Leila Marie Lawler's Blog, page 57

A giveaway of a pocket oratory and a book with your {bits & pieces}!

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

Guess what! Lent is coming soon!

What this means is that very shortly you will be given the opportunity to start on the project you have been contemplating, or to make more beautiful the habits you have instilled already — praying in the Domestic Church!

With delicate foresight, Mother Kirk* has given us two beautiful seasons in which the awkward notions that have crept up on us poor parents can be seamlessly put into practice. Or rather, she offers us built-in seams, so to speak, that cover up our uncertainty about when and how to begin this all-important yet strangely hard-to-implement custom of praying together as a family.

Those seasons are Advent and Lent.

Beginning again — that merciful gift the Church gives us! Lent is a chance to begin again.

Comes a day when the ashes get pressed onto our foreheads and it certainly doesn’t seem odder for us to announce, “your Father and I will be praying Vespers this Lent. You may join us at our little prayer table if you are willing to refrain from being monsters. It will only be for 10 minutes, so perhaps you can manage it.”

And they just do. Or you put them to bed. Either way. Praying occurs. (David and I spell it out in the book. It happens — it truly does!)

To facilitate this endeavor, I am offering you a chance to win two items — and then, when the giveaway is over, a discount on them. One is my book, The Little Oratory: A Beginner’s Guide to Praying in the Home.

Even to this day, someone will ask me, “But how will I teach my children all that they need to know to live their faith,” and it flashes across my brain: “Rosary — night prayers — the Liturgical Year — live your own faith — Lent is a good time — make a place in your home –” and I think, “if only there were a book I could give her!”

So here you go.

 

In this book there is, courtesy of Deirdre, among others, a charming little drawing of a little pocket oratory. I had found a photo of a vintage one, and it’s one of the (or perhaps the most) pinned pin I have.

 

Our friend Nanci has beautifully recreated these pocket oratories, and has graciously offered our readers a custom version (the value is $35), which means that you get to choose specific icons and prayers, as well as the material for the cover, which can be wool felt or real leather (nappa lamb’s leather).

The inside is a lovely linen. You can see different versions on Nanci’s website. I am sure that you could send Nanci your own special medals or crucifix if you were wondering how to use them fittingly.

 

This pocket oratory is really beautifully made and captures the charm of the antique one perfectly. For someone on the go — let’s say a traveling husband who would like a mobile oratory that can fit in a pocket (it’s about two inches square!), or a person whose desk needs a discreet corner for that “loving glance” at holy things that so helps us pray — this oratory would be a tremendous gift.

Leave a comment on this post to enter the giveaway!

And onto our links:

A nice article about the importance of telling our own history in stories. I never knew anyone for telling stories like the Chief does, so I appreciated this reminder.


Ever wonder about how our spelling in English got to be the way it is? This video combines that appealing cartooning with a good explanation. It will help ease those spelling drills to know that all those vexing words bring a little piece of the collective memory along with them.


I always love videos and information about how things are made, and why. The f-hole in violins.


I know every one of my kids would have enjoyed watching this video (probably over and over!): The 107-year-old Hulton Bridge was imploded outside of Pittsburgh in dramatic fashion on Tuesday morning. The century-old bridge was replaced by a newly constructed bridge which opened in October. (I must say the new one is rather boring.)


Time to think about gardening — this no till/no dig method is one I try to use, but I need to work on improving the soil as I do it.


It’s always inspiring to see others’ methods: gardening with raised beds.


Risk compensation. As you read this article, try to think about child-raising as well. There are always risks, and the temptation we are now experiencing is to do our utmost to give the appearance and get the feeling of making a life that entails zero risk. And that’s not only not possible, it backfires, which is the point of the article. I also thought it was interesting that the topic was football, but the author used contraception as an example of the point he was trying to make about risk compensation — confirming a theory I have, which is that you have to see what people say when they aren’t talking about a subject directly. When the issue at hand is condoms, all the experts assure us they solve all the problems. When the issue is football (or what have you), the complexities of life in other areas are acknowledged.


A good long read by Romanus Cessario, in honor of the feast celebrated earlier this week: Aquinas, Doctor for the Ages. I can’t resist some quotes:

Speaking of Aquinas, the pope says, “In him, the Church’s Magisterium has seen and recognized the passion for truth; and, precisely because it stays consistently within the horizon of universal, objective, and transcendent truth, his thought scales ‘heights unthinkable to human intelligence’” (Fides et Ratio, no. 44).

In natural philosophy, Thomists defend the realism of creation, or what some theologians might want to designate the scandal of creation. [my emphasis — a great phrase!]

Rationalism does not prepare the mind to believe that God sent his Son into the world to be its way, truth, and life.

The desire to know the truth that God has placed in the human heart will not disappear, nor will the two wings of faith and reason on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of this truth. Thomas Aquinas illumines the dynamics of this upward flight.

In the old calendar, today is the feast of St. Martina. As we move towards Lent, it’s good to begin a gentle wondering about what God might be asking of us… he’s gently “sowing the seeds” in our hearts. Let’s live our Lent this year! On Pinterest, I have a board: Lenten work for children living the liturgical year.

Also: Candlemas is Tuesday!

From the archives, it might be helpful to take a few steps to avoid February burnout before it happens.

And if you’re planning a wedding, here are some tips about wedding flowers!

Don’t forget to leave a comment to win a book and a pocket oratory!

_____________

*Mother Kirk is a (perhaps gratuitous) reference, as our C. S. Lewis fans will recall, to The Pilgrim’s Regress. She is the traditional church, the mother who shelters us. “Kirk” is Scottish for 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).~

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{pretty, happy, funny, real} ~ Got shelves? edition

What is this {pretty, happy, funny, real} you speak of?

~ {pretty, happy, funny, real} ~

Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life ~

Every Thursday, here at Like Mother, Like Daughter!

The other day you got to talking about actual bookshelves to put your books on (as Rosie warned me you would, but I was trying to stay on-topic, always a challenge for me as we all know), and dear longtime reader Kimberlee suggested a link-up for bookshelves.

That’s a good idea, don’t you think? Do you have any contentment in your bookshelves or about your bookshelves? Or are they {real}?

In my opinion, the two hardest pieces of furniture to procure are chairs and bookshelves. Quality-wise vs. the expense. It’s really frustrating, don’t you think?

Well, if you like, post a picture and link it up! (Instagram works too, just follow the menu.) As always, you can link with any post you would like to!

I was a little abashed, to tell the truth, because at least part of our book issue is taken care of by the built-ins in the Chief’s study. I realize not everyone has this (although if they did, they’d probably take care of them better!).

The books that were here, next to my desk (my hardcover children’s books)…

I’ve moved here.

This was the younger kids’ — and then just Bridget’s —  homeschooling center of operations and now it’s not that any more. And Bridget being Bridget, she had cleaned out that bookcase.

It was an empty bookcase.

The truth is, things are very quiet around here. Bridget should be on her way from Paris to Rome today.

In other news, I re-covered a pillow that was even messier than all the others (using some pretty Minted.com fabric that Natasha gave me).

They have to be piled on the sofa, though, because…

… these ottomans, where they provide some back support, are Roxie’s center of operations now, in that she can rest comfortably and, if needed, keep an eye on the bustling (not) lane. As part of my post-Christmas cleanup, I washed the pillow covers. Hence the determination to keep them away from her until they are needed. I know she thinks she needs pillows, though — can’t you see her sense of deprivation in her eyes?

Making the new pillow cover meant moving the form and fabric out of my workspace, the pantry.

When I get around to organizing that bookcase next to my desk (the one up above), I can move some of these books there — these books in amongst my crafting supplies. Crafting books, of course, and C. S. Lewis. Of course.

And I’m almost done with that second sock! We’ll just ignore any boo-boos (like slight, ever so slight! differences between this one and the long-ago finished first one) — and power on through, right?

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Modest Hospitality: A Hot Cocoa Party

It can be tricky to see friends during the holidays. On the one hand, folks have time off from work and are in the mood for visiting and celebrating, so it seems like it’s prime time to see each other! On the other hand, it’s a time when family takes priority, and many folks go away to be with theirs.

We wanted to visit with our friends and neighbors this Christmas, but we were among those who were out of town for a good chunk of time. If we were to facilitate a time together with local Manchester friends, I knew it had to be simple. We have limited resources, after all (December is expensive!), and we were just coming off of a long trip away, so I was going to have to catch up on things at home and freshen the apartment; I wouldn’t have a lot of time for cleaning and cooking for a full-on party.

So we decided to host an Hot Cocoa Party open house on the 10th Day of Christmas (that was the day that fell on a Sunday afternoon) so that we could catch up with our friends and neighbors in that happy time after the preparations are done but the festivity continues.

It was a hit: easy to put together and easy to clean up after. Our friends all had a good time (or so I believe!) and it was a simple enough concept that I really did get to visit with everyone instead of bustling during the party.

So I thought I’d make some notes, so I can remember what we did — we’re hoping to make it an annual tradition.

Invitations — I sent out an email to our neighbors and a notice on our Pocket page to invite everyone well before Christmas day. I just wanted to put it on everyone’s radar:

~~ Subject Line: 10th Day of Christmas Hot Cocoa Open House ~~

Hi Friends, 

Please join us to celebrate the New Year and the extended Christmas season by dropping by our place for some hot chocolate on Sunday, Jan 3. 


Come by anytime between 1-4. It’s BYOM — Bring your own mug!

Hope to see you there & Merry Christmas,
Deirdre

Preparations —

We cleaned up our kitchen, living room, and the nursery. We removed all extraneous items and stowed them away in our bedroom. In the nursery, we left out only some basic toys: building blocks and a few baby things. We did our best to make our little apartment spacious for the influx of folks.

I made sugar cookies (from the Joy of Cooking cookbook). That was all the baking I did. I was determined that it would be very simple and the focus would just be on sharing a drink.

I did a bit of recipe research, and finally made two crock pots full of This Hot Cocoa Recipe, one of them using dark cocoa and one of them using regular. The second crock pot was borrowed from my mother, and we did need it (we had about 36 adults and children come through, and I replenished the crockpots about halfway through the party). I recommend the recipe – I heard from a couple guests that it was the best hot cocoa they’d ever had!

(There is this Coconut Cocoa recipe, which could be adapted for dairy-free folks. I’ve made it and it’s very tasty, but I recommend thinning it out somehow or not using all the condensed milk, as I found it a little cloying.)

Just before guests arrived, I lit the candles.

Note: I should have started the cocoa earlier, as it really needed a good 1 1/2 hours to mix up and heat up. Our guests were very patient and bore with me even though there was no cocoa immediately available at the beginning of the cocoa party. Oops.

 

The Open House —

We decided on the Open House format since we were apprehensive about our space fitting everyone whom we wanted to invite. Folks felt free to come by for just a short time; a couple families showed up right towards the end (they’d been waiting for their babies to wake up from naps), and we were definitely pleased to see them just for a little bit rather than not at all!; the flow worked out and people came and went, without it ever getting too crowded in here. The kids enjoyed playing the blocks in the nursery and cocoa supervised by their parents.

A few friends had asked if they could bring anything, and I’d said no, thank you – it was just going to be simple cocoa. A couple others kindly brought small contributions, which I put out along with the spread.

Bring Your Own Mug —

The BYOM thing was key. You know how everyone has that one mug that they’re attached to or proud of? Well, they don’t get to share that mug outside of the home, but it is actually a great conversation starter! We had total strangers connecting over interesting mugs and the stories behind them. For another thing, everyone took their mugs with them when they left, meaning very little clean-up for us (which was good, because we were still lagging after New Year’s Eve and not up for much labor that evening)!

 

I put some crushed-up mint candies on the table and they tasted delicious mixed into the cocoa. I’m sure you could come up with lots of other fun additions besides the marshmallows (whipped cream was on my mind but I just didn’t get to it).

I won’t be surprised if some of you have had this idea already – what are your suggestions for a fun Hot Cocoa Party? Or what is a low-key way you like to get friends together during the cold months?

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To educate children, you need books on the shelves.

I wanted to add a few musings about this article we linked to before Christmas that appeared in the New York Times: Our (Bare) Shelves, Ourselves.

Only because I have been working on this here Library Project for so long, just so you can put something on those shelves (and relieve yourself, as one funny reader commented, of the need to “style” them).

 

I get a lot of email about homeschooling and how to go about it — so much that I can’t even really settle on a definitive Ask Auntie Leila post to deal with it. It’s not like cleaning your cast iron pans, where if you buy two things you’re all set. (Although, modern life being in thwart mode, one of those things, the strong, flexible metal spatula, is incredibly hard to source. I know, because the one in the photo died shortly thereafter. I only had it for 36 years.)

Sometimes, I end up with this sort of a post, where I attempt the data dump and only end up making your head spin.

What I want to say is this: There is a way to relieve the burden on yourself to be providing the all-too-elusive “complete education” for your children at every moment. And it’s the same solution to the opposite problem, which is resting too much confidence in that school you are sending them to — the one that you may be paying a lot for, but which simply can’t give them the depth of experience with a life lived with books that they need.

For it’s the home itself that is the learning environment; the medium (as well as the message) of their intellectual formation.

Specifically, for today’s thought, the family simply must have actual books on the bookshelves!

(Or in a wooden box.)

 

The Times article makes this point:

Amazon Kindle’s Family Library enables two adults in a household to share content with each other and up to four children. But parents must explicitly select which of their books their kids can read. So much for the “casual atmosphere of living in a bookish world.”

Leaving aside the “up to four children” nonsense, and also the very real question of where those books are and whom they belong to, let’s think about how much pressure it puts on you, especially if you are homeschooling (but again, even if you are not, because you’re still not only responsible for educating your children, but undeniably you are meant to be their most influential role model), to in a sense come up with an ongoing, relentless “curriculum” in which you somehow give your child the right book at the right time — all the time.

It’s not possible. It’s not desirable. It’s not normal.

 

Yet somehow, between the disappearance of bookstores, perhaps, and maybe even the ubiquity of that sort of new home that doesn’t have many walls (open-concept living doesn’t have much room for bookcases, I think), but most of all because of the socially engineered gap in the collective memory, I see a lot of parents attempting what I consider to be impossible: Raising children without books.

Sometimes I’m in a home where there is plenty of new furniture and everything is neat and tidy — but there are no books! And I truly wonder, “How is it that you are homeschooling? How do you do it?”

Think of it this way. If you have all sorts of books,  you are outsourcing your task of teaching the children everything — which is a pretty good idea. What a relief! And that leaves you free to pursue your own interests. In turn, pursuing your own interests leads to a richer environment in the home, which furthers the education of the children.

I do actually think that it’s possible to learn a lot in a serendipitous way online. There’s no question that you can search for the answer to one question and end up in many possible different enchanting places. You can also (and especially if you are young) end up in a lot of desperately awful places — in a way that you simply can’t in the home library (and couldn’t back in the day in the public library, but that’s another issue).

For a good fundamental education, one actually doesn’t need a vast library, but one does need the habit of picking up a book. Reading doesn’t necessarily come easily. The physical book has an allure that rewards the beginnings of the habit — there is a pleasure in the materials that the book is made of, its illustrations, its binding, that will be lost if everything is leveled to bytes, no matter how useful the virtual product can sometimes be.

I know the difficulty is in having the confidence to commit. Hence, the Library Project — and I discuss how to discern which books you ought to be owning, as well as which ones to avoid. Rosie has a nice post about a Saturday spent book-hunting — you’ll get the idea!

It’s true — you may end up with some awfully random volumes, like “Professional Piano Tuning.” And after a decade or two, things might not be in the right categories. But consider the advantage. At any given moment, your child can be reading about, well, any good thing. Anything at all.

 

 

What is the Like Mother, Like Daughter Library Project?

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{bits & pieces}

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

Yesterday I went to the abortion clinic in Worcester, Massachusetts to pray. Surprised to see so many there, I remembered about the impending blizzard and the cancelled buses.

I’m going to say that I think this is better. I’m all for lobbying Congress and showing numbers, but if there were this many people outside this God-forsaken black hole in the city every week — including two bishops! — it would soon close down.

It is the coldest place on earth in more ways than one.

Afterwards, I stopped at the Goodwill just to see, since it’s not one I usually go to.

A number of years ago I found this sweet set there for a pittance (probably under $10):

Including these little plates and shallow bowls, which I use all the time, actually (so they live in the kitchen):

Well, imagine my gratification when I came across these pieces in the foreground!

Five more little plates, bringing my total to 12, a saucer, bringing my total to 7 (so I’m still missing one), and very petite bowls which I’m sure will come in handy but anyway, I wasn’t leaving them behind.

Score!

I also found this larger (but still small), random sweet plate. I find this kind really useful for putting out a nice cheese (and I have two little glass domes that work perfectly with this sort of plate), or a few cookies on a buffet:

And I like how it looks on my plate rack:

On to our links:

This past week I was pleasantly surprised to see that Crisis Magazine published a piece of mine a little ahead of when they told me they might. See what you think: Auntie Leila on Three Liturgical Changes We Need Now.


Along the lines of our getting organized posts, I found this discussion of Theodore Roosevelt’s time-management to be helpful. For me, a busy day can be much more productive than a slow day, and I think it’s because I know I have to focus on my tasks and get them done efficiently — or as the Chief likes to quote, “Work expands to fit the time available.” We need to teach our children this as well.


This video about “how to play the piano” is just silly and funny.  Spoiler: You don’t learn to play the piano.


Fr. James Schall, SJ on mercy: Mercy Begins Where Justice Ends. I find that Fr. Schall combines the ability to explain something complicated with an understanding of what might be troubling me, and has only gotten more readable the older he becomes.


Maybe it’s worthwhile to record things in journals after all — I mean, the facts, like how much snow fell and what you did about it — like Thomas Jefferson or some other interesting Founder.


“Let the climate change you” — do nothing when faced with a blizzard! No really — do nothing.

A dear reader — was it in the comments? did she email me? — ugh, Auntie Leila loses track sometimes —  is convinced all right not to knit with subpar yarn. But when you live on one income and have little children who cut down on your thrifting opportunities, where and how do you get good yarn without breaking the bank?

Well, my experience is that you need to go thrifting or have a lot of money (please don’t do too much thrifting if you have a lot of money — leave the goodies for the rest of us, and actually, donate yours!). You can certainly find things online in the clearance sections of the yarn sites. But it’s better to poke around in the clearance sections of actual yarn stores, just so you can handle the yarn and know that you really want it — since it will be quite random. (I gave some tips for thrifting in general in this post and as usual, there are great comments!)

There’s also this technique, which would work well for hats and mittens, explained in this video:

From the archives:

The other day I was shopping and couldn’t help noticing a nice gal with her two little girls, implementing the latest technique for managing a child’s behavior. (“Do this one thing to make your child behave! This one trick will solve your problems!” Always involving mirroring their words and making sure you explain you understand them and offering choices.)

It wasn’t working. Her around-four-year-old was being a pain and — surprise! not listening, the toddler was threatening mutiny, and most of all, mom wasn’t enjoying the outing.

I wanted to say — “Don’t manage behavior! Put in the effort so that you enjoy each other!” I wanted her to read this post from a while ago: Your Child Needs Less Patience From You.

Today is the feast of St. Vincent of Saragossa –– and also the feast of the Espousals of Mary and Joseph — their wedding day! When this feast is seen in light of today’s short Gospel (Mark 3:20-21), in which his relatives are pretty sure Jesus “is out of his mind,” it’s quite edifying. I wish you could have heard the sermon I heard at the Abbey at their community Mass, which urged us to be part of the perfect family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph — and not be one of the distant relatives who looks askance at all His doings.

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The remedy for legalized abortion.

I’m reposting what I wrote a few years ago: It says what I think about marching — and when you can’t march — and saving the unborn. Maybe you are sad that you can’t make it to the March for Life this year…

Rededicate yourself to God’s plan of marriage in whatever way you can.  That is the key. Don’t lose heart, and don’t be surprised when the remedy for what is overwhelming, huge, and evil is what is small, humble, and good.

 

Today is a sad day.

It’s hard for me to believe that it’s been forty years since the Supreme Court of the United States made abortion legal.

I ask you to think of one thing on this day when we unite in offering to God our sorrow for this terrible reality of babies taken from their mothers’ wombs.

Abortion is the result of forgetting that God had a plan for man and woman.

It’s not a terrible evil that befalls the child randomly.

Rather, abortion on the scale that we witness today in America is the logical consequence of forgetting that a baby is meant to be the expression of love between a man and a woman who have pledged themselves to unity.

Marriage is the solution to abortion.

Of course, we will always have abortion and all the other ills of our human nature with us. We will always have to fight this fight. With the sheer numbers of babies being killed, it’s very good to march on Washington. It’s good to fight for just laws. It’s very good to try to give witness at an abortion clinic and pray there.

We have to rescue babies.

Rescuing babies is pulling them out of the stream of death as they come by, at great risk to ourselves. It’s reaching out to their mothers who are being sucked under by the maelstrom.

And then some of us must climb upriver to see who or what is throwing them in at the top.

If we want to solve the problem of abortion as a way of life, which is what we have today in our country, we must think of how the babies and their sad mothers are being thrown into the river of death.

Then we must acknowledge and proclaim that a baby is safest when it’s born to a mother and a father who have promised before God and man that they will form a family.

Marriage doesn’t just happen, and isn’t one option among many. It’s an institution that requires great commitment from every person in society, for the simple reason (among many complex ones) that when families are formed through marriage, the weak are given their best chance at being protected.

Today, possibly the greatest act of love for the unborn that you could make is striving your utmost to heal and promote and maintain and provide for and respect marriage.

Know that your own marriage is a good for the whole community. Every person you know — and many you will never see — benefits from your fidelity, your struggle, your resolve to love and honor your spouse. Your sufferings are a fitting incense rising to God — they are not in vain.

When you appreciate your husband as the protector and provider of this safe haven for you and your children, you help the unborn.

When he loves and protects you and your children, he offers society a church in miniature — a sanctuary — and babies everywhere are safer.

Know that when you raise your children to love and respect marriage by treating their own bodies as a temple of the Holy Spirit, you are fighting abortion with all your might. Every watchful, protective moment you spend guarding your children’s purity is a blow against the scourge of abortion.

When you teach your children to internalize the reality that they have a precious gift to give to someone, a gift that, in its turn, will enrich the whole community and the whole world, you do something noble for the fight for the unborn.

When you protect your young children from hearing about offenses against purity and witnessing acts and sights that can only disturb them, you strengthen the fight against abortion.

Know that when you help friends thinking of divorce, showing them that their unity means the world to you — or when you speak to a young woman of respect for her body or to a young man of respect for women, you turn the tide against the violence done to the smallest infant in the womb.

When you show that you believe a child is safest with a mother and a father in a family, and meant by God to be there, you work for the unborn.

Every person can love and respect marriage, God’s plan, by his acts. Be convinced that marriage will heal society, and then act accordingly.

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{pretty, happy, funny, real}

What is this {pretty, happy, funny, real} you speak of?

~ {pretty, happy, funny, real} ~

Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life ~

Every Thursday, here at Like Mother, Like Daughter!

This is pretty much this little girl’s idea of heaven: right in the middle of whatever awesome, exciting, fun mess her big siblings are up to.

Speaking of messes…

We’re finally painting the last of the ugly brown trim! (Or at least, nearly the last of it. The very last is in the laundry room/pantry, which is such a heavily-used room that I’m not sure I can stomach taking it apart enough to paint!)

When we first moved in, we never got around to painting the woodwork in the study because we had shoved all the stuff from all the other rooms into there in order to paint the rest of the house. And by the time we finished with everything else, got everything cleared out of the study, had a baby… we agreed that we’d finish up before we moved (since this is the last actual room left with brown trim), but wouldn’t worry about it too much before.

Well, we have a move within sight (meaning, probably and vaguely, this summer. But of course, no destination yet because Marine Corps) and are trying to check things off our to-do list. So here are a few quick “before” pictures, and hopefully before too long I’ll have some “afters” for you as well.

First, the study. It has this giant built-in bookshelf, which will soon be a cheerful, crisp white. (Don’t worry. I wouldn’t paint over beautiful woodwork. This is not that.)

Did you know we had these great shelves? Probably not, because I never take photos in here. It tends towards the cave-like. (in no small part due to the dark quilted bedspread I hung as a curtain, which serves well for blocking light for tv-watching and insulating a huge and somewhat drafty window. But I’ve always meant to cut it in half and hem it so that we can, you know, open the curtains and take advantage of that big window. Obviously, that has not happened. Hence, cave. Rosie, how can you live like this?)

Anyway, all those books are currently on my bedroom floor, and we are going to do our darndest to part with a few as we put them back on the shelves, because our library has been expanding to fit the available shelf space, and we are going to be in for a rude bookshelf-related awakening whenever we move away from our wonderful cave of a study.

We’re also painting the mantelpiece, which I’ve wanted to do all along but some others (including my husband, who was initially a little hesitant, and the guys who we hired to help with the painting when we first moved in, who thought I was a total crazy lady) required some convincing. I can’t wait.

(Do you like how I tidied nary a toy before snapping my photos?)

What are you working on this week?

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Old-fashioned homeschool planning in a binder.

Today we’ll talk about my old-fashioned homeschool planning, for which I used a binder. This system really helped me get a handle on my curriculum, which I was always putting together myself (as opposed to the obvious sanity-saving measure of just buying a pre-packaged one, no thank you, not for me, I am not attached to my sanity!).

We’ve been having a nice organizing chat here, taking advantage of that January burst of energy, ahead of the February doldrums. (I have a suggestion for fighting off those February blues as well.*)

So far:

If your method of keeping a list of tasks works, go with it. If you need a new thought, how about To-Do’s using sticky notes? Key learning: Make a long list of to-do’s — but only ever focus on 3 to 5 of them at a time, because, well, that’s all you can really do day in and day out.
Make notebooks of your own. This could be mildly helpful to your organizing mojo or it could create a giant mess, but it’s fun and cute and finds a use for those sweet greeting cards you can’t part with.
Other ways and means, including the 5-year journal.
Deirdre dishes on her journal habit and her particular planner.

 

 

And what about homeschooling? I promised you I would show you what I did.

I went through years of homeschooling without ever really recording much at all.

Between using mostly old or free materials and my celebrated lack of commitment when it comes to complicated systems of record-keeping, the method I finally developed could be termed old-fashioned — or bare bones — or simply grossly inadequate.

But you asked!

I will say that psychologically/temperamentally, if you have a tendency to meander around, open dozens of tabs in the course of searching for curriculum ideas, and generally suffer from too many ideas, not too few — it might help to have things written down on paper.

Here in Massachusetts, we don’t have to do a lot of record-keeping in the home school. That fact is somewhat enabling to a lazy person like me. We did the work, but I didn’t record it very well. So this is what I developed (eventually), because actually, even for me — a person who homeschooled almost solely for the purpose of avoiding record-keeping and anything that threatens to be paperwork — having a paper trail is a good thing.

It’s good to be able to prove to yourself and to anyone who has the right to inquire that you are actually doing something in what feels like a jumbled up, blurry succession of days and weeks and months when the pregnancies, nights-long nursing sessions, toddler-wranglings, chauffeurings, and everyday family-life scenarios erase your memory.

Did we read? Did we do grammar? Fractions? French? Did anyone ever write a paper??

 

 

Bonus secret: If you keep a good record of what you did with child #1 in fifth grade, you will have most of the work already done for you when it comes to child #2! Not to mention child #7 who is coming along when you are lacking in, ahem, energy.

I know.

Duh, Auntie Leila.

For those of us who can’t help making up our own curricula, putting the work in writing, up front, is gold. I’m just telling you to save you from my fate. Let’s not re-invent those particular wheels!

How I did it, all disclaimers taken as read:

The binder is basically the “To-Do” list of your home school. Since by the time I figured this system out I was down to my last three kids, I put them all in one binder.

This binder is the outline for the year: one per year. It starts out rather slim, with sections. As the year goes on, the assignment sheet (one per child per week) gets filed after the fact.

In it, you collect your goals, book lists, any random materials that you foresee printing out and using (or come upon in the course of the year) such as black-line maps, extra math practice — anything that you want handy; and pockets for storing productions of the kids that need filing elsewhere, eventually. You can record grades, if you give them (and in high school, you might have to, depending on what colleges are in the offing. I know, it’s dumb.)

All the forms I use I found on the Donna Young site (or made from her inspiration). Again, I am now two years out of the homeschooling business and I made all my decisions before there were a ton of options — not like now. And I have no doubt that there are one bazillion options out there. Still, I will say that poking around on her site is very helpful! If nothing else, she gives you the idea of how to make your own forms. (I particularly like her history timeline forms and thoughts — because to me, a binder for the timeline is also the way to go.)

A binder is flexible. By now you know I like flexible.

In the binder, on the inside cover, put a copy of the school district’s calendar. Trust me. Many things in town go by this calendar, and it’s good to know when their vacations are so you don’t choose that week to go to the Science Museum or what have you. As you make your quarter plans (below), this calendar will be helpful to figure out when the weeks in the quarter actually are. It helps you build in breaks — important if you live in a neighborhood with public school children who will turn up at your door with sleds (I hope they will!!).

 

I start with a sort of book list of some kind — which, guess what, ends up being the curriculum. It’s by no means every book you will read in the year! Nor is it every thing you will do. But it’s the skeleton. (In Massachusetts, this is fine as a statement of the curriculum. Pop a cover letter on that bad boy, stating who’s being homeschooled, send it to the superintendent of schools in the district, and that’s it.)

 

Now you will start to see that I went from the universal to the particular. After countless hours of intensive study and research, complete with grandiose fantasies of the ultimate, classical, Charlotte Mason–driven, and utterly charming year ahead, I would decide on what to do and read. Then I would work out the books I wanted to use. (This is not an easy thing to describe — where to get the books. I have a whole category of posts to direct you, and still don’t get the job done. You’re welcome.)

The Course of Study.

Then I would write out a “course of study.”

 

The Goal

Although at first I scoffed, I realized that I needed to be humble and write down my goals for each subject:

 

 

The goal of “logic and rhetoric” is “to think clearly.” Also, and not in a parallel fashion, “Essays.” But you get the idea.

Again, I think that Donna Young was a genius to encourage us to put this page in our planner. Sometime in February we are going to be wondering why the heck we are reading this random essay. And most importantly, when it comes time to teach the next 10th or 11th grader, we will not want to have to go through all the effort again!

For a sixth grader the goal of the year might be “to write a good sentence.” Usually by the middle of the year, homeschooling parents are in the grips of two opposing wishes: to give up on schooling entirely, and to teach that sixth grader to write like Hemingway. It’s good to open your binder to the “goals” page and read: “Goal: To Write a Good Sentence.” It comes in handy when all your friends are discussing the latest magic curriculum that gets your sixth grader to write like Hemingway.

For two years I homeschooled a friend of Bridget’s along with her. That responsibility didn’t quite shake me out of all my natural aversion to planning and recording, but it did make me a bit more official in writing down my goals:

 

The actual book list was a separate page, but it was there.

 

The Quarter Planning Page

Because I was always putting together a curriculum (no matter how hard I tried to use a pre-packaged one), I needed Donna Young’s “quarter planner” so that I had an overview of the weeks.

 

You can see that you need to make use of some abbreviations — thus, it’s really helpful to make a key of those abbreviations in your book list or at the bottom of the quarter plan. You know, for another year or another week when you have no idea what GWW could possibly ever, ever mean.

Pro-tip: If you want to teach a certain book, such as George Washington’s World, you don’t need someone’s packaged curriculum for that. You need the ability to divide up the book amongst the weeks! Looking at it, and considering your 5th grader’s ability to read and pay attention, you might decide that it will take you five weeks to read and study. (Perhaps it has five chapters, for instance — can’t remember, but that would be the idea.) This was by far the most difficult thing for me to wrap my mind around in my whole homeschooling career: You then plan it for five weeks. There are other books you want to read and study. Just line them up, divide them up, and record what you want to do in your quarterly planner. The good news is that math books are always keyed to a basic 180-day schedule, so you don’t have to worry much about dividing them up.

 

The Weekly Plan

Once you have your quarters mapped out (and there will be three quarters, not four — not in our homeschool, where summer is OFF!!), you can pretty easily come up with a weekly lesson plan. You are just consulting your quarter planner and fleshing out the week’s assignments, complete with activities that are scheduled in.

Although it is not pictured here, I recommend adding music and art along with their practices and lessons.

Eventually I figured out that if I printed out a week’s worth of work and posted it on the fridge, the child could see what was expected (rather than come to me every hour or so to ask what to do, or worse, just disappear), juggle his own assignments, check them off, and actually learn to manage his own time. And we’d still be on track to achieve our goals.

 

When  a week’s work is done, file it in the binder on top of the quarterly form. At the end of the year you should have three quarter pages, in reverse order, separated by their respective weekly plans, also in reverse order. That is, when you open the binder, the May weekly plans should be on top.

As time went by, I did start doing these weekly plans out on the computer and printing them out. And now I see that Donna Young has a way to sync your plans on your Google calendar. So I’m sure all of this can be put online.

 

The binder helps you go from the general to the particular. It helps you keep a record. It keeps you from being at the mercy of your sudden bright ideas about the one true way to achieve enlightenment. And it’s flexible, because you can open it up and insert a page when you need to!

Making your own curriculum isn’t easy. But a homeschool planning binder really helps.

____________________________

*In addition to the bright ideas in that post, after reading this one, you can see how energizing it would be to be able to look at your goals and lists in your binder. “Oh, right, I already thought this through last August… “

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{bits & pieces} and more about journals

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

My mom got into the topic of journals and notebooks this past week. A favorite topic of mine!

I have witnessed her sticky note/to-do system in action. It is sleek, it is intriguing, and it is clearly very effective for her. But, in a rare case of Like Mother, Unlike Daughter, I have to say no stickies for me; this girl has to write out All the Thoughts in pretty, bound notebooks, forever to remain in ink. Hand me the commitment-y journal and let me fill it in from cover to cover, please!

Here is the stack of journals in which I am currently writing:

From top to bottom:

My prayer journal (small size; for reflections, intentions, and Scripture verses I record) —

My Peabodee journal (I discovered that I felt I was carrying a boy when, while about seven months pregnant, I allowed myself to choose this very blue journal in which to record my thoughts to him while in utero and during his infancy; I write down notes about him and notes to him, and intend to hold on to it and then hand it over to him when he’s grown up) —

My daily planner (see photo of inside, below; it was a requested gift from The Artist this past Christmas; had an extremely appealing cover, until a certain little two year old decided to venture into Naughty Pen Use territory all over its cover; will have to give it a fresh brown bag cover I think…) —

My personal journal (where I write out my longer and deeper reflections and records of events. I have been keeping a journal faithfully since I was a young teen about which time I realized that, while I will never forget a song lyric, I have pretty pathetic long-term memory about my own LIFE; it is important to me to make a record of my days, even if it’s hard to get around to it more than a few times a month) (it has a magnetic closure, which I enjoy) —

My Log/5 Year Journal (the latest addition to my collection; a Christmas gift from my mom about which I am stoked; in addition to its other attractions, I think it will help me to recollect things for when I want to get into detail in the personal journal [above]) —

My Finnabee journal (Starting when I was pregnant with her, I kept a journal of notes to and about her, much like the one for Peabodee, mentioned above, but that got filled up by about the time she was 1. Since then, of course, she’s only grown more noteworthy, with her own thoughts and hilarious comments and things she can request me to write down for her; her other grandmother gave it to her/me this past Christmas).

 

I let The Artist know that I did want to start using a planner, but I definitely needed something with lines to write on (read: journal-y), not too scrunched or just in calendar form. He got me the perfect thing. It now functions as my spot for recording meal plans, dates/appointments, and my daily to-do lists. We’ll see how it does at keeping me abreast of birthdays and other important dates. (Clever that it started with the last days of 2015, right? I didn’t get around to opening it until after Christmas, but I appreciate the thought from whomever designed it.)

Inside view of the daily planner:

Love me some paper goods! Especially the ones that stick around! Feel free to call me crazy.

 

On to this week’s links!

Being organized and feeling happy in the home:

Auntie Leila suggested that I post this, which I found amusing because I know that I have posted it before (and at her suggestion!), and that it’s one of the b&p items that I recall most frequently! So, even though it’s been here already, I figure it has earned a re-sharing: How to Stage Your Home for Living. That is: don’t “stage” it just to move away — enjoy it! We don’t want to move away from a home full of defects that, we find, we were living with for no reason. (Which is why a to-do list is so helpful.)

A kind of bonus LMLD archives section, all about organizing:

How to Declutter – Shelves in the Closet; Happy Thought Indeed!


See your home the way others see it – How do Others See Your Home? [You know I love my Chesternest but oh how I wish I had an entryway — any kind of an entryway! — especially now that it’s winter. Folks coming through our door tumble right into our main space, with nary an inch available for hanging a coat nor tossing a purse. It’s tricky.]


Start in the Bedroom


Scroll through the Cleaning Section for further instruction (NB: it’s the one section in the menu bar (so far) in which the posts are organized in nice, approachable thumbnails! {Are you so proud of us?})

Theology/Philosophy:

Ever wonder about Confession? Or you know about it but you’re not sure if you’re doing it right? St. Francis de Sales’ Guide to Reconciliation.


What Narrative Theology Forgot. Some deeper reading on “narrative theology,” aka conversion stories.


Written by a fellow alumna of mine: We’re All Trapped in the Twitter Cave. Some good thoughts to ponder when we’re getting a bit unmoored out there on the webs.

Fun Miscellany:

I was surprised by how interesting and enjoyable I found this to be (perhaps partly because I’ve dropped off, these past few years, in listening to Classical music, so many of these themes seemed like old friends):

From the Archives:

Just in case you needed some more LMLD reading, on a random basis:

January means Crafting Reveal!


A Good Sentence; or, What to do while you are not panicking about how to teach your child to write.

 

In the Liturgical Year:

Today is the feast of St. Marcellus and St. Honoratus!

 

 

~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.
Bridget’s Pinterest.
Habou’s Blog: Corner Art Studio.
Auntie Leila’s Ravelry.
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Sukie’s Instagram.
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{pretty, happy, funny, real}

What is this {pretty, happy, funny, real} you speak of?

 

The Christmas things packed up but not put away…

The fabric beckoning…

 

A teatowel on clearance that I could not resist: $3 well spent — can I get an AMEN?!?

The finches love the thistle seeds.

 

I won’t put these stockings away until I finish the last bit, which is turning down the tops to bind the unfinished seam inside. Meant to do it last year. And the year before… No way can I do it next Advent when it comes time to put them out again!

 

I finished the last pair. They are wonky. But it will be spring soon…

What’s going on at your house? Link up and let us know!

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