Category: Castle News

Wake up! Hey, Wake up!

That’s what my then two-year-old used to shout at his baby sister in the next seat when we arrived at our destination.  The parents were not amused.

These two articles might not amuse you, either.  But if you need to be really grumpy, these’ll do it.

–> I’m continuing with the regular-life-requires-my-attention-theme, so outsourcing my invective to ‘things that showed up in my inbox’.

From Christian LeBlanc, interesting link to an essay on contraception and the fall of the west.

The West lasted from AD 732, when Charles Martel defeated the Muslims at Tours, until 1960, where it fell without a battle. In 1960, the birth control pill became widely available. Many think of it as heaven, sexual nirvana, the route to self-expression, wish fulfillment, and liberation for millions of women. I think of it as Auschwitz in a bottle. It was and is genocide, as, using it, the women of my generation happily traded off 1,200 years of unparalleled growth, wealth, security, stability, scientific and ethical progress for a second BMW in the garage.

I’m not persuaded of author’s provocative conclusion (“Islam is the only way”), but the irony is there.  In the 19th century the French quit reproducing — yes, before effective contraception became widely available — and by the late 20th were wringing their hands over the cultural impact of all the muslims they’d imported to do the labor of the children they’d never had.  Germany has followed suit, and the US isn’t far behind.

(Though, luckily for our culture, we are importing truckloads of macho catholics with their awesome mariachi masses.  Maybe God does love us more?  Kidding.  Really.  The French have Brie — if that isn’t love, I don’t know what is.  But yes, I do like a rousing Spanish mass now and again.  Perks up the excessively-somber soul.   And as much as I am moved by the beauty and devotion of faithful muslims at worship, no, I can’t slip down to the corner mosque for a mini-revival.)

Anyhow, key point of link for me is this:  You can’t refuse to bear children, then get all shocked and horrified at the presence of the people you imported to do the work of the offspring you never had.  You want someone t0 mow your lawn and do your dishes?  Either rear yourself a pair of middle-schoolers, or hire someone else’s.

[Teenagers everywhere are now saying aha!  You really did raise me to be a slave! The mother points out that she does a thing or two for her own children that she doesn’t do for the random low-wage stranger.  Indeed, here may lie a bit of the problem: rather than a steady flow of youngsters who do the grunt work for a decade and then move on to greater work, we attempt to create a society divided between perpetual overlords and perpetual economic-teenagers.  And then are shocked, just shocked, when the daring, hard-working, self-sacrificing immigrants turn out to be just like our own children — ready to move up in the world after a spell.]

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Your other link is this article from the HSLDA, from Swedish parents who moved to Finland in order to homeschool.  I will use this as my cue to get off the internet educate a few fresh faces of my own.

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PS, castle news: We got a new roof.  Looks a lot like the old one, only much, much younger.

 

 

 

 

 

Lent-o-rama: Slubgrip; Sardines

1. Slubgrip.

You may have been wondering:  What could cause a person who doesn’t post ads on her blog, to suddenly post an ad on her blog?

And you would not have been far off, if you thought, “She just wanted that cool-loookin’ gargoyle image.”  Except that she hadn’t seen the gargoyle image until after she wrote to Fr. L saying she’d be happy to post his ad.

Very puzzling, isn’t it?  The solution to the mystery is this: The Gargoyle Code is a really good book.  And your hostess likes to promote really good books, because, well, the more good books people buy, the more good books publishers will print, and thus the more good books your hostess will find crowding the shelves of her favorite local Catholic bookstore.

Blatant self-interest.  And now, in a fabulous wish come true, Father Longenecker has written yet more gargoyle-y fiction goodness.  You can read this week’s episode here. And then you will know why you should buy his book.  Which you can do by clicking the ad in the sidebar, or by visiting your favorite local catholic bookstore.

 

2. Sardines.

This is not usually a food blog, which is strange given how much I like the stuff.  But as many of my readers eat, and a few of them cook, why shouldn’t we go off topic now and again?

Now is the time for my older sister and all other people who don’t like seafood to depart by clicking on one of the fine links in the sidebar.  Many of them contain no horrid accounts of eating things that used to swim.

Anyway, here’s the story:  SuperHusband points out to me, a person who eats tuna straight from the can, that anchovies and sardines are superior in every way.   Insert list: health, environment, mercury . . . you begin to get the picture of the moral superiority that can be had by purchasing the flat rectangular tin instead slightly taller round tin.

How could I resist such an opportunity?  I cannot be upstaged in the food-virtue department by my own spouse, can I?

So I go buy the stuff on the next grocery trip, and stick it in the cupboard where the tuna used to sit.

And then a couple weeks later, I get really really hungry, on a Friday when my normal non-lenten penance of staying off the internet has once again spectacularly failed and not eating meat seems much simpler, and we are all about light penances here, and in a fit of braveness I open the anchovies.

Here is the part where you laugh.  Because, you who know anything about anchovies (as your hostess did not), knows that one does not eat them straight from the tin as one might do with tuna.

So now I have this open tin of anchovies, moral superiority on the line, and no, I can’t just give them to the cat.  She is a small cat.  And the dog will just get indigestion.  And anyway, giving the pets expensive human food is no way to one-up the spouse.

But here’s what I discovered: You can cook with the stuff. And it’s good!  Convenient!  Useful!  Tasty!

Now all the readers who already know how to cook with sardines and anchovies may quit laughing at me and click on a link in the sidebar.

Also, all readers who can boil pasta and have three Joy of Cooking recipes you can make, but you don’t really know how to cook yet, because let’s admit it, “winging it” in the kitchen is a skill one builds over time, you should just maybe consider the sidebar too.  Because the potential for disaster and ridicule is quite high any time a can of tiny, strongly-flavored fish is involved.

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Now, to the empty internet, here’s what I figured out:

VERY IMPORTANT:  Purchase the sardines or the anchovies “in oil”. Not the one in mustard sauce or something.  Just oil.  Fish in oil.  That’s all you want.  Two ingredients. (Plus salt or whatever.  But no delightful surplus condiment flavors.)

Now you’ve got the proper tin in hand.  You know the part of the recipe at the very beginning, where you put oil in the bottom of the pan and saute your garlic or onions or ginger or whatever it is that needs to be sauteed first of all?

Instead of the butter or oil, just dump the whole tin of fish right into the bottom of the pan. Use that as your cooking oil for that sauteing step.  The fish will naturally get diced/shredded in the process of sauteeing your vegetables.  Then proceed with the recipe as normal.

MORE VERY IMPORTANT:  If you don’t like how fish tastes, don’t cook with fish.  This is not one of those “how to sneak seafood into the recipe” tricks.  This method gives the recipe a light seafood-taste, akin to say a crab recipe, or adding fish sauce to your curry.  Depth, complexity, and all the moral superiority for which you had hoped, but in a seafood-y way.

What it’s good for:

  • Recipes that call for ‘fish sauce’.  Think of certain thai recipes, curries, etc.
  • Soups that either already seafood-y, or that would like to be converted.  With the caveat that say your spouse really loves oyster stew, that does not mean he loves anchovy-oyster stew.  Don’t over-complicate recipes that want to be simple.  Use bacon drippings for the oyster stew, your spouse will thank you.
  • Pasta sauce!  Red sauce if you like, but this makes a great base for a vegetable-parmesan sauce, and maybe use up the last little bit of the cream leftover from the vichyssoise.

If you use anchovies, plan around the saltiness. You will not need to add the usual amount of salt or soy sauce to your recipe. Also, this is a good time to balance the intensity of the anchovies with something sweet and something sour (lime, vinegar, etc.)  Sardines are milder, so you season more or less like you would have if you’d just made the recipe the normal way.

Happy Lent.  Does it count as a penitential if you are looking forward to the new recipes?

 

Under the microscope

(Um, just a homeschooling post.  No deeper meaning.)

I’ve been planning school a month at  a time lately.  February went a little haywire, between guests, the flu, and the 6-week mark on the library cycle (all books to be returned).  So yesterday morning with life resuming a semblance of normalcy, had to figure out what to do about science.  Kids had really enjoyed the lab science feel to our Drop of Water study, and they’d been complaining about the endless animal research reports last fall, so I thought maybe it wasn’t the auspicious week to return to Zoo Pass Science Class.

Instead I announced that as soon as the kitchen table was clean after lunch, I’d pull out the microscopes.  We have one very nice low-power microscope that the SuperHusband acquired from work.  He had spied one sitting unused and unwanted in the lab, and in lieu of a bonus, asked his boss if he could have that instead.  The other is a hand-me-down from Ann Miko at Phos Hilarion, a good sturdy cast metal unit retired from a school science lab.

So science this week is this: You can look at anything you want under the microscopes.  Having them out for free use is turning out to be much more peaceful than having everyone gathered for one short class and having to fight for turns.

Kitchen table can be devoted to this because the weather is so nice this week.  We’re having meals and most homework outside at the picnic table.  I’ll be frank here: This is one of the primary reasons we homeschool.  Seriously.  Living in the south, our glorious summer days all come during the school year.  (In what gets called “summer” it’s one giant three-month-long sauna.)

So I was sitting outside yesterday, feeling like the luckiest person in the world (fairly accurate), and there was that little voice saying “Your children should be sitting inside under flourescent lights all day, because that’s how they’ll become prepared for the adult world”.   Because I guess people who do math in broad daylight are rank hedonists.

But people say this.  There’s this notion floating around that Children Must Suffer.  It is not enough to master the material, It Must Be Boring.  It is not enough to devote hours a day to schoolwork, it Must Be Done Someplace Unpleasant.  It is not enough to have a varied social life, There Must Be Bullies.

Now if there were something natural about spending large quantities of time sitting indoors under artificial lighting, I could be persuaded that the resistant child must be conformed to the human condition.  But given that long stretches sitting still, and long hours of daylight spent inside, are actually linked to health disorders?  It becomes a bit like insisting that because the child will likely one day work in the mines, he must be sent underground from the age of five so that he might become accustomed to the dark and damp and coal dust.

So that’s us.  Rank hedonists.  Happy Spring, southerners.

Because he loves me . . .

This weekend, the SuperHusband, so-named for a reason, asks me if he’s expected to buy me chocolate for Valentine’s day.  No, I tell him, and I actually mean it.  What I do want is to have dinner (at home) together per our longstanding tradition, but that won’t happen this year, because I’ve got to be at church at 6:30 tonight to a sponsor a confirmee.  I couldn’t think of a more auspicious date for such an outpouring of the Holy Spirit, so no complaints here.

Well , SuperHusband says, since you won’t be able to enjoy it on the 14th, how about I give you these now:

 

 

 

 

 

 

That’s love.

c.a.i.t.u. & other castle news

CAITU: Coolest Author In The Universe.

[Be French.  Speak in Acronyms. It’s good for your brain.]

I’ve lately determined that the CAITU is John McNichols.  Who totally took care of my beleaguered boy after my complaining post the other week.  And that’s not the first time he’s proven his credentials, though I will not embarrass him with too many tales of his kindness to internet strangers.

(And FYI, no I’m not an old friend of his brother-in-law’s cousin’s law school roommate’s favorite veterinarian.  I have no stock in Sophia Press. I get no commission on the sales of Tripods Attack, which you should read, because it is fun and because it is what we need more of — enjoyable catholic fiction.)

So that’s how you become the CAITU.  AND you write a steampunk alternative history alien-attack G.K. Chesterton catholic thriller, AND you take care of the fans with Strom Thurmondesqe responsiveness.

Nominations for SCAITU are still open.  I think maybe the alien thing isn’t strictly required.  But it helps.

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Other Castle News:

Thinking of going with Kolbe next year. For the two big kids.  Am open to opinions if anyone wants to share.  (Have already mined the brains of a couple trusted internet friends who are long time happy Kolbe families.)  The reason is this:  My kids really like checklists.  Love ’em.  Mr. Boy just wants to get his assignments, get them done, and be free.  Aria likes forms so much she begged the SuperHusband to buy her a blank receipt book she saw at the hardware store.  (I consoled her by printing off a handful of 1040-EZ’s to play with.  She’s thrilled.)

We were planning to switch to a more formal curriculum with one of the major catholic curriculum providers come high school.  Mr. Boy will be hitting middle school, so time to make the transition and learn the expectations, so he isn’t blown out of the water in 9th grade.  Kolbe has a decent no-nonsense high school curriculum* of the kind that has gotten students into college for the past three generations or so.  AND, they issue checklists.  Which would free me up from writing my own.

So that’s what we’re thinking about.

Despite being a little out of rhythm this week, due to relatives visiting over the weekend, school is going pretty well this month. Which is noteworthy any time you combine “homeschooling” with “january”.  What we’ve been doing is after breakfast and a morning clean-up, kids work independently on checklist items.  (For the two littles, that’s just a box of activities they can choose from at will.)  Then I call each kid in for an individual class, youngest to oldest.  Then group class for penmanship, french and science.  Then big kids get work assignments for the afternoon, and littles are free.  When we stick to this, it runs pretty smoothly, and everyone is happy.

January is Science Fair Month. We took a break from Zoo Pass Science Class to work through A Drop of Water, and this week kids are now pausing that to conduct science experiments.  Mr. Boy wants to know if acorns pop like popcorn.  Aria asks whether hard boiled eggs truly are easier to peel if you plunge them into ice water after cooking.  And the Bun is attempting to freeze bubbles.  Results to be revealed to the admiring real-life public on the 29th.

Deskavation Sucessful. Found it.  Wood!  Then lost it again.  And I’ll have you know my miraculously-given organizational system is still working, even with intermittent clutter-flooding.  But here’s what, and sit down before you read this: The girls room is clean.  Consistently clean. Three girls ages 4, 6 & 8, in a 12×12 room that is also used for storage. As the SuperHusband said before we tackled the place, we have 1950’s living space, 1990’s lifestyle.  (And I would add: 1930’s personality.)

We cleared out the excess junk, designated and labled places for everything, including certain spots labeled “empty” so no one tries to pile stuff there. Then we developed  a successful inspection method.  We go through the room, and check each drawer and shelf, and toss anything that doesn’t belong there into the middle of the floor.  I look on the label to remember.  It is so much easier to ask “Are all the things in this space the ones on the label?” than it is to try to negotiate a generic sort of fuzzy standard of cleanliness.

The foot is great. Not exactly normal, but highly highly functional.  In the category of attending pro-life marches, visiting museums, grocery shopping, cleaning out the house, all that stuff.  It’ll do.

That’s the highlights of castle news.  Upcoming on the blog:

  • Usury part 3, of course.

And should I start a deskavation series? Because here’s the thing: Most organizational tips are written by people who are already organized.  So they say ridiculous things like “throw out your catalogs as soon as they arrive”, or “write all event dates in your calendar the moment you learn of them, then throw the original away”.  Ha!  You make it sound so easy.

But I’m thinking that just like there people who can’t magically keep their bank accounts balanced just by “spending less”, but need little tricks like cash envelopes to make it work, there are people like me who need painfully obvious baby-step methods to keep the house running smoothly.  And we’re discovering some of these things. So I thought maybe that might be helpful.  Or else entertaining, in a voyeuristic reality-show kind of way.

 

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*Yes, I know that this whole “classical” education label thing is about as accurate a historical replica as a Red Ryder wagon is to a horse and carriage.  That’s fine.  I’m not running a seminary here.  We are the trade-and-merchant class, our children are signed up for a nice practical education that will get them into engineering school.  And ask my pastor about roofs, sound boards, and programmable thermostats — you could do worse than a business or engineering degree if you have a calling to become a parish priest. But for those who really do want the same type of education as Thomas Aquinas (whose grandfather was not a plumber), this guy is doing his best to re-create just that.

The 12 Days

I was riding around with the kids yesterday, and suddenly discovered I liked The Twelve Days of Christmas song.  Like wow, that’s really a very pretty tune.  And it’s sort of fun.

Came as a shock to me.

I think what happened is I quit listening to the radio.

Now I like the song. For singing.   Do not send albums.  DO NOT send albums.

Merry Christmas.

 

MRI Normal

Update for those who have been following the saga, brain/spine MRI was normal.  (Foot is another story.)   There is far too much evidence right here on this blog to conclude I have a ‘normal’ brain.  But apparently it knows how to behave under interrogation.  Or else they weren’t, maybe, looking for a disorder that makes one compulsively care about words no one else even uses, like ‘usury’.

I’m not sure whether this means the neuro will go back to leaving me alone, or decide he desperately needs to do some expensive and invasive tests.  Either way I’ll no doubt find a way to deploy my special complaining powers.  But I’m pretty pleased at the prospect of Reduced Holiday Drama.  So it’s all good.

Graham Cracker Houses

Dorian wants a gingerbread house recipe.  I’m sure some handy person will help her.  But though I have a horror of MDF “lumber” and other such confections in real houses, I’m sold on the pre-fab SIP of culinary architecture.

No, graham crackers do not taste anything like real gingerbread.  But are you really going to eat the house after it has been sitting out for ten days?  You?  No.  Your kids, yes.  They will pick off the ants if they must, just to get all that hard dried frosting. And they won’t care that the thing looks like it escaped from the  mobile gingerbread home park pages of Dwell magazine.  Or something.

One tip for the truly crafty: Sugar Cubes. (No I am not that smart.  My friend Jen A. told me about it.)  Brick-and-mortar construction.  The third little pig would be proud.  Looks nice.  Tons of fun.