered after her death. Her sufferings, her thoughts, her wisdom, her strength, her insights and her profound love for God and all his children, had such a powerful effect on her husband that he converted and wound up becoming a priest! And you can see why her writing would have such an impact, especially on someone who was so in love with her and yet realized after it was too late, that he didn't really know her well, through his own blindness!

This book is really a collection of a couple different journals as well as other writings, prayers, letters, etc. So some of it is repetitive. You can see where she is struggling over a period of time with certain issues because she'll write about them and how she plans to address them over and over again. This is one reason why to me it served better as a book to meditate on slowly rather than a cover to cover read. Also, her wisdom struck me as so profound that after reading a bit, I kind of had to get up and pace around the room for a few minutes letting her words percolate.

I found this book to be like a gift from God. I think it bears frequent rereading. One could never plumb the depths of its wisdom. Like the Introduction to the Devout Life, it is a wonderful thing to read when feeling discouraged or depressed. Immediately the grandeur of the life of the soul and the mind-blowing mystery of God elevates you!

At the end of the book, Leseur wrote a treatise, or really words of advice to her nephew which I plan to read to Sean in preparation for Confirmation. They are profound words of wisdom for a young man coming of age. She did the same thing for her niece.

Elisabeth Leseur is currently a Servant of God in her cause for canonization. Pray to her! She should be the patron saint of those who are surrounded by non-believers.

For the final week of 52 Books in 52 Weeks reviews for 2011 go here

Unschooling and Me

Or really I should title this informal learning vs. formal learning. Those words to me are more accurate. You are going to learn either way because people are always learning without even realizing it. You might be learning bad habits, bad thoughts, prejudice, etc. but even then you're learning! Or you might be learning good habits, broadening, ennobling critical thinking, and wonderful skills that will expand your world and your opportunities in it. But, either way, humans are always learning.

So really the difference is whether you learn mainly through natural, interest-led means or through formal, externally imposed means. My problem has always been that quite naturally I and my kids seems to move from one end of the spectrum to the other. We go through phases where we look more like typical unschoolers and then we go through phases were we look more like typical classical homeschoolers. But usually we are a hybrid of the two. Right now, since I've started this particular blog, entitled Strewing, we've been moving steadily from looking unschoolish to looking more formal. And it has been a natural progression.

Becky: Becky likes classes and she likes groups. She loved it when we were in a co-op a couple years ago, that, alas, collapsed. I'd been looking for a suitable replacement ever since and stumbled on Aquinas Learning which meshes very wonderfully with my ideas on classical education. So we became involved in that and that in consquence made us more formal. We still are pretty loose compared to many. A few days a week she does some cursive copy work, reads in her Life of Fred math books, and we work on the worksheets that come with Aquinas Learning. We've dropped IEW because she's no longer in a class that works on that. Instead she's a helper for the K-3 class. That's actually working out very well for us!

Sean: Sean is a character! He resists the very things he needs. He was so balky about everything for a couple of years that I let him give up anything except 4H. So he had no structure except I required copy work and we also did a bit of Latin and a bit of Math, by bit, I mean really little! And he floundered terribly. He couldn't take all that freedom. He became a most unhappy child. We hired a math tutor. He complained bitterly. But once he got over that hump, he's on a more even keel again emotionally and he has become very conscientious about doing his math! We got him an art tutor and he looks forward to Wednesdays now. He's been saying he wants to go to school. Then on other days he gets cold feet about it. But his dad and I both think he should try it for a year. We both think his temperament needs the structure that we, and I especially, can't seem to really give him. Plus he's a talker. He needs to bounce ideas off of others to think clearly. I think being in a classroom that encourages interaction with a teacher and discussion with other kids will be really satisfying for him.

Of course, he'll have to deal with nuisances like dress codes and homework, LOL! And I think him adjusting to a school day will be a total bear for the first couple of months. However, once we are over that hurdle, I'm really thinking things will go smoother. Unless there is a lot of emotional conflict with the other boys. That could sink things. However, we can always pull him out or bring him home for high school. It is not like we've not done the high school thing before. We are getting to be veterans!

Josh - he's been more formal in high school anyway, just because of all these wonderful classes that get offered around here in the homeschool world of high school. And also because he says he wants to go to college.

I must admit I'm going through a period where I'm hesitating again to identify with unschoolers just because we are in a different place right now.

But so be it. I hate labels anyway. They are so simplistic and ultimately unfair!

Little Bit of This, Little Bit of That!

Things we've done over Christmas break:

Napped a lot

Really messed up our bedtimes. I think everybody's been going to bed after midnight pretty much!

Tried out our new toys. I've been using my new French Press and yesterday I made duck broth with my new slow cooker. Still haven't tried the bread machine!

Eaten lunch out a lot.

Said so long to Hannah who headed back to UD on Tuesday.

Finished celebrating Chanukah. (Except not quite because in laws are coming over for New Years and we'll have extended celebration then).

Seano had a sleepover party for his 13th birthday.

Went out to lunch with my sisters day after Christmas.

Then, yesterday one sister and my aunt and myself went to lunch at an assisted living place that my aunt is interested in. It looked very promising. She's thinking of making a decision no later than end of February. So that's a biggie!

Tried to make Sean and Josh work on school stuff - Sean has math homework for tutor who comes on 1/3 and Josh has lots of Shakespeare homework to do for 1/6. Lots of it! So far I haven't been hugely successful.

Started reading A Tale of Two Cities to the family. Couldn't wait for New Years Day!

Today my plan is to 1) clean up my mud/laundry room, 2)get a ton of recycling to the recycling center, 3)tidy up living room which is still blanketed in gifts and wrapping paper, 4)take a walk with my kids, 4)get some of that schoolwork done as well as some reading and 5)figure out something to eat for dinner!

Strewsday Tuesday - post Christmas 2011 edition!

Lots of strewing going on in the shape of Christmas gifts. However, the one I'll mention here is the game Hannah gave Josh and that Rick, Hannah, Sean and Becky and I sat down to play (I think Will and Josh were taking their siestas at the time.)

It's a fun game called Chronology. Check it out!

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Gifts!

At the risk of sounding very materialistic, I thought I'd talk about what a great Christmas we had, present-wise. This was because everybody told everybody else what they wanted! And it worked! The kids even went shopping together at Tuesday Morning and picked out what they'd give each other on Christmas morning.

For example, Hannah's been doing a lot of cooking now she's living in an apartment. She discovered she really used a lot of oil and vinegar. So when she spotted a really cute cruet set, she informed Josh that was what she'd really want for Christmas. He got it and she loves it!

So it was really kinda of sweet to see the kids all taking care of each other like that.

Josh said he didn't know what he wanted, so Sean bought him a lampshade which he wore all yesterday morning.

One of the best gifts was Will's to Sean. Sean is an expert on game design, especially, and I thought peculiar to Sean, on the development and design of the game controllers. He can tell you what year each design came out and what the change was and what company, etc. Well, Will got him a fabulous poster called the Periodic Table of Game Controllers. Yes! A poster listing all that information with photos of each controller. Sean proudly hung it above his bed!

Will got a new guitar which he spent most of yesterday playing. I love having a musician in the house!

Hannah got some new dresses from a vintage on line shop.

Becky got some new roller blades. She spent most of yesterday roller blading around the house (we've got mostly wooden floors) which drives the dog batty for some reason.

Poor Josh wasn't feeling well. He's got a sore throat and can barely talk. He said something funny. I asked how his throat was feeling and he said, "Not good. Don't expect me to talk as much." Then he waited a beat and said, "not that I talk much anyway." So he was even quieter than he usually is! I think he spent most of yesterday playing a new videogame.

Rick gave me lots of cooking stuff which is what I asked for. And I gave him new dresser, which is what he asked for.

So personally, I think having to keep every present a surprise is overrated. We really seem to appreciate getting what we really want or need. And it made for a very satisfying Christmas morning!

Merry Christmas!

Future Reads - 2012

I'm loosely planning what I'd like to read in 2012. Who knows if I'll stick with it but it is fun to plan!

First of all books I started in 2011 and didn't finish:

Founding Fathers
The Evidential Power of Beauty
Healing the Unaffirmed

Books by C.S. Lewis I want to read:

The Problem of Pain
The Abolition of Man (already have this on my Kindle)

Books about Spain:

See this post.

Classics:

Moby Dick (I want to get the new Ignatius edition)
Don Quixote (this overlaps with my Spain list)
Henry V - reading this with Sean and Will this January
The Screwtape Letters - overlaps with other Lewis books, but I'll be reading it with Sean)

Religious:
Apologia Pro Vita Sua
Mark Shea's trilogy about Mary (I've been wanting to read this for a while now. I'm planning for it to be my Lenten read)
Between Heaven and Mirth - I got this book for my aunt for Christmas, but I want to read it too!

I also have decided to do some reading based in countries I'm not really familiar with:

Tracy Kidder's Strength in What Remains - about an immigrant from Burundi who makes good in the U.S. I bought this book on sale a while ago and have never gotten around to reading it.

Opium Nation - about Afghanistan - saw this in the bookstore and almost bought it. Looks very interesting.

I also want to read Congressman Frank Wolf's new book on global human rights issues. He's a congressman from VA and every term he quietly gets reelected. He is a decent guy, who is humble and listens to his constituents and everybody, including Dems, like him, even though he's a Republican and 100% against abortion. I've actually met him twice. So I'm really eager to read his book.

I also want to read a book I bought Rick for Christmas - its' about Pixar and how it manages (so far anyway) to produce quality stories of depth in today's crass media market. I think I saw it mentioned on The Imaginative Conservative blog. However, I can't remember the title and it is hidden away under my side of the bed, to be wrapped later today!

Family Read Aloud (and rejects!):

It looks like I'll be reading A Tale of Two Cities aloud. Think I'll start on January 1st.

I tried reading Tom Brown's School Days out loud but nobody got into it. The language is more antiquated than Dickens. However, I want to read it! So I'll just read it to myself.

Another book that got nixed as a read aloud is The Man Without A Country. I'm planning to read that as well, as I already downloaded it to my Kindle.

Keeping House - Chapters Four and Five

I'm a little late in writing about this. Both Chapters 4 and 5 kind of ran together for me. They both have Clothing as their theme and since I am reading this on my Kindle, I seem to ignore chapter divisions for some reason. I have a hard time figuring out where I am in the book and it is hard to keep flipping back to see what I've read.

This book is becoming a little difficult for me to read. It truly is serving as an examination of conscious, which as you may know, are very useful things but not particularly pleasant to read! Going through the list that Peterson has about what clothing means to us, and she does lay out every little nuance, just makes guilt begin to mount in my heart! I have a double-edged and seemingly contradictory relationship with clothing. I always seem to have too much of it, yet I don't take care of it well at all, so I don't appreciate it, but I seldom like what I have. I think I am a very poor shopper because I have no patience shopping for clothes. I can feel the impatience start when I am entering the store. I start thumbing through clothes on the racks and all sorts of thoughts crowd my head. How I hate the fashion industry that tries to dress us in such ignoble ways. I hate the idea that the clothes are made in China or some such place where human rights are violated. I hate the big name companies that exploit everyone in the name of materialism. I hate the awful music blaring over the speakers. I hate the videos playing on TV screens either with advertisements trying to brainwash me or my children into wanting more, more, MORE! Or showing some horrible video that is full of contorting over-sexualized dancers doing almost pornographic things in full view of me and my kids.

In order to avoid this as much as possible, I tend to order things on line. I like Lands End. Except that my youngest two kids are weird sizes. My son is chubby and my daughter is petite for her age. So lately, whenever I order, the things that arrive often don't fit well. Also, what might look nice in the catalog turns out not to be comfortable for my overly sensitive children. So often half the clothes ordered are rejected or wind up not getting worn. If I were a conscientious person, I'd immediately ship them back. All that money! But instead they get pushed into a corner, into a 'to do' pile that never gets done. Eventually, they are given away to my church. Later the kids complain they don't have enough shirts or whatever. But because I've already gone through this ordeal so fraught with emotional hang ups on my part, I feel like I've already done my work. So I shut them out and they make do. Then I wonder why my kids don't look as nice as other kids do. Going to church is awful. I used to try to make sure the kids had clean polo shirts and nice looking khaki slacks to wear, and the girls had nice dresses. Now my standard is no t-shirts with slogans and no pants with holes in them. Except I stop dictating even this when they get to be about 16 years old. I'm just delighted they still want to go to church!

Lately though I've discovered I'm better at shopping if I do things a little differently:

I've been buying vintage clothing from Etsy type companies. I like buying things from these little mom and pop internet places. I also like the way they are very detailed about what will fit you. I've mostly been buying these things for my oldest daughter as gifts, because she is into vintage. She has a perfect 1940-1950's shaped body, meaning she's curvaceous. Those older styled clothes fit her beautifully. And she loves the look. Vintage is very in at UD, so she's lucky.

I also really like shopping at second hand stores. I go to one in particular about once a year. I do this mostly for my youngest daughter. You can buy really nice, modest clothing, not too pricey, either. I'd like to do more of that kind of shopping.

I also noticed that when I go to places like Marshall's I have a better time. I feel like I'm getting a bargain and because the clothes are all cast offs but brand names, it is like a hunt to find something good. But when you do, you feel you've really scored! And the clothing is better quality.

But really, I don't shop that often. Perhaps two or three times a year.

Clothing is also a problem for me in particular because I have gained weight and I don't like how I look. In fact, I try not to look at myself. I used to take care with how I dressed but at some point I gave up and became frumpy. And I've been frumpy for a while. This is mightily discouraging. Recently, I've been trying to dress a little better because I've been teaching at Aquinas Learning. I bought a couple of nice shirts that people complimented me on (I got them from Target!). The other day I was eating pasta and splattered sauce all over the front of one and I swear I almost started crying! No! I said to myself, this is one of my good shirts! The spots mostly came out, but I can still see a tiny one or two. Now that shirt won't ever be a 'good' shirt in my mind again.

So this whole book is proving to show me just how emotionally charged, petty, and insecure I really am! All this stuff, for some reason, is just fraught with little emotional irritations that are like little bombs going off in my mind. So most of the time, I just push things aside and don't think about them too much.

I'm terrible with laundry. I do manage to most of the time get every day clothing washed weekly. However, my oldest kids all learned to do their own laundry at an early age. This was because when I had Becky 10 years ago, my husband came across me in the laundry room with tears streaming down my face. I had a new baby, and as with all new babies, I had lots of laundry to do. Not just baby clothes but my own clothes that were continually getting spit up on or pooped or peed on or my milk would leak, etc. So I was actually depressed and literally sobbing over laundry. My husband took one look, called the older kids to the room and immediately instructed them on how to do their own laundry. Isn't he a good man? Ever since they've done that. Also at the time I had three bed wetters. So I was constantly washing sheets. On top of that I had a crazy cat who regressed from being litter box trained. What would happen is that I would bring a load of laundry out of the dryer and put it on a certain chair in the family room, thinking I'd take it up to my bedroom and sort (I always sort on my big bed). But I'd get distracted or what not and the clothing would be sitting in a pile there. And the cat would decide it was a perfect litter box. It was HORRIBLE! Laundry was a nightmare!

Now it isn't so much anymore. I managed to get through it and we all survived, LOL! Sean and Becky don't do their own laundry though. Josh just does both his and Sean's because they use the same hamper. And Becky is my youngest and if I can't do one child's laundry after all this time, then I'm pretty pathetic. I could go on and on about my poor laundrying skills but this post is already too long.

Suffice it to say that things like ironing and mending don't even enter the picture. And folding? What's that? The other day, my aunt's care taker folded the clothes that had been left in the dryer (my husband's) so she could put my aunt's clothes in. Everything was so beautifully tidy and folded. I put them into Rick's dresser. When he opened up his drawer he was shocked! Thank you, honey! he said. I had to disabuse him of the notion that I had actually folded. Which was a little sad. His mom was very neat and I bet he grew up with nicely folded clothes in his drawers. He might miss that. Sigh.

Anyway, lest you think I'm too gloomy about all this, I do go through phrases where I suddenly have the will and desire to change. Often the changes don't take too well, but sometimes they do! And so for me hope really does spring eternal. I have a feeling on my death bed I'll still be trying to be more organized about things! So for the new year, I am hoping to establish better routines.

For more discussion go here.

New Habits for 2012

Still thinking about turning over a new leaf for the new year!

Health

1) Drink more water - if I drink more I'll be hydrated, this will keep me from overeating (which I do when I'm tired). I'll have more energy and be less creaky in my joints if I stay well hydrated.

2) Eat a salad every day. Gotta buy those big Earthbound Farm containers of lettuces and eat through one every week. I know the containers are made of plastic! But, the company is a very good and conscientious one, using recycled bottles for their packaging and all the packaging is recyclable as well. If I have to make a concession about plastic this would be one of companies I'd like to support.

3) Eat more fruits and veggies.

4) Limit bread - and then limit that to mostly bread that is whole wheat. I think when I'm making my own bread for the most part, this will happen naturally.

5) Make sure helpings of carbs and meat are moderate.

6) Drink homemade bone broth every day - make soup every week. I want to become good at making soup! Like the soup Nazi without the unpleasant attitude! LOL!

6) Desserts only on Sundays.

7) Take vitamins and fish oil every day (why am I so inconsistent with this?)

8) Exercise/move/walk/get outside for some meaningful amount of time as much as possible. Once a week at least, I'd like to go on a walk with the kids, to a park or on the bike path, if the weather allows. A different place a week. We can explore.

9) Get kids involved in this without lecturing about it. If I get excited about cooking, they may as well. I want to have them cook alongside me. I have to make note of everything they like. It is all a process that takes time. I need to not get discouraged if they balk at first. Also, I need to somehow get Rick more on board with all this. Must be subtle in my presentation and make food as delicious as possible! Discouragement is my enemy; perseverance is my friend!

Household systems

1) Must get back to my checklist approach which worked! Certain things I do every a.m. and every p.m. help keep the household running smoothly:

A.M.
unload dishwasher (Mom)
laundry (Mom or kids, depending on whose day it is)
10 minute hot spot (Mom)
kitchen clean up before lunch (Mom)

P.M.
Move laundry/put away (Mom or kids)
sort mail (Mom)
evening tidy up (all)
Kitchen clean up before dinner (Mom)
prep dinner (Mom and kids)
set table (kids)
Clean kitchen (all)

2) Make bread in machine while cooking dinner

3) Make bone broth in slow cooker a la Nourishing Gourmet

4) Daily checklists for kids posted on side of fridge.

_____ Prayer (a.m. with kids; night prayers; decade of rosary when getting in the car)

_____ Studies (for Sean - adding in formal composition/grammar to copywork, Lit., math, Latin, read alouds - this is to prep him for school next year. Josh-study for SAT as well as driver's ed, Latin, Pre-Calc, Shakespeare, Chemistry and he'll also be taking an on line composition course starting in January. Becky-continue with Aquinas Learning, copy work, Life of Fred + ten days to multiplication mastery, read alouds.)

_____ Family responsibilities (chores, helping out)

_____ Hygiene

_____ Exercise (walks, runs, Wii Fit, elliptical, ping pong, gym class, jumping rope, work outs)

_____ Meal planning/groceries (each weekend, clean out fridge and shop)

_____ Read alouds in a.m. and p.m. and set time every afternoon for quiet reading.

_____ Be aware of how much time kids are on screen

_____ Connect with kids each day; chatting, working together, reading aloud, walking, etc. Be truly present to them.

5) I also need a set time to work on Aquinas Learning prep. Now I basically run to get supplies on Tuesdays after I drop Becky off at Art and before I pick up Josh from Chem. Then Wednesday night I usually focus on printing out things and making sure everything is together. I'll be helping to teach art this coming year, so I need to plan for that. I'll try to find some time during the weekend to focus on that.

6) Sean is going to work on cheesemaking as his 4H project. Josh is going to learn carpentry from Rick and build something; a real piece of furniture. The little bookcase in the boys room is inadequate. I'll suggest he build a bigger one.

Strewsday Tuesday - 12/20/11

Well, we've decorated for Christmas. And tonight is the first night of Chanukah. We are ready for our potato latkes. And also tonight, William comes home! So we'll all be together again. Hannah got home last Thursday. Not much intentional strewing going on at the moment, but while tidying up and going through piles of stuff to make the house look nicer for decorating (it is not worth it to decorate a messy house!) I rediscovered this book. It is now sitting on the coffee table and every one who sits down there thumbs through it usually making comments. Last evening Becky and Sean sat and looked through it for a good long while. So check out Hungry Planet! It provides a good perspective, especially in this Christmas season, which magnifies the contrast between being charitable to those who don't have much vs. the crass commercialism and present-fest the Feast of the Nativity of our Lord has become.

Got any good strewing stories to tell?

The Return of the Twelves - Book 51

This is a book that should rightly be considered a children's classic. Maybe it is in England but I think it is pretty obscure over here. The Return of the Twelves by Pauline Clarke was first published in 1962. It is the story of Max, a boy of eight, who upon moving into a old farmhouse with his family, discovers some antique wooden soldiers under the floorboard in his attic. They turn out to be the very soldiers the Bronte children, Branwell, Ann, Emily and Charlotte played with. The young Brontes used these soldiers to create and write about a complex imaginary world. Their very creativity made the soldiers real. Max is absolutely charmed by the wonderful characters of his Twelve soldiers, especially Butter Crashey the patriarch, as well as Stumpy, Gravey, Sneakey and all the other Young Men (as the Brontes called them). Peril begins as word of the discovery leaks out into the village and eventually the world. Everyone wants to discover the famous toys of the Bronte siblings, especially when there is a 5000 pound reward for them.

The writing in this book is lovely. The characters of the Twelves as well as Max, his sister Jane, his brother Philip, Mr. and Mrs. Morley and others are clearly and effortlessly drawn. The action of the book moves swiftly, tension mounts, but the children's clever resourcefulness as well as that of the wonderful Young Men brings everything to a satisfying conclusion. And in the midst of all this the family discusses if God exists and why there is pain in the world! It is really an intelligent and marvelous story. If you are a brontyfan, you will especially enjoy it.

For more book reviews go to Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks.

A Journey to the Center of the Earth - Book 50

This book is the classic written by Jules Verne. I read it with my 12 year old son over the course of couple of months. We each read it on our own. He was always ahead of me, but since last week, I pulled ahead in our little race and won! Because I'm motivated by this 52 Books in 52 Weeks thing! And the year is ending soon!

Anyway, I can see why young boys would find this adventure/fantasy exciting, one incredible thing happens after another. So the book was interesting in that I wanted to know what would be the next incredible thing that Verne had cooked up as the book goes along, but the key word there is in incredible. I mean that literally as in unbelievable. I found the whole premise of the book so lacking in anything realistic, that alas, I had no respect for the story line at all. I wondered, while reading it, if Verne had ever in his life actually been in a cave or a mine, because under the earth there seems to be no poisonous gases ever! Very conveniently, for 99% of the journey there were these sources of light that again had no basis in reality. They had lamps that lasted forever and then this weird electrical phenomenon that allowed for so much light they didn't need lamps anymore.

One weird thing that I noticed about my translation of this book is that the main characters names are different from other translations. In other books the main character is named Axel and his uncle has a different name too, but in this version, Harry is the name of the main character. A young man who loves geology, who has been cared for and lives with his uncle, famous Professor Hardwigg. Hardwigg is an eccentric, mercurial man absolutely obsessed with getting to the center of the earth in the footsteps of a almost mythical alchemist who went before him 300 years ago. Along with them is their superhumanly stoic guide, Hans.

The threesome experience many hair-raising adventures. Much geological language is thrown around. I know this book was written before we knew much about the earth, but some things are just so laughable, for instance getting spewed out of a volcano that is burning hot, yet not sustaining any injuries. Their little makeshift rafts spends hours floating on boiling water, yet never burns up. Just that sort of thing that makes no sense. Verne makes up for the lack of logic by getting the reader carried away with all the exciting, frightening scenarios.

While my son and I read this very slowly (because he doesn't really enjoy this sort of reading; he enjoys comics books and nonfiction more!) he enjoyed it more than I did. He was so taken by Verne that he talked his father into reading out loud to him another Verne book, From the Earth to the Moon. They are really enjoying it. It is set in Baltimore (!) right after the Civil War and they are very amused by Verne's take on American culture.

I read three classic boys novels in the last few months, Treasure Island, The Hobbit and this one. I have to admit I enjoyed this one the least.

Spain

Hannah is planning to go to Spain to study Spanish this summer.  It may be that Will and Josh will also attend.  Now we all may go to visit Spain this summer.  So, of course, being the homeschooling mother that I am, I immediately start thinking resources and literature!

Getting Starting with Spanish and Spanish Made Simple - just to give the kids who haven't studied Spanish (Will and Josh) some background in the language.

Literature:

Shadow of the Bull (lovely book by a lovely author)
I Juan de Pareja (one of my favorite books ever!)
El Cid (studied this in high school)
Don Quixote (a classic I've never tackled)
Tales of the Alhambra (read aloud?)
Asterix in Spain (fun!)
Ferndinand the Bull (of course!)
Iberia by James Michener (have never gotten through one of his books!)
Monsignor Quixote by Graham Greene (love him and I haven't read this one yet!)
The White Company (by Conan Doyle set in the Middle Ages)
The Spanish Bride (Georgette Heyer; during Napoleonic wars)
Driving Over Lemons (somebody's memoir that got good reviews)
As I walked Out on a Midsummer Morning (Laurie Lee)
Winter in Madrid (another book that good high reviews)
The Basque History of the World (by the same guy who wrote Salt!)
Characters of the Inquisition by Walsh (for a Catholic point of view)

I looked at histories of Spain at the Baldwin Project but I don't trust them. They are all told from the British point of view and get quite racist/Anti-Catholic. Too bad.

You'll note I am purposely avoiding Hemingway. I read almost everything by Hemingway in high school. A few years ago I went back to read him and just couldn't. I'll suggest some of his books to the older kids just for cultural literacy but . . . .he is not an author who ages well I find. He's very much an author of his particular age who doesn't seem to transcend it, not like Fitzgerald for instance.

I noticed when researching all this that many books are set during the Spanish Civil War. That really was a huge change for Spain with repercussions still rippling out.

I also want to focus on Spanish saints. I know I've touched on St. Ignatius of Loyola and St. Francis Xavier, but how long ago and with which children??? So it might be good to go back and learn about them again. I'd also like to study a bit about St. Dominic, St Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross. Also, St. Josemaria Escriva, whom I know little about.

I am also very put out that The Way no longer seems to be in theaters. It only came out in October! Gone already! And it got good reviews! I think because it has religious (and Catholic at that!) overtones, it wasn't as popular as it could have been. Well, it comes to DVD in February so we'll wait to watch it. I've done a little research on the Camino de Santiago Compostela which is very interesting. Apparently, there was a BBC documentary that came out in the late 90's about it which was very respectful and well done. Also, a couple years ago I caught a travel documentary hosted by some American chef and Gwyneth Paltrow, of all people, and it was fascinating! Made me want to go to Spain! Rick Steve's would be another resource to check out. I love his show and his love of history and sheer enjoyment of travel.

More Soul Searching

Still thinking about how I want to change for the better here, as both Christmas and the New Year approaches. One thing I'm thinking is to take my own advice, which I wrote out in my page, Fundamentals of Homeschooling. The three words that keep swimming to the front of my thoughts are: Pray, model, bond. That is what I need to keep front and center as I move through my days of mothering! I need to pray more, in both quantity and quality! I need to focus on modeling responsible and right behavior. That means, I fear, less time on the computer. When I see Josh having so much trouble, I realize that I often am too preoccupied with the computer myself, as is his father often! Not good role models there! So as a family we all need to reform there. And me first of all! I also need to be more conscientious about creating a comfortable and better run home which supports us all in establishing and maintaining good habits. So I want to wrestle with that monster again! I seem always to be in a state of drift; a constant drift away from wholesome, focused intent, to self-indulgent disdain for the responsibilities that don't appeal to me. For instance, now that Sean is working so hard at math, he needs me to sit by him and keep his attention on it. Though, wonderfully, even though he often complains bitterly, he is sticking with it, even when I am not there with him. Yesterday I had to go pick Hannah up from the airport, which wound up taking a very long time. The whole time I was gone I was worried about Sean and Josh. They'd gotten home from attending a Shakespeare play downtown (which they both enjoyed) and I was afraid they'd just collapse into their habits of sitting in front a screen even though they both had things looming on their immediate horizon. For Sean it was getting math homework done for his tutor; for Josh, he's got a big Chemistry exam as well as a Shakespeare test today (Friday). When I got home though, Sean proudly announced that he was doing his math homework. He'd only managed to do 4 problems and was fooling around a lot instead of really buckling down, but he had started it all on his own without being reminded. I did sit with him and it took a while but he got the amount done that he wanted to get done. So . . . victory! (Josh, I think, studied for Chemistry). Anyway, I went off on a bit of a tangent there, but my point is that I've decided that in addition to modeling responsible computer use, I need to be more conscientious about being present to the kids. And these tie into each other. For instance, I should really being there mentally when Sean is working on math, but a lot of times I'm on my laptop surfing the web, then I get involved in some blog or news report and am not really paying attention. So I'm there bodily but not mentally.

I really do resolve the same things over and over again. Sigh. That's the drift again. I start out with good intentions and then imperceptibly to me or because I've hit some bump or have become overwhelmed by some little situation, I give up and give in to the drift.

So I think my goal this coming New Year is self-control. My focus: to pray, to model, to bond. And you can't bond without being fully present to the other you are bonding with!

Thinking About New Year's Resolutions

Yep. already starting to think about these. I know my resolutions are pretty much the same every year. And in fact I make resolutions all year long at various points. But in the chaos of this pre-Christmas time, I'm looking forward to things calming down a bit. I think I just have three major focuses for January:

Cooking habits - getting into making my own bread, making soup weekly, making cheese with Seano.

Activity habits - We seem to be naturally moving into restricting computer time to 3 hours a day. That allows time for school work and some time for non-school work stuff. But the computer has really become a problem, especially for Josh. It's eating away motivation and time. So it has to be restricted. I've tried the gentler method of trying to woo my kids away from it with other fun stuff, but that is only hit or miss in results. Sooooo, we are going to get formal about this at least for the first 6 months of 2012. We'll see how that works. Josh acknowledges there's a problem so he alternatively thanks us/gets angry at us. When the kids don't have the computer to keep them busy, they'll need other things, so I'm hoping to encourage more reading, exploring hobbies and more exercise/outdoors.

Sleeping habits - I'm going to try to be consistent in getting everyone up at 8:00 a.m. I want to come up with an alternative to doing the breakfast thing. Sean and Becky are NOT hungry when they get up. They do not want to sit at the breakfast table. Added to this is that often we are interrupted by things going on with my aunt and her caretaker. Soooo, I'm thinking maybe the thing to do is to get them up and then have them all lie around my bed or bedroom while we pray and then I read aloud to them. Then everybody can go get dressed and come downstairs, eat breakfast, clear off the table and start on any academic endeavors for the day. Of course this is a bit different everyday. Monday and Wednesday are Latin days, so we have to leave at 10:00 (if they are coming with us, I've started to only make them come 1 day out of the two). Thursdays are Aquinas Days so they are different. Fridays are different too, because some Fridays, Josh has to go to Latin at 8:30. But we still could do this every morning, except Thursdays and those Fridays that Josh is here, if we get up at 8:00 consistently.

Strewsday Tuesday - 12/13/11

Two books both Becky and Sean have enjoyed and which have inspired a lot of fun and little projects are The Encyclopedia of Immaturity, Volumes I and II (subtitled How to Never Grow Up; The Complete Guide). I kind of hate the title. I think it is a vestige of the baby boomer attitude that somehow one stays young by being immature rather than just delighting in life! However, these books are very clever compendiums of all sorts of interesting tricks, riddles, activities, factoids. I'm looking at the first volume right now, it lists things like how to make a chewing gum wrapper chain, how to walk the dog (with a yo yo), how to make a paper dollar ring, how to do various magic tricks, how to juggle, etc.

What reminded me of these books is that last night Becky informed me of how many days she's been alive. This book has the formula for figuring it out. The girl who has declared she hates math figured out how many days since her birth for fun!

Some of the stuff is a little crass (cuz you know this is by Baby Boomers, the ones who think crass stuff is hysterical and has made sure potty humor is everywhere in anything for children), but in spite of that, the books are great. They provide lots of amusing, creative things to do but do not involve any form of computer or TV screen!

Plastic; A Toxic Love Story - Book 49

Plastic; A Toxic Love Story by Susan Freinkel is a highly readable, well researched book on modern America's love affair with plastic.  Freinkel manages to be pretty objective about plastic; she cites the many advantages and advances that plastic has helped us make, but she also tackles the complex issues surrounding all the plastic that literally surrounds us nowadays; how it is harmful to our health and harmful for our planet.

Freinkel cleverly approaches this very complicated topic by honing in on the history and problems surrounding seven common plastic items we use, probably without thinking, every day.  They are plastic chairs, combs, lighters, plastic grocery bags, IV bags, water bottles, and frisbees.  While discussing each particular item we learn about the history of its production, what type of plastic it is made from, how and where this item is manufactured, how it moves through our society and what impact it has on health and environment.  The stories are fascinating ones, but one that will truly alarm you!

I learned all sorts of interesting facts from this book.  For instance, did you know that Andrew Wyeth's brother, Nathaniel, invented the plastic soda bottle?  I didn't!  Did you know that the objection to the environmental impact of those ubiquitous plastic grocery bags depends on what environmental issue bothers you the most?  If it is the fact that plastic takes impossibly long to biodegrade and pollutes the oceans, harming and killing marine life, then plastic bags are the enemy.  If your environmental issue is global warming and air pollution then paper bags are the enemy!  Frienkel travels all over the world investigating the global production of plastic, from the East and West coasts of the U.S. to China and Europe.

The big impact this book had on me is realizing the utter wastefulness and disregard for both our children and the earth that lies in the convenience of single use plastic.  Most plastic doesn't get recycled right now.  It is a hugely complex and problematic issue.  So while the plastics industry has pushed plastic recycling as the answer, it has done little to control the problem of plastic pollution.  And very often that plastic you felt so virtuous about recycling doesn't really get recycled.  What has to change is our attitude towards convenience.  We, as consumers, have to be ready to refuse single use plastic.  Plastic that is used to make your car or your computer or your other long lived and useful machinery is one thing; the plastic is still a problem but the really frightening and immediate crisis is the mammoth level of garbage we turn out at a rate we can't keep up with.  We are burying the earth in plastic garbage like water bottles, shrink wrap, cigarette lighters, styrofoam take out boxes, and plastic bags.  The impact of this pollution is far reaching.

Freinkel gives many chilling examples, though she always tries to be objective.  She doesn't point fingers at the industry.  She explains their position and how these problems developed.  But. . . . she doesn't shrink from explaining moves the American Chemical Council has made to thwart environmental and health measures.  The whole thing is not only complicated on the business/economic level, but also politically.

Frienkel ends on a somewhat upbeat note, because at the end of the book she focuses on how the plastics industry is trying to cope with the problems they've created.  The green movement has helped bring these issues to the fore.  There is a growing movement by governments to hold the industry responsible for the whole life of their products.  They can't just produce something, sell it, and then never be held accountable for the frightening impact of its products.  The industry is trying to move to 'greener' solutions such as bio-based, instead of petro-based plastics.  This, again, is hugely complicated.  After much pressure, they are trying to get rid of poisonous chemical additives such as BHA (sprayed inside most canned foods as a sealant and proved to be a dangerous carcinogenic).  The whole issue of petro-based plastic leaching estrogen into our foods is a truly scary thing.  It affects, in a way scientists are finding to be far more profound than originally thought, the sexual development of our children.  I really and personally think, this exposure to plastic is one reason why sexuality is being called into question and there is this rising idea in the first world, that homosexuality, transsexuality, etc is normal.  I think it is very easy to be confused about one's gender and sexuality if one has been imbibing estrogen since in utero!  It literally disrupts the development of the brain!  It is very possible we, as a society, are changing the definition of marriage based on disorders caused by plastic estrogen poisoning.  I just find that surreal!

For me, I've vowed to:

1)  Try very hard to avoid single use plastic.  The first step is alway to bring your own grocery bags with you!  As much as possible avoid food that is packaged in plastic.  Yet this is almost impossible!  I figure it is better to take baby steps then do nothing at all.  So this shift is going to take a while, but slowly we are moving away from so much plastic.  You have to be very clever and resourceful.  I am starting to  make my own bread and I buy as many things as I can in glass jars instead of cans or that come in plastic packaging.  My New Year's resolution is to limit my garbage to one bag a week.  I hope to start composting and I have become much more vigilant about recycling, because even if only a little gets recycled, at least it is better than doing nothing.  See this list of ways you can change your habits to avoid plastic.  Some of these are little extreme, especially for families with children, but again, every little bit helps.

2)  Become an activist in fighting plastic pollution.  I've recently joined the Plastic Pollution Coalition.  Check it out!  It is a grassroots movement trying to influence public opinion and local and federal governments on plastics issues.  In order for the industry to turn around and really focus on making plastic that is both human health and environmentally friendly, we need to pressure them into it, because, otherwise as an industry, they are just going to focus on the bottom line of profit.  So it is up to us, the consumer, to get our heads out of the sand and be their conscience for them!

3)  Support companies that are trying to supply us with plastic free alternatives or encourage us to reuse plastic instead of throwing it away.

I highly, highly recommend this book!  For the love of our children and our planet (you know, the one God made us stewards over), I think everybody should read this book and become aware of just how damaging our self-absorbed consumption and convenience-oriented lifestyle is.  We need a clarion call to change for the better!

Keeping House - Chapter Three

I'm a little late on this!  I don't know where the week went!  As it is I am typing this in the wee hours of the morning because this is the only time I think I can carve out this weekend!  I feel so rattled most of the time with all my busyness.  It is hard to sit down and write something reflective.

Anyway, since I read this chapter last Sunday evening, I think I'll just respond to Willa's questions in her post.   Maybe this will help me stay on topic.

1)  Dream houses:

In many ways the house I live in is a sort of my dream house.  We renovated the kitchen and basement and we decorated it with the help of an interior decorator.  I always wanted to be able to do that!  I'm lacking in the decorating department.  And I have a big screen porch; something I've always wanted.  We have garage; something I never actually thought about but now that we have one, I find it invaluable.  One sad thing I've found, as I have moved closer to my house ideals as I've gotten older, is that nothing is ever perfect!  Things always need improvement and the things one dreams about in one's youth, may or may not be satisfactory once you get them.  It feels shameful to state that, like I'm very ungrateful.  There might be an element of that - lack of gratitude.  I think it is my own personal response to all the materialism and the focus on thinking that things like having a HGTV home brings actual happiness.  Not!

Even though there are many wonderful things about my house, there are many irritating things as well.  I guess familiarity breeds contempt.  For instance, after putting the screen porch, we enjoyed one glorious summer with it.  Then the bulldozers came and devastated the orchards behind our house.  They began to build mcmansions (the most pretentious one's I've ever seen!) behind our house.  Not only was the noise of construction off putting enough to make sitting on the screen porch unpleasant, but the red clay dust raised by it all, constantly coated everything, including the pretty porch furniture which became permantently stained by it.  I didn't think to run out and get covers for it until too late.  That annoyance lasted a good two years, then we got stinkbugs.  So even though I've got this lovely porch, it has been problematic.  Also screen porches are really another room to clean!  I hadn't realized that it takes effort to keep it up looking nicely. Why that wouldn't occur to me. . . well, I don't think along those lines very naturally.

Here's another example.  Even though my house is big I don't seem to be very good at figuring out how to store things in a practical way.  I've never found a good place to store thick comforters for instance.  I sheepishly admit they are stacked in my upstairs hall right now, on a box of stuff filled with. . . I don't know what.  I think when Hannah last cleaned her room (a year ago?) she took a big box and put a lot of cast off stuff in it that I don't quite know what to do with.  She pushed that big box out into the hallway where is has since become the place where the comforters are stored.  The comforters used to be on my closet floor but the cats would always sleep on them.  So when you'd go to use one for an especially cold night or when a guest was visiting, there'd be cat hair all over it.  That kind of thing stymies me for years. . .

This gets me to longing again for some expert help.  I dream that someone who has a gift for organization comes to my house and just gives me directives on how to handle all this sort of thing.  I'd love to just follow directions and not have to think about it!  I do think the idea of the dream house, and the habit I formed long ago of daydreaming about what the perfect house would be like, does make me discontent.  Right now, I am very discontent about where we are located because of the big ugly housing development.  Now, I dream I live on a farm.  I want to raise chickens but my property is too small.  This is completely unrealistic practically speaking, but that is my romantic daydream of country living.  So I am a malcontent!  It is actually good to realize this, so I can work on changing my attitude.

2)  The structure of a house:

The very two examples that Willa points out here from the book are exactly two issues I have with my house!  When we were renovating the kitchen/family room, we deliberately combined the two rooms.  When we moved in the kitchen was this awkward boxy room.  We took down the wall between the kitchen and family room hoping to create a sense of an old fashioned great kitchen.  I think we did a pretty good job BUT we do have the big screen TV on the wall.  I would not let it go above the fire place though.  I wanted a tradition mantle set up.  So we put the big TV on the wall opposite the sliding door to the screen porch.  My desk is right at the center of the kitchen family room combo.  This is good and bad.  This room really is the center of our home, but it means that I am working in the midst of lots of chaos and noise.  I get so I hate the noise and images pouring out of the TV when I'm trying to focus.  It is hard to blog unless I'm up early before anyone else (the case right now!) or if I want to order presents on line (the children seem to be uncanny in their ability to sense this!) or if I want to read a blog that might not be appropriate for a 10 year old girl (last night I was trying to read a blog about gay marriage and she came over and wanted to know what I was reading.  I just didn't want to have to address that quite yet!).  Sometimes I want to see a video someone has posted but I'm afraid that it will contain language inappropriate or will conflict with the noise from the TV.   For instance, I wanted to watch a clip from John Stewart's show yesterday and did so very furtively!    So there's a lack of privacy in my work space that annoys me.  At the same time, things are very conveniently placed because we do most of our academic stuff here at the kitchen table.

The other thing is our neighborhood.  We basically live on a cul de sac off a narrow, windy, very busy road.  That means that we can't get anywhere unless we drive.  I've never lived anywhere like this before.  I grew up in a small city where we could walk or take a bus to anywhere! It was very freeing, now that I look back on it.  When I lived on my own, I lived in Baltimore and again could walk or take a bus anywhere.  When we first married, we lived in Arlington, which is like a city.  From our apartment and then later our townhouse, I could walk to the grocery store, the library, the subway station, restaurants, a big shopping mall.  When we bought a house, we bought it in Vienna, very near the metro.  For ten years, Rick walked to the subway to get to work.  I had to drive to the grocery store, but we could walk to the public school (where Hannah attended Kindergarten and First grade), to the bike path, to a playground, to the pool in the summer, to a 7-11 and a MacDonalds, plus there were lots of kids in the neighborhood so we were always walking to playdates.  When we moved to this house, I was very pregnant with my 5th child.  Our other house was small and I simply couldn't figure out how to fit a new dresser for the new baby into our already overcrowded situation!  So we were looking for 3 things in a house:  1) another bedroom 2) easy access for Rick to drive to work (because now we were richer and could afford two cars) 3) a fireplace or a woodstove.  This current house met all three criteria, plus it had the gorgeous pond and orchards in the back yard.  It also was closer to all our homeschooling friends.  So we moved.  However, I really miss being able to get places without having to get into a car.  I think this is one thing I dislike about the suburbs.  I either want to be really out in country where I can enjoy privacy and nature and know that the price I have to pay is having to drive longer distances.  Or I'd like to be right in the thick of things, knowing the price I pay for easy access and convenience is giving up country life.  What I don't like about where I am now is that I neither have the privacy nor the easy access.  See?  I'm always dissatisfied!  Not good.  No wonder I am so begrudging about this housekeeping stuff!

3)  The size of our house:

We moved to get a bigger house for our growing family.  I like the size of our house.  With the two oldest gone off to college, it feels a bit empty.  However, I like that I can host exchange students pretty easily.  I like that I can have guests stay over night.  I like that when my aunt needed care, she could move into our house pretty easily.  I do wish the bedrooms were configured a little differently.  I'd rather have slightly smaller bedrooms so that we could have one more upstairs.  But really it is not much of a problem.

I'm running out of time.  I have to get breakfast and get my aunt up.  And then we have to bundle up warmly for Becky is marching in a Christmas parade today.  I'm dragging Sean along with me because I don't want him spending another morning idling time away.  We have to be at the parade grounds by 9:20 and the town is over 30 minutes away.  Hopefully, I'll be able to continue this at some point later today.

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Back again!  Had a great time at the parade, came home relaxed for a couple hours, did a little Christmas shopping and got Italian carry out for dinner.  Okay, back to this blog post!

4)  Beauty in the Home:

I think my house is pretty.  it is a big white colonial with big colonial windows.  It is set back from the street and has a pretty garden in front.  I like my brightly colored walls.  I like old fashioned, country and that's what I've got.  My interior decorator was great.  I told her what I liked and she was really intuitive about picking up on everything.  Basically, I wanted to recreate the atmosphere of the home I grew up in.  The color of my living walls is the same color my sister painted my parents living room walls.  I always dreamed that if I ever got a separate dining room, I'd decorate it like my mom decorated our dining room growing up because as a child I loved to read at the dining room table when the room as quiet and empty.  I loved the rose wallpaper and the pretty curtains.  So when we moved to this house, voila!  I had a separate dining room and that's exactly how I decorated it.  I like pretty things.  However, because I am such a clutterer that house very seldom looks its best.  Instead every surface becomes piles of debris.  That feels ungrateful too, because here I am blessed with something pretty but I don't take pains to keep it that way.  Boy, this book is acting like an examination of conscience for me!

5)  Space and How To Use It

I've already alluded to this, I think.  I don't use space well at all.  I am often quite flummoxed by how to be more efficient.  I truly seem to lack common sense in this area.  However, I am pleased with some things.  For one thing, one reason why I liked this house better than the others we looked at when we were shopping for a new home, was that it had a living room and dining room that could be closed off.  I am not a big fan of open floor plans.  I like being able to into a room and shut the door.  So we have french doors on our living room entrance and another french door between the kitchen and the dining room.  I also love our study, which is now Aunt Jackie's bedroom.  One whole wall is books shelves.  I love having a huge area for books!  It isn't even enough.  We have books in every room, but that is book central.

I'd like to get a closet organizer for our master bedroom closet.  Right now it just has a bar for clothes to hang on that runs around it perimeter and then a high shelf above that.  Right now I'm planning to move Rick's old dresser to the back of the closet and store out of season clothes there (maybe I could put the comforters on top of it!).  Rick has never liked his dresser.  It is a big hulking thing, bigger than he is (he's short!) and the top drawer broke a few years ago which annoyed him greatly but we never got it fixed.  So I got him a new dresser for Christmas (he asked for this!).  I don't really care if we ever get around to putting a door on the closet, it opens into a little dressing area anyway, not onto the main bedroom but I'd like the closet to look nicer and be more practical in in storage capacity.

I do wish my linen closet was bigger.  I don't know why they put such a tiny linen closet in this house.  My older, smaller house had a good sized linen closet.

6)  A Room of One's Own:

Well, I alluded to this earlier.  My two spaces where I can get some privacy are at this desk in the middle of kitchen, when no one's here, LOL, which is right now because everyone's gone down to the basement to probably play video games.  My other space is my bedroom. I love my bed.  It is so comfy.  I try to lie for at least 20 minutes every afternoon and I love, love, love getting into bed at night.  I read and play scrabble on my ipad (that's a recent thing) and sometimes listen to classical music on the radio.  That is the time I really relax.  My bed isn't all that private, my husband is there, but he's an extension of myself so he never bothers me.  And sometimes my youngest still sleeps in our room, though she sleeps on the floor at the foot of the bed, but I don't mind that either.  The other place I get privacy is the shower!  Lovely, that!

8)  Beware of Too Many Masterpieces:

Guilty!  On my mantle right now:  an old, old painting of the Virgin Mary on wood that hung on the living room wall in the house I grew up in, an old kerosene lamp that parents used when the lights went out, a candle my sister in law gave me, two little vases of flowers which are little bouquets Becky made left over from our Thanksgiving centerpiece, a crucifix made of air dried clay and a statue of Mary also made of the same clay.  These were created by Becky a few weeks ago, an old cross made of clay and then glazed that reads on it:  Do small things with great love.  That was Christmas present from Hannah many years ago.  An old Victorian mantle clock.  Then there's also car keys, a little wooden camel from the Holy Land (Granddad brought it back from his trip) and various other little sundry items.  Behind all this is an old picture of a very contented baby sitting in an old fashioned high chair.  It's a kind of famous painting from Williamsburg, VA.

Anyway, the point being is that I have way too many masterpieces but they all mean so much to me.  I am actually quite sentimental about things because they all carry memories for me.  Be warned!  If you give me something I will keep it forever.

I do feel overwhelmed by things and I am constantly either thinking about decluttering or actually decluttering.  For instance I just went through and got rid of a lot of plastic kitchen stuff that I didn't care for anymore.  I've turned against plastic!  I've got it all in a box in the garage waiting for me to take it somewhere.  I also went through all the closets the day after Thanksgiving and gave away a lot of clothing.  Bags and bags.  Yet it was just a surface sweep and I probably need to do it again about 3 times before I'm really where I should be.  One of my main housekeeping deficiencies is my lack of putting things in their right place.  I feel I've advanced in that I actually put bowls back in the same place.  When I first started housekeeping for myself, I'd put them any old place!  So I've progressed!

9)  Cleanliness and Godliness:

My kitchen sink is seldom clean.  It has perpetually got something soaking in sudsy water, or just dirty dishes piled up (as it does now!  It is calling to me!).  The only time it is really clean is when the cleaners who come every two weeks clean it.  So there!  I like things to be clean, I really do, but I don't notice messy stuff in my own house.  I'll notice it elsewhere, but in my home it just doesn't register at all to me, unless it becomes problematic.  Like I need to start cooking dinner but I can't because the sink is full of dirty dishes!  This sneaks up on me every day!  I'm not even kidding!  Or someone is coming over and I suddenly realize that the house looks absolutely trashed again!  Or I can't find library books because they've been shoved under someone's bed (along with old socks, wadded up tissues and dust bunnies).  I just don't notice things like that.  I'm better than I used to be.  But I'm still pretty bad compared to a lot of other folks.

10)  The Value of Space:

I guess I've addressed this already too.  I need to do several deep sweeps of decluttering.  My basement is such a mess right now, just filled with STUFF.  Old curriculum, sewing things, old arts and crafts, books, old toys that no one plays with anymore.  It really bothers me when I go down.  I have been avoiding it for two years now.  It got even messier when my aunt moved in.  Rick took a lot of stuff that was in the old study and just plopped it down in the basement.  And then he cleaned out the storage room and the stuff he didn't want there, well it's stacked in corners of the basement!

Okay, I've lost my train thought and I've been typing for too long and this post is way too long.  I actually need to go load the dishwasher right now!

Strewsday Tuesday - 12/6/11 - Feast of St. Nicholas

Happy St. Nick Day!  We never do anything special for St. Nick.  I just didn't grow up with that tradition and by the time I realized that other people put out shoes, etc, well, our December celebrations had already developed to the point that I couldn't handle much more.  We celebrate Hanukkah too.  However, when we first started homeschooling our support group had a St. Nick's Talent show.  It was great fun, but exhausting and added exponentially to the chaos building towards Christmas.  We moved the talent show to St. Joseph's day in March (it seemed like a less chaotic time and we wanted to emphasized St. Joseph since he often gets overlooked because of St. Patrick's Day).

Anyway, we had a wonderful 'strewing' thing happen over this past weekend.  Josh and Sean are in a 4H project group that is focused on building things that launch.  They made slingshots for the first project.  This past Sunday they had to show up with catapults they had built.   I thought Josh would get more into this sort of thing than Sean.  I'm always prepared for Sean to complain and reject things because for about 95% of stuff, that's what he is inclined to do!  Each boy approached their project differently:

Josh googled around and found this great website,  which is a treasure chest of great ideas for building different types of catapults.  Josh had been overwhelmed by his academics this past week.  He just didn't have the energy to work on another big something, so he picked the catapult design that involved craft sticks and masking tape.  He followed the directions exactly and built a very serviceable catapult, great at launching nuts from an old can of party mix he found in the kitchen.

Sean, though, got inspired.   I was amazed at how he took off!  He started thinking about building his catapult.  We had a couple of brief discussions about it.  He decided he needed something to launch with and wondered if he could use a wooden spoon from the kitchen.  So I gave him an old wooden spoon.  He stood in the kitchen holding the spoon and said with a great sense of purpose:  "This is what I'm going to build my catapult around!"

First he wanted to somehow drill through the handle of the wooden spoon but I told him that it would surely splinter.  So then he took his art pad (his art tutor gave him) and sat down and sketched out a design.  He would have a square wooden board.  He'd drill holes in it for the spoon and two dowels.  The spring would be rubber bands and the brilliant part of the design was that Sean would make a trap door of sorts so that the spoon could be lowered down, stretching the rubber bands and allowing the projectile to launch.

I was kinda doubtful.  But he took off.  He found a scrap piece of plywood in the garage, measured it and spent a long time sawing it.  It was the first time he'd ever sawed anything and he was very diligent about it and very proud of himself when he finished.  After that, he was a bit stymied.  He figured he really needed his dad's power tools for the rest, but Dad was taking a nap!  So he waited for Dad to wake up and then things took off!  Rick helped Sean saw a dowel in half and to the right heights; he showed Sean how to drill holes in the wooden base.  Rick drilled one and helped Sean drill the other two.  Then he showed Sean how to use his jigsaw and Sean, himself, cut the trap door for the spoon.  In order to make the trap door stay attached but drop completely, Rick found some hinges he'd bought a while ago and had laying around.  So Rick, with Sean's help, screwed in the hinges.

It worked beautifully!  Great shouts of triumph issued from the kitchen (I was upstairs trying to take my own nap!).  I came down to everyone laughing heartily as Sean launched grape after grape with his little machine.  There was a little glitch.  As Sean was demonstrating for me especially, his wooden spoon broke.  This precipitated a trip to the grocery store to get more wooden spoons.  They also decided that the dowels needed to be glued in to make them more stable.

Josh and Sean had a good time at their 4H meeting.  Josh said he thought Sean's catapult was the best one there.  Sean is so proud of himself for designing and building it.  He says he feels manly now because he built a weapon.  LOL!

So how is strewing going at your house?

In the Kitchen - Weekly Resolutions

Lately, I have resolved to incorporate more Nourishing Traditions type cooking into our diets as well as my new efforts to minimize plastics in our daily lives.  I'm doing this in baby steps.

So far:

I tried soaking steel cut oats for oatmeal.  I LOVED it.  And I don't like oatmeal much, but the kids only ate a spoonful or two and then discretely took their bowls to the sink.  So I've decided that this week I'd try something I saw suggested in some the comments section of a NT cooking blog somewhere, which is to soak the oatmeal during the day and then cook it very slowly overnight in the crockpot.  Supposedly it comes out very creamy and not chewy, which is what the kids objected too.  I thought it had wonderful texture but they said they felt like they had pebbles in their mouths!  So cooking oatmeal again is resolution # 1 for this week.

Hannah bought a big tub of vanilla yogurt when she was here for Thanksgiving.  It's just been sitting in the fridge.  I think I should make smoothies for breakfast one morning with that.  I don't know if that is Nourishing Traditions or not, it's store bought yogurt, but it is using up something in the fridge!  And hopefully the kids will like it.  Resolution #2

I kind of suspended my breadmaking activities.  I think I only made bread one day this past week, but I really can't seem to get the kind of bread I want.  I need to order the dough improver from King Arthur.  Resolution #3.

I made broth from our Thanksgiving turkey and made turkey soup, but again nobody but myself and my aunt ate it.  And I've got a huge pot of it in the fridge.  Is it still good after all this time?  I don't have anything to freeze it in.  It did supply a couple of nights dinner for two and a couple of lunches as well.  And it was a good experiment for me because I was trying to be very conscientious about how I made it.  But I might just toss the rest.  I do however need to get something non-plastic that I can freeze soup in!  So I need to be on the hunt for something suitable.  Resolution #4.

I bought a huge tin of popcorn at Trader Joe's this week, just because I wanted a huge tin.  So the kids have been snacking on the popcorn and when they are done that will become my bread storage.  I need to decorate the outside somehow because I know having a Christmas themed tin on my counter all year long will bother me.  I think I'll put Becky on that task.  She'll come up with something clever.  But it is big and I bet it will store a loaf of homemade bread and leftover bagels quite nicely.  So we can be plastic free about bread!  Resolution #5

I just visited a tiny little organic grocers in our town.  Everything is local and organic.  Everything is also out of this world expensive!  I bought some locally grown/ground cornmeal and I plan to make cornbread this week with it.  I also bought some locally raised/made bacon.  Very costly and not even enough bacon to feed the whole family two slices at breakfast!  So I cooked it up and it's first come, first served.  Some of my kids don't even like pork bacon because they are so used to the turkey bacon I  usually get (and actually prefer; the pork kind can be so fatty).  However, apparently that fat is good for you!  My mom always saved bacon grease and used it for making eggs.  She'd also use it with baked beans or instead of butter on vegetables (especially green beans; they were yummy!).  So I found a stainless steel water bottle that we've seemed to have misplaced the lid for.  I was really grumbling about that because those water bottles aren't cheap!  Though I suppose they are more cost effective (and healthier and better for the planet) than constantly buying plastic water bottles.  But anyway, I decided to use it for my bacon lard and just cover it with some foil for a lid.  So, ta da, I now have my very own bacon grease tin.  Resolution # 6 - cook something with bacon grease this week!  Maybe the cornbread!

Lastly,   I bought organic coconut oil but I don't know how to use it?  Does it replace vegetable oil in recipes?  Resolution #7 - figure out coconut oil.

So that is one resolution per day this week!  A tall order for me, the perpetually overwhelmed and scatter-brained soul that I am.  Well, they are something to aspire to, anyway!

Keeping House - Chapter Two

I feel ill equipped to write this post right now.  I can't locate my Kindle.  I'm pretty sure it is up in my room somewhere, but my husband is out of town on business so I let Becky sleep on his side of the bed last night (she's the prickliest, sauciest child during the day, but at night she wants to sleep in the same room with mommy!), and I don't want to turn on the light and wake her up!  So I'm just going on memory or rather, my gut responses to reading this chapter.

Anyway, I think this is the best book I've read on this sort of thing since I read Holiness for Housewives.  The author is so clear-sighted, intelligent and profound about everything.  She's really thought through what home and housekeeping mean from a Christian worldview.  And it's beautiful.  I'm finding it very inspiring and it's coloring my attitude which is such a blessing.  To me housekeeping is just another long line of failures on my part.  At least that's how I look at it.  I am very negative about it, always on the brink of despair.  I don't like it when people say they can't handle things.  I always want to say it's all in your attitude.  Some people say they can't handle more than two kids.  I could handle that.  Some say they could never home school, I could handle that.  But the one thing I do say I can't handle is housework.  So maybe I know my limits?  Or maybe it really is in one's attitude and I've just had a bad one for so long which is so entrenched, that I can't see my way around it.

Yesterday, I was rereading the second chapter (or at least I think it was still the second chapter, sometimes on my Kindle I have a hard time knowing exactly where I am in the book) and the author talked about housework being sacramental.  At that moment those words struck a beautiful chord in my heart.  At the time I was feeling very sleepy and low-energy and in truth rather crabby.  I forced myself to come downstairs to the kitchen/family room where I spent probably the better part of 30 minutes just tidying up.  I started at one end of the room and worked to the other end.  I put on some beautiful Christmas music sung by a Catholic choir.  I threw out bits of trash.  I took the stuff that belonged upstairs and put it on our steps so that the next time I went up I could take them with me (only did about half).  I straightened the piles of books so the coffee table didn't look like a trash heap.  I cleared off the kitchen table which was still full of clutter from my preparations for our Aquinas Learning Day.  I'm always trying to have a craft to go with the saint of the week.  Yesterday we learned about Andrew the Apostle (whose feast day was Wednesday, the day before!) so we made these little Russian Christmas Star ornaments (St. Andrew is said to have traveled to Kiev and is the patron saint of Russia).  I cleared off our kitchen island which is always absolutely covered in all things kitcheny - my glass jars of flour, the lazy susan, the bagel guillotine, sundry things that should be put back into the pantry, fruit bowl, glasses, cups, plates, old mail. . . .

While I was tidying Becky came in.  She began to lobby for a baby sister.  This is an ongoing thing with her.  Poor dear.  She was not meant to be the baby of the family.  I mean  personality-wise.  She is the type of person who is meant to be in charge!  She is determined, resourceful, take-charge.  She NEEDS to be directing something or somebody.  She daydreams all the time of having a passel of little siblings.  I believe she has two variations in her daydreams.  One variation includes at least 5 little brothers and sisters and she's given names to them all.  But yesterday she was lobbying for just a baby sister.  "Please mom, can't we adopt someone?  Please.  I'm asking you because if I ask Dad he just laughs.  But you don't laugh because you kind of like the idea, don't you?"  (I think my husband is kind of open to the idea too.  He's done several pro bono adoption cases and I think that's changing his heart).    Then she started to sob.  "Mom, all my daydreams are about something that will never happen!"  It about broke my heart. I tried to explain that choosing a child to adopt is not like picking out a puppy or a new doll.  I tried to explain all the changes it would bring.  I think about what an ongoing hard time we've had adjusting to having my aunt move in with us.  I tell that I think I'm too old to adopt.  She thought that was ridiculous.  I tell her it takes a very long time from beginning to end.  That it could take a year or two and that she'd be older and maybe not really want a little sister anymore.  She vehemently denied this though the idea of such a long wait dismayed her greatly.

We wound up looking at a list of children waiting for adoption.  We found a little 4 year old girl who is blind.  "Oh, Mommy!  Can't we adopt her!  Your mom was blind!  You know about blind people!  We could help her!  I could take care of her!"

This is really drifting from the topic of housekeeping but really not so much.  Because it is all about service.  Serving one another.  For me as the mother, serving my husband and children by providing them with a comfortable home.  I look at the rooms I tidied yesterday at about 4 p.m.  Since then more stuff has been dumped on the coffee table and there's a blanket and a pair of shoes in the middle of the floor.  Dishes are stacked up that never got loaded into the dishwasher last night.  There's a big pile of pots and pans that have dried and need to be put away.  And this isn't even mentioning all the clutter on my desk that has overflowed onto the counter next to it.  Instead of being exasperated that I'll have to tidy again (probably a couple of times today) I should see this as an ongoing gesture of care for my family.  I wish I could maintain feeling that way.  I wish I could be convicted down deep in my psyche.  Alas, I only get glimmers of that and instead fall very easily back into my negative habits of thought.  I think this will be my prayer today:  Lord, lift me up!