Concentration

Frank painting
Originally uploaded by Chez VH.

No fine work can be done without concentration and self-sacrifice and toil and doubt. Max Beerbohm

www.quotationspage.com

Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere. - G.K. Chesterton, Illustrated London News, 5/5/28

www.chesterton.org

Prayer Request

Please pray for the Pouliot family who lost their young daughter, Bernadette, to cancer on Christmas Day - just a day after her diagnosis. The mother of the family is also very sick with cancer.

Common Sense Prevails - Hurray!

There are some conversations that I will remember for a very long time. I had one of those tonight. One of John's relatives has just accepted a teaching and research position in child development (specializing in autism) at Marquette University. Her husband and my husband both graduated from the same high school and she and I spent most of the annual reunion/party tonight chatting about education, special needs and child development. How completely fascinating and encouraging! She is very friendly and common-sense, but smart, focused and with a lot of experience and research at her fingertips. What I ended up learning was that there is a lot of scientific research that confirms a number of the more intuitive and experience-based beliefs I have about childhood development and education. (It was also simply exciting to be so much on the same page as someone else in these things AND to be able to chat with someone so enthusiastic about the subject matter).

We started with a particular connection in that I believe we have some children with special needs that fall into the autism spectrum (namely Aspergers - a highly functioning cousin of autism with some very definite challenges and frustrations) and it was very reassuring to compare notes and get some confirmation that we've been on the right track in meeting our children's needs in a common sense fashion. Society has a tendency to overwhelm, particularly those in challenging circumstances, with so much advice on what is considered "essential" that it at times feels like it is impossible to adequately meet our children's needs without truly extraordinary (and extremely expensive) intervention. It was incredibly reassuring to realize that we were on the right track and even a bit of a pat on the back for having our eyes open to our children's social, physical and emotional needs and finding reasonable ways of meeting those.

Here are a few areas that we touched upon...

Reasonable limits on electronic stimulation is a smart idea and there is no scientific evidence to support the notion that those popular educational videos for babies are essential (as is commonly believed)

Because children vary in personality, learning styles, etc. it makes sense to adjust methods according to their needs.

Neurological research supports many of the natural things that parents are inclined to do and provide for their children. For example, the connections made when we hold and rock babies for long periods of time turn out to be significant and important to their brain development.

There was a lot more to it than this, but I wanted to jot down what I could remember.

How to Mark a Book

I found this interesting article by Mortimer Adler on Maureen Wittmann's blog. I have definitely become a "book-marker" myself over the years (especially helpful in preparing reviews). I used to limit it only to paperback books, but I discovered while reading The Everlasting Man (we have an old hardcover edition, though not particularly fancy) that with some books, underlining and marking key phrases is essential to my comprehension (particularly when the frequent distractions present in my home).

When I do mark a book, I do most of the following (quoted from the above-linked article):

• Underlining (or highlighting): of major points, of important or forceful statements.
• Vertical lines at the margin: to emphasize a statement already underlined.
• Star, asterisk, or other doo-dad at the margin: to be used sparingly, to emphasize the ten or twenty most important statements in the book. (You may want to fold the bottom comer of each page on which you use such marks. It won't hurt the sturdy paper on which most modern books are printed, and you will be able take the book off the shelf at any time and, by opening it at the folded-corner page, refresh your recollection of the book.)
• Numbers in the margin: to indicate the sequence of points the author makes in developing a single argument.
• Numbers of other pages in the margin: to indicate where else in the book the author made points relevant to the point marked; to tie up the ideas in a book, which, though they may be separated by many pages, belong together.
• Circling or highlighting of key words or phrases.
• Writing in the margin, or at the top or bottom of the page, for the sake of: recording questions (and perhaps answers) which a passage raised in your mind; reducing a complicated discussion to a simple statement; recording the sequence of major points right through the books. I use the end-papers at the back of the book to make a personal index of the author's points in the order of their appearance.

I tend to lend my books out even when I've marked them up. The marking that seems to be the most appreciated is when something doesn't make sense to me and I write my question, or express my frustration in the margin.

Visiting Our Lady Around the House

A few weeks back the kids and I came up with a Marian litany to include (some of) the various pictures and statues of our Lady that we have in our home. It was intended to be for a procession with some special intentions and a song at each picture, though we've only done that full procession once so far. What we've ended up doing is adding each of these names of Mary to our night-time litany of patron saints. Kate has become so attached to this that if we say it instead of singing it, she starts crying (she is rather tired by the time we say nighttime prayers) and she's much happier if we walk around the house to greet Mary by re-visiting the Litany on the way up to bed. This is a good thing!

Here is our Litany. I had to fudge the names a little since the pictures don't all formally match up with a special title of Our Lady. I'm including the songs and intentions we wrote up for each picture even though we haven't done those very often. Most of these are pictures from the Internet (with links to their sources). I thought this might be an appropriate post for the feast of St. John since he took Our Lady into his care.

By the way, for anyone who might have questions about devotions to Mary and what Catholics believe in this regard, please see this page which answers a whole host of these and related questions.

Our Lady of the Annuciation

We pray that more people will say yes to God.

Song: Gabriel's Message







Our Lady of Fatima

We pray for devotion to Our Lady and for the repentance of sinners. We pray in reparation for offenses committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Song: Immaculate Mary (Fatima version)






Our Lady of Good Counsel

We pray for teachers and parents.

Song: Alma Redemptoris Mater







Our Lady Seat of Wisdom

We pray for students and all who need truth.

Song: Hail Holy Queen







Our Lady of Lourdes

We pray for devotion to the Immaculate Conception and for all who are sick or disabled.

Song: Immaculate Mary






Our Lady of Guadalupe

We pray for the unborn, for refugees and immigrants and for all who are oppresed or in danger.

Song: Santa Maria del Camino






Mother Thrice Admirable

We pray for faith in young people.

We don't have this picture hanging anywhere in our home yet. The girls really wanted to include her because of their involvement in the Schoenstatt movement through some local girls' groups. They also know some special songs associated with her that I don't know yet.




Our Lady of Perpetual Help

We pray for the suffering and the dying, for soldiers, for those in prison and any who find themselves in difficult circumstances.

Song: Hail Queen of Heaven, the Ocean Star

Two Turtle Doves?

Christmas Day itself tends to be a bit tiring for me - all of the busyness of Christmas Eve Mass and the extended family party (which is, naturally, quite delightful but also, naturally, runs rather late) at Grandma's hits me sometime on Christmas day. Which makes it quite wonderful that there are so MANY days of Christmas to celebrate. I got one of my very favorite presents today - I opened the mailbox to find about six Christmas cards from dear friends which included plenty of pictures (I love Christmas pictures!), one rather intriguing story and a pen-pal invitation for Ria. What could be better?

Well, I guess if they hadn't been accompanied by those pesky bills...

:)

Print-Out Paper Toys

My kids are really enjoying this. Especially since they got a lot of colorful cardstock for Christmas.

Many thanks to the Lilting House for the link.

Merry Christmas!!!

This is a "dust picture" my niece made on the back of one of the cars on their ranch. I was completely blown away by its great beauty in this temporary state. (Of course, Michaela, you must know the story about Michelangelo and his snow sculptures!) What a wonderful depiction of "Angels We Have Heard on High." (Frank, by the way, has really taken to the "Gloria" line from that song and always sings it with us - it's SO delightful!)

I thought this picture was a beautiful reminder (and the medium perhaps has some interesting symbolism!) of the joy that comes to us in Christ and the joy we share with so many others on this beautiful night. Let us pray that others - particularly those who come to Mass just at Christmas may be brought closer to the Christ Child on this great day.

A most joyous and blessed Christmas to all of you!

CINning - it's all in the family

It's been nearly 20 years since my sister, her husband and two friends started Catholic Information Network. The year was 1987 and Pope John Paul II was visiting the United States (with an extensive tour of our home state, California). CIN was started in commemoration of his visit and with the particular intention of making his encyclicals and talks more accessible to the public. Back then I was just a senior in high school, we used P.C. Pursuit (I think that's what it was called) to connect up to various BBS's to discuss the faith. It was a fantastic experience for me to be involved in running one of the CIN nodes that year. That's a long time ago now but I think CIN was a pioneer among the great Catholic websites that have made a wealth of information and resources readily available to the public today.

In order to better serve visitors to the Catholic Information Network website, a companion blog has just been started and I'm joining my sister and my mom as a contributor to the CIN Blog. There's a lot of interesting Christmas reading (and pictures!) there, so please take a peek!

Busy Days!

Ria and I spent about five hours at the parish gym yesterday decorating and rehearsing for the Christmas Eve "overflow" Mass. Despite an assortment of mishaps and glitches, it looks really beautiful and I wanted to especially thank a dear online friend who made a generous donation to the poinsettia fund - thank you SO much!!!

I'll try to share a picture later. In the meantime I hope all of your Christmas preparations are going well and that you are able to eagerly anticipate the arrival of the joyous event! Today we've been busy with baking for the big extended family party on Sunday night. Terri is making more St. Lucy's Day buns (miniature versions this time - the originals were HUGE!), Ria made a braided wreath bread, Gus made a cranberry orange loaf (and is planning on making a second) and I hope to find a scrumptious recipe for some sort of rosemary onion bread on the Internet very soon. Honestly, I haven't spent any time baking as I've been in the busy shopping scene for a large part of the day. I am pleased to report that I was greeted with many Merry Christmases in a variety of stores (and, by the way, I like Kohl's Christmas theme this year - "Love Transforms Everything").

Advent is almost over and we're doing our imperfect best, as usual. Our Jesse Tree blocks didn't quite work out and we didn't do many of the Jesse Tree readings, but we made a special effort to start a new tradition which is working out quite well this past week. Night time prayers have been dwindling lately with the kids saying them together in their room. With the beginning of the "O Antiphons" (and with the help of a little furniture shifting), we've been bringing everyone downstairs to pray the O Antiphons, read about the Saint of the day, a short Bible story and nighttime prayers together. Naturally, this has included all of the usual pushing and shushing, but overall it's working out quite nicely and is making us feel so much more prepared for Christmas as a family. (I appreciate all the inspiration from various Catholic homeschool blogs). I hope to keep up this tradition of nighttime prayers together even during and after Christmas.

Milk, Honey and the Insights of Children

My husband shares this story about Ria when she was perhaps four or five years old.

While reading from the Children's Bible to Ria one day, I stopped to check her understanding of the story. "Do you know what 'Flowing with milk and honey' means?" I asked.

She thought about it a little longer than expected and astonished me with her answer:

"There must be lots of grass and flowers."

O Christmas Tree

O Christmas Tree
Originally uploaded by Chez VH.

We tend to manage something more like "endearing" than "spectacular" - but I love every bit of it.

Frank is completely in love with the Christmas tree - and it shows (particularly with the beads - I can never seem to get it back to its original shape once it starts getting tangled). He takes me by the hand and brings me into the room with the tree to point out matching (or almost-matching) ornaments. This morning I found about a dozen pieces from a flashlight that he took apart - all in the corner behind the tree (but no ornaments down, amazingly enough).

Bernie and Kate each had different ideas about what to put on top - it ended up working out pretty well to do both - Bernie's homemade angel (from several Christmasses ago) AND the shiny star tree-topper.

I went to look for some fabric to put around the base of the tree (the tree is resting on a big piece of plywood that REALLY needed covering) and found this pretty material from a rummage sale. It didn't make it all the way around, but I discovered that I had two matching pillow covers in the same material that fit rather nicely around the back of the tree, ruffled edges and all. :)

I'm sure I'll have the "perfect" tree someday when the children are all grown, but I can't imagine it being as perfect as this.

"The Strangest Story in the World" (The Everlasting Man, Part II, Chapter 3)

In the last chapter I have deliberately stressed what seems to be nowadays a neglected side of the New Testament story, but nobody will suppose, I imagine, that it is meant to obscure that side that may truly be called human. That Christ was and is the most merciful of judges and the most sympathetic of friends is a fact of considerably more importance in our own private lives than in anybody's historical speculations. But the purpose of this book is to point out that something unique has been swamped in cheap generalisations; and for that purpose it is relevant to insist that even what was most universal was also most original.

This chapter makes some interesting arguments that are difficult to illustrate with choice quotes. I'll try to summarize a few of them.

First he takes the example of our "exaltation of childhood" and shows that Christ shared this attitude but it was very much opposed to the thinking of His own day and would have been unimaginable to the pagan world on the whole.

To the merely rationalistic mind, it would sound like saying that the bud must be more beautiful than a flower or that an unripe apple must be better than a ripe one.

Chesterton marvels at Christ's literary style as exemplified in the parable of the lilies of the field.

There is nothing that really indicates a subtle and in the true sense a superior mind so much as this power of comparing a lower thing with a higher and yet that higher with a higher still; of thinking on three planes at once... It is not by any means a faculty that commonly belongs to these simplifiers of the Gospel; those who insist on what they call a simple morality and others call a sentimental morality. It is not at all covered by those who are content to tell everybody to remain at peace. On the contrary, there is a very striking example of it in the apparent inconsistency between Christ's sayings about peace and about a sword. It is precisely this power which perceives that while a good peace is better than a good war, even a good war is better than a bad peace. These far-flung comparisons are nowhere so common as in the Gospels; and to me they suggest something very vast. So a thing solitary and solid, with the added dimension of depth or height, might tower over the flat creatures living only on a plane.

He argues that Christ was completely unique among great religious leaders in that he was the only one who proclaimed himself to be God. One who would make such a claim is either insane or really what he claims to be.

There is a sort of notion in the air everywhere that all the religions are equal because all the religious founders were rivals; that they are all fighting for the same starry crown. It is quite false. The claim to that crown, or anything like that crown, is really so rare as to be unique. Mahomet did not make it any more than Micah or Malachi. Confucius did not make it any more than Plato or Marcus Aurelius. Buddah never said he was Bramah. Zoroaster no more claimed to be Ormux than to be Ahriman. The truth is that, in the common run of cases it is just as we should expect it to be, in common sense and certainly in Christian philosophy. It is exactly the other way. Normally speaking, the greater a man is, the less likely he is to make the very greatest claim. Outside the unique case we are considering, the only kind of man who ever does make that kind of claim is a very small man; a secretive or self-centered monomaniac. Nobody can imagine Aristotle claiming to be the father of gods and men, come down from the sky; though we might imagine some insane Roman Emperor like Caligula claiming it for him, or more probably for himself. Nobody can imagine Shakespeare talking as if he were literally divine; though we might imagine some crazy American crank finding it as a cryptogram in Shakespeare's works, or preferably in his own works...

Upon any possible historical criticism, he must be put higher in the scale of human beings than that. Yet by all analogy we have really to put him there or else in the highest place of all.

Divinity is great enough to be divine; it is great enough to call itself divine. But as humanity grows greater, it grows less and less likely to do so. God is God, as the Moslems say; but a great man knows he is not God, and the greater he is the better he knows it That is the paradox; everything that is merely approaching to that point is merely receding from it. Socrates, the wisest man, knows that he knows nothing. A lunatic may think he is omniscience, and a fool may talk as if he were omniscient. But Christ is in another sense omniscient if he not only knows, but knows that he knows.

This is interesting because I just read a little about this comparison in Mike Aquilina's The Fathers of the Church (Our Sunday Visitor).

No two things could possibly be more different than the death of Socrates and the death of Christ. We are meant to feel that the death of Socrates was, from the point of view of his friends at least, a stupid muddle and miscarriage of justice interfering with the flow of a humane and lucid, I had almost said a light philosophy. We are meant to feel that Death was the bride of Christ as Poverty was the bride of St. Francis. We are meant to feel that his life was in that sense a sort of love-affair with death, a romance of the pursuit of the ultimate sacrifice. From the moment when the star goes up like a birthday rocket to the moment when the sun is extinguished like a funeral torch, the whole story moves on wings with the speed and direction of a drama ending in an act beyond words.

What do you get when you cross a paper towel with a potato chip?

Seen today at the grocery store - Pringles Prints. I kid you not - movie and Guinness World Record trivia questions printed right on your potato chips. Ewwww!

There's even a Narnia version. Um. That's just a little weird. Don't ya think?

Why I Haven't Been Posting Much Lately

Besides Christmas preparations and such...

I'm working through another web-draft of Reading Your Way Through History.

The new version of Blogger is allowing for many more of the features I'd like than the previous Wordpress version. I doubt this will be the final version, though.

A work very much in progress. As always, suggestions are welcome.

I love organizing things. I find this project very relaxing in the midst of the Christmas bustle.

Hurray!

GKC is working on answering the Christmas meme!

Christmas from the Outside In

This is a really beautiful post by a new convert on her discovery of the true meaning of Christmas.

O Christmas Tree

A few random thoughts...

I am extremely fond of unbreakable Christmas tree ornaments. (go figure)

We bought our Christmas tree yesterday and got the lights and bulbs up last night. Gus and I decided to sneak some candy canes in the upper branches of the tree this morning before Frank woke up - somehow (delusionally) thinking that maybe he wouldn't notice them.

Wrong.

The very first thing he said when he came downstairs was, "Can I have a candy cane?" (translated into Frank-speak - he's not quite that articulate yet - it sounds more like "Tan I have tanny tane?")

It is now up and I'm quite happy with it. Gus took a picture - I'll try to post it later.

The Stable Goes Up

We put out our nativity stable today, along with animals, shepherds and an empty manger. The kids were looking into additional animals to include in the scene when Kate came upon some small toy horses.

"Oh, horses would be great," she said, "because horses always come to Jesus!"

Snow Nativity Set

I like it!

Frankly Speaking III

Frank was eating some Cheerios this morning when he spilled some on his chair and on his pants. Rather than getting upset or asking for a towel to clean things up, he decided to focus on the features he desired in a dry pair of pants and simply said:

"I want pockets!"

The Challenge

Get through Christmas without using the credit cards.

The reward: make one major stride in getting financial boat in order for large things - like college - beginning to loom on the horizon.

Requirements:

1. Save some shopping for the last few days before Christmas (critical paycheck)
2. Buy Christmas Cards at 90% off at Target the previous year(well, that's kind of a coincidence)
3. Save some goodies from a wonderful Rummage Sale in the fall
4. Encourage the kids to make homemade gifts and do lots of baking
5. Read books like The Wind Blows Free and The Christmas Turtles which help reinforce #4
6. A certain amount of letting go of expectations and of keeping up with society's vision of Christmas preparations

And you know what? We're having a really wonderful Advent this year - not in spite of, but partly because of these things.

Prayer Request

Please pray for an online friend of mine and of many Catholic homeschoolers -
details at Cay's Cajun Cottage

UPDATE: Joyous news! She does not have cancer!!!

Narnia and a Christmas Symphony

The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra performed a Christmas concert at Holy Hill last night and we were given some tickets! I don't think I've ever been to the Symphony before (unless you count the Kinderkonzert in which Ria - then about 4 years old - and I hid in a telephone booth in the lobby because she was completely terrified of the noise level. Gus - then 2 - and his Dad sat very happily through the performance). Certainly nothing like this at least.

John and I sat in the second row - perhaps 8 feet from the conductor and 12 feet from the first violin. It was absolutely incredible. It made the Basilica seem rather small because the music filled the space so beautifully, but it was also fascinating to watch the conductor and the musicians and to so clearly hear the music coming from the different sections. Recordings can never be quite like this.

The Program:

Giovanni Gabrieli - Sonata Pian'e Forte (a brass piece which they played from the back of Church - absolutely incredible!)

Arcangelo Corelli - Concerto Grosso, Opus 6. No. 8 "Christmas Concerto"

Johann Sebastian Bach - Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring

Johann Sebastian Bach - Brandenburg Concerto No. 3

Giuseppe Tartini - Concerto in D major for Trumpet and Orchestra (this was perhaps my favorite - the trumpet solo was one of the most beautiful things I've ever heard)

Englebert Humperdinck - Prelude to Hansel and Gretel

Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky - "Waltz of the Flowers"

Georges Bizet - "Farandole" from Suite No. 2 from L'Arlesienne

Sergei Prokofiev - "Troika" from Suite from Lieutenant Kije, Opus 60

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - No. 3 from Three German Dances, K. 605

Ralph Vaughan Williams - Fantasia on Greensleeves

George Frideric Handel - "Hallelujah Chorus" from Messiah (sing-along)

It was particularly beautiful to listen to this music while looking at the gorgeous altarpiece. It made me consider again how art (including art, music, poetry and stories) can lead people to God or even lay the groundwork for them to accept God later. God certainly works through beauty and the imagination and this was really a good concert in more ways than one.

It also reminded me once again (especially since John and I had recently watched the visually hyperactive, but content-rich documentary about C.S. Lewis that comes with the Narnia extended DVD) of how fantasy and mythology stories can end up leading people to God. This was certainly the case in C.S. Lewis' own life, but it also reminded me of how big an impact the Narnia stories had me. They were hugely formative to me as a child and I think they (and other stories) can play a very significant role in that oft-forgotten aspect of childhood education - helping children to develop a love of the good and the beautiful and a desire to seek the truth.

Chesterton on Christmas Rituals

Dr. Thursday has posted a marvelous Christmas quote from GKC. Here is just a tidbit from it...

The old way of liberating human life was to lift it into more intense consciousness; the new way of liberating it is to let it lapse into a sort of absence of mind. That is what is meant by saying, as many journalists actually do say, that a civilisation of robots would be more efficient and peaceful. One of the advantages of a robot is the complete absence of his mind.

Read the whole thing at the American Chesterton Society Blog

Happy Saint Lucy's Day!

Saint Lucy's Day Bun
Originally uploaded by Chez VH.

John and I were most pleasantly awakened at 6:45 (not 3 am) this morning by three children bearing St. Lucy's Day buns and homemade hot cocoa. Ria, Gus and Terri shared a "picnic" with us on our bed. How delightful!

Terri (who's almost 9) really outdid herself - these were gorgeous and perfectly beautiful buns and she made them with virtually no help (Gus helped shape them a little and I measured the saffron). She used the recipe from the Kirsten American Girl cookbook.

By the way, yes, this was the first time we've revisited this tradition since Ria's famous episode when she was quite small.

"We're All Homeschoolers"

I was very touched by this post. The blog author also sent us our very first paypal donation! :)

Another Useful Chile Pepper Site

Chile Pepper Identifier

Particularly useful if you use peppers by first, not remembering which is which, discovering that the store had different varieties than you thought and so, purchase one each of six different kinds and then go home to experiment.

Solemnity of Our Lady of Guadalupe

Happy Feast Day!

Here are some links of interest for the day:

Domestic Church's page on Our Lady of Guadalupe

Website on Our Lady of Guadalupe (be sure to read the part about her eyes)

Catholic Encyclopedia Entry on the Shrine of Guadalupe

Our Lady of Guadalupe from EWTN (very informative!)

"A Tea in Honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe"

Ideas for Celebration from O Night Divine

It's so nice to be able to say Saint Juan Diego now, isn't it? (Even though he's been canonized for several years, it still seems new to me). I love how we commemorate the spectacular events of 1531 over the course of several days - between his feast on December 9th and her Solemnity today. UPDATE: By the way, sorry for the multiple updates. I was doubting my information in calling this a Solemnity, but my sister found the above link on EWTN which seems to confirm it. If anyone has further information, I'd love to hear about it.

Today we're planning to go to Mass, attempt to sing a song we learned at a Spanish Mass a few weeks back (with a little procession), read one of our favorite books, bake a dessert out of Josefina's cookbook and eat Mexican food in honor of the day.

Here's one of our all-time favorite dishes (no guarantee of authenticity). I'm afraid I don't tend to measure anything out - this recipe is a little different every time - it also depends on what I can find fresh at the grocery store.

Taco Salad:

Ground Beef
Canned Black Beans
Taco Seasonings (I use a seasoning packet)
Chile Peppers (here's a helpful "heat" index - see note following list)
sweet or red onions
fresh garlic
sliced mushrooms (I like baby bellas)
sliced black olives
avocado
fresh diced tomatoes
Lettuce (we like red leaf)
sour cream
grated cheddar cheese
salsa (recipes can be found here)
tortilla chips and/or tortillas

Note about peppers: I'm pretty new to cooking with chile peppers. I think I was a little nervous about it - since I'm not big on HOT peppers (at least for a Californian) - but I shouldn't have been. I found the poblano peppers delicious in the meat mixture, but too mild (even for me) in the salsa.

Brown ground beef with garlic, onion, peppers and taco seasonings to taste. Drain fat, add beans and cook until thoroughly heated.

I sometimes make two batches of meat - regular and "grande" (particularly useful for a large family gathering where not everyone will appreciate the fancier version). Regular - shown above. Grande - set aside part of the meat mixture and add mushrooms and olives to cook along with the beans.

This is best served buffet style (be sure to keep the meat hot, however, as all the other items are cold). Some assembly required: Prepare a bed of lettuce. Top with meat and bean mix, cheese, tomatoes, avocado, sour cream and salsa. Sprinkle crushed tortilla chips on top. Also works quite well wrapped in a tortilla.

Our Lady of Guadalupe, patroness of the Americas, patroness of the unborn, pray for us!

Roman Holiday Party

"The Boar's Head"
Originally uploaded by Chez VH.

The Latin Club "Dies Festus MMVI" sponsored by the Dead Language Latin Club of the Greater Milwaukee Catholic Home Educators (boy is that a mouthful!) was a great success. The food, the costumes and the skits were all wonderful and we sure enjoyed the privilege of hosting, though all the planning, activities and food preparation were done by the students themselves - and what a marvelous job they did!

Ria has an extensive post about the party here.

Here are some of the foods we had at the feast including links to recipes I was able to find (more coming).

• Grape Juice
• Almonds
• Figs
• Dates
• Cheese (I'm not sure what kind we had)
• Fava Beans
• Ham (one of my nephews carved the ham into the Boar's Head pictured above)
• Red Wine Sauce for the Ham (the alcohol, of course, is cooked off - I'm hoping that "coyote" will share the recipe with us - it was quite good!)
• Custards
• Libum

Of course we had to sing The Boar's Head Carol in honor of the centerpiece. There was a costume contest and a team skit contest based on portions of the Aeneid (this is a regular feature of their club meetings).

I thought it was particularly interesting to celebrate the party in presence of a relic of St. Matthew (which was given to us a few years ago). Rather appropriately, we also had a handful of ancient Roman coins (after all, Matthew was a tax collector).

Messiah Sing-Along at Home

We ended up doing an impromptu Messiah sing along just with our family last night. I pulled out my music book (from high school) and we had a lot of fun (and when you sing it at home, it's okay to giggle at the high notes or trills you can't quite manage)! Recordings are plentiful and I imagine any one would do (we have one of highlights from the Messiah - from the Musical Heritage Society). The sheet music book is quite inexpensive - only about $8. Details at the Hal Leonard Publishing Company.

The Little Matchgirl

This is a very un-Disneylike Disney short animated piece. I found it at the Dawn Patrol but couldn't seem to post here. It's really quite beautiful (though sad - true to the original story) and worth watching. You can see it here.

Christmas Meme

I got tagged by Nutmeg

1. Egg nog or hot chocolate? Both. I drink hot chocolate any time of year, warm egg nog with just a wee bit of brandy definitely makes me think of Christmas.

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? Most are wrapped.

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? White on the tree, some colored on the trees that reach across the driveway and sometimes on the deck too. (It's kind of a compromise - I love white, but a lot of the kids like colored lights).

4. Do you hang mistletoe? Sometimes.

5. When do you put your decorations up? Slowly over the course Advent.

6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)? I LOVE turkey, stuffing and mashed potatoes. My favorite stuffing includes cranberries, apples, applesauce, celery, and onions.

7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child:

a. (as a small child) I remember Christmas Mass one year when I was very small and being awed by the trees and lights and the nativity scene in front of Church. Everything seemed so BIG then!

b. (as a teen) Christmas caroling with the folks at Ignatius Press around the streets of San Francisco. We wrapped things up in the Carmelite Convent of Cristo Rey (a Spanish-speaking convent) where we sang to the sisters through their cloister-gate (is that what you call it?) and they sang to us as well. We finished with some Mexican Hot Chocolate (I had never had it before - yum!) in a room next to the vestibule of their beautiful chapel.

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? I don't remember - it wasn't any kind of a big shock (even though I can recall being a firm believer) - probably because I had older siblings that I knew were in on surprises and working on secret things in the weeks before Christmas.

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? We have our party at Grandma's house with all the cousins on Christmas Eve every year, so we open something there - something from G&G and something from our KK's. The adults pick names and the kids pick names each year and the kids usually make something for their person.

10. How do you decorate your Christmas tree? (see #3) White lights, red and gold bulbs (the newer unbreakable sort that have a variety of different "finishes", candy canes, thick gold ribbon strung through the branches, printed Victorian angels (on cardboard, but they're very pretty) and our eclectic variety of other ornaments. We have a LOT of ornaments and the kids LOVE to help decorate the tree. John and I do the lights and the breakable ornaments, give a little advice on spreading the other ones out, and pretty much let the kids do the rest.

11. Snow? This is still special and magical to me - particularly around Christmas - probably since I didn't grow up with it. Not particularly fond of driving and parking lots when they're real slushy or icy.

12. Can you ice skate? Yes, but it's been many years.

13. Do you remember your favorite gift? A sleeping bag (that I still have) stands out for some reason.

14. What's the most exciting thing about the Holidays for you? The connections and reconnections with family and friends and knowing the reason behind this, even if they don't understand or believe yet.

15. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert? Triple chocolate cheesecake - John and I used to make this every Christmas until some of our younger ones had a dairy problem. Now that they seem to have out-grown this problem, we may try it again. It's two-person job and needs to cook overnight on really low. We got it out of Gourmet magazine almost 15 years ago.

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? I enjoy the whole thing - I couldn't pick out just one.

17. What tops your tree? Currently a paper angel that Bernie made a few years ago at co-op.

18. Which do you prefer - giving or receiving? Giving.

19. What is your favorite Christmas Song? I can't possibly pick just one song. Here are my two favorite albums: Bells of Dublin (the Chieftains) and King's College Choir: O Come All Ye Faithful (Musical Heritage Society).

20. Candy canes? Yes, we hang them on the tree.

I tag Molly (when - not if - she gets her blog back) and GKC if he can manage it, because I'd love to hear his answers.

Michelle Q. had her baby

See all the beautiful photos here.

What's a California girl to do...

when the Green Bay Packers play the San Francisco 49ers?

Is that a win-win situation or a lose-lose situation?

I guess I'm still waiting to find out. (They're in the 3rd quarter now)

"Blowing Out the Lights"

"Blowing Out the Lights"
Originally uploaded by Chez VH.

This is Frank. :)

Chesterton Game

courtesy of the Blog of the American Chesterton Society

1. When did you first read a Chesterton book, story, or poem, and which was it?

The Fr. Brown Omnibus. I read this over the summer before my junior or senior year in high school. I was supposed to read three books from Kolbe Academy's reading list over the summer. Unfortunately I didn't quite finish that one (shouldn't it have counted for 4 1/2 though?) I loved the stories of course.

2. What was the most recent of GKC's writings you read?

Well, I still haven't quite finished The Everlasting Man. Getting very close, though. I aim to finish before Christmas. The last GKC book I finished was The Man Who Was Thursday which I read aloud to the older kids this summer.


3. Which is your favorite book, poem - or quote?

I don't know. It might be Ballad of the White Horse.

4. Which would you recommend to a beginner?

I think it might depend on whether they favored history, poetry, mystery stories, fantasy, theology, or whatever. There's definitely something there for everyone!

5. What is the most unusual fact or quirky detail you know about G.K.Chesterton?

Well, this is really about his wife, so I'm not sure if it counts. She worked for the Parents' Educational Union before she married GKC. The Parent's Educational Union was Charlotte Mason's organization for training teachers.

Happy Feast of the Immaculate Conception!

A beautiful, but busy day for us. It's kind of funny how things worked out. John and Ria went to 6:30 Mass this morning since Ria had classes during our planned 8:30 am Mass. But then, we couldn't quite get everyone out the door in time (let's just say it was 8:30 and a certain little girl was still wearing clothes completely inappropriate for 10 degree weather!). So I took the kids to 7:00 Mass tonight - which was just beautiful! Great music and one of the best homilies I've ever heard at our parish - this visiting priest has a beautiful devotion to Our Lady and a friendly, engaging demeanor (great combination!). We discovered that he is the chaplain of a local Carmelite monastery and that he says a daily Mass once a week at our parish. Happiness!

Did I mention that we had great music? Church music at our parish has really been depressing me lately so this was such a nice change. Sing of Mary, Ave Maria (very decent soloist), that Magnificat by John Michael Talbot (beautiful words, if not my favorite hymn) and Immaculate Mary. And they actually rang the bells! I haven't heard the bells in SO long.

By the way, I wanted to apologize for all the craziness on bloglines and all today. We finally got switch to the new Blogger today - it took hours (quite a load of blogs we had to move)! I have to admit that I'm pretty impressed with the Google team - this is pretty complex stuff and everything seems to have transferred beautifully.

Off to get some sleep before our big Latin Club Christmas Party tomorrow. There's been quite a flurry of pre-cleaning and pre-decorating so far, but we're also getting a crew of helpers sometime tomorrow morning (and believe me, we can use the help!).

Pearl Harbor Survivors Meet for the Last Time

Today is the 65th anniversary of Pearl Harbor.

This is avery touching about the survivors last planned memorial gathering (hat-tip Flos Carmeli)

"Thoughts on Fantasy for the Holiday Season"

I rather liked this post by Melanie Bettinelli

Please Pray

for all those injured or killed in the Falk Corporation Explosion in Milwaukee this morning and for their families and loved ones.

What We Found in Our Stockings

St. Nicholas Day,
originally uploaded by Chez VH.

Some of this. Yum!! St. Nicholas says that it was surprisingly easy to make.
(Even though a certain elf had never used a candy thermometer before).

Happy Saint Nicholas Day!

"Baby Jesus Comes Home"

Here's a neat little Christmassy story just in time for St. Nicholas Day.

New Member on Chesterteens

You may be interested to know that we have a new and very interesting contributor to the Chesterteens Blog - from Spain! (how cool is that!) You can say hello here.

The Vatican and Taiwan

This is very happy news (via Amy Welborn)

We have a strong interest in Taiwan because of John's many travels there and our friendship with his business associates.

Now I Understand...

I tried to sit down and explain this last night, but it turned into the Library Story instead - related but not exactly explaining the point. In the Library Story, I was trying to express both how exciting the Library Tree success was to me and the value our family has found in "engaging the world" even in little ways.

But there's really a lot more to the story - especially the story of my weekend. It's been a weekend filled with incredible graces and blessings, in my view, surrounding two incredibly frustrating (and rather painful) misunderstandings... as if, perhaps, "someone down there" couldn't be content with all of the good things going on and had to stir up some trouble. I had already noticed this strange roller-coaster I've been on in the last few days (John said last night that, "The world has a neurosis" heehee), but now I have more reason to share the whole story beause of the "punch line" (it's coming, be patient).

Here's the second grace-filled story that touched my life this weekend. It meant a lot to me...

I talked to one of the office-people after Mass on Sunday about the Christmas Eve over-flow Mass in the gym that my friend and I have "adopted". This office-person was concerned about our request for 10 poinsettias because it was for "just an hour" and it seemed like a waste to put too much into it. I politely pleaded that it was a packed Mass - probably 4 or 500 people and managed to secure 4 poinsettias from the YMCA sale rather than the expensive ones from the florist. Really not too bad though the "just an hour" thing grated on me a bit. The beautiful part was, I was talking to one of our church-lady friends in the hall while we munched on donuts about the project and mentioned that I was disappointed, but glad to get at least the four poinsettias instead of the two I had expected (two seemed like such an "afterthought" - especially since the entire background is black and we need a little color). She completely appreciated my enthusiasm and concern for the project and asked if she could donate some money for two more poinsettias instead of to the official Christmas flower fund. I gratefully accepted her $10 (with tears of gratitude and joy - it just touched me so much!).

The third story I just heard about yesterday. You remember that literature class with the anti-Catholic materials that I was helping some teens refute and answer? One of the moms of those students got a call from her yesterday. This teacher said that she's been teaching homeschooled students (including some Catholics) for many years. She's never had any of them stand up for their faith before and she was very impressed with these girls' conviction, their understanding and their charitable tone. She said that, being a Protestant, a number of these things about Catholics were things she just assumed to be true (some of which she didn't even know would be "offensive" to Catholics), but would be dropping some of the readings from future classes based on the girls' answers to the questions. The girls won't be going back for future classes, but it was thrilling to discover that their responses have had such a positive impact. Definitely some good seeds planted there!

Okay, so here's the punchline. This morning I finally (and somewhat belatedly) joined Alice's Cottage of Loreto e-mail group, set-up to jointly pray novenas for different Catholic homeschool families and discovered that the novena for MY family ended on Sunday, December 3rd! Thank you so much Alice and friends!

A Library Story

Our first apartment, a teeny third-floor studio in an old, old building in the downtown of our beloved small town, was in sight of the library and the park. I think we saw every movie the library owned on a discarded old VCR and a computer monitor (which we still have) in those days of zero money for entertainment (as well as enjoyed many books of course!) and Ria, who was just a little tyke, made fast friends with many of the librarians. One of our very first dinners there was to the light of a fireworks display in the park - perfectly visible from the windows of our itty-bitty kitchen (that's a picture of the kitchen all decked out for our first Christmas). Those were John's school days - he got his engineering degree 2 1/2 years after we were married (after alternating semesters of work and school).

He got his first "real" engineering job in San Diego and we lived near my family for about 2 1/2 years. These were wonderful years in many ways, but they don't pertain to this particular story. A better job offer and the prospect of buying a first house (which wasn't even remotely possible in San Diego at the time) brought us back to Wisconsin and we managed to buy an old fixer-upper just on the other side of that park and that library that we loved so well (this house hadn't been painted in 30 years!).

By this time Ria and Gus were 4 and 2 and I was expecting Terri. We dove right into kid-type activities in the library and Ria fell in love with story-time. We went there once or twice a week - particularly when we only had one car, but the double-stroller got us all safe and sound across the busy street to the library. Our favorite section in the children's area was the non-fiction. Ria made her way through all sorts of books, but we ate up these picture books and even little Gus had his favorite shelf of football books that he'd always wander over to and start browsing through. One day the head librarian (no longer there) decided to make more room in the children's area by intermixing all of the junior non-fiction with the adult non-fiction. It was still there, but incredibly inaccessible. We cried.

We still kept visiting and enjoying the library, but I made a special effort to start collecting beautiful children's science and history and religion and other good books. This was partly why love2learn started. I didn't know any homeschoolers nearby, I didn't have a car to get around and I loved to share information about great books. We got more involved in the library over time. A few years later the kids and I started helping with the set-up of the library book sale. I was astonished at how well they handled this project. (They weren't always this well-behaved!) We set up in the children's area and they helped me line up books, or at least sat down nearby to look at interesting ones or cooed from the stroller. In the midst of this, we discovered that the Friends of the Library was about to fold because the only person willing to be president didn't think she could manage to do the work on a computer necessary to pull together a newsletter. Well I could do THAT. That was easy!

I helped put together the simple little newsletter - just two or three pages printed out - for two presidents over the next three or four years (and made some great friends in the meantime). The president came to our house during our school day just two or three times a year, very nicely dealt with our chaos and the Friends Board survived. It was such a little thing, so easy for us, but one of those connections that can become very meaningful over time.

The next president didn't need a newsletter editor and we were moving (and busy with getting the house ready to sell) to the outskirts of town anyway, so our trips to the library become more infrequent. The librarians still knew all of us, though, and at the library book sale last year, the Friends board was again in need. These guys do important work (like fund the summer reading program), but they only meet for an hour or two, two or three times a year and they needed a secretary. Easy!

So I came on board as their secretary and dutifully attended the meetings. They were actually rather pleasant and I had some nice little opportunities to mention some worthwhile books, put my two cents in here or there, etc. I even had an opportunity to mention the interest in non-fiction books (especially since I've noticed that some children - especially boys? - are more drawn to non-fiction than fiction). When the need came up about the library tree, it immediately sounded like a good project for our family. They'd like to have it put up during the day and our schedule was flexible. The president wasn't available - she's a public school teacher and it's a busy time of year.

Last year we found some nice unbreakable ornaments and put together the book ornaments as well - everyone loved the book cover pictures on the ornaments! What was really exciting was to develop a repoire with the library staff and board - especially as a homeschooler. Every homeschooler is a "representative" of homeschooling - like it or not, and I tend to feel a particular obligation since I'm also a homeschool grad. This has been a good thing! There is definitely a need out there to "engage the world" and I've been surprised at how many people are open to these ideas, our enthusiasm for learning, and our desire to serve our children's needs to the best of our ability.

I guess you know the rest of the story with the library tree. Not only are we getting some great non-fiction picture books into the library, but the patrons are proving that they ARE interested in these books also, and not just the popular fiction and movies that the library tends to emphasize. To me that's a very happy ending (so far) to the story and, though the library tree is quite a bit of work (unlike the other library tasks I've been involved in), I couldn't be happier with the outcome.

Curiouser and Curiouser

I keep thinking about Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday, a lot. I read it aloud to the older kids this summer and since picked it up for them on audio tape (they've listened to it a lot - Gus actually has a routine where he recites parts of it in a Gollum voice - it's pretty funny!).

I don't ever remember having a book "grow" on me in quite this way before. I'll try to explain more of the whys and wherefores some time later.

In the meantime, I'd like to share that the Library tree is a great success so far. They've sold about half of the books already and have asked for some additional ornaments! I'm going to include some of Melissa Wiley's Little House prequels and some picture book biographies in the new list (I'll post the list sometime in the next few days).

I'm off to clean the house for our December teen discussion night tomorrow and I have to re-read the Gospel of Luke for the occasion. Happy first Sunday of Advent! (even if it is a little early)

Snow Day!

Snow Day!,
originally uploaded by Chez VH.

We woke up to about 8 inches of snow this morning - all the local schools are off and Daddy even had to stay home. What fun!

Here's a picture of Bernie and Frank celebrating in the great outdoors (click for a larger image).