Catholic Unschooling Videos

I am passing these links along from a yahoo group.   These feature Karen Edmisten and Suzie Andres.

Karen Edmisten

 How Prayer Life can Happen in the Midst of Homeschooling

Creating a Read Aloud Legacy


Suzie Andres

Increase Your Joy Right Where You Are

Homeschooling with Gentleness (with Anthony Andres)


Anthony Andres:

Homeschool Dads

I've only listened to snippets so far, but when I have a bit of time I plan to listen more closely.  They seem full of wisdom and inspiration.

I got my textbooks!

Eager beaver that I am, I already ordered my textbooks, even though my first class isn't until August 29th.  And then I got them today!  I am thoroughly intimidated.  I haven't heard of one of these books before.

First, for Latin 501 I got:

Latin Grammar And Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin

For my theology course, Faith and Revelation, I got

The Shape of Catholic Theology

The Size of Chesterton's Catholicism

Pilgrim Fellowship of Faith by Pope Benedict (only written back when he was Cardinal Ratzinger).

I think this was a recommended optional book:

Consecrated Phrases:  A Latin Theological Dictionary

Yikes!

1941 African American Film - Blood of Jesus

TCM was showing old African-American movies this July (not sure how long this theme goes on. Is it just a July thing or a whole summer thing?)  Anyway, I have caught a few minutes here and there, but last Sunday night they showed this amazing movie called Blood of Jesus.  It is very low production quality and amateurish in acting, but the story is interesting enough and the music especially grabs you right into it.  Apparently the director went on to play in Amos and Andy.  I am not familiar with Amos and Andy except I know I've heard of it.

Anyway, the movie is amazing.  It is a no holds barred Christian morality tale.  A woman is accidentally shot by her not very nice husband.  She's a Baptist.  She dies and the movie goes into this weird story about what happens to her as she tries to get to heaven.  It is chalk full of old time Gospel singing, heartfelt praying, and symbolism of an especially Catholic variety which shocked me because I always thought Baptists tended to be pretty anti-Catholic.  For instance, the woman has a picture of Jesus  exposing His Sacred Heart in her bedroom and when she is shot the bullet goes through her and hits the picture.  Then at another point she runs into a crossroads where the sign post turns into a crucifix, you know, with the corpus and everything!  She crawls under it and the blood of Jesus drips on to her face, healing her and basically raising her from the dead.  (Sorry for the spoilers!).

The woman who was introducing the movies (along with Ben Mankiewicz), who I think is a professor of film at the University of Chicago was really informative.  She said that this film is remembered for its faithful depiction of rural, Southern Black spirituality.

You can see the whole thing on youtube.  It's less than an hour.

Wise Words from St. Gregory

This is from my morning meditation:

Love the purity of a chaste life, because Christ is the Son of a virgin. "Abstain from the passions of the flesh that wage war against your soul" (1 Peter 2:11), as we are urged by the blessed Apostle, who is here with us in his words as we read.  "Be babes in evil" (1 Corinthians 14:20), because the Lord of Glory made himself a mortal babe.  Pursue that humility that the Son of God condescended to teach to each of his disciples.   Put on the power of patience, and gain your souls by it, since he who is the redemption of all is also the strength of all.  "Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth" (Colossians 3:2).  Walk firmly on the path of truth and life.  Do not let earthly things hold you back when heavenly things are prepared for you through our Lord Jesus Christ.

 St. Gregory the Great, Sermon 31, 3

This is taken from a wonderful book I've been reading all year:  A Year with the Church Fathers by Mike Aquilina.

The Little Charmer Who Has Stolen Our Hearts

Dylan trying to master the art of sippy cup.

He isn't quite where he can hold the cup up enough to actually get water out of it on his own.

Showing off his new teeth.  He got those lower two a couple months ago.  And then three top ones and another lower one decided to erupt at the same time.  So he's been a little grumpy and running a low fever at times.

Not grumpy here!

Politically Homeless

Jesus replied:  Foxes have dens and birds have nests but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.    Luke 9:58

Not that I am anywhere near being like Jesus, but I do want to conform my life to His, so being unhappy with both the Republicans and the Democrats, the Left and the Right, might be a good sign.  Perhaps if one is too comfortable one place or the other, it means there is something wrong.

But the truth is everybody just pisses me off!  I can't stand the right and its hawkish, anti-immigrant stance.  I still can't get over the shock of Trump's nomination.  As a pro-lifer I feel utterly betrayed by them.  I can't stand the constant Pope Francis bashing in uber-conservative Catholic circles.

I can't stand the left with its insistence on forcing the sexual revolution down everyone's throat and their almost complete dismissal of basic constitutional rights.  They are like an unthinking mob bent on destruction, giddy with their own victories in the cultural war.

I think I am going on a news fast.  I might check headlines at the Washington Post once a day and watch EWTN at 6, if I am around to do so (often I am not) but that's it.  No more political blogs, etc.

I am weary.   I want to be like the beloved disciple who leans on Jesus at the Last Supper.  I am going to try to spend the next four years leaning on Jesus.  My job is to try to love and serve my family as best I can.  I need to constantly be reaching out trying to help others in need.  I need to work on feeling real gratitude for all the blessings God has showered on me.

In other words I am in retreat.  But not surrender, just going on a retreat for as long as it takes (the rest of my life).

Photos of almost but not quite complete bathroom!

I am having the darnedest time with my phone.  For some reason it no longer lets me send photos to my gmail account?  Weird.  So instead I tried using google drive and then downloading that way.  So let's see how that works!

Well. that wasn't too bad.  A tiny bit more cumbersome, but not bad.

So here are our new built ins in our bedroom as you walk in the door.  This area used to be a blank wall with an aquarium on a stand in front of it.  Made it a bit crowded.  Now I've got these lovely bookshelves just waiting for books and we have a nice shelf to put the aquarium on.  Can't wait until later this week when we can move the tank and shelve the books.

Then as you turn to your right you see this:

We still need to put the blinds up.  We seem to have misplaced the brackets though in all the chaos.

We still need a little hand towel ring up on the wall here.  For now the knob of the medicine cabinet will do.

I want to put another cabinet up on the wall behind the toilet.

One funny thing about having all the tile in the bathroom is that everything echoes!  I think once the blinds go up and if I get another little rug for in front of the toilet it will soften things a tiny bit.  I am thinking maybe a plant or two?  Do they help with echoes?

This is our new shower, sans the glass doors.  That unfortunately takes a couple of weeks to come in, so we are still without a shower.  This is our new steam shower, which Rick has been coveting for several years now.

I was so nervous about choosing the tile colors and everything, but I like it a lot.  I wanted something low key and calming.  Every time I walk in I feel a pang of guilt for having such luxury.  But then I tell myself we are employing lots of people directly or indirectly by doing this and work feeds families!