Leila Marie Lawler's Blog, page 13
February 4, 2023
Which way, family life? Or, escape from chaos
I had the Chief take this photo of me this morning after I watered and fed the chickens and was on my way to do the same for the cat.
Toffee is an outdoor cat (she has a cozy bed in the garage, don’t worry) and also appreciated non-solid water this morning, pretty much the coldest morning we’ve ever had, ever.
Not shown in that (rather demented) photo: flannel nightgown, Deirdre’s sweatpants, handknit (not by me) sweater, handknit (by me) socks, wrist warmers… real fleece inserts in my real fleece boots… I was warm!
In my book I have some chapters about what to do as the older children get older but the younger children still need you. We are in a time when many (relatively speaking — still very few, sadly) are open to having more children, but the collective memory is quite gone.
Real chaos and suffering can be the result, as families groping for methods to live by are left in the lurch, overcome by sheer circumstance.
Conventional parenting today, formed by generations of contraception, consists of an expectation of a stunning level of involvement in lives of the (few) children one has. Especially as they get older, these children have their every move scrutinized and managed.
The combination of prosperity and lack of distraction from siblings ensures that the young people will be their parents’ primary focus. Not to mention that the parents are older, having delayed childrearing; their retirement consists of tracking their children’s lives with intensity.
For the parents of many children, this model is unsustainable. Adding to the pressure is the lack of generational support, not to mention probably straitened finances. For parents of large families to imitate those with few children is a recipe for real disaster.
And it’s not actually good for older children anyway, who need to feel the pull to make their own homes, even if that pull involves suffering through experiences the parents cannot know, let alone manage. They need the roots of a formation in solid family life, and they need the wings of making their own mistakes.
The organizing principle for the parents is a simple one: duty. Difficult questions can be resolved — not without stress or feeling pulled in all directions, for sure! — simply by asking oneself where one’s duty lies. Close readers here will notice that I do not define the woman’s role as “stay at home mom,” because children are not actually the primary definers of the married woman’s vocation. Her marriage and her husband are — just as the husband’s marriage and wife are defining for him. Even his work, which defines him as a man, is for the sake of his wife and home.
A married daughter having her baby surely needs her mother’s presence and support if possible; the family at home needs her more. They can sustain her absence for a while, but she cannot abandon them for long! The household is not really a machine that carries on without her. The littles feel quite bereft when mother is gone. Don’t be fooled by the young child’s inability to express what is going on inside. After a time, her husband too will pine and wilt under the sense of formlessness of the home without her.
Dinner together is of the utmost importance for family life, for the younger children just as much as it was for the older ones when they were little, and absolutely decisive for the marriage, which will fall apart if not observed on a regular basis (when possible — the Holy Spirit will have to provide in the case of deployments or necessary crazy shift work and so on). What to do when the older ones leave and the middle ones have jobs and outside obligations? I discuss that here (and in my book!).
In other words, mother really does keep the home, and it’s real work. The stress is not least of all on her heart. That is where prayer really comes in: the ongoing conversation with God about where to put our energy — where He wants us to put it.
If in the incredibly busy middle years (that second decade) of the family’s development, the parents neglect the center of their life together — prayer, dinner, Sundays as a day of rest — they will find destruction looming. In large families this destruction is far more obvious than in small ones, because there are more people involved! But even in small ones all this holds true, so it’s no remedy to intentionally limit family size as a hedge against misery.
The lockdowns of the past few years have made the pressures even worse. In general, everyone is more depressed and more confused about where true order lies and how to participate in it. Flitting away, even to “do good” somewhere else, even to follow some dream of fulfillment, even to take refuge at the big box store for an hour or two, as meaningless as that might seem, might feel appropriate and necessary at the time, but it’s disorderly, out of harmony with duty, it will do harm.
There is no magic identity that can protect us in itself, without our inner cooperation — not even our faith. Simply being “a Catholic” or “a Christian” or “having a large family” won’t bestow a sort of trump card to get us out of misery.
There is no shortcut to happiness, and happiness may elude us here, for our real home is elsewhere. We have to become good and continue to grow in virtue, even as we fail and remain miserable sinners. We need God’s grace, but He can’t work if we are thwarting His established order. We really harm others’ faith and hope when we act as if one thing, such as having a large family (if God grants us one!) is itself a ticket to heaven.
What is the remedy? To commit even more to the real elements that keep us in the bonds of love, even though they may seem almost trivial. Can having dinner together really make that much of a difference? Yes! Will it solve everything? No. Human nature is what it is, and we are all bent on making a hash of things here in this world. But we have to keep trying by sorting things out according to our duties, and not give in to the idea that it doesn’t matter. I go into all this in depth in my book, The Summa Domestica! And The Little Oratory is even more important. (I’m not trying to hawk my wares, except in that I think I explained it all better, and in more detail, in the books!)
Home is where the heart is. We will never have to stop working and sacrificing for it.
bits & piecesRemember when I told you about how to teach writing, and how my son Joseph (who is now a journalist and editor!) started a family newspaper? This article by Dixie Dillon Lane has my back: In Schooling as in Life, More Than Enough is Too Much
Your young chemist might appreciate this article: Shaking Ordinary Ice (Very Hard) Transformed It Into Something Never Seen Before
An amazing and beautiful Italian chapel, built by Italian prisoners of war, in Scotland on the island of Orkney.
An underground city, discovered in Turkey when someone was working on his basement
Continuing my obsession with Shetland knitting! This episode has a wonderful interview with Shetland sisters, master knitters. (You can skip ahead to view it.)
The campaign to ban gas stoves is real and hasn’t gone away. If you don’t have a subscription to the WSJ, you can read the article here.
The tyranny of guidelines in medicine — something to ponder
from the archivesA beatitude
How to teach writing. (All the other writing posts are linked at the bottom of that one, or get my book — Volume 2 has it all laid out in chapters, and there’s an index!) As you think about next year’s curriculum, you might want to peruse my archives on such matters.
liturgical living
In the old calendar, tomorrow begins Septuagesima: The Time that the Land Forgot. I think it’s worth beginning to incorporate the observance of these three weeks before Lent in our own homes even if we are not necessarily going to the Traditional Latin Mass, even though I’m on record as not wanting to think about Lent until the last minute, because in breaking news from the human race, I don’t like fasting!
help us recover from our cyber attack — remind your friends about us and —follow us everywhere!
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!
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!
We share pretty pictures: Auntie Leila’s Instagram, Rosie’s Instagram, Deirdre’s Instagram. Bridget’s Instagram.
Auntie Leila’s Facebook (you can just follow)
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 Which way, family life? Or, escape from chaos appeared first on Like Mother, Like Daughter.
January 28, 2023
Back to safety?
If you needed more proof that we are not in this blogging thing to become influencers and make a pile of money, I guess the past few weeks with the issues here on this site have bestowed that proof upon you!
But I think, I hope, we have gotten things to the point that you will no longer experience terrible spammy interference, so sorry! and we are hoping to renovate the internal workings enough to provide a few other niceties like a blog title and so on.
Oh well, you get what you pay for haha!
Anyway, I will let you peruse the past couple of posts — don’t miss this one, about how it really won’t work to have both breastfed babies and outside work as the norm for women –– and this one, a few random thoughts about how to reduce overstimulation in ourselves.
And I will give you some links I’ve been saving up for that magic moment when they don’t break your computer! Enjoy!
bits & piecesFirst, an interview with me about what led me to write God Has No Grandchildren: A Guided Reading of Pope Pius XI’s Encyclical Casti Connubii (On Chaste Marriage) – 2nd Edition (affiliate link).
You can watch or listen to it on YouTube and Spotify (accessible via Anchor as well)
As long-time readers know, I first wrote about the Church’s teaching on marriage here on the blog, as a reading group for all of you! I then edited those posts and expanded on them, and published the whole thing on Kindle.
Arouca Press did not produce that, as the interviewer mistakenly says (I did it myself and that was quite a stretch for me!), but they did publish this new edition in both paperback and hard cover, and were able to include the text of the encyclical as well as my essay about the contradiction between the perennial teaching of the Church and Pope Francis’ letter Amoris Laetitia.
And for that I am really grateful, because I have seen first-hand how knowing what the Church has always taught about marriage has changed people’s lives.
The idea of this “guided reading” is to make it easy for people — married couples, those in marriage preparation, women’s groups, men’s groups — to read the actual encyclical together without being deterred by its archaic diction and, to our modern ears, shocking language. I would say bracing… in a good way! We talk all about that and many other things in the interview, so do give a listen and tell me what you think!
Marie Kondo has given up on tidying up now that she has three children? (Come and see about the LMLD way, which has always assumed you have at least 5 kids! Link below in the next section.)“The similarities between Southport’s wide, tree-lined Lord Street and the boulevards of Paris cannot be ignored.” Emperor Napoleon did inspire rebirth of Paris after Southport visit says historian.
Bernini and the Art of Dying: “In the art of Gianlorenzo Bernini, human beings are the protagonists of their own epic stories, and it is how they act during their time on the stage that determines the most important part of the human drama, the after party in heaven.”
Women have been lied to about the importance of making a home (as I was saying). But the human heart is fundamentally shaped by the experience of place, as the beautiful words of dear departed Pope Benedict tell us.
Because of the popularity of the TV series The Chosen, some questions have come up about what the actual birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ entailed for His Mother (or ought to come up, so that we are not satisfied with how it is depicted there or, increasingly, by the modern mind in general). Here is a detailed and beautiful reflection on the subject, based on Scripture and the teachings of the earliest Christians.
from the archivesLet’s have a Reasonably Clean House, one that is causing us neither palpitations by its pigsty-ish-ness nor breakdowns by its minimalism. You can find all the posts under that category, also laundry and menu planning, and all collected in the third volume of The Summa Domestica with plenty of extra material never even seen on this blog! (Did you know that the Summa Domestica is now available in paperback?!)
Candlemas is coming!
help us recover from our cyber attack — remind your friends about us and —follow us everywhere!
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!
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!
We share pretty pictures: Auntie Leila’s Instagram, Rosie’s Instagram, Deirdre’s Instagram. Bridget’s Instagram.
Auntie Leila’s Facebook (you can just follow)
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 Back to safety? appeared first on Like Mother, Like Daughter.
January 21, 2023
Devotion to home instead of subjection to the world
We’re still trying to get to the bottom of whatever glitch it is here that makes clicks open spam, so for now how about some little thoughts with no links, sorry!
But I was thinking about a certain New York Times article… I still have the tab open because I have been trying to put my finger on what troubles me about it. (If you want to read it, search What It Really Takes to Breastfeed a Baby. If you are not a subscriber, get archive.ph, which will pull it up for you. Again, linking here isn’t working well, sorry. Can you say “she doesn’t monetize her blog” haha)
The article is about breastfeeding and the recent updated American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines, following four nursing women as they, apparently, put the guidelines into practice.
Set aside for the moment the notion that something as fundamental to our nature as feeding our young would be determined by a group of medical professionals (as opposed to the valid observations and information they could offer on medical problems that interfere with this natural process); one wonders what qualifies doctors to make breezy policy recommendations such as “paid leave, more support for breastfeeding in public and child care facilities and workplace support…”
“To find out what it takes to breastfeed a baby, The New York Times followed four mothers for a day as they nursed, pumped and supplemented their milk with formula.”
The women interviewed see the value in offering their babies mother’s milk, apparently because of guidelines such as the AAP’s, although they even go so far as expressing some joy! — but fall in with the premise of the article, feeling the frustration of doing something they ought to (breastfeeding their babies) while also working. (Or at least the Times portrays them as doing so — who knows, the legacy media being what they are. These ladies may have had an entirely different point of view and it could very well not have come through the media filter.)
In every case, even the last one where the mother has a somewhat flexible situation, the stress of meeting the claims of outside commitments combined with the demands of the child are found to be too much. One gets the impression that working mothers will muddle through, but not willingly subject themselves to the pressures again by having more children, and indeed our national birth rate bears that impression out. Lurking behind it all is a sense of doom and disaster, or at least of letting themselves down, if they fail to muddle.
And I realized that our society has produced, has manufactured a serious obstacle to the proper feeding of babies and to the well being of families by a complete lapse of the collective memory. These women, the author, and the readership of the New York Times seem to have no other paradigm for womanhood than that of a working person, even as they glimpse the value of nurturing a child in the way that nature intended. The fathers, it goes without saying, are not consulted. (There seems to be one lurking in the background of one of the photos, carrying a toddler; the vague implication seems to be that the high-powered woman, a doctor, can have three children and breastfeed them according to guidelines because he helps with child care.)
Work, paid work, is the only possibility for women, for mothers. Feminism has defined the terms, and no other terms are allowed.
The one sort of breastfeeding mother it seems not to have occurred to the New York Times to consult is the one who simply does not work, but who is supported by her husband. Consequently, the experience she might have is not represented in the article.
I wonder if they know that such mothers exist.
I can feel my critics’ throats tightening with their objection: Why shouldn’t a man have these same pressures; why can’t society do something to level the field? Why are women still not perfectly happy in the workplace? Why do you say this about women only?! What about equality?
But maybe all this discontent and conflict is not the fault of society that unaccountably, after all this time and all this propaganda, resists the obvious solution of waving its magic policy wand.
Maybe, instead, we irrationally rejected prioritizing a way of life that allows the mother — and her husband — to step right out of the constriction of outside claims, of work, and most fatally, of regarding the baby as an emblem of unfair demand on her.
The man doesn’t have the same internal stress as the woman because he is made by God to work, to do, to act, to provide, and to protect — but not to nurse the baby at his breast.
The woman, if she takes on the man’s burden of provision , carries it along with her own maternal desires, and the child inevitably becomes the problem, despite what she cannot suppress, even to the New York Times: her love, her satisfaction at being the one to give him her milk, her happiness in the knowledge of being wanted and needed, her inner desire to give of herself without stint.
The problem is summed up in this one quote, at the end, when the author’s point of view has clearly had enough with sustaining any effort to portray the relationship between mother and child as necessary, especially to the child, and perhaps defining for the mother:
“Breastfeeding is a full-time, unpaid job. It’s time-consuming. It’s physically draining. It’s not free, nor can every parent do it — it’s not like turning a tap on,” she said. “I want my body back.”
Having reduced even this elemental, necessary human activity to “a job” and further, having long ago rejected the possibility of the one-income family, supported by the husband’s earnings, managed by the wife, oriented to home and children, as hopelessly outdated, so 50s, and simply not feasible or even thinkable, and having assumed that a certain standard and pace, of living is a universal given, those who decide these things reduce the issue to a false dichotomy: Work and try to figure out how to breastfeed the child or work and give up on trying to figure out how to breastfeed the child — and above all, blame the state, the vague all-powerful authorities, for not figuring it out. All bolstered by new guidelines from “the experts.”
But the simple truth is that all those particular difficulties (not, mind you, every difficulty!) disappear when the husband commits to providing for his wife and baby, and together, husband and wife commit to living more simply if that’s what circumstances dictate.
Living simply removes the (perceived) necessity of the whole struggle depicted in the article — pumping, figuring out daycare, meshing the boss’s schedule with the baby’s, not sleeping at night but still needing to be functional during the day in a job (and never getting a nap and still having to do all the other duties of a wife).
What’s called for is taking a good look at what our society insists is the life we must lead and judging it on terms other than what it holds. Even if that judgment involves what it would call “sacrifice” — at least we wouldn’t sacrifice our happiness.
Am I oversimplifying “living simply”? Maybe.
But someone has to say it. We don’t have to take a completely unprecedented attempt to change human nature across the board and try to solve its resultant complexities with even more attempts to change human nature.
We don’t have to plunge into the pit of socialism (redistributing goods for ideological aims), as recommended by the AAP. We don’t have to make babies pay the price for our self-inflicted stresses. We don’t have to be this unhappy! (Here I could provide lots of links that definitely show how unhappy we are, but again, spammy links, and also, I’m no sociologist. Just look around!)
When a mother says “I want my body back,” she’s making the baby the enemy (and I say this as someone who has nursed a two-year-old who was determined to crawl away with a firm grip on my nipple! I get it! See all my nursing the baby links on the sidebar and also my book set, The Summa Domestica, especially Volume 1).
Why would we accept these terms, that make of our loved ones a sort of enemy, or at least an obstacle? If these terms are imposed on us by our choices, then let’s make better choices. We have only our conflicted self-doubt to lose. Let’s recover the wisdom of the past, that respected the deep differences between men and women and protected babies in the heart of the home. I will help you (see: this blog, my books)!
When we do that, we will re-discover something: that devotion to home, which women hardly dare desire, lest we be thought a traitor to our sex, also brings relief from this constant state of turmoil. It brings peace.
The post Devotion to home instead of subjection to the world appeared first on Like Mother, Like Daughter.
January 14, 2023
System processing?
Thanks for all the messages and emails — something is not right on the technical side and we are aware. Last week there was a problem on the platform and now there seems to be some residual spammy issue that pops up a bogus site when you click on a link, although if you return to this tab it will have gone to where you want it to go.
It might have to do with clearing the cache on your computer, but it might be ongoing with the blog and I’m sure I have no idea!
So I won’t inflict links on you right now. We will try to resolve the problem! And by we I mean Rosie, our guardian angels, and the elusive WordPress customer service…
Sorry about that! See you soon! Mwah!
The post System processing? appeared first on Like Mother, Like Daughter.
January 7, 2023
An Epiphany thought: overstimulation
Don’t you love Epiphany? It’s a season that allows Christmas to sink in; it allows us to reflect on Christ’s love, the Love that deigned to come to us as a babe in the manger. We have a time of grace to begin to contemplate how this love is for us and for the whole world.
New Year’s resolutions actually fit into this season, I think. The light grows and we have a new energy and are bolstered and emboldened with the knowledge that God has come to redeem us. It’s a good time to take stock and try to make new habits.
We didn’t used to call it overstimulation back when I was young, but when I recently saw something about this idea for moms, I reflected on how, as a young woman definitely fighting through to a quieter situation, I developed some strategies to address just that issue, of needing to be calmer so that I could think!
Some circumstances make thinking harder. There are habits we lack that can make life seem disorganized and draining. And our bad habits express themselves as “being in a bad mood” or “snapping at our loved ones” and it’s probably a good idea not to find excuses for those things (as what I read, the silly post that prompted this probably silly post, was basically trying to do), but to confront them.
Over the years that I’ve been writing here, I have definitely mentioned many of my strategies, but as we are in the glow of a new year with all its promise, I thought I’d collect them in one place under this rubric of “making things less overstimulating” in hopes of alerting you to them as well, since that’s the way people are talking about the whole subject at the moment. (Also, p.s., I wrote three volumes about it all! You can use your Christmas money to get The Summa Domestica and know more about it!)
It’s also fashionable to talk about triggers — I am here for it!
Let’s have a list! A random list of things to tackle, triggers to confront, and habits to make or break:
Dust — somewhere along the way, dusting got to be treated like an old-fashioned activity that can certainly be dispensed with in order to simplify, but dusty things are overstimulating. One approach is to have fewer things. This is a matter of the situation. We may indeed have too many things, but even if we have only a few, those few need to be wiped down occasionally, as does the surface they sit on and even, yes, the baseboards below.
Wrinkles — ironing is like dusting, so passé, but wrinkled clothing feels like we look terrible and have nothing to wear, which in turn leads to buying more clothes, which is overstimulating because having lots of clothes creates many issues (discussed here). So making ironing things a part of our routine can help create a calmer environment by reconciling us to the clothes we already have.
Plastic bags — don’t leave anything in your house in a plastic shopping bag if you can help it. Depending on where you live (because I know in some places they have gotten rid of them completely), you may be more or less susceptible to this form of stimulation, but if it’s a factor, do your best to eliminate it.
A plastic bag looks like a bag of trash, so your vision is being challenged in that way. It makes an unpleasant crinkly noise, affecting your hearing. It sets up a static-electricity field that adds a level of unpleasant response to your touch. And yet, often we just leave things in their bags, on our counters, tables, chairs, and floors.
I long ago decided to adopt the habit of taking things right out of the bag as soon as possible and putting the receipt (also unpleasant and even chemically stimulating — handle them as little as possible and then wash your hands) where it should go (throw away or file). I am fine with the items then being loose on the kitchen table or stairs while they await their final destination.
The exception is if you are returning something. It’s so irritating to have that plastic bag lying around that the return happens faster, but I like to get it back into the car as soon as possible.
Unnecessary print — eliminate it from clothing, household items, decorations. Your brain reads words and can’t not read them. If things are emblazoned with words, you will be reading them unconsciously all day long. EAT EAT EAT — do we really need to be saying this to ourselves while we are in the kitchen? MOMMY’S LITTLE GIRL — does that need to be in our heads just because we happen to look at this child, who is indeed our little girl? COFFEE COOKIES PITCHER MILK– I knew this trend of having every dish stamped with its function was not for me. Think about pillows, towels, signs, blankets… it will be better for them not to have words on them. It even takes mental effort to keep these things from stimulating us — a part of our brain has to work at not focusing on words it doesn’t want to worry about… similar to…
Background music and noise — it’s bad enough that stores have it. At home and in the car, let’s have silence or something we really mean to listen to. It takes a mental effort to shut down the part of our brain that listens, which we have to do if we are going to think our thoughts or listen to a conversation instead. If we are wondering why it grates on our nerves to have a child or spouse say something to us, the answer may lie in all the other noise that we are unconsciously dealing with.
Our machines are constantly humming and even beeping. It’s worth it to me to seek out a toaster/microwave/oven that doesn’t constantly beep (the worst was when I had an oven that played a little tune when it preheated, and the best gift my son ever gave me was disabling that satanic thing). Have some awareness and maybe put some of these things in another room or run them when you are not there, if possible.
It goes without saying that there should not be any device on your body that is beeping or otherwise alerting you to anything. That apple watch may be actually driving you insane; is it worth it…
Having to think through things that should be routine — hence my “taking a shower” post and also my advice to clean a room in the same direction every time. These aren’t arbitrary rules to torment you. On the contrary! They are attempts to lift the decision-weights off our own shoulders.
Make the decision once and then embed it in a habit.
Advice from those less experienced than they should be, if they are going to be giving advice. Lots of advice sounds good, but consider the source. If someone has only young children, should you expend mental energy on their childrearing advice? homeschooling advice? marriage advice? What happens is that we end up discounting our own experience and trying to implement untested ideas. This is overstimulating and sorting through it all takes up a lot of time.
Lights — LEDs emit blue lights that overstimulate. CFLs actually hum* and their light is terrible. Do your best to replace bulbs in your living area with incandescents. Consider using candlelight or oil lamps (at least for the period after dinner, before bed) until the rest of the country comes to their senses on this topic and allows for free manufacture of incandescents. You’re overstimulated and your kids are super overstimulated — could it be the lights?
*I went to do a search to check this bold statement and the first result was “no they don’t hum any more because of the electronic ballast” and the second result was “why your CFLs hum” haha…
Oh there is a much longer list of things that overstimulate me, having to do with making sure my tights are comfortable and my clothing in general doesn’t ride up, twist, require constant adjustment, or otherwise call my attention; making sure I’m warm in winter; putting mats at the door so I’m not battling extra dirt for no reason…
But you get the idea. Identify what is winding you up and see if you can do something about it — for the sake of your poor family, who are just not sure why you are at your rope’s end!
bits & piecesA beautiful, biblical reflection on the truth that Woman is the Glory of Man.Shetland shawls are more valuable than gold! (And keep you warmer.)Yes, I did go down a knitting rabbit hole. This video appreciates the knitting in All Creatures Great and Small, a series that (so far, 2 seasons) I really recommend for its sweetness and sheer fun. I was able to get it from the library!My son Joseph sent this article to us, about Frederic Tudor, who brought cocktails and ice cream to the rest of the world. He was relentless! And his granddaughter was Tasha Tudor!One of the best essays I’ve read on It’s A Wonderful Life, about Mary. (I think it’s no mistake that her name is Mary! She really does intercede for George, “everyman.”)
from the archives
Candlemas is coming! Be ready with your candle stash for blessing!More on dustingMy first post about New Year’s resolutions and realityliturgical living
St. Raymond of Peñafort (and encouragement for continuing the celebration of Christmas/Epiphany!)
follow us everywhere!
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!
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!
We share pretty pictures: Auntie Leila’s Instagram, Rosie’s Instagram, Deirdre’s Instagram. Bridget’s Instagram.
Auntie Leila’s Facebook (you can just follow)
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 An Epiphany thought: overstimulation appeared first on .
December 17, 2022
Getting closer!
Little by little, the house is getting decorated. We will put up the tree tomorrow (the big tree, not this little tree that is in my mother-in-law’s silver musical stand that rotates!), and I will not see you here until after New Year’s, most likely!
A real-life friend on Twitter asked to see my tree, and I blithely responded that it’s not up yet but there are pictures on the blog. I then went looking myself, and realized that I never have any before Christmas, but here is one from a couple of years ago that shows what it usually looks like! Our tree is very personal, with decorations made, given, and found over the years, interspersed with unifying red and gold ones.
I haven’t even gotten to hanging the stockings… but I do feel the spirit of Christmas coming in, as we enter the time of the O Antiphons (which also means it’s Suki’s birthday today!). (Last week’s post has resources for O Antiphons for you and the children — scroll down.)
Still furiously (yet sluggishly, as wading through molasses) crafting…
bits & piecesIn the long process of rethinking the kitchen, I’ve been mulling, here on a couple of posts, on some of Christopher Alexander’s patterns (from his book A Pattern Language, and the posts are tagged as such if you want to take a look). Taking a break due to holiday busyness (mine and, apparently, the contractor’s!) from that obsession (and enjoying the change that removing the Pile of Bricks has offered).
But Alexander’s observations came to mind again when I saw this amazing series of short videos, by an architect, about a Godshuis De Muelenaere in Bruges, Belgium, a garden courtyard formed by 24 small houses, built in 1613 for elderly women in need. Built and endowed by the Muelenaere Family as a charitable work; all they requested in return was prayers for their souls. (I will simply discuss a little about the architecture, but of course there is another side — good works offered by wealthy people that really helped the poor, were truly works of mercy, enduring to this day as an example and, perhaps, an examination of conscience for the well to do.)
Remember, Alexander is observing what has worked in the past. He is offering his insights, to be sure, but his objective is to analyze what has worked and what gives delight. The hope is that we can recover the patterns for ourselves, and stop making such grievous mistakes with our environment, which has become “antiestetico” (an Italian word brought back by Suki from her studies, that can be translated as “unsightly” but, it seems to me, means so much more; perhaps it means something that stands athwart beauty in a way that drains life of charm and that indefinable connection with the harmony of a higher sphere).
All I know is that the Godshuis is “estetico” and I would live there in a heartbeat, and assisted living is “antiestetico” and please just put me in a shed in the backyard — if there’s a wood stove, a composting toilet, and little sink I’ll be better off. I won’t have a short walk to the shops and a little courtyard, but then, I’m not as poor as the widow women the houses were built for! In the Kingdom of Heaven the last shall be first!
Watch these short films (first one here) and listen to Thomas Dougherty’s excellent commentary; think about assisted living facilities you’ve been to (or even, never mind the elderly, apartment buildings in which children are expected to dwell, but then, we find few children there). Here are just two patterns I pulled out quickly that relate to the subject:
“Pattern 102: Family of Entrances: Lay out the entrances to form a family. This means: 1. They form a group, are visible together, and each is visible from all the others. 2. They are all broadly similar… make a transition in between the public street and the inside…”
“Pattern 112: Entrance Transition: … whatever kind of building or building complex you are making… the entrances create a transition between the “outside” — the public world — and some less public inner world… the gardens help to intensify the beauty of the transition… a graceful transition… [is] more tranquil than [opening] directly off the street… The experience of entering… influences the way you feel inside the building [complex].”
(If the videos are not appearing in your email, click through to the blog online and you will see them embedded here.)
Very often truisms bandied about are … not true. Take Galileo. You think you know about the case, and certainly kids in school are taught the line. But is it true?
On my husband’s site, Catholic Culture, there are amazing resources. One of the best is the Fr. William Most archive. There is nothing that is not interesting there.
All our booklists on the Library Project feature Robert Louis Stevenson! Tony Esolen talks about Treasure Island and offers a poem on his substack: Christmas at Sea.
We are fallen, but we are not meant to be at war with nature.
The New York Times has an article about teens who want to ditch their phones. In some ways it is hopeful; in some ways it is actually frightening (the ways that the adults, including the “reporter,” react). I am convinced that people don’t understand the real dangers of certain apps (I notice the article mentions Instagram, which is medium dangerous, and not TikTok, which is very dangerous — I wonder why). Perhaps I will do a podcast about this article and what the danger really is. Suffice it to say for now, you have no idea what TikTok is doing to your children. Be the parent who protects them from these apps and from devices in general. It’s incredible to me that the adults involved are anxious that the young people want to give up their phones.Speaking of dangers, “water beads” swell inside when swallowed. They will likely not just pass through. Keep these things away from children!
from the archivesIf you perhaps are Feeling the Pressure, think about relieving The Day from All the Celebrations and transferring some to other Days of Christmas. Some interpret celebrating The Twelve Days of Christmas as giving gifts on each day, but that would be madness.
Instead, think of making one of the days A Bring-Your-Own-Mug-Family-Cocoa Party; one of them could be a long-planned family outing like ice-skating, skiing, taking a long family hike or walk around a city pond, a visit to the museum on a free day (most museums have one!); one could be family restaurant night — a nice break for mom, and for families living on one income, a rare treat indeed! And so on.
Write it out beforehand. I go into detail in this post. We’re always saying we want to take the focus off of things and put it on family time and togetherness. The Twelve Days of Christmas are the perfect opportunity, with most events already built in. Don’t kill yourself with more gifts (or leave the opening of a box from the grandparents for one of the Days)!That one time Habou wrote a post: it was about Christmas.
follow us everywhere!
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!
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!
We share pretty pictures: Auntie Leila’s Instagram, Rosie’s Instagram, Deirdre’s Instagram. Bridget’s Instagram.
Auntie Leila’s Facebook (you can just follow)
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.
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December 10, 2022
Yes, a new baby!
After I posted last week and some of you commented/emailed me, having counted up children in our Thanksgiving photo, I realized I hadn’t posted the announcement of Deirdre’s new baby!
Here she is: Veronica Maeve Aurea (Deirdre says: Veronica is for the woman who wiped the face of Christ during his Passion. Aurea means ‘golden’ and is for St. Aurea of Ostia, martyr. Maeve is for her godmother, Sister Maeve Nativitas, S.V. [Sister of Life])!
She was born at home on Monday, Nov. 7, at 11:25 pm. She weighed 8lbs 9oz. Everyone is doing so well, and it was wonderful to have them for the holiday! She is truly just so lovable and squooshy. We will try to get more pictures soon.
I’m not actually writing this from the fireside, because the wifi in my kitchen is not that great. But I did start this fire this morning and we really do have so much to chat about!
I’m sewing and knitting and it’s really remarkable how slow my knitting is.
In theory I know how to do it and in practice I have to rip things out all the time. I will be making mistakes while giving myself a lecture about not making that particular mistake!
I’m glad I’m now old enough for Christmas gift joy not to depend on me. That kind of stress is for moms; I’m a grandmother now, and if you get your measly little crafted gift late, well, you probably won’t even notice.
There are other changes in our lives from when there were children here. One of which is that I can admit and act upon my preference for not having Advent colored candles. I get the significance of the colors; I just actually am not a fan of three purple and one pink candle! This is my liturgical dissent! Another year I might get them back out, but I just don’t want to this year, and I won’t really scandalize anyone (other than perhaps you) if I don’t.
But then we also don’t light them. We light that other one for our meals and don’t seem to have had the energy to go for it. But I think tomorrow, on Gaudete Sunday*, I will ask The Chief if we can pray Vespers or at least the Collect of the Mass, and light three of those candles.
*This link goes to a lovely reflection from Jennifer Gregory Miller, the Catholic Culture site’s repository of all liturgical year wisdom. I recommend that you give it a click! For a really nice O Antiphon printable that the children can make into a little prayer book or ornaments, go here. Older children could copy out the verse on the back of each one, and that will help them learn it.
For the ones I have shared in the past (but now the links are broken), go here — these you can print out and show the children how to copy by making an O and then drawing two lines within the O that are like parentheses — ( ) — and then the three little horizontal lines on each side. It’s amazing how good they look, right away! The little symbols within are easy to copy and give opportunity for meditation. Remember that the O Antiphons begin on December 17th, at Vespers. Mary Ellen Barrett has these helpful pages for dates and songs.
The only regret I have about getting rid of the Pile of Bricks in the kitchen is that I no longer have a nook (with lighting!) for my kid-friendly nativity. But I have relocated it to my little yellow hutch:
When we are decorating for Christmas, it’s good to remember to have a child’s point of view. It’s all too easy to imitate photos we see in influencers’ content or in ads, which often amount to simply amassing a lot of things. (As I said last week, it used to be that even the biggest department stores had children in mind for their Christmas window dressings. They were charming and religious.)
I’m trying to think of what to put inside that cupboard… wouldn’t that be magical and fun, to open it up and find something Christmassy in it? We’ll see…
A little gift guide:
A reader, dear Sarah, sent in a recommendation for a book for the Library Project, that might be one for gift-giving. She says”
“We have this complete collection of Thomas the Tank Engine stories, with lovely illustrations. Some of the engines do play pranks, but they always get their come-uppance appropriately. Clergy are depicted respectfully, as are senior railway officials and elderly ladies. I think it seems ‘of the race that knows Joseph.’ If Pippo is still railway age, or any of the other little ones, he just might enjoy it.”
I’m pretty sure that Rosie’s older kids have thoroughly perused their volume and would add their endorsement here!
For those hard-to-buy-for men, don’t miss our one-and-only gift guide. (I mean, the struggle is real; this is the best we could do, Well, one update that your man would love: Diogenes Unveiled: A Paul Mankowski, S.J., Collection, edited by Phil Lawler.)
For ideas for children: My sewing for children board; my “uncrafty mom stuff kids like” board (is there a better way to put that? probably not).
The Summa Domestica: Order and Wonder in Family Life!
bits & piecesA reader asked me my thoughts on supplementing 100% breastfed babies with vitamin D and iron. I saw a good post about this issue but can’t find it now — if you have something, let me know! Here is a study saying that if mom gets enough vitamin D, baby will be fine.Also remember to take your baby out in the sun! I realize that nearing winter solstice isn’t the best time to say this, but even 20 minutes can be helpful, and the fresh air will do everyone good. (Remember, the northern peoples who do this also wrap their babies in sheepskins; be practical!)A priest writes: Focused Protection Is Embedded in our Calendar. “As I celebrate the liturgies of this season of preparation for Christmas, it occurs to me that part of the irrationality of the panic which broke out in March 2020 was a basic denial or forgetfulness of the natural rhythms of life which find their expression in the liturgical year… “
My only additional comment is that the link between the liturgical year and the seasonal year is universal, not just for the West. Ratzinger, in his Spirit of the Liturgy, takes up this question of what to think about the antipodes. He concludes that the connection to history is paramount — the events in salvation history are real events, happening in a certain place and time. Keeping our connection to this earthly and transcendent reality is what will keep us sane! So even for those in the Southern Hemisphere, the liturgical year will be health-giving — even if we can’t quite work out the practicalities in the way he is discussing in this excellent piece.
Floriani: sacred music school!A local scientist had found (before the lockdowns) that wormwood can help with the covid virus. Yet another reason I will continue cultivating my medicinal herb garden. Well, in the spring!I once listened in horror to a Catholic dad say he would not tell his daughter she is beautiful for some terrible reason about keeping her from being vain. No! Dad must tell his daughter that she is lovely in his eyes! You, wife, can encourage your (awkward? reticent? incorrect? tongue-tied?) husband to affirm your daughter with your gentle encouragement and provision of the actual script ( “tell her ‘you are so beautiful'”). Have him read/watch this post.The Decline of Higher Education: Thoughts on a generational takeover by the Left, and what options remainfrom the archivesScroll down for some of our favorite Christmas cookiesThis post has some cookie updates (including my recent obsessions, springerle and babka), and also shows how we hang our stockings even though we have a marble mantel.
liturgical living
Our Lady of Loreto, St. Eulalia of Merida
Tomorrow, of course, is the Third Sunday of Advent, Gaudete Sunday. Now is a good time to get the kids doing crafts, but have them be something people will really want.
follow us everywhere!
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!
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!
We share pretty pictures: Auntie Leila’s Instagram, Rosie’s Instagram, Deirdre’s Instagram. Bridget’s Instagram.
Auntie Leila’s Facebook (you can just follow)
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 Yes, a new baby! appeared first on .
December 3, 2022
Sewing, knitting, and thinking about teen culture
Do you mind more photos, from a different angle, of the sewing room? It’s where I’ve been holed up! And I cannot, of course, show you any pictures of the actual things I’m working on…
Why does crafting inspiration only strike for me after Thanksgiving? I blame creative tardiness partially on the mild Fall we had, pulling me into the garden rather than the sewing room. All summer I could not concentrate much on knitting, nor did I have any thoughts about projects.
Now, with little time left, I’m brimming over with ideas, and my newish crafting room (still in progress, awaiting a wooden table to replace that temporary one, among other things) is brimming over with the detritus!
A good reason to celebrate all 12 Days of Christmas and leave grandparent gifts for Epiphany (see my link below on the ways to live the season of Christmas!).
We had a lovely day and weekend, though, despite the sickness. John Folley was taking the photo so he’s not in it, but it captures a little of our joy!
(By the way, that gorgeous painting is by him, a gift to us. Consider purchasing and sponsoring and sharing real art this holiday season and beyond. And consider subscribing to John’s email in that link for an update, coming soon I’m sure, that will feature a positively stunning portrait I caught a glimpse of recently of a dear friend. Since I know her, I can tell you that her spirit comes through this art; it’s not only a beautiful portrait — it’s a true one.)
I also need to put my thrifted pressure canner (yay!) into action, and put up all this turkey broth, as there is no room in my freezer whatsoever for any of it!
My new podcast episode can be found here, answering the question of how we can do better with teen culture. Even in the most family-oriented, homeschooling circles, people somehow revert to the norm of catering to teens in a worldly way.
It’s an impulse that comes over us all; I understand it. I can remember being in Toys R Us (remember that godforsaken place?) for some reason, right before Christmas, when my first was about two. I was overcome by an almost overwhelming urge to buy everything for him! I knew that was not a good idea (even if I could afford it)! But I wanted to!
There’s something quite normal in a parent rushing to give a child what he wants — or thinks he wants –even against the understanding that it might not be good for him. We almost can’t help it sometimes — there are many cases where I succumbed, that’s for sure.
Call it the undirected generosity of natural love. Fulfillment seems to manifest in handy cultural forms — great blobs of desire turning ineluctably towards warm, encompassing, rolling fogs of satisfaction that beckon us to submit, to open ourselves with the relief of passivity. It would all be so easy.
We strive when our children are very young to monitor every sugary treat and to guard them from invasive influences. But then in that second decade, when they are teens, we are tired; we start to question the possibility of resisting and are tempted by a life where we can just be parents of teens, and not keep up the responsibility anymore for guiding them, That word, teen, in itself, contains a vast implication of a release from the unpleasantness of bearing the brunt of their attitude. Can you hear the siren call of the world, to just let others take over and do to them… whatever it is that is done to teens… that was done to us too… that has not worked out well. The culture that wants our young people for its own, because it has given up on natural reproduction, yet all things, even cancer, do seek to reproduce, if only in an opportunistic way.
“I have a teenager now, so of course I had to drop them off at the mall… ”
“We watched a movie… I didn’t love the overall message but the kids liked it and it was cute… ”
“I took them to a concert, dropped them off, hope they have fun!”
The point isn’t to shelter our littles and then release them into the popular culture. It’s to recover, even if only in a second-hand memory, and create, organically and calmly, a real culture, one not based on what has been packaged up for us by entities we have not fully examined, yet unthinkingly follow. But this takes bravery.
(Do teens have to go to the mall? I wouldn’t totally object if there were something to buy at the mall, but (although I haven’t been there in ages myself) it seems as if there really isn’t anything worth the price. If most things there are tawdry, made of poor quality materials, ugly, expensive, and “made by slaves” as my mother used to put it, then that should tell us something. I wish I could share what going “downtown” in New Haven, CT, in the 60s was like, with storefronts decorated by the owners with bright and charming scenes, including vast and involved crêches. It’s not simply nostalgia to point out the very real difference in what commerce has become.)
Above all, it takes bravery to resist the urge to let real, everyday life diverge so shockingly from our goals. Having integrity and being willing to keep fighting the rot, at least in our own homes — that takes bravery!
The payoff is a tremendously heartening and beautiful life of young people learning, giving, and creating, which they will do if given the chance and a little stern corralling. Our homes and communities could be bursting with young life and our older children could be finding their path to their own vocation to love, for that is what they are actually doing in these years — let’s not lose our resolve just when it matters!
I cover this challenge at length in my book set, The Summa Domestica, (note! also now available in paperback!) and in that podcast I mentioned, here at the Center for the Restoration of Christian Culture, on teen culture.
bits & piecesYou’ve heard me talk here and on my other blog about Fr. Paul Mankowski, SJ, a dear friend who passed away last year. My husband has edited a book of Fr. M’s writings under the alias Diogenes, for decades an anticipated feature in Phil’s publications. You won’t want to miss it! It’s called Diogenes Unveiled — would make a great Christmas present for that someone who likes his revenge cold and his wit blazing hot!
Listen to an interview of Phil by Fr. Fessio, SJ, about the book and their relationship with Fr. M.
I found this short interview with Erik Voorhees, crypto expert, informative on the question of the FTX debacle and what Sam Bankman-Fried was doing. For a basic understanding of what the heck is going on with this news story, Voorhees is articulate and clear.
There is a reason people are acting out in scary, horror movie kind of ways and imposing these ways on us as “normality”: The revenge of conscience by J. Budziszewski.
Did you know that a kilt (at least a man’s kilt) is put together like this? You bunch up a muckle of fabric and put your bahookie on it and stand up? Och! I’m dumbfoonert! (I’m on a mission to start making more clothes, especially woolens in winter and linen things in summer — after Christmas! This link is one of the rabbit holes I went down… )
from the archives
Lots of emails about toddler behavior! Don’t forget all my posts, not to mention whole sections of Volume 1 of The Summa Domestica. Start here: Toddler Life.
Plan now to celebrate the 12 Days of Christmas, which begin on Christmas Day! What would be awful would be to have the same usual consumerist pile of gifts on the Day, and then to think you had to have gifts on each of the other days! Sure, that would be overwhelming! Instead, do all the things you pile into that one day spread out over the 12, and be a lot happier! In my post I explain how to live the days and how to relieve the gift pressure, while actually enjoying the presents that are given, more.
We got sick before (me) and after (him) Thanksgiving, so I still have not done more than put a wreath on my door. But here is a roundup of my Advent posts.
liturgical living
Enjoy your Sundays of Advent as we make our journey to Christmas!
follow us everywhere!
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!
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!
We share pretty pictures: Auntie Leila’s Instagram, Rosie’s Instagram, Deirdre’s Instagram. Bridget’s Instagram.
Auntie Leila’s Facebook (you can just follow)
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 Sewing, knitting, and thinking about teen culture appeared first on .
November 19, 2022
This and that — chatty!
(I don’t have a place for this little white table, which had been in the den. I reorganized that corner — have I shown you? — and now I’m not sure what to do with it, so it’s… in the middle of the pantry!)
Like you, I’m getting ready for Thanksgiving. My Western military families (Suki’s and Rosie’s) are staying out there, and Nick and his family will visit them, respectively. So the “littles” (can’t help calling them that!) will be coming… looking so forward to that!
I probably won’t see you here next week, so I am ducking in now despite not having anything particular to say, so we will chit-chat a bit!
I am hoping for some crafting time. My room is taking shape. I guess by now I have to resign myself to the fact that I get the crafting bug just before Thanksgiving, which is not the most helpful time (February would be better!).
Last week we visited Nick and his family in Virginia, and I made Sunday dinner for these lads! (Hence the missed post, sorry!)
What did I make? An old-fashioned American menu my mother pulled out one day long after I was grown up, but which has made its way into the rotation in the cold months: Meatloaf, baked potatoes, peas, and applesauce. Such simple fare was what she grew up with in upstate New York.
Last week I made a sort of Waldorf Salad for the adults in place of applesauce, but was happy to know that the kids really enjoyed it, inhaling the baked potatoes especially.
I always think it’s so amusing when the fancy cooking sites get around to this sturdy side dish, comparing methods and so on. To me, it’s all about choosing the right potato (Russets all the way for their dry, fluffy interior and crisp skin when baked) and that is it!
It’s the one food that’s so simple, not only do you not need a recipe, you don’t even need a baking tray! You can put them right on the oven rack! Just remember two things: bake thoroughly (for 45 minutes to an hour depending on size, at 375 or whatever your oven is on for whatever else is in there) and prick with a fork beforehand! Serve with butter, salt, and sour cream.
When I last posted, I was remembering how November is traditionally a time to contemplate death, our own and those of our loved ones. I posted a picture of the site of my mother’s grave, and since then, the headstone has finally been placed!
This is the same angle as that photo, so you can see the statue of the Blessed Mother that made me sure this was where I wanted her to be laid to rest (it’s the white granite stone in the foreground):
This is the front:
There is room on the other side for Phil and me if we are still here (both of us can go in the same spot, we just have to remember that whoever goes first has to be buried deeper!).
It took me forever to choose the design. If you know what you want, leave a note and visual for whoever is left to deal with it!
It’s not easy! The lady at the monument place suggested that I walk around the cemetery and take pictures of what I liked, and that was good advice. I found that in the older sections the stones are so beautiful, with recurring elements (like those stylized roses) that I realized I wanted and that made it feel more traditional.
Besides the statue in this section, another factor that decided me on this particular place in the rather large cemetery is the proximity of many in our community who have passed before, in the 20+ years we have lived here, including one of my mother’s dear friends and several children.
I went from having no idea how to choose a plot to feeling that “this is the neighborhood”! I think that helps me reconcile myself both to death and to the fact that we are not near family, nor are we living where we grew up.
Anyway, now it is done.
Keep in mind that The Summa Domestica is now available in paperback! More affordable! Easier to hold maybe?
bits & piecesDon’t miss my latest podcast, “Is Chastity a Ministry?”You can open in your favorite podcast app.In the “train your eye” department of design (also “cleanse your consumer/Instagram-influencer palate”!): Bible of British Taste (summed up as “they don’t give a damn” and that is sometimes what we need to hear!).
“In a scientistic-technocratic regime, the naked individual—reduced to “bare biological life,” cut off from other people and from anything transcendent—becomes completely dependent on society. The human person, reduced to a free-floating, untethered, and uprooted social atom, is more readily manipulated.” A longer read: Technocracy and Totalitarianism... that will hopefully restore our determination to devote ourselves to what is small and hidden, to home and solving the little problems we find there, while celebrating the joys.
A short video showing one particularly beautiful vestment from a church that saved many that were being discarded.
from the archivesWe live in an age that is oriented towards adults, not children. This means that the world around us often has a snarky and even cynical attitude towards the past, tradition, and things that ought to be holy, as if we can make worthy things on our own (or as if we never make mistakes!). But if we want our children to keep their natural wonder towards the beautiful, true, and good, we have to fight to keep our own innocence and not be disposed to laugh at or dismiss simple and holy things just because we can. To teach reverence we must be reverent.
A post that rounds up my Advent posts! Which is right around the corner, so this is my alert for you to get your candles and calendar and be ready!
liturgical living
follow us everywhere!
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!
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!
We share pretty pictures: Auntie Leila’s Instagram, Rosie’s Instagram, Deirdre’s Instagram. Bridget’s Instagram.
Auntie Leila’s Facebook (you can just follow)
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 This and that — chatty! appeared first on .
November 5, 2022
A pretty space where bricks used to be!
{Don’t miss the update about my book set, The Summa Domestica, in the bits & pieces section below!}
The meeting will come to order!
Old business (i.e. quick responses to comments from my last post):
Instant Pot hot tip: Put a folded cloth of some kind (clean rag, old kitchen towel, thick washcloth) loosely over your valve when you quick release it. That way, the grease and intense steam will go into the cloth and not under your cabinet/shelf and into the room in general!
A dear reader in a comment: “Can you please give us a picture of all your bookshelves or a closer look at the next to the curing squash? I need to be inspired to have all the bookshelves in all the places in our new to us house with no built-in anything!”
She means between the kitchen and the pantry — the squash is tucked away but I still have a basket of sweet potatoes curing on the radiator!
That door on the left opens to the back stairs, upon which I had to sit to take these pictures! So please forgive the bad lighting etc…
Here you go:
A place for travel books and nature guides — need to quickly access the bird books! The feeder is right outside my kitchen window.
And the bannetons are handy there; the basket holds our tea. Those things need to be a tad closer than the pantry! In my opinion!
Those are just old wine crates on their sides, and a bookcase from Habou’s room that I painted when I did the other bookcases for the upstairs hall and my sewing room (which got moved from the pantry to the playroom/”rec room”/Rosie’s bedroom of previous iterations, right above the kitchen, up the back stairs).
(Do peruse the other comments in that post — lots of good discussions! And by the way, I just refuse to promote my accounts on Instagram and so on, so you will note that my followers count over there is quite low, compared to that of others. I don’t even love posting reels on IG, just because of how reels work — you watch one and then you are sucked into the reel vortex! I don’t like enabling that, even though it would increase my following. I really do rely on you sharing my posts here and elsewhere to offer what we have here to them!)
We turn now to new business!
The electrician came and worked his magic, and I sweet-talked a kind contractor into fixing the corner-where-the-bricks-of-obstruction used to be! (You will understand if you have tried to get work done. Everyone is crazy busy!)
The floor: Trim will be placed where the two planes meet. This house is full of patched floor areas just like this one; I will try to remember to round up some photos at some point. It was built in 1860 and people were just not OCD about such things back then! When the kitchen is done, the floor will be refinished and this will all be something your eye smooths over!
How about that little shelf? His idea, since the wall behind is concrete, was to make this as a box that fit into the space, taking advantage of the few extra inches that I was thinking we’d just cover up with a piece of bead board. I did get the bead board in, though! I’m not sure how I will use it, but I do like it a lot. Any ideas for what could go there (I can add little pieces of trim to keep dishes, for instance, safe)?
Here is the before, as you will recall!
He’s coming back to finish the drywall up, and some of the final details won’t be taken care of until the whole kitchen is done (e.g. fake beam left hanging haha), because might as well do it all at once. (If you go to my IG you will see my highlight about this part of the project, which includes a video comparing how you used to come in vs. how it feels now! And befores and afters.)
More kitchen design principles:
Another pattern from Christopher Alexander’s book (I will continue to post them occasionally):
Pattern 129: Common Areas at the Heart
“… Place [the common areas] on the sunlit side to reinforce the pattern of Indoor Sunlight (128)…
Fortunately, the kitchen is one room deep and so has light on both sides (east and west).
Unfortunately, this window is too small, and in fall and spring I get no direct light at all.
We will try to rectify that with a larger window, but I think the angle will still be tricky as to direct sunlight during certain seasons (in part we are on the eastern side of a small hill and have large trees all around our property — there are good and less good aspects of these circumstances, of course).
[This pattern has lots of thoughts about placement of these common areas, some of which are not kitchens — skipping… ]
“It is crucial that it [the common area where people gather] not be a dead-end room which one would have to go out of one’s way to get to.
Not a problem in my kitchen, which has four paths!
… It must have the right components in it [mentions kitchens here]… at least some comfortable chairs, so people will feel like staying. It should also include an outdoor area — on nice cays there is always the longing to be outside — to step out for a smoke, to sit down on the grass, to carry on a discussion.
Here is the western side, and I do dearly love that we can just step onto the big deck and from there onto the grass. Light + easy access to the outside.
Every pattern has a summary at the end: Therefore: … “most basic of all to common areas are food and fire.
I never even knew about fireplaces in the kitchen until we saw this house. Now you would have to wrench it out of my cold, dead hands!
(Note for the eagle-eyed: the new board on the left is plumb. The side of the fireplace is not, a little hiccup that is exaggerated by the mortar repair that is not yet lime-washed to match the rest, and also by the wide angle of the camera. The former will be finessed later during the finishing process!)
bits & piecesA Facebook friend shared this sweet recording of children (a good boys’ choir to be fair) singing Brother James’ Air. The children’s choir at our parish, led by my good friend Molly, often sings it just as sweetly, and your children could too! (I think this is a good link for learning the choral setting — someone can correct me if not.)Laurel Bern has a fun post about unfitted kitchens in case you missed it! I think a lot of people start sharing kitchens that actually are not that different from fitted kitchens, so you have to keep reminding yourself of what it really means. But as she points out, it does not always mean “open shelving” at all. To understand the design principle, we really have to get over the worry that everything will have to be out in the open. On the other hand, it’s good to remember that having our pretty things in view adds to the cozy, charming feeling we are looking for.The Wall Street Journal reports that UTIs are becoming resistant to antibiotics, and that drug companies are working on a remedy. (If you don’t subscribe, that’s basically the story.) Why is this problem so rampant? We have to look at root causes too. I do go over a lot of it in my post (and chapter in my book!) that covers my cheap and effective remedy. (Spoiler: hygiene and also what kind of underwear makes a difference, can’t help thinking that some of the trends are really unhygienic!)Another little video of a religious foundation (if you liked the one about the Fairfield Carmelites!). This video about why “strong female characters” in contemporary movies (and books) are unconvincing and boring is surprisingly on target!liturgical living
Saint Philotheus, St. Bertilla
November is a real gift, not to be squandered. The Church in her wisdom connects the natural world, and its movement towards the death of winter, with our own consciousness of death. We are gently urged in the liturgy to pray for the dead and to ponder our own last end. The world wants us to forget this necessity, and the truth is that we know we ought to be mindful of the hereafter, but we put it off. It’s good to have a time given to us for this purpose. Let us be docile to these reminders.
By the way, all these posts are edited, expanded, and organized in my book, The Summa Domestica: Order and Wonder in Family Life!
Which is now available from Sophia in paperback! The hard cover version with slip cover should be available in time for Christmas shopping, but maybe the soft cover version is what you are interested in that!
follow us everywhere!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!
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!
We share pretty pictures: Auntie Leila’s Instagram, Rosie’s Instagram, Deirdre’s Instagram. Bridget’s Instagram.
Auntie Leila’s Facebook (you can just follow)
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.
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