Leila Marie Lawler's Blog, page 10

September 23, 2023

A new grandson!

Announcing…

This little darling!

John (“Jack”) Stephen Lawler, born to our son Will and his lovely wife Jaime, Monday the 18th. 7 lbs 12 oz of adorable cuteness! Mother and child are doing well! We are so grateful to God.

This is all I have to say this week (other than links!), but do poke around and see what you may have missed in the past. I have so much and am not great at categorizing it or refraining from burying my content in a lot of chitchat about irrelevant goings on!

Sometimes even I try to find something I’ve mentioned and find myself exasperated! So rummage around previous posts and see if you overlooked something!

bits & piecesPeople keep emailing me to ask me “about that book written by a doctor of how to keep your child healthy” — it’s this one: How to Raise a Healthy Child in Spite of Your Doctor: One of America’s Leading Pediatricians Puts Parents Back in Control of Their Children’s Health by Dr. Robert Mendelsohn.(affiliate link)

I have noticed an alarming rise of people who seem to think one’s children will never get sick and are totally at a loss when they do! People seem to expect “scientists” to come up for shots for everything so we never have to suffer again.

We will get sick — how can it be that we have just totally forgotten about how life really is? You just need to know how to take care of your children and yourself. It’s going to be okay if we get colds and flus this year. Not wonderful, but okay. And completely unavoidable.

I liked this article on The Virtue of Orderliness

If you are in the market for a restored vintage stove, I recommend checking out Savon appliances! Marsha is super helpful and will answer all your questions. I have all sorts of reasons for wanting one (I had my heart set on a vintage O’Keefe & Merritt like one of the ones in the pictures on that site); in the end, despite all Marsha’s kind and patient efforts on my behalf, for reasons I will explain later when I show you what I did get, I decided against it. But it was purely logistical. I think a vintage stove makes so much sense! Proven worth and zero electronics to go expensively and fatally wrong! If you are sick of having your new shiny beepy range go on the blink within a couple of years, look around for a tried-and-true one that someone is getting rid of for practically nothing. Plus, they look amazing (this lady is the guru on the Facebook Vintage Stove page)! Read My [it’s not MY but someone else’s] Experience Living with a Vintage Stove.

A strong piece from Msgr. Pope on marriage and defending it to martyrdom.

We have been doing the 100 Days of Dante together, my husband and I. I admit I have been enjoying “T.S. Elephant” enacting Dorothy Sayers’ translation! Randomly featuring an elephant sock puppet, but actually very well narrated, which I can’t say for some of the others. So far the commentary on the 100 Days videos has been mostly edifying with a few silly moments of 21st-century smugness to be aware of and discuss, if you are watching it with young people. There is just no reason to think we automatically and without reflection ought to be confident we know better than Dante about spiritual matters!

An online Gregorian Chant conference, starting tomorrow! The organizers are definitely spiritually minded, as there is not a ton of information on there about the technical particulars, but it will be worthwhile, with an “all-star line-up of experts” as Peter Kwaskiewski says, if you have an interest in this form of music, including wanting your own “garage schola” or supporting your parish’s effort to renew sacred music, and so on. At the end of the conference, there is a concert by Floriani!

from the archives

My guide to taking care of your sick child at home. Competence is confidence!

The importance of the mother not being over-scheduled: If you can scroll down past all my mundane updates of yore, you will arrive at my “pep talk” about how to look at your time. “… in order to be available to take up the slack, meet an emergency, or even be mentally and physically present for an unforeseen opportunity (say, with a child who is discovering a feature of the world fairly common to every adult, but magical to him at the moment), the mother will by definition require time that is unscheduled. She has to live within this tension of being at rest in order to leap into action.”

I too have written about being willing to suffer for marriage: Nevertheless, He Died for Christ — please consider subscribing to this blog!

liturgical living

St. Pius of Pietrelcina, Priest; Ember Saturday

My book, The Summa Domestica: Order and Wonder in Family Life is available from Sophia Press! Also in paperback now! All the thoughts from this blog collected into three volumes, beautifully presented with illustrations from Deirdre, an index in each volume, and ribbons!

My “random thoughts no pictures” blog, Happy Despite Them — receive it by email if you like, or bookmark, so you don’t miss a thing!

My podcast, The Home Truths Society, can be found on the Restoration of Christian Culture website (and you can find it where you listen to such things) — be sure to check out the other offerings there!

Stay abreast of the posts here at LMLD, when they happen:

Consider subscribing to this blog by email.

Like LMLD on Facebook.

Follow LMLD on Twitter.

We share pretty pictures: Auntie Leila’s Instagram, Rosie’s Instagram, Deirdre’s Instagram. Bridget’s Instagram.

Auntie Leila’s Twitter.

Auntie Leila’s Facebook (you can just follow)

Auntie Leila’s Pinterest.

The boards of the others: Rosie’s Pinterest. Sukie’s Pinterest. Deirdre’s Pinterest. Habou’s Pinterest (you can still get a lot of inspiration here! and say a prayer for her!). Bridget’s Pinterest.

The post A new grandson! appeared first on Like Mother, Like Daughter.

View more on Leila Marie Lawler's website »

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on September 23, 2023 06:19

September 16, 2023

You’re doing too much for your toddler

See below for some kitchen updates, such as they are!

You’re doing too much for your toddler!

I’m going to talk about two types of little person, aged about 2-5, though of course there are many sorts and who knows even day-to-day if their little personalities will even be consistent.

But this is a blog post, not a book, so I’m painting with a broad brush — use what I say and fiddle with it until it fits your situation, using your awareness of the needs of those around you as a guide.

Basically, mothering has become so fraught with unreasonable expectations that our small children are not getting the direction they need to move from the center-of-the-universe infant/baby stage to the one where they are learning that a world exists outside of themselves.

To make this move, they need, depending on where they fall in the categories I’m going to describe (again, adjust as necessary), both confidence and self-control.

The mothering issue that interferes with the necessary process is the idea that good parenting means doing things for your children. I think this comes from outsourcing child care to others. We expect people we are paying to mind our children to display, outwardly, active involvement.

But that’s actually not that good for children.

Now, I really do think mothers need to be sure their babies of all ages are fed, clothed, get enough sleep, and look presentable, and get educated on all levels. That’s already a big order. Mothers also need to sit with their friends, read a book, put their feet up, and not be at the beck and call of their little tyrants!

The good news is that little munchkins do not need you, the mom, to jump up and get them every little thing they want, nor do you have to be on alert to interpret everything they say to everyone and vice versa, help them out of every situation, and in general buffer their lives.

In the case of a shy child, try this. Say she wants part of the snack being offered at a gathering. Instead of excusing yourself from your conversation to help her, smilingly encourage her to ask an older child (say, a handy six-year-old) to show her what to do. “Go ask Melissa if she’ll go with you to get some water.” Look over at Melissa and ask her, “Would you be able to help Mary get a drink?” Then remain where you are and let it happen. Keep an eye out to be sure she is not grinding her brownie into the carpet; instruct her to sit on the porch outside to eat an ice cream cone.

I had one extremely shy child and it took quite a while for her to get to the point where she could go off and help herself in a gathering, but it was worth it gently to guide her until she was ready.

I remember once she whispered to me, “Tell her [a nice mom trying to say hi] I’m shy” — and sometimes you have to go along with that for a bit. But always look for opportunities for a success in relating to people other than mom; often a slightly older child will bring about that success.

At the playground, let the children run around. It’s actually okay if they climb up the slide. Nothing bad will happen if they fall on the mulch. Fine, teach your tw0-year-old not to run right in front of the swings. Auntie Leila is not in favor of concussions. But otherwise, demonstrate assurance that things will take care of themselves by not jumping up, but remaining over at the bench with your friends, having a conversation, calling out brightly, “You can do it!” if absolutely necessary.

In the case of an extroverted child who tends to be a bit heedless about grabbing four muffins and racing off with them, try this: Say, “Peter, please take that plate of cookies and offer them to the ladies sitting over there.” Think about it beforehand and head him off at the pass, but verbally, so you don’t have to get up. Instill in your child respect for the beckoning finger, with which you call him over to you, and deliver short, pointed instructions. “I don’t want you to eat a thing until you have brought these napkins over to that table.” This gregarious child interrupts a lot in part because you have given him the idea that his every action and thought must go through you!

If another adult or older child comes over to help your child, let it happen. Don’t feel that the socially appropriate thing is for you to jump up and intervene (because your child is so shy, or because she’s so unruly either). The person wants to help (because she sees you with your infant, or you are blocked from the center of the action by bodies, bags, tables, chairs, and so on).

And it’s good for your child to go off with someone friendly for a minute.

Your child can see in your eyes how he ought to react. If you are anxious, he will be anxious. Your anxiety might stem from not wanting to impose on the nice lady, but he interprets it as your conviction that only you can ever help him.

I remember my stepmother saying to her younger children (my half-sisters, who were maybe 5 and 2 at the time), “Go ask those [totally random] people how they are doing” — sending the girls off to mingle with others! I particularly remember this happening once on an airplane! Which speaks to how differently children were viewed (this was probably in the 70s), how smart she was in distracting antsy kids, and not insignificantly, how spacious airplanes used to be!

In any case, my only point is to say, you may have a haunting feeling that you are being judged for not leaping up to attend to your children at a gathering, but that’s unlikely — unless they are being naughty, in which case you might have to rouse yourself, not for the sake of not being judged but because you ought to. On the other hand, you could send a passing teenage boy to intervene… would do them both good. “Can you get him off that table please? Do whatever you want with him… ”

Encouraging your child to come and go, to get something on his own, and to become aware of the needs of others, will help them develop socially, and that benefits everyone!

Kitchen Reno Corner

In this post I poured out all my tile thoughts. I have subsequently gotten that box of 45 handmade tiles I found for $10 on FBMP (because Auntie Sue kindly sent her son to pick them up, and then she and her husband delivered them, which gave us a good excuse to have a glass of wine in my wreck of a house) — and they are even nicer than I thought they would be!

But I’m not sure where to go from here (as outlined in that post).

We have a door and windows, plaster, bead board, a ceiling, and some trim. I have chosen colors (I think??): Governor’s Gold for the cabinets and Calming Cream for everything else. (See above, the first photo on this post!)

I know what flooring I’m getting (heart pine, it’s what we have everywhere else) and now I need to figure out what material to put right in front of the hearth. Do you remember the Talavera tiles?

I did love them (and they were from my mom’s stash — she was always to be relied upon for a smattering of materials — so, free). They were not, however, actually floor tiles. Too soft, really.

I need something super durable. I would do something like Jerusalem Limestone there. However, I also want it to go under my range, and limestone is porous — and I’m clumsy with things like oil spills. Does it matter? Would I be always sealing?

There is porcelain tile that matches the stone’s look; I just wonder how it will be to cut it to fit. Will the cut edges be the same as the manufactured edges? Currently considering this tile (someone on FBMP is selling them for a very good price). Remember, it would not be the whole floor! Just a bit in front of the fireplace and some under the range.

But I would be open to porcelain brick tile or something else… just not sure what!

Would love for this part to be over… the decisions… it’s getting so that I have trouble deciding what flavor ice cream to have, not that I was ever good at making choices!

bits & piecesAn article about the viral TikTok in which a woman discovers that men think about the Roman Empire all the time — so amusing! But so revealing! This quote from another commenter: “Men inherently have the need to conquer,” he said. “We always have and we always will. We want to conquer. We want to conquer everything. We’re adventurous. We need and seek that, and if we don’t have it then we imagine it.”

He went on to say that maybe men are desperate because they’re not conquering things themselves, but someone else said, “It’s not just about Roman conquest, it’s about civilization, glory, honor, culture, longevity etc etc… ” Another person had a different theory, writing, “It’s just interesting to see how big it got with its impact and to look at all the things the inventions and how they fell.”

I personally think about the Roman Empire once in a while, especially when deploring all the potholes in the roads around me, despite constant, disruptive repairs going on… but apparently, who knew, men and women are different.

NB: James Augustine (a FB friend): “With the traditional Rosary, after the sign of the cross, you recite the Apostle’s Creed. Reference right there to Pontius Pilate. You cannot recite the Rosary without thinking about Pontius Pilate.
With the Joyous Mysteries, Jesus incarnated in a territory controlled by the Roman Empire. (I do not pray the Luminous Mysteries because they are not really part of the Rosary, but the Institution of the Eucharist is right before Christ’s execution under the Roman authorities.) At least four of the Sorrowful Mysteries deal with Roman governance. Also, Latin is one the three languages affixed to the instrument of our salvation. The first Glorious Mystery is the Resurrection, which was preceded by Roman guards sealing the Tomb, and then being sent out to search for the body when the tomb was empty.”

I never thought of it that way! But then, I’m a girl!

Last week we talked about a needlework guild; in the comments dear Janet linked to this amazing site of the St. Martha’s Guild of St. John Cantius in Chicago. Lots of resources here for needlewomen too!

The Lies in Your Grocery Store — well, my mother always told me to read the labels; I told my kids to read the labels. Also, if you enjoy mystery novels, read Dorothy Sayers’ delightful Murder Must Advertise (affiliate link): coincidentally a primer on advertising techniques that have you fooled on what you are buying — this has all been going on a long time. Buyer beware!

I Was Never Anti-Vax – “I was never anti-vax,” Tennis champ Novak Djokovic said. “I was always pro-freedom-to-choose. And that’s something that we took really for granted. I didn’t feel like a lot of people had a choice, really.”

The Emperor’s New Clothes is the parable for our time (be sure to read it to your children!). The reference is not the only reason I benefit from following this Substack, The Naked Emperor (from which I got the previous link), but it does give me an extra reason to like it.

from the archivesLast week I said a few things about keeping children looking tidy, and the comments had me digging up this post, to which my family members contributed: Ask Auntie Leila: Five steps to feeling pretty after the baby.

Our kids are stressed out: a reminder as school gets going again.

liturgical living

Saints Cornelius (d. 253) and Cyprian (190-258)

My “random thoughts no pictures” blog, Happy Despite Them — receive it by email if you like, or bookmark, so you don’t miss a thing!

Stay abreast of the posts here at LMLD, when they happen:

Consider subscribing to this blog by email.

Like LMLD on Facebook.

Follow LMLD on Twitter.

We share pretty pictures: Auntie Leila’s Instagram, Rosie’s Instagram, Deirdre’s Instagram. Bridget’s Instagram.

Auntie Leila’s Twitter.

Auntie Leila’s Facebook (you can just follow)

Auntie Leila’s Pinterest.

The post You’re doing too much for your toddler appeared first on Like Mother, Like Daughter.

View more on Leila Marie Lawler's website »

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on September 16, 2023 08:25

September 9, 2023

Auntie Corner: Hair, devices, hugs

Auntie Corner*

Some Auntie thoughts from this week:

Groom your child!

Speaking as someone with sensory issues who, as a child, hated having my hair brushed, I am issuing a call for parents to buckle down to grooming!

Take that boy to the barber. You can also DIY — plenty of videos to help you figure out how to use clippers and scissors for a nice tight trim. I have bought clippers at Marshall’s for not much at all, and good sharp hairdresser’s scissors, and always cut all my children’s hair. Get or do a short fade, because it lasts longer and looks better; leaving a fringe at the bottom just gets you frustrated in a week or so when you realize you have to do it all over again.

Put that girl’s hair back with braids, clips, pigtails and ponytails. Learn to French braid or at least just braid. Learn to trim the locks. Keep them tidy!

Some day I will write a post called “In Defense of Rude Strangers,” but let me ask if it’s possible that people’s negative reactions are a legitimate, if poorly managed and expressed, reaction to a general aura of neglect? Maybe we aren’t meaning to neglect our children, but believe me, it helps smooth the way if we demonstrate our care with outward signs. Sometimes people are anxious because they are genuinely worried that we may be lazy or not willing to put in the effort with our children, and they know the implications of such an attitude. They may be wrong!

But are they completely wrong…

Since children just do radiate chaos, we have to make an extra effort to signal to others that we are indeed trying! And yes, society does deserve such signals — think of it as a sort of biological impulse towards preservation of the species.

The process of grooming is filled with anguish for all, but habits can be made if we persevere with firm kindness and a good routine — and the result is a child whose appearance is pleasant to others (including ourselves, and, again, a worthy goal!) and who is free from a vague self-consciousness and stressful sense of a lack of physical boundaries. Otherwise, the lack only increases and becomes a real issue in later youth when the failure to have the habit of self control in the area of grooming has… implications.

Think of a mother cat aggressively licking her kittens. It’s natural!

Especially those sensitive children, the ones who put up the most awful fuss, need the feeling of being contained and “tightened up.” I’m just searching for words here, trying to convey, from the inside, how I felt as a child who fought against the effort but appreciated it when it was made — afterwards.

I hated having my hair handled but loved how I felt when it was pulled out of my face. When I got older, my stepmother told me that I would feel better and look better with my hair in a half-pony, and she was right!

I do not understand today’s trend of the hair hanging limply around the face (for adults too; even brushed back from the forehead would be a nice change)! And it affects one’s facial expression (not positively) when one is not free to move without the perceived and real impediment of the hair poised to obscure one’s vision.

A child who has to flick his bangs out of his face all the time is using energy needed elsewhere. Also, be warned — there is a reason in olden times for keeping long hair braided etc.: reduces the risk of picking up lice!

Children should be free from disruptive hair!

Apply what I’m saying here to finger- and toe-nails…

Digital Devices

I am so grieved to hear that even Catholic schools are ditching books for devices.

Please do not for any reason accept an education for your child that involves having him use a computer (Chromebook, Tablet, what have you) rather than books. Auntie Leila has no objection to the occasional 10-20 minute instructional or fun video once in a while (and sometimes has some to recommend), but reminds you that besides the need for books on the shelves, there are brain cells that need the exercise of figuring things out from the written word and sketched diagrams. If we want our children to learn to write, they must read books.

In the 80s and 90s, corporate publishing realized the monetization potential of convincing the public that it needed new books to replace the old, especially in the area of textbooks. Now Big Digital rubs its hands at the prospect of its delicate machinery needing to be upgraded every two years — and obviously, its software.

Anyway, I thought we knew that flickering blue lights are inimical to the child’s development?

Real Hugs

I was just remembering the kind of hugs I got when I was a child and hoping that in our weird, disembodied time, people are not forgetting what it feels like.

We are all so worried about managing our children (rather than just disciplining them) that I am afraid we are getting stressed out and may not know the importance — and joy — of giving your child a big hug — let him have a chance to breathe you in – once in a while grab him and give him a hug that rocks him from side to side. Let him have a chance to breathe in and out for a bit while you hold him. Let him let go and then give one more squeeze.

My parenting philosophy: Strict and affectionate! Really affectionate!

Quilting Corner

In my defense I have also been knitting (and will show you soon what I’ve made!). But at least I started on the sashing!

bits & piecesLeila Miller and I had a conversation over at The Home Truths Society about The Chosen, specifically about its use in religious education.

So far The Chief and I are enjoying 100 Days of Dante, a guided course on that epic poem. I studied it in a year-long course in college, but was sadly not formed enough in any aspect of it to get the most out of it then, though I am surprising myself with how much I do remember after more than 40 years! I would consider this course, if accompanied by close reading, including reading aloud, of the actual text along with discussion, a completely valid segment of a high-schooler’s literature curriculum. I recommend Anthony Esolen’s translation of the poem, as well as Dorothy Sayers‘ (which, however, was not completed before her death). (Affiliate links.)

I love the St. Margaret of Scotland Guild of Our Lady of Walsingham, preserving and teaching liturgical needle arts for the generations! Their work is beautiful! (Let the page load and you will see, I hope, a short video of what they make: needlepoint prayer kneeler cushions.)

My friend Jennifer has made two such prayer cushions.

This one with the traditional pelican image:

And this one, which she completed just before her daughter’s wedding, for the couple to kneel upon:

And her daughter sent this image, seen on her honeymoon, of a prayer cushion in Fairford, England:

Cranky, but true: Taylor Swift’s Popularity Is A Sign Of Societal Decline

from the archivesModesty, another habit that, learned early, prevents a lot of anguish later. “For parents, the challenge with girls is to give them the gift of modesty, which includes protecting their bodies with clothing that is attractive and useful but not revealing. The challenge with boys is to give them enough awareness of their surroundings that they are able to choose the right clothing for the situation, so that they project responsibility and a desire to protect. This is the gift of chivalry.”

The “gentle parenting” movement — just re-hashed, failed 60s-era disruption — reminds me to say, have a look at my discipline posts, or buy my book for its organization of this topic and index. Here’s one post:

liturgical living

St. Peter Claver — the takeaway we normally get is to attend to people’s bodily needs before trying to offer them religion, and what strikes me is how immediately the two caring actions followed, the one upon the other, in the case of today’s saint. And how effective he was! Our idea of mission today would have us never mentioning the need for salvation; his idea was to rescue the person from actual death, but not much more, before beginning to impart words of sin, repentance, and redemption. And he converted three hundred thousands in this way! (Scroll down to his own account of what he did, here.)

My book, The Summa Domestica: Order and Wonder in Family Life is available now from Sophia Press! All the thoughts from this blog collected into three volumes, beautifully presented with illustrations from Deirdre, an index in each volume, and ribbons!

My “random thoughts no pictures” blog, Happy Despite Them — receive it by email if you like, or bookmark, so you don’t miss a thing!

Stay abreast of the posts here at LMLD, when they happen:

Consider subscribing to this blog by email.

Like LMLD on Facebook.

Follow LMLD on Twitter.

We share pretty pictures: Auntie Leila’s Instagram, Rosie’s Instagram, Deirdre’s Instagram. Bridget’s Instagram.

Auntie Leila’s Twitter.

Auntie Leila’s Facebook (you can just follow)

Auntie Leila’s Pinterest.

*Sometimes my critics will say something like “you think you’re the authority on X!” and it makes me laugh, honestly. These are all my opinions! I thought that was obvious. When the Aunties get together (as I remember from the Egyptian part of my childhood**), we say what we think! Agree or disagree! Trying to preserve the collected memory here!

**If you don’t know what I mean by that, I will just briefly say that my parents were divorced and my Egyptian father remarried an Egyptian woman. Where they lived, and where I visited on holidays and for a time every summer, there was a big Arab community (in part because my father brought graduate students and colleagues to work with him at the university where he taught engineering). So there were plenty of aunties around to give their very strong opinions, and honestly it formed a lot of my practical education. Reticence is sometimes overrated.

The post Auntie Corner: Hair, devices, hugs appeared first on Like Mother, Like Daughter.

View more on Leila Marie Lawler's website »

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on September 09, 2023 08:43

September 2, 2023

Foraging for wild herbs on the lane

It’s a good time to go out and see what wild herbs are ready for harvesting. Deirdre’s kids (minus her littlest, who was posing for a work of her dad’s — he uses his babies for inspiration all the time!) came over yesterday morning, and we ambled down the lane to gather wild lettuce and goldenrod.

One grandson spotted a positively gargantuan stalk of the former, and one granddaughter plunged into the brush to secure it! There is so much greenery and such bright sunshine that I’m not sure you can see it here, but it is a hefty supply of that herb unto itself! (I put a red bar on the top of the stalk so you could be impressed!) Wild lettuce is an analgesic, but I’m at a bit of a loss as to how to preserve it. Any thoughts?

Previously this week, I had harvested and dried plantain. A pesky weed in the lawn, this herb is very good for urinary health (see my “UTI protocol” here — I need to add plantain to it) and for coughs and constipation. It’s also anti-bacterial.

I first knew about it for bee stings. Early this season the Chief got stung — before it had started growing!

So I decided to lay in a supply for such eventualities. If it’s out there, you can pick some, chew it a bit, and apply it to the site of the sting. It relieves the pain right away. If it’s not growing yet, well, I hope you have some on hand in dried form (you can make a compress by wetting it) or as a salve (I have some steeping in olive oil now, and will make it into a salve when I have the means AKA a kitchen!).

I quickly realized that buying all these herbs is super expensive. If I can collect the kinds that are growing wild around me, my frugal heart is happier! Plus, I know exactly what I have, how old it is, and so on.

It’s pretty easy, and even a yard-sale low-rent dehydrator works just fine (lowest setting for herbs).

bits & pieces

A few weeks ago, I posted on Facebook about how kissing babies changes your breastmilk content:

Kissing your baby changes your breast milk. Did you know that the undeniable urge to cover your baby in kisses serves a biological purpose? When a mother kisses her baby, she samples the pathogens on baby’s face, which then travel to mom’s lymphatic system. Mom’s body then creates antibodies to fight those pathogens, which baby receives through breast milk. What?! Amazing, right? (The credit for this wording is to this account, but I have read this before.)

My remark was that babies’ well-being depends on our conviction that men and women are different! Contrary to current gender ideology, it really matters where the infant’s milk comes from, and we are designed by our Creator so that even our kisses are beneficial!

This led to some comments wondering where to know more, and I collected a bunch of good links from my friend Kelly Cole. Then I couldn’t access the links on my app for a bit! But I recovered them, and now I am posting them here, as I said I would.

Do Mothers Make Different Breastmilk For Boys And Girls?Biochemical Differences in Human Breast Milk Contents According to Infant’s Gender Here’s How Your Baby’s Sex Influences The Composition Of Your Breast Milk

August 26, 2023

Good and bad spiritual reading, and choosing amongst many paint colors!

The sun is shining in this brilliant way most mornings lately, as we head to daily Mass, unless it’s actually raining, which it has been, a lot. So when it does shine, I have to snap a pic!

Book Corner

I’m going to update my Spiritual Reading post to include the Newman Sermons I’ve mentioned here, as well as this book, The Friendship of Christ, by Robert Hugh Benson. (affiliate link)

The Friendship of Christ: Benson, Robert Hugh, Hodge, Catherine: 9781735851327: Amazon.com: Books

Benson has always been on my favorites list, but recently I’ve made a connection with St. John Henry Newman, in that way each has of delving into an aspect of the spiritual life and taking the reader to the point of utter abandonment to God (where, like it or not, we will ultimately go).

Both of these authors keep confronting us with our self-love, so often disguised by a genuine, if misguided, desire to be better, to live up to God’s promise; they wish to help us confront and reject, rather than pursue, the desire to be “dynamic” and “the best version of ourselves.”

I would say that most if not all spiritual guidance today falls into this motivational trap of dynamism, purporting to offer Christianity as a more effective way to reach the goal of self-actualization, rather than the purgative way necessary to be trod before we can be, simply, friends of Christ. We desperately want intimate companionship with Him, but it’s so easy to be misled by people who don’t understand what this means, as Leila Miller says here, because they are not rooted in the wisdom of the Church through the ages.

I was struck, as I’m re-reading The Friendship of Christ, how often Benson uses the word shame — a word not in the vocabulary of today’s spiritual writings.

Where current spiritual trends keep us hungering for signs of God’s nearness, Benson warns us of the inevitable resentment that occurs when we seek such things for their own sake and are inevitably disappointed (since Christ will withdraw) in His desire for us to seek Him alone.

One passage struck me the other day, out of many deep and spiritually nourishing observations: Benson says, “… how, without such withdrawals, is progress possible? How is our hold upon our friend to be tightened unless now and again it seems as if he were slipping from our grasp? How is real faith to throw out its roots and clench its fibres into the rock, unless the desolating wind of trouble at times threatens to uproot us altogether?… To hold our lips to that cup which our savior drained… should surely be enough to make us hold our peace, for very shame.”

Kitchen Progress Corner

Was excited to come home after a day away to find this vent for the gas stove had been installed (and the stove is on the way yay! not that there is a floor to put it on, waahh):

The ceiling is done!

And the wainscoting with bead board as well.

Next up: plastering! And then painting! And a floor and windows…

This is my inspiration photo for color (I posted about this Swedish decorating book recently but don’t remember where, and also here).

It’s not a kitchen, but it does have cabinets and walls the way a kitchen does. I have found few if any images of kitchens where the cabinets are the “trim” color and the wall is the “main” color. Usually in a yellow kitchen, the cabinets are yellow and the walls are white.

But I’m nervous about committing to such a strong color for cabinets. I always have to keep in mind that we probably will downsize in a few years (currently the renovation fits into our “five-year plan”). Will buyers want yellow cabinets? Will I??

I did love the color on the ones we had. They were Hawthorne Yellow (Benjamin Moore) — third from the right, below. Right now the trend is to a much more brown, mustardy yellow, but I do love the brightness. The black is there to represent the soapstone counters.

The narrow one on the left is Concord Ivory, and seems closer to the two other darker yellows, but actually is not that far from the Hawthorne Yellow (old yellow of my kitchen).

That cabinet door was from the old kitchen and had been kept in the closet (you will remember that we took some doors off, but didn’t want to throw them away in case a new owner wanted them, not that we were ever moving). So it’s pretty new looking, or at least represents how the paint looks when it’s not super fresh (it always darkens, so swatching is tricky).

Here is the kitchen before:

You can see that the Concord Ivory, which seems much darker (browner) on the chip and on the swatch, is not too far, really.

I have the samples there by the fireplace because I am pretty sure I want soapstone counters, but am considering marble as well. However, I think (as I discussed here), marble, so beautiful in itself, is very hard to match to any white that isn’t just white or gray, and certainly yellows are really tricky with it. So easy to make everything look cold, and my kitchen is already actually cold for so much of the year! (Though it will definitely be brighter and actually warmer when this reno is done.)

Of these colors I’ve swatched here, the shorter wider one is actually the trim in The Chief’s office! Which is so funny — I was asking Bridget how we chose it (she did the painting in there), and we couldn’t remember. But “San Mateo Beaches” is not a name you would think of for an 1860s New England study!

It looks great though, with the off-white walls and the blue of the bookcase interiors.

I should take better pictures but oh well!

What else did I want to say…

Having all those samples (I think I have 12 altogether!) has revealed to me that I actually do know what colors I want. They are pretty darned similar in their respective categories! The challenge is to pick an off-white that isn’t just… white, which most of them tend to read in that space.

Soon I will graduate to painting the runners up on the bead board, so stand by. Thrilling, I know!

Training Your Eye Corner

Most of us have a home that is somewhere on the spectrum of “ordinary-and-fine-to-pretty-nice” — not super fabulous Cotswold Swedish French Tuscan Nantucket Country Cottage/Manor and certainly not Perfectly Decorated to a T. But as I have said often enough before, the virtue of examining the style of the former is that it trains our eye.

Robert Kime was a decorator who wasn’t out to do anything weird to call attention to himself as a decorator. He didn’t even think of himself as a decorator, even though he designed the interiors of royalty!

He actually talks about the mysterious quality that objects of (often ordinary) beauty can have and how we can come to spot it, in the video you will find on this page. Some of his things are certainly valuable, but he makes a point of saying that they are not so valuable that we couldn’t come across some of them ourselves, or something like them in our own context.

We too could collect things “and put them in a room and make them feel special.” Probably not as many gilded things, and, well, not as many things! I wonder who dusts them all…

But still, his aim was to make things comfortable; he said a room “should have interesting things to look at.” That it should be fit for a life. Echoes of Roger Scruton there… Anyone can poke around in a junk shop or hunt down vintage items that are made of real materials; we all have little objects we brought back from a trip, however local (even the shells and rocks the children can’t help hauling home!) — let’s make our homes redolent of our memories and imaginations.

bits & piecesYou can read the obituary of Robert Kime here, or if you are not a subscriber, here. The photos in that piece are super grand. On his website there are more approachable ones. I think we can take his process and make it our own, when we need to figure out what to put in a room! We can at least be liberated from the thought of things needing to match.

As you know, I’m on the hunt for some decorative tiles. This one company I follow has historical tiles and also is launching a line of reproduction ones (which is good, because the historical ones are as pricey as they are gorgeous). I loved this post on their IG that describes the process of hand-painting the tiles!

Speaking of ways of doing, I recently came across the idea of “tree hay.” Turns out it’s an ancient way of feeding livestock. This video seems like it could be boring, but it’s actually so interesting! It’s a look at the history of pollarding and coppicing trees to feed animals and allow them to self-medicate and -supplement. The whole family could watch this: Tree Hay, a Forgotten Fodder

An important read: The Bad Divorce by Elizabeth Marquardt

from the archivesIf I had a kitchen, I’d be baking some bread Ask Auntie Leila: Using affection to discipline (spoiler: don’t)Not an LMLD archive, but have you visited my “Bad Pinterest Board” recently?

liturgical living

Our Lady of Czestochowa

My “random thoughts no pictures” blog, Happy Despite Them — receive it by email if you like, or bookmark, so you don’t miss a thing!

My new podcast can be found on the Restoration of Christian Culture website (and you can find it where you listen to such things) — be sure to check out the other offerings there!

Stay abreast of the posts here at LMLD, when they happen:

Consider subscribing to this blog by email. In the current situation, if we can’t meet here, it would be good for us to be connected by email!

Like LMLD on Facebook.

Follow LMLD on Twitter.

We share pretty pictures: Auntie Leila’s Instagram, Rosie’s Instagram, Deirdre’s Instagram. Bridget’s Instagram.

Auntie Leila’s Twitter.

Auntie Leila’s Facebook (you can just follow)

Auntie Leila’s Pinterest.

The post Good and bad spiritual reading, and choosing amongst many paint colors! appeared first on Like Mother, Like Daughter.

View more on Leila Marie Lawler's website »

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on August 26, 2023 09:20

August 19, 2023

Auntie Corner — in which I shore up the collective memory a bit

It’s been raining so dang much that I haven’t been in the garden enough to show you what’s going on. But one thing is that I have a little bed devoted to cutting flowers and certain perennials, mostly bee balm (the picture just above). I started these various flowers from seed and put them in the corner of my vegetable garden, in hopes that I would notice them enough to be sure they get enough water and can be cut back so they produce more blooms.

They got enough water.

When something that is not a weed sprouts up, I often can’t bear to pull it out. So there are some tomatoes and squash growing there too, which is just daft.

I will cut the strawflowers for dried arrangements inside — they are so charming, and basically grow already dried.

My long-term hope is to fill out my big perennial bed by the house enough so that I don’t have to weed in it as much! This year I will have three varieties of bee balm to work with.

Auntie Corner

Sometimes my critics will say something like “you think you’re the authority on X!” and it makes me laugh, honestly. These are all my opinions! I thought that was obvious. When the Aunties get together (as I remember from the Egyptian part of my childhood*), we say what we think! Agree or disagree! Trying to preserve the collected memory here!

Anyway, here are some thoughts that randomly occurred to me this week (or not so randomly, when someone messaged me with a question):

Let your little ones fall down!

Once I encountered a family in which the mother and father stressfully followed their sturdy, plump little 15-month-old old around, “rescuing” him from tumbles. It was absurd. Toddlers are very bounceable. And they need to struggle up and down off of chairs and coffee tables, fall down a few stairs (put the gate ever higher), reach and not quite make it on rocks, run a bit too fast down the path, and so on.

You can show them how to go down a couple of stairs by moving their bodies at the top so that they are on their tummies and going feet first; I wouldn’t let them stand up on plastic lawn chairs, hanging themselves over the back (having had a trip to the hospital for stitches to the lip because we weren’t paying attention), but don’t protect them from normal low-to-the-ground sorts of spills. In other words, common sense.

They need to develop their spacial awareness regarding edges and tops of flights of stairs and so on as early as possible — and they will. Keep an eye on them, but also let them struggle and fall in manageable situations. Even falling out of bed is an important learning experience. Put the mattress on the floor so they learn to sleep without rolling off.

As any adult who has fallen recently will tell you, it’s no joke. Better to learn — even getting a few bruises and cuts — when you are three feet tall than when you are a brittle old anxious (or clumsy, like me) person.

I think widespread daycare has changed people’s scale of what sorts of mishaps are normal for a young child. Let’s put some common sense back into the mix.

Don’t comment that maybe I am not aware of some issue the child had. I discussed it with the parents — they just didn’t think he should get hurt! Silly! Counter-productive! Don’t let this happen to your child… let him fall down!

Are you making enough food?

I was watching a favorite homesteading show and the mom was demonstrating some of their family meals. They looked delicious and wonderful — but Auntie Leila says there wasn’t quite enough of it.

One reason your children are always hunting for snacks is the lack of sturdy sides in meals.

If you are going to make grain bowls, for instance, you also need a good amount of hearty (preferably sourdough) bread and butter to go with it. If it’s tacos, there should be rice and butternut squash (with lots of butter) or (or maybe and) corn on the side. And bread and butter or extra tortillas with cream cheese. Eggs by themselves are not filling. Kids need potatoes with them, and cheese, and meat, and bread and butter… I think that adults can limit their carbs and probably need to. Children need a lot of hearty food, especially if they are working and playing all day! Give them a (homemade) cookie!

A reader asked about keeping babies warm in winter.

Of course I have lots of posts about this (and chapters in my books), but I will just say that your body (and your husband’s body) is the best way to keep an infant warm. Layer yourself up with a cotton under layer so you can avoid feeling stifled, but one of the most liberating things if you live somewhere cold is to realize once and for all that being warmer is nicer! Wool socks, leggings under your skirt, corduroy or wool pants or skirt, cotton camisole plus cotton long-sleeved shirt plus wool sweater equals being okay with freezing temperatures. A warm scarf will help you get through to May. If you are warm, you will keep your baby warm.

For the baby, cotton leggings with woolen leggings over, and long sleeved onesies, helps them to be cozy. Keep their little feet warm.

Keep them changed — a wet diaper makes for a cold baby. Disposable diapers wick the wetness away from the skin in a somewhat deceptive way; overall the whole thing is stealing his body heat. But when you change him, keep the upper part of his body covered. Don’t have him lie there naked. Warm him up against your skin after a change. If he just can’t stop nursing and fretting, it might be that he is chilled. His mottled skin will tell the tale. Nurse him and then wrap him up cozily without letting any drafts get under his clothing if you are putting him down.

Get a sheepskin for the stroller, carriage, cot, floor so that the baby is protected from drafts.

I favor quilted cotton sleep sacks because older babies kick covers off, but always carry receiving blankets and a warmer blanket made of real (soft) wool or alpaca so that you can protect him as you go from car to house or if you realize that it happens to be colder than you thought it would be.

Coincidentally, I had come across this famous photo:

Children watch the story of

It’s so wonderful — you can read about it here. (These 1963 Parisian children are watching a puppet show and St. George has just slain the dragon!)

Of course what struck my knitting heart right away is the ubiquitous presence of warm woolens, combined, charmingly, with shorts! Attesting to the ability of wool to regulate body temperature — and the need for children to be unhampered as they run around!

Alfred Eisenstaedt, Children at The Puppet Theatre, Paris, 1963

Quilting Corner

I sewed some patches together, and now am trying to arrange them! I have more, too… There will be a sashing… I will show you next week (if I remember!).

*If you don’t understand what I mean by that, I will just briefly say that my parents were divorced and my Egyptian father remarried an Egyptian woman. Where they lived, and where I visited on holidays and for a time every summer, there was a big Arab community (in part because my father brought graduate students and colleagues to work with him at the university where he taught engineering). So there were plenty of aunties around to give their very strong opinions, and honestly it formed a lot of my practical education. Reticence is sometimes overrated.

bits & piecesAntifeminism can be as toxic as feminism by Eric Sammons. We have to stop seeing marriage as a conflict.I was interviewed for this piece on living liturgically (and how homeschooling helps)Why it’s not a good idea to see the Barbie movie (you probably weren’t going to, but this video gives some important reasons why it’s darker than you might have thought)I had posted this article about misdiagnosing (vs. treating, a distinction that was the source of some irrelevant commentary here — the issue is the diagnosis) autism years ago, and due to the nature of my (barely existent) organization here, had trouble finding it again when I wanted to reference it. I’m re-upping: That’s not autism: It’s simply a brainy, introverted boy: Autism spectrum diagnoses are up 78 percent in 10 years. We’re dramatically overdiagnosing it in everyday behavior. (I think the rate is much higher now; the article was written 10 years ago. A Catholic psychologist friend, who has a clinical practice with children, vouches for the author’s insight.)

from the archivesI feel the burden of homeschooling How to dress your child in colder weather (and I get that you might live somewhere warm, but you maybe need to know in case you get caught out; you might have heat in house and car, but what if they don’t work; you and/or your child might run hot, but there are some objective dangers to being in the cold for a long time)How to dress yourself!Getting the house ready for cold weather Maybe I’m not the only one who doesn’t want to waste heating money?

liturgical living

St. John Eudes

My “random thoughts no pictures” blog, Happy Despite Them — receive it by email if you like, or bookmark, so you don’t miss a thing!

My new podcast can be found on the Restoration of Christian Culture website (and you can find it where you listen to such things) — be sure to check out the other offerings there!

Stay abreast of the posts here at LMLD, when they happen:

Consider subscribing to this blog by email. In the current situation, if we can’t meet here, it would be good for us to be connected by email!

Like LMLD on Facebook.

Follow LMLD on Twitter.

We share pretty pictures: Auntie Leila’s Instagram, Rosie’s Instagram, Deirdre’s Instagram. Bridget’s Instagram.

Auntie Leila’s Twitter.

Auntie Leila’s Facebook (you can just follow)

Auntie Leila’s Pinterest.

The post Auntie Corner — in which I shore up the collective memory a bit appeared first on Like Mother, Like Daughter.

View more on Leila Marie Lawler's website »

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on August 19, 2023 08:05

August 12, 2023

Kitchen thoughts and plans!

{New settings on the blog mean I have to take an extra step to be sure that comments are enabled. I always forget that step! Please check back to see if I remembered! Eventually I will!}

Book Coupon Code!

Remember this book I had the giveaway for a couple of weeks ago? It’s a collection of sermons from St. John Henry Newman, arranged according to the liturgical year. I personally find his sermons rich in content. I also find that they are a good and needed corrective to the therapeutic tendency of much of what passes for spiritual nourishment today. Newman always puts his finger on just the spot that one is hiding, that tender protection of ego, so inimical to real growth.

I wanted to let you know that I have a discount code for 15% off if you are still hankering after it! The code will be good this week!

If you are okay with waiting a bit for shipping from Dublin (or are not in the US), you can order it directly from Silverstream Priory‘s Cenacle Press, which helps them most. Use the code 15FestivalsofFaith.

If you are in the US and want it quicker, you can order it from Sophia Institute Press. Use the same code, 15FestivalsofFaith.

Kitchen Thoughts Corner

Things are crawling along over here! I’m still staring at a blank slate, but zeroing in on some choices.

To catch you up, here is the kitchen when we moved here 24 years ago; well, after Suki took down the 80s country wallpaper, many layers of it, and painted the walls. I snapped this shot just before we tackled the cabinets, when we realized we hadn’t taken a picture of the actual before:

Shortly thereafter, Rosie painted the cabinets the same cheerful yellow (I do still love it!) and took off some cabinet doors, and we got things more under control.

We lived with it for many more years!

There are many things to love about our old kitchen, I think!

But finally, as the Chief and I thought about what to do about our Empty Nest Situation, it became clear that things needed to be redone. I mean, we would consider moving, but every time we looked at another house, all we could think was, “We like our house better.” But if we are staying for a bit (we think of it as our Five Year Plan, as we really are getting older for such a big house), the kitchen needed attention.

We don’t move fast. This is no exception! For Reasons!

Anyway, since I have little to show you in the way of actual progress (there has been progress, but it’s not photogenic), I thought you might like to ponder my plan.

Again, the first “before”:

My plan, not very well drawn (I have no idea how to do perspective and clearly am flunking Drawing 101, but for what it’s worth):

You can see that the fridge and stove will swap. That will leave a few more inches free on the right, which is where you come in, usually, from the side porch, through the mudroom.

Notes:

• As you come in, you will be looking to the left into the room (you can see what we already did about the bottleneck there in this post. It changed things a lot. We will put that new shelf/wall back when we are done here).

But you will also be aware of the side of the fridge, in a cabinet, ahead and to the right. The way I have it planned now, that will have a sort of plate rack that can hold big cutting boards and so on, sort of like this — but picture a wall there instead of another room beyond:

Only the fridge will be built in (with cabinet panels) and the rack won’t go all the way down to the floor, I think, as I will need a waist-high shelf. When you come in, you need to put a couple of little things down; when you go out, you need to pick a few things up. It might be a shallow little vintage shelf or just a wider shelf built in…

Here’s another visual:

This contains an image of: 5 Favorite Farmhouse Plate Racks

See it here.

Old houses have lots of quirks. Ours just has a “friends and family” entry that is a little tight! That’s okay.

• The window will be considerably larger. It will have casements on either side of a fixed panel. I’m excited about this!

• The troublesome corner will just be open shelves. I can put my little-used roasting pans and what have you in its darkest depths and still be able to reach them, and my everyday ones in front.

I am looking forward to not dealing with a door there or any sort of lazy-susan issue. It’s just to0 crammed in on either side to make it workable (and yes, I did look into those fancy German pull-out thingies! Big bucks and I’d lose drawers in my work area because they need a lot of room to function.)

I have a sub-category on my kitchen Pinterest for this problem.

In the end, when I saw this picture on Instagram, I had a sense of peace about the whole thing.

See it here on Pinterest

Some people just accept losing the space entirely, and I feel them. It’s a huge pain!

In this kitchen, they accepted losing two corners!

Again, my drawing:

If my oven could be shoved down more to the left, an actual cabinet could work, but then I’d lose the landing spot on the left of it (plus the pull-out beneath, in which I can store baking sheets). And there’s a door to the dining room there, which I don’t want to move — it allows for the Pattern of Flow Through Rooms and being able to see through to another room — the living room — which is a Pattern I can’t find at the moment.

When I think of how I work, I would rather be able to set down something I’m cooking or a potholder or what have you, to the left of the stove, than eliminate this feature in favor of a cabinet door in the corner.

Next time I’ll try to show you the plan for the other side. Maybe I will get a bit better at rendering!

Preservation Corner

The two of us aren’t eating many eggs. But we do have six hens! I’m trying to store some for the winter. Eggs, not hens.

Last year, this method worked great:

It really does preserve your eggs so that they keep for months and months and can be used just like fresh eggs. I know it seems incredible! But it’s true.

Some people use big plastic buckets. I like 1/2 gallon jars. I think the weight of the eggs will increase the likelihood of breakage if you put too many in a bigger container.

I highly recommend jotting down the date of the first egg you put in your jar. Things get moved around in the pantry as the year goes on, and you want to use the older ones first.

My only issue was that one of my hens lays eggs that are enormous, but have very weak shells. I give them all sorts of oyster shells and calcium; the others have strong shells, hers are weak. I didn’t realize how weak when I preserved my eggs last year, so the breakage I had was due to this problem.

This year I am going to freeze her eggs by whisking them up and storing them two by two in small containers, which I will stack in the deep freezer. I find that storing more than two at a time isn’t efficient for me! I hope I remember to add salt.

If you have lots of egg-eaters and often make big batches of cookies and so on, it would be fine to do four or more in one container! Defrost thoroughly and mix up in whatever you are making!

bits & pieces

This lady has lots of good reasons to use soapstone for countertops

Not to start a firestorm, but do read this article about the harm cause by shots in children. The author has a good deal of evidence which no one responds to. As I consider it, I think a good deal of controversy is caused by the term autism, which is malleable and hard to pin down. Instead, think seizures and brain injury. I’m not going to argue about it here — I personally believe that we need much more medical information on all fronts than we are getting. We need more than “it” — whatever “it” is — “is safe.” We have to do our own due diligence. I can’t understand not wanting more information before receiving an injection or giving one to an infant.

A friend of mine here in our community, and her daughters, have some delightful products you might be interested in. Not sponsored, but Auntie Therese says, “I’ve been using their cream on my face since May and really like it. When I first put it on I thought it was going to be to oily, but it soaks into the skin and the skin feels soft all day. That’s saying a lot from a person who tends to have dry skin no matter what I put on it.”

Ever wonder about the houses in movies? Hooked on Houses has a whole series of posts about many of people’s favorites! The one I wish she’d do (and I did message her a few years ago) is in Overboard.

from the archives

More and more St. Gregory Pocket members! Do read this post!

I know that everyone else is all pumpkin spice and back to school, but the days here are still hot and the produce is coming in. If I had a kitchen, this is what I’d be serving!

liturgical living

St. Jane Frances de Chantal

My “random thoughts no pictures” blog, Happy Despite Them — receive it by email if you like, or bookmark, so you don’t miss a thing!

My new podcast can be found on the Restoration of Christian Culture website (and you can find it where you listen to such things) — be sure to check out the other offerings there!

Stay abreast of the posts here at LMLD, when they happen:

Consider subscribing to this blog by email. In the current situation, if we can’t meet here, it would be good for us to be connected by email!

Like LMLD on Facebook.

Follow LMLD on Twitter.

We share pretty pictures: Auntie Leila’s Instagram, Rosie’s Instagram, Deirdre’s Instagram. Bridget’s Instagram.

Auntie Leila’s Twitter.

Auntie Leila’s Facebook (you can just follow)

Auntie Leila’s Pinterest.

The post Kitchen thoughts and plans! appeared first on Like Mother, Like Daughter.

View more on Leila Marie Lawler's website »

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on August 12, 2023 09:30

August 5, 2023

Bits & Pieces

Current situation:

I closed the comments in my last post. It’s okay — it’s going to be okay! While I do love interacting with everyone, long comments can be exhausting; when there are many of them, what happens is that someone comes along and starts quickly responding to everything (as if it’s Facebook) — and my moderation filter gets clogged up.

So then, I’m not only trying to keep up with the discussions, I’m involved with moderating all these new things and trying to figure out what they are even saying, and to whom. And guess what, I have other things to do!

The truth is that most of the things that are said in argument with my point (which was a simple one) are already well aired; things were getting repetitive.

It’s sort of like divorce. We all know that people have difficult marriages. What is never really said anymore is, “Stay married, stick it out, God will bless you in the end.”

Perhaps the reason it’s not said is a) no one likes to say simple things and b) as soon as you do, everyone starts bludgeoning you with exceptions and insisting you deal with every one. And maybe, just maybe, a lot of the difficulties are actually caused because there is not one clear principle that everyone stands behind, e.g., “Marriage is for life.”

In fact, the most repeated comment in dissension from my post (more on social media where I could see what was said when someone else shared it) is, “It was okay, but she doesn’t address this difficulty or that difficulty.”

But we all know that life is difficult. What gets us through — what gets me through — is someone who is a little further down the road saying, “Yes, life is hard, but you can do it, we will help, God will bless you” — it being the thing you were made for, the battle you are in. You know something? My father and mother did not have a sacramental marriage. They divorced and when my mother became Catholic, she did obtain an annulment and had ample reason to. But the truth is that no one helped them. What if someone had had the boldness to encourage them, to acknowledge all the difficulties — which were many — but still stand for what they had? Who knows? But I do wonder…

Anyway, I don’t see any of the people wanting me to address all the difficulties acknowledging how miserable life has become under this regime of being anxious and resistant to babies in marriage.

Far from ushering in a new age of rational, regulated, happy families, the reigning Department of Baby Resistance has made things far, far worse. For the first time in history, people are just not getting married and babies are not getting born, and women are desperately sad. Men are simply checking out.

So it’s going to be okay if somewhere in those ninety-nine point nine percent of the conversations that wallow in all the issues, there is my one percent little point saying “Don’t fret yourself — be at peace.”

(I will be moderating comments here, so think carefully before you add one! Check out the sidebar on the topic of commenting if you are not sure! If you would like to write an essay in response to me, feel free to do so on your own blog!)

Kitchen Renovation Corner

Early next week the inspections are finally happening, so what is really on my mind — choosing all the things — will be much more of an obsession than it already is.

I have quickly discovered that you can spend a mountain of money on things you hardly think about. Sure, we all know a stove is a big-ticket item, but what about sinks and faucets and lighting? Without blinking an eye, buckets of money can fly right out the window!

So I’ve been scouring Facebook Marketplace and making some fun hauls. I promise to share them as we go along. This is just a tiniest of tastes…

I will have, besides five ceiling fixtures, 5 sconces, the least of the lighting choices but woah, easy to get spendy on! And yet, to my mind, super important for that ambience of indirect glow that enhances coziness.

Someone was gutting their home and I landed three of these (with their incandescent bulbs!!):

And two of these (keep in mind that the glass shades can be changed if I want, for mere dollars):

I hope they will add a lot of what I think of as layers of time to the kitchen once I clean and spruce them up. (Do you know about Rub’n Buff? — affiliate link — I think it will be my friend here.) I will show everything in more detail later, I promise!

This was my inspiration for the top ones with the gold lines:

They are available at Olde Brick Lighting.

But, $170… not even particularly expensive for such things!

My “Layers of Time” idea is just that, ideally, the kitchen would have been well built and maintained at the start, but perhaps including already existing objects — a sink brought from another place, a work table given by a family member. Whoever lived here would fix what was broken, rejuvenate materials as needed (for instance, refinishing a good wooden floor), and add good quality things as time went on and the need arose.

Let’s say the family got bigger and another sink made sense. Then one would be installed with lighting around and above it. Maybe twenty years later, someone would travel and bring home tiles that added another layer of beauty to the walls.

When you are doing a total renovation, the natural thing is to get all new stuff and stick it in there. But with everything so pricey, that might not be the best choice, and finding beautiful and useful older things can add those implied layers.

That’s my thought! And it’s cheaper!

From that same person I also got this one, which is hard for you to see but hopefully will be good to replace the old (totally, embarrassingly utilitarian) light outside, over the slider to the deck (that area is also affected by the gutting inside). I hope you can see the potential!

For these six fixtures I paid… wait for it… $60! I am super chuffed!

Speaking of tiles, I found on FBMP 45 handmade Italian tiles, white with a little blue in the corners, that I think could help me wrangle a tile backsplash featuring some intricately decorated tiles that I could intersperse with them.

I can hardly believe that they were $10. For the entire box of 45 tiles!

On the downside, they are 5″ x 5″; most tiles are 4″ or 6″. But I thought it was worth getting them anyway. I don’t have them in possession yet (so that picture is lifted from the listing, sorry); Auntie Sue sent her son to get them for me, as they were in a town near her (and not very near me). She reports that they are very pretty and are in the trunk of her car. A good excuse for us to have lunch together!

I would use them in this fashion (just showing you the pattern — not the particular design):

We’ll see!

Note that while some people profligately tile whole rooms (and in Portugal, famously, the outsides of buildings), this sort of thing, below, has its charm, I feel!

This article has examples of both modes, high abandon and modest restraint.

Recently on Instagram I had some stories in which I detailed my discovery of how rare and expensive decorated handmade tiles are!

Here are some of my inspirations — know that these are mostly random tiles on walls somewhere in Portugal and by no means for sale! I mean maybe you can find four tiles for $1000 — clearly not sustainable.

This feels like a market… I mean! Why would anyone stop making ugly things and turn their attention to universally loved, beautiful and durable objects such as these?!? And make lots of money doing it? And benefit us all? Anyone?

I swoon:

Here are some offered for sale. My heart…

From Dutch Tile:

From BelTile:

Mexican Talavera tile, Casa Daya Tile (affiliate link):

I guess they are handmade… but still… honestly I think it would cost less to go to Portugal, Morocco, or Mexico and get some!

Many commented that I should make them (or have Deirdre and John make them), and as utterly impervious as I intend to be to any suggestion that I take up yet another creative project with all its own complications and learning curves, yet I admit — I’m sorely tempted!

Pattern Language Corner

I got this book out of the library: Traditional Construction Patterns. (affiliate link)

It is very helpful. Since the window over the sink will be a much bigger affair than what I had before, and a bit bumped out of the exterior wall (it’s called a Box Bay window, though it won’t have side lights), the ideas in this book are great for the decisions of how exactly it will look.

A well articulated point is that the eye prefers structures to look supported.

Modern design prides itself on withholding this comfort, favoring chunky buildings that look like they could fall on you, flimsy windows that don’t interrupt the thin walls they are set in, and shelves that float.

Christopher Alexander asked the question: But why do we prefer buildings and designs of the past? And then he tried to answer with patterns, so we could move forward making our own decisions based on them.

This book shows exactly how to make that Box Bay feel settled in its surroundings, which I appreciate, because it’s hard to communicate with the builder if all you are able to do is vaguely wave your arms. And unlike A Pattern Language, it includes thousands of pictures!

Quilting Corner

I decided to sew together like patches; shortly after I posted that picture, I tried (once again) a randomized overall pattern and, once again, I got seriously derailed. My OCD cannot handle it. So now I feel I am in a better spot going forward. With this, as usual, plan-without-a-plan quilt!

Then that’s as far as I got, but I hope to get to it again this coming week!

Two notes, totally unrelated to each other:

First: Yes, I did many of these things like DIY-ing old stuff I bought, quilting, and crafting (slowly, and not as well in some cases, because we didn’t have Pinterest and FBMP to inspire and provide cheap stuff, respectively) when I had lots of kids and was busy homeschooling. What I didn’t do was post about it! Well, I couldn’t, because that wasn’t a thing, thank goodness. See my point? Just do it and don’t worry about posting about it. But also, don’t think you can’t be creative — that only people who don’t have kids running around can do such things! I just don’t want you to think it’s impossible unless you are older or what have you. I have posts about how to set yourself up to tackle a project — search “creativity”!

Second: re: Amazon affiliate links: I don’t monetize anything on this blog other than being part of the affiliate program on Amazon. Note that there are zero pop-up ads to annoy you and cause your computer or phone to bog down here. I am not touting products or sponsoring anything. Only if it’s something I actually use do I post a link. That means that if you click and buy something, I get a little bit of money, at no cost to you.

It doesn’t have to be that thing: as long as you are going through the link you clicked on, for 24 hours, I do get something for whatever you buy. So if you would like to contribute to the renovation fund (haha), do use my link! If you don’t want to, that’s fine! Just open your own link to Amazon separately.

On to our links!

bits & piecesHere is a post from Laurel Bern’s blog that shows the extreme upper limit of ridiculousness re: expensive fixtures that represent the most marginal parts of a remodel— and her ways of figuring it out. I say, don’t get hung up on one particular thing, but take the general idea and see what you can find.

This post in which the designer Emily Henderson thinks through choosing tiles resonated with me! How she goes through all the stages of decision-making in the tile journey! I love her delicacy towards her husband’s preferences, which turn out to be quite grounded and helpful (in providing a familiar, to me in my particular marriage, healthy male nearly non-verbal ballast against wackiness, so needed by many of us).

I noticed, when I looked at more of her kitchen, that I had already pinned her beautiful antique work island (the first one on this board).By the way, I am pretty proud of how organized my kitchen inspiration board is! I humbly suggest that if you are doing your own renovation, you do something similar and make a lot of sub-categories for your board. It saves a lot of wasted time sorting through a jumble of visuals, many of which you might not remember the reason for saving in the first place. Also, name the whole board “A — whatever” as in “A board for kitchen inspiration” so that it comes up first (the boards are arranged alphabetically) and you don’t have to scroll all the way down to the Ks every time you want to check on something.

Here are the Patterns, online, if you want to peruse.

Sorry, it’s just on my mind (and will be for some time to come; this is an A Pattern Language blog now): A good post about why the book changes everything: Let Christopher Alexander design your life. (But, keep in mind, the buildings he actually designed are a bit odd! Like everything else, we have to have common sense!)

Susie Lloyd wrote this piece in March but I don’t think I shared it! Since school is gearing up again, it might be helpful: 8 Ways to Make Homeschooling Great Again

People asked me about my Mary statue. It’s not large but it is lovely. Deirdre gave it to me a few years ago (it took me quite a while to get it organized outside!).

It can save you money to run your dishwasher at night (also dryer — however, I am not a fan of running these appliances while you sleep or are gone… )

from the archivesRe: St. Gregory Pockets: Take it from me. It’s better just to say, “I [or we if you can rope in one friend, possibly two] will be at this place Thursday from 10-12:30, come join us” than to try to get others to suggest a meeting or even say if they would like to get together. They can’t handle it. They can only just show up (sometimes). Later, after they show up a few times, then they will figure it out. Be brave! And be willing to be there by yourself, which is what you would be doing anyway! This post has all the experiences and advice — read the embedded posts too!

PS. This goes for your idea in your homeschooling group to have a children’s book club or “recess” get-together (you know that recess is kids’ favorite part of school, right?) or sewing club or what have you. Don’t suggest it to your group and ask what everyone thinks. Just decide when you would like to do it and then say, “This is happening at this time and place.” You can always change it later!

Eggplant Obsession — everyone loves it! Try it!

liturgical living

Memorial of the Dedication of the Basilica of St. Mary Major

Tomorrow is The Transfiguration! We have a whole chapter on this mysterious feast, by the way, in The Little Oratory!

My “random thoughts no pictures” blog, Happy Despite Them — receive it by email if you like, or bookmark, so you don’t miss a thing!

My new podcast can be found on the Restoration of Christian Culture website (and you can find it where you listen to such things) — be sure to check out the other offerings there!

Stay abreast of the posts here at LMLD, when they happen:

Consider subscribing to this blog by email. In the current situation, if we can’t meet here, it would be good for us to be connected by email!

Like LMLD on Facebook.

Follow LMLD on Twitter.

We share pretty pictures: Auntie Leila’s Instagram, Rosie’s Instagram, Deirdre’s Instagram. Bridget’s Instagram.

Auntie Leila’s Twitter.

Auntie Leila’s Facebook (you can just follow)

Auntie Leila’s Pinterest.

The post Bits & Pieces appeared first on Like Mother, Like Daughter.

View more on Leila Marie Lawler's website »

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on August 05, 2023 09:31

July 29, 2023

Let the babies come to you

Further down I will say a word about St. Gregory Pockets, which have suddenly experienced new interest in many areas, so don’t miss that!

In Catholic circles, this is NFP (Natural Family Planning) Week. I try to ignore it, but I do actually have a particular point to make today. I could have made this a podcast, I think, but I don’t have energy for that in this time of heat + rain + having no kitchen (yes, it’s draining me! but hopefully it will be over soon). So forgive me for going on and on (or just skip to the links!).

It’s pretty clear that we currently avoid confronting failure in how we have organized basic, fundamental human institutions like family, church, and community. We think we are so enlightened, that we have everything under control, but the truth is quite different. Maybe not for those who can protect themselves with their prosperity, but for ordinary people, it’s quite otherwise from what the organizers think or pretend about whether people are doing well or not. The perhaps unintended consequences are taking over — the consequences of everyone’s bright ideas of how to alleviate the troubles brought on by normal life.

Those who are older — that is, those who control the public conversation for the conference of bishops (that body that bestows this week on us, and if you click on that link, you may be puzzled by the imagery, since its traditional aesthetic is at odds with what our bishops actually promote), in parishes, on the more staid social media — let’s say, those aged late 30s to 60s or beyond — are in denial about the failure of what for decades now has been touted as the responsible way to look at marriage and family. In general, the Christian establishment seems quite serene and complacent in its characterization of responsible parenthood, by which they mean the freedom to resist children.

Catholics, known up until not that long ago for espousing the view that responsible parenthood means, simply and in a quite binary fashion, being married when having children, and raising said children in the Faith, Catholics who were known to have large families even in difficult circumstances, are now part of the settled opinion that baby resistance is and ought to be normal. But this is nothing more than worldliness.

No one bothers to tell couples not to cohabit, to remain pure until marriage, but boy, when the wedding day approaches, are they ever ready to insist on the exact methods of protection against what is universally understood to be an inevitable onslaught, a positive deluge, of children, should they not arm themselves with information and practice. To be sure, for Catholics, our perennial teaching against contraception is upheld — but in a hypocritical sort of way. Since the vast majority of Catholics have abandoned this teaching, it bears point out: we don’t know what we are doing, though we are perky enough as we do it.

Everything is about planning, about keeping tight control over the lurking disaster that is the baby. The perceived danger of children is so real, so dire if vigilance is not maintained. No one admits what they can see all around them: in fact the real risk is having too few children, being unhappy, and losing one’s marriage.

No one says, “You are actually getting older” — the average age of marriage in the US today is nearly 30 for women — “and you may not have any children; you may have just one, or perhaps two.” For many, sadly, that sounds like a promise, not a warning; a promise of prosperity, of comfort, of escape from bondage to… to a baby, the fruit of their love.

Even though working women are a fixture in and actually dominate our society, older people still feel the urge to push everyone to maintain their commitment to this feminist goal, and they keep up the debate about whether women should work, should become economic producers on a par with men; they show concern about what rate and level of government support, what policies should be enacted to solidify their view. They regard anyone, such as myself, who encourages women to shake free of these lies and to discover the value of not monetizing their lives, as an enemy of progress.

But younger people just assume that women should and will work — they aren’t even in the conversation. They have learned from an early age (thanks to the efforts of their elders) effectively to silence the voice within that calls them, if they are girls, to home, to the place where they will be the heart and the queen; and if they are boys, to provide and protect. They assume and take for granted that in order to work, they will keep a strict grip on when — and even if — to allow a child to come into their lives.

Consequently, they have little joy. All around us are young people who manifestly have given up on joy. Their very bodies proclaim the dreariness of their inner lives — military drab ink displayed, flesh exposed, faces without affect.

Our young women — you, perhaps, or if you are older, your daughters — are under an oppressive cloud of anxiety, because the effort to comply, however ingrained at this point, is extreme and takes its toll. We don’t know what we’re doing — or if we know, we refuse to acknowledge that we are wrong to seek this control.

Young women are suffering and as a result, many are pretty heavily medicated (one way or another), increasingly so since lockdown time. This drugged state in which they seek relief, in turn, and so ironically, inhibits their ability to form deep relationships and for others to form deep relationships with them — which is what they actually crave, as does every person ever created. I’m not even dwelling on romance, though that is what the link there is about; my observation concerns friendship and normal relations with others. We are medicating our young people right out of the bonds that make life worth living. Of course, if young women are in this state, young men are not doing well either. This is also known, but kept hidden. (The linked article is from before lockdown; now things are much worse.)

Child resistance is now the driving effort behind our society, but it is really resistance to our very nature. The definition of a living creature on a purely biological level is that it takes nourishment and reproduces! Going into marriage this way, including using so-called Natural Family Planning, makes the anxiety of our self-rejection intolerable. When young women are being honest (that is, when they are speaking apart from the approved narrative that controlling child bearing is liberating and part of God’s plan, even), they reveal that their marital life is fraught with fear — the fear of giving in to a generous and open impulse, a fear of messing up and getting pregnant without, without… without what, exactly? Without the world’s approval.

We have disastrously imposed on young people an iron vise around their hearts. I am on record already as saying that NFP training absolutely does not belong in marriage preparation; its goal, which is restricting conception, certainly does not belong in the mentality of the married couple. The most I will say for it is that it can help a couple conceive, but they won’t know they need that help for a while; thus there is no point in bringing it up when they are about to wed. Additionally, whatever difficulty they have in conceiving is hardly relieved by the emotional crippling imposed by a technical, even mechanistic, scripted approach to the marital act, borne of fear of the very thing the marital embrace is designed for: procreation!

I have already said many times that I think people’s attitude would be very different if they were freed from scare-tactics about large families (as if having many blessings from God is somehow a menace! “Give me fewer blessings,” says no one at all). It’s a lie. In our time, fertility is quite low, apart from intentions. If you really considered that you might not be able to have another child or any child at all — not that farfetched if you really look around you at the suffering couples you may know — you would approach the whole issue differently. I’m willing to bet on it.

The normal way, the way that gives peace and happiness, is to love one’s spouse when one wants, and to let the babies come, if God is willing to send them. Do you really think He watches over the lilies of the field and not over you and your fertility?

St. Gregory Pockets Corner

Please do read this post (linked up in the menu bar under St. Gregory Pockets, so you can easily find it again). There are many embedded posts in it that explain what the St. Gregory Pocket is and is not.

If you are the admin of your group on Facebook, post and encourage members to post actual meetups at playgrounds, parks, pools, lakes, or what have you. Just meet each other in real life and then you can go on to set up your email list (apart from FB) and have your book clubs and so on. It’s not about you being an organizer — it’s just about meeting each other in what should be normal circumstances, out and about, and then gradually being friends according to how well you get along. Throw a wide net.

More importantly, you will know each other and be able to bring meals when someone is in need, watch over kids while your new friend goes to the doctor, encourage each other as you learn to “live differently,” including homeschooling, and basically jump-start your community.

It’s in this way that you will establish friends for your children when they get a bit older — friends whose families have standards that are similar to yours, who are doing their best to build something of value here in this crazy world!

Giveaway Corner

Last week’s giveaway is closed — our two winners have emails in their inboxes. I will post a code next week or the following for a discount on Festivals of Faith,so keep an eye out for that. Thanks for entering!

bits & piecesStella Morabito: Beware of Bureaucrats Who Want to Be Your BFF Again, look around. People are not dancing with delight in this, our Progressive Paradise where everyone is equal, women are not slaves to their uteruses, and the state tells us what to do and what to be afraid of. On the contrary, people are lonely. The solution to loneliness is to recover our confidence in the value of suffering and love of neighbor.The Christian Humanism of Marshall McLuhan

“McLuhan wishes to draw our attention to the fact that our tools shape us: they shape our perception of what is natural. That technological mediation, altering the sensory grounds of input, is what is missing from the Greek philosophers’ notion of nature. It is not that he recommends we abandon their notion, but rather that we develop it more rigorously, because we have to contend with the way nature and culture are blended in the immediate web of our environmental perception…

“McLuhan’s philosophy of history is founded on this key idea: we shape our environment, and it shapes us. History obviously encompasses the interaction of both realities: the mind-independent and the mind-dependent.”

We’re Teaching the Holocaust All Wrong: A problem of human nature, by Leonard Sax

Is it good to see others as implacable enemies? When confronted with evil ideologies, we must oppose them with all our might. But the point here that we might not see ourselves as ideological and in search of that primal, tribal experience, is well taken. (Sax says, “It is popular today among intellectuals to devalue tribal experiences. Instead of group ecstasy, we moderns focus on individual fulfillment, self-actualization rather than self-transcendence.” Perhaps our elites are aloof from group ecstasy, but it pervades our time — another example of how blind we are to what is really going on. Think of what we mean today by a concert, or how people view going to a bar, with its oppressively loud beat-driven music and free rein to overindulge.)

I can’t remember if I already posted this: How to Build Beautiful Places What nuns can teach us about dressing beautifully

from the archivesTo be happy at home My third secret to destruction-proofing your family — if you are interested in reading more about what I mean when I say, “The normal way, the way that gives peace and happiness, is to love one’s spouse when one wants, and to let the babies come, if God is willing to send them.”Housewifely

liturgical living

Saints Martha, Mary and Lazarus

My “random thoughts no pictures” blog, Happy Despite Them — receive it by email if you like, or bookmark, so you don’t miss a thing!

My new podcast can be found on the Restoration of Christian Culture website (and you can find it where you listen to such things) — be sure to check out the other offerings there!

Stay abreast of the posts here at LMLD, when they happen:

Consider subscribing to this blog by email. In the current situation, if we can’t meet here, it would be good for us to be connected by email!

Like LMLD on Facebook.

Follow LMLD on Twitter.

We share pretty pictures: Auntie Leila’s Instagram, Rosie’s Instagram, Deirdre’s Instagram. Bridget’s Instagram.

Auntie Leila’s Twitter.

Auntie Leila’s Facebook (you can just follow)

Auntie Leila’s Pinterest.

The post Let the babies come to you appeared first on Like Mother, Like Daughter.

View more on Leila Marie Lawler's website »

Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on July 29, 2023 08:55

July 19, 2023

Solve the clothes clutter problem once and for all (also a Giveaway!)

The Reasonably Clean, Fairly Neat, and Comfortably Tidy House Corner

Solve the clothes clutter problem once and for all!

Well, one aspect of it.

Some people, and I am one of them, cannot immediately put certain articles of clothing away.

We can put dirty clothes in the hamper, if the hamper is handy. *

We often can put away clean clothes.

I can hang a clean skirt up with the best of them, but not at night when I am tired and ready to go to bed and don’t want to rattle around disturbing my husband who has gone to bed before me.

What we have trouble with is, apart from not wanting to put the clean thing away right then, but much more fatally in the war against clutter, and to the point here, we just don’t want to put away or throw in the hamper an article of clothing that seems ambiguously used and probably, maybe, not quite ready to be washed.

I have heard this syndrome described as the situation of someone who is actually hyper-organized, at least in theory, and against the evidence that the result is a mess. This person has so many categories in his brain for just how clean/worn/soiled/used this item is that he cannot commit to the binary system of clean/dirty.

The thought is something like, “Well, I just wore this t-shirt this morning but now have to change for an event but might get back to yard work later and why would I get out another t-shirt… ” and so on.

So the clothes get put on the chair. If there is no chair, they get thrown on the floor, simply because not perfectly clean trumps clean.

One “solution” I have seen, offered for clothes lying around, is so terrible, so wrong-headed, so misguided, that I am writing all this as a public service so you don’t get caught up in the fraud, the compounding of the problem. The misbegotten idea is to have baskets in your closet (and of course this supposed remedy assumes that you have a big closet — check your privilege, Instagram guru!) for these items. “Not sure if you will wear something again? Put it in the basket!”

That won’t work and is just a bad idea, because the whole point of leaving the item on the chair (even if the culprit is not fully aware that this is the whole point) is to air it and to keep it in view as a reminder to decide what to do with it. Putting such things in a sequestered basket is no solution — it would result either in not being followed as patently absurd, which it is, or in being followed and resulting in those items never being seen again (but moldering in darkness nonetheless).

Why am I breaking this down in this excruciating detail? Because it’s a perennial problem, one that subverts all efforts to be neat and tidy in the bedroom; and the first step in solving this sort of problem, one that requires so much effort (not to mention nagging, self or otherwise) to overcome, is to figure out the reasons behind it!

If your approach to a problem fails, over and over and it just doesn’t work, then it’s your approach that needs addressing. (This is true for everything, from kids’ behavior to kitchen cleanup to just… everything.)

The solution is easy, actually, once you decide to work with the mental process rather than resist it!

It involves one purchase, maybe two if you are dealing with men’s suits. You can easily find these things second-hand.

The main one is a quilt rack. If you have a place to put your recently doffed articles, a place that is up off the floor, keeps them from excessive wrinkling, and allows them to be in view but still tidy, you will be winning. It’s better than the chair, my previous, non-solution. One day I came across a quilt rack in my mother’s room and realized that here was the key.

You can also put a quilt on it.

The other item is a men’s suit rack. I wrote about it here. I remember my father’s, which had a chair he could sit on while removing his trousers, and a neat hanger for airing the suit out. Note the place to put one’s change and keys.

Mid-Century Italian Style Collapsible Valet With Rush Seating For Sale

There really are valid reasons why we don’t put certain articles of clothing away right at the moment of taking them off. If we have a firm purpose of addressing them pretty quickly (for example, the next morning as we are tidying up and making the bed), the quilt rack can alleviate the clutter issue. The clothes can air, decisions can be made, life can proceed!

*If you are a husband or have a husband who won’t put dirty clothes in the hamper but throws them on the floor, the solution is to put the hamper (or a basket that will be emptied into a hamper eventually) right there where he throws them, as I describe here: My Husband Adds to the Mess.

Giveaway Corner!

Last week I wrote about this collection of St. John Henry Newman’s sermons. It’s just the sort of volume that can be held in your hand as you nurse the baby (unlike my go-to chunky volume of all his sermons) and take you through the liturgical year. If you are not familiar with this great spiritual mind, this book is the perfect introduction. Highly recommend! (In the US you can more easily get it here, but ordering from the Abbey helps them!)

The publisher is graciously offering to send three books to three winners of a giveaway!

Just leave a comment here to enter! I will close the giveaway on Thursday night!

St. Gregory Pocket Corner

Or should it be called the St. Gregory Corner Pocket??

Recently some ladies have been contacting me to see about starting or reviving a Pocket. (What is that? Go here — and here for FAQs).

No photo description available.

The newest one is in St. Louis MO! If you are in the area, do check it out! The FB group is private but searchable, and the idea is to use it to meet in person. It is not a forum for discussion or place to advertise anything.

If you have an interest in doing this as well, look up yours (by area) on Facebook to see if there is one and if it’s active. Contact me if there isn’t or if it’s languishing and we will get you started.

The main thing is to be somewhere (park, playground, pool, library, or other gathering place that is more or less public), say you will be there, and keep on being there until your people show up! It won’t work for people to wait for others. Even if it means you’ll be at the playground with just your kids for a few weeks, eventually some will join you! And then it might mean being at home crafting at a certain hour for a few weeks, until your core group shows up!

Having a book club or reading group — or just readings in common to share when you are doing other things, like standing at the swings or knitting — is a great idea. Here’s my reading list to get you going.

By the way, there is no monetization in this for me — no swag, no lists, nothing. I’m trying to jump-start your community, that’s all! I alone am left to tell you!!

Crafting Corner

Lately I’ve had a hard time picking up my crafts and working on them, but of course, I get so much satisfaction when I do.

Despite not having quite completed the baby cardi for Jaime’s baby — it now needs to be steeked — I am starting on Natasha’s…

And I am really trying to figure out what to do to get Suki and John’s wedding quilt put together! My process is driving me crazy and I wish I would stop. It consists of making patches and then trying to pull them together. What is wrong with me! I need a plan beforehand! I think I’m losing it! Send help!!

Don’t forget to enter your comment for a chance to win one of the St. John Henry Newman sermon books!

bits & piecesIf you are interested in fine art, you may enjoy this site, which is dedicated to the work and observations of Carl Schmitt, American painter –he lived from 1889 to 1989. The most recent post recounts an article in the Washington Post of yore. “Carl Schmitt is doing things that are unique in America today.”

A moving account of a boy with Downs Syndrome and his devotion to “his” babies.

Our readers know of my devotion to John Senior, the unknown impetus behind Catholic homeschooling and small Catholic schools that continue to be founded, against all odds. I base my educational approach largely on hiscon — wherever I speak of how we fulfill our role in forming our children’s ability to learn, I am trying to convey his thought as best I can. Here is a lovely interview with his son, Andrew, who conveys in a short space the flavor of his father’s temperament and spirit, it seems to me! Speaking of his father’s educational philosophy, he says:

Knowledge begins in the senses, in the particular, and ends in the intellect, in the universal concept. But it is not so simple as connecting two things. Between the senses and the intellect, the memory and imagination, and the passions, are operative. This is why my father spent so much of his effort on trying to get people in touch with created reality, to fill their memory and imagination with things based on reality, and properly order their passions. Only then can the intellect do its proper work of abstraction…

… When we lived in Wyoming, I remember him becoming very upset trying to teach Chaucer. He discovered, in the story of Chanticleer, that the problem wasn’t the difficulties of Middle English, the problem was that none of the students knew anything about chickens.

Funny how our modern reinforced concrete doesn’t even last a hundred years, but Roman concrete is going strong: We Finally Know Why Ancient Roman Concrete Stood The Test of Time

from the archivesCreativity goes beyond — Think that the devoted housewife isn’t creative? Think again!Deirdre on how to use your daily planner to make time for your creative pursuits

liturgical living

St. Mary Magdalene

My “random thoughts no pictures” blog, Happy Despite Them — receive it by email if you like, or bookmark, so you don’t miss a thing!

My new podcast can be found on the Restoration of Christian Culture website (and you can find it where you listen to such things) — be sure to check out the other offerings there!

Stay abreast of the posts here at LMLD, when they happen:

Consider subscribing to this blog by email. In the current situation, if we can’t meet here, it would be good for us to be connected by email!

Like LMLD on Facebook.

Follow LMLD on Twitter.

We share pretty pictures: Auntie Leila’s Instagram, Rosie’s Instagram, Deirdre’s Instagram. Bridget’s Instagram.

Auntie Leila’s Twitter.

Auntie Leila’s Facebook (you can just follow)