7 Quick Takes: I’m not ready yet.

Click to see more takes.

1.

Lent Report:  The festival of cleaning combined with our new penitential life is starting to show results.  Neighbor kid who lives in a clean house all the time is unimpressed.  But I am.  For one thing, the finally collasping remains of the Leaf Fort have now been moved to a newly-constructed giant compost garden, where in theory we’ll grow fewer insects and more compost this year.

2.

On the other hand, less school work is being accomplished.  But we will catch back up.  We are still in the initial stages of our new, clean life, and there was some digging-out to do.

3.

I have at least one child interested in attending daily mass more often.  (By “more often” I mean “at all, ever”.)  I’m going to see how doing just Fridays works.

4.

But “just Fridays”, I mean to say, “Yesterday I did not race the kids to mass and adoration even though in theory we could have squeezed it in on the way to Grandma’s house, but seriously?  It wasn’t going to work. ”

As I told Father last week, sometimes trying to haul everyone to church is a near occasion of sin in itself.

I want my kids to associate weekday mass with peaceful, reflective times with God, not with Mom Yelling At You That Your Pants Need To Be Ironed Because You Did Not Put Them Away Properly And Quick Get That Food Off The Table Do You Not Remember We Are Cleaning Up After Ourselves Because We Are Growing In Holiness Quit Making That Face At Your Sister.

 

5.

But what I did do yesterday was something new: I read a book during adoration.    Dropped the kids at Grandma’s, returned library books, then stopped by the church as I sometimes (not always) do on a grandma day.

Normally I would pray for a very small amount of time, and then go over to McDonald’s, buy a cup of coffee, and read a book.  I always puzzled over people who read during Eucharistic adoration, because it felt sort of like if you had an audience with the Queen of England and you whipped out a magazine because you were so bored.  You know, because it’s so much more reverent to dash in,  say hello, and wave goodbye with a, “Nice seeing you, gotta run off to McDonald’s now”, right?

The book was Knox’s Retreat for Lay People.  And it would be a good helpful book if read at McDonald’s.  But read right there in the presence of Jesus? Wow. What a difference.  Talk about a serious book club.  Each point became something I could pray about — that is, talk face to face with Jesus right then and there.  Not contemplate while gazing at the ceiling, or the clouds, or even an icon or crucifix.  But right there with the Real guy.  Sheesh.   I’d never guessed.  Seriously cool.

 

6.

Pray for Allie Hathaway.  I can’t think of a better way to spend your Friday.

7.

“I’m Not Ready Yet” is what our first pair of preschoolers would call out from the bed in the evenings.  They’d lay there in their room, shouting out in a chorus, “I’m not ready yet!  I’m not ready yet!” in protest of their bedtime.  We have it on video.  It has now entered the family vocabulary as our all-purpose expression of dislike for less enjoyable responsibilities.

In other bits of castle dialect these days: Everything is coming back to Mr. Timn.

 

3.5 Time Outs: Mardi Gras

Thanks once again to our host Larry D. at Acts of the Apostasy, who makes Tuesday everything it should be and then some.

Indulge yourself! Click the photo to see a veritable feast of internet treasures. Or a picture of foreign donuts.

1.

Catholic Blog Day.  What I had planned to do today (actually, yesterday, but let’s not quibble) was empty out my inbox of the 10,000 fabulous links kind people have sent my way lately.  You will have to wait.  Only the very most last-minute one makes it today:  The first Catholic Blog Day is tomorrow, Ash Wednesday.  The topic is penance.  Remember that you can use your scheduling super powers to post ahead of time, if you are planning to fast from blogging for some portion of the next 40ish days.

Hey, listen, how about we just make Tuesday a post-your-link-in-Jen’s-combox day?  Would that be so bad?  No.  You would love it.  One link per comment so you don’t fall through the automated trap door into the Spam Dungeon, where I never ever look anymore, because, ick, lots of spiders.

2.

The Festival of Cleaning  is not my favorite thing.  Let’s just say that Lent is going to hit very, very hard around the castle.  Should I do like I did a different year and also give up yelling at the kids?  I think yes.  I mean, every time I go to confession I resolve to give it up, so I guess Lent would be that time, right?

[Re-cap for the un-initiated: This year our family is going to Clean Up After Ourselves for Lent.  Reminder for the familiar-with-fitzes: Try not to laugh so loud.  You’re shaking the internet.]

3.

This book looks really cool.  Now I want to read it.

Also: Registration deadline for the [free!] Online Catholic Writers Conference is Feb. 29th.  That’s both for registering as a participant and/or as a presenter.  If you are newly-registering, it takes a couple days for the final approval to go through, so don’t panic at the wait.  You should sign up now, because you probably will not hate the whole entire thing, but the only way to be sure is to register and then go look when the time comes and see.  FYI it is for everyone of all skill and experience levels.

Oh and hey, in fixing 50% of the typos in take #3.5, I was reminded that Tollefsen fans should note the new article up at Public Discourse, “Mandates and Bad Law“.

3.5

It is not this shiny anymore.

The spiders reminds me of a true story, which if I’ve told you before you are going to hush and not spoil it for the people who want to read the second half next week:

When we first built the green castle, that summer Ev would not play in her little kitchen in the basement.  She kept telling us, “I’m afraid of the bad spiders,” and she wouldn’t go into it.  Eventually we got around to investigating. And then we were glad she’d held her ground on refusing to associate with the bad spiders, because it turned out they were . . .

7 Quick Takes: People, Places, Things

Click to see more takes at Betty's place.

1.

Until yesterday, I had no idea — zero — about the history of shipping orphaned British children to the colonies to work as indentured servants.  I did know about the American orphan trains, thanks to the picture book on the subject.

You can read about the British Home Children at Rose McCormick-Brandon’s site, The Promise of Home.

2.

This week we met the governor’s dog, Simba.  I can’t find an image for you, but if you book a (free) tour of the SC Governor’s Mansion, the odds are in your favor.  (We also caught sight of the first gentleman, but he saw the tour group through the window and slipped around to a back entrance.) 

This is my new favorite historic building tour for kids, because it is a real live occupied home.  Which means nothing is roped off, and you are allowed to touch things.  Mostly the kids did not touch things, because they have sense and know better than to put their fingers on somebody’s dishes or plop down on the living room couch.  The downstairs area that you tour looks exactly like your grandmother’s formal living room that even your mom isn’t allowed to go into without permission.  So you put on living room manners. 

But the tour guide did have us all pull out dining room chairs to inspect the deer-hoof carving on the feet of the chairs.  If you poured out a bottle of SC Concentrate, that building is what you’d get.

3.

After a jumbled first-round of Sacrament of Confession last week, I re-booted and had a much better second half.  Helped that we had laid the groundwork the week before; also that I revised the study guide so that the students didn’t have to copy so much off the board.

My trusty teenage assistant was out sick last week.  Lucky for him, we didn’t do 10,000 Gun Questions  until this week.  He agreed, it is a very fun class.

4.

I’m still only halfway through writing report cards for Q2.  Quarter break is almost over.  Need to crank the rest out and mail off a couple quarters worth of grades and work samples to Kolbe.  Not something that Kolbe requires (unless you want a transcript from them), nor that is a legal requirement for us.  But I am finding that it helps me teach better, if I have that extra grown-up looking over my shoulder.

5.

My daughter (the Bun – #3 child) loves beanie-snaps.  She’s having some for breakfast-dessert.  These:

#4 would eat sour cream exclusively if we let her.

6.

Pray for Allie Hathaway.  Also for the repose of the soul of Fr. Robert Fix.

7.

7 Quick Takes: PSA’s

Many thanks to our hostess Hallie Lord, who is not taking attendance while Jen Fulwiler is on writing-leave, so hopefully I won’t be demoted for participating late.

1.

Funnix is running the free-download program again.  I don’t see the deadline, but I’m going to guess it is only during February.  (They did this last year.  Thank you kind phonics people.  Also thank you to my internet acquaintance Cynthia for pointing me and other moms to the link.)  I have no particularly opinion on the program other than that some people like it and, look! free!

2.

I’ve entered this new special time in my life as an internet person, when I receive not just spam, but Catholic Spam.  It’s sorta weird.  But here’s the unsettling part:  Sometimes I really cannot tell if I’ve gotten a Catholic-Spam Troll Form Letter, or if there’s a human who knows me (if only via a blog) and is trying to communicate useful information, but has accidentally written an e-mail that has the look-n-feel of Spamalot.

So anyway, the PSA is this:  If you are a real live person who wanted to share a link or tell me about your great works, and the first time you e-mailed me it got lost in cyberspace and you never ever heard anything . . . just e-mail me again?  Okay?  With some extra words this time that maybe tell me how you know me (this blog, or the CWG, or you’re a friend of my friend’s cousin’s uncle-in-law, or whatever) and anything else that would help establish yourself as a sentient creature who knows my name.

Thanks!

4.

What kind of dog is this?

A stray dog.  Possibly a lucky dog.  Well, lucky whether he ends up here or moves to the local no-kill, where I’m sure he’ll find a home because he is both cute and nice.  If energetic.  My facebook friends are voting Jack Russell, with maybe some Fox Terrier or Bull Terrier.  Any other votes?

5.

A few months ago I subscribed to the Jimmy Akin Secret Info Club.  Yes, yes, of course it exists to help the man sell books.  He writes good books.  And no, the information is not truly secret . . . in the sense that comes from sources that people treat as classified documents but actually you are allowed to read them, such as the Bible, or the Catechism, or the writings of the Church fathers.

But hey, it’s a handy little newsletter.  About once a month I get a short e-mail that is a refresher on some topic related to the faith — for example this month’s was on private vs. public revelation.  Nothing earth-shattering, but sort of a continuing-ed workshop delivered straight your inbox.  Worth checking out.

6.

It’s that time again. Allie Hathaway.  Pray.

7.

If you like to write, go register for the Catholic Writers Conference Online.  No, really.  Even if you aren’t Catholic*.  It is free, open to the public, and you can participate as much or as little as you like.  Which means if you discover you hate it or you’d rather be learning something else that week, nothing lost.  Because remember, free?

Registration closes . . . I’m not sure when.  I thought March 1, but I don’t see the date, so I can’t be 100% sure.  But look if you obey your local blogger and just sign up right now, it won’t matter when registration closes.

So what’s the catch?

You would be, in your own small way, cooperating with the mission of the Catholic Writers Guild.  Which is to fill the world with more better writers.

 

*It is like attending any Catholic school, you have to be polite and not say mean things in class.  But whereas the specific mission of the CWG is to promote Catholic writing and publishing, the online conference includes topics of interest to any writer.  If you read here, you totally have what it takes to attend the online conference and enjoy it.

 

7 Quick Takes: Works in Progress

Click to see more takes.

1.

This, my friends, is marital harmony:

Taken not to document our perpetual clutter problem, but to test the new lens somebody earned by building these things for me.  That’s love.  12 feet of plywood heaven.  Worth the wait.

2.

PS, no there will NOT be boxes of books on the space-where-the-counter-goes forever.  Countertops are out on on the work bench in the garage.  Soon they will be finished — repeat: FINISHED — and then there will be an interesting collection of geeky artifacts strewn across the desktop in what looks like chaos but is actually carefully arranged nerdvana.

3.

Did you know that every. single. museum. is closed on Monday?  Except the Fire Museum.  So that’s where we dragged grandpa for his last day in town, because sitting in the house on a rainy day playing Angry Birds does build fond memories, but you can only do so many hours of that before the mother notices it is a school day and she would like very much to get something done that counts as school, and look, hey, field trip!

Here’s a link to the Fire Museum Network.  Some of the state-by-state links are old, but the museums are likely still around even if the webpage has expired.  We’d had no idea this was in our town until desperation had me googling random possible museum ideas.

4.

So is it just me, or are fire-fighters not the coolest, nicest, manly-men in the universe? Not only do they run into burning building to rescue people, and keep whole towns from being demolished*, but they are, you know, friendly.  Every time we’ve popped into a fire station with a five-year-old, there was a guy who was totally ready to give us a tour.

5.

If you haven’t taken your small children to meet fully-garbed firefighters, do it.  They need to see this:

And know that it’s a good guy.  Specifically: the person they should be looking for and calling for, in the event they are stuck in a fire.  Because it easy to mistake someone dressed this way for something out of the bad-guys-who-give-me-nightmares department [monsters, aliens, death troopers, etc.], and decide to run and hide.

6.

Allie Hathaway.  Once a week whether you need it or not.

7.

Want to feel like a stellar parent, even though you yelled at your kids seven times before breakfast?  Here’s our two-step method for teaching kids to evacuate when they hear a smoke-detector go off:

a) Open the oven to take out that freezer-burned casserole you’re gonna try to pawn off on the kids as “food” tonight.  There goes the alarm again.  Sheesh.

b) Hand out candy to everyone who runs outside and towards designated rendezvous point.

Conveniently, you can do this every night at dinner.  Even really super little toddlers learn fast when there’s candy involved.

*Also ours do: High- and low-angle wilderness rescue, hazmat, swiftwater, ground-collapse . . . anything that involves getting your trapped body out of a place it doesn’t belong.  There’s boats at the fire station.  Boats.  We had a great chat about rescuing people entrapped in the rapids at a lowhead dam.  Our local guys had worked out a seriously cool technique.  (Hint: Don’t try it at home.  That dam wants to eat you up and never spit you out.)

7 Quick Takes: 40 Days

At least it isn't Saturday. I could have done worse.

1.

The bookshelves are in!  People say my library method makes sense!  Or at least haven’t complained!  The countertops still need to be finished.  Photo coming sometime after that.

2.

If you have an e-mail sitting in my inbox, yes I will reply soon.  I’ve been sidetracked by regular life.

3.

Cleaning my house.  Yes, really.  That’s what I’ve been doing all week.

4.

Because Lent is only 40 days away.  And this year for Lent, our family is going to Clean Up After Ourselves.

5.

It’s not that we’re slobs.  It’s that I can write a sentence beginning with, “It’s not that we’re slobs,” and no one senses any kind of irony or sarcasm there.  They await some other explanation, thinking skeptically, “This better be good.”

But let’s just clarify right now:  I could never ever qualify for one of those slovenliness reality shows.   We do like order and cleanliness.  We do.   Almost obsessively, in some pursuits.  But housekeeping?  There’s always another project that’s just a little bit more pressing.

You know all those movies where they tell you to slow down and enjoy life?  Or spend more time with your family?  Or focus on __________ that really counts?  We should be banned from those movies.  We need the movie where the family-centered protagonists have an amazing revelation about their misplaced priorities, and learn it might be okay to put dishes straight into the dishwasher after dinner.

6.

But you can wait just a second before you put away that glass, and say a quick prayer for Allie Hathaway.

7.

So we’re having a Carnival of Cleanliness, in an effort to make Lent less penitential than it otherwise would be.   You remember that line in A Mother’s Rule of Life, where she mentions  in passing that before you begin, make sure there’s A Place For Everything, and Everything In It’s Place?  Yeah, we’ve been working on that sentence for half a decade now.   And we’re close.  So close.

7 Quick Takes: Not Knowing

The other minions have been busy.

1.

The bookshelves in the living room are halfway installed.  (The “during” picture is too depressing.  Sorry no photo.)  SuperHusband complains that my method for organizing books is incomprehensible.  I was determined to load these new shelves in some orderly way that even an engineer could understand.  I’m already having trouble.  Hrmph.

2.

We found a long lost library book!  Someone had helpfully shelved Changes for Kit in the magazine file for Invention and Technology.  I don’t know why I didn’t think to look there.

3.

Do you know what I hate about submitting work to editors I don’t know?  Wondering if they even received it.  New experience for me this year.  In the past I’ve always written for people who had already hired me to do the writing.  People you could just e-mail or pop into their office and ask, “Did you get my thing? Let me know when you’ve had a chance to look at it.”  And it’s not pestering, because those people know you and wanted your work and told you exactly what they wanted.  They aren’t dreading looking to see what you’ve sent.

(Strangers rightly dread.  With people you don’t know? You just don’t know.)

So of course the solution to the wait-a-thon is to move on to the next project, which is easy enough when you are too busy anyway.  And then it’s helpful to already have a back-up plan for “What will I do if this editor isn’t interested?”.  Again, pretty easy.

But at 5AM when you wake up with a busy brain, and you feel bad about always using The Doctors of the Church as your insomnia remedy, because you know it’s going to influence your book review unfairly?    That’s when the weird fears kick in:  “What if my submission got lost in the spam filter?”  “What if I accidentally did something that causes me to look like a completely different kind of idiot than the one I actually am?  Because the one I am, an editor can work with, but maybe I came across like a different, less-manageable kind?”

The solution to that is to think up more likely and less ominous reasons, such as, “The editor has a lot of other work to do.”

But I also think up other things, like, “Maybe his farm was hit by a tornado,” or, “Maybe she’s come down with a pox and won’t be able to work for a month.”  Which leads to a weird prayer life revolving around things like, “If my editor’s house has fallen into a sinkhole, please let everyone be okay, and console him with Your peace, and let my file be safely stored at the office where he’ll eventually get to it sometime this spring.”

UPDATE:  But it is so lovely when you get an e-mail back saying, “My house did not fall into a sinkhole.”  (Actually it said, “Thanks, got it, we’ll get back to you.” )

4.

My typoese is getting weirder than ever.  I begin to suspect a rogue “auto-correct” function.

5.

Mr. Boy’s been having a hard time waking up lately.  Winter + Night Owl + Early Adolescence + School Is Not Fun = Low Motivation.  SuperHusband has started rousing him from bed to take the dog for a brisk walk as soon as it’s fully light out.  The first day he went straight back to bed after and slept two more hours.  Second day I cleared a work area for him in front of a window that gets direct sun all morning.   He hates it.  But it works.

Also I am working on dimming the lights after dinner so it isn’t so bright inside at a night.  Jon bought the house in the mid-90’s.  Early this century he managed to diagram most of the wiring.  I am still being surprised by which switch does what.

6.

Good news! Allie Hathaway’s gotten 2nd and 3rd opinions that offer a much better prognosis.  (And they agree with each other and seem to be the real thing. Yay.)   Alleluia.  Thank you for praying.  Don’t stop.

7.

Why is it that we act as if we’re omniscient, when we know that we are not?  We kick ourselves for guessing wrong about this investment or that career choice, or the new outfit or the right haircut.  Even when we had honestly made the effort to make a good decision.  Even when we cannot know the outcome of our decision, because it involves events beyond our control, or variables that can only be known with time.

And then we are mortified by the ignorance and immaturity our younger selves — selves who had no way of knowing what can only be learned by time and experience.  And note:  Those of us still breathing  are, still, younger selves.

It’s nonsense.  Bad habit.  Rooted in bad theology no less.  I wonder if it’s easier to quit than the complaining thing?

Resolutions

Happy New Year!

 

I  finally thought up some reading resolutions for 2012.  Usually mine work opposite — I resolve not to read things.  But this year is different.  I resolve to read:

1. The children’s homework.  Every day.

2. The children’s reading assignments*.  Most of the time.  (Thank you Teacher’s Manuals for the rest of the time.)

3. Book review books right away.  Even if His Holiness is not actually as exciting as an American Girl Mystery.

4. The mail.  From that red box thing at the end of the driveway that USPS visits 6 days a week.  Just because it’s on paper doesn’t mean it’s not important.

 

Non-reading resolutions:

1. Permanently place a recycle bin next to the USPS mailbox?  For all the stuff that needs to not come into house?

2.  Be nicer to people.

3.  Everything else.**

 

 

 

* “Learn Latin” is the unwritten 2A on this one.  I think we’re at that point where I can’t keep faking much longer.

**This is the one that never seems to work out.

 

 

Merry Christmas

Eldest daughter has learned a few tricks from the OxFam catalog, and  posted these signs throughout the house:

WANTED

Small bedroom for 9-year-old girl.

Consider giving this gift of joy.

Thank you!

The 5-year-old, meanwhile, has been praying for snow for Christmas.   We’ve had a talk about how God sometimes says “No” to our prayers.  But in the event we get a freak snowstorm, you’ll know what happened.

Merry Christmas!

7 Quick Takes: Advent was good.

Coffee was lost and now is found. Go read.

Lately I’ve encountered a lot of talk about Holiday Burnout.  People who are just sick and tired of Christmas.  People really struggling to feel the Advent-Love.  People who know they’ll go to bed on the 25th exhausted, disappointed, and thinking, “Is that all?  It ends like this?”

You know what?  I’ve had a wonderful Advent!  Peaceful.  Joyful.  Can’t-wait-for-Christmas.  Genuinely looking forward to 12 Days of All Things Good.  Here’s what it looked like:

1.

We had The Plague.  Not a really bad plague.   Not the kind that depopulates cities or disfigures previously-beautiful people.  Just a day or two of  “Hey, death seems like  a nice idea!” and then several weeks of non-contagious laying around, sleeping all day, and sticking to activities that require no lung usage.   So visions of bustling around doing holiday things?  Out the window.  Gone.  No-Can-Do.  Didn’t happen.

2.

Dumb luck.  For reasons that have nothing to do with  my own clever planning, 80% of our regular weekly activities finished for the year by the first week of December.  80% less driving around. 80% less herding cranky children.  80% less repenting of uncharitable thoughts towards stupid careless clueless other drivers.

And then back in early November  I had recklessly committed a labor-intensive Advent catechist-project; we had to cancel it when we realized it would conflict with The Immaculate Conception.   Good thing, since I was barely standing up straight for my last RE class December 7th.

(Shocker: The kids were NUTS that night.  Pure crazy-power that class.  They can smell weakness.)

3.

I chose not to over-commit. We went to a few of our very favorite (or very necessary) holiday events.  But the rest, even though they promised to be good and wonderful, we chose to skip.  I don’t like long, loud, chaotic festivities.  I know other people love that stuff.  Cookies! St. Nick! Bags of Trinkets!  I do not love it.  We skipped it.  Everyone is happy.

4.

We’ve hit our Christmas / Advent decorating sweet spot.  It took us a few years to figure out what this looks like for us.  When does the tree go up?  When do we decorate it?  What about lights and colors and all that stuff?  I know it is the pasttime of a special kind of Catholic to agonize about these things.  I agree it is silly to lay down some Universal Law Of When The Tree May Be Lit.

But I think it is important to self-examine just a little.  To try things out and see how they feel.  Our culture flat out stinks at observing Advent.  If we want to do it, we’re on our own for figuring out how it’s done.  It is a happy year when we the members of the family can agree that we’ve found an approach that works for us, and hits the right balance between preparation, penitence, and joyful expectation.

Double-bonus for your resident Complainer:  I totally 100% approved of the way my parish handled Advent decorations this year.  Not that it’s any of my business to have an opinion on these things.  But it was nice all the same.

5.

I live in a cave.  I don’t watch TV.  I don’t shop.  And every year from Thanksgiving to New Year’s I turn off the radio, because I’d rather have silence than cheesy holiday songs.  These are not due to my amazing virtue and spirit of penance.  I have very little virtue, and a purely intellectual spirit of penance.  These are self-indulgences.  They are me doing what I prefer to do.   But they conveniently shield me from the onslaught of Giftmas Propaganda and bad (Christian) or blasphemous (secular)  music.

So I totally get it, if you who bravely suffer these things have lost your Advent Love after enough weeks of torment.  I would too.  I am grateful for my sheltered life.

6.

Don’t forget to pray for Allie Hathaway.

7.

Jen Fulwiler at the Register ponders, “Why no Catholics among the top 100 Mom Bloggers?”  My answer is this:  We don’t do that.  If our homes are all in order, with lovely decorations,  Craft A Day, and beautiful meals on the table every night . . . that’s our cue to have another baby. 

We don’t live showcase lives that we can peddle on the internet to those longing for Housewife Wonderland.   We focus on our highest  priorities, and we let the rest be someone else’s calling.  Our lives will never be magazine pretty.  My house is not that clean, the only reason I have baked goods lined up is that I trust the nine-year-old with brownie mix and I wasn’t being strict enough about math homework, and we didn’t even get to sing this year, because, well, plague.

We lives our lives poured out. Full and running over.  Everything that is not essential to our calling, we set aside.  And in the process we do not end up beautiful, famous, or rich.  But we do get joy and peace.