February Daybook

I am listening to...

Dogs laping up water and circling the kitchen ready to go out after a late breakfast.

I am wearing...

Lots of layers as the rain makes me cold.

I am so grateful for...

My husband's job, my children's strong bodies and active minds, my arthritis.

I'm pondering...

The best possible rhythmn for an inspired, Catholic family life. Every family has different needs, challenges, joys, sorrows that go in to the way they work out their schedule. It is a juggling act; and, we need not work so hard at it that there is no room to let God help us. I find that when I push too hard, all the balls fall.

I am reading...

"The Secret Garden" aloud to our son (so good!) and many other things. I was over reading this post by Elizabeth Foss this morning and it gave me needed time and space to pray and think and breathe about our approach to education, especially religious education. It all starts at home and ends at home.

I am thinking...

So much about how we live and how we might live a better quality of life. I am frustrated by "suburban sprawl" and its difficulties. Catholics see "challenges" and "opportunities" in every circumstance and our adventure of home education has greatly helped in "making lemonade from lemons." I am trying hard to pray, study and think and do little things to help the children and young be prepared for what I think will surely be some very challenging times ahead in our social landscape.

I am creating...

Too much clutter on our main level. I am constantly piling things on the dining room table, kitchen table, and kitchen counters and have plenty of room to organize a little prayer corner and "mini study" up in our master bedroom. I am creating this in my mind, now to get the job done! Like many, we do most of our homeschooling at the kitchen table. I need a new habit of taking things up in the mornings, after coffee and up again in the evenings after tea ("pegging" as many moms call it).

To live the Liturgy...

Jay and I are watching the Ken Burns series on the Civil War off Netflix and tomorrow us the feast day of St. Josephine Bakhita of Sudan so I pulled our Pauline biography off the shelf of this saint and hope to read it over the next couple of days. I hope to make at least one daily Mass this week and to get us AS A FAMILY to Confession. This has been very hard this school year.

I am hoping and praying...

That with our BELOVED pastor leaving that things will work out to give God glory. I am praying for many intentions.

Around the House...

Really need to create the mini study upstairs and keep the main level clutter free.

From the kitchen...

Made a chicken and fresh broccoli casserole last night that was a hit, served with hot buttered rice.

One of my favorite things...

A husband who hoses off the back patio and stepping stones out back on a weekend when he is tending to lots of driving, animal care..."He does things for me, I do things for him" (from an article I read last week on marriage-- I'll add link later,if I think of it).

A few plans for the rest of the week...

So happy with son's ice hockey camp and homeschool ice skating at The Ice here in Cumming. Making plans for upcoming swim team banquet for the girls and big grandparent visit (we have three winter bdays that we will celebrate together). And, need to make small steps every day toward that upstairs space and back to "tried and true" de-clutter habits and add a few new ones, by God's grace.

Picture thoughts...

We are less than two weeks away from a big 10 for our son, and just celebrated the big 13 for JB, so here is this:

Pooped from Planning, Good Link for Tweens, Mom's Summer Reading

I read all of these when I was very young, and I remember them not at all as books but as things that happened to me.
-- John Steinbeck, Steinbeck's Ghost

I love to read. I love to turn to the back of a book and scan the end notes, peruse the bibliography and enjoy the look of the paper and printing. I fear reading a lost art and activity. It does not gratify instantly. To immerse oneself in a good narrative takes one away from oneself. Our oldest child has experienced this in her reading. The other two love to read as well. Yet, with all the seduction of many technologies surrounding them all, I see the potential for them entering the "dumbest generation". So much of what is wrong with our country currently relies on an illiterate, pagan populace so immersed in pop culture that they cannot think themselves out of the coming tyranny. (There is alot, at present, right with the country too...)

This year we are joining forces with other homeschooling parents and becoming involved in a hybrid school. The school, which meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays, is dedicated to one of the best educators ever to walk the planet, St. John Bosco. One big hope I bring to the upcoming year is that we will be more engaged by our curriculum. I am pooped from planning. Not that that will keep me from planning and keeping up with what the children are studying. This past year saw fits and starts, and a few short courses of good reading, good discussion and drawing and writing. I think it was more like sprinting. In the upcoming year, I'd like to see our academics as marathon training.

Our children are at pivotal years in their academic development -- 8, 11 and 13. Here is a wonderful link I found that reviews books for tween; the above quote is taken from the blog, Treasure Chest for Tweens.

Some of Mom's Summer reading:

To Kill A Mockingbird
Conchita
Theology of the Body for Teens
Aquinas's Shorter Summa
Minimus: Starting Out in Latin
Kentucky: A Pictorial History
Around Atlanta with Children
Chesterton's Heretics
Kon-Tiki

Vicissitudes defined and lived...

VICISSITUDE a change in fortune or in a situation, esp. for the worse, from the Latin vicissitudo.

I always thought this word meant simply the ups and downs of life, the peaks and valleys, the ins and outs, ups and downs. I was wrong. Good thing I looked it up. Well, maybe another dictionary has another meaning.

Life never changes just for the worse...you know, the whole "blessing in disguise" thing. It does seem that trouble comes in groups....down to farther down to in very deep. Often, when we are in the midst of tribulation, we say to ourselves, "Well, this is okay because without this pain, I won't really appreciate pleasure again."

That is the secular view. A practicing Catholic sees pain and suffering as with us always. We are not on the continual downslope ever. Joy and pain cooexit in time. As a wise woman I know likes to say, "It is all good." Eternity looms more present than we realize and offers the chance to breathe and laugh and live, even as we mourn our losses.

So, I was thinking of the gift of faith, why some have it and some reject it. Others, like me, accept it, but struggle to possess it as God would have us possess it. Like all moms, I am winding our academic year down, trying to discern plans for the upcoming academic year 2009-10. Educating children and young people is an adventure, an adventure on which I would not want to embark without the gift of faith. This Saturday, God willing, at our parish, in celebration of our young son's First Holy Communion, we will sing:

...Melt the clouds of Sin and Sadness; Drive the dark of doubt away;
Giver of immortal gladness, Fill us with the light of day!

John James Audubon's beautiful paintings and violence in America and Great Britain...

We read this book this fall and loved it. I am from Kentucky and want my children to learn about the independence, bravery and creativity of the people of the Kentucky wilderness. When I was in RCIA, back in 1999-2000, a dear man, who is now a Deacon, gave me Kentucky Spring, the biography of Catherine Spalding. I want to research Daniel Boone and other frontiersmen and women. (Here is a good link to learn more about Catherine Spalding.)The 1800's was, in Europe, often a complex and spoiled time. Meanwhile, in this country, there was much simplicity and purity. We had no blue bloods; we also had no landed gentry, but soon, settlers would create good farms and estates in a very short period of time. In the early colonial period, there was misunderstanding and violence on this continent as well, as this book, about St. Isaac Jogues, which we also read this fall, attests. It was during our studies this fall that I realized the close parallel of tyranny and repression among the Jesuit fathers in Great Britain and the pioneering Jesuits who came to bring Christ to the New World. The pioneer spirit is captivating. St. Edmund Campion and St. John Fisher were every bit the brave pioneers, as was Isaac Jogues. I think many of the pilgrim fathers and mothers sensed the corruption that the Church of England had brought to those trying to live a life in accordance with the Gospels. One day the Church will be united. I believe this. What is needed is for more individuals to really peruse the history books. We cannot be satisfied with televised histories. As much as I like film, especially documentary film, as a means to educate, I think we need more scholarship. Scholars dig and read and write and speak about that which they are reading and writing. Some of the best scholarship has and will go on outside of formal institutions. Good scholarship stimulates the mind and enflames the heart for truth. A film can provoke, that is true. I worry, at times, that we are overly visual, which can lead to intellectual and spiritual laziness. Well, I hope for peace. I yearn for Charity. I think we are not loving when we let lies parade as truth. Whether physical or metaphysical, violence is a distortion of the truth. The power of the Holy Spirit is -- beyond words -- more powerful than any physical or spiritual violence. To keep this country from repeating history and turning to tyranny, we must ask the Holy Spirit to intervene. Come, Holy Spirit, come! Fill the hearts of the faithful...

Architecture for Kids

No surprise that I would find -- while reading Willa's inspiring blog -- this blog with all kinds of great resources for studying art and architecture. I ordered Cathedral (we have City) as a Christmas present for Little Man, but the truth is, all three love to draw. Everyone is playing these Sims games...well, I'm dreaming and planning some projects for Winter 2009. Here is a link to the tumultuous history of Canterbury Cathedral, pictured above. I just found this link to the work of David Macaulay; and, after glancing at it realize that I just missed what was probably such a good exhibit in nearby Memphis, TN!

September 2008

Here is an inspiring blog. And, here for the Catholic Culture overview of the month.

My gasoline analogy and firming our schedule, St. Pius X, Pray for us!

I some times tell the kids that I see grace as the fuel that I run on, much like the gasoline which fuels our minivan. So, when they clamor about going to a daily Mass or spending an hour in front of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, I often tell them that Mom needs to "fill 'er up," and that we all need God to be holy and happy. We are switching our Adoration from Monday mornings to Thursdays from 3-4p.m. Here is our schedule for fall:
Mondays: Hit academics hard, M has youth group at the parish from 5:30-6:45, weekly. J and Dad have boys Conquest meetings once a month from 6:30-8 pm (I think).
Tuesdays: Hit academics hard, J and JB have art at the best art studio, weekly from 3-4:30.
Wednesdays: softer academics, schedule doc visits, vet, possible field trip pegged to Challenge.
Challenge meetings for JB and M in the afternoon from 2:45 to 4:15.
Thursdays: Hit academics hard, Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament from 3-4pm.
Fridays: Spelling and math tests in the morning and Mass and TORCH coop.
Saturdays: Everyone in the family to Confession once a month (Mom, more often).
Once a month -- date night for Mom and Dad
Once a month -- Mom spends her "sabbatical" out of the house solo
Sundays: Sunday Mass, Keep up hosting family and friends for special meals,
at least once a month, down time for Dad. We are going camping in Sept. with TORCH, and, in general, hope to take more family, and family and friends, trips to the North Georgia Mountains (esp. Smithgall Woods). We are moving to Cumming, Georgia, sometime this academic year, so we are packing up our "tent" here and getting ready. Like most people we know, we juggle some health challenges in all of this. God is good and gets us through. The children and I said a slower than usual version of our Guardian Angel prayer today. This is simple, yet powerful.

Other subjects, other plans

Very glad to report that I am "outsourcing" my middle child's math studies to a private tutor and to the nearby Mathanasium, a place of which I have heard many good things. As a family, we are participating in our TORCH group's fall coop on Marine Biology. They are bringing a mobile lab to dissect a small shark, among other enriching science activities. Just as I did last fall, I am teaching a fourth grade class. I really love 4th grade science. When I was nine, I could not put down my Nancy Drew books or the tomes from my set of Jacques Cousteau encycopedias. I have always loved reading and writing, both fiction and nonfiction. Mrs. Burke, my elementary school librarian and I were great pals. I shelved books and took lots of them home on loan.

OK -- so Maggie, is enrolled in 8th grade KOLBE -- this intimidates me, but I think it will be good for both of us. KOLBE's paperwork is minimal and they are FLEXIBLE. Because of Maggie's KOLBE load, I want to get those creative juices flowing now for J and JB, so I can have us on smooth clip by the week after Labor Day. I want to get us registered for fall classes at a local art studio that has a special mission to Christian homeschooling families.

Next week, I am taking us on an imaginary trip across the U.S., and around the world, to warm up our writing skills through some geography fun. (I usually do this with the morning reading on the saint of the day, but I want to do something different to jump start our brains, then settle back into what works with our Morning Prayers and devotions.)

Last, I want to dedicate a day to Copy work, Narration, and Dictation, probably M, T and Th., then do Latin on T and Th. I need to keep W and F fairly light, with a spelling test on F morning.

We are going to sign up here for the Pizza Hut "Book It" program, so as to get some free food for our reading. I will be more strict this fall about how long J and JB read every day, as, honestly, they tend to slack. I think reading is like this: the more you read, the more you want to read. Likewise, the more you watch television and play video games, the more you want to watch television and play video games.

Studying Spain

The new academic year is upon us, and I am working on how we might study Spain this year. We are going to start a "Book of Centuries". I want to look at various versions of two of literatures favorite characters, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. I have a mini collection of Don Quixote books. I lived in Madrid for 5 months during my junior year in college. I loved it so much that I returned to Spain with my best friend from my childhood, Molly. We lived again in Madrid for a year after we had both graduated from college in 1989. I love all the versions of paella and the Spanish rice dish arroz con pollo. Tonight we are going to watch a documentary on St. Ignatius of Loyola. St. Ignatius, pray for us!