I woke up feeling very blessed. I like having everyone home and the amount of life generated by 5 children plus one guest. We attended the Mass of the Lord's Supper on Holy Thursday which was beautiful and sad. Becky and I went to confession on Good Friday morning and the priest was wonderful; so full of solace and wisdom. Good Friday night we went to the Living Stations at church. Josh played Pontius Pilate again (it's a gig he does every year!). Holy Saturday we hosted a Passover dinner with Rick's father, brothers, sister in law and niece and nephew. Then Saturday evening we attended a glorious Easter Vigil, starting with the bonfire outside, filling the church with our lit candles. We heard the seven readings that trace our covenantal history, the beautiful choir singing psalms between each reading. Then the church filled with light as we finally sang the gloria. We had three baptisms, two adults and one young girl of about 8 or so. Then we had 11 people come into full communion with the Church through confirmation. It was so joyful and beautiful. We finally got out around 11:00 p.m. Most of the family went out to the all night diner, but Josh and I came home. I put together easter baskets and then went to bed.
Today we'll hunt for Easter Eggs even though everyone is getting too old for it. How does one gracefully stop these little traditions as the kids become older? I haven't figured it out.
Rick will make matza brei for breakfast. And Hannah and Peter have promised to make Easter dinner. So I plan to take a long hot bath while they are cooking! Will has to go back to school tonight though and Hannah and Peter go back on Monday afternoon. And also tomorrow, I will probably have to meet with the new school and I also have to take Sean to his physical so he can attend the school. It's funny because he's been to so many doctors lately but I never did get him to his plain old physical!
Anyway, I am not going to think about all that now. I'm just going to relax and enjoy Easter day.
Happy Easter and may God bless you!
Sunday, March 31, 2013
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Julius Caesar - Book 15
Julius Caesar by Shakespeare is one of my favorite plays by him. I saw it before I ever read it. I was just married, so it was about 24 years ago! But I still remember how much it impressed me. The National Shakespeare Theatre was trying to find a home, I think. It was doing this novel thing of putting the play on in a half built high rise in Arlington. My aunt called me up and said they are doing this play right down the street from where you live! So she drove over, parked at my townhouse and we walked over to see the play. There was no set, barely any props, just lots of folding chairs set up on a huge concrete slab in an under construction office building. You could hear all the traffic in the streets below. All that vanished the minute the play started. There was only Brutus, Cassius, Marc Antony, Octavius, and Julius Caesar. Oh the pathos! It was incredible.
I just finished reading this to Seano. I'm not sure he got much out of it, but it thrilled me yet again. So much high honor and sacrifice, such clever words, such violence and such broken-heartedness. A wonderful, wonderful play, worth reading and seeing over and over again. We only read one of the many commentaries written at the back of the book. The commentaries are why Ignatius Critical Editions are my favorites when it comes to reading the classics. We did read the first commentary by James Bemis and it was really interesting. He compares three film versions of Julius Caesar. The one he gave a D+ to is the one I own. We tried to watch it but we found it really flat and slow so we gave up after the first scene. But now I am really tempted to get the 1953 Marlon Brando version and watch that one!
For more book reviews go to Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks.
I just finished reading this to Seano. I'm not sure he got much out of it, but it thrilled me yet again. So much high honor and sacrifice, such clever words, such violence and such broken-heartedness. A wonderful, wonderful play, worth reading and seeing over and over again. We only read one of the many commentaries written at the back of the book. The commentaries are why Ignatius Critical Editions are my favorites when it comes to reading the classics. We did read the first commentary by James Bemis and it was really interesting. He compares three film versions of Julius Caesar. The one he gave a D+ to is the one I own. We tried to watch it but we found it really flat and slow so we gave up after the first scene. But now I am really tempted to get the 1953 Marlon Brando version and watch that one!
For more book reviews go to Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks.
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Kisses from Katie - Book 14
This book made me feel terrible about myself. Not that it is a bad book. It is absolutely lovely; basically a long beautiful prayer of thanksgiving to Jesus as well as an exhortation to all Christians to follow Jesus' command to love one another. It is amazing that it is on the New Times Bestsellers list. It is very well written. But as I read it, being the self-absorbed person I am, I felt more and more defeated and more and more inadequate. This young lady, only 22, I think, at the publishing of this book, is light years ahead of me in terms of faith, trust in Jesus, courage, devotion, selflessness and wisdom. It made it very hard to finish this book. Whenever I picked it up I realized my own littleness, my unworthiness. That is not what the author, Katie Davis, wants to convey to the reader. I think she wants to inspire, but instead I just felt crushingly inadequate. But actually, I think that is good for me. I think I need to be shaken from my self-centered complacency. I need it badly. So even though painful, I do think it was a deeply worthwhile book to read.
Katie Davis comes from a wealthy suburb outside Nashville, TN. She decided she wanted to do something different for her senior year Christmas break, so she googled around with the word orphanage and volunteer trying to find some internship she could do for three weeks. The first response to her inquiries came from an orphanage in Uganda. Katie's mother didn't want her to travel to Africa alone, so she went along as well. Katie fell in love with the orphan children of Uganda. Uganda has many orphans as civil war, poverty and aids has dealt a devastating blow to that country. The median age is 14. In many cases, children are trying to raise children because the parents have all died of aids. The poverty is appalling.
The three weeks changed Katie Davis forever. She got an offer to come back to teach Kindergarten for a year. She talked her parents into letting her have a gap year between high school and college. So after she finished high school, she went off for a year. But Katie was head over heels in love. With Jesus. With the children. With Uganda. She rents a big house and starts collecting homeless children until she is the adopted mother of 14. She begins programs to feed hundreds of hungry children. She teaches them about Jesus. She prays over them as she bathes the children or rushes them to the hospital trying to save them from starvation. She is a powerhouse and galvanizes others to help her. She works at completely trusting Jesus. She works at not being revolted at chiggers that bury themselves in the children's feet and must be dug out, or rats that crawl into her oven and accidentally get baked. At diapers full of worms. She is amazing! And she gives it all to Christ. She is like an American Mother Teresa.
Katie's ministry is called Amazima Ministries. She has a blog as well with the same title as her book: KissesfromKatie
Here is a youtube video of this amazing, Christian young lady.
This is the second book I've read recently about a woman trying to make a difference in Africa.
Two definite thumbs up for this book. For more reviews go to 52 Books.
Katie Davis comes from a wealthy suburb outside Nashville, TN. She decided she wanted to do something different for her senior year Christmas break, so she googled around with the word orphanage and volunteer trying to find some internship she could do for three weeks. The first response to her inquiries came from an orphanage in Uganda. Katie's mother didn't want her to travel to Africa alone, so she went along as well. Katie fell in love with the orphan children of Uganda. Uganda has many orphans as civil war, poverty and aids has dealt a devastating blow to that country. The median age is 14. In many cases, children are trying to raise children because the parents have all died of aids. The poverty is appalling.
The three weeks changed Katie Davis forever. She got an offer to come back to teach Kindergarten for a year. She talked her parents into letting her have a gap year between high school and college. So after she finished high school, she went off for a year. But Katie was head over heels in love. With Jesus. With the children. With Uganda. She rents a big house and starts collecting homeless children until she is the adopted mother of 14. She begins programs to feed hundreds of hungry children. She teaches them about Jesus. She prays over them as she bathes the children or rushes them to the hospital trying to save them from starvation. She is a powerhouse and galvanizes others to help her. She works at completely trusting Jesus. She works at not being revolted at chiggers that bury themselves in the children's feet and must be dug out, or rats that crawl into her oven and accidentally get baked. At diapers full of worms. She is amazing! And she gives it all to Christ. She is like an American Mother Teresa.
Katie's ministry is called Amazima Ministries. She has a blog as well with the same title as her book: KissesfromKatie
Here is a youtube video of this amazing, Christian young lady.
This is the second book I've read recently about a woman trying to make a difference in Africa.
Two definite thumbs up for this book. For more reviews go to 52 Books.
Monday, March 25, 2013
Home Economics for Becky
After Easter, it looks like Sean will be trying out a nearby school. I am a little bit nervous that Becky will feel bereft with him being gone every weekday. So in addition to our daily math and IEW and our little bit of Aquinas Learning we've been doing, I want to come up with other things to do. A couple things that are naturals are getting more involved in working on her American Heritage Girls patches, badges, stars and pins. The other thing is to start reading aloud to her. I've been meaning to read more Louisa May Alcott to her. We read all of the Little Women books a couple years ago, but we never did read Rose in Bloom and Eight Cousins and whatever other books might be part of that series. But also, I think I'd like to focus on teaching her a sort of home economics course. I need it too! And it could be fun to do something together. She already likes to cook. I thought if we made it just a bit more systematic and something we did together, it could be nice. Also, I think I could slip in some chemistry and nutrition there and make it sort of a science/health course too. So first I think we'd focus on cooking and baking. I know right now we should be trying to garden, but really I just am terrible at remembering to water and weed. It is always a fiasco. We have a wonderful organic farmers market stand walking distance from our house plus we have a wonderful farmer's market every Saturday morning from May through November on the little main street of our town. So I think we'll rely on bounty from those two sources. I would also like to do some sewing and maybe learn to crochet too. The other benefit to this would be to get Becky's room cleaned up and organized.
I've bought some books from Catholic Heritage Curricula: Sewing with St. Anne, A Girl's Guide to Home Skills Tea and Cake with the Saints
In addition to these, I also want to find a good kitchen chemistry book. There are several out there. I just need to explore them to figure out which one would work best for our needs.
I've bought some books from Catholic Heritage Curricula: Sewing with St. Anne, A Girl's Guide to Home Skills Tea and Cake with the Saints
In addition to these, I also want to find a good kitchen chemistry book. There are several out there. I just need to explore them to figure out which one would work best for our needs.
Saturday, March 23, 2013
Better Off; Flipping the Switch on Technology - Book 13
Before I was married, I never owned a car and I never owned a TV. My now husband couldn't understand how I got along. When we were dating, he bought me a TV just so he could watch stuff when he was at my apartment. TV watching was something I usually did at my parents' house. I lived just a few blocks from the train station. On weekends when I wanted to visit my parents, I'd hop on a train and go to Washington D.C., then take the metro out to the train station nearest my parents' house. Sometimes my dad would pick me up but other times I just walked to their house about 15 minutes away. I walked a lot. I liked watching TV with my parents. My dad always had it on to a football game, a World War II movie, the news or Masterpiece Theatre. I'd make myself a cup of tea, curl up on the couch with a magazine or a book and chat with my mom and dad, only half watching whatever was playing on the screen. But I never felt the need to get my own TV. I was happy with just listening to the radio. Baltimore had (still does) a great classical music station. That was enough for me. I never felt the need for a car either. I walked or took the bus. I never was much of a bike rider. I didn't learn to ride until I was 10 years old and then about a year later my bike was stolen and that was the end of my bike riding career. Occasionally as an adult I'd ride, but I discovered that no matter what kind of seat I had on the bike, I was always extremely sore from it! So I am not a big bike rider. When I needed to get somewhere and it was raining or cold I either bummed a ride, took the bus anyway, or sometimes called a taxi. It was no big deal. In fact, one way my husband courted me was to offer to give me rides home at night from the library at school. He had his eye on me and would manage to be there just as I was packing up to leave. I remember his battered, powder-blue Datsun and how fast the heat worked. It was a cold winter and unlike most cars you didn't have to wait for the heat to do its job. That warm air would blast out right away!
Better Off: Flipping the Switch on Technology by Eric Brende charts a way my life could have gone but for the fact that I married my husband, technology geek of sorts. Brende took a course at Yale, his undergraduate school, on the history of technology. This fascinated him and he decided to try out a new master's program at MIT on Science, Technology and Society. Brende had come to the conclusion that technology is not the labor-saving knight in shining armor our society thinks it is but rather generates more work and stress as it begins to rule our life creating its own demands. He contrived to spend 18 months among an Old Order Amish or Mennonite community (he never discloses which group in respect for their privacy). Shortly before he embarks on this adventure he meets and marries his wife, Mary. Right after a 10 day honeymoon he whisks her off to Amish land. Fortunately, Mary is game for all this.
His new neighbors and landlords are the Millers, a big close knit family who gently and tactfully teach the Brende's how to survive without electricity and running water. The little house Eric and Mary rent is darling and cozy. The stove is practical for both heating and cooking. They do have a bathroom in the house but you have to flush it by dumping buckets of water down it. The water is right out in the yard. Most of the community around them had figured out a way to have water go right to the pump at the kitchen sink though, so Eric and Mary were even a little more old fashioned than many in regards to water (though many of the other houses still had outhouses as well).
The Brendes planted pumpkins for a cash crop and they rented a field of sorghum to harvest and make molasses from. They only have a certain amount of money in savings, so they have to live very, very frugally. Fortunately the Millers planted a garden for them before they even arrived. Also, everyone in the community shares food or will trade it for labor. The Brende's discover a close community where labor becomes a social thing. Everyone pitches in to help each other raise barns, thresh wheat, harvest foods, chop down trees, etc. There is a lot of camaraderie.
Eric was in pretty good shape physically. He was on the rowing team at Yale and he regularly rode his bike in Boston while at MIT. He really enjoyed the fact that every day life in Amish country kept you in shape. No need to take time out to go to the gym. You got a work out every day. He also found that the community he was living in had thought up all sorts of clever short cuts to save labor. Eric in his naiveté would attempt to do something and one of his neighbors would say, 'that seems like a lot of work. Call me lazy but I think you should do it this way.' And then they'd give him a tip which indeed would make things easier. So he found that while some things did call for some back breaking work these were fairly short lived, seasonal things. Most of the time, there turned out to be a lot of time spent in leisure. If your needs are simple, your work gets pretty simple too.
Mary goes along with all this spunkily. She teaches herself to cook; she learns to do the wash with an old fashion washtub which turns out to be pretty easy to do. You do have to haul in hot water, which gets dumped in the hand cranked washer. But it takes only a few minutes to actually wash the clothes. She already likes to sew. The Mennonite neighbors somehow convert a sewing machine to a foot pedal powered one. She likes to garden. She's pretty happy most of the time. However, sometimes she gets homesick. She especially misses being able to go to church. She and Eric are both Catholic and there is no Catholic church around for miles. They are deep in Anabaptist country. So a couple of times, when things get tough, they hop in their little Escort and take a road trip. The consequence for one of these trips is that Eric got sunstroke badly. While he'd spent a week driving around the midwest in an air conditioned car, sleeping in air conditioned motels, there had been a heat wave back at the farm. When he returned it was threshing time. His farming neighbors were all acclimated to the heat and had no problems but Eric was not. He struggled through the day trying to do his share, staggered home and was sick in bed with a fever for three days. The heat at first was just unbearable for them both but as the weeks went on, they did adjust. It just took their bodies longer; A/C was their enemy.
Mary gets pregnant while there and successfully delivers their first born son with two midwives from the community. I found that part of the story fascinating.
Anyway, I won't disclose anything more, but the book is just a fascinating read. It is a wonderful peep inside a mysterious culture. Brende is a thoughtful guy with his head on straight. I saw an interview with him on Faith and Culture, which is where I heard about this book. Brende has made a name for himself. He and Mary now live in St. Louis with their children, leading a low tech life style. Here's a clip where he's interviewed.
For more book reviews see 52 Books.
Better Off: Flipping the Switch on Technology by Eric Brende charts a way my life could have gone but for the fact that I married my husband, technology geek of sorts. Brende took a course at Yale, his undergraduate school, on the history of technology. This fascinated him and he decided to try out a new master's program at MIT on Science, Technology and Society. Brende had come to the conclusion that technology is not the labor-saving knight in shining armor our society thinks it is but rather generates more work and stress as it begins to rule our life creating its own demands. He contrived to spend 18 months among an Old Order Amish or Mennonite community (he never discloses which group in respect for their privacy). Shortly before he embarks on this adventure he meets and marries his wife, Mary. Right after a 10 day honeymoon he whisks her off to Amish land. Fortunately, Mary is game for all this.
His new neighbors and landlords are the Millers, a big close knit family who gently and tactfully teach the Brende's how to survive without electricity and running water. The little house Eric and Mary rent is darling and cozy. The stove is practical for both heating and cooking. They do have a bathroom in the house but you have to flush it by dumping buckets of water down it. The water is right out in the yard. Most of the community around them had figured out a way to have water go right to the pump at the kitchen sink though, so Eric and Mary were even a little more old fashioned than many in regards to water (though many of the other houses still had outhouses as well).
The Brendes planted pumpkins for a cash crop and they rented a field of sorghum to harvest and make molasses from. They only have a certain amount of money in savings, so they have to live very, very frugally. Fortunately the Millers planted a garden for them before they even arrived. Also, everyone in the community shares food or will trade it for labor. The Brende's discover a close community where labor becomes a social thing. Everyone pitches in to help each other raise barns, thresh wheat, harvest foods, chop down trees, etc. There is a lot of camaraderie.
Eric was in pretty good shape physically. He was on the rowing team at Yale and he regularly rode his bike in Boston while at MIT. He really enjoyed the fact that every day life in Amish country kept you in shape. No need to take time out to go to the gym. You got a work out every day. He also found that the community he was living in had thought up all sorts of clever short cuts to save labor. Eric in his naiveté would attempt to do something and one of his neighbors would say, 'that seems like a lot of work. Call me lazy but I think you should do it this way.' And then they'd give him a tip which indeed would make things easier. So he found that while some things did call for some back breaking work these were fairly short lived, seasonal things. Most of the time, there turned out to be a lot of time spent in leisure. If your needs are simple, your work gets pretty simple too.
Mary goes along with all this spunkily. She teaches herself to cook; she learns to do the wash with an old fashion washtub which turns out to be pretty easy to do. You do have to haul in hot water, which gets dumped in the hand cranked washer. But it takes only a few minutes to actually wash the clothes. She already likes to sew. The Mennonite neighbors somehow convert a sewing machine to a foot pedal powered one. She likes to garden. She's pretty happy most of the time. However, sometimes she gets homesick. She especially misses being able to go to church. She and Eric are both Catholic and there is no Catholic church around for miles. They are deep in Anabaptist country. So a couple of times, when things get tough, they hop in their little Escort and take a road trip. The consequence for one of these trips is that Eric got sunstroke badly. While he'd spent a week driving around the midwest in an air conditioned car, sleeping in air conditioned motels, there had been a heat wave back at the farm. When he returned it was threshing time. His farming neighbors were all acclimated to the heat and had no problems but Eric was not. He struggled through the day trying to do his share, staggered home and was sick in bed with a fever for three days. The heat at first was just unbearable for them both but as the weeks went on, they did adjust. It just took their bodies longer; A/C was their enemy.
Mary gets pregnant while there and successfully delivers their first born son with two midwives from the community. I found that part of the story fascinating.
Anyway, I won't disclose anything more, but the book is just a fascinating read. It is a wonderful peep inside a mysterious culture. Brende is a thoughtful guy with his head on straight. I saw an interview with him on Faith and Culture, which is where I heard about this book. Brende has made a name for himself. He and Mary now live in St. Louis with their children, leading a low tech life style. Here's a clip where he's interviewed.
For more book reviews see 52 Books.
Friday, March 22, 2013
Organized Home Challenge
I have not been frequenting the internet as much as I used to, but one place I have been going to is The Well Trained Mind board. Mostly, I lurk but occasionally I respond to a thread. Anyway, I noticed that they have a 52 Weeks to an Organized Home Challenge going on. I haven't really read the thread, but at some point I got curious and googled for it. Here's the link: http://www.home-storage-solutions-101.com/organized-home.html
I went to the site and as usual it didn't really fit my needs. Some of the weeks are of no use to me and others are terribly optimistic. For instance one week dedicated to organizing my cosmetics? No thanks. In other weeks they think you can organize bedrooms in 7 short days. That would take a month around here! Anyway, what about a week or two for vacation? Or allotting a week for sickness? It just didn't seem very practical. So I decided to rewrite my own 52 Weeks. Since I seem to do so well with the Read 52 Books habit, maybe organizing things by having a concrete goal each week fits my ADD style. I can hold one concrete goal in my head, like finish this book by Saturday or perhaps (I am being optimistic here!) I can have one concrete household organizational goal in my mind and find a corner of time in which to do it each week. In addition to this organizational task each week, there are always the constant tidying, vacuuming, bathrooms, washing, laundry and cooking, and recycling (and lawn mowing in the summer which is a big chore).
I decided to conduct a little experiment. My upstairs hall has been horrible for a couple of years now. It had become a major dumping ground. Things were stacked along the walls; things that I wanted to give away, things that should go back up in the attic for storage but nobody bothered to do it, things that people didn't want in their rooms any more but were too lazy to go put them back where they belonged and which they had shoved out into the hall in boxes. It had gotten so you only had this narrow path to walk through to get to the bedrooms and bathroom. Anyway, I decided for some reason that I suddenly couldn't bear it anymore. Stuff like this weighs on me for months and even years and takes up so much unnecessary mental energy. So I determined that while Will was home I would ask him to help me clean up the hall. Well, Friday got here and I still hadn't done it, so this a.m. I asked him and Josh to help me. It only took about 30 minutes or so and it looks so much better! Why, why, why do I wait so long and build up such mental blocks. I have such destructive thinking habits!
So here is my stab at my 52 Weeks to an Organized Home. What I did is figured out what needed to be done seasonally and when I would need to deep clean (as opposed to weekly maintenance cleaning), etc.
Week of Task
3/17 Dejunk upstairs hall (Hurrah! Accomplished!)
3/24 Thorough cleaning of main floor in prep for Passover/Easter (also prep for guest)
3/31 Get items collected from upstairs hall and main floor to Good Will, etc
4/7 Mulch yard
4/14 Organize books throughout house
4/21 Finish book project/check/buy summer clothes
4/28 Clean screen porch thoroughly
5/5 Clean study/prep for guest
5/12 Get ready for confirmation/vacation
5/19 Hannah's graduation and vacation
5/26 Clean mud room
6/2 Master bedroom
6/9 Master bedroom
6/16 End of year testing/Clean garage/Josh's graduation
6/23 Weed yard
6/30 Organize cds/dvds
7/7 Organize kitchenette section of basement
7/14 Circe Institute Conference
7/21 Prep for Goshen/clean windows
7/28 AHG camp at Goshen with Becky
8/4 Weed yard and prep for beach
8/11 Week at beach!!!
8/18 Prep for beginning of academic year
8/25 Prep for beginning of academic year
9/1 Weed yard
9/8 Check or buy fall/winter clothes
9/15 Organize for Adler/call chimney sweep
9/22 Bedrooms (clean carpet)
9/29 Bedrooms (clean carpet)
10/6 Weed yard
10/13 Dejunk/declutter whatever needs it most
10/20 Organize linens and deep clean nooks and crannies
10/27 Clean out medicine cabinets
11/3 Prep yard for winter
11/10 Thorough cleaning of main floor in prep for Thanksgiving
11/17 Prep for Thanksgiving
11/24 (Actually weekend after Thanksgiving) Clean through closets and give away clothes to clothing drive
12/1 Assess Christmas decorations/get out Advent calendar and wreath/put up front door wreath
12/8 Christmas cookies and gifts
12/15 Christmas prep and shopping
12/22 Christmas week - get tree and decorate
12/29 Clean and tidy house from holidays/check smoke alarms, etc
1/5 Master bedroom
1/12 Basement
1/19 A week off! (in case of illness - this week can float around!)
1/26 Kitchen organization
2/2 Focus on hot spot
2/9 Check/buy spring clothes
2/16 papers/mail/calendar organization
2/23 Dejunk or declutter whatever needs it most
3/2 Clean under sinks
3/9 Books
3/16 Back pantry/mud room
I went to the site and as usual it didn't really fit my needs. Some of the weeks are of no use to me and others are terribly optimistic. For instance one week dedicated to organizing my cosmetics? No thanks. In other weeks they think you can organize bedrooms in 7 short days. That would take a month around here! Anyway, what about a week or two for vacation? Or allotting a week for sickness? It just didn't seem very practical. So I decided to rewrite my own 52 Weeks. Since I seem to do so well with the Read 52 Books habit, maybe organizing things by having a concrete goal each week fits my ADD style. I can hold one concrete goal in my head, like finish this book by Saturday or perhaps (I am being optimistic here!) I can have one concrete household organizational goal in my mind and find a corner of time in which to do it each week. In addition to this organizational task each week, there are always the constant tidying, vacuuming, bathrooms, washing, laundry and cooking, and recycling (and lawn mowing in the summer which is a big chore).
I decided to conduct a little experiment. My upstairs hall has been horrible for a couple of years now. It had become a major dumping ground. Things were stacked along the walls; things that I wanted to give away, things that should go back up in the attic for storage but nobody bothered to do it, things that people didn't want in their rooms any more but were too lazy to go put them back where they belonged and which they had shoved out into the hall in boxes. It had gotten so you only had this narrow path to walk through to get to the bedrooms and bathroom. Anyway, I decided for some reason that I suddenly couldn't bear it anymore. Stuff like this weighs on me for months and even years and takes up so much unnecessary mental energy. So I determined that while Will was home I would ask him to help me clean up the hall. Well, Friday got here and I still hadn't done it, so this a.m. I asked him and Josh to help me. It only took about 30 minutes or so and it looks so much better! Why, why, why do I wait so long and build up such mental blocks. I have such destructive thinking habits!
So here is my stab at my 52 Weeks to an Organized Home. What I did is figured out what needed to be done seasonally and when I would need to deep clean (as opposed to weekly maintenance cleaning), etc.
Week of Task
3/17 Dejunk upstairs hall (Hurrah! Accomplished!)
3/24 Thorough cleaning of main floor in prep for Passover/Easter (also prep for guest)
3/31 Get items collected from upstairs hall and main floor to Good Will, etc
4/7 Mulch yard
4/14 Organize books throughout house
4/21 Finish book project/check/buy summer clothes
4/28 Clean screen porch thoroughly
5/5 Clean study/prep for guest
5/12 Get ready for confirmation/vacation
5/19 Hannah's graduation and vacation
5/26 Clean mud room
6/2 Master bedroom
6/9 Master bedroom
6/16 End of year testing/Clean garage/Josh's graduation
6/23 Weed yard
6/30 Organize cds/dvds
7/7 Organize kitchenette section of basement
7/14 Circe Institute Conference
7/21 Prep for Goshen/clean windows
7/28 AHG camp at Goshen with Becky
8/4 Weed yard and prep for beach
8/11 Week at beach!!!
8/18 Prep for beginning of academic year
8/25 Prep for beginning of academic year
9/1 Weed yard
9/8 Check or buy fall/winter clothes
9/15 Organize for Adler/call chimney sweep
9/22 Bedrooms (clean carpet)
9/29 Bedrooms (clean carpet)
10/6 Weed yard
10/13 Dejunk/declutter whatever needs it most
10/20 Organize linens and deep clean nooks and crannies
10/27 Clean out medicine cabinets
11/3 Prep yard for winter
11/10 Thorough cleaning of main floor in prep for Thanksgiving
11/17 Prep for Thanksgiving
11/24 (Actually weekend after Thanksgiving) Clean through closets and give away clothes to clothing drive
12/1 Assess Christmas decorations/get out Advent calendar and wreath/put up front door wreath
12/8 Christmas cookies and gifts
12/15 Christmas prep and shopping
12/22 Christmas week - get tree and decorate
12/29 Clean and tidy house from holidays/check smoke alarms, etc
1/5 Master bedroom
1/12 Basement
1/19 A week off! (in case of illness - this week can float around!)
1/26 Kitchen organization
2/2 Focus on hot spot
2/9 Check/buy spring clothes
2/16 papers/mail/calendar organization
2/23 Dejunk or declutter whatever needs it most
3/2 Clean under sinks
3/9 Books
3/16 Back pantry/mud room
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Medieval Lives - Book 12
(Note: with spring coming on, I decided the blog needed a new look!)
Medieval Lives by Terry Jones of Monty Python fame is a well written peek into life in the so called Middle Ages. Jones tackles this big subject by characterizing and analyzing different types of folk we think of when we think Middle Ages. It starts with Minstrels or Jongleurs, in the French, and ends with Kings such as the never mentioned King Louis of England or the falsely maligned (according to the author) Richard II. In between you also learn about peasants, monks, outlaws like Robin Hood, and philosophers (really alchemists), knights and damsels.
Jones is a debunker. That seems to be the main thrust of each chapter. He sets the reader up with the usual modern perception of whatever character he is about to explore and then produces interesting fact after interesting fact that turns that perception on its head. I do think though sometimes his humor is a little too glib and he is a little too swift to present things in just the right light to suit his purposes. I probably would not have noticed this about him except for the fact that I am also listening to Professor Daileader's Teaching Company lectures on the High Middle Ages. The professor is a lot more objective and fair in his presentation than Jones, who is obviously going for laughs or titillation value while still trying to present a solid history. It did make me distrust Jones a bit. For instance Jones presents the Cistercian monks as money-grubbing hedonists. He calls the rapid spread of their monasteries McMonasteries comparing them outright to money-making franchises like McDonald's. Prof Daileader does not say this. He asserts that the Cistercians were a reform movement in reaction to corruption that had occurred in Benedictine monasteries. Because monastic life was so hard, certain inevitable circumstances led to them starting out rigid and then relaxing and eventually becoming corrupt. This was a pattern they experienced over and over again. Jones doesn't go into this, instead he focuses on bizarre happenings like civil strife and fighting that went on between one monastery and the town near it.
In some places though Professor Daileader and Jones overlap or coincide quite well. But in many others there is that emphasis on anything squalid by Jones whereas Professor Daileader has a more objective, comprehensive view.
I do think Jones writes a good history book though. He really delves into detail about things I had never heard about. He knows his stuff and quotes from original sources quite frequently. So he really debunks well! For instance, he presents King John Lackland in a completely different light then I have ever seen before. I'm not an expert but I did read a book on the Magna Carta several years ago, so his take on events is very different from what I've encountered. It makes for very interesting reading and food for thought, but at the same time I prefer the good Professor's presentation more. I just feel like Jones' agenda made things a little too biased.
Still, I would recommend this book. I think it is a companion book to a BBC program Jones did by the same title. Here's a random clip I found on youtube.
For more book reviews go to Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks.
Medieval Lives by Terry Jones of Monty Python fame is a well written peek into life in the so called Middle Ages. Jones tackles this big subject by characterizing and analyzing different types of folk we think of when we think Middle Ages. It starts with Minstrels or Jongleurs, in the French, and ends with Kings such as the never mentioned King Louis of England or the falsely maligned (according to the author) Richard II. In between you also learn about peasants, monks, outlaws like Robin Hood, and philosophers (really alchemists), knights and damsels.
Jones is a debunker. That seems to be the main thrust of each chapter. He sets the reader up with the usual modern perception of whatever character he is about to explore and then produces interesting fact after interesting fact that turns that perception on its head. I do think though sometimes his humor is a little too glib and he is a little too swift to present things in just the right light to suit his purposes. I probably would not have noticed this about him except for the fact that I am also listening to Professor Daileader's Teaching Company lectures on the High Middle Ages. The professor is a lot more objective and fair in his presentation than Jones, who is obviously going for laughs or titillation value while still trying to present a solid history. It did make me distrust Jones a bit. For instance Jones presents the Cistercian monks as money-grubbing hedonists. He calls the rapid spread of their monasteries McMonasteries comparing them outright to money-making franchises like McDonald's. Prof Daileader does not say this. He asserts that the Cistercians were a reform movement in reaction to corruption that had occurred in Benedictine monasteries. Because monastic life was so hard, certain inevitable circumstances led to them starting out rigid and then relaxing and eventually becoming corrupt. This was a pattern they experienced over and over again. Jones doesn't go into this, instead he focuses on bizarre happenings like civil strife and fighting that went on between one monastery and the town near it.
In some places though Professor Daileader and Jones overlap or coincide quite well. But in many others there is that emphasis on anything squalid by Jones whereas Professor Daileader has a more objective, comprehensive view.
I do think Jones writes a good history book though. He really delves into detail about things I had never heard about. He knows his stuff and quotes from original sources quite frequently. So he really debunks well! For instance, he presents King John Lackland in a completely different light then I have ever seen before. I'm not an expert but I did read a book on the Magna Carta several years ago, so his take on events is very different from what I've encountered. It makes for very interesting reading and food for thought, but at the same time I prefer the good Professor's presentation more. I just feel like Jones' agenda made things a little too biased.
Still, I would recommend this book. I think it is a companion book to a BBC program Jones did by the same title. Here's a random clip I found on youtube.
For more book reviews go to Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks.
Sunday, March 10, 2013
King Peggy - Book 11
King Peggy: An American Secretary, Her Royal Destiny and the Inspiring Story of How She Changed an African Village by Peggielene Bartels and Eleanor Herman. Long title! This book was a fascinating read. It is written very much in the style of Alexander McCall Smith's No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency. In fact when I first started the book, I thought, wow, these people are obviously ripping off his style. They do it perfectly though and it gives this story a sort of fairy tale gloss that is very appropriate. This is true story, however, which makes is all the better. Peggy was born and raised in Ghana, moved to the United States to work as a secretary at the Ghanaian Embassy in Washingto D.C. One early morning almost 30 years later, she gets a phone call saying she has been elected king of her ancestral village, Otuam. Each village has a king selected by the elders of the village who had advised the old king. They select the new king from the line of the royal family. Families are huge in Ghana with lots of uncles, aunts and many cousins. Peggy's uncle had been the last king. The Tsiami, or the village seer, goes through the names of those eligible and performing certain rites, finds out which family member the ancestors have chosen to be the new king. Peggy deliberates over whether to accept the crown or not and she winds up taking it. Thus the adventure begins.
I loved learning about Ghanian culture, about Peggy's life and personality, and all the characters that populate this story. Peggy has to fight some deep-seated corruption and overcome many obstacles. The story is really heart-warming and just fascinating. Peggy longs to bring clean drinking water, better roads, medical care and a high school to her village and the surrounding area. It costs a lot of money and heroic persistence to get her projects off to a start. You will just love her!
If you want to help Peggy bring basic necessities to her village of Otuam, you can donate here at her website.
I highly recommend this book! For more reviews go to Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks.
I loved learning about Ghanian culture, about Peggy's life and personality, and all the characters that populate this story. Peggy has to fight some deep-seated corruption and overcome many obstacles. The story is really heart-warming and just fascinating. Peggy longs to bring clean drinking water, better roads, medical care and a high school to her village and the surrounding area. It costs a lot of money and heroic persistence to get her projects off to a start. You will just love her!
If you want to help Peggy bring basic necessities to her village of Otuam, you can donate here at her website.
I highly recommend this book! For more reviews go to Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks.
Saturday, March 2, 2013
Freaks, Geeks and Asperger's Syndrome - Book 10
Freaks, Geeks and Asperger's Syndrome; a User's Guide to Adolescence by Luke Jackson is a neat book. Jackson was 13 when he wrote it. He has Asperger's himself and writes from experience. He's a wonderful writer for a 13 year old. Actually, he's a good writer for any age! He is quite funny and sensitive and really does have a lot of common sense tips for how to handle various things like bullies, dating, etc. This would be an excellent book to give a teen with Asperger's to help them along in their journey. Jackson is from the U.K. The book was hit in Britain and the BBC made a documentary about the family; there are seven children and the mother. The four girls don't seem to have any difficulties but the three boys do. One is very autistic, another had ADHD and then there's Luke.
The oddest thing about the book, though, was that Jackson never once, not even once that I can recall, ever mentions his father!!! Where did these babies come from, I wonder? I believe they are all biologically related, so what happened to the father? Why is he cut out? The mother seems to be doing fine financially but we never really know what it is she does for a living. Jackson mentions that he lives in a nice neighborhood and that he stopped going to the government school and started attending a private school because of bullying. So who is supporting them all? It left me puzzled.
After the book was written, when Jackson was 14, he left high school to homeschool. He mentioned in the book that just knowing that homeschooling was an option made him feel better because he'd suffered so in school socially.
I did some searches on Luke Jackson and found that they have recently made a fictionalized TV series about the Jackson family as well, with Helen Bonham Carter starring as the mother! I wish we could get that over here.
Anyway, I thought it was a good book and I recommend it to those who are curious about life with Aspergers as well as those who need reassurance and camaraderie in dealing with their own Asperger's Syndrome.
For more reviews check out 52 Books.
The oddest thing about the book, though, was that Jackson never once, not even once that I can recall, ever mentions his father!!! Where did these babies come from, I wonder? I believe they are all biologically related, so what happened to the father? Why is he cut out? The mother seems to be doing fine financially but we never really know what it is she does for a living. Jackson mentions that he lives in a nice neighborhood and that he stopped going to the government school and started attending a private school because of bullying. So who is supporting them all? It left me puzzled.
After the book was written, when Jackson was 14, he left high school to homeschool. He mentioned in the book that just knowing that homeschooling was an option made him feel better because he'd suffered so in school socially.
I did some searches on Luke Jackson and found that they have recently made a fictionalized TV series about the Jackson family as well, with Helen Bonham Carter starring as the mother! I wish we could get that over here.
Anyway, I thought it was a good book and I recommend it to those who are curious about life with Aspergers as well as those who need reassurance and camaraderie in dealing with their own Asperger's Syndrome.
For more reviews check out 52 Books.
The Vatican Diaries - Book 9
The Vatican Diaries by John Thavis was just released. I actually pre-ordered it on my Kindle and waited with baited breath for it to arrive. Well sort of. I forgot about until I happened to go to my home page on the Kindle and see that it had arrived. Anyway, with the abdication of Pope Benedict XVI and now being in the interregnum period waiting for the Elector Cardinals to convene the conclave, I was really primed to read an in depth analysis of the Vatican. And this book was heralded as being really good so I dug in with relish!
John Thavis was the bureau chief for the Catholic News Service for many years, so he really knows the Vatican. He writes really well and tells lots of interesting and humorous and eye-opening anecdotes about the goings on in the Vatican. He writes fairly objectively, though I think he was better at this in the first half of the book. The second half takes on the issues of homosexuality, the sex abuse scandals, the condom/AIDS controversy, etc. There I think he shows that he tends to be like many in the media and he can't quite restrain his own bias. At one point, for instance, he is talking about how Pope Benedict translated the new CCC into Latin (it wasn't originally written in Latin) and changed the wording when talking about homosexuality as being an intrinsic disorder to objectively disordered. Then Thavis comes up with the line that this makes it seem like the person is defective in God's eyes. I thought that was a really unfair and overreaching jump there. There were occasional digs like that throughout this portion of the book. For the most he is pretty dispassionate in his reporting.
The Vatican is a truly complex place. Centuries old customs along with the huge, inevitable gap between the spiritual and moral focus and having to interact with a decidedly unspiritual and immoral world, makes for a lot of disconnects. From dealing with its own employees and trying to create parking space to grappling with homosexual scandals within the Roman Curiae, the Vatican will always be in the business of damage control. It is a huge organization and it is a wonder it can function at all at times! Lots and lots of politics at play and suddenly shifting scenarios on issues that have moved at a glacial pace for years, make things very cumbersome. While Thavis travelled with both Pope John Paul II and Benedict XVI, and was privy to a lot of information, neither pope seems especially coherent as Thavis describes them. And Thavis is pretty critical of Pope Benedict. He doesn't seemed to have warmed to him at all, finding fault with his quiet reserve and introverted ways of handling things.
One impression I got from this book is how a reporters' job actually skews his ability to report what is going on. For instance Thavis talks about how wildly popular JPII was and how much of a show he put on all the time, so aware of how to play the media. You get the impression that Thavis thought JPII liked it a little too much. But then he complains bitterly about Pope Benedict being too quiet and scholarly and 'afraid of the world' because he is an intellectual, moral theology professor and not Mr. Media-friendly. I guess you can't win for losing. Thavis is always looking for a sound bite, a story, a hook so he can get people's attention. This leads to oversimplifying and downright just misunderstanding the subtleties at play when talking about some topic that is complex and profound. You simply can't cover things adequately and get it into a short article to file with your newspaper. As much as we need reporters to disseminate information, they are also a huge part of the problem because they often are long on repeating canards and platitudes and short on intelligent analysis. I am not condemning Thavis, he seems to really know his stuff, but as he recounts how the press covered different events, you can see the media's shortcomings illustrated. And you can see how his need for a story is at odds with what is really important to the Church.
I read this book in a couple of days. I did find it really quite interesting, especially when Thavis talks about Puis XII or when he tells stories of Father Reginald Foster the Latinist.
For more book reviews see Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks.
John Thavis was the bureau chief for the Catholic News Service for many years, so he really knows the Vatican. He writes really well and tells lots of interesting and humorous and eye-opening anecdotes about the goings on in the Vatican. He writes fairly objectively, though I think he was better at this in the first half of the book. The second half takes on the issues of homosexuality, the sex abuse scandals, the condom/AIDS controversy, etc. There I think he shows that he tends to be like many in the media and he can't quite restrain his own bias. At one point, for instance, he is talking about how Pope Benedict translated the new CCC into Latin (it wasn't originally written in Latin) and changed the wording when talking about homosexuality as being an intrinsic disorder to objectively disordered. Then Thavis comes up with the line that this makes it seem like the person is defective in God's eyes. I thought that was a really unfair and overreaching jump there. There were occasional digs like that throughout this portion of the book. For the most he is pretty dispassionate in his reporting.
The Vatican is a truly complex place. Centuries old customs along with the huge, inevitable gap between the spiritual and moral focus and having to interact with a decidedly unspiritual and immoral world, makes for a lot of disconnects. From dealing with its own employees and trying to create parking space to grappling with homosexual scandals within the Roman Curiae, the Vatican will always be in the business of damage control. It is a huge organization and it is a wonder it can function at all at times! Lots and lots of politics at play and suddenly shifting scenarios on issues that have moved at a glacial pace for years, make things very cumbersome. While Thavis travelled with both Pope John Paul II and Benedict XVI, and was privy to a lot of information, neither pope seems especially coherent as Thavis describes them. And Thavis is pretty critical of Pope Benedict. He doesn't seemed to have warmed to him at all, finding fault with his quiet reserve and introverted ways of handling things.
One impression I got from this book is how a reporters' job actually skews his ability to report what is going on. For instance Thavis talks about how wildly popular JPII was and how much of a show he put on all the time, so aware of how to play the media. You get the impression that Thavis thought JPII liked it a little too much. But then he complains bitterly about Pope Benedict being too quiet and scholarly and 'afraid of the world' because he is an intellectual, moral theology professor and not Mr. Media-friendly. I guess you can't win for losing. Thavis is always looking for a sound bite, a story, a hook so he can get people's attention. This leads to oversimplifying and downright just misunderstanding the subtleties at play when talking about some topic that is complex and profound. You simply can't cover things adequately and get it into a short article to file with your newspaper. As much as we need reporters to disseminate information, they are also a huge part of the problem because they often are long on repeating canards and platitudes and short on intelligent analysis. I am not condemning Thavis, he seems to really know his stuff, but as he recounts how the press covered different events, you can see the media's shortcomings illustrated. And you can see how his need for a story is at odds with what is really important to the Church.
I read this book in a couple of days. I did find it really quite interesting, especially when Thavis talks about Puis XII or when he tells stories of Father Reginald Foster the Latinist.
For more book reviews see Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks.
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