Our 12 days, so far...

On the eve of Christmas, my true loves gave to me...
a lovely Christmas luncheon, a trip to Holy Mass and prayer in front of our stunning parish nativity.

On the first day of Christmas, my true loves gave to me...
sleeping in til 9am, siblings getting along, lots of pretty presents and spaghetti lunch in front of our nativity.

On the second day of Christmas, my true loves gave to me...
sweet memories of Christmas dinner with cousins, cleaning our bedroom, topped off with a
small nativity.

On the third day of Christmas, my true loves gave to me...
morning Mass praying with the Holy Family, a chaffeured drive to Kentucky, an elegant home-cooked dinner and family dogs romping together in our continued celebration of our Savior's Holy Nativity.

On the fourth day of Christmas, my true loves gave to me...
Mimi's delicious hot coffee on a brisk, winter morning with more romping dogs, a quiet afternoon with Jaybird and a movie and a love of prolonged Christmas, thinking always of that blessed nativity

Thing long, thing wrong - ha ha!

Mary Engelbreit's art has inspired me since my college years. I just put this as my desktop wallpaper. In our case, the kitten is our new puppy, Ginny. Go visit Mary's website for lots of inspiration for Christmas and the new year 2010.

New puppy photos!

...and she laid Him in a manger...

Today, the Solemn Feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, we will try hard to dig out our family's lovely Nativity scene. I am reading this and this to better prepare myself for the natural discussions and questions that will come as we place our figures around our home. Maybe, with careful planning, we can be ready to plant an Immaculate Conception rose bush out back next Advent 2010. Like lots of mothers who are converts, it is wonderful for me to make a file of traditional customs, crafts and songs that I want to add to our family's preparations for the most moving Feast of the Nativity. This excerpt below is from the Catholic Culture link -- so beautiful:

Why was Christ born? ...God loved man and He sent His Son as a tiny Baby. Get the children to think why He came as a baby. (We adults need to think of this too, SS.) They will think of good reasons. Lead them on to see that God wanted to be close to us, a little baby in our midst, because He loves us. One of His names, "Emmanuel," means God-with-us.

The point to make clear is that He came for love. Few people take in the fact vividly that God loves us, and that is, after all, the greatest fact of life. If He loves us, we love Him back. We don't want to displease Him. We thank Him for loving us, knowing that the love of God for us is something so great that we cannot even begin to be grateful enough.

Excellent Advent Overview

Here is the link to the No-panic Advent series....

What's cooking?

Well, nothing over here, yet. I still have dishes to process from a little dinner party that Mags, Jerry and I put on for one of his work mates this weekend. We are having friends over for breakfast on Wednesday, and I am going back and forth as to whether to make sausage gravy, eggs and biscuits or a yummy egg casserole from my favorite Kentucky cookbook. I very much want to make a pumpkin goat cheese cheesecake that I have saved from a Country Living magazine from 2005! Where does the time go? I'd like to take the cheesecake up to KY when we go for a quick trip on Thurs.

I printed out a couple of recipes over at Cooks.com for a fresh broccoli casserole and pumpkin oatmeal cookies. I was thinking the cookies would be easier to take than the cheesecake, so we'll see what happens. I'd like to make the broccoli with some chicken legs for a simple meal this week.

Looking very forward to Advent 2009. We did alot of housecleaning this weekend and hopefully will make a major push to de-clutter the basement this week and get a bunch of clothes and such to Goodwill. We have the lovliest little St. Francis Advent candle wreath, and it takes special candles which I need to hunt up on the internet. Since it has been a while since I was expecting a child, I try to put myself into that 2nd-trimester-nesting-urge and look forward to welcoming the Christ Child into our hearts and home in a quiet, gentle way. We really like to "pull in" during Advent and cook and clean and get ready for what will hopefully be a joyous 12 days of Christmas.

I am trying to pray and meditate every day with Fr. Gabriel's Divine Intimacy, a lovely aid to prayer, one that swells the heart with gratitude and praise. A couple of mornings ago, I was blessed with a lovely memory of my a cold salad my Aunt Punchie used to make for Christmas lunch. It was a layered salad with jello, cranberries, walnuts, pineapple and cream cheese, sliced in to squares over a big crisp piece of lettuce.

I am off to surf the 'net in search of a similar salad and to poke around for some locally-made or farm-fresh Christmas gifts. I wonder if the cheese made by the Trappist monks in KY is any good? I want to get some wine from North Georgia vineyards.

My son has a really bad cough, and I too feel under the weather. I hope we get better soon so we have abundant energy for all the opportunites of the season to love.

Here's to a Happy and Blessed Thanksgiving!

Memories of Southern food and new(to me) Novena...

I love Thanksgiving, and while, as usual I could be more prepared for the upcoming "holiday onslaught," I just relish this time of year. The woods behind our house are home to a pack of coyotes that we are able to see since much of the foliage has fallen to the ground. I hope they will not be dining with us or on us any time soon! The other evening we heard a ruckus unlike anything I've heard in my life. I wonder if they weren't taking down a deer, poor dear! I am a bit loopy with a cold and congestion, so praddling on about coyotes in my seasonal post is part of this crazy day. I am going to surf around and look for some good seasonal inspiration. Hope everyone has a very Happy Thanksgiving!

I would like to visit this local market with lots of yummy meats and sauces.

A new friend told me about the Efficacious Novena to the Sacred Heart of Jesus which just may be what the Divine Physician ordered for my struggling prayer life.

I really enjoyed our visit this past weekend with my hubby's parents. They stopped at one of their favorite bookstores in Chattanooga on the way down and Mimi bought a cookbook written by Loretta Lynn. I copied several of her recipes and enjoyed reading the book. I am particularly interested in becoming a proficient biscuit maker and passing this on to my kiddos.

I can make a moist buttermilk cornbread in my iron skillet that my mom taught me to make. She also showed me how to make smooth, white sausage gravy.....but, my problem is that I have to throw frozen biscuits in the oven -- or, eeeh gads -- settle for toast!

My friend Sara posted some yummy looking pumpkin biscuits. I'd better get on it because they sure look good. Here is foodie celeb Alton Brown's recipe for that heavenly breadstuff.

So, speaking of southern food, I spent much of last Thanksgiving typing some of our Mimi's favorite recipes in to my laptop....I'd like to post them soon and maybe figure some nice, more permanent presentation for our kitchen items as we love to cook and love to eat well. I'd say the gift of southern cuisine is its simplicity. It should be an agrarian cuisine. My grandmother, Sara Evelyn Gott Cohron, was a dedicated and talented, old-school southern "cookin' mama". She and my grandfather, Pernie, yes Pernie was his name, rose every morning at 5 am because my grandfather was a butcher and had to get in to Mr. Cook's Grocery early. Even when he retired, they were early birds. She began every day making biscuits from scratch. Well, as I write this my husband is slaving over a hot stove making his famous chili. I got JB in to the dentist this afternoon, and we got soaked as it is raining in torrents here all day long. Nothing a good pan of hot-out-of-the-oven-iron-skillet cornbread won't cure!

Purgatory

Click here to learn more about Purgatory.

Getting ready for All Hallows Eve...

To kick things off, here is an excellent sampling of the best writing I have found in my many searches for all things authentically Catholic about All Hallow's Eve. Like me, you will probably want to go check out Ray Bradbury's fiction after you explore Fitzpatrick's comments on his blog. I like the idea of a modern writer who does not find himself mired down in the muck of modernism. The quote below, as well as the swell vintage postcard, can be found here at "Recta Ratio":

The celebration of the day is Celtic and Christian. It is the dying time of the year, with the harvest almost all in now, and even the green leaves of summer suddenly blazing into brilliant color and then dropping to the ground. The days are growing notably colder and shorter. It is the appropriate time to recall our dead, to think about, and to pray for the all the dead. The merry season of Christmas lies ahead. But, as the liturgical year winds down over the next 5 weeks, let us pause to recall death. It is the first of the Four Last Things, after all. --G. Thomas Fitzpatrick

The Holy Father's Prayer Intentions and new blog

Going over here to see a new blog. I copied the Holy Father's October intentions from Catholic Culture website. Go here for the liturgical overview for the month:

The Holy Father's Intentions for the Month of October 2009

General: That Sunday may be lived as the day on which Christians gather to celebrate the risen Lord, participating in the Eucharist.

Missionary: That the entire People of God, to whom Christ entrusted the mandate to go and preach the Gospel to every creature, may eagerly assume their own missionary responsibility and consider it the highest service they can offer humanity.

I'll take Shakespeare over Freud any day!

A couple of years ago, I watched the wonderful video series by Michael Wood called "In Search of Shakespeare." While some of the commentary reflects a very heterodox approach to Christianity, there is a pursuit of truth that is quite refreshing. So, anyway, I had watched this on the small screen of my laptop tucked away in the corner of our kitchen in Roswell. At the time, I had ordered, and was impatiently awaiting Joseph Pearce's book on Shakespeare. Back to the PBS series -- I was amazed to see a secular production also making the case for Shakespeare being not just an "ethnic Catholic" but one who was actively, if not secretly, involved in the "old faith". Last night, I watched the series again on our large-screen television. It was very moving.

This morning I have had some quiet time to pause and reflect on what it is to be a parent in these crazy times...what it is to be a crazy homeschooling parent in these lazy times....what it is for me to be such a "lazy daisy" in these hardworking times....

I love the LovetoLearn website and read this review with much interest. Turns out Freud was wrong about siblings! Big surprise!!! I need to drink some more coffee before I try to write more, or maybe I'll just throw all this out there as a challenge to myself and others to live a life full of common sense and right religion. It is not about being "right" the way moderns tend to think of it. It is about being right in the sense of being as good as we possibly can be. It is hard to be as good as we possibly can be without the priesthood and all seven sacraments of Mother Church. There is no getting around this. I am not "right" because I adhere to Mother Church. I adhere to the Magisterial teachings of the Church because I am acutely aware of how weak I am as a human being, and how generous God is in His Love for me. There are many errors of modernism, but the one that I have seen and experienced, time and time again in my own life, is the error that we humans are in charge of our destinies. The result of this error is always the worship of the State.

I could really go off on a tangent about modernism and think it a topic that is really brewing in this great country. If we --including me-- would stop watching and listening so much, and really engage our fellow man, then we would shake the trappings of modernism off and move forward as a truly courageous America, washed of its errors and tempatations. I do not think America has a chance as long as her Christians are divided.

Back down to earth, I am working on re-integrating art and music back into our curriculum. The hybrid school overall is just what the doctor ordered for this family. The competition is healthy and the schedule leaves lots of time for us to be together and learn together. I want to go over here to one of Elizabeth Foss's beautiful unit studies on music.

To close on a musical and hopeful note, one lesson I worked on with our young son this past Friday was a lovely story in his Abeka reader about the story behind the writing of "America the Beautiful," which as corn-ball as it sounds, is one of my favorite songs (If I get hit by a bus tomorrow, please play this at my funeral.). So, in the spirit of this song, may God truly mend our every flaw!

Quick movie log

If "you are what you watch," what does this "video salad" say about us?

This list is over the summer. We read more than we watch but, we do like our Netflix "Roku" boxes. The kids have been outside riding bikes and playing in the cul-de-sac. Once or twice a week, Dad and Mom "pop in" a video, usually something to do with WWII. Here is a quick list:

War of 1812, History Chan.
Tora, Tora, Tora -- that was fun, as kids and grandparents watched too
Midway
Patton -- My second favorite; I thought Patton should of pushed east and gone after Stalin.

Quo Vadis? -- This was, by far, my favorite...we know the early Christians were fed to lions and other cruel and hideous forms of "sport" in the Coliseum, but this movie really gives you a feeling for what it would have been like to approach such suffering with certain valor
Mark Twain, an A&E Biography
The Third Man, film noir evidently, started slow, but good ending, starring a very young Orson Welles
A Bridge Too Far