Footprints on the Fridge

The Fast of Loneliness and the Feast of Friendship

In the past few weeks, our lives have slowed from the busy pace of late spring with its baseball and work schedules and the final push of the school routine.  Things are slower around here.  And I am working my way back to normal on so many levels after a rough stretch.  And we are praying for new direction in our lives, praying to understand God's will for us, praying to know the way.

That combination of happenings has led me to really focus on getting my prayer life back in order.  To focus on rebuilding intimacy with God.  I have spent so much time hurting in the last nine months, clinging to God for my very breath at times, weeping all my bitterness out onto His wounded feet, it's hard to imagine how I could have lost a sense of intimacy with Him.  But lose I did.  My Scripture reading, my meditation, all just dry.  Prayer has been like eating Saltine crackers lately.  I want to fall in love with Jesus all over again.  I want to be young and fresh and zealous all over again.  I want to trust and hope and sing His praise with unabashed joy once again.  In light of where I've been, this may look a little different than when I first fell in love with Him, but it's possible.  It's what He wants for me. It's how He loves me, fully, zealously, joyfully.  And it's how He wants me to love Him in return.

It is no new discovery that silence is a necessary component for building a fruitful prayer life.  Catholic saints and more recently, Catholic bloggers, have written eloquently on the subject.  And I agreed wholeheartedly with their assessments.  I just didn't exactly get what the Lord was trying to tell me right away.  I'm like that sometimes, a little dense with the Lord.

But as I've put my focus on building an intimate prayer life, I've come to see that silence is not just about creating quiet pockets for prayer throughout my day.  Silence is not only about guarding my time from the screen noise that can overtake me at times.  Silence is not only about limiting online conversation.  Silence in an intentional, purposeful fast.  Silence is letting yourself be lonely.

My husband had to spend some time out of town in the last few weeks.  His being gone fills me with a sense of his absence, with a sense that someone is missing.  And that sense makes me lonely.  He wasn't as available to me as he usually is when he's away and so that sense of his absence was all the more acute.

My natural reaction to feeling "alone" is to look for other voices to fill that sense of absence, of loneliness--to call friends or sisters or nieces--to chat away the time so that I barely notice he's gone.  To chat up.  To barely notice.  He's gone.  Oh. So not good.  This time around I finally got a glimpse of what God was trying to say.  My husband is my beloved.  I'm supposed to notice he's gone.  I'm supposed to feel lonely without him. 

And so I felt the Lord calling me to fast while my husband was away.  To intentionally put the phone back down and not dial.  To desire conversation, and to feel the hunger, but not to feed it.  To desire affirmation, to thirst for recognition, and to stay thirsty for a while.  To feel the human longing for intimacy and to fill it, not with humanity, but with Him.  To silence not the noise others make, but the noise I make. In my own head.  In my own heart.  To fast from even good, fruitful conversations with holy, like-minded friends.  To fast from their encouragement.

Why? Because in our loneliness, we see our neediness.  We begin to see just how clingy we are.  Like little babies who are feverish and miserable cling tightly to you, begging you with clutching fingers and whimpering voices to assure them that they are okay.  I whimper. I cling.  Someone tell me I'm okay.

I don't like to see my neediness.  It's shockingly embarrassing to realize how much I look to others to validate, affirm.  When my confidence is waning, when sloth is lurking, when fatigue makes joyful service feel impossible, I look for a quick fix, a word of love, a little laugh, an "atta-girl".  None of these things are bad in and of themselves.  But what I realized is that they are like feeding myself a steady diet of cup cakes.  I feel full right after, but the fullness doesn't last long.  And the bottom out makes me feel worse than before and I need more cupcakes to feel full the next time around. 

But in the fasting, I felt the hunger.  And I waited.  And I felt the humility of how much hunger there was.  And I waited. I got so hungry, I cried.  And I waited.  And sometimes night fell and the darkness felt very dark and very lonely.  And I waited.  And I called out to Him to fill me.  And I laid my scared, tired, feverish little girl self in His lap.  And I drank living water and I consumed living Bread.  And in time,  I fell in love again. 

I fell in love with the husband I missed so much, and I desired his company more than I have in a long time.  And I fell in love with my God again.  The God that feeds my hunger and isn't critical of my neediness.  The God that created me to need.  To hunger. To thirst.  In the depths of my soul.  The God who knows how badly I need to be loved.  And who wants to rush in and fill me. 

And all I have to do is let myself be empty.  Be lonely.  Be hungry.  And He will come to fill me with the kind of friendship that makes me strong and healthy, full and satisfied.  So that friendship cupcakes taste ever sweeter because I am not expecting them to feed a hunger they were never meant to feed.

I am still learning.  I still reach for conversation when it might be better to wait.  I still tend to think of screen time and chat time first when I feel myself begin to tire, begin to get hungry throughout the day.  And I don't always wait when I should.  But I am working.  And I am learning to be lonely. And to see the reality of neediness.  And to fill it with love worth waiting for.

Beauty in the Ashes

Lenten mantle reminder: Forty Days in the Desert

As we approach Holy Week this year, I am having to rethink the way in which I would normally do things.  Most years, the effort of Holy Week in this house is to find age appropriate ways to make the reality of the Passion of Christ real for my children, so that they may truly experience the joyful exultation of Easter.  This year, real life has changed the perspective a bit. And it's hard.

To be honest, I wish we had needed this Lent.  I wish that all the superficial reminders that we are dust were necessary.  I wish the reality of suffering and death were far removed from our lives and we needed a wake up call. But the truth is we've been living life on the Via Dolorosa for some time now.  Death's sting is palpable in this house. The transient nature of the world is all too real.  The reality that the only eternal joy is in heaven is unfairly ours.  And the deep, desperate hope of Resurrection is the rallying cry of our spirits.  It alone makes us rise each day and begin again. My kids know the horror of death more than I ever imagined they would at such tender ages.  They know what it means to close up the tomb and wait. And they don't need any further reminders.

Lenten Mantle: the Pieta and the Three Pillars of Lent

What they need this Holy Week are gentle ways to live the liturgy, to see the beauty in the ashes. The hope of Sunday's reality needs to be sweet and joyful and tangible, but the references to death and its sting need to be quiet and gentle.  So my regular rotation of Stations of the Cross and watching the second half of Jesus of Nazareth in the evenings and attending the very realistic Living Way of the Cross at the local university are put on hold this year.  There will be Mass and Confession at some point.  There will be Eucharistic Adoration and the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary.  But mostly, there will be gentle beauty and quiet, hopeful healing for little hearts (and bigger ones too, I suppose).

Each day this week, we'll let a lovely picture book sharpen our focus and lead us through this week's reflections with gentleness and beauty.  Then we'll quietly create something lovely, another gentle reminder of the beauty in the ashes. 

Holy Week at Home 2010:

The Legend of the Easter Egg, Easter Eggs for Anya, and Rechenka's Eggs: We'll read these books and do a more age appropriate version of Pysanky here.  Using wooden eggs with a flattened out bottom (so they stand on their own), the kids will pencil draw a design, then trace over it a Sharpie marker.  Then they'll paint in the design with craft paint.  When that layer of paint is dry, they will go over their marker lines with puff paint to create a raised design.  I'm hoping the effect will be quite nice and the process rewarding for them.

The Little Rose of Sharon: We'll read this one and then make red and white ribbon roses.  We'll tie on day's prayer of the Divine Mercy novena to each of nine roses and put them in a vase on the mantle. We'll untie each prayer as we pray it and put it away.  On Divine Mercy Sunday, I'll put the ribbon roses away until next year and replace them with real ones.

The Tale of Three Trees: We'll follow this one up with a spring walk in the woods and pretzel making for Good Friday. 

Fiona French's Easter: This book, which contains the words of the Easter story from the King James Bible and beautiful stained glass illustrations will be our Easter Saturday read aloud. Afterwards, we'll make our own stained glass windows by coloring printed coloring pages of Easter scenes (not the bunny kind, the Jesus kind) and then covering the edges with coloring tissue paper glued down, and oiling the backside with baby oil on a cotton ball.  When they are dry, we frame them in black paper frames and hang them in the windows as Easter decorations.  We'll make a new Alleluia to hang across the mantle using the same technique.

I hope you all find some inspiration for bringing Holy Week to life in your home.  We will carry you with us in prayer this week and can't wait to celebrate the joy of the Resurrection with you.

If You Give a Mouth a Toothbrush

Preface: Keep in mind the post I am about to write comes as I begin to dig myself out of the rut of first trimester yuckiness.  In those early weeks of pregnancy, I am prone to spend most of every day in pajamas, sleeping, whimpering, or gagging--sometimes combining the three into a veritable symphony of misery.  I face a terrible irony in those days in that my tongue suddenly becomes a piece of sand paper two sizes too large for my mouth and my mouth always tastes like something terrible no matter what I have or have not eaten.  I desperately want to brush my teeth all the time.  The irony is that when you add the toothbrush to the too large  tongue and the propensity to gag constantly, very bad things happen.  Very bad things that erase the momentary mintiness and leave you with a taste in your mouth that makes you want to brush your teeth.  You get the picture, right?  I spend a large portion of the first trimester trying to hide the fact that I'm brushing my teeth from my own mouth, or on the worst days, settling for Watermelon Extra chewing gum and a scrub of my teeth with the washcloth.  I know it's gross, but it's true.  So, there's your background, people.  Aren't you glad you stopped by today?

Premise: I am a firm believer that the way I dress and care for my personal appearance has an effect on the way I perform as a wife and a mother each day.  Don't tell my mother I said that.  I was so scathingly superior to her in my tender years when she would suggest, as she always did, "a little blush and lipstick".  And I teased her often about the fact that she really couldn't function well without earrings.  A day without earrings for her was like those nightmares you used to have about showing up at school without a shirt on? (Please tell me you had those nightmares, or I'm looking really foolish right about now.)  Anyway, these days my tune has changed.  I know well that people dress professionally for work for a reason, and that if everyone went to work in pajamas or workout pants every day, we'd be in one big mess right about now.  The same applies to me in my work here in my home.  It is my daily duty to bring beauty, joy, discipline, and excellence to my home.  I am much more disposed to seek these things when I am dressed for the task.  And people are much more likely to follow my lead if I look the part.

Problem: So my problem is not with the theory.  I believe wholeheartedly in the theory.  My problem is with the practice.  I go through phases when the practice seems effortless.  I rise, I groom, I dress.  Heck, I even primp a bit.  And then I go through phases where I know I will feel so much better if I put that theory into practice, but everything in my body clings to those pajama pants and hoodie like they were the source of life itself, and getting dressed for real is only for leaving the house--sending everyone in the house the message that whoever is out there is infinitely more important than they are.  Breaking out of the first trimester slump is one of those times.  Postpartum is another.  And then there are just the regular, life is overwhelming and I'm all out of sorts, and I'd kind of like to give up and crawl back into bed and my outward appearance says just that times. How do you resist the temptation to fall into sloppiness on these stretches or break it if you have given in?  That has been my dilemma.

Proposed Solution: So this morning, I started the day with the battle against the pajama pants.  The coffee had been sipped.  The prayers had been prayed.  There had been a lovely early morning chat with my sister.  Breakfast was in the making.  Little people were stirring.  It was time to shake off early morning fog and move forward.  But my body likes early morning fog these days--its slowness, its warm comfort, its lack of demands and expectations.  And so the battle began.  But early on, I gratefully remembered that I could once again brush my teeth. "Well, that's better than nothing," I thought, totally unaware that what was about to unfold was something of a circular nature much like the events that unfold in these well-loved stories.

It goes something like this:

If you give your mouth a toothbrush, it'll feel all minty and tingly and fresh inside.

It'll direct you to grab the nearby deodorant and hairbrush and make use of them.

If you have fresh underarms and tidy hair, your pajamas will seem a ridiculously unkempt match for them and they will insist that you get dressed in real clothes.

If you get dressed in real clothes and glance at your lovely self in the mirror, you will notice that a sweet necklace and pair of dainty earrings would make you look so polished.

If you put on those earrings, they will insist that they deserve the compliment of freshly pinked cheeks and glossy lips.

If you gloss up your lips, they will undoubtedly relish their prettiness and desire to stay that way.  Pretty lips stay pretty by saying kind, gentle, complimentary things.

Moms who say kind, gentle, complimentary things find themselves the beneficiaries of cooperation and respect from their children.

Cooperation and respect from children create peaceful, productive days in the home.

Peaceful, productive days enhance order and rhythm and create joy.

Order and joy are pleasing to the man who leaves the house each day to source provision for his family.

A pleased husband speaks words of praise and gratitude.

Praise and gratitude make a woman feel appreciated. 

Appreciation motivates us to pursue excellence.

Excellence is achieved in the small, daily efforts.

And so we rise again the next day and seek to shake off the morning's fog, toothbrush in hand.

Resolved: Prayer time, one cup of coffee, breakfast prep....then straight to the toothbrush, and you know the rest....

Nesting: The Plan for Survival Mode

As part of this weekend's nesting mania, I redid our chore chart for the summer, thinking about some of the wisdom in Katherine's post here and the way life with our new baby will play itself out.  I am blessed this time around to have helpers lined up a few days a week for the summer.  And they are helpers who are fully capable of directing my children to complete their assigned tasks as well as  taking on a few of my jobs themselves.  I am grateful for that.  Nonetheless, life with a newborn will inevitably bring its share of "survival mode" days.  The chore chart is ready to go, printed and posted.  But my thoughts the last few days have been less about the days where we'll get it all done and more about the days where we'll just make it through. Life in a lrge family provides plenty of these days--early in pregnancies, the first months with a new born, days nursing sick kids, and weeks loaded with outside commitments. How can we survive those days without frustration and without letting go of all the habits we work so hard to form when we are clicking along through rhythmic, orderly days?

Here are the rules I have come up with for survival mode. 

Rule 1: Put the laundry on a schedule.  Elizabeth and I share a theory that "as the laundry goes, so goes the house."  In survival mode, the laundry is one of those things that is likely to fall woefully behind without a plan.  I try to keep a daily laundry routine in mind as we move through our week so that everything that needs to be laundered gets its due attention.  Making a weekly laundry schedule and committing to memory will be a huge help in survival mode.  The morning duty of sorting can be simplified by directing a child to go to the hampers and grab all of whatever item is up that day.  Folding and putting away is simplified by having one type of laundry in the basket.  And if you have a helper asking what she can do, you have a ready answer: " Could you wash a load of....?"  And when the day comes that no one touches the washer and dryer, you can count backwards and know exactly what you need to do to play catch up.  That eliminates the "this is all so overwhelming I just can't think about it right now" syndrome.  Here's what a week worth's of laundry looks like at our house:

• Monday: bed linens
• Tuesday: whites and light colored clothing, diapers
• Wednesday: bath and kitchen linens
• Thursday: dark and brightly colored clothing, ironing
• Friday: bath and kitchen linens, diapers
• Saturday: special care items, ironing
• Sunday: diapers, mending

I'll simplify for a few weeks after baby by using disposable diapers and skipping ironing and mending as needed.  Normally on a Monday, we'd not only wash sheets, but air out comforters in the sun for a few hours.  In baby mode, we'll settle for a quick spritzing with some lovely smelling linen spray I recently ordered along with my beeswax furniture polish.   

Rule Two: Keep the kitchen sink empty.  Try to be aware (or better yet, assign a child to be aware) of the next step in the dish cycle at all times.  Then when an offer of help presents itself, or you need to send a child off to do something productive, or you happen to have a quick five minutes, you know what to do.  I love the advice for homemaking to "do the next thing", except that when you're functioning in a sleep-deprived fog you often can't wrap your brain around what the next thing is.  If you can walk into the kitchen and assess quickly the next step in the dish cycle, you can actually make a big impact in a short time.

Rule Three: Stick to the Morning Swish and Swipe.  Keep some of those handy cleaning wipes near the bathroom sinks, a bottle of all purpose cleaner near the toilets, and some of that daily tub spray near the shower or tub.  Each morning get someone to wipe out the sink, swipe the brush through the toilet, and spray down the tub in each of the bathrooms in the house.  They'll still need a good scrubbing when life allows, but they'll stay fresh smelling and cleaner than filthy until you get to it.

Rule Four:  Work the quick pick-up system.  Put a system in place for tidying up quickly and easily.  In our house, it'll be the laundry basket system.  I'll put a laundry basket in the corner of each room, labeled for that room.  Each evening, the kids can head to assigned rooms and pick up everything lying around and toss it into the basket.  On a good day, the pick-up process can be: Gather dirty dishes and place in sink, throw away all trash, place all dirty clothes in a hamper, place the rest in the basket.  On a bad day, dump it all the basket.  On a good day, the pick up can be followed by a quick sweeping or vacuuming of the floor underneath, on bad day, not so much.  In the morning, the kids bring all the baskets to whereever mom finds herself with, and the items inside are sorted into the basket for the room where they belong.  The kids then take the baskets to the rooms and empty them.  If they don't know where an item goes, they leave it in the basket.  Mom can quickly put away on her next sweep through that room, dad can do it in the evening, or it can sit in the basket until the next morning when Mom can tell the child where to put it. 

Rule 5: The rest is the rest.  The last rule in survival mode is to realize all the rest of the things you would normally accomplish--dusting, mopping, scrubbing tubs--is the rest.  It will get done, eventually.  Dad will pick up the slack sometimes, days of miraculous cooperation from kids will appear unexpectedly, and angelic helpers in the form of friends will sweep through occasionally.  And then, soon enough, you'll wake up one morning with the energy to tackle more than just the basics, and get to work.  Until then, let the rest be the rest.

And I give you all permission to remind me of these words when I am feeling totally overwhelmed about a month from now.

A Fresh Perspective for the Learning Room

A few weeks ago, Elizabeth and I were both feeling the need to get re-inspired in our learning rooms.  We were thrilled with the history trails we had mapped out at Serendipity , and were both clicking along quite nicely through them.  But we had both been in survival mode for too long--she since her weeks on bed rest and Sarah's birth and I since the early stages of this pregnancy--and were ready for a fresh approach.  We were both ready to take the good we already had and enrich it with a bit of beauty, and make our learning environments full of productive activity for all the age ranges our families represent. 

We made a deal that I would come up with a plan for our Native American unit  at Serendipity that would give it the artsy, warm feel we were both missing and she would scour her Montessori resources and this awesome blog for ideas on making our learning rooms a little bit richer.  Of course, in our collaboration, the lines blurred and we both brainstormed and worked through both plans.  We e-mailed and talked and within a week, I was at Michael's, list in hand, gathering main lesson book and activity materials for a beautiful Native American unit and head full of ideas for engaging activities for my little ones.  I wanted to get started that afternoon.  However, I took one look at my house and saw that the disorder in which it lay would be a total drain to the creative feel I wanted to instill anew.  So for the past two days, I've left my boys to the joys of backyard bug hunting  and imaginative play while I picked up, moved around, dusted, and mopped all sorts of surfaces in my house.  Then I spent last evening readying the learning room.  I'm thrilled with the results and think the boys are too since they've been exploring baskets and gathering around the table since about 7:15 this morning.

My goal was to create a system where I could think through all the types of activities I wanted to offer my kids on a regular basis and streamline the planning and gathering of materials to a once-a-month planning block.  Elizabeth, inspired by this concept , explored a bit further and found this idea , which seemed a perfect fit for what I was trying to accomplish.  I could easily tweak it to suit my needs.  My other stipulation was that this had to be a use-what-you-have project as there was just no room in the budget for a new piece of furniture or a fresh batch of baskets.  Luckily, I had just the thing hanging out in the playroom that I could reclaim.  So yesterday, we brought this lovely piece down and got our baskets ready for filling:

The three baskets sitting on top are each of the school-aged boys' book baskets.  They contain their assignment planners and core subject books.  The baskets in the shelf contain materials for a wide variety of hands-on learning.  Of course, I was thrilled to find note cards and ribbon in the $1 bin at Michael's that just happened to match the darling file folders, binder and journal that recently replaced the plain Jane ones on my desk:

And here's the purpose of all those baskets--

Faith and Living the Liturgy:  Since today's feast of the Annunciation is the last we'll celebrate this month, that basket sits empty, waiting for its April refill, with activities to celebrate Holy Week, Easter, Mercy Sunday, and the feasts of Sts. Catherine of Siena and Louis de Montfort.  We'll also remind ourselves next month that we are still celebrating the Pauline year.

Seasons and Nature:  Today we'll finish up our last March nature activity with a Spring Scavenger hunt in the backyard and a learning block and tea time focused on bird's nests and egg identification.   The materials for all the days activities have been loaded into the basket.

Thinking Challenges: This basket will be loaded with materials to complete the challenge ideas from this great blog .  In addition, there will be a few writing prompts and some math drill ideas.  This basket is mainly for the older boys use.

Unit Study and Main Lesson Book Supplies:  This basket is being filled for our Native American main lesson books and activities from More Than Moccasins .  Right now it contains new sketch books and fresh colored pencils, as well as D is for Drum, which will serve as the spine of our unit.  We are anxiously awaiting the arrival of our copy of More than Moccasins so we can add the supplies for those activities as well.

Little Ones Unit Study Activities:  This basket contains activities for the little ones that tie in to whatever we are studying.  Right now, there is a small basket full of Native American, Wild West and horse figures for play and a bag full of feathers, beads, leather scraps and other items for the little guys to make Modge Podge Native American collages while the older boys are working main lesson book pages.

 

Basic Skills Work:  The initial tag I penned for this basket was titled "Kindergarten Work."  Its primary purpose was to hold hands-on activities for Brendan, my current kindergartner.  However, I wanted to make sure Gabriel also had some access to those manipulatives to reinforce his core subject work and I knew he would bristle at his work being in the kindergarten basket, thus the name change.  Current activities in this basket include an alphabet matching activity:

A fine motor and sorting activity in which a collection of stamps is placed in the individual compartments of an embroidery floss tray using tweezers.  Once this practice is mastered, the stamps can be placed according to style--flags in one row, flowers in another, etc...An older child can sort by price, using coins to match the amount, or create patterns.  It tried to brainstorm three or four extensions for each activity so it would hold interest over the course of a month.  I'm sure it'll take some testing and tweaking to get it just right.

 

Lastly, there is an activity to reinforce the mathematical concept of number bonds.  This small box contains some number cards and beans.  The bottom of the box is divided in half with a paint pen.  A number card is placed in the top half of the box and the beans are divided into two groups that add up to that number.  The goal is to make as many combinations as possible. 

 

Little Ones Creative Exploration Basket:  This basket will contain basic preschool fun.  Right now, it is stocked with a tray for clay play, molds and cutters, and some leftover Valentine toothpick flags for sticking.  As you can see, the little guys are enjoying it:

 

Little Ones Helping Hands Basket:  This is my own take on Montessori practical life skills and other habit and life skills I would like the younger crowd to work on.  Right now this basket is stuffed with a bunch of cloth diapers for our wee one.  They can be stuffed with inserts, folded, and snapped for motor skill activity.  It also provides a way for my little ones to bond with and share in the joy of expecting their new baby brother.  When the diapers lose their appeal, their are Easter shirts to be buttoned, dress shoes to be tied, and pool bags to be zipped, and sandals to be buckled--all hinting at important events in the coming month.

 

Little Ones Work Trays:  This basket includes some specific Montessori activities that can be adapted across a variety of my kids ages.  I am adapting from Barbara Curtis' books , Montessori for Everyone and the blog linked earlier, as well as the wealth of ideas in this archive .  The first activity in the basket now involves placing gem stones into each square made by the pegs of our geoboard.  Little ones can later be encouraged to line the gems up by color, to count gems, and make simple patterns and form shapes.  Older kids can make more complex patterns and even try pictures.  You could also set up a multiplication problem and encourage them to map it out this way.

The other activity in this basket involves using a spoon to plant "seeds" (small wooden balls) in small terra cotta pots, then using a scoop to bury them (in grains of rice).  Later, I'll add a handful of grains that are dyed green to represent weeds, which can be plucked from the pots with tweezers.  Other extensions include placing stickers on the seeds and pots so it becomes a matching task, inviting the child to see how many seeds will fit in a pot without spilling, and flipping the pots over to play "find the seed".  The skills learned this month will be used with real wild flower seeds and soil next month.

The last little change in the room was that I set up this small corner table with slate boards and chalk, wipe erase board and markers for a focus on letter formation this month.  In the little drawer is our wooden US map puzzle, which is a great activity for the younger crowd while the olders are doing map work in their main lesson book for this unit.  I hope to rotate the focus of this area a few months at a time.

 

Well, there it is, a renewed, refreshed, enriched learning environment that I hope will keep us inspired in the weeks until we welcome our wee one, and give us the motivation to jump back in after he arrives.  I hope you too are finding a fresh outlook for learning this spring!

 

 

Simple Woman's Daybook ~ July 7

~ Do stop by Peggy's for all the links entered in this week's Simple Woman's Daybook ~

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Outside My Window ... the garden is quietly growing an abundance of fresh summer eats.

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I am thinking ...about implementing some parts of our Daily Rhythm today.

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I am thankful for ...my husband's new job and his health.

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From the kitchen ... shrimp and eggplant casserole, salad from the garden, and baked fish (I hope I can find something nice at the market).

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I am wearing ... navy knit capris and a white tank top.

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I am creating ...a summer menu and a interlibrary loan list for August.

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I am going ...to the bank, library, and grocery store today.

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I am reading ...Archbishop Fulton Sheen's St. Therese--a Treasured Love Story.  A beautiful book about two amazing souls.

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I am hoping ...to get back on top of the house work today.
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I am hearing ... the dryer spinning.

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Around the house ...the van needs to be cleaned out and vacuumed and the children who marked every wall and window with a large "X" will spend the afternoon with a bucket and a sponge.

One of my favorite things ...the way my baby crinkles his nose when he laughs.

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A Few Plans For The Rest Of The Week: women's bible study, Faith Camp events at the mission base,

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Here is a picture thought I am sharing~

Hope you're feeling better today, Mom!

On Being Intentional: Routine

This week's loveliness fair is being hosted by Paula and our theme is windows.  As I walked through the house this morning to start my day, I was mulling this post around in my mind.  I love my windows.  I love curtains, I love the views from windows, there is so much I could say.  But as the day began, I realized that my windows have changed in their purpose and meaning since I have stepped up my efforts to be intentional about housekeeping. 

Windows are quite lovely in of themselves for the view they provide to nature's gifts.  The fact that we get to dress them to suit our tastes lends another lovely attribute to them (for some wonderful inspiration, check out Lady Lydia's advice at Home Living), but what I have come most to appreciate about my windows is how they've come to reflect my intention in the pursuit of a daily routine and rhythm.

I start my mornings in the kitchen, where I brew the coffee, start a load of laundry and unload the dishwasher from the evening before.  The space between my kitchen sink and my island stove top is the place where I spend the "pegs" of my day, the times that mark the important points in our daily routine.  It has become my special little space:

This little vase was placed there to hold the handfuls of wild flowers the boys bring me on a regular basis these spring days.  As summer approaches, it will be home to roses and marigold from the garden (I hope).  The candle is the one I spoke about here--I light when I'm working in the kitchen, washing dishes at the sink or doing meal prep on the counters, to remind me to sanctify the moment, to find my holiness in this everyday service.  This is where I start the work of my day, it is the place I return to for important work throughout the day, and the last place I finish the work of the day most evenings.  It  is a lovely place to work, filled with the presence of little reminders that my work is holy, that my return to this spot throughout the day is my calling, that intent translated into action is virtuous.   

This sweet little St. Pio statue holds my wedding ring for me when I am involved in the kitchen.  I like to try to remember this quote from him as I work:  "Do not be so given to the activity of Martha as to forget the silence of Mary. May the Virgin who so well reconciled the one with the other be your sweet model and inspiration."

I think the gentle rhythm of a day followed with intent and purpose allows me to find that balance.

Shortly after I begin my morning at the kitchen window, a little voice beckons from another room.  Kolbe, my early riser, clamors for his "Mommy morning time."  The coffee is ready, I fill my cup and head to his room: 

Each evening when I put him to bed, we sing and untie his curtains to signal evening's rest.  When I pick him up in the mornings, we sing to greet the day and as I lay him on the changing table, we tie those curtains back to greet the day's sun once again.

This spot is one I return to again and again throughout the day as well.  With two babies in diapers, there are lots of changes, and with Kolbe still napping twice most days, his bed gets lots of use.  The light shining through those tied curtains in another reminder to me that the day's work creates a rhythm that benefits all of us, and that the little ones in our midst need the careful attention to detail that intentional  routines create.

Our day is punctuated by the routine work keeping a house requires of us, but its text is the praying, growing, and learning we do together each day.  Our dining room window marks the seasons and showcases these aspects of our lives:

Right now, we are adding weekly items that reflect the season of spring and coordinate with our alphabet activities. 

After breakfast, morning prayer and chores, this window greets us as we sit for academic work in areas like math and reading.  We return in the afternoons for tea and a craft to celebrate the seasons of our faith, like these spring crosses that last week reminded us that we were still rejoicing in Easter's joy: 

And to work together as a family on the plans at Serendipity, including our geography postcards:

When this part of our day is done, the routine takes me back to my starting point, the kitchen window, for dinner prep and clean up, and then on to bed time, where we draw those curtains in the little boy's room and settle into evening's lulling rhythm.

Housekeeping is essentially about routine.  Marking our days with joy and beauty makes becomes easier when there is a reliable rhythm to our days.  We must be intentional in our pursuit of it.  And if we are, we may just find there is lots of simple loveliness awaiting us each day, in familiar spots that reflect who we are and why we do what we do.   

Simply Lovely Laundry

Okay, now I know you all chuckled just a little when you read the spring fair schedule and saw that laundry was the first topic.  But the volume and variety of submissions proves what we hoped it would: women engaged in their work with a heart for service to the ones they love are in fact simply lovely.

Now before you read any further, where is your laundry? Do you need to start  a load, switch a load, or fold a load? Do it now.  Then come back.  Don't let your laundry mock you while you read.

Well, we ladies certainly have different ways of looking at laundry, about as motley as the items we find inside our baskets on laundry day.  Let's hang them on the line and have a look.

Well now, this sweet bonnet must belong to Mary, whose given us a fun lesson on the history of laundry and shared her appreciation for our modern laundry conveniences.

Now these sheets must belong to Elizabeth who shares how she's getting it all done when it comes to laundry, from her favorite linens to those pesky hampers of clothing.

And these wool socks must be Susan's.  Wears 'em with her hiking boots.  She's the adventurous type.  Climbed Mount Laundrymanjaro last year.  Wonder what she's planning on tackling next.

Oh, look.  A rosary in the laundry basket.  This must be Sarah's.  She likes to say it while she hangs the laundry on warm spring days.  She certainly has a sweet way of looking at things.

Oh, isn't this t-shirt lovely? Perfectly folded and a heart right in the center. Must be Lisa's.  She admits her heart's in the laundry basket. She got that from her grandmother.  Stick around to admire the lovely art, learn some great tips, and share a laugh too.

What a lovely yellow cardigan!  It must be Dawn's, you know how she loves them.  She too learned from her grandma how lovely laundry can be.  Oops, she's left her list in her pocket!  Well, she can pick it up when she stops by later.

Hey, is that your dryer buzzing?  Go switch your loads.  I'll wait for you.  Oh, you're back!  I found another list in the basket while you were gone.  It belongs to Darcee.  She's thinking at all through and putting it on paper over at her place.

Look at these sweet litle girl things!  This must be Pam's.  She likes washing for one at a time.

Oh, this hanger must belong to Barbara.  She does her laundry in the closet after all!  Sometimes all it takes to make a task lovely is thinking outside the box!

Even Maryan can be convinced of laundry's loveliness when she brings her favorite guys along on the date.  This adorable hat must belong to her little companion.

Oh, cloth diapers!  And a lot of them too.  These have got to be Annie's.  She's washing and hanging for two in diapers, you know!  And finding the joy in it, even when her appliances are revolting.  Well, she's safe at those drying racks anyhow.

Hhhm, look at all these socks!  They're just the same.  They must belong to Sarah.  She's been thinking long and working hard on getting a handle on her family's laundry.  She may join us soon.  She loves a clothes line in the spring too.

What's that?  This one smell like roses?  It must belong to Jessica.  She's got some great ideas for lightening your load.  And a lighter laundry load is definitely a lovelier one!

And this one, smells just like the ocean.  It's got to be Jennifer's.  I sure wish I could sit with her at her folding table some time soon.

Well, we're at the bottom of our basket.  What's that flashlight, you say?  Oh, dear, that's mine.  But I don't need it any more.  I'm over my fear of the laundry monster in the closet.

My laundry basket? Oh, I saw it over at Matilda's place.  Couldn't resist it.  Isn't it just lovely.  Check out the neat things she's found as she was making over her laundry room.

Looks like we're all  done here.  Would you like to come in for a cup of tea? You say you've got ironing to to do? Yeah, me too.  Well, it was a simply lovely time.  Thanks for joining me.