7-Quick Takes

  Join Jen and the other Quicktakers over at the Conversion Diary.


1. Life continues to be very busy and very full. I try to savor these days. I know a time is coming when there will be no cross country meets, no band practice, no studying for CLEP tests and no more homeschooling. I know that. So I am trying to savor each and every day.

2. If I could offer any bit of advice to homeschoolers it would be - don't buy curriculum just because every one else is buying it! I have always have regrets when I do! When Calvin was little, the big phonics program was Sing, Spell, Read and Write! A lot of work and didn't work well with my kid at all!
Sea to Shining Seahas also been a bit disappointing when it came to history!


And as it turns out Warriner's Grammar and Composition, although highly recommended in some homeschooling circles, has been a disappointment to me. This might be the most thorough book out there on the topic, but the teacher's guide is unavailable unless you're willing to pay $50 or more for it. It's also a difficult read in my opinion, for high school students.

3. Instead I stumbled upon this site and bought the grammar e-Book Short, sweet, to the point. The kids like it so much better.

4. Even though my kids don't care for grammar or essay writing, surprisingly, they enjoy writing short stories! After reading some Edgar Allen Poe this week, they were supposed to write a story today a la Poe! I was pleased to see that the words were just flying off the tip of their pencils! Noah's story is about a homeless man staying under a bridge watches as a mom pulls up in an old-fashioned care, pulls out a gun and kills her children and herself. Naturally distressed, the man runs to the nearest convenience store to report the murder/homicide but when he returns to the scene, there is nothing and no one there! As it turns out the police think he is a prankster because 50 years ago on that night, a mother did kill her children and herself in the family car! I thought that definitely was a plot Poe would have liked!

5. Because the Feast of the Arch Angels was on a Thursday, we celebrated on Wednesday night- which was the Eve of the Feast - so it counted. I made the angel hair pasta dish that we have learned to enjoy so much, we read parts of the book of Tobit, talked about Michael and St. Gabriel, and we celebrated as a family. This has truly become a family tradition.




6. I've been adding more of my high school classmates to my Facebook account. It's so funny how some of the faces are vaguely familiar, and some I could pass on the street and not know who they are! It is also curious how many of my classmates, who graduated from our Catholic High school, are no longer practicing their Catholic Faith!

7. A little funny thing happened at a wedding I recently worked. The wedding was scheduled for 6, but the bride and her mother informed me that was a mistake - that the actual time was 5:30! After getting that cleared with Father, and notifying the organist and the altar servers, as well as moving the rehearsal for the next day's wedding to a different time, I thought we were good to go - until 15 minutes before the wedding was supposed to start when they informed me that the marriage license was locked in a car with the keys a good distance away and then Father said he couldn't marry them without it! Long story short - it all worked out, but we ended up splitting the time difference and the wedding started at 5:45!



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My Daily Domestic Clips 09/29/2011 (p.m.)

• BREAKING: Baby Joseph dies at home, surrounded by family | LifeSiteNews.com

  tags: mothersloveyourbabies obamacare

  • Baby Joseph’s story began in February of this year when the  Ontario Superior Court rejected an appeal by his parents to bring him home where  he could die under their care. He had been previously diagnosed with severe  neurological issues, for which doctors said there was no hope of recovery.

     

    The family contested claims that their son was in a “permanent  vegetative state,” offering footage showing him flailing and reacting to  tickling. Their request was that their son be given a simple tracheostomy, which  would enable him to breathe on his own, and be sent home where he could die.

     

    After the decision of the Ontario court, doctors immediately  scheduled the removal of Baby Joseph’s life support, meaning almost certain  death for the young child.

     

    “Monday at 10 am. they will kill my baby,” Moe Maraachli had  told LifeSiteNews shortly after the ruling.  “There’s no more  humanity.  There’s no more chance.  I’ve tried everything for  him.  No more appeals, nothing.”

     

    However, anti-euthanasia and pro-life advocates rallied around  the Maraachli family, and effected a dramatic 11th-hour rescue.

     

    Schadenberg and his organization were able to secure  professional legal help, with the result that the removal of Baby Joseph’s life  support was postponed at the last minute.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

My Daily Domestic Clips 09/29/2011 (a.m.)

• The importance of the Oxford Coma

  Good punctuation - it matters!

  tags: grammar

• Saint Wenceslas

  tags: Catholic saints stwenceslas

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

The Feast of St. Wenceslas

Lest we forget, today is a good day to sing this hymn!

Good King Wenceslas: "

King WenceslasGood King Wenceslas looked out on the Feast of Stephen,
When the snow lay round about, deep and crisp and even.
Brightly shone the moon that night, though the frost was cruel,
When a poor man came in sight, gathering winter fuel"



Read more about the good saint here
here, and a great article at Catholic Culture



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The attack on womanhood

I don't think it's a big surprise that traditional marriage and family values are under attack in the culture. But what is surprising, in this post-feminist, woman-power culture, is the way the women and womanhood is being degraded. A few things happened in the culture over the past few weeks that have been bothering me about the way womanhood is being portrayed.

1. Chastity/Chaz Bono. I remember Chaz as the adorable blond daughter of Sonny and Cher and her cute appearances on her program. She seemed to go through her awkward teen years, as we all did, before settling into adulthood. C. Bono has body issues. I think the extreme obesity was a testament to that. But other than that, Chaz was a healthy individual. So it boggles my mind that the powers that be would allow her to undergo painful surgical procedures to change that healthy feminine body into something more masculine. I watched SLO go through a double mastectomy and I've had abdominal surgeries myself. I can't imagine someone suggesting that it was good, normal, and healthy to go through those types of procedures electively.

But here's the thing - if you suggest that it wasn't good, normal or healthy (physically or mentally) to allow someone to go through that - you're "a hater" according to the popular culture. But wasn't the real hater Chaz and the professionals that changed a feminine body into a male one? and wouldn't it have been more prudent to treat the mental and spiritual issues that have caused Chaz to hate his/her body to begin with? I think it's worth noting that despite the surgeries, Chaz is still severely overweight - the body acceptance problems seem to still be there. I have yet to read one prominent pro-woman writer speak to this.

2. Bristol Palin. Did you catch the video last week? Bristol is shooting a scene for her reality show at a country western bar and she gets verbally assaulted by a guy at the bar.



Overall I think Bristol handled herself pretty well and I think it took a lot of guts for her to stand up to this guy, who clearly didn't have a well formed argument in his head about why he hates Bristol and her mother - at least not one that he could clearly articulate. Yet despite Bristol being called a f*(&ing whore and a few other choice words without provocation, she is being attacked for asking him if he was a homosexual. (verbatim she said, "Is it because you're a homosexual?") For that she is being ripped as a homophobe and a hater - the heckler is pretty much given a pass. Message received, I guess, is that it is okay to be verbally abusive of women, especially conservative women.

The other side of that here and here.

3. The natural birthers and not-so natural birthers are still going after each other - no big news there. My take on it is that after the extreme medical interventions of the 60s and 70s, there was a big swing towards the all natural birth. That's for another blog post - but I have read this opinion expressed on more than one occasion:

"It doesn't freaking matter how a baby is born" It is the getting a baby here alive and healthy that matters!!!"

I get what the mom is saying here, but is it really true that it doesn't matter how the baby gets born? My mom gave birth to my sister, knocked out and tied to a gurney in a hospital hallway. Sis is alive and well many decades later - but isn't it sad that mom missed the delivery? are women just vessels. Is the act of actually birthing our children without any merit or value?

Along that line, Carolyn Savage, the "Catholic" mom who was accidentally implanted with someone else's embryo, courageously carried it to term and then went through the heart breaking separation of giving the baby to his biological parents, had no problem hiring a surrogate mother in another state to carry and bear twins for her and apparently had no qualms about separating those babies from the woman that bore them.

It's getting to the point in out culture that it does NOT matter how the babies are born, or even who bears them. It's the womb that is the prize here - not the person with the womb.






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Simple Woman

Outside my window...

A hint of fall in the air.  My marigolds seem to be done for the most part, as are a few of the other annuals.  My Morning Glories are keeping on though!
I am thinking...
about a friend of mine who told me she is seeing a divorce.  I know quite a few couples about my age who have gotten divorced, so that isn't the surprising part.  What did surprise me was that this was a couple that sort of mentored Mr. Pete and me as we reverted back to our Catholic Faith and as we started our homeschooling journey.  It is hard to see marital role models fall.

I am thankful ...
for my Mr. Pete.  But I told him that this turn of events has made me a little scared for us.  At which point me smacked me on the back of the head and said, "Get real!"  which made me feel a lot better!

From the learning rooms...
Our computer in the learning room no longer picks up internet.  A week or so ago, I was upstairs working when the cat knocked our wireless router off my desk.  That apparently was enough to do it in and I decided to go with Time Warner Wireless.  They set it all up (which frankly wasn't that big of a deal - I set our wireless up myself a year ago and even used Netgear - the same hardware they are using!) and it works fine upstairs on my computer, and on all of our wireless devices - except in the learning room.  Turns out there is something in the registry of that computer that is blocking the new Netgear - and I have to decide whether I want to get in there and mess with it or not.

But as that computer is about 7 years old or so, I think what I want to do is have the kids finish up their Rosetta Stone Latin 1 and then perhaps I'll get a newer computer for that room for their studies.

Noah and Gabe also started an Early Church History course from Homeschool Connections last week, that I think is sailing over their heads, but I intend to persevere through it. 


From the kitchen...
Busy week this week - spaghetti tonight, chili tomorrow, angel hair pasta on Wednesday, chili cheese potatoes on Thursday and tuna casserole Friday!

I am wearing...
Wearing my night gown right now but hope to wear one of my new tops from Woman Within after I get dressed.

I am creating...
a weekday celebration for the Feast of the Archangels.  I hate that it falls on a Thursday this year - the busiest night of the week!  So we are going to celebrate on Wednesday instead. 
I am going...
to try to work some extra prayer time into my days.  Praying for:

• Calvin as he navigates these waters of early adulthood - with some successes but also some troubling turbulance in his spiritual life.
• Gabe - who informed me he wants to be a drummer and that's all he wants to do.
• Noah who is preparing for confirmation.
• Izzy - who felt a little like an oursider at the youth group bon fire because she does not attend the day school.
• Rosie- who has no fear - and that scares me.
• Mr. Pete - who is always working.  

I am reading...
Abe Lincoln Grows Up


I am hoping...
to keep up with typing, school work and keeping the house up this week, working in some exercise and surviving the wedding I am working on Friday!

I am looking forward to...
the end of the wedding season - I have three to do this fall (missing two cross country meets because of rehearsals - drat!!) and two in December.  I will have to re-evaluate if I want to continue after that.


Around the house...
getting my  clean classroom in order and organizing my books.


Pictures I am sharing:



Noah Setting a Personal Record last week.















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Soccer Day

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My Daily Domestic Clips 09/24/2011 (a.m.)

• Why Homeschool: Some recent homeschooling carnivals

  tags: homeschool homeschooling

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

7-Quick Takes

  Join Jen and the other Quicktakers over at the Conversion Diary.

1. Sorry for the very slow blogging over the past two weeks. I am trying to get back into full school mode - which for me means:

• All the academics for four kids.
• Supporting Sam as he continues CLEPing through College Plus
• Driving to Izzy's art lessons, soccer, cross country
• Keeping caught up on the laundry and housework
• Cooking every night
• Grocery shopping every weekend with a menu.
• Keeping caught up on my transcription work.

This is just the bare minimum that has to be done for family survival mode and it's a shock to the system to get back to doing it all full scale.

2.  In addition, I have some worries this year that are on my mind constantly.

• Sam's slow progress through CLEP (although he feels very prepared for the upcoing Biology exam).
• Izzy's still- ponderous reading and writing (although, I must say that since she is an artist, her copy work is beautiful!)
• Gabe's desire to only play drums with his band and to not do any school work, or any other work of any other kind.
• Noah thinking he might like to become a priest.
• Calvin with problems at work, problems with his course work, and troubling personal life.

Egad, I can feel the hair roots turning gray as I type this!

3.  This has been my toughest year as a church wedding coordinator E-VAH!!  and part of me thinks I should probably retire.  I have empathy with the bridal families, I do. But when you've lost your parents, a baby, survived two law suits, and been dancing over that poverty line more years than I care to count, it sort of makes little wedding details kind of - well, picayune.  Not that details aren't important, but in the large scheme of things I think it's important to keep perspective!

4.  I have also been having my own dark days (of the soul perhaps?)  I feel alone and lonely, mainly because Mr. Pete has been working so much all the time.  And it doesn't really help that the kids are around - I mainly feel that I have to make a lot of the tough decisions about them all of the time too - especially my teenage boys!  I feel as if I have to say things with twice the strength, force and authority because I am the mother, the authority - but being only 5 foot 6 1/2 inches to their 6 foot 2 and 3 makes it a little tough.  What Mr. Pete can get across in an instant takes me a drawn out logical debate - it's exhausting!  Although, to be sure, much of what Mr. Pete says is, "Do what your mom said."  So there's that.

5.  I miss mom a lot.  I think about her death a lot.  I think about my own death a lot. 

I've been pondering why this grief for my mom is so much longer than the grief I had for my beloved grandparents and my uncle (long-time readers will remember I grew up in a household with my grandparents, my mother, my uncle, my sister and myself).  I can com up with two explanations.

• I was in my late teens when grandma died, and late 20s with uncle and grandpa.  I had a relationship with my mother that was twice that length.
• I was present for a lot of the dying process and it was really a distressing thing to witness.
• One of the clients I type for is a rehab hospital, much like the one mom spent her last months in.  When they talk about ambulating in a hallway, or performing these different therapies, it is that rehab hospital that I picture in my mind, and it is mom that I picture performing these many therapies.

6.  I did have a grace filled moment last week.  I was talking with some moms at the soccer field (which could be an entire post by itself) when one of the moms started talking about yard sales.  So on the way home, I came across a tag sale (which is not quite the same thing) and decided to stop in.  This was a nice little house crammed full of interesting things including a lot of nice Catholic statuary.  In the corner, unceremoniously sitting all by itself, was a bag of crystals.  Probably came off of an old chandelier or other light fixture!  Since my old chandelier was missing quite a few crystals (and quite a few more had been snapped in two by little fingers) I knew I had to get that bag of crystals. But they wanted $25 for it.  I knew the next day it would be half off.  So on Saturday, five minutes after they opened, I was there and got my bag of crystals for $12.50.  I was pumped.

7.  Izzy and Noah cleaning the chandelier and putting on all of the crystals (which matched my old crystals perfectly!)














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My Daily Domestic Clips 09/23/2011 (p.m.)

• Padre Pio The Mystic - Stigmata

  tags: saint Catholic padrepio

• Saint Padre Pio, the priest with the stigmata

  tags: saint Catholic

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

My Daily Domestic Clips 09/22/2011 (a.m.)

• ABORTED FETAL CELL LINE VACCINES

  tags: abortion vaccinations

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Izzy Art

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Works for Me Wednesday

I grew up on a country road in Michigan. Back then, before Amazon, e-Bay, QVC or much of anything else except for the Sears Roebuck Catalog, there was the door-to-door salesman.

One afternoon, such a salesman appeared at our front door. He was selling cookware. My grandma already had cookware, but it was stuff she had inherited or picked up along her 35+ years of marriage and none of it matched and much of it was the old cast iron pots and pans - functional, but not very pretty. The cookware this gentleman was selling was contemporary looking and it cooked the food evenly and apparently cleaned up pretty well too! My grandma was sold and she bought the whole set.

I don't remember what my grandpa's reaction was, but I do remember that he built an entire cupboard in the laundry room in which to store all of the new cookware and that we ended up only using them for special dinners - like Sunday. After grandma passed they were used more and more and eventually, when we were cleaning out the farm house and settling the estate, Mr. Pete and I got the cookware. By my estimation then, these pots and pans have been doing duty for over 40 years - not a bad investment by my grandma!


I had a similar incident happen to me this year. A friend of Sam's graduated from high school and was kind of trying to figure out what to do next. She started selling cutlery from Cutco. She called me to make an appointment. I wanted to help her out, at least to practice her sales pitch, but I told her that I probably would not be buying any cutlery.

It wasn't that I didn't NEED cutlery. Mr. Pete and I had picked up pieces bit by bit over the years, and I did get the family Turkey carver from my mom. But most of the grocery store paring knives and other knives only lasted a few years and I would have to say that working with them was anything but a pleasure and probably a lot of the time was just plain dangerous!

Sam's friend seemed to know all of this. It seems she had met my kind before - mom on a budget making due with lots of different knives from wherever for many years. She was prepared for us. She had Gabe bring in my best knives and we proceeded to have a cutting contest - through rope and leather. My, it was a lot of work with my old knives, but her Cutco knives went through them like butter!

You probably can guess what happened. I ended up purchasing the Essential Cutco Set of knives - a nice paring knife that fits my hand and cuts well, a fork, a sandwhich spreader that also works for frosting and serving cake, a big cutting knife and a petite carver. I also got the super shears. 

A 4-piece table knife set was thrown in as a bonus.

After having these for a couple of months I have to say it was worth the investment.  These weren't cheap. But they have saved me a lot of time in cutting and chopping and I certainly realize how much extra time it takes in the kitchen with bad knives.

I'm not sure how Mr. Pete feels about them. But I do know that he uses them just about every day for something or other and he seemed to like them a lot when cutting up a pineapple for fruit salad.  The shears get used daily too and if I use them to cut up food they can be taken apart easily and put into the dishwasher. 

They sit prominently on my stovetop for easy access.  The kids see and use them all the time.  I can't help but think that maybe someday, my kids or even grand kids will talk about  my knives and how after determining ahead of time I wasn't going to buy a thing, I ended up buying and using this nice set.

Works for me!






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My Daily Domestic Clips 09/21/2011 (a.m.)

• Native American-How To Make Corn Husk Dolls

  tags: artsandcrafts

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

My Daily Domestic Clips 09/19/2011 (a.m.)

• St Therese of the Child Jesus

  tags: Catholic saints sttherese

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

How to have a happy marriage - these seniors give us a clue!

With any luck, this could be me and Mr. Pete in about 30 years!


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