Eldest daughter has learned a few tricks from the OxFam catalog, and posted these signs throughout the house:
WANTED
Small bedroom for 9-year-old girl.
Consider giving this gift of joy.
Thank you!
The 5-year-old, meanwhile, has been praying for snow for Christmas. We’ve had a talk about how God sometimes says “No” to our prayers. But in the event we get a freak snowstorm, you’ll know what happened.
Merry Christmas!
Lately I’ve encountered a lot of talk about Holiday Burnout. People who are just sick and tired of Christmas. People really struggling to feel the Advent-Love. People who know they’ll go to bed on the 25th exhausted, disappointed, and thinking, “Is that all? It ends like this?”
You know what? I’ve had a wonderful Advent! Peaceful. Joyful. Can’t-wait-for-Christmas. Genuinely looking forward to 12 Days of All Things Good. Here’s what it looked like:
1.
We had The Plague. Not a really bad plague. Not the kind that depopulates cities or disfigures previously-beautiful people. Just a day or two of “Hey, death seems like a nice idea!” and then several weeks of non-contagious laying around, sleeping all day, and sticking to activities that require no lung usage. So visions of bustling around doing holiday things? Out the window. Gone. No-Can-Do. Didn’t happen.
2.
Dumb luck. For reasons that have nothing to do with my own clever planning, 80% of our regular weekly activities finished for the year by the first week of December. 80% less driving around. 80% less herding cranky children. 80% less repenting of uncharitable thoughts towards stupid careless clueless other drivers.
And then back in early November I had recklessly committed a labor-intensive Advent catechist-project; we had to cancel it when we realized it would conflict with The Immaculate Conception. Good thing, since I was barely standing up straight for my last RE class December 7th.
(Shocker: The kids were NUTS that night. Pure crazy-power that class. They can smell weakness.)
3.
I chose not to over-commit. We went to a few of our very favorite (or very necessary) holiday events. But the rest, even though they promised to be good and wonderful, we chose to skip. I don’t like long, loud, chaotic festivities. I know other people love that stuff. Cookies! St. Nick! Bags of Trinkets! I do not love it. We skipped it. Everyone is happy.
4.
We’ve hit our Christmas / Advent decorating sweet spot. It took us a few years to figure out what this looks like for us. When does the tree go up? When do we decorate it? What about lights and colors and all that stuff? I know it is the pasttime of a special kind of Catholic to agonize about these things. I agree it is silly to lay down some Universal Law Of When The Tree May Be Lit.
But I think it is important to self-examine just a little. To try things out and see how they feel. Our culture flat out stinks at observing Advent. If we want to do it, we’re on our own for figuring out how it’s done. It is a happy year when we the members of the family can agree that we’ve found an approach that works for us, and hits the right balance between preparation, penitence, and joyful expectation.
Double-bonus for your resident Complainer: I totally 100% approved of the way my parish handled Advent decorations this year. Not that it’s any of my business to have an opinion on these things. But it was nice all the same.
5.
I live in a cave. I don’t watch TV. I don’t shop. And every year from Thanksgiving to New Year’s I turn off the radio, because I’d rather have silence than cheesy holiday songs. These are not due to my amazing virtue and spirit of penance. I have very little virtue, and a purely intellectual spirit of penance. These are self-indulgences. They are me doing what I prefer to do. But they conveniently shield me from the onslaught of Giftmas Propaganda and bad (Christian) or blasphemous (secular) music.
So I totally get it, if you who bravely suffer these things have lost your Advent Love after enough weeks of torment. I would too. I am grateful for my sheltered life.
6.
Don’t forget to pray for Allie Hathaway.
7.
Jen Fulwiler at the Register ponders, “Why no Catholics among the top 100 Mom Bloggers?” My answer is this: We don’t do that. If our homes are all in order, with lovely decorations, Craft A Day, and beautiful meals on the table every night . . . that’s our cue to have another baby.
We don’t live showcase lives that we can peddle on the internet to those longing for Housewife Wonderland. We focus on our highest priorities, and we let the rest be someone else’s calling. Our lives will never be magazine pretty. My house is not that clean, the only reason I have baked goods lined up is that I trust the nine-year-old with brownie mix and I wasn’t being strict enough about math homework, and we didn’t even get to sing this year, because, well, plague.
We lives our lives poured out. Full and running over. Everything that is not essential to our calling, we set aside. And in the process we do not end up beautiful, famous, or rich. But we do get joy and peace.
My 9-year-old daughter tells me that the new missal is HEAVY. She had to brace herself to hold it for the priest during Mass yesterday.
Perhaps we could just end the great boys vs. girls debate by beefing up the accessories? And then hold try-outs?
(Otherwise everything went great. Go team.)
This makes two weeks in a row. Bizarre internet writing goals. Feels like the time I almost starting wearing lip gloss every day as a Lenten penance.
1.
I got all intellectual and selected a Pope Book for my new Catholic Company review item. Checked the mailbox every day. It took FOUR DAYS. I learn perseverance and patience this way.
So far so good. It is much easier to read a B16 talk written for normal people, than to read what he writes when left to sit down alone in some quiet place for a very long time. I think as a general rule, theologians should not be left unsupervised.
2.
I can’t wait to get to say “Consubstantial” on Sunday. I know, I already blogged about that the other day. I am so excited it’s silly. And look, Pope Quote from new book, just in time for the head-scratching during the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed. [As apparently it is called? I guess “Nicene” Creed is just a nickname?]:
In this fundamental text — which expresses the faith of the undivided Church and which we also recite today, every Sunday, in the Eucharistic celebration — the Greek term homoousios is featured, in Latin consubstantialis: it means that the Son, the Logos, is “of the same substance” as the Father, he is God of God, he is his substance. Thus, the full divinity of the Son, which was denied by the Arians, was brought into the limelight.
[Italics in the original, typos all mine. The one thing I don’t like about this new look here on the blog is that all the italicized words are bumped up a font size. I may need to re-decorate. But it is teaching me not to italicize like a crazy person*.]
3.
I keep being surprised by how much I like to write. I am always thinking I ought to swear it off and do something useful for a change. And then I end up back at it again.
4.
I re-wrote the catechist booklet proposal this week. Marked it up with the pen of death. I need to put in the last couple changes, re-proof, and stupid-check it with a friend or two. Hopefully get the green light from People Who Want Me Not To Embarrass Myself That Much, and submit to publisher #1. It’s a great booklet that test readers are impatient to see on the market, but that doesn’t guarantee it will fit anyone’s publishing plans for the year ahead. We’ll see.
5.
Dear Man Whom I Love,
I am the person who has been cooking that food you find waiting for you at 6pm when you get home from work. All by myself with no help. It is not necessary to spend your holiday weekend hovering near the stove and running to me nervously every time you hear a beeping sound.
Sincerely,
The Person Who Arranges All Those Other Hobbies For You.
6.
Our Advent Countdown Schedule:
Friday: Clean out the house. Including Deskavation.
Saturday: Advent Decorating and Other Things We Want To Do.
Sunday: Consubstantial! Under My Roof! And With Your Spirit!
I can’t wait.
7.
I managed to think up 20% more quick takes than last week. Unless you disqualify the double-posting on consubstantial, in which case I’m holding steady with a solid C- / D+, depending on your grading scale.
*Long ago while working in state goverment, my department used to get letters from real live crazy people. The kind who make up fake legal documents and genuinely believe they are real. We pretended to file them as requested. Crazy people italicize. Very much.
Last night we took the kids to burgers then Target to quick buy our Giving Tree gift items before the shopping season began. Stopped at the liquor store on the way; SuperHusband dashed inside, and then sloowed down . . . they were giving out free samples. [I had no idea that was legal.] Fortunately most of it was weird trendy froofy stuff he doesn’t drink.
Kids and I sat in the car rehearsing Christmas Carols, though eventually I had to make the boy stand out in the cold next to the car, because he was being so, er, impatient, about our singing. Then had to pre-emptively save him from injury or death, when I saw he got the bright idea to ambush his father coming out of the store. That’s a lovely practical joke in the front hallway, dear, but not in a parking lot after dark. He understood as soon as I explained.
Thanksgiving Eve with the Catholic Family. Yes. (And Target was so peaceful. Amen.)
***
My favorite Thanksgiving book is Squanto’s Journey. Goodness you can now get in paperback for $7. I might have to add it to my wish list.
Something cool I didn’t mention in my first review, and that the Amazon Preview doesn’t snow you: The Friars get their credit.
***
We went to Mass this morning, chatted on the playground, then came home and the young cooks put together a batch of shortbread (per the Joy but with whole wheat flour) to bring to dinner later today. Meanwhile, SuperHusband kept showing me ads from the Sobieski website. I can’t spell it or pronounce it, but if you google “inexpensive Polish Vodka” the ad pops up on top. If you have utterly failed in your uber-franciscan aspirations, and have resolved just to drink affordably, it’s the one. Tito’s is a smidge better, and is therefore my second-choice recommendation, but costs a lot more.
***
And all this to tell you a true story, which might be of help to about six people on the internet: You know they say that if you have an irregular heartbeat you should give up alcohol and caffeine?
One Lent the SuperHusband and I, who drink laughably moderately if you were wondering, gave up alcohol as a penance. I gave it no thought. (Other than: Gosh I like beer.) Looking back, hey, wait a minute, that was the year I developed a weird skipped-beat heart thing. Previously had only had it during pregnancy. (When — get this — I don’t drink.)
So the first thing to do is keep not drinking, and plus give up coffee as well. Skipping only gets worse. Long drawn out medical investigation confirms it is a benign condition (PVC’s), hurray, go home and don’t worry about it. Yay!
No sense living the penitential life purely for spiritual reasons, if there’s not gonna be a health kickback, right? (Bad catechist! No biscuit.) Resume life of all-vices-in-moderation, decide to see what happens.
Heart goes back to the ol’ normal, all-beats-per-minute self.
Try not to feel too sorry for me.
***
This Thanksgiving, may you be blessed with problems that can only be solved by doing something you wanted to do anyway.
I need a new calendar.
The current one has these features, which must stay:
I don’t need to impress anyone. I don’t need it to inspire or entertain. Ideally it would not have goofy cartoon characters on it. It can be academic year or calendar year or tax year or whatever. But here’s what I do need:
Lists.
The multi-tasking around here has exceeded the capacity of the current calendar. I need a place I can stick a grocery list and about ten different independent-of-each-other to-do lists. They are not the ready-made lists that come with “Family Organizers”, unless your family organizer has pre-made tabs for “Manuscripts to Edit” “Notes – Book A” “Notes – Book B” . . . “Catechism Prep” “Creatures Needing Medical Attention” “Figure Out Why The Tomatoes All Rotted” etc.
The all-purpose running to-do list isn’t covering it any more. So I guess I’m looking for one of those binder-ish calendars, that lets you can add in your own tabs and sections and stuff?
(Curiously, my mother had one of those by the time she was my age. Go figure.)
So: What do you, or your spouse, or your secretary, or that other sort-of-pulled-together person you know (but not the super-organized neat-n-tidy one) like to use? Recommend away.
Thanks!
PS: I do not care about your digital device. I will be very patient and kind if you must tell me about your little electronic love. But I’m a paper person. Tried digital several times, no luck. My brain is not made for that. Paper. Paper.
SuperHusband was out of town the other night, so about nine o’clock he phoned. When he is home, at nine we put everything away, and then talk to each other until ten. It takes about half an hour of steady effort for a conversation to really get going, but most nights it is hard to go to bed at ten, because we are enjoying each other’s company.
The phone is not this way. We each give a quick summary of our day, discuss any topics that require spousal input, and then that’s it. Like a business call. Only with two tired people who already did enough business that day.
“I love you,” he says.
“I love you,” I say.
And then we hang up.
And I thought to myself as I put down the phone, “Really? Do we love each other?”
We say it automatically. Maybe when he said it to me, he was feeling all warm and fond and grateful inside. Doubtful. But possible. I was feeling tired and distant and still a trace irritable from my lousy mood the day before.
It is like water, the answer came immediately. Like warm water.
When you stick your hand in warm water, you notice it. Before, cold. After, warm. Ahh, you say. So nice.
After a while, you don’t feel it any more. The water is still warm, but now so are you. If you were to pull yourself out, you would suddenly feel very cold. But while you are in, you don’t notice the warm. You don’t notice anything. It’s just where your hand is.
To be swimming in love. Love so reliable, so steady, you can’t even feel it anymore. Happy.
Anybody have a collegiate dictionary you particularly like? I’m thinking of getting the boy his own for Christmas. I cringe every time he gets near mine. (Though the packing-tape reinforced spine should hold up, I keep telling myself.) Also he keeps complaining he wants to know the meaning of words less than 50 years old.
We just started week 5, thought I’d give a little report on how things are going. Re-cap: This is our first year using Kolbe. 6th and 4th grader are enrolled, and mostly following the plan with a couple substitutions. 2nd grader and kindergartener continue to do the home-grown, relaxed-schooling thing.
Overall Impression: Very happy with the decision. On a day like today (evil dictator felled by an evil-er cold), wow it is SO MUCH BETTER having the plans ready-to-go. Oh I know, it is so easy to make your own course plans. Oh, I know, it only takes a few minutes to type them up each week. But wow, being able to growl at a child and say, “Where are you in your homework?” is even easier.
–> Without ready-made, day-by-day plans, two big kids would definitely still be on the relaxed-schooling plan, which I really love for the little guys, but is not the ideal choice for our older kids. Way too many disruptions in the school year so far (exhibit A: evil dictator with evil cold), no way I could have held together a formal curriculum if it relied 100% on my willpower alone.
Some comments on specific subjects:
Latin: Mr. Boy is doing the first year of New Missal Latin. I like it pretty well. Like the kolbe-published supplemental resources. Will say this: In my opinion, the teaching parent needs to either have a smattering of Latin under the belt, or be ready to learn-along. Having already done the intro to classical Latin in previous years, these first few weeks have been largely review for Boy & myself, and yes that is very nice. Now is not my time to be learning a new language. No really. Sometimes it is not that time.
(Remind me also I have some other comments on this particular Latin program and the pro’s and con’s. For a post another day.)
Grammar: No shock here, I’m one of ten people in the known universe who actually likes Voyages in English. So far, no difficulties. Definitely if you haven’t diagrammed sentences before, you want the intro to diagramming booklet as a supplement.
Composition: I failed to observe that there is a separate composition book for 6th grade in addition to the vocabulary and grammar books. Kolbe plans call for one assignment a week from that book. I’d already maxed out the book budget. So I typed up 36 composition assignments for the Boy, and stuck those in his plan book. Conveniently, 6th graders do not use the composition portion of VOE, so I borrowed from there.
Spelling / Vocabulary: The kids hate this. Lot of work. I keep reminding them that a good PSAT / SAT score is worth cold hard cash. They get that. We’ve used Spelling Power in the past, and have good results with using that study method for studying the words missed on the pre-test. The whole amount of Kolbe-assigned words is a lot, though. And we’ve had a couple weeks with enough disruptions that I couldn’t keep up my end on this one through the whole week. We just move on to the next week, rather than piling up.
Word Study: Oh, yeah, and word study. Gee these children get a LOT of language arts. They tell me this one is easy (MCP Plaid). It is also good for them. Happy there. Decided this was one workbook the kids could write their answers in, would be a royal pain to have to do the assignments on a separate page.
Geography: Lovin’ the geography books. Short, easy assignments, genuinely useful map skills. Makes me happy.
Religion: Of course I like it (Faith & Life), I was already using it anyway. This is the other activity book I let the kids write in. Pretty happy with the addition of the St. J’s Balt. Catechisms as well, serious retro power going on there. My DRE also likes the program. She’s experimenting with one section of F&L for 8th grade CCD this year. (Rest of us are using our same Loyola Press books from previous years. Which are fine. But I’d still make my kids do F&L at home.)
Science: Not a demanding program, which works for me. We skip the Monday “investigation” every week, so far there hasn’t been one worth the hassle. Also, I have the workbooks but the course plans don’t call for them, and both kids have decided we are happier not doing them. I’m good with having them do just the textbook reading and review questions, and they can unschool any other science they desire. I like that balance. [Recall: Two real microscopes in my living room. Engineer at the dinner table every night. Unschooling science is a viable option.]
Literature: Um, where are the study questions? Apparently they are in some other place than the course plans. I guess a Kolbe booklet I was supposed to buy? For the uninitiated: You acquire the book you are studying — White Fang and Misty of Chincoteague to start, for us — and then the course plans give you chapter reading assignments and a weekly short essay to write, book report at the end. And those plans also mention these “study questions” and “vocabulary” and stuff. But they aren’t in the plans. And no, I can’t be bothered to go look back at the Kolbe catalog, nor to post a question on the Kolbe forums. Because, um, my magic pen of you-don’t-have-to-do-this works great! I just cross out assignments! We love it!
–> As a result: I let the girl take her final exam open-book and open-dictionary (Misty only takes 5 weeks), since it would be requiring her to have memorized study questions she’d never seen. Flipped around the final week course plans to have her do the exam first and write the book report second.
Math: Not using Saxon. Nothing against it. We’re just still happy with Math-U-See, didn’t see a reason to switch when that was already working.
History: Recall everyone’s doing Rome this year, which would ordinarily be the 5th grade course. Very happy both with using the program as written for Mr. Boy, and subbing in History Pockets for the first two quarters for the girl. Not much else to say. The Kolbe-recommended course is very good. And one of my children really needed to meet Ancient Rome in a perkier manner.
[But yes, I had to pick up a library book on the Aztecs, because HP fails to mention the, er, human sacrifice, those amazing wonderful ancient Aztecs were practicing during the European renaissance. Yeah, I’m a western culture snob. Facts are facts. I vote for the no-live-beating-human-hearts-in-the-hands-of-the-priest every time. Give me self-flagellating, slightly sore-backed penitents over flayed-alive sacrificial victims any day.]
Funny story though: We’re planning to go see our local Roman legion when they gather not so far from us in November. Except the girls only want to go if they get to dress up. So a certain growing 4th grader is going to be let loose with some discount linen between now and then. Luckily the rest of us already own passable garb that still fits.
There’s a blog in my head that is chock full of posts. A few of them will soon escape into the internet.
Working on a booklet for catechists, and have gotten some good feedback and helpful edits from my beta-readers. I would like to point out that if you ever write something really stupid, Dorian Speed has your back. THANK YOU DORIAN. Also got my first back-cover blurb quote, from Sarah Reinhard: “I NEED this book.” Heartening, very heartening.
This week on the calendar:
School. It’s going well. Yay!
First Night of CCD. This Wednesday. Wrote up class plans today. Need to get the classroom set up and materials in order. Stoked about my new helper / co-catechist, think it’s going to be a good match for the class.
Edits. Turning booklet from a 2nd draft into a 3rd draft, with help from some kind readers. Hope to have that done by the end of the week, and ready to send to the next set of readers.
Theology of the Body for Teens book review. Am plugging through that, really liking what I see. Top notch so far. My DRE is being very patient with me as I take forever to finish reading and previewing; I think mostly because buying it herself is not in the budget, so she’s scrambling to see what other parish wants to lend us materials. Thank you Catholic Company for helping keep the budget under control.
Ever heard of Dan Castell? He’s making us laugh. Mr. Boy is happily plowing through a draft manuscript as a beta-reader, and not just because I’ll excuse him from a week of National Catholic Reader assignments. Dr. Boli fans should watch this space. Some day I don’t know when, a finished work will emerge from Dan’s writing cave. Good stuff. Real gift for repartee.
And then all the usual stuff like cooking and cleaning and driving children places and gee, wow, laundry. I think maybe changing clothes is overrated.