St. Augustine of Canterbury

I am going to read this link about St. Augustine of Canterbury tomorrow.

Back from Kentucky

We went to Kentucky for Memorial Day weekend and just got back. I am concocting a plan to get the kids reading more this summer. Soon I will post photos from the trip. We had an indoor picnic on Sunday and the kids spent lots of time with their grandparents and uncle. J and I had a date yesterday and ran into an old friend from our high school. The traffic was not so bad, and we discovered a new route in N. Georgia, a road filled with interesting little antique and gift shops, even a couple of country restaurants.

Tomorrow we are up at the crack of dawn to go to the orthodontist -- time flies when raising children!

Flower power...

My next-door neighbor and dear friend took this almost exactly a month ago as I was heading out to a TORCH MNO ("Mother's Night Out") with a garden theme. This has been one of the most active months we have ever had. We are not a high-octane family, yet, you'd think, with this past month's calendar that we were. Through it all, we have steadily been fixing up our old house and unpacking the new. The restful moments have often come while napping, reading, writing, praying, cooking, cleaning, watching the children scooter in the cul-de-sac and lots of planting in, what is coming together as a very colorful backyard garden. JB and I have planted: pansies, gardenias, Irish moss, purple heart, dianthus, red thyme, creeping Jenny, flashy tickweed, a yellow-flowered broom plant, lavender, Rosemary and many others.

I will be the gladdest thing...Under the sun!I will touch a hundred flowers...And not pick one.~Edna St. Vincent Millay, "Afternoon on a Hill"

The Mary Month of May

The Holy Father's Intentions for the Month of May 2009
General: That Christians may use literature, art and the media to greater advantage to favour a culture which defends and promotes the values of the human person.
Missionary: That just as she accompanied the Apostles in the early stages of the Church, may the Blessed Virgin Mary, Star of Evangelization and Queen of Apostles, continue to guide missionaries throughout the world with maternal affection.


Most who know me know that I converted to Catholicism when I was 33. Like many drawn to what the early Church called "The Way," I work out my salvation in fear (that is really awe) and trembling (my shaky "fallen flesh"). The move and adjusting has been harder than I thought, in some ways, and easier in ways that I did not expect. I just looked up the Holy Father's intentions for May and, in preparation for our homeschooling coop May Crowning, I am looking at the liturgy this month over here.



Lord Jesus, teach me how to evangelize. Help me to ask your Holy Mother more often to intercede for me, for my family and for the whole world.



I posted some photos here on "Uncontrolled Fits of Harmony," our hschool blog.