OK, I'm actually attempting to participate in the lovely April Shower of Photos thing (I hardly ever actually manage to do these sorts of things, so I thought I'd put in a few days' worth before officially committing myself to it). I'm really enjoying the other photos.
Even though I'm hoping a lot of our photos will be from the out-of-doors, I thought the bright colors here worked out pretty well. :)
This is a picture of Ria and friends at her Madrigals' Concert from a few nights ago. This is a 10 week program at a local music school of ancient music (both sung and played on the recorder) in a variety of ancient languages. Ria informs me that more than half of the music was sacred music, including a chant piece from the 6th century (Crux Fidelis).
It was lovely! Ria's the one in the teal dress, playing her tenor recorder.
By the way, I'm not exactly sure why the class is commonly referred to as "Madrigals".
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
Certitude and Hope
Another quote from Spe Salvi:
But in truly great trials, where I must make a definitive decision to place the truth before my own welfare, career, and possessions, I need the certitude of that true, great hope of which we have spoken here. For this too we need witnesses - martyrs - who have given themselves totally, so as to show us the way - day after day. We need them if we are to prefer goodness to comfort, even in the little choices we face each day - knowing that this is how we live life to the full. Let us say it once again: the capacity to suffer for the sake of truth is the measure of humanity. Yet this capacity to suffer depends on the type and extent of the hope that we bear within us and build upon. The saints were able to make the great journey of human existence in the way that Christ had done before them, because they were brimming with great hope.
Monday, April 07, 2008
Compassion and Hope
Here is a beautiful segment from Pope Benedict XVI's Encyclical on Hope. This particularly reminds me of many loving families I know who break away from society's sometimes confused concept of the value of a person by truly accepting children who are handicapped or emotionally disturbed (or whatever) as God's children and equal in His eyes (particularly a homeschool family who are presently grieving for the sudden loss of their teenage son, who despite his handicaps was clearly a great joy in their lives)...
A society unable to accept its suffering members and incapable of helping to share their suffering and to bear it inwardly through "com-passion" is a cruel and inhuman society. Yet society cannot accept is suffering members and support them in their trials unless individuals are capable of doing so themselves; moreover, the individual cannot accept another's suffering unless he personally is able to find meaning in suffering, a path of purification and growth in maturity, a journey of hope. Indeed, to accept the "other" who suffers, means that I take up his suffering in such a way that it becomes mine also. Because it has now become a shared suffering, though, in which another person is present, this suffering is penetrated by the light of love. The Latin word con-solation, "consolation," expresses this beautifully. It suggests being with the other in his solitude, so that it ceases to be solitude. Furthermore, the capacity to accept suffering for the sake of goodness, truth, and justice is an essential criterion of humanity, because if my own well-being and safety are ultimately more important than truth and justice, then the power of the stronger prevails, then violence and untruth reign supreme. Truth and justice must stand above my comfort and physical well-being, or else my life itself becomes a lie. In the end, even the "yes" to love is a source of suffering, because love always requires expropriations of my "I," in which I allow myself to be pruned and wounded. Love simply cannot exist without this painful renunciation of myself, for otherwise it becomes pure selfishness and thereby ceases to be love.
Making Adjustments...
I realized just before starting school back up again last week that it was time to make some adjustments. Stress level, sense of accomplishment, organization, etc. needed a little tweaking - especially for the oldest two.
I decided on a whim to take them out to breakfast last weekend for a "business meeting". We talked about how things were going, looked at the various subjects they are working on and divided them up into two categories - things that needed daily attention and things that could be worked on just a few times per week. It was interesting to discover that, for the most part, it was the ones needing daily attention that needed some special focus, whereas the weekly or bi-weekly lessons were going quite well.
I also had in the back of my head that John would like to spend more time with the kids working on school, but we hadn't yet figured out how to make that happen.
There are other tidbits as well, including the fact that, in general, the kids do better with a list of subjects to work on each day or week rather than having continuous strictly-scheduled time for each subject. We've tried it. It really doesn't work here.
Here's what we came up with. As you can see, it's a bit of a hybrid solution...
We will have 2 1/2 hours in the morning, four days a week, that WILL be strictly scheduled. This is mostly for those subjects, like Latin and Math, that need to be worked on every day.
Part of what is unique about this time period is that we've finally set-up a quiet area for the kids to spend that time in. This time was set-up mostly for the oldest two, but others are invited to join them, as long as they are quiet. The extent of the voluntary association of the younger ones into this scenario was surprisingly extensive this past week!
Having this quiet area was essential, especially for Gus. He's one gets distracted if he's working all by himself in his bedroom OR if he's in the middle of everything. Having a quiet room in which to work with others (with me jumping in frequently to keep an eye on things and introduce topics and such) seems to be working well.
The quiet room we set up is our master bedroom. Until we set the attic up in the last few weeks, there wasn't enough room to study there.
The other scheduling piece we came up with is to have one night a week completely clear for John to do some schooling with the kids. They love working on Math with him at night (and this will be a chance to do so regularly) and he's also planning on doing some science with them each week. My challenge is to not schedule anything for that night so that we can keep some consistency.
I decided on a whim to take them out to breakfast last weekend for a "business meeting". We talked about how things were going, looked at the various subjects they are working on and divided them up into two categories - things that needed daily attention and things that could be worked on just a few times per week. It was interesting to discover that, for the most part, it was the ones needing daily attention that needed some special focus, whereas the weekly or bi-weekly lessons were going quite well.
I also had in the back of my head that John would like to spend more time with the kids working on school, but we hadn't yet figured out how to make that happen.
There are other tidbits as well, including the fact that, in general, the kids do better with a list of subjects to work on each day or week rather than having continuous strictly-scheduled time for each subject. We've tried it. It really doesn't work here.
Here's what we came up with. As you can see, it's a bit of a hybrid solution...
We will have 2 1/2 hours in the morning, four days a week, that WILL be strictly scheduled. This is mostly for those subjects, like Latin and Math, that need to be worked on every day.
Part of what is unique about this time period is that we've finally set-up a quiet area for the kids to spend that time in. This time was set-up mostly for the oldest two, but others are invited to join them, as long as they are quiet. The extent of the voluntary association of the younger ones into this scenario was surprisingly extensive this past week!
Having this quiet area was essential, especially for Gus. He's one gets distracted if he's working all by himself in his bedroom OR if he's in the middle of everything. Having a quiet room in which to work with others (with me jumping in frequently to keep an eye on things and introduce topics and such) seems to be working well.
The quiet room we set up is our master bedroom. Until we set the attic up in the last few weeks, there wasn't enough room to study there.
The other scheduling piece we came up with is to have one night a week completely clear for John to do some schooling with the kids. They love working on Math with him at night (and this will be a chance to do so regularly) and he's also planning on doing some science with them each week. My challenge is to not schedule anything for that night so that we can keep some consistency.
Life Has a Way...
of getting in the way of blogging. :)
Some of what we've been up to this week (and weekend)...
I imagine that everyone has a task (or two) that they particularly procrastinate on because they just don't like doing it. For me, it's making doctor and dentist appointments. Last Monday morning, I finally bit the bullet and scheduled all of our dentist, doctor and eye-doctor appointments. April will be busy! Our doctor actually had an entire afternoon open the following day, so I took all six kids in for check-ups, assembly-line fashion. Nice!
Our annual library book sale. The kids and I help with set-up and clean-up and such every year as well as finding some goodies for ourselves. Favorite finds - a Teaching Company audio course for 50 cents (it's on Churchill - not one from my wish list, but could be very interesting!) and a funny little pop-up book on "The Seven Great Explorations" (that should provide some nice history pegs for the little ones). I also picked up some fun home decorating and gardening books. At 50 cents for any hardcover, you just can't go wrong.
Attic Work. It's an amazing thing to discover and renovate a room you didn't know existed - even when it's only four feet tall. John installed a pull-down attic ladder a few weeks ago and almost has the entire floor covered with boards. We were able to move the Christmas things and some paperwork tubs upstairs, thus freeing up the under-stairs shelving in the basement, which allowed me to get rid of a clunky shelf unit that was right in the middle of things and move our overflow kitchen appliances and canned goods under the stairs. I went all-out and put some sticky-linoleum tiles on the shelves (the particle board didn't seem all that great for food and paper goods and such) so it looks FABULOUS. The tiles were left-over from a little flooring project at our old house and weren't enough to cover all three shelves. Fortunately I found a reasonably compatible new box on clearance at Home Depot, and we're good.
Two Teen Discussions This Week. We finished chapter eight of Jesus of Nazareth (the sections on "Bread" and "Shepherd" - FABULOUS reading!) and expect to polish off the book within about a month. Yesterday afternoon we discussed The Ballad of the White Horse - a very lively discussion with lots of fun mini-readings to enjoy the language.
I'm sure there was more, but I just don't remember.
And I think I forgot to mention how much I love my new vacuum. We've never really had a decent vacuum until now. For many years (especially in our apartment days) we got away with a little hand-held dirt-devil. We've had some carpet sweepers and a few very old used Kirbys. Finally, we bit the bullet and checked out Consumer Reports. A very solid and reasonably-priced Eureka upright with a hose attachment came out quite well in their ratings. It was a little over a hundred dollars and I couldn't be happier. Having the right tools makes a huge difference! Funny thing, a few days after this purchase, I happened to mention to my sister-in-law in Oklahoma that we bought a new vacuum. It turns out that they had just gone through the same process within a month or so of us and picked out the exact same vacuum.
Some of what we've been up to this week (and weekend)...
I imagine that everyone has a task (or two) that they particularly procrastinate on because they just don't like doing it. For me, it's making doctor and dentist appointments. Last Monday morning, I finally bit the bullet and scheduled all of our dentist, doctor and eye-doctor appointments. April will be busy! Our doctor actually had an entire afternoon open the following day, so I took all six kids in for check-ups, assembly-line fashion. Nice!
Our annual library book sale. The kids and I help with set-up and clean-up and such every year as well as finding some goodies for ourselves. Favorite finds - a Teaching Company audio course for 50 cents (it's on Churchill - not one from my wish list, but could be very interesting!) and a funny little pop-up book on "The Seven Great Explorations" (that should provide some nice history pegs for the little ones). I also picked up some fun home decorating and gardening books. At 50 cents for any hardcover, you just can't go wrong.
Attic Work. It's an amazing thing to discover and renovate a room you didn't know existed - even when it's only four feet tall. John installed a pull-down attic ladder a few weeks ago and almost has the entire floor covered with boards. We were able to move the Christmas things and some paperwork tubs upstairs, thus freeing up the under-stairs shelving in the basement, which allowed me to get rid of a clunky shelf unit that was right in the middle of things and move our overflow kitchen appliances and canned goods under the stairs. I went all-out and put some sticky-linoleum tiles on the shelves (the particle board didn't seem all that great for food and paper goods and such) so it looks FABULOUS. The tiles were left-over from a little flooring project at our old house and weren't enough to cover all three shelves. Fortunately I found a reasonably compatible new box on clearance at Home Depot, and we're good.
Two Teen Discussions This Week. We finished chapter eight of Jesus of Nazareth (the sections on "Bread" and "Shepherd" - FABULOUS reading!) and expect to polish off the book within about a month. Yesterday afternoon we discussed The Ballad of the White Horse - a very lively discussion with lots of fun mini-readings to enjoy the language.
I'm sure there was more, but I just don't remember.
And I think I forgot to mention how much I love my new vacuum. We've never really had a decent vacuum until now. For many years (especially in our apartment days) we got away with a little hand-held dirt-devil. We've had some carpet sweepers and a few very old used Kirbys. Finally, we bit the bullet and checked out Consumer Reports. A very solid and reasonably-priced Eureka upright with a hose attachment came out quite well in their ratings. It was a little over a hundred dollars and I couldn't be happier. Having the right tools makes a huge difference! Funny thing, a few days after this purchase, I happened to mention to my sister-in-law in Oklahoma that we bought a new vacuum. It turns out that they had just gone through the same process within a month or so of us and picked out the exact same vacuum.
Thursday, April 03, 2008
Another One of Those Meme Things
1. The rules of the game get posted at the beginning.
2. Each player answers the questions about themselves.
3. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog.
What I was doing 10 years ago:
Taking care of a sweet little newborn who was having extensive medical testing right around this time ten years ago because of an enlarged kidney that showed up during a prenatal ultrasound. Although we did follow-ups at Children's Hospital every year or so for a number of years, everything came up clear each time and no surgery was ever needed.
Five things on my To Do List today:
1. Cleaning up for a house guest arriving tonight.
2. Finish my reading for tonight's catechism discussion.
3. Ask permission to put up one more library book sale sign in front of a local business.
4. Get some basics done on the kids' school (though it's a really odd day today).
5. Open a savings account for my daughter.
Things I would do if I were a billionaire:
1. Put together a college fund for the kids.
2. Pay off our mortgage and set finances up so that John could stay home with us to work on schooling and interesting projects.
3. Support some of the great authors and publishers out there by buying loads of their books to donate to schools and libraries and such.
4. Donate substantially to some great educational institutions/organizations.
5. Invest in some worthwhile educational publishing projects like this.
Three of my bad habits:
1. Skimming instead of reading thoroughly (particularly on the Internet).
2. Procrastination.
3. Paying too little attention to personal appearance.
Five places I have lived:
1. Seattle area
2. Silicon Valley, California
3. Santa Paula, California
4. San Diego area
5. Southeastern Wisconsin
Five jobs I’ve had:
1. Receptionist/secretary in numerous situations
2. Library worker at TAC
3. Cooking and cleaning at the priest's residence at TAC
4. Teaching at a small parent-run school (7th and 8th grade Math and History and 10th grade religion)
5. Typing in books and magazines for a typesetter that I'm related to (this stuff was great Catholic reading - I got to do a number of issues of Homiletic and Pastoral Review and some great titles from Ignatius Press!)
You're tagged if you like.
2. Each player answers the questions about themselves.
3. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog.
What I was doing 10 years ago:
Taking care of a sweet little newborn who was having extensive medical testing right around this time ten years ago because of an enlarged kidney that showed up during a prenatal ultrasound. Although we did follow-ups at Children's Hospital every year or so for a number of years, everything came up clear each time and no surgery was ever needed.
Five things on my To Do List today:
1. Cleaning up for a house guest arriving tonight.
2. Finish my reading for tonight's catechism discussion.
3. Ask permission to put up one more library book sale sign in front of a local business.
4. Get some basics done on the kids' school (though it's a really odd day today).
5. Open a savings account for my daughter.
Things I would do if I were a billionaire:
1. Put together a college fund for the kids.
2. Pay off our mortgage and set finances up so that John could stay home with us to work on schooling and interesting projects.
3. Support some of the great authors and publishers out there by buying loads of their books to donate to schools and libraries and such.
4. Donate substantially to some great educational institutions/organizations.
5. Invest in some worthwhile educational publishing projects like this.
Three of my bad habits:
1. Skimming instead of reading thoroughly (particularly on the Internet).
2. Procrastination.
3. Paying too little attention to personal appearance.
Five places I have lived:
1. Seattle area
2. Silicon Valley, California
3. Santa Paula, California
4. San Diego area
5. Southeastern Wisconsin
Five jobs I’ve had:
1. Receptionist/secretary in numerous situations
2. Library worker at TAC
3. Cooking and cleaning at the priest's residence at TAC
4. Teaching at a small parent-run school (7th and 8th grade Math and History and 10th grade religion)
5. Typing in books and magazines for a typesetter that I'm related to (this stuff was great Catholic reading - I got to do a number of issues of Homiletic and Pastoral Review and some great titles from Ignatius Press!)
You're tagged if you like.
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Unnecessary Worries
Sometimes I worry that I'm not doing enough with my little ones. There are certainly educational things that I did more deliberately and more thoroughly with my older children when they were four and six than I'm doing with Frank and Kate.
And yet, there has been some strong evidence of late that they're picking things up quite well. Kate's been spouting out perfectly formed tidbits of theology that she's picked up here and there - almost as if she had carefully memorized it, but better!
What she said today was an explanation of why she decided to help her little brother. She said...
And yet, there has been some strong evidence of late that they're picking things up quite well. Kate's been spouting out perfectly formed tidbits of theology that she's picked up here and there - almost as if she had carefully memorized it, but better!
What she said today was an explanation of why she decided to help her little brother. She said...
Mommy, do you know why I helped Frank? Because God said, 'Treat others the way you want to be treated.'There have been other things too - about Jesus' suffering on the cross (which she was able to tell me she picked up from the meditation read at Stations of the Cross) and about the Trinity and things like that.
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