7 Takes – Laziness ‘n Liturgical Living

1.  Catholic Icing has an Advent / Christmas planning guide out, and if I were that type of person, I’d get one.  Everything I have ordered from Catholic Icing has been top notch.

2.  But I’m not that type of person.  Which is why this Halloween about noonish my children quick went outside and hung white plastic trash bags in the tree (ghosts) in a last-minute attempt to show the world we were festive.

Most of the ghosts did eventually come back down, but we still have one up, reminding us that November’s the month for praying for all souls.  Handy, eh?  The ghost has to come down by the end of the month though, and by then I’ll have worked up the motivation to firmly insist it be done.

3.  In this same way, you can hold onto the Easter theme all 8 weeks, and not be like those wretched sinners who put the bunnies away after just one or two weeks of Easter.  After 8 weeks of looking at a smiling bunny, even the laziest procrastinators are moved by the Holy Spirit, and/or disgust, into putting the bunny away on Pentecost.

(Some of us are truly an Easter  a Bunny People, and thus there’s a rabbit on the mantle all year.  But we put away the no-doubt-anymore-they’re-dead Easter flowers in mid-June, and leave up just the Ordinary Time Rabbit.)

4.  So.  Advent’s coming.  You might be thinking, “I need to get ready for Christmas!”

Actually you don’t.

5.  Here’s how lazy people are better, following this clever decorating scheme:

First Sunday of Advent: Scramble around your house looking for some kind of Advent-y decoration after you get home from Mass, where you were reminded the season is upon you.  It’ll probably involve re-purposing the purple cape from someone’s Halloween costume.  Go with it.

During Advent:  Stay home from all those obnoxious Christmas events you never liked anyway.  You’ll be happier, and more liturgically-correct, which gives you a Pleasing Sense of Smug Superiority.

Tip: Go ahead and go to the events that you actually enjoy.  You can hold onto your PSSS by telling yourself that either (a) your attendance is an act of charity towards your hosts or (b) this particular event is the perfect way to prepare for the Christmas season.

Christmas Eve: Use the One Day Rule.

6. The One Day Rule is this: Do no more decorating for Christmas than can be accomplished in one day.  You may start as early at the 23rd if your schedule dictates, but the 24th is better.

The One Day Rule is superior because:

(a) You’ll never worry you’re over-doing it and losing sight of the reason for the season.

(b) You won’t get angry at your spouse for sitting around eating popcorn while you slave for weeks getting all the decorations up.

(c) Your home will still be plenty festive.

(d) It will only take one day to un-decorate, come the languid aftermath of the Presentation.

(e) Actually, you’ll probably get sick of most of your decorations before you’ve completed your 40 Days of Christmas, so the post-Presentation clean-up won’t be that bad.  But you do have to put away the St. Nick statue on Feb 3rd. Or else scoot him into a pleasing arrangement with the Ordinary Time Rabbit.

Note: The spouse and children may decorate all they please throughout the Advent season, and you must only scowl at them if they either (a) really go overboard or (b) have the temerity to try to make you put down your popcorn and help.  You’re busy being holy this Advent, you’ll string lights on the 24th, thank you.

Also: You are allowed to remove the batteries / cut the wires from the Singing Christmas Elf at any time during the Advent season, or even before.   Advent may have a penitential note to it, but Dark Night of the Ears it is not.

7.  Wait a minute! You forgot to buy presents!  Never fear, Liturgical Mom is here. You just need a couple cool things for the 25th and 26th, and you probably bought them on impulse because your kids are so cute you couldn’t help it.  The morning of the 27th is the perfect day to go out and acquire your other 10 Days of Christmas Loot.

Tip #1: If you know for a fact that all your kids are getting on the 25th is a shiny box of paperclips, but you *are* planning to buy something bigger come the post-Christmas sales, because you are a red-blooded American, albeit a very frugal one, you can announce that henceforth the family will be celebrating Ephiphany as the big day for gifts.

Tip #2: Some of your days of Christmas don’t have to be Merchandise Days of Christmas.  Around our house we have, among others:

The Baking Day of Christmas.

The Gingerbread House Day of Christmas.

The Going to the Zoo Day of Christmas.

The Eating at Waffle House, yes it’s that rare, Day of Christmas.

And so forth.   This year we’ll have one of these Ornament Kit Days of Christmas, because the girls have one and they mean to use it.

Also, at our home, we invariably have the Naughty Children Day of Christmas, in which our over-festivated youth decide that housework is overrated, and since the living room is a mess, still, we send them to bed early and thus observe the Parents’ Peace and Quiet Evening of Christmas.

8. Bonus Take: Equal Exchange is a very good source for stocking-fodder.  You can sign up as an individual customer or as an organizational customer (a small, private buying cooperative counts as an organization) depending on the quanities you’ll be buying.  The cool thing about this is that in addition to the PSSS that comes with buying all fair-trade chocolate, you won’t be tempted to pick up those horrid overpriced impulse-candies at the store.

9.  Bonus Take, Easter edition: If you live in the southern US, you have to order your Easter chocolate before Lent begins, because it may be too warm for the chocolate to survive the 5th week of Lent.

Piety Alert: Everyone will know you broke your Lenten penance if they end up with horrid grocery-store Easter candy in their baskets despite having seen the expensive stuff arrive at the door in March.  Which terrifying thought will give you an infusion of self-control to help you through the long month and a half looking at the duct-taped box from Equal Exchange.  (Your box does not arrived duct-taped.  But, tip: Duct tape can really assist your quest for personal holiness.  Just sayin’.)

Teen Boy Develops Alzheimers Prevention Program

Citing a family history of dementia, and mounting evidence that his 40-something parents “are losing it,” a South Carolina teen decided it was time to intervene.

“I got the idea from those animal enrichment exercises they do at the zoo,” the boy explained, “Like putting the treat inside the toilet paper tube, and that stuff. Research has found that mental activity can delay the onset of dementia, so I thought: That’s what I need to do, for the good of my parents.”

Noting that aging parents are generally not motivated by normal rewards, like pop tarts and video games, he encourages other teens to “think like a boring person — what’s important to them?”  For example, “When I put the dishes away, I never put them away in the same place.  That way they have to using spatial problem-solving skills to consider what places the bowls might fit, or what might be hiding inside that large stock pot on top the fridge.”

An essential part of program is helping parents develop long-term persistence at challenging tasks.  “My mom’s been looking for that blue lid that goes with the baking pan for weeks now.  It’s really cute watching her try to guess more places it could possibly be.”

For the elderly, regular routines can help them remember day-to-day tasks.  “My program uses visual cues to help parents remember what they are supposed to be doing.  For example, the main thing my parents do around the house is give orders.  So I fill the sink with dirty dishes as a visual cue that it’s time to tell a kid to do the dishes. If they didn’t have that cue, they might forget.”

He encourages other teens, “Even if it seems like your parents don’t really have anything to do, it’s important to give them that feeling of ‘contributing’.  Letting them be the person who wakes you up in the morning can give them a sense of accomplishment they’ll never get from whatever else it is they do all day.”

Is it hard, caring for aging parents?  “Sure, sometimes it takes real persistence and patience.  The other day, I had to lay in bed pretending to sleep until 10 o’clock, before my parents finally noticed and did their ‘getting the teenager out of bed’ chore.  But it’s worth the sacrifice.  If you love your parents, you’ll sleep in as late as necessary.”

 

Modesty in a Nutshell

If it’s rude for me to talk about it, it’s rude for you to show it to me.

On Modesty and Evangelization: 5 Lies We Tell Our Daughters

Portrait Photography at the Fitz Studio

My monthly column at New Evangelizers is up this morning.  FTR: I’m absolutely no good at telling whether my daughters’ pants are too tight, and their skirts too short.  So if you read my column, and you get this vision of me as one of those people whose daughters are always dressed with perfect modesty, and then you meet my kids and you think, Wow, that’s an amazingly sleazy outfit that child is wearing . . . It’s okay to voice your vote.  Because yep. To quote myself:

” . . . we ladies don’t instinctively understand modesty — we’re no more aroused at the sight of a bare shoulder than at the sight of a naked Golden Retriever.”

Read the whole thing here.

7 Exceedingly Quick Takes

Surfacing for air here, and then it’s back under for more mom-work-a-thon:

1.  Pray for Allie Hathaway.  Thanks.

2. I now remember why it is my children took so long to learn to swim.  Taking a baby, a toddler, and a preschooler to the pool by yourself?  Not easy.

3.  I did not do this today.  I rendezvous’d with a brave friend, and just *helped*.  It was enough.

4. If you are really, really good on a College Tour Heat Wave Marathon, I will buy you Krispy Kreme Doughnuts. 

5. And Dr. Pepper.

6. Also, if I love you especially much, I will be very diligent about removing my Krispy Kreme hat before I attend the next departmental tour.

7. I love patriotic hymns.

The end. 

Oh yes, PS: Please pray for Sandra and Larry, who are getting married tomorrow evening!  I’m so excited!

 

7 x 77 Quick Takes can be found at the home of our lovely hostess at ConversionDiary.com.  Other people write more stuff.  Go look.  WordPress is being exceedingly naughty this morning, so you’ll have to copy and paste the address in your browser.  Enjoy!

3.5 Time Outs: Vatican Spies

Thanks once again to our host Larry D. at Acts of the Apostasy putting the mmmmn in Church Militant since  . . . well, awhile.

It's electric. Except when it's not.

1.

You wanna know what’s better than bacon? Eric Sammons e-mailing to ask, “May I send you a review copy of my new book?”

I know!  I couldn’t believe it either!  I figured the SuperHusband must have driven to Florida in desperation, in order to beg a perfect stranger to please give his wife something, anything, that would help her grow in holiness.  He would have observed that I already had a large collection of freebie plastic rosaries, so please did Mr. Sammons know of anything else that might help?

Another possible explanation is that since I liked the first book, maybe I’d like the next one, too.

2.

I worry sometimes that if I get too many review books, it will cause me to neglect my local Catholic bookstore.  Fear not!  The kids are taking care of us.  For example – item #2 that’s better than bacon: This Sunday the “Roamin’ Catholic” bookmobile was parked at our parish.  Yay!  My favorite time of year!  And the 4th grader spots this DVD and asks, “Please can we get this Mom?”

It’s a pretty simple formula:  Child requests DVD about real-life Nazi-thwarting Secret Agent Nun?  Mom says, “Um.  Yes.”  We haven’t watched it yet, though.  I’ve been too busy yelling at the kids to clean the house growing in holiness.

3.

My biggest disappointment in reading Jack Chick tracts was the discovery that, through some bureaucratic snafu, I’d been cheated.  If I really became a citizen of Vatican City the day I was baptized, where’s my passport???  Ah, but now my son has rectified my problem, and issued me my secret-agent ID:

Don’t worry, I’m still gonna carry my regular ID as well.

3.5

 . . . delightful to read on a Sunday afternoon.  See the review just below this post, or click here.

EDITED to add: And yeah, of course it’s link day.  If you have one you want to share, we’re all eyes.

3.5 Time Outs: Sursum Corda

Thanks once again to our host Larry D. at Acts of the Apostasy, who, I am sorry to learn, does not like leftovers for breakfast.   Read the whole tragic childhood tale by clicking the photo:

The Fulwilinator is on leave . . . will Larry finally seize power, or will SuperGirl Hallie Lord keep him at bay?

1.

You’ll never guess where I saw the words Sursum Corda last Friday, when I was busy not getting my seven takes up on time for that other person.

***

Also I learned later in the day:  Though “Sursum Corda” sure sounds like the name of a papal encyclical, it isn’t.

Which means: I gave somebody a little bit of wrong information.  Nuts.  But I also gave a lot of correct information.  For example, you would have found it in this book – p. xxvii.  And others like it.

2.

But you know, if you google the words Sursum Corda + Pope Benedict, you get a lot of hits.  Is it my fault I spend too much time on the Internet reading this stuff until it becomes one giant jumble of confused trivia? Wait, don’t answer that.

3.

You may have noticed that adolescent boys don’t necessarily google these same topics.  Which is why I have begun a massive print propaganda campaign, in which I subscribe to the publications I think my child should read, then leave them on the bathroom counter for him to discover when he’s hiding from his math homework.

Might I add that Catholic Answers, Envoy, OSV and The Register run some seriously good articles?  It is as if all the stuff you read for free online is not the very best of contemporary Catholic writing, and that there is value to be had in paying writers for their work.  I never guessed.

3.5

So your hints for the solution to #1 are:

A.) The Inferno.

B.)  In which city you can still see this guy’s house:

C. )  And this hat. Which causes me to pun horribly every time I see it:

Mighty Mitres, Batman!

3.5 Time Outs: Eye Candy

Thanks once again to our host Larry D. at Acts of the Apostasy.  It was time for a new theme picture, and I thought it should fit the reality of Larry’s attempts at Internet Conquest:

There is no escaping the girl power, Larry.

1.

St. Barbara:

This is a close-up of my friend Sandra’s Icon of St. Barbara that she painted for a fundraising auction.  You can see the whole thing at her art page.  FYI, this is a pic of the almost-completed icon, I think she still had some details to work on when this was shot.

2.

By the same artist:

3.

And something completely different:

The tulips he bought because he loves me.  The photo he took because he needed it for his presentation this Friday.

3.5

It was because a certain child threatened a sibling with, “I’m going to put a bag full of dirt in a pillowcase in your bed for a pillow.”

Of course.

For the record: I am so grateful the threat was never fully carried out.  After about 7pm, I don’t do drama.  Just no.  No.

3.5 Time Outs: Paying Attention

Thanks once again to our host Larry D. at Acts of the Apostasy, who is proof dark lords must have many skills.

It's still the New Year. I know because I keep writing the wrong date on my checks.

1.

There’s a short list of things I can only do with 100% concentration:

• Clean my desk.
• Order a new toner cartridge.
• Read Pope Benedict.

I’m sure there are others, but those are the one’s I’ve noticed.

2.

Which is why it is taking me 10,000 years to get my review done for this book:

So I’ll just tell you it’s a good book.  At least, the first half is.

–> But last week, St. Alphonsus Liguori was our saint for the chapter for religious ed, and of course I knew he was going to rock, but I secretly thought he might be a boring saint, but look, he’s a Doctor of the Church, and hey I have this partly-read book and maybe he’s in it.   Sure enough, yes, Liguori rocks.  Seriously cool saint.  Definite patron-to-catechists action going on.

Funny story though: I always research our saints because usually kids prefer a good re-telling with lots of dramatic (but censored) details, and I didn’t want to show up at class and just read from the textbook.  But I told the kids to flip to the page in their book with the big picture so they’d have something to look at . . . and they just wanted to read aloud.  So I let them.

3.

Today I discovered one thing I can do with a steady flow of distraction and interruption: Work on the homeschooling book.  Indeed, sitting on the couch staring at the backs of two children who have to be watched constantly in order to get their homework done?  It practically inspires.

I think I can knock out a 1,000 words a day just between 11am and noon, after littles have been sent to recess, and I’m sitting there playing overseer to the big people.

3.5

The other thing I do to keep from going barking mad while kids are doing school homework and can’t really be left alone but also don’t need help the whole time?  Mindless cleaning jobs.

Which is how I finally got around to asking what I’d started to ask last time I attempted to clean the porch: “Why do we have a bread bag full of dirt stuffed in a pillowcase?”

My Offspring.

Me:  Get your work done while I take a shower.  I’m going to do the check-off at 2pm, because I have the catechist meeting tonight, so I can’t check you off after dinner.

Child: I want to go!

Me: ?  Um.  Why would you want to go to a catechist meeting?

Child: I want to hear you talk.

Me:  You hear me talk all day long.

Child: I want to hear about catechist stuff.

Me:  The DRE might switch plans and not have me talk.

Child: There might be soda.

[Ah.  Yes.  Now you sound like a normal child.  Whew.]

Me: Yes, there will almost certainly be soda.  They are serving pizza.

Child: Pleeaaase can I go?

Me: It’s out of the question if your homework is not done.

–> Child panics, drops toys, runs to desk, starts working diligently.

Is it the soda or the catechist talk?  I don’t know.  If she gets the homework done, I guess I let her come?  Or tell her she can stay home and watch Anne of Avonlea instead.  That would work.