August 2009 Archives

Thursday, September 3 - St Gregory the Great (Gregorian Chant, sent Augustine of Canterbury to Kent)

Saturday, September 5 - Teresa of Calcutta

Monday, September 7 - Labor Day.

Tuesday, September 8 - Celebrated birth of Mary, Jesus' mother

Wednesday, September 9 - Peter Claver (Spanish missionary to African slaves)

Friday, September 11 - Patriot Day (9/11)

Sunday, September 13 - John Chrysostom (one of the four Doctors of the Eastern Church)

Monday, September 14 - The Holy Cross

Friday, September 18 - Rosh Hashanah

Sunday, September 20 - Andrew Kim and the Korean Martyrs

Monday, September 21 - St. Matthew (Apostle & Evangelist)

Tuesday, September 22 - Daughter's 14th birthday; St. Maurice and the Theban Legion

Saturday, September 26 - Cosmas and Damian (twin doctors and martyrs of the early church)

Sunday, September 27 - Vincent de Paul (sold into slavery & converted his Muslim master) Yom Kippur

Monday, September 28 - St Wenceslaus (Duke of Bohemia & patron saint of Czech Republic, "Good King Wenceslaus"); Lawrence Ruiz & the Nagasaki Martyrs

Tuesday, September 29 - Michaelmas - Feast of Michael and the Archangels.

Wednesday, September 30 - St. Jerome (translated the Latin Vulgate, one of the four Doctors of the Western Church)

Thanks to Two Thirds Unschooling for reminding me to look ahead.

Terry Schiavo's father died yesterday. My news addict daughter informed me so last night as I headed for bed. I remarked that that was sad, but my daughter said (and I paraphrase else she have my head for misquoting her) how great it was that he would now be with his little girl again. How right she was! I love that even at the ripe old age of nearly fourteen she stills sees life through faithful eyes.

Addendum: Those wishing to send the Robert Schindler family condolences may write to

Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation
5562 Central Avenue, Suite 2
St. Petersburg, FL   33707 

According to the Terry Schindler Schiavo Foundation, in lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to the Foundation.

I am heartbroken over the loss of my father and yet I know at this moment he is rejoicing with my sister, Terri. My dad was a man of integrity, character and compassion who was blessed with a close and loving family. He taught all three of his children to respect and value life and to love our fellow man.

Even at the height of the battle to save my sister Terri's life, when his patience and temperance was near exhaustion, he managed to display a gentleness of spirit. Yet it was his unfathomable strength that allowed him to shoulder up his own heartache and lead us through our darkest hour.

What greater legacy could a man leave behind?

Using God and kids at a funeral to push your Socialist agenda on America? Tacky!

The cottage industry, thrift stores, and used book sellers get threatened within an inch of their lives but toy giant Mattel gets a CPSIA pass. Every time I read an update on the Consumer Protection Safety Improvement Act  (CPSIA), I feel another blow to common sense. This news just about beats all. Giving a waiver to Mattel does not protect the American consumers, especially since Mattel is one big reason why the CPSIA was passed in the first place. Thanks for nothing, Congress.

Monica had a hard lot. Her pagan husband was a cheating, abusive drunk; her son, Augustine, was a heretic and had a mistress and an out-of-wedlock child. Monica kept praying, though. Her husband eventually repented and became a Christian, but still she was greatly troubled by Augustine's sinful behavior. She tried to tag along with her son on a long trip; he made sure to leave early and avoid her. Out of desperation, Monica tried banning Augustine from her house - then relented. Despite everything, a bishop told her not to worry: "It is impossible that a son of so many tears should be lost." The bishop was correct and that wayward rogue of a son became a bishop and one of the four Doctors of the Western Church, famous for his writings, including Confessions and City of God. Augustine is also considered one of the forefathers of the Reformation.

"The day on which she was to die came closer and closer. It was a day unknown to us, but You were fully aware of it. I firmly believe that in Your inscrutable ways You had arranged that she and I were alone at the window and looking out into the inner garden of that house on the Tiber at Ostia. Away from the crowds, we had retired there after a long and tiresome journey to renew our strength for the ocean voyage.

"It was a sweet and pleasant talk we had together in the peaceful and quiet retreat, our thoughts straining forward to what is before, forgetting what is behind (Phil. 3:13). In Your presence, You who are Truth Itself, we would ask each other how wonderful the heavenly life of Your saints must be, a life that no earthly eye has as yet seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man (1 Cor. 2:9). We noted that the fleshly pleasures of sense, even when most intense or presented in the most alluring light, cannot be compared to the joys of eternal life, in fact, should not even be mentioned in the same breath." 

St. Monica
The death of St. Monica from St. Augustine's Confessions
The Death of Saint Monica
Saint Monica from Lives of Saints
Saint Monica coloring sheet

Gift from God or sign of the Apocalypse? Either way, you can buy it from L.L. Bean. Still waiting for polka dot, though. Oh, and did you know that colored masking tape is now available? As if I didn't have to deal with way too many options already.

Today was the first day of our new school year. Since we school year round (year 'round?), the last day of the last school year was Friday. Thus, my kids had a whopping two day vacation. Don't weep for them - they get a week off for birthdays, Thanksgiving, etc. That's not counting the month off for Christmas. See, not a terrible mom.

Anyway, today was the first new day. I now have an eighth grader and a fifth grader. All plans went well, save for the extended visit from the plumber which will equal a pretty hefty price tag. Other than leaky pipes, today's highlights were:

• cooking Cream of Wheat for breakfast
• D and me sewing felt bags for the children's Irish whistles and recorder
• starting Melissa Wiley's first Martha Morse book as a new read aloud
  
• the whole family feeding ducks
• ice cream
• finding the US Constitution book hidden in the bookcase
• nobody crying or freaking out
• S making up for being naughty by taking on a big chore on his own

There's more, I'm sure, but that's all my tired head can think of. If I get a chance tomorrow, I'd like to share our school schedule and those new felt instrument bags.

I pulled my head out of schoolbooks and lesson plans this morning to read this article of Rifqa Bary, a sixteen-year-old who ran away from Ohio to Florida in order to escape an honor killing for getting baptized. The Youtube video linked from FoxNews is truly heart wrenching:

I just want to give that girl a hug! Poor child! Please pray for Rifqa - that no matter where she goes she will be safe and protected.

You can read more about Rifqa and her juvenile case at Atlas Shrugs, which is a great site for information but is very mature due to its frankness regarding honor killings and such. (That means children can't go there, D and S.)

Our new school year will start next week. I've had my nose to the grindstone in preparation. If you'd like, you can check out D's Year 8, Term 1 and S's Year 5, Term 1, which are both linked on the right sidebar under "Curriculum".

Here are the children's checklists for the first term:

Year 8 - Term 1 Checklist.doc

The Blogosphere is a peculiar environment where we often develop relationships of anonymity. We are flies on the walls of strangers' homes and we become close to people who may not even know we exist. I know Mary Ellen Barrett, though she doesn't know me. I have smiled at her children's antics and I have eagerly read her advice. It was, therefore, with great sadness that I learned this weekend that her oldest child, Ryan, died on a camping trip in the Catskills. I can't imagine the pain the Barrett family feels with the loss of their precious son. They have our prayers and our deep sympathies. I think that the little boy who only wanted to serve God must be very happy to now serve Him forever. But we will still miss him greatly.

Yesterday morning, we played with this slug:

We must be terrible people, or something, because when each of us has a birthday we only truly care about the cake. Presents, schmesents. Guests, schmests. Party, schmarty. You get the idea.

Yesterday was my dear husband's birthday. He's once again older than I - at least for the next five months. I gave him a dinner menu of his choosing (meat, starch, starch, and starch) and our resident cake baker gave him this delicious specimen:
 

Two layers of moist Devil's Food Cake with chocolate chips added to the batter.

Vanilla icing between layers and on top.

Chocolate chips for decoration.

Do you spot an initial in the center of the cake? Wasn't D creative?

Yummy!

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Happy birthday to my dearest beloved whom I have now known and loved for half his life. I wish you bliss for all your birthdays to come.

I've been very busy this week planning the coming school year and I'll probably be incommunicado this weekend, but here is something I completed last weekend:

This weekend, I got a chance to try PlanetJune's Crochet Rose pattern.

In addition to building me a bench this weekend, my husband took me to Lowe's to pick out some hanging baskets for our back fence. I didn't want Lantana (Shrub verbena) because it makes me sneeze, so we ended up with a pretty plant I've never heard of: Fairy Fan Flower.

I saw a bench on Flickr recently and asked my husband to build me one similar for our front porch. We have two chairs on the porch but four people in the family, so I thought a bench would give the children a place to sit. Now, he'd never built a bench before, but he kindly obliged this past Saturday. See what a pretty job he did?
 

The bench is 16 inches high, 48 inches wide, and 11 inches deep. H put baseboard molding on the front. I, then, painted it on Sunday. The exterior, mold and mildew resistant paint is Olympic's "Sand Fossil," which we had bought a bit of thinking it would be nice for the exterior of the house. Now that we see it on the bench, we think we'll choose a darker color for the house (perhaps in the spice range) to match the stone.

Because we used wood and paint we already had, this very solid wood bench only cost us about twelve dollars for a pre-cut, curved-front edge board on top. Even with all the sweat involved, I'd still call it a bargain.

Remember D's shield and her plans to paint it? After much research on Viking shields, here is the result: