that’s all

folks. this is my last post in this spot. i will be blogging here if you’d like to come for a visit. i really wish you would. i’ve been feeling kinda lonely over there. things won’t return to normal with regards to my time online until i have DSL again, so in that respect, right now i am a terrible blog friend. i am, on the other hand, a better mother. and housekeeper. 

today was the last “official” day of school so the kids and i took a break and went on a city walk. we went to a few thrift stores, had a snack and then we were off to the library. i actually checked out a book for myself and started reading it while i waited for them to get books. i can’t remember what it is called and it is all the way downstairs in my backpack. i am sure that you are all holding your breath, just dying to know what i am reading. my girl and i did enjoy salsa stories  recently though. and it has some great recipes that we plan on trying tomorrow. and over the next few weeks.

i brought all of my plants from the big yard today. and the bunnies. you should see the buckets and buckets i have overflowing with zinnias and sunflowers. morning glories. tomato plants, zuchinni and jalapenos. i just had to bring them. i don’t know how well they will do once i transplant them. but i just couldn’t leave them there. today as we went to bring the last of the boxes the kids spotted our very first ripe tomato. and it happened while i have been too busy to pay attention. so i will be busy. busy. trying to get them established. lots of love and miracle gro. luckily the weather has been so cool that they just might survive!

i set my Sacred Heart altar up and it is so lovely. my little guy picked me a huge, yellow, exotic looking flower on our walk and it goes so beautifully with the red hues in the picture of the Sacred Heart. have any of you consecrated your families to the Sacred Heart? we have a  prayer that we say every Sunday after mass which goes along with the consecration and i love it. so i will leave you with that. or at least where you can go to find the rest. good-nite friends and hope to see you soon!

good-bye little house.

Most Sweet Jesus, humbly kneeling at Your feet……………

almost

our days here at the little house probably number two at the most. i haven’t said much about the new house because i was afraid i was only dreaming. i kept pinching myself every time we took a load of stuff. and now we are down to the big things like beds, dressers, computers, t.v.’s, sofa and piano. and that is only because my husband has had a super busy work schedule. me, the kids and of course my mama, have been taking trips back and forth in our chevy and her little corolla. you’d be surprised how many books can fit in that car.

we have a new whistler in our family. and if you’ve ever had a whistler, you know what i am dealing with. i feel very privileged that he saves all of his whistling for said trips back and forth to the new house. but he whistles viva la vida  by coldplay. over. and. over. and over again. every once in a while he’ll sing for a minute about “St. Peter callin’ his name.” i don’t have the heart to tell him to stop. yet. but i may have to very soon. because i think my sanity might be at stake.

it is a beautiful saturday. the weather has been cool. overcast and even gloomy at times. i sort of wish we were at the air show. maybe we’ll go later. then there is a mariachi concert at the library tonight that my girl wants to go to, so it’ll be tough to choose one or the other. the boys would prefer the air show, of course. and then those pesky summer basketball sign ups……life doesn’t ever seem to slow down, does it? but then again, i really wouldn’t want it too either. i have been trying to enjoy my kids lately. fixing them food they love. spending time with them. it is easier said than done, even when you are a mama who is privilged enough to stay home. we have been devouring library books. mother and son tales, especially. and tons more i’d list if i had the time.

i have a new place. you can visit if you’d like. there is not much there yet, i’ll work out the details as soon as time permits. but pretty soon i will say good-bye to here for good. the new blog is more useful to me in that i can keep track of my school work there. and when you are in a charter school, like we are, it comes in handy to take down all those notes because every 20 days i have to turn those notes in.

well, i should be going. i have a million things to do. but i am so excited about this move that  i wanted to share with you some of the really special things about the new house first. of course i fell in love with all the door knobs, chandeliers, wood floors and molding. and to make it a home i have been busy ironing my own curtains. see those pretty yellow ones up top? they hang on the kitchen door. and then there are all my little baby plants……i am dreaming about our Mary garden already….

well, help is here and that is my queque to get off of of the computer. hope you are all having a wonderful weekend. wishing you a blessed PENTECOST tomorrow.

Veni, Sancte Spiritus. ALLELUIA.

a real mountain boy. and a real writer too.

this month has been sort of nostalgic for me with regards to my kids. maybe the reality that we are moving is making me hungrily soak in all of the good things that happened while we were here. one of the VERY good things which happened here was this: my middle son became a writer. i have written beforeabout how we struggled with this. and how one of THE hardest things to do as a homeschooling mama is to find balance. balance when a child is reluctant about doing something. yet  remaining lovingly pushy because while not every child will become the next Ernest Hemingway, there might be hidden talent under the layers of stubborness and laziness that quite often plague the minds of the young (boys especially?). nevertheless, this was one of his writing assignments last week: write to me about your experience at redzevous. and write he did.  there wasn’t a dry eye in the room. here are his words…..

Rendezvous

One night my grandpa said that Rendezvous was in two weeks and my heart was leaping with joy. After all it only comes once a year. But when I heard it was just me and pops for the day I felt nervous because I had never helped set up the tipi before, but luckily I had just read a book about it.

We left at nine o’clock and the drive was long, but once I saw the Rendezvous sign, the drive was worth it because I love the smell of gunsmoke.

It was very hard trying to find a spot without any antholes, gopher holes or cow poop, but after five minutes we found one in the shade. Little did we know that the tree was on the verge of breaking, but thankfully we could still move the main structure.

After everything was unpacked, I relaxed for about one minute. I was waiting for pops to ask me if I wanted to throw tomahawk or shoot bow and arrow. But this time he said RIFLE. My heart stopped because I have been waiting my whole life for that moment and right away I said, “yes!”.

I will always remember how the order goes (hopefully). It is: powder, patch, ball, cap and FIRE! and after the day was over it was like having a second birthday!

The next day I woke up and it was very misty and cool. In the afternoon the rest of my family came and I felt more comfortable. But only my brothers and sister stayed. We went to shoot bow and arrow and my big brother C won first place, my sister S second, I won third and my little brother M, fourth. Later pops and I went to throw tomahawk and we scored the same, which was thirty-three.

Sadly, I had to leave the next day, but that didn’t really bother me ’cause I felt like a real mountain (BOY).

—————————————————————————————-

from this paper i learned that we can’t always assume that our kids take anything for granted. my children are very fortunate, due to being homeschooled, that they get to do a lot of really neat things. “conventional” schooling and scheduling would never allow one to feel like a real mountain boy. and thanks be to God that a little bit of solid homeschooling has given him the tools to accurately and beautifully articulate, in writing, not only to me, but to whoever reads this: exactly what that feels like!

btw. this is what that real mountain boy looked like the day we, the rest of the family, showed up.

honor, co-operating, telling and happiness (and all in one post!)

“It is a great honor to you who are married that God, in HIS design to multiply souls who may bless and praise HIM for all eternity, causes you to co-operate with HIM in so noble a work.” ~St. Francis de Sales

“Tell the children about God………” ~St. John Vianney

“Perfect married life means the complete dedication of the parents for the benefit of their children.” ~St. Thomas Aquinas

“All the wealth in the world cannot be compared with the happiness of living together happily united.” ~Blessed Margaret d’Youville

we ARE rich

because she reads so much it makes sense that she is my most dreamy child. the one with so many creative little thoughts and ideas. the other night as i  set clean laundry on her bed, i noticed some writing on her desk. the words, written in large letters caught my eye. at first glance i thought she’d copied it from somewhere, but after reading it all, i could see the innocence of childhood written between the lines. however,  i couldn’t help but be touched, because this is what she wrote………..

“we are rich, not in the way you measure wealth by worldly possessions, but in a way only those who stop to enjoy the simple things of life can understand. we are rich by our strength, our family, our souls and most of all our God. we stop to enjoy the pleasures of LIFE that not always come with pomp and possessions, but merely the simple, quiet, wonderous things of life.” ………..almost 10. april 2009.

and she is right. we are so  rich.

floating rainbows

water. oil. food coloring. a few clear glass jars. a lot of imagination and voila! you have floating rainbows. this is best done outside as it can get messy. however, in the end this was a short-yet fascinating little chemistry lesson. science words for very young scientists: sink. float. layer. mix. separate.

thank you : more mudpies to magnets  because they are itching to do more “experiments” and these are very easy, which always makes me very happy!

it’s not too late

to officially set up the may altar. is it?

with all this moving chaos it hasn’t been easy finding a peaceful spot to put the altar. religious objects are always the last thing to get packed away so it hasn’t been because there was a shortage of things to decorate with. and i certainly need a spot such as this to remind me that regardless of what may come, God is with us and it is not as if Our Dear Blessed Mother doesn’t know what it feels like to leave “home” at a moment’s notice. i just sort of wish we had so few things that they’d fit on the back of a donkey!

and lastly, His feet…..

“And now the rays of light from above united with the glory emanating from Jesus, and I saw Him disappearing, dissolving as it were in the light from Heaven, vanishing as He rose….I lost sight of His head first,  then His whole person, and lastly, His feet, radiant with light disappeared in the celestial glory….” (excerpt from the Life of Jesus Christ and Biblical Revelations Vol. 4 from the visions of Venerable Anne Catherine Emmerich)

As the INTROIT and PRAYER indicated: our eyes must be on “heaven” while our feet “stand on earth”; our life must be a combination of prayer to God above and work here below.

after mass, we came home and did this craft i came up with of Jesus’ feet. those words being at the front of my mind. i had the kids add the hem of His garment because i put myself in the place of the apostles and the woman in the crowd from the Gospel, thinking that those would be the last things i’d see of His. wanting so much to reach out to touch Him one last time, yet not being able to because the power, light and beauty surrounding Him would probably be too much for my small mindedness to behold. we ended this holy thursday with blue-berry jello, the color of the sky. the whipped cream adding the affect of “clouds”. not my idea. i can’t remember where i saw it. perhaps the crafty crow.

when the paschal candle was extinguished, a gesture which seems so final, i couldn’t help but feel a tinge of sadness. but knowing that the coming of the Holy Spirit is just around the corner is certainly a cause for joy. it was really a beautiful, peaceful, holy day here. hope yours was too.

milestones

an open letter to my dear little boy:

today you got your first library card. you’ve been asking me for quite some time, but the requirement, for our library anyway, is that you have to be able to write your own name. now, you have been writing your first name for months, but today i just knew that since you’ve been doing so well with your letters that you’d be able to write it in full. and write you did. all capital letters excepting one. and then there was the bit of smudge your chubby hands made as they made their way across the small card. you patiently waited for it to dry. and then you were off! all of those big stuffed animals are so appealing. the computers with games for little guys like you can be such a distraction and then what with it being craft day- i sort of picked all the books for you. i am kind of selfish that way. but i did try to pick ones that we’d both enjoy. anyway, you were such a dear, helping me to scan the.thirty-something.books. we brought home. and so appreciative too, wanting to see your card on about ten different occasions during the drive home. please excuse me if i am a bit teary-eyed this evening. you must understand that milestones like this are not easy for your mama.

all.my.love.

your mama.

do you see her?

a pregnant, kneeling, veiled woman with her head bowed in prayer. that is what we see anyway. no matter which direction this rock is turned there is a figure, with a belly, that most definitely looks like Our Blessed Mother.

the day of our may crowning littlest son was doing this.

i couldn’t understand the importance of the rock collecting then. the whole affair seemed rather noisy at the time. although it kept him quiet during the rosary, so i let him be. however,  later my husband would hand me one of them, as only daddies will hold such things in the pockets of their good church pants, and tell me quietly, “doesn’t this look like the Virgin Mary?” and i couldn’t agree more.

i have had several posts about Mary in my head this month. one which was especially important to me made it to paper but never to press. perhaps i might still share it. i wanted so badly to contribute to allison’s something about mary, yet, much like my little son all i have is this rock. quite insignificant to some, i am sure, but to me it is another little reminder that she, a lot like her Son, is everywhere. and i while i don’t always “see” her. i know she is there.