Starry Sky Ranch

Sunday thoughts: the disagreeable parts

"....she is a confirmed busybody and I told her so!" growled Mr. Harrison

"Oh that must have hurt her feelings very much," said Anne reproachfully. 

"It was the truth and I believe in telling the truth to everybody."

"But you don't tell the whole truth," objected Anne. "You only tell the disagreeable part of the truth."

"You'll have to excuse me Anne. I've got a habit of being outspoken and folks mustn't mind it."

"But they can't help minding it. What would you think of of a person who went about sticking pins and needles into people and saying, 'Excuse me, you mustn't mind it... it's just a habit I've got.'"

I have been interested in one of the later volumes of the Anne of Green Gables series but have decided I needed to buckle down and read the middle books and not skip ahead.  Once more I am glad for making the effort. I am remembering how many life lessons Lucy Maude Montgomery weaves so artfully into her stories.  

Many friends have remarked over the years about the tone we tend to slip into from the safety of a screen.  It is easy to be snide and mocking, to be passive aggressive. (or just plain aggressive) .  "Oh, that's just a joke.  Everybody shares these."   In real life as well, we tend to make excuses for ourselves.  We defend our words because they are true.  And they may be.  It's likely they are not the whole truth about a person or situation, however. It's possible we share only the disagreeable parts.  Very often that is the only part of things we take the time to know about. 

One son challenged himself during a lent years ago not to complain.  To speak only positive things or remain silent.  He noted at the end of those weeks that he felt changed.  Our words do not only wound others.  We cannot avoid doing ourselves harm when we habitually share the disagreeable parts.

 

 

 

Thrifty fall reading

Decor magazines have long been my "one weakness" as Miss Lane would say. (see below)  I seem to have acquired this great love early in life.  I am still carrying around vintage volumes my mother purchased in the 70's.  True story.  

A thrifty homemaking tip is shopping your own house.  I do this each season with the magazines.  They are not cheap and my style has been pretty consistent over the years.  So while I might purchase something new each season, it will join the keepers on display and I will continue to glean idea from them in years to come.  

PS if you somehow are not familiar with Miss Lane or if you are as fond of her as we are you will enjoy this: 

 

 

Life lately

 Some quick takes? Soccer is in high gear again. 

I have been using my practice hours - and any other hour not spoken for - to get lost in Anna Karenina.  It is a book I didn't want to read and now cannot put down.  I say it every time I finish a work of "classic" literature.  "Everyone should read this so they don't... (insert any number of disastrous decisions that can make)" Seriously. How different my own and so many other's choices would have been had we grown up reading something more substantial which would have spoken to all those pressing issues that occupied our hearts and minds.  

Only downside to the soccer practice reading is that it has been so suffocatingly hot.  Here.  I have proof.  Hot:

It's been so hot I have been using the Instant Pot and/or the grill nearly every night.  I can't bear to turn on the oven and heat up the main floor.  The day it rained and was cooler we tried these zucchini tots.  The kids ate them zucchini and all.  Cheese is a usually a powerful negotiating tool.  

 

The garden.  I hesitate to call it a real garden.  Some flowering plants have gotten established though.  Does my heart good to see the water droplets bead up on the blossoms after the sprinkler has run.  

Silly signs on the walking trail.  I am all about clear unambiguous directions, after all. Life should really come with a disclaimer like this.  "You are now entering pure BS zone."   I like to know these things. 

Abbie Rose saved up and bought herself an 18in doll.  It is not one of 'the' famous 18in dolls.  Her older sisters had some and we managed to wreck them just as easily as the $30 variety.  Of course a girl is also less likely to wreck something she saved and planned for.  Here is hoping.  We are looking for some 18in patterns to attempt some pj's and skirts for this one.  

Long-nosed creatures overhead.  I didn't catch just how long the beaks, bills or whatnot were until I uploaded the images. 

Otherwise, we have nearly finished the family room remodel.  Again.  You might recall a similar announcement in December, followed by news of our freak cold spell and water damage. Well, here we are again.  I will show you the progress in another post.  At any rate we have doubled down on the remodeling and finally come around the patio table for evening prayers where we hope to catch a bit of breeze.  

It is hard and often tedious work and progresses much more slowly than we would like.  I suppose all progress is like that.  Still, I am grateful for it.  Grateful for a home we own.  Grateful for the means to update it bit by bit.  Grateful for good health to do the work.  It will come together in time.  

What are you working on right now and what is it teaching you? 

 

Almost December Daybook

Outside:  The rich autumn reds and oranges we were blessed to enjoy so long have been blanketed with beautiful snow cover all week. We need the moisture and I just plain love the snow.  Then again I loved the leaves.  It's a beautiful world, period.

 Around the house: We moved all the furniture and dozens of books from the family room/school room. (hundreds? thousands? millions?  probably not, it just felt that way.)  When we pulled up the carpet we noticed some concrete irregularities and panicked a little.  Ok I panicked a lot.  We have had enough disaster in our residential history to warrant panic.  However the contracter who came out assured us all was well and to carry on.  That we did.  We are now nearly halfway to a new floor.  It is transforming an 80's basement to a clean open farmhouse space.  That might be more in my big picture vision than in actuality at this moment but the promise is there.  The boys are learning so much working on this project. They have painted and cut out vents and trimmed edging.  Real life work.

Note to self: get the leaves and pumpkins rounded up today.  

Wearing: Snow gear per above.  I need to buy some more waterproof gloves soon.  The first snow always surprises us.  In other wardrobe news we have ordered the girls' dresses for the wedding. I am probably late on the game but working on mine.  An unrelated note - Elizabeth Broadbent wrote this essay about dressing your kids in secondhand clothes which resonated with me.   I heart thrift shops.  

In the kitchen: lots of veggies.  Someone here, who isn't me, had a 'midcentury' physical and is motivated to jump on the veggie train with me. This one was good.  Roasted brussels sprouts and butternut squash and onion.  Toss in pomegranate seeds or craisins afterwards.  

Listening to:  Christmas music on the piano.  All day.  Every day.  Carols.  It's a wonderful thing though to have a houseful of piano students again.  Their instructor gave them a new Christmas music fun book and Tess especially has been all over it. 

On an unrelated random note,  driving home home last night I was listening to Simon and Garfunkel's America.  In the dark, as the music was playing, I was 16 again, right back in an apartment in Italy listening to that album playing on a turntable and soooo terribly homesick.  Missing a boy with all my heart.  (dear reader, I married him)  So funny how music can transport you not just to a place but to the very emotions that enveloped you at that moment.   Another random note - the song was written in '68.  So basically it's almost as old as I am, which doesn't feel as old as it sounds when I say it.  Not at all. 

Creating: We are busy making Christmas gifts.  Trying to aim low and finish a few.  The guys packed up the sewing machine and many of the craft supplies so we are working with a limited cache of tools at the moment.  Abbie was given a bracelet making kit for her birthday.  Her big sister helped the girls make a ton of them over the weekend.  

Abbie's bells and whistles party didn't materialize.  Because, life.  We decided to make a gingerbread house together instead.  

Reading:  My time has not been my own lately.  Every time it seemed as though moments were going to open up to grab my book they have been taken up with other work.  However we finished a huge chunk of our fall reading list and are happily diving into advent and Christmas books. (see right sidebar)  Today we will at least begin 24 Days Before Christmas.  This was our first introduction to Madeleine L'Engle and the Austin family.  In this slim volume we follow the family's gentle approach to holiday preparation.  Each day Mrs. Austin puts up a little bit of cheer, usually homemade.  Some foil ornaments.  A door wreath.  A batch of cookies.  Without even realizing it you fall into step with her as the days draw nearer.  I am so looking forward to sharing it with the youngest of our family and hope this will help to set the pace for our own advent.  

Coincidentally, a friend shared this short essay on L'Engle this week.  She captures the purpose and role that art plays so well, 

"To try to talk about art and about Christianity is for me one and the same thing, and it means attempting to share the meaning of my life, what gives it, for me, its tragedy and its glory."

 

perspective in paperback

I was going to share geography books and I will.  However you will humor me, please, because I just finished another book that will be right up near the top of my list of books-I-pray-my-daughters-and-close-friends-read. 

I just finished.  

Sigh. 

I had to save those last 20pages for alone time because it was pretty certain to be a big emotional event.  It was. I locked myself in the guest bath until composed enough to reenter society.  Whew.  

The book?  Oh yes.  That would help.  It was Mrs. Mike, a semi-biographical novel about a young Irish-American woman who leaves Boston for a Canadian outpost around 1900.  It's a thrifted paperback copy we've had forever and it didn't give me so much as a hint as to how compelling it would end up being all those years it sat on my shelves.  It read like a quick romance, initially, which meant you arrived at the gut-socking parts completely unprepared for the thinking and mourning and thinking some more that you would do.  

To me, there are significant similarities to Strangers and Sojourners by Michael O'Brien.  If you've read one and not the other I am telling you now you should.  Pain, strength, and beauty are all illustrated in such a way that it makes you feel braver, more grateful, and less concerned with petty things. You realize, "When little things perspectiare so important, it's because there aren't any big ones."   

Sometimes a novel can make you think more deeply about faith and family than a theology volume can.  This was one of those for me. I pray the perspective embeds deeply in my heart. 

While in my head I am still vicariously wandering through northern forests and gliding around crystal lakes tonight I'm pulling out pictures of one of the most idyllic places we passed through this summer.  Part of Black Hills National Park.  Breathtaking. 

Rainy May - lots of links - sort of Daybook

Outside:  Rain.  A whole bunch.  It doesn't look much different outside my window today than it did outside my window last year this time. 

Listening to: Simon and Garfunkel.  A lot.  Because...Simon and Garfunkel. 

Thinking about: "Slow down, you're moving too fast.  Got to make the moment last."  (see above)    Which reminded me a lot of this article about The Sacred Inefficiencies of Life and where productivity sometimes runs right up against being present and connected.  

Creating: A beautiful (with luck!) command center for household tasks.  Need some ideas?  I have my favorites pinned here. Will be back to update on which we chose. 

Reading:  So much.  First, friends had shared a few weeks ago about Pioneer Girl

It was out of stock at the time and approaching scalper pricing so I put it out of mind for a bit though it was super intriguing.  Then this showed up at my door courtesy of my friend Heather whom we roadtripped with to Bath lo these many years back now. 

When they say "annotated" they are not kidding.   There are footnotes of biblical proportions.  Like, for real, there are as many footnotes as lines of story on many pages and surprisingly they are just as interesting as the main text. 

Around the house:  Some people are still struggling to recall where stuff goes in the new house.  All the people, actually.  They say it takes three months to form a new habit.  Meantime....

 

While getting familiar with a new American house is a challenge at times we had to laugh at this tutorial BBC put out on British houses.  Oh I get homesick.  

In other news I found the living room curtain panels and they ended up being not quite right since one side of the living room is a bit sunken.  When going through my picture files I found a snap from Hancock Fabrics.  At least I hope that's where it was.  It may have been Joann's which will mean two trips to figure out but either way I am leaning towards something in this family...

From the learning room:  Ok there isn't a learning room per se at the moment, though every day sees it coming together a bit more.  We are still learning, however, and thinking about learning and planning the coming school year's learning.  I have also been thinking with gratitude about my teaching mentors over the years after we read this article from last fall which led to the discovery the US Dept of Ed reported that over the course of one recent school year over 37,000 children were restrained in this way.  This all got me thinking, "What would Marva Collins do?" If you can't answer that then spend the penny on Amazon and be inspired.  

Same team, y'all.

We are all on the same team.  : )  On that note I read Janet Lansbury's sample dialogs when facing potential confrontation of wills.  How differently these scenarios can play out. 

 

"Let the morning time drop all its petals on me.
Life, I love you..."    

- Simon and Garfunkel

 

eating and reading this week

Since I don't quite fit into the available memes and am notoriously erratic posting these things, we bring you books and bites this week. Maybe we shall do this again.  Maybe I will flake out and not.  Disclaimer - either scenario is entirely possible. 

A stretch for this culinarily-challenged chick the gyro meatballs and sauce from the Against All Grain cookbook which I heart. (The recipe is here in burger form.  Same same though) It's been a very long time since I have had lamb but this was a surprising hit here. I have no pic of the zoodles on my plate which is ok because the spiralizer is not here yet so my zoodles are less than photogenic.  But yum nonetheless. 

In reading news I am working through the boys' book report boys with gusto so we can discuss as they go.  This month it is The Singing Tree for Kieran and Lilies of the Field for Aidan.  The Singing Tree is the second "children's" book I have read in recent months and ended up laughing and crying my way through.  This one however hits rather close to home having a son in the military in an unstable world.  Sometimes it seems we have not progressed all that much from 1914 to 2014. Anyway, a very good read. 

Lilies of the Field is on deck tomorrow.  I admit my only reference is Sidney Poitier.  We shall fix that. Upside of waiting this long to read it is that I have recently lived in Germany.  Aidan can read the dialect lines quite well. ; ) 

A treasure - free this week

 

It's still one of those unusually vivid memories of mine.  It was 1997 and I can recall exactly what the living room of the townhouse we were staying in looked like.  It was colonial style with dark wood furniture and Wedgewood blue accents.  I wanted to stay forever.  Except it was a hotel and we had just had our fifth baby and a cat and so that wasn't within the realm of possibility. ; ) 

I was standing in that blue room when Maureen and Rachel were emailing about a book project.  A really good book project.  In 1997 there were not entire sections in bookstores devoted to homeschooling.  You were hard pressed to find anything in print that related to Catholic homeschooling at all.  This very good idea was to remedy that by publishing a collection of experiences and advice from real live Catholic homeschool moms.  

Fast forward 17 years.

Although there is one kindergartener left in my living room these days I have found myself discussing preschool anew with my daughters and daughter-in-law and new homeschooling moms.  It is still a subject that is so very near and dear to my heart.  Increasingly I have thought back to that volume of stories from years ago.  It occurred to me that I actually had my thoughts collected in one place and would not change a thing about what I wrote despite having journeyed through those early years with five more babies since then.  Problem was I could not locate my original volume and had lost the chapter notes in a computer crash over the years.  Maureen to the rescue.  

Maureen has graciously uploaded the entire volume to Amazon and it is free through Friday.  Mine is safely in hand once again so I am prepared when someone asks, "What about the little ones?"  There is also a whole lot of ground covered in the rest of the book.  It was written by moms (and a Dad or two!) in living rooms during an era where there were not co-ops in every city and internet connections began with a dial tone.  You did not need a fortune then but you had to be really dedicated and committed to hang in and thrive.  There stories are ready to download right now.  They are still relevant and today they are free. : ) 

A Catholic Homeschool Treasury

 

on reading and weeping

 

The theme of the week for a little photo challenge was 'book' which reminded me to write about one the most moving read aloud's we have shared together.  The Christmas before last Asher sent us an edition of Little Women, carefully reworked by U-Star Novels.  This company inserts personal names in place of your choice of characters from classic literature, leaving the rest of the text untouched.  (no compensation happening here fwiw! will add the disclaimer that some of their titles are racy)   Being a bookish boy, he leapt on this idea, and chose Little Women for his four little sisters and mother.  Hence the March sisters became Alannah, Moira, Therese and Abbie and their personalities and stories intertwined with our own throughout the long leisurely months we have lived with them. 

Originally we had not intended to read so slowly.  However, another international move came up.  Then Alannah went to work fulltime and couldn't bear for us to read without her.  As our evenings and weekends filled up with new activities there was less time with all seven at home at once and able to read together.  So we began to sneak in a chapter on our own while she was gone.  Then another.  Then we couldn't stop. ; ) 

Now we are coming to the end of this story but these stories are part of us forever.  My quote book is full of thoughts we have mulled over.  Virtue versus vice, status versus family, industry versus idleness. How to be a real man as well as a noble woman. How best to find peace, both in oneself and in marriage and family.  It turns out that it was a blessing the reading spread out as long as it did. It became a curriculum of sorts, a life manual for us all. 

There has been a downside.  We saw it coming early on when one older child said WAIT!  Doesn't someone die?? And Asher, a bit regretfully, remembered yes.  We braced ourselves for that part, but as a mama reading the words aloud I still completely fell apart when the fateful chapter finally arrived.  It took two separate tissue breaks to get through it, devoted as we had become to the sisters and impossible as it was, by that time, to really completely separate our angel from theirs.  (fortunately our angel was a bit oblivious to 'her' demise ; ))

It may not work that way for everyone but, in our case, Louisa's views match my own so well that I could not have imparted these lessons better than Marmee did. It's been years since I have read or seen anything Louisa May Alcott and I am not eager to view a film version any time soon.  I just want to hang onto my own images and think longer on what we have read and talked about.  The the bittersweet aspect of 'living books' is the hangover of sorts left after the closing chapter, where you cannot conceive of cheating on the characters by loving another book.  Ever.  But of course there will be more.  They too will move us.  There are others vying for our hearts even as I type... 

For this, I am so very grateful.  

 

a quiet minute

 

 

"Rachel Hammond sat by the open window with her Bible on her knee. The muslin curtains did not blow with the breeze, for there was no breeze that hot morning in June. The air seemed breathless. Rachel had put her pretty room in order, finished all her little morning duties, and now had sat down for a quiet minute with her Bible before she began the day."

- Lone Point, Grace Livingston Hill

My quiet morning minutes are spent here in this room, made a little prettier with vintage linens sent by Rebecca.