Posted in Entertainment

For the past two Sundays, my family has been transfixed by the current Masterpiece Theater success, Cranford, by Elizabeth Gaskell.  It is witty, lively, and truly a treat to sit down at the end of the weekend and be entertained thusly.  Cranford is a three-part series, and the first two are available online to view for a limited time.  You can catch up here, and then sit with us this coming Sunday for the final installment.  My 14-year-old laughs out loud at the subtle and not-so-subtle humor, and even Mo Chroi is thoroughly enjoying it.  In this house of men, it is a hit, and that should say it all.

Posted in Holiday Bits

May you all have a very Blessed and Joyous Mother's Day with your beautiful families!

Posted in Miscellaneous

It's officially been six months since my last post.  I know, because Bethany over at 40winkzzz told me so.  I have shamefully neglected my blog, and in doing so, have horribly neglected you, my friends.  I apologize profusely.  Due to personal issues, I haven't even kept up with you all.  I don't even know what's going on with any of you.  Well, little dribs and drabs here and there.  Because lately, I've been getting nosy, and missing you all.  So, I've been poking around.  Taking it easy.  Not really even sure if I was going to blog again, but missing you all.  And then, I got such a genuinely sweet note from Kate, and she gently encouraged me to post.  Anything.  So I thought to myself, it's time.  Et voila, here I am.  Happy to see you, and hopefully happy being seen.  Because after six months, who am I kidding?  You all have far more consistent friends to visit. 

I will say that one reason I stepped away was because I was overwhelmed with comments.  Now, I know, every blogger wants comments, and wants to feel the love.  I'm no different.  But taking the time away from home and hearth to read dozens of blogs on a regular basis so that I can return-comment took it's toll.  And, instead of just coming up with a solution, I took an unscheduled break.  Well, I have found a solution, and would encourage everyone to use it if they so desire.  When comments are made, I will lovingly respond on the same post on my blog.  Any comments I make bopping around to visit you all will be independent of your comments, and made purely for the joy of making them.  I expect no return-comment from you; to do so puts pressure where none should exist.  I simply enjoying catching up with you all when I can, and that's all I want from you:  to just enjoy the friendship.

So, now that I'm back, and I've gotten the difficult "first post" out of the way, I promise to try to do better.  Be more consistent.  Catch up with you all (Congratulations, Alyssa, on your expected blessing!!!).  And enjoy renewing the friendships I probably didn't value enough. 

May God Bless you all tonight.

Posted in Religious Reads

I read such an interesting article today at CatholicOnline.com. It gives the author's opinion on how to rectify a lot of what is missing from our Catholic existences. I have been feeling similar-to-same thoughts as Mr. McNichol lately, and am overjoyed to see that someone with a voice is taking a stand. I proudly stand with him. To read the article in its entirety, click here.

Posted in The Daily Grind

The person who created this award says:

"The thing that I love most about blogging is that I learn so much about a person just by reading their Blog.  I have met MANY wonderful people with wonderful stories to tell, and I am grateful every day for each person that I have the pleasure of crossing paths in life with."

I've been bestowed a great honor from Mary, a.k.a. Canadagirl.  She has awarded me a recipient of the Smiling Bloggers Award!  I consider this a great honor, as it is always my intention to make people smile, think, and be entertained, and apparently I have.  Thank you, Mary!!  If you hadn't already received it, I would be passing it on to you. :)

I don't know how many people I should be passing this along to, so I'll pick five.  Please check out these wonderful blogs, as their owners have had the gift of making me smile, laugh, or outright howl before.  Enjoy!

1. Jen Gresak of Jenerally Speaking
2. Kate of callmekate
3. Alyssa of crazybusy
4. Bethany at 40winkzzz
5. Jennifer at tiredmom

Posted in On Being a Wife and Mother

You'd think that, this being a home educating blog and all, that I would post, even occassionally, on the process of home education, wouldn't you?  I will eventually, but my mind has been spinning a hundred different ways each day, and I thought it would help to put pen to paper (as it were) and try to work some things out here.  Maybe some of you lovely ladies would care to weigh in on whatever I am pontificating at the moment.

At this moment, I am pondering the thought of being a Wife and Mother.  It seems to be more difficult than ever, although how would I know?  My only frame of reference is the here and now.  At any rate, how much easier would this life of love be if we didn't rely on our girlfriends so much?  No, that's not blasphemous.  Just hear me out.

If we weren't so wrapped up in supporting our girlfriends, we would:

1. spend less time on the phone
2. spend less time on the computer
3. have time to clean our homes
4. have time to dote on our children
5. have time to devote only to our husbands
6. have time to find peace within ourselves
7. would no longer compare/contrast/compete with other women
8. would no longer hear any other voices in our heads except those of ourselves, our husbands, and God

So why do we do it as much as we do?  Don't get me wrong.  I love my girlfriends, and love how they know what I'm feeling because they've been there.  I have no intention of dropping anyone from my life.  It just bears more than a passing thought, don't you think? 

I have a girlfriend; let's call her Susie.  Susie and her husband are going through an extremely difficult marriage test right now.  She doesn't believe the same as I in the whole 'stay home and raise your children - submit to your husbands' thing; she's a career gal.  That's fine for her, if that's what she wants.  But she is miserable.  And her problems with her husband are spilling over onto me and my husband, where before no problem had existed.  See, when I get off the phone with her, I feel my mood shift to a black place.  Unintentionally, I am short with my husband.  I have been avoiding her calls for weeks now.

Or how about either one of my girlfriends 'Melanie' or 'Christie'?  They complain about their husbands ad nauseum, and while I don't participate in that, suddenly when my dear husband comes home I see faults where before I only saw strengths.  I have been slowly weaning those calls as well.  I don't feel spiritually uplifted when I conclude a conversation with any of these women, and yet they're the ones I talk to most often. 

So let me ask my question again:  why do we place so much value on our girlfriends if those girlfriends don't place half as much value on their marriages or children?  The more I'm forced to live in my own head (by avoiding the phone and computer), the more I see how discontent I've been due to outside forces.  When left to my own devices, life takes on a much more relaxed, content flow. 

It's been said "Show me a man's friends, and I'll tell you the measure of that man."  What do people see my measure as when they meet my friends?   What would I see in you?

Posted in On Being a Wife and Mother

All mothers everywhere can use inspiration.  I have been feeling exceedingly restless in the mothering department lately, and so have daily sought out words of wisdom mothers before me have left bobbing contentedly in their wakes.  The one I am about to share with you I discovered yesterday, like a gem shining brilliantly through the caked on mud that seems to be me lately.  It spoke to me so much that I have printed it off to place in a prominent spot of my (under construction) household management binder.  Enjoy, and be soothed.

"I think I find most help in trying to look on all the interruptions and hindrances to work that one has planned out for oneself as discipline, trials sent by God to help one against getting selfish over one's work.  then one can feel that perhaps one's true work-one's work for God-consists in doing some trifling haphazard thing that has been thrown into one's day.  It is not a waste of time, as one is tempted to think, it is the most important part of the work of the day-the part one can best off to God.  After such a hindrance, do not rush after the planned work; trust that the time to finish it will be given sometime, and keep a quiet heart about it."

~Annie Kearny, 1825-1879

Posted in The Daily Grind

Posted in Recipes

Happy Sunday, dear readers!!  There's nothing particularly exciting about it, but I'm tired of having complaining thoughts about the heat-from-Hades-that-we-call-summer-that-will-not-end, so thought that I'd try for the whole if-you-think-things-are-great-they-will-be philosophy. 

Finished our second week of a successful (up til now) new school year on Friday, and I'm whipped.  It really takes it out of you to actually *teach* your children, doesn't it?? (she types tongue-in-cheek)  The boys are excited about their books, with Piper exclaiming that this is the *BEST* year yet!!  I'm happy he's happy.  It's so much easier to teach them and to get them to take an interest in school when they love what they're doing.

Anywho, I just thought that in the spirit of non-whining, I'd share with you all my family recipe for No-Bake Cookies, which are just the ticket when it's far too hot to turn your oven on, and also which I made on Friday.  Have a blessed and peaceful Sunday!

Shani's Family's No-Bake Cookies

2 cups sugar

1 stick butter

1/2 cup milk (I use Rice Milk with equal success)

3 Tablespoons cocoa powder

1 teaspoon vanilla

3 1/2 cups quick-cooking oats

Melt the butter in a dutch oven pan on the stovetop.  Add sugar, milk and cocoa powder and mix well.  Let mixture come to a boil, and boil for a minute, stirring constantly.  Turn off the heat, add vanilla, stir in oats, and drop by the teaspoonful onto wax paper.  Let set, and enjoy!

Posted in On Being a Wife and Mother

I got this in an email the other day, and thought I'd post it here for others to find encouragement and support.  Some days it seems we need all the support we can grab ahold of.  Grab this and feel your worth.

The Homemaker's Value

If women choose not to do this very special job,

it will simply not get done.

The mothering, the nurturing, the comforting and caring

that fills the committed homemaker's day

will simply be lost,

and society will be impoverished.

Children will not get the spiritual guidance they need.

Lonely teenagers will not be listened to.

Many people with problems will not be ministered to;

many sick folk will go unvisited.

A special human quality will disappear from our culture.

Women can give up their careers

as clerks, engineers, sales people, doctors,

and others will step in.

The world will go on as smoothly as before.

It will be business as usual.

The groceries will still be sold,

trucks loaded with merchandise will still roll across our highways,

and Wall Street will carry on.

Not so with homemaking.

Homemakers are the special people in whose hands

the country and the world have been entrusted.

When women leave this job the world does not go on as before.

It falters and begins to lose its way.

Homemakers are indispensable!