Leila Marie Lawler's Blog, page 32

{bits & pieces}

The weekly “little of this, little of that” feature here at Like Mother, Like Daughter! 

(This will all look and work better if you click on the actual post and do not remain on the main page.)

Thursday evening we attended The Artist’s Direct Painting demonstration at the Bolton (Massachusetts) Public Library (his exhibit will be there through this week if you are in the area!).

 

The whole time I was watching him do this, I was thinking, “This needs to be on YouTube!” John gives a talk about color and light in painting while simultaneously producing a work of art right before your eyes!

 

How do these blobs of paint, without benefit of sketching or studies, become a finished still life such as you see on the walls there in the show? (Granted the lighting in that room is not super conducive to viewing or producing art — yet the paintings glow, and the one under construction seems exactly right.)

 

 

I don’t know!

But it happened!

The technique of direct painting was taught at the Boston Museum School with great masters. Of course it involves a tremendous amount of study and painstaking technique. Blobs of paint don’t organize themselves into beauty!

Subsequently this method was all but lost when the modernist ideology took over the academy. You can read more about this on John’s blog in the coming weeks.

The evening wore on and the work was left in this incomplete (yet still already beautiful!) state. I’m looking forward to seeing it finished, aren’t you?

On to our links!

Of course, predatory sex has been in the news, and our minds turn naturally to our own children and how to protect them. Among other things, I recommend The Jim Foley Option. The question arises, what about children who don’t have fathers around to protect them? I don’t know — all I know is that a good father has an effect on society beyond what he sees and deals with directly. Many a lost little boy has been saved by even remote proximity to a good man.


People can know things without necessarily being able to analyze them. Sometimes it’s good to trust that until we’re sure we have a better way. Remembering the ‘Spooky Wisdom’ of Our Agrarian Past.


Six Irish words to broaden your vocabulary of insults.


My dear friend Prof. Amy Fahey writes about Joyce Kilmer, father, poet, soldier, holy fool. 


Beauty and Modern Art. 


To be able to judge beauty, we must train our eye — there’s no substitute! Look and look! Above all, look at as many old forms of art as you can, because modernism isn’t just a loss of beauty, it’s an attack on beauty. So we have to know how things were before — which is not to say that everything old is beautiful; it’s not even to say that everything new is not beautiful! I have been enjoying this blog — here’s an informative article about sculpture made in a traditional way, yet new. 


A description of the Lindisfarne Gospels. I didn’t know that Khan Academy had articles like this one!

From the archives:

Don’t miss the announcement about Mr. Meehan’s Mildly Amusing Mythical Mammals!


Good books from the Library Project.


Starting to think about the upcoming year in the home school? I have lots of disorganized thoughts, including about teaching reading.

Today is the feast of St. John Vianney, Priest, also known as the Curé of Ars. We pray for his intercession for our parish priests! 

 

 

We’d like to be clear that, when we direct you to a site via one of our links, we’re not necessarily endorsing the whole site, but rather just referring you to the individual post in question (unless we state otherwise).

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Habou’s Pinterest.
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Introducing ‘Mythical Mammals!’

As you know, we’re having a baby this fall. But it also feels a little bit like we’re having another baby this summer, because something that The Artist has had up his sleeve for some time now is finally coming to fruition…

I’m very excited that I can now share what we have spent over three years vaguely referring to as “the project:” a marvelous children’s book that I think will constitute a classic for all ages: Mr. Mehan’s Mildly Amusing Mythical Mammals!

Auntie Leila will review it anon and offer a giveaway here (woot!) and you’ve heard about it here on the blog once before. But let me tell you a bit about it now, from behind the scenes.

This book is the quintessential labor of love. It is a collection of poetry written by The Artist’s dear friend and former colleague, Mr. (Dr.) Matthew Mehan. Matthew is one of those naturally artistic souls who is always bursting with ideas both great and small. He is a man who is steeped in the great works of Western civilization, passionate about history, literature, philosophy… and loves a good joke.

He also, as it happens, has quite the knack for writing poems.

He has written one poem for each letter of the alphabet; each letter represented by a “mythical” mammal, ranging from the cute to the sad to the hilarious and the beautiful (and one spooky). Each creature has something to share about the human condition. Young and older children will enjoy just listening to the language and rhythm and latching on to the stunning visuals (more on that below). Young adults and full-grown adults will enjoy puzzling over the layers (visual and literary) behind each Mammal. All parties will have to keep coming back to the book to absorb more details and subtle references each time (they’ll be aided by an extensive and amusing glossary at the back).

It’s the type of book that you will want on your bookshelf because it will never get old; there will always be more to glean. Readers can memorize the poems for recitation. Families can learn the Lullaby of the Vaquita (for the letter ‘V,’ the Vaquita is the one exception, the one non-mythical Mammal in the book: an adorable, endangered dolphin about whom Matthew wrote a lovely song).

Just one of those family treasure-type works!

Matthew has been working on these poems for over a decade. Like I said, it’s been a labor of love for him.

So it was no light decision for him to bring my husband on board as the illustrator responsible for bringing all of these mammals to life on canvas! John’s loving labor took a modest start in the summer of 2014 and then went into full force for the entire summer of 2015 and well into the fall, over the holidays, and into the beginning of 2016. Any time that he wasn’t engaged in his formal studies or tending to his family, he was working on “the project.”

 

{Some of my girlfriends were probably questioning our judgment, wondering why my husband was spending so much time painting images of animals that weren’t even real.}

John and Matthew were in constant communication. In the morning, Matthew would flood John with information about one of the mythical mammals, John would send back a sketch in astonishing time, they’d hash it out, emailing and calling back and forth… John would head into the studio and bust out a full oil painting in a day and send Matthew a photo of the painting by nightfall. Then they’d spend the evening hashing it out again and refining details, and while that one dried, John would start the next.

Twenty-six letters in the alphabet. Twenty-six oil paintings by the end of the summer. So much generated entirely from the imagination. Honestly, I have never witnessed creative energy at such a high pitch. The two of them were on fire. A poet and an artist and a project with so much promise!

And then, when he thought his work was done, there were the illuminated letter blocks to begin… My poor Artist did a draft of the first couple letters, thinking that these would take considerable less time, and was told by his loving wife that they weren’t good enough and he’d have to apply a more intensive technique. So he scrapped his first plan and dug into another series of twenty-six images, each requiring over a day of (rapid, rigorous) work.

The whole time this process was going on, we were occasionally revisiting the poetry, thinking about all the characters, and falling in love with these silly mammals. Matthew and John, although working together from a distance, grew to be quite the creative duo and their friendship increased with their shared work.

 

I originally started this blog post two years ago, back before there was any publishing plan and the hunt was on to find someone to believe in this book, some book-printing type to fall in love with these Mammals the way that we had done. But for some time, the project remained dormant — to the point that it didn’t even seem apt for me to share about it here. Matthew steadily hunted for a lead (while juggling his various responsibilities and, of course, taking care of his growing family) and we had to focus on other things (things that would pay bills in the meantime. And getting John’s Fine Art career off the ground.).

Since Matthew brought John on board, I have laughed over Mammals, I have cried over Mammals. I have talked it up to so many people and I’ve wished that I myself had never heard of it. I have wondered why we were doing this and then gone back and seen the pictures and re-read the poems and been totally smitten all over again.  It’s been so much effort for the Artist. I can only imagine how much Matthew and his wife have poured into it. It has been quite the haul!

 

 

Eventually, Matthew and his wife did some intensive research into the idea of self-publishing. The Artist and I talked it over. For a moment there, it was seeming like the best way to go…

But finally, at long last, a publisher came on to the scene. After a final burst of activity (revisiting everything and getting that final polish on, adding in various new ink illustrations to complement the originals, Matthew’s heroic effort in finishing the delightful appendices), the book is complete and — it’s hard to believe this day has come — actually about to be in our hands in hard copy form! About – I hope – to be in your hands in hard copy form!

In fact, publicly released this very August 15, 2018!

 

{Now I’m kind of wishing I had gotten around to sharing about it a few years ago, as originally planned… just so you could share in how momentous this feels for us! Just look: my firstborn was still in diapers when these paintings were being done:}

Since Mr. Mehan’s Mildly Amusing Mythical Mammals (you can call it ‘M5’ for short) is coming from ‘in house,’ as it were, we will of course be offering 3 giveaway copies here on the blog in a matter of weeks. So stay tuned! In the meantime, you can pre-order the book. When you do get the chance to read it, we sincerely hope that you’ll hop on to Amazon and share a (hopefully raving) review; that will help the book reach more readers!

I can’t wait to share Mammals with you. I’m so proud. I’m sure that the creativity, learning, whimsy, intelligence, and passion that went into producing it will be clear for you to see!

But mostly – and I hope you won’t be offended – I just can’t wait to share it with my kids!

 

 

‘Like’ Mr. Mehan’s Mildly Amusing Mythical Mammals on Facebook to stay up to date on the author’s press tour — Mr. Mehan himself may be coming to a town near you very soon! (He’ll be in St. Louis tomorrow!)

The post Introducing ‘Mythical Mammals!’ appeared first on Like Mother Like Daughter.

{bits & pieces}

The weekly “little of this, little of that” feature here at Like Mother, Like Daughter! 

(This will all look and work better if you click on the actual post and do not remain on the main page.)

 

I made English muffins Thursday for my husband’s Friday morning breakfast, which I guess falls somewhere on a spectrum between habit and tradition.

He normally has a modest breakfast that he fixes for himself — bagel or cereal. If there is a pot of oatmeal out for the kids, he’ll have some.

Sundays we all have a big brunch, so the only other day he allows himself an egg (this is a holdover from the “eggs are bad for your cholesterol” days that I can’t shake him of, also he may not like eggs as much as I do) is Friday, when, coincidentally, he also takes the time to do the New York Times crossword.

For those of you who don’t know, the Times crossword goes from easy on Mondays to epic on Sundays. Fridays are pretty hard. Back in the days when we got an actual newspaper delivered, he’d do the Monday one without picking his pen up off the paper, the way you or I would fill it in if we didn’t care what letters we used.

I started doing them too, so he would let me do Monday through Wednesday, help me with Thursday, and take over for the rest of the week. (Actually, Wednesdays are annoying because they usually feature “popular culture” which neither of us knows much about — still, he can do that one in a matter of minutes).

Friday does take him a little longer, so he settled on a slightly bigger breakfast too on that day. An egg and an English muffin is his indulgence!

Here’s the thing though: English muffins annoy me! They have great texture, what with those nooks and crannies, but if you ever leave one out on the counter and then go to eat it while it’s cold, it tastes exactly like it’s made out of the dust of annoyance. Plus they are not cheap.

I would pay if I found good ones, don’t get me wrong. Standing at a griddle hoping you’ve nooked and crannied the darn lumps of dough is not so great. So although I won’t buy them, I often don’t make them either. Too hot, forgot, too tired, too much other bread to make… Poor Chief… sometimes his egg comes with toast like the rest of the unfortunates.

Well, Thursday was the day. And of course when I posted on IG about it, people wanted a recipe, which of course I don’t have. So I thought I’d tell you what I do here.

Aaaand, I was all ready to write it out, when I realized I have already not given you a recipe, in detail! So you can read that. Rosie linked to someone else’s actual recipe in this post. (Not without some good-natured kidding about my not giving recipes. Deserved.)

The difference is that now I put some sourdough starter in it as well as a little yeast, and that does seem to make the texture even better. I’m still not 100% satisfied in the N&C department (you know, nooks and crannies), but these EMs are pretty darn good.

I hope that if nothing else, I give you confidence to play around with your dough.

The honey is from our bees :)

On to our links!

This week marked the 50th anniversary of the encyclical Humanae Vitae, On Human Life. Never has there been a more controversial document from the Catholic Church. I hope that people(including those in the Church herself) begin to see the fullness of the Church’s teaching on marriage. Humanae Vitae isn’t the only — or even best — expression of that teaching, which is why I wrote about Casti Connubii here on the blog and in my ebook (which I hope to update soon and produce as a paperback).

The Singular Witness of Dr. Herbert Ratner.


Ministers, not masters, of life: Fr. Pokorsky.


A friend shares this quote from the psychiatrist Thomas Szasz: “Traditionally, sex has been a very private, secretive activity. Herein perhaps lies its powerful force for uniting people in a strong bond. As we make sex less secretive, we may rob it of its power to hold men and women together.” John Cuddeback revisits The Odyssey and The Secret of the Marriage Bed. His reflection is powerful and poetic. We’d like to be clear that, when we direct you to a site via one of our links, we’re not necessarily endorsing the whole site, but rather just referring you to the individual post in question (unless we state otherwise).

Other links:

We know so much about health, and we have forgotten a lot too. The Peckish Patient and recovering nursing wisdom.


Socialism, a failed and brutal, murderous ideology, is somehow gaining traction with younger people. I think this is due in part to confusion as to terms; what is capitalism, something that Catholic social teaching has warned against, as opposed to free markets, something it has taught as being in accord with the natural law? And perhaps a failure to make a distinction between free markets and crony capitalism in our highly regulated, technological society has left the door open to even more confusion. A writer I admire, Dr. Samuel Gregg, explains what that is and why we should oppose it: Crony Capitalism: Inefficient, Unjust, and Corrupting.


European socialism! Really? Like in Sweden, where a woman can’t stay home with her child, and children suffer from “emotional poverty”?


In “what is the internet for, anyway” departmental matters, the obligatory cat post.


Masculine dads raise confident daughters. 


I don’t know how to evaluate the stats in this article about happiness and our surroundings, but it makes sense, doesn’t it? It made me think about how orderliness is connected to our sense of well being, and that the person who facilitates it is truly taking care of those around him or her. I think there is value in making a good place for people to be.


For a long time, I just didn’t understand medieval art. Definitely a child of my time, I thought art should move me emotionally and without the filter of symbolism. I remember when my mother began to study Fra Angelico and his works; I just couldn’t relate to any of it. Gradually over the years I have learned more; when the Chief and I went to Florence, I definitely fell in love! Peter Kwasniewski writes a short piece on the artist and a painting of his.


If you need to meditate on how important “wasted time” is, I offer you Fr. Schall on the subject.


Chant camp! 

From the archives:

I think that besides my (ancient) freezer organization post (great photos, not), this one about how to work with your almond fixtures in the bathroom is the most looked at! How funny is that!

Several saints today! Sts. Nazarius and Celsus, St. Victor I, St. Innocent I.

 

We’d like to be clear that, when we direct you to a site via one of our links, we’re not necessarily endorsing the whole site, but rather just referring you to the individual post in question (unless we state otherwise).

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Auntie Leila’s Pinterest.
Rosie’s Pinterest.
Sukie’s Pinterest.
Deirdre’s Pinterest.
Habou’s Pinterest.
Bridget’s Pinterest.
Auntie Leila’s Ravelry.
Auntie Leila’s Instagram.
Rosie’s Instagram.
Sukie’s Instagram.
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Bridget’s Instagram.
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Sausage-poached eggs with your {bits & pieces}

The weekly “little of this, little of that” feature here at Like Mother, Like Daughter! 

(This will all look and work better if you click on the actual post and do not remain on the main page.)

In haste I took some pictures of something I call sausage-poached eggs. Because I don’t like using more than one pan if I can help it, but sausage can tend to make eggs stick when you try to fry or scramble them up without washing out the pan first, I figured out this tasty way to be lazy!

After you make your sausage (patties or links, doesn’t matter) , take them out and add some water to your pan. Boil it up, scraping up all the little bits of sausage stuck to the pan with your metal spatula (the right one is hard to find; I recommend yard sales and thrift stores, because the old-fashioned flexible ones have been driven out of the market by the stupid plastic ones required by non-stick pans — I wrote about it all here).

Break your eggs into the sausagey water. The grease from the meat will keep the whites together nicely, which is always a problem with conventional poaching.

You could put a good number of eggs in there — I was doing three, but I could have done six. The fat also keeps them separate.

The water should be just simmering; cover and cook for 4 minutes.

Et voilá!

This way they are perfectly cooked* with a nice sausagey flavor, and only one pan for the whole operation!

*If I were to be self-critical, I would say that these could have used another 30 seconds and I could have gotten a little more light in the pic to bring it into better focus. But honestly, I just wanted you to know the method, and they were amazing and super duper tasty, so I will let it pass!

 

Next week I will not be posting here — I’ll be in Denver for the Rocky Mountain Catholic Home Educators’ Conference. I’ll be offering the keynote speech on Saturday morning and another talk later before lunch. Will I see you there?

On to our links!

Louisa May Alcott is a taste — the reader has to be ready to enter the idiom of flowery Victorian prose, so foreign to our ear at the moment. But if we can suspend our stark post-modern requirements, we may be edified. The Art of Beautification explores a theme dear to my heart in Alcott’s Jack and Jill.


Librarians Without Chests: A Response to the ALSC’s Denigration of Laura Ingalls Wilder — a text-based inquiry into Laura Ingalls Wilder’s supposed unacceptable views. Really worth a read, since the librarians’ objections are by no means unusual in our day and age. We seem to want not only that those who went before us be found perfectly politically correct; we can’t even allow them to explore them in their own way. Even when they reach thoughtful conclusions, we are not satisfied — yet I wonder how our own unexamined biases will stand the test of time.


Here in the US we are at least nominally able to try to help women going into abortion clinics and appeal to their escorts to give both mother and child a chance at life. There are definitely obstacles (especially here in Massachusetts where a de facto buffer zone, still in place despite a Supreme Court win, keep praying witnesses and sidewalk counselors at a frustrating distance). But we can do it — we can have pregnancy help centers, offer leaflets, and pray. Many babies are saved and many women are rescued from the pain of killing their own child. In the UK it’s not so. My friend Clare has asked that you read and share the story of Alina, a young Romanian woman who was helped by witnesses to keep her daughter and who seeks to challenge the new ruling against any — any! — effort to help women seeking abortions there. Here is the Twitter feed of the pro-life group there (with a little video from Clare). Clare writes:

The abortion lobby absolutely have us caught in a bind and they are crowing. American pro lifers have considerably more brio & confidence than we do and the US Christian culture has not collapsed as dramatically as it has here. We really need America right now to promote our appeal on the media. We need to find philanthropists here & abroad who are willing to donate to preserve the remnant of pro life activity in Europe and nurse it back to life. We need encouragement ( Alina particularly) and we need to know that we are not alone.

Meet “Founding Mother” Mary Katharine Goddard, First Female Postmaster in the U.S. and Printer of the Declaration of Independence.


A consoling piece for discouraged homeschoolers, with a must-read quote from the redoubtable Fr. Rutler.


The Hidden Symbolism of Women in 17th Century Dutch Art.


The experience recounted in this article about how classic cartoons contributed to cultural literacy is mine as well. Missing perhaps is the reality of the time, when the works referenced (in the article and in the cartoons) were all around. People listened to their records, which tended to be of great works of music and particularly opera and jazz; the radio was on more, and often, if it wasn’t music, it was classic stories you’d be hearing; the books on children’s shelves were almost exclusively old classics. That said, the cleverness of the animation captured interest and helped the child get from point A (not being aware of this adult world of culture) to point B (being aware! and loving it). It’s interesting that the generation that grew up on all that took it for granted, but failed to pass it on. Sad.

From the archives: 

Cleaning your kitchen (one post in a series)


Strawberry rhubarb pie — I posted one I made on Instagram (not a great pic, sorry). Here is my method for what is truly the greatest summer pie of all time, sweet and tart, deep and bright red, flakey and buttery.


Read this, not that! Books for your voracious reader. (Too long, didn’t read: get the old books.)

Happy feast of St. Kateri Tekakwitha, a favorite of ours!

We’d like to be clear that, when we direct you to a site via one of our links, we’re not necessarily endorsing the whole site, but rather just referring you to the individual post in question (unless we state otherwise).

Follow us:

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Auntie Leila’s Pinterest.
Rosie’s Pinterest.
Sukie’s Pinterest.
Deirdre’s Pinterest.
Habou’s Pinterest.
Bridget’s Pinterest.
Auntie Leila’s Ravelry.
Auntie Leila’s Instagram.
Rosie’s Instagram.
Sukie’s Instagram.
Deirdre’s Instagram.
Bridget’s Instagram.
Habou’s Instagram.

The post Sausage-poached eggs with your {bits & pieces} appeared first on Like Mother Like Daughter.

{bits & pieces}

The weekly “little of this, little of that” feature here at Like Mother, Like Daughter! 

(This will all look and work better if you click on the actual post and do not remain on the main page.)

 

In this household (which as you may remember is now comprised of us along with Deirdre’s family), there has been lots going on, as The Artist has been working hard at his new studio; and this past week he hung an exhibit at the Bolton Public Library, which is the next town over from us.

This library is super charming. I think you can see that John’s work is rather stellar! I thought I’d share how it looks here — and if you are at all local, do drop in!

 

On to our links!

As readers know, my husband wrote a book, Lost Shepherd (affiliate link), offering evidence that Pope Francis is misleading the Church and encouraging readers to pray and speak the truth. His motivation is not to harm the Church but precisely to demonstrate filial loyalty to the Body of Christ. This is obviously a tricky position, even a disturbing one. One wishes to be loyal — but we must remember that loyalty without truth can have disastrous consequences. You might be interested in this interview with Chilean author José Antonio Ureta, who addresses some of the objections that Pope Francis supporters might raise, and who argues persuasively for the need to defend the Faith.


A beautiful reflection on a beautiful painting: A Rembrandt painting that teaches us about the nature of married love. Perhaps you own or can find an art book that has a reproduction of this painting. Consider sitting with your older children and conversing about Dr. Kwasniewski’s observations about it.


The key-keeper for the Vatican museums.


Some thoughts on The Oxcart Man. I like a lot of what she says. I think there is something the poem (and the artwork) of the book that definitely pulls us in. Perhaps the feminist lens through which our culture views everything (a lens the deployment of which becomes evident at the end of the piece) prevents us from naming this appreciation with accuracy. To me, what is unspoken in this poem, what is so very present that it is like the air — invisible — is the sense of fittingness, of each person having his or her place or role in the work and festivity of life. In the poem we sense a family that works together for peace, with the creativity of love (correctly identified in the article). We relax at the absence of modern relations, which are more Hobbesian — people, even in families, at odds with each other in a sort of tacit war of all against all. It is this sense of fittingness that the poem offers that we both long for and cannot accept, because it requires sacrifice.


Our friend Michael Pakaluk on “Circumcision for Christians” — What is the difference between the sign of circumcision for the Jews and baptism for Christians?


The Artist’s book that he illustrated, Mr. Mehan’s Mildly Amusing Mythical Mammals, has one real animal in it, for the letter V — the Vaquita. This sweet little whale is almost extinct, and today is its “awareness day.” Listen to the lullaby written and composed by Matthew Mehan, author of the book — a charming song included in the text!

 

From the archives:

Looking for a read-aloud that is perfect for the whole family? Dangerous Journey. Trust me.


Competence vs. Perfectionism.


Housewifely things that bring joy and contentment, including apron-wearing…


… and making dinner peacefully, even when it’s a salad on a hot day.

 

Today is the feast of St. Willibald and St. Pantaenus, Father of the Church.

 

 

We’d like to be clear that, when we direct you to a site via one of our links, we’re not necessarily endorsing the whole site, but rather just referring you to the individual post in question (unless we state otherwise).

Follow us:

Follow us on Twitter.
Like us on Facebook.

Auntie Leila’s Pinterest.
Rosie’s Pinterest.
Sukie’s Pinterest.
Deirdre’s Pinterest.
Habou’s Pinterest.
Bridget’s Pinterest.
Auntie Leila’s Ravelry.
Auntie Leila’s Instagram.
Rosie’s Instagram.
Sukie’s Instagram.
Deirdre’s Instagram.
Bridget’s Instagram.
Habou’s Instagram.

The post {bits & pieces} appeared first on Like Mother Like Daughter.

This year’s big MUTU sale – 47% off today only!

Today’s the day of the big sale of the year on the MUTU programs for post-partum wellness, especially addressing Diastasis Recti! Wendy Powell, the lady behind the program, turns 47 today, hence the 47% discount.

Today only! Ends at midnight!

 

To buy, just click the image or use any of the links in my Review of MUTU.

As I’ve mentioned on Facebook, the program has been significantly updated and changed – and the price has gone up – since I wrote my big review of it a few years ago. After I have this baby, I’m planning on getting back on track with the program (and I know I’ll need it to address the DR that keeps coming back with each pregnancy), so I’ll have a better sense at that point about all the changes.  I can tell you that I still do recommend it, but since it’s more expensive now it certainly makes all the more sense to jump on this deepest sale of the year!

It is a very helpful tool for addressing diastasis recti, post-partum weight loss, posture, core strength (which can certainly include lower back pain), overall health and fitness, and, as Wendy puts it, “body confidence” and being a good example to your kids.

If you’re buying the program, I wish you all the best in using it and I hope you’ll have great results! I’d definitely be interested to hear from you about how it goes! Thank you so much for using my affiliate links!

The post This year’s big MUTU sale – 47% off today only! appeared first on Like Mother Like Daughter.

{bits & pieces}

The weekly “little of this, little of that” feature here at Like Mother, Like Daughter! 

(This will all look and work better if you click on the actual post and do not remain on the main page.)

 

At the bottom of this blog I put a quote that I find positively brilliant, not least because it appears in a humble gardening book published quite a while ago:

“A wise lady once said, ‘If you haven’t good judgment you’ll never make a good cook or anything else.'”

– Mary Mason Campbell, Kitchen Gardens

 

What does this mean? How can we get this good judgement she speaks of? Isn’t that something you have or don’t have? Doesn’t it seem unfair to say that if you don’t have this mysterious quality, you’ll never be good at cooking or anything else?

Seems harsh, maybe?

When I started giving my talk about the Four Cardinal Virtues*, I mentioned that it was decisive for my spiritual life to read Joseph Pieper’s book by that name (which is based on the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas and, of course, Aristotle).

I had never thought of virtue at all. To me, you just were the way you were. When I became a Christian, I guess I had a vague idea that God would make you better… I didn’t realize that goodness was something from Him, but also something that we can strive to acquire, and that knowing some things about how virtue operates, and what it is, can help us on that path.

Yes, we have a grace of virtue granted in baptism through which we have Christ’s life (and thus, goodness or virtue) infused in us. But we also can acquire virtue as we grow and learn. In Pieper’s words, St. Thomas speaks of “the pre-eminence of that “fuller” Prudence (which is what “good judgement” basically is) in which the natural and the supernatural, the acquired and the given, are combined in a felicitous, in a literally ‘graced’ unity.”

 

Good judgement, or the virtue of Prudence, comes from experience and memory. We have to do things, or try to do them, make mistakes, remember how things came about, and try again. Prudence can’t be developed without reflecting on our actions after we do them and our experiences after we experience them.

Pieper: “Trueness-to-being of memory, open-mindedness, clear-sighted objectivity in unexpected circumstances: these are qualities of mind of the prudent man. All three are focused upon what is ‘already’ real, upon things past and present… ”

Paradoxically, then, we won’t have good judgement until we make up our minds to try to “be good at” cooking or “everything else” — that is, the task at hand. People always quote G. K. Chesterton’s line that “anything worth doing is worth doing badly” — they may not understand that he was hinting at this development of good judgement, at Prudence, the Queen of Virtues, without which we cannot actually be good. Obviously. At least it’s obvious when we are looking at our children as they stumble about or stammer their words or try to draw their pictures — we see that they have to begin by doing things badly!

I’m convinced that one reason we aren’t “good cooks” or “anything else” in the realm of keeping the home — why we don’t like housework and why we make excuses about not being “good at it” or compare ourselves with another woman and conclude that to her, these things “just come naturally” but don’t happen to “give us joy” so maybe we should go on to something else — is that we simply aren’t willing to learn to do them, even though they really are things we have to do.

We are not good at them, and that makes us sort of despise them, or at least dismiss them.

When I started my married life — you will laugh at me — I literally didn’t know how to sweep a floor. I was much, much worse off than you are! Fortunately, I didn’t get the idea that it didn’t matter; instead (because books like Kitchen Gardens and others came my way, and because of many factors I’m sure I know nothing about), I intuited that trying to learn even simple things and become good at them, even if they frustrated me greatly and seemed both beyond my ability and beneath my notice, would be fruitful for my life with these others who are given to me. Somehow, I did start to see that it was going to be worthwhile to grapple with the work around me.

Yesterday Deirdre and I were musing on the reality that no one would reasonably assume that a woman would take an outside job and not be given a manual, a mentor, and/or some instructions — and that she would need time to master her task. Yet in the realm of home making, our assumption seems to be not only that we won’t try to be good at the aspects of the job, but that just as perhaps in spite of ourselves we are figuring things out (say, when our children get to school age), everyone will expect us to quit and move on to something more fulfilling.

How frustrating! Imagine it!

Are these just years to be muddled through, or is there a real reward in the field, awaiting us?

I maintain the latter! I have a vision of home, a refuge and a radiating light, that yet is comprised of many small doings, some perhaps a bit of a slog (but what job doesn’t have aspects of drudgery?), some amazingly creative, all simply needing to be mastered at some level.

From cleaning your cast iron to reading with your children to having dinner together when they begin to leave the nest, I’m here at Like Mother, Like Daughter to share at least the few things I’ve learned along the way.

 

*I’ll be giving a talk on this subject in Denver, CO, at the Rocky Mountain Home Educators Conference on July 21. I will post information on my Speaking page! Hope to see you there!

 

On to our links!

I have enjoyed this Instagram account: Grown to Cook. Vera’s garden is in Holland, so perhaps her climate is a bit different from mine, but I’ve learned a lot from her videos and photos.


If you homeschool, you might want to take a peek at this post from Celeste, rounding up her year with her twin sixth-graders. I feel a little conflicted linking to it — it probably represents the most you could do with your children, and as such might feel a little daunting, by which I mean utterly impossible. I certainly never reached this pinnacle of education with my children! But I do share because her visuals might help you (click on the pictures to see a larger size); sometimes we just need to see things to get the idea of what to do (or what the kids can do). Sometimes the children need to see what other children are doing! And I love that she uses the Ambleside curriculum. I always say the whole thing can’t be done; she proves me wrong, I guess! Don’t be overwhelmed — just take whatever seems helpful to you and run with it! (Reality Check: Note that she says they do Latin twice a week for 10-15 minutes — surely that is not too overwhelming?)

In the Department of Staying at Home, Economics Division:

I certainly don’t agree with the conclusions of this article: The Two-Income Trap, but the analysis is correct. It’s crazy to base your life together in a family on two incomes. It’s stressful and imprudent and costs too much. The solution obviously is not to have the government make everything free, because nothing is free, taxes just mean everyone has to earn more, and costs are more than monetary (but that’s a discussion for another time). Just try reading it with a different filter. It’s absurd to declare that “the notion that mothers are all going to run pell-mell back to the hearth and turn back the clock to 1950 is absurd.” Why absurd? Mothers, if they are married, certainly can stay home and will, if given half the chance — and if they can feel competent when they do (cue intro music for Like Mother, Like Daughter!) (what IS our intro music??).


This WSJ article: Working Women Often Underestimate Motherhood Costs (sorry, for subscribers only) makes a similar point: It just costs too much in time and money to work and take care of children for all but the very rich (speaking purely economically here — I think the rich are losing as well in other ways, as the stress does not go away no matter how many nannies you have). This goes back to my “it’s crazy” remark: no one rational bases their life plan on everything going smoothly! But every day I hear of people’s lives thrown into chaos when a pregnancy doesn’t go as planned, a child gets sick, or a hospitalization occurs. Right, that’s how life is! You can count on everyone having the flu. If getting sick means a stressful war of all against all as husband and wife battle out whose commitments reign supreme, life will fail to be peaceful on a very basic level.

Some misc:

Figuring out the Liturgical Calendar.


I had a hard time settling on a Fr. Schall essay for you; there were many worthy ones. I did like this one: On Ideology


I’m not sure why or how people think they can dry up Niagara Falls,, but then they go and do it…


Not many people getting married at all these days, but it’s good to know what divorce actually is and if and when the Catholic Church tolerates it.


Get ready: a big Mutu sale is coming up — Deirdre will post about that shortly.

 

Today is the feast of the Roman Martyrs. 

From the archives:

There’s still time to have an Independence Day party! And build the culture.


Reading aloud: A tutorial.

 

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{bits & pieces}

The weekly “little of this, little of that” feature here at Like Mother, Like Daughter! 

(This will all look and work better if you click on the actual post and do not remain on the main page.)

This past week was cool and mostly cloudy, if not actually raining. That makes for great gardening opportunities. I’ve been transplanting and weeding, trying to get things in shape for the hot weather (which is moving in as we speak!).

 

Besides just company and the pitter-patter of little feet and general interesting times, a benefit of having family move in is that there’s a lot more help for projects.

I hope you are interested in the garden, because that is what I’m interested in! I’ll show you a little of what has been happening out there:

The Artist has been turning my compost for me. And the Chief took me out on a date with a manure pile earlier today — we have a neighbor with a great stash — it just gets bigger and bigger (and older, which is the important thing), and his horses are not given any shots that would contaminate the black gold.

Isn’t that a beautiful sight, that pile of manure there?

I’m still planting, so the little spot beside our porch has a steady supply of seedlings that are still waiting for me to find spots for them.

This past week I weeded the one remaining asparagus bed. The other two were gotten into shape by The Artist — he hacked away at all the weeds, covered everything with cardboard, and put wood chips over that. This is my experiment: I am planting some extra seedlings (San Marzano tomatoes and volunteer ground cherries) there. I pulled away the chips, put in a layer of manure and then of finished compost, and then put the plants on top of that.

 

What do I know — I’m just trying things! I have others elsewhere, so no great loss if it doesn’t work.

 

Truly, this is all I care about right now — how the garden is doing!

How about you? What are you up to?

On to our links!

A nice article about how kids in other, less hectic cultures willingly pitch in and do work around the house. I think to understand how we would implement some of these ideas, we would need to detach from our somewhat unrealistic ideas about how our life will look, if we happen to be the persnickety sort, or how little work we actually need to do, if we happen to be… er… slobs. See what you think.

 

Very faithful Catholics take criticisms from clergy very seriously. If a person is trying hard to follow God’s Law and help others to as well, they will be particularly sensitive to the charge that they are rigid, judgmental, and uncharitable. If, further, they are accused of an actual heresy, they may spend a considerable amount of time searching their conscience, convinced that this must be true. Fr. Thomas Weinandy (who wrote a respectful and serious open letter to Pope Francis) writes a consoling and rational — and pointed — essay to clear things up: Gnosticism Today

 

Are you familiar with St. Hildegard von Bingen? She is a doctor of the church, polymath, and artist whose music (I would say “sacred” rather than “mystical”) is lovely. I would take the article with a grain of salt (she was a scientist in the twelfth century, so would have no need to become one in our age), but it’s an introduction.

 

From the archives:

Someone who was getting married in two weeks asked me how to set up her home. That led me to some deeper thoughts… 

 

What can children do? A list.

 

Looking for a substantial summer read? I suggest The Red Horse. It’s available on Kindle and you could get that as a Father’s Day gift with the hard cover version to come later (it is worthwhile to track it down for your actual library).

Today is the memorial of St. John Francis Regis.

A blessed Father’s Day to all!

 

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{bits & pieces}

The weekly “little of this, little of that” feature here at Like Mother, Like Daughter! 

(This will all look and work better if you click on the actual post and do not remain on the main page.)

The peonies are blooming — what a gift! Their scent is heavenly.

 

 

I am still “procrastibaking” (link below) — sourdough has its ups and downs, have to keep working at it!

I’ve decided to leave a strip of buckwheat in the middle of each bed. That way the beds can be tidy (well, tidy for me) and the veggies will benefit from their additions of nutrients to the soil, their weed-proofness, and their attraction of beneficial insects. That’s the theory, anyway! We’ll see!

I planted hops culled from a neighbor’s vine. The idea is that the hops will grow up that trellis and do two things: make a bit of an obstacle for any bees trying to fly towards the driveway (although so far they seem not to do that) and offer Phil wherewithal for his brewing. We’ve been wanting to plant hops for a long time now, but I couldn’t find a place for them and I was super resistant to paying for them, since by all accounts they grow like weeds! Finally I just went onto my Next Door network and asked. Sure enough, a generous fellow offered.

 

 

On to our links!

In the Department of Musings on (Self)Education, I was aware of my son Joseph’s plan to read intensively in one subject for a span of time/number of books, but I hadn’t realized that he had written a post about it. Maybe one of your students would enjoy this approach!


The Chief liked this one from Tony Esolen about What Mothers Cannot Give to Their Sons. It is a good one.


A map of literal translations of countries’ names.


Procrastibaking — sourdough is particularly suitable for this activity.


I think most of us can’t even when we hear that a child has been slapped with a fine for having a lemonade stand. My own kids raked it in with their stands, especially when we lived across the street from a high school. One bus driver made students buy a cup of lemonade from them before they could get on his bus! It’s fun to read that Country Time is offering to pay fines and fees for kids’ lemonade stands!


I have mentioned Sonia Singh and her Tree Change Dolls before. I keep thinking about why I love what she does so very much. The other day when I was scrolling through her Instagram feed I thought about how the dolls reflect something we see in our children. It’s not just that their innocence is under attack, with real forces of darkness trying to invade their minds with corrupting ideas. It’s that their faces actually reflect their stresses. Sonia’s dolls (which she thrifts or finds rather than buying) arrive with expressions of worldliness that could be masks — and sadly, we see these same expressions in real children. Some child actresses are like this (and we can track the changes all too well, since they are recorded for us). I remember one girl striking me as the perfect, perky, all-American lass, so fresh-faced and sweet. Just a few years later, while she was still young, she was ravaged. It showed in her face. I remember my husband pointing out to me that you can see what school often does to children in their eyes. They begin so bright-eyed and eager, and somewhere in the third grade or so, some light goes out.

Sonia works her magic to reveal a soft and healthy light in the dolls’ faces. They become innocent under her brush. To me, she is offering not just refurbished playthings but a real image and even an object lesson in the “two possibilities” that our children might be faced with, so easily…


A beautiful reflection from Sohrab Ahmari on saying the Rosary with his dying grandmother. 


In London, a chapel is restored and made a jewel of a shrine. 


The war on bathroom privacy (and the two sexes).


“Only dogmas can assure us that what we were promised “from the beginning” remains possible in this impossible world.” Fr. Schall on the dark days for dogma.


I have mentioned my respect for Roger Scruton here before. If you are not familiar with him, he is a philosopher of sorts who writes and speaks about beauty, tradition, and other permanent things. I don’t always agree with everything he says, but very often, I find that he has a way of saying what needs to be said. Here, he argues that we need stigmas (I would call them something on a scale from taboos to standards) because without them, all we have is the law, and the law only deals with what has happened, without really preventing things that hurt people. Bring Back Stigma.

Today is the feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary! She is the mother Jesus gave us while he was hanging on the cross, and she has a mother’s heart.

From the archives:

This post has my recommendations for books about marriage, including what types of books not to read.


Some feasts are coming up that may require some planning and forethought (e.g. what cocktails will you serve!): Three Martyrs for Marriage.


And here is our very best effort to help with Father’s Day gift ideas!

 

We’d like to be clear that, when we direct you to a site via one of our links, we’re not necessarily endorsing the whole site, but rather just referring you to the individual post in question (unless we state otherwise).

Follow us:

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Auntie Leila’s Pinterest.
Rosie’s Pinterest.
Sukie’s Pinterest.
Deirdre’s Pinterest.
Habou’s Pinterest.
Bridget’s Pinterest.
Auntie Leila’s Ravelry.
Auntie Leila’s Instagram.
Rosie’s Instagram.
Sukie’s Instagram.
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Bridget’s Instagram.
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The post {bits & pieces} appeared first on Like Mother Like Daughter.

A swarm with your {bits & pieces}

The weekly “little of this, little of that” feature here at Like Mother, Like Daughter! 

(This will all look and work better if you click on the actual post and do not remain on the main page.)

I’m late getting this post out because this morning, as we were getting ready to putter around with some yard and house work, The Artist and I (and the children) noticed some frantic activity in one of the hives.

The bees were swarming!

My granddaughter ran in to get Papa from his study. In a matter of minutes, they had settled over onto the nearest pear tree, which was pretty advantageous — they were within reach, and although the tree is overgrown and obviously in need of pruning, at least they didn’t go further down into the wild tangles of brush.

My theory is that they do want to swarm into a fruit tree, based on this episode plus a beekeeping friend’s experience that his bees always swarmed to the exact same branch on the same apple tree right in his yard. They were so reliable that he made a box with one end the right shape to go over the branch they favored. All he had to do was walk over and shake them into it! This man had about 20 hives in his small city backyard!

 

Before Phil could go collect this swarm, we had to make room for them in the top bar hive, which was still hanging out in the back where the apiary had been. As you will remember, we moved the other two (more conventional Langstroth) hives out in front here near the garden. They have definitely been doing extremely well with the exposure to the early morning sun here on the hillside.

He scootched the two over and we made room for the top bar hive. It all looks very professional and pinteresty, and not at all like three people, only one of whom was currently suited up, had shoved things over and around to make it all work before the bees found somewhere else to go! (I really give John credit for this episode — he is not used to bees and was going way outside his comfort zone to help.)

Later we will put the roof on it — things have to be fixed up a bit. It all happened rather quickly!

(It gets really hot with the suit on — here Phil had shed the top of his suit to go collect some implements for getting the swarm out of the tree, after our hasty hacking together of the extended bee platform.)

 

Note super classy duct-taped bin… and I may or may not have just raided those woodchips to level out the legs of the top bar hive…

He thinks he got the queen, and so far they seem to be settling in! So maybe we now have three colonies! (But the morning’s work isn’t done… and that’s how it goes sometimes!)

On to our links:

I know that many of our readers are in the market for cars that seat a bunch of people. Well, I’m not sure who is in the market for a car that can hold a bunch of gallons of drinks in its numerous — nineteen (19), to be exact — cupholders. Two thoughts that are really not sufficiently explored in these articles, in my opinion: First, I just find it funny that Subaru settled on a prime number, not just a number not divisible by the 8 passengers (7 if you realize that to access two of the cupholders you have to forfeit one passenger) and second, you are not really going to be able to go far with occupants this highly hydrated. You probably can have a car with 19 cupholders or a car that can go far, but not both. Hat tip to my son Will for these stellar investigative articles!


The family is God’s original plan for evangelization. When you devote yourself to the humble beauty of home life, you have no idea the good that you do. Doug Mainwaring writes about how just being near a good family saved his marriage.


“Man must be described according to his persona and the fact that he is created in the image and likeness to God and his vocation to eternal life.” Cardinal Müller addresses gender ideology in response to Dan Mattson’s book, Why I Don’t Call Myself Gay (highly recommended, by the way, by me — this is an affiliate link, and if you use it, a little money comes our way).


A podcast about Operation Rescue, the largest civil disobedience movement in American history. I appreciate the time markers in the post (so you can find your place) and that these interviews are of Bill Cotter, a real American hero who has spent a significant amount of time in jail for rescuing the unborn, and my husband, Phil Lawler, who wrote a good book about the movement and what it means for our time. (Interesting that we now have five — five — bishops who participated in Operation Rescue!)


Right now in Catholic intellectual circles the growing hegemony of relativism has occasioned a turn against the American Founding and its thinkers. This long article by Robert Reilly takes on one of the foremost critics of “liberalism” (in the sense of America’s experiment with basic freedoms within a system of checks and balances), Patrick Deneen. “Around the time of Murray’s book, Leo Strauss pointed out that “unqualified relativism” was characteristic “of Western thought in general” (emphasis added). Indeed, no Catholic country has withstood it and most of them, like Italy and Spain, are in worse shape than the U.S. Why has America proven more stalwart? Why was it the principal redoubt against Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, both of which embodied the voluntarism that Murray decried? And why does America today remain by far the strongest force against the contemporary expression of voluntarism in Islam? Though the United States is obviously not incapable of wholesale defection from the laws of nature, its greatest chance of recovery lies in returning to its principles, not in jettisoning them.”


Homage to Chesterton, by James Matthew Wilson. Orthodoxy was the book that sent me on my way to the Catholic faith: “As Chesterton notes in his introduction to Orthodoxy, all these ideas he came up with on his own, thinking them new, revolutionary, unheralded—only to discover that they were the basic, orthodox positions of Christianity: Life is a Gift; the universe is built of irreplaceable small, personal attachments; our lives are small but great dramas of good and evil, of reason and unreason; our reason and knowledge are real already at the level of common sense and hardly require the withering “tests” of the modern philosophers.”

 

Today is the feast of St. Marcellinus and St. Peter. Tomorrow is Corpus Christi. Will there be a procession where you are?

From the archives:

Planning a wedding? This series from Deirdre will help! (They are all linked at the end.)
Horizontal surface management in the kitchen.

 

We’d like to be clear that, when we direct you to a site via one of our links, we’re not necessarily endorsing the whole site, but rather just referring you to the individual post in question (unless we state otherwise).

Follow us:

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Auntie Leila’s Pinterest.
Rosie’s Pinterest.
Sukie’s Pinterest.
Deirdre’s Pinterest.
Habou’s Pinterest.
Bridget’s Pinterest.
Auntie Leila’s Ravelry.
Auntie Leila’s Instagram.
Rosie’s Instagram.
Sukie’s Instagram.
Deirdre’s Instagram.
Bridget’s Instagram.
Habou’s Instagram.

The post A swarm with your {bits & pieces} appeared first on Like Mother Like Daughter.