3.5 Time Outs: Assorted Measures

Thanks once again to our host Larry D. at Acts of the Apostasy, who’s got all your Apocalypse needs covered. Especially Robot Apocalypse.

3.5 Time Outs Tuesday — Click and be amazed.

Yesterday was our 17th Anniversary. We had dinner on the screen porch — steak, tater tots, spinach, cantaloupe, champagne. Even the kids were full before dessert. I can’t remember when it started, but we’ve taken to having a family dinner for our anniversary, and pointing out to the kids that it marks the founding of our family. Which makes it their holiday, too. After the kids went to bed, parents finished the champagne and got into the cheesecake.

Best Water Meter Ever. It takes several layers of those cheap all-paper plates from Aldi if you’re serving steak. Why paper? Because the septic system is old enough to run for president, which in septic-years is much more than a little stately silver around the ears. We’re avoiding all excess water usage until we can get a new drain field cut in sometime next week. And so the SuperHusband installed one of these on the back patio:

It’s connected to the hose for a water-supply, and underneath, instead of drainpipe there’s a one-gallon bucket. It’s fascinating seeing exactly how much water you use to wash hands or brush teeth. Major incentive to conserve water so you don’t have to keep hauling the bucket off to some suitable corner of lawn. Can I count this as school?

Bleg: Boys, Porn, and Chastity. Had a friend in for tea Sunday afternoon, and she gave me a timely head’s up on the reality of tweenage boys and the very rapid transition into Exceedingly Immature Manhood that is somewhere on the horizon for our boy. (Right now, the only girl he likes is the dog.) Since I know that at least a few of my readers are:

Men.
Fathers of teens boys and former teen boys.
Catholic of the Chastity is Good, Sin is Bad type.
Remember what it was like to live inside the body of a teenage boy.

or:

Are married to such a person.

or:

Are the grown son of such a person.

Want to offer any advice? Practical. Links, comments, a post of your own and link it back here. I’m all ears. Anything helpful. Thanks!

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On Saturday I bought an 18-pack of Busch Light. I tasted some, warm. It’s kind of sweet — sort of a malty fruity seltzer product. Interesting. But it’s not for me. It’s for

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Well that’s all for today. Tuesday is Link Day for all topics, not just beer, chastity, and laundry tubs. Help yourself if you are so inclined. Post as many as you want, but only one per comment or the spam dragon will eat you up and I’ll never even know.

7 Quick Takes: Mother’s Day. Liquor Store Edition.

In my family growing up we had a set of Mother’s Day rituals — taking Mom out to breakfast, going to the garden center to buy flowers to plant for her, sometimes even exchanging of gifts and cards. When the Boy was born, I expected SuperHusband to just know what to do. After all, my family’s traditions were hardly secret — you see that kind of stuff on TV. I assumed everyone just knew.

Except that he didn’t. Tears ensued. Until I discovered one year that actually, there is a much, much better way:

Making my own breakfast. Why not have a day a year devoted to eating exactly what I want, prepared the way I like it, and you other people please just stay in bed and give the mother an hour of quiet to enjoy it? It really is better.

But I did tell the poor man what I wanted this year: For him to please get repaired the watch he gave me a different year. It needs a new battery and a new clasp, and yes I could take it to be repaired myself, but you know, he’s a mechanical engineer. What a great way to show his love, driving to the store himself to oversee the repair of a tiny metal mechanical device?

Luckily there’s no deadline, except that I’d really love for it to be fixed by the end of August, when I go to the Catholic Blogger Foretaste of Heaven Conference. Where our lovely 7-takes hostess will be speaking, no less. I am wildly excited.

Last year for Mother’s day, SuperHusband gave me a reprint of this book:

Which taught me how to make my own vinegar. Seriously easy and you feel so crunchy-granola, and also it uses up wine ends. And it is better than anything you can buy.

Small hitch: The cloth-covered Famous Grouse bottle serving as miniature vinegar barrel reminded the SuperHusband he wanted to resume homebrewing. He’d been on a long toddler-rearing hiatus. So he did. Causing us to stop buying wine. But I did the calculation, and it is cheaper to buy a bottle of Aldi wine and make vinegar out of it, than it is to buy Publix-brand red wine vinegar. So that’s what I do.

Speaking of famous grice: The SuperHusband was in the doghouse the other week, and to demonstrate the sincerity of his love, he came home with a bottle of Laphroaig for me. Which was a tiny bit strange, because I had not been grousing about a lack of single-malt. And the stuff is expensive. But in a moment of virtually Therese-like holiness, I figured: Hey, this is good! Might as well enjoy it!

He really does love me, you know.

A prayer for Allie Hathaway is prayer for her mom, too. You can’t go wrong.

The American Frugal Housewife was not the first historic housekeeping title on my shelves. The previous Christmas the SuperMother-In-Law, who knows me well, gave me this one:

Mrs. Beeton’s is much heftier than the Frugal Housewife, and addressed more towards homes with servants, and our servants are mostly the electric type anymore. But I came across this eminently reassuring and useful* bit of advice about the rigors of breastfeeding and the avoidance of colic:

The nine or twelve months a woman usually suckles must be, to some extent, to most mothers, a period of privation and penance, and unless she is deaf to the cries of her baby, and insensible to its kicks and plunges, and will not see in such muscular evidences the griping pains that rack her child, she will avoid every article that can remotely affect the little being who draws its sustenance from her. She will see that the babe is acutely affected by all that in any way influences her, and willingly curtail her own enjoyments, rather than see her infant rendered feverish, irritable, and uncomfortable. As the best tonic, then, and the most efficacious indirect stimulant that a mother can take at such times, there is no potation equal to porter and stout, or what is better still, and equal part of porter and stout.

And with that, I bid you a Happy Mother’s Day.

*Do not use this advice. Or if you do and then need sue someone, sue Mrs. Beeton. Her idea not mine.

3.5 Time Outs: The Plague-Ridden Lifestyle

Thanks once again to our host Larry D. at Acts of the Apostasy, who is nothing if not good for Death Star-themed humor.

SuperHusband took the relatively healthy contingent to the family reunion [Bethune Homesteaders spared infection — castle residents went straight to our ancestral family’s farm, Curley family kept safe] and I stayed home with the weekend’s victims. Got a lot of writing done, that’s nice. But look, Barbecue!

Having spent a weekend holed up in quarantine with an iPod, the Boy returned to the land of the living in order to show me this:

And also this:

3.5

Not half a take, but themed on the halves: You’ll be pleased to know that while I learn slowly, I do eventually learn. Monday I promised my would-be publisher I could have the manuscript on the new, expanded, book-length version of the catechist book~~let~~ done by June 30th — and assured her that I what meant was “I plan to have it done by the 15th, so there’s two weeks of padding in there.” Which I felt pretty good about saying, because I know I could get it done by the 1st.

See? Take the estimated time to completion and double it — twice. My operations management professor would be so proud.

Curiously, in checking those dates for the writing of this post, I accidentally set my computer’s clock ahead to June 29th. Don’t worry, I put it back.

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PS: Link day. Help yourself if you are so inclined. Though I can’t imagine there’s anything on the internet to top Barbecue-Zombie-Stormtrooper Day. Post as many as you want, but only one per comment or the spam dragon will eat you up and I’ll never even know.

3.5 Time Outs: Plague Journal

Thanks once again to our host Larry D. at Acts of the Apostasy, who’s got a time machine of his own going on this week.

I finished reading Eric Sammons’ new book, and hey, it’s pretty good. A lot good, in fact, and a review is forthcoming. But today let me caution you: There’s a humility component to this holiness business.

Exhibit A:

Why do my renewed efforts at holiness always coincide with the arrival of a nasty evil throat-lung-stomach virus in our home? Doesn’t our Lord know I have important holiness work to do?

Exhibit B:

Why does a resolution to be more Therese-like and offer up little annoyances for some general heavenly purpose get transformed into:

1. A multiplication of petty annoyances, and a sudden intolerance for them?

2. A friend suddenly coming down with a horrid affliction (probable bone cancer — femur — please pray for Mrs. P) for which to offer all these things?

3. Thus destroying any sense of virtue I might have otherwise relished, and instead leaving me with a crotchety personality and the knowledge of just how petty it is?

So don’t say I didn’t warn you. Good book otherwise, though. Great book.

I’m going to Dallas!!!!!!! Yes, all those exclamation points truly are needed. Because look, it’s like a giant crack convention:

A. The Catholic Writer’s Conference, which means meeting in person all the people I get to work with on the CWG blog, which really is that exciting because when you get to know these people . . . you want to get to know these people.

B. The Catholic Marketing Network Conference, which is code for “Catholic Bookstores”. Enough said.

C. And then in case I just wanted to be near the superstars of Catholic internet, there’s the Catholic New Media Conference right there as well.

Quadruple bonus: I double-checked the back cover of my copy of Happy Catholic, and sure enough, Julie Davis lives in Dallas. It says so right there. (I knew it was some place in Texas, but I can never keep Dallas and Houston straight, except to know that confusing the two means wow, a lot of driving time.) So maybe, just maybe, I’ll get to live out my dream of one day buying the woman a cup of coffee. Or something.

So here’s the thing: What’s the etiquette on bringing books to be signed at these events? Because I don’t think I can carry that many books to Texas, and yet it would pain me, just pain me, to miss my chance to get some autographs. I’m so conflicted.

3.5

Because I met the guy — that’s why. Neat person.

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PS: Link day. Help yourself if you are so inclined. Post as many as you want, but only one per comment or the spam dragon will eat you up and I’ll never even know.

PPS: Thus far I myself appear to be spared the evil thing — I thought I was coming down with it last night, but this morning I’m good. So here’s your mission: Imagine you’ve already finished praying for Mrs. P and your other serious concerns . . . Would you consider offering up a little prayer for our family, that my other dream of seeing the Bethune Catholic homestead is not thwarted by more plague later in the week? I so want to go. I pass the place every non-plague year on the way to the family reunion, and I totally want to get a child to bake some brownies, and a different child to pack some airsoft guns, and stop in for an hour or two. Goodness I might even mix up the brownies myself.

I was about to ask that we’d also be miraculously able to attend religious ed tonight (last night of the year), but #2 came staggering into the study with glazed eyes and feverish misery, so I don’t think the virtue of prudence will let us get away with that, even if there were miraculous recoveries in the next six hours.

Vocation and Holiness

This morning as I stumbled down the hall, coffee in hand, the fourth grader handed me A Bridge to Terabithia. “Mom,” she warned me, “don’t let anybody read this for school. It is terrible. It has very foul language.”

“Oh?” I had read it way back in elementary school, but hadn’t looked at it since. I couldn’t really remember what was in the book.

“Yes. They use the d-word. And the parents say things like ‘crap’ and ‘crud’ and ‘you stupid’. And that’s just in one chapter.”

Ah. Duly warned. I thanked her for the head’s up.

1. Simcha Fisher writes:

We’re so used to seeing our own children, so used to the idea that they’re under our care, that we sometimes forget that the angels rejoice when a young person goes out into the world armed with truth and love, instead of going forth with their hearts cramped and crabbed by an acceptance of abortion. This is where the battle is fought: in individual hearts. Each abortion is a tragedy because it ends an individual life—but each heart that is taught how to love is a true and eternal victory.

Yes, raising our children lovingly is commonplace, a duty, nothing new. So what? It’s still a big deal. It’s still the way to save souls. This is the great thing about being part of the Culture of Life: everything counts. You don’t have to save your receipts! Your good works have been noted, and they will not go to waste.

2. Bearing reminds me, I’m not the only mom who got paid to go to graduate school, in order to prepare for a rewarding career in the ultra-non-profit sector. I don’t typically feel guilty about this. Back when I was applying for fellowships, I assumed I’d ultimately end up in some kind of field that was a natural extension of my start in accounting — maybe moved out of staff and into operations, or teaching accounting 101 at the community college, or who knows what — who can really predict how a career will turn? I also knew that I wanted to be a mom, and that I was intentionally picking a field that lent itself to momness. Ditching it all in order to stay home and raise kids? If only I could be so lucky.

At the fellowship interviews, I was asked, “What do you see yourself doing in five years? Ten years?”

I answered honestly. “Solving problems.”

Which is what I do.

3. This week at the Catholic Writers Guild blog I’ve been shuffling around the schedule to get all the mundane writer-talk posts pushed off until after Easter. I didn’t want Holy Week to be chit-chat as usually. But Sarah Reinhard’s post for today, even though it’s sort of a blogging post, it’s really a Holy Week post: Remember Your Priorities.

–> Hey and real quick please pray for Sarah’s very urgent prayer request for a family member with a scary, likely life-threatening diagnosis on the way. Thanks.

4. You know what? I just love this photo so much. I was thrilled with Julie D. picked it out for her 1,000 Words post. Because I just like to look at it.

5. Holiness versus Weirdness. It’s a constant battle. I spend a lot of time just trying to figure out how to live life. I feel stupid about this, because, well, not knowing how to live your life has got to be one of the marks of stupidity, right? But at the same time, I live in a culture that doesn’t know how to live life, so I remind myself it’s not exactly shocking that my adulthood be devoted to figuring out what I ought to be doing instead.

And I’m not alone. Which makes reading Catholic Lifestyle Lit of a decade ago so amusing, because the holiness-fads of years gone by shout out like a pair of parachute pants. Which is why my children in ten years will be laughing about this over Thanksgiving dinner:

When I wrote about fasting from artificial light in the Register a while back, I got a ton of interesting responses. One of my favorites was from a dad who told me about this family tradition that they’ve been doing for 30 years:

We turn off the light when we leave for Holy Thursday Mass and don’t turn them on again until we return from the Saturday Easter Vigil at around midnight on Saturday.

We got the idea when our parish turned off the lights and had us exit in silence on Holy Thursday. And we entered at the Easter Vigil in darkness which continued until the Gloria. And, of course, Good Friday services were held during the daytime so lighting was not a main focus. So we got the idea to practically “live” this period when Jesus the “light of the world” was taken away from us.

I think we might try this this year. Anyone else going to give it a shot?

My kids will the story of how I read this idea at some Catholic lady’s blog, and when I told Jon, not only did he like the idea, he proposed we just flip all the breakers in the house except the one for the kitchen.

So yeah. Weird. I know we are. I know it kids.

6. But listen, weird isn’t all bad. My garden is awesome. If by “awesome” we mean: I like it. And I was sitting in it this spring, and realized that Margaret Realy’s book about Prayer Gardens had come true. I read it, followed the instructions, and wow, it worked. Highly recommended if you want a little quiet garden-y oasis, and need some ideas about how to make it work.

And with that I’ll cut out the rest of the chit-chat and go be all vocational. Have a great week, and I’ll see you back here come Easter or so.

7 Quick Takes: Troublemakers

7 Quick Takes Post-It Notes — The Land of 700 Takes.

It’s the end of the Catholic Writer’s Conference Online, and I had a reader here take me to task for not publicizing it enough. (“Conference? What conference?”). So I’m going to fix that.

The thing is this: A year ago, Mike Hays and I were making trouble at Sarah Reinhard’s otherwise very civilized blogging workshop. We were saying things like, “And the CWG ought to have a blog! And Mike will pray once a week! And Jen is willing to help! Because she always volunteers for things, even though she has no time, but this time she really thinks she should!”

And someone took us up on it. Ann Lewis presented me with a newborn blog, and said, “Here you go, find writers.” Mike’s led prayers over at CWG every week since. He rocks.

So anyway, what you need to know is that if you’re a Catholic writer, you really ought to check out the Catholic Writers Guild. And if you’re a Christian writer of any flavor, join us all through April for 30K for Christ. There’s a 30K for Christ forum for CWG members, and non-members are encouraged to check-in at the blog with progress reports, or join in via Twitter following top-secret instructions Sarah Reinhard’s going to decode and make public by Sunday.

Meanwhile, you should steal this stylish 30K Logo so that everyone knows you aren’t just writing stuff, you’re on a mission:

Allie Hathaway’s a Catholic writer. Pray for her. Thanks.

Of the 7,000 cool things I learned at the online conference, my favorite is this:

Sr. Marie Paul Curley is Jim Curley’s sister. That’s why she looks so happy in her profile pics on her blog. If you weren’t already reading her blog, now’s the time to start.

And in news culled from that blog: Act One is accepting applications for the coming year? Yes? Still open? I don’t see a deadline.

But I do see this: A casting call for ex-Christians, disaffected Christians, and people who just don’t do organized religion:

SUBMISSION DEADLINE IS APRIL 4, 2012. Project is unpaid, but participants will receive copy, credit, and reimbursement for production-related costs.

ABOUT YOU LOST ME

With You Lost Me, Barna Group researcher David Kinnaman shows why younger Christians are leaving the church and rethinking their faith. Through research and statistics, Kinnaman shows how pastors, church leaders and parents have failed to equip young people and how this has serious consequences. Those disconnected from the church are not statistics, says Kinnaman — they are people with real stories. You Lost Me, in part, is a challenge to the church to slow down and listen to those who consider themselves outsiders.

FYI for those who rightly worry about these things, Act One has made it’s mark as an outspoken criticism of the sugary 3rd-rate rah-rah-rah team brand of inane Christian programming. So this looks promising.

7.

~~And now I’m going to Aldi~~. Wait! No I’m not! The kids made a list . . . and we all forgot! The truck’s in the shop! Ack. Leaky hose. It’ll be home soon I hope. Good thing our idea of “out of groceries” involves still owning large amounts of food.

And tomorrow: Taxes. I’d better get a head start since I’ll have to do grocery run tomorrow. Do you know what my #1 writing rule is? If you can’t write as clearly as the IRS, you should be fired.

7.5

Whoa! What’s with the website redesign at IRS??? Ack. It’s colorful. Bright. Cheesy photos of satisfied customers. NOOOOOO! I want my ~~boring~~ soothing, orderly accountant-blue back. Nooooooo!

Have a great weekend.

7 Quick Takes: The Path of Least Resistance

The 4th grade science book had this explanation of charge (negative, positive, etc) that was just not computing with a certain child. Trying to figure out how to explain what the girl needed to know was going to take more brain power than I wished to exert. So I fetched the boy’s old snap circuit kit, and said, “Read the directions, make a couple of these, and then we’ll talk.”

She loves them. She’s made maybe twenty of the projects now.

And the SuperHusband came home and explained the habits of those wiley electrons in terms we could all understand.

In his explanations, he observed electrons are a lot like people. Certain children, for example, would much rather we evenly populate the rooms of the house, than have three girls crowded together in one bedroom. It was an analogy our people-person girl grasped immediately.

On the evening walk after dinner, Mr. Boy proposed seminars that run the opposite direction. “People Skills for Engineers”, for example. In which you explain that people are a lot like electrons.

Every time your blood pressure spikes from reading about offensive jury verdicts in which parents are paid millions to publicly wish their children dead, Allie Hathaway’s the perfect choice for your offering up. Have I mentioned that reading the news is a near occasion of sin for me? You might have noticed.

Benadryl season, here. I ran out of the liquid. Seven-year-old had dark circles under her eyes, perpetual sneezing, and was losing her voice. But the pill. It doesn’t want to go down.

Until I remembered this stuff:

Now she’s very punctual in reminding me when she needs her next dose.

We weren’t sure whether our dog would get along with our friends’ dogs during the pending staycation, in which all Fitz creatures under a certain age vacate castle premises for the weekend. So we ran a test the other day. One of the host dogs was not pleased at the arrival of the guest dog, and our pup insisted on saying a few pointed words back . The altercation slowly edged them towards the pool.

Our dog, unaware she was backing up towards the water, fell right in. She swam to the side, and my friend showed her the way up the steps.

And after that, the dogs got along just fine.

And with that, I’m out of here, and offline, until sometime Monday. Think I might send the telephone off with the kids, too. Have a great weekend!

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UPDATE: Thank You Facebook Helpers. The new page name is: www.facebook.com/JenFitz.writes. You guys are the best.

(Meanwhile SuperHusband and I are enjoying an eerily silent weekend. I’ll check back at the combox and all that come Monday, or whenever we lose our un-plugged concentration and just have to ignore each other for a while.)

7 Quick Takes: Lucky Women

It’s been a long few days here at the Castle. I would be very grateful for your prayers.

This is hilarious: “Teach Yourself a New Culture in 100 Easy Lessons”, in which we see how a Haitian man studying English describes the pictures in the reading book. I want the whole series.

Lent report:

1) Yeah, we pretty much stink at prayer-n-fasting. Especially when housework is supposed to fit in their somewhere.

2) But I did have an Adrian Monk Moment, and clean the yard in a frenzied response to stress and frustration. It looks really nice. Or it did 24 hours ago, anyhow.

3) And then here’s what happened: We planned to meet Fr. W for lunch because after six months of trying, dinner just wasn’t happening. Too busy. And we decided that ‘at the restuarant’ was smarter than ‘at our house’. And this morning I thought, “Yes, I’m so glad it’s at the restaurant, because this place is a wreck.” And then I realized: “This place is waaaaay cleaner then the first time he came over last summer. For one thing, at this time I would not need to send the children out on an hour-long mission to “get rid of the disgusting things”.

So, yes. Progress. Not as stellar of progress as my vivid imagination had envisioned. But it’s something.

The Fitz House, Now 75% Less Disgusting!

You thought you could just pray for my intention up there in #1. No can do. Allie Hathaway. Right now.

. . . Okay good. Thanks!

Helen Alvare e-mailed me (and 18,000 of her closest friends, I’m pretty sure) with the reminder that:

. . . The Obama Administration has put real accommodation of religious employers, insurers, and individuals off the table. And they have managed to get leading media to continue to claim that women are on the side of shutting down religious witness on the issue of the “free” birth control in employer insurance plans.

If you’re female and you haven’t signed the Women Speak for Themselves letter, do it now, here.

And this the Facebook page: facebook.com/WomenSpeakForThemselves.

[H/T to the inimitable Mrs. Tollefsen for the head’s up about the letter and the encouragement to sign it. They let me on, so they’ll take anybody.]

Bearing links to a really cool history article on eugenics, politics, and the Irish in 1940. Click on her link and read the whole thing — very well-researched and written account of a suspicious marriage certificate, and the man who made it so, 52 years after the wedding took place. For that matter, if you’re having withdrawal because you don’t like how my 3-D life is interfering with your goofing-off schedule, Bearing’s been pretty much rocking the house lately, so you just go read her for a while.

And that’s it. Catholic Writer’s Conference starts tomorrow. My yard is clean. My blog is sad and lonely. The weather is beautiful. My truck is pale yellow from the pine pollen. My 5 year-old has a new green plaid outfit made by her 10-year-old sister from scrap fabric, just in time to keep the neighbor kid from pinching her tomorrow. I have given up all hope of predicting the future, and now consider my calendar to be a work of speculative fiction.

Oh speaking of saint’s feast days, last night I read the account of St. Abraham Kidunaia. And I thought as I read, “Gee, his poor fiance, abandoned on the eve of the wedding, when he fled to the desert and locked himself in a cell.” And then I read a little further, and concluded: “Probably once she learned he was planning to wear the same goatskin coat for the next 50 years, she was okay with it.”

7 Quick Takes: Doing it Wrong

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.

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.

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.

The boy recommends you watch Matrix run on Windows XP. I agree.

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.

If you want to do one thing right today, quick stop reading and say a prayer for Allie Hathaway.

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.

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.**

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.

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*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.

7 Quick Takes: I’m not ready yet.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Pray for Allie Hathaway. I can’t think of a better way to spend your Friday.

“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.

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