Our most-frequently used Latin word is also the explanation for why I’ve fallen off the edge of the internet this week: Vomitorium.
–> We use it the modern, historically-inaccurate way. (Though I love it’s proper meaning, too.)
What you need to know is:
1) Nobody’s pregnant.
2) I’m slowly digging my way back to civilization.
3) There are other responsible keepers of the internet who can assist you if you’re having an internet-emergency and I haven’t gotten to you yet.
See you soon!
Jen.
1.
My ashes have worn off. Anyone know where I can get them touched up? I made it till Sunday being moderately virtuous in the life of prayer and penitence, and then . . . well, some of us are more “childish” than “childlike” in our faith. But God is merciful, and every day is new. Back to it.
1B
I’m contractually obligated to tell you: You are doing Lent wrong.
At least, I think that must be a line in the Catholic Bloggers Handbook, because that seemed to be the theme this past week. Probably my punishment for too much internet and not enough diligence.
Take away lesson: If you are praying and fasting the wrong way, for the wrong reasons, and entirely too lightly, we the Catholic Bloggers of the World are here to let you know. You see how convenient it is, giving spiritual direction to complete strangers? So much simpler. You can say thank you anytime.
2.
But if you are putting sand in your holy water fonts, that is just plain wrong. It’s not my fault that I have to link to the grumpiest priest on the internet in order for you to find that out. Tip for mothers of tween boys: My son loves Fr. R. What’s not to love, between the guns and the complaining about lousy hymns? The girls got mad at me for reading one of his posts aloud — bad language (for our house). I used the “just quoting a priest” defense.
Anyway, I figure it’s best to go ahead and get the boy hooked on crotchety right-wing gun-enthusiast priests, because then at least our arguments can be fun.
2B
The boy recommends you watch Matrix run on Windows XP. I agree.
3.
Are we the only Catholic home where the wall and floor beneath the mini-holy water font are now very, very blessed? I’m divided between whether that means we are very bad Catholics or just that much more desperate for God’s blessings.
4.
If you want to do one thing right today, quick stop reading and say a prayer for Allie Hathaway.
5.
Look, I’m a grown-up now! I told Lisa Mladinich that she’d have to re-name her site “Pretty Good Catechists”, or “Amazing Catechists Plus Also Jen Sometimes”. She told me the no, she’s expanding the “amazing” brand to reach out the “It’s amazing anyone let you be a catechist” segment, and I was the perfect choice to lead that charge.*
Anyway, I posted one column at AC introducing myself, so if you aren’t sure who I am, quick go look. I’ll stick up a regular catechist-y column sometime soon, and you can be sure I’ll let you know about that. Double bonus if you go: You can see my picture instead of just a pile of rocks. My writer friends are all patting me on the back. Because now if you ever meet me somewhere, and I’m trying to stick my head through a very small window, sideways, you’ll be able to identify me right away.
6.
There’s a rumor that my first column at CatholicMom.com is going to appear tomorrow (Saturday) morning. I’m interested to see what I have to say. Something about homeschooling.**
7.
Blair of Blair’s Blessings pointed me (and many others) to the free audio stories for kids at EWTN’s site. Do you see how happy and sweet her kids are? She does things right.
***
*That is a COMPLETE FABRICATION. Lisa Mladinich is a friendly, cheerful person unlike your hostess here, and she would never ever say something like that. I had to make it up.
**Lisa Hendey has you send in your first two columns before you start. I don’t know which one she’ll put up first. I love the suspense — now I have to get on the internet right away at 9:00am Saturday to find out.
Thanks once again to our host Larry D. at Acts of the Apostasy, who rocked my world this morning when I saw his post on Picaken. I’m not certain if it’s more like a penance or a deadly sin, but, wow. Just wow.
1.
Sarah R’s secret plot is a secret no longer. She’s started a word-by-word series on the Hail Mary. You can read about “Hail” here, and “Mary” here. My word, like I said the other week, is “women”, so I have a little bit of time. Sarah assures me that my getting selected for that word was purely dumb luck the grace of God. Or just the way the list of bloggers happened to line up with the list of words.
2.
If you didn’t already sign up for the online Catholic Writer’s Conference, today tomorrow is your very last chance until next year. [Updated because yes, I’ve been writing the wrong date all day long. Registration goes until Feb 29th, and is closed come March 1st.]
Don’t cry when you read my post coming soon to CWG about pitch sessions, and say to me, “But I didn’t know!” Because you know what? I told you. Today. This blog is not exactly a no-whining-zone, but I do limit the topics.
3.
The Fulwil-inator must be getting nervous, Larry, because she’s making a move for Wednesdays. The Curt Jester has already aired his contribution. My main writing location was shown here way back during the homeschool photofest, but maybe if I am goofing off feeling diligent, I’ll get an official entry for tomorrow. Or not. Just how industrious a minion am I?
3.5
. . . wasps.
***
That’s my 3.5. Last week’s open-link session did just what I’d hoped, and if you were smart you clicked on my friend Sandra’s links, because she’s the one who sends me 90% of the cool things that land in my inbox.
If you read here and have a link to your own work or someone else’s, consider this your invitation to just post it in the combox, rather than suffering that long horrid process where you e-mail me and then pray I don’t get sidetracked before I remember I wanted to tell the whole world about that cool thing you shared, but I forgot, and now you wonder if I hate you or hate your link, when actually, I just forgot.
[So far, no people that I hate have ever e-mailed me, so I promise you’re safe. I’m having a hard time thinking of anyone I do hate, and that’s a sign of something good, I think, but let’s not get too precise about whether that’s referring to my spiritual condition or just my cave-dwelling lifestyle. Maybe it’s that you who e-mail me are just that awesome.]
–> Post as many links as you like, but only one per comment, because the evil anti-spam automaton will gobble any post that has more than one link, and we don’t want that.
If you do get stuck in the spam dungeon, you have my permission to e-mail me and tell me what happened, and I’ll wade into the mire and fish out your comment and hit the approve button. I’m going to quick drain the moat before I publish this so it won’t be quite so stinky down there.
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.
Thanks once again to our host Larry D. at Acts of the Apostasy, who makes Tuesday everything it should be and then some.
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
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 . . .
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.