Leila Marie Lawler's Blog, page 58

The Reasonably Organized Life, a little series of sorts.

A little series is being born! We are getting organized here. Reasonably organized (in the same spirit as the Reasonably Clean House — no overwhelmingness!)

The first post: sticky notes to the rescue for those of us who have commitment anxiety when it comes to using a precious notebook for something as irrevocable as taking notes.

Then, making a notebook out of found materials may help, and at least is cute and allows us to handle paper in our dreamy way, if not actually to use it.

 

I thought I might show you some other ways I use to keep myself from forgetting things… if for no other reason than giving you that great sense that you are doing okay, after all!

I was talking to Rosie and she was mentioning the beautiful Bullet journal of dear Bobbi from Revolution of Love. Go look. Right? How appealing is that? Maybe we can get Rosie to show us her own attempts, inspired by Bobbi’s, because I can assure you that this will never happen for me — there is commitment all over those pages! Pages and pages of beautiful commitment!

My commitment anxiety is why I still have a big, blank wall in my dining room:

Someday to be a photo wall, probably coming together around a major holiday. (This is a reference to me finally hanging some paintings in the living room on Thanksgiving morning, which almost certainly took a few months off Natasha’s life, although I hope not — by now she knows me, right?? And she was so helpful! Without her and the rest of Team Commitment, couldn’t have done it. Pictures to come.)

We are all about doing things the pretty way here at LMLD, which, sadly, the Post-It way of To-Dos is not.

I already admitted that.

And I pledge to you that I will work on upping the aesthetics, probably using the glue stick stuff that was mentioned in the comments, but it will take me a while.

Today let’s talk about all the other ways of getting your life Reasonably Organized. Aristotle (not to pull out any heavy guns or anything) said that we ought to have right order. And we should put in the proper amount of time into achieving right order – the time itself must be ordered. In other words, I at least often fail at my efforts to organize because of two things: 1. I just don’t, or 2. I put an inordinate amount of time and energy into doing something that doesn’t merit it.

Also, know thyself, because if you are the type to go down the rabbit hole of organizing systems, you may never emerge to, you know, get things done.

So what works for me in the different areas of life? There’s no one system. It’s a collection.

Figuring out menus: I have worksheets for you and a really fool-proof method of getting the food organized, shopping for it, and keeping notes about it. You will need a binder, most likely.

 

Deep thoughts: For those, I use notebooks, journals, and Evernote. The latter is good for those things you are collecting as you are online. Quotes, sites, smart essays that you don’t want to lose. Not everything! Just the good stuff you want to return to — bits of info that, back in the day, you would have clipped and put in a filing cabinet.

So this notebook here on top:

Too good/pretty/formal to actually use as a journal. It holds the names, birthdays, christening days, and other info of my grandchildren. I use my best handwriting in it. I agonized about how many pages to leave in between each child… The map-covered one was some sort of attempt to write about one particular category of ideas. Can’t even remember. The battered one is my actual journal, kept over about 10 years, so, yeah. And under that…

A five-year journal.

Let me explain.

You think you will remember the actual events of your life (as opposed to how you felt about them and your deepest most intimate thoughts about them), but the years will go by and you won’t even remember them at all, much less the year they occurred. Things like the names of the couple who befriended you in Rome, or that you met anyone on that trip, or what your favorite restaurant was, or the sequence of events that time the sale of the house fell through, or what the lawyer’s funny secretary said at the meeting. Ever wonder how, in their memoirs, people remember all those names and events?

Well, they had what amounts to a log. This is that.

This is the best 5-Year Journal I could find. I started it in the middle of last year, and that is why the year above is blank — by July it will be the second entry on each page. Now is a good time to start yours. It could be kept by more than one person in the family. The point is to log what happened — and that is why in historical records you will find “bought six carts of hay” along with “Dad died” which seems heartless but — that’s the kind of record it is. You write in it every day. Just a little.

Finally, I learned that for purposes of writing and giving talks, I need quotes and references on index cards. So now you know how hopelessly old-school I am, despite my best efforts to do things digitally. However, there is no substitute, I have found, for going through those note cards and being able to handle them, put them in the order I want and need, and then file them back away. I am going to need a bigger card file, though…

Yes, there are 3 x 5 cards and 4 x 6 cards. All in there together.

I also learned — too late, alas, but trying to make up for it now — that it’s a good idea to write in your books (one of the many good thoughts in How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler). I used to be super anti marking up a book. But  — you don’t want to have to reread all your books (unless you want to!) in order to remember what you thought. You want to have a conversation with your future, possibly busy-because-she’s-preparing-a-talk-or-teaching-a-class-or-simply-making-a-point self.

Underline and make notes in the margin in a way that doesn’t make the text unreadable — but do it.

(This charming page is from The Memoirs of Louis Bouyer, a book with a fantastic beginning and a fantastic ending — and basically a romp through his log book in between — names and dates and places and not too much more!)

Google calendar: You need it to be able to see your recurring and one-time events and those of your spouse. You can have a big white board in the kitchen, but if you are both on the go, online is best. Want to escape from the sense that your husband has no idea when soccer practice is, even though it’s the same blasted days every week? Put it on the sync-able calendar. Ditto pulling all your calendars together. In the olden days, I had yet another binder for all the sports and activities’ calendars, and I’d have to transfer them all onto my big kitchen calendar. Now, that activity better use a google calendar so you can add it to yours. You can color code them, and it’s amazing.

Pinterest: I think that those who find Pinterest useless are using it all wrong. You might want to read this post on how Pinterest can help you train your eye and become a better homemaker (that post has another link in which I talk about it even more).

Homeschooling: I will put all that in another post. It’s too old-fashioned for you anyway!

Those are my ways. They may not be your ways, and that’s fine! Tell us how you do it!

And know that it’s still like this, next to my desk:

The post The Reasonably Organized Life, a little series of sorts. appeared first on Like Mother Like Daughter.

{bits & pieces}

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

 

 

{A good stack of cute mittens whipped up in no time with chunky yarn, including hacking one pair when I of course ran out of yarn. Not pictured: the pair I made, having conquered two-at-a-time Magic Loop, only to find at the veeeeerrrrrryyyy end that I cast on different numbers of stitches at the start. And I’m not crazy about the yarn, to the extent that I’m not sure I can face making two more; although I did buy — and wind into a ball — extra so I wouldn’t run out. SIGH.}

This spring, probably in May, the Chief and I are going to go to Europe! Some of our dear readers over the years who live in Europe have asked me to let them know if this ever happens, and it’s happening. Bridget is studying abroad this semester (in the Rome program of The Thomas More College, which is an amazing opportunity — if you have a child headed to college, do check it out) and we would like to visit her and do some traveling of our own.

Do you live in France, Italy, England, Ireland, or somewhere in that neck of the woods? Would you be interested in meeting up with me and the Chief?

Send me a message at leilamarielawler at gmail dot com — don’t worry, we’ll just see what’s up, no commitments, no pressure — and we will see what we can do!

This week’s links:

The Incredible Thing We Do During Conversations. “When you take into account the complexity of what’s going into these short turns, you start to realize that this is an elite behavior,” says Levinson. “Dolphins can swim amazingly fast, and eagles can fly as high as a jet, but this is our trick.”


Habou alerted me to amazing churches that are built from the top down. 


If you have 4 minutes, you can watch lace-makers at work in Italy, young and old. A friend passed this along with the comment that “it’s a nice short video, showing the passing down of beauty and gracious living; the music is pleasant too.”

 

If we had had the mental wherewithal to post a {bits & pieces} during the Christmas season, I would have made sure you read this great post then. However, for this, the Vigil of the Baptism of the Lord, perhaps it is still appropriate — perhaps it will encourage you as you look back over the season and wonder if your efforts to keep the feast were worthwhile. Be sure to read right to the end. In fact, it’s one to read aloud to the family as I did, without knowing where it was going: Old Earl’s Christmas.


Are you studying the Normal Conquest? Our dear friend Cathy sent this link our way: An animation of part of the Bayeux Tapestry. My mind immediately turned to working with a history timeline with the children. You could show them this video, which would help them to learn to “read” such a “document.” It really brings the tapestry to life without overdoing the didacticism. I think this animation would help with the timeline work and make it more enjoyable and creative — imagine what children could do with trying to copy the artwork in their own way.




I love that you all want to talk about organization stuff like using sticky notes for the To-Do list — me too! In this post about making your own notebooks, I mentioned binder rings. Here is a nice post (not mine): mini books using binder rings.  Soooo appealing to me…


The next best thing to reading our favorite authors (C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Jane Austen, etc.), as I always say, is reading about them. This article called Beyond Romance of Jane Austen’s Work is a promising start to what seems like a good series. It’s especially nice to read a clear argument about happiness. Man is made for happiness, and even those who are bad still seek happiness and think they are obtaining it, only to be disappointed.


Your long read for this week — but very much worth it: Awakening the Moral Imagination by Vigen Guroian. Especially if you consider yourself “more about facts.” It’s not enough to know morality as a sort of science, or teach it by precept (except for really fundamental things like learning the Ten Commandments, which is different and far from what contemporary teachers are thinking of); far less are “values” substitutes for virtues. This essay succeeds in discussing fairy tales and Nietzsche and Chesterton — so you can see why it’s a bit longer! I addressed the issue of how to teach a child character more briefly, with no overt mention of modernist philosophers, in this post: Just Say No to “Books That Build Character.”

From the archives:

I just updated this post about a super frugal dinner, Boston Baked Beans, to add the information about just how cheap it is. That’s because a reader challenged me about running the oven all day. Dear Margo in the comments mentioned baking something slow along with the beans (like rice pudding!) and of course there’s always getting that butternut squash cooked the right way (I still have some from the harvest, even with stashing a bunch!) and doing the pot roast for Sunday — all of which would make it almost paying you to bake your beans.


Self control and where to get it: Musings on teaching children self control (and why) as well as thoughts on where our impatience with them really comes from — maybe something to throw into your resolution mix in this new year.


Standards and Solidarity: 10 Ways to Give Your Children the Gift of Purity — it’s all remote preparation. Don’t panic.

Tomorrow is the Baptism of the Lord. If you have a chance, do view this movie called The Star of Bethlehem. It brings a whole new meaning to the psalm about how “the heavens proclaim your glory, O Lord.” (Psalm 19) Happy last of the Epiphany!

 

~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 on Twitter.
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Auntie Leila’s Pinterest.
Rosie’s Pinterest.
Sukie’s Pinterest.
Deirdre’s Pinterest.
Habou’s Pinterest.
Bridget’s Pinterest.
Habou’s Blog: Corner Art Studio.
Auntie Leila’s Ravelry.
Auntie Leila’s Instagram.
Rosie’s Instagram.
Sukie’s Instagram.
Bridget’s Instagram.

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{pretty, happy, funny, real} ~ Christmas photo dump edition!

~ {pretty, happy, funny, real} ~

Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life ~

Every Thursday, here at Like Mother, Like Daughter!

{pretty}

{happy}

Five years old! Can you believe it? (And wearing a tie to his own birthday party because he’s a snappy dresser.)

We had a big ice storm right after Christmas that took out our power for about 24 hours. It was cold, and it was a bit of a hassle, but thankfully we didn’t have much to do anyways besides sit bundled up in front of our fireplace (which, ps, is definitely more for ambiance than heat production, so thank goodness we don’t usually rely on it for that!) and play with our Christmas gifts.

{funny}

While the power was out, Pippo was convinced that he could do his Legos by candlelight (aka, the light of one candle), and then conceded that perhaps his little camping lantern would be helpful as well.

In case you were wondering, it was still much too dark to do Legos. But you can’t say they didn’t try.

And this little munchkin got herself stuck behind the Christmas tree while her big siblings were playing outside. But they were right outside that window, so she happily stood there wedged between the tree and the windowsill, watching them play and wishing she were big, too. (Poor baby!)

{real}

Cupcakes in the laundry room? This is the sort of thing that happens when you regularly run out of horizontal surfaces in your house. (Especially when your sideboard has been pressed into Nativity-display duty.) My washer and dryer have been pulling double duty lately as Baking Project and Lego staging areas, which leads to quite the shuffling game when it comes time to, you know, actually wash clothes.

PSA: these were Joy the Baker’s dulce de leche cupcakes, chosen for their ability to pass as “Gold” cake for our Epiphany dinner, and they were dee-licious.

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Make your own notebook.

Yesterday I told you about using a little notebook and sticky notes to get those To-Dos under control. Today I want to give you a little idea or two about how to make a notebook that’s just right for you, since I’m not seeing just what I want out there in the stores.

 

I do love a little notebook I can slip in my purse or even put in a book to jot down notes that occur to me, and certainly, with my sticky-note system, something custom-made would be really useful.

The key to this craft is having a supply of cards or stiff paper from a calendar, let’s say, that you can’t really be parted from. This is the sort of thing I tend to stockpile.

I used to get calendars like this one:

The pictures were amazingly appealing and printed on very stiff cardstock paper.

For the To-Do notebook, and this is important, you will want your inside papers also to be very stiff and somewhat glossy. And you won’t need many. You can think about how many tabs you will have and make that many pages. (I explain the tabs in yesterday’s post.) So maybe 2 “signatures” (pieces of paper that you will cut and fold in half to be bound between the “covers” which are your precious greeting card or calendar page, for instance).

You need thick thread, like upholstery thread.

 

And a nice heavy needle. An implement for poking a hole helps as well, especially with the thicker paper — a larger pin or a sort of small awl helps.

 

Measure out where the stitches will go. I don’t know why my ruler appears so very… sticky… or something. I promise I wasn’t eating anything while doing this! Choose an odd number of stitch points, evenly spaced, and leave enough space on the ends so that you can manipulate the thread at the end.

You want to start your thread in between the cover and the bottom of the pages, so that your loose ends don’t show in the end. Here we have a picture of my needle heading in towards the inside center of the notebook at the top, but not through the first hole in the cover. At the end, you will come up through that hole in the cover and tie off in between the sheets.

You are doing a “running stitch,” but because you will come back up, each stitch will end up with thread on either side, inside and outside.

See, this next photo is your needle coming up through the “last” hole which is the “first” that you skipped at the beginning. That way, your knot is hidden.

This is confusing just because the calendar photo is so realistic that it looks like a real spoon there! But it’s the picture. See the knot?

 

You could also fasten your notebook together with these fasteners if you’d rather not sew, in which case you’d also need a small hole punch or certainly the awl:

I love crafts like this. And I love that it’s a way to keep a favorite card or page and use it again.

For this one, I made a little pocket on the inside flap. It’s super easy — just cut the shape you want and glue the very edges of the straight sides to the edges of the page.

Are notebooks still appealing to you in this digital age? Do you find ink and paper indispensable? Or have you moved on?

 

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Simplify your To-Do list with sticky notes.

This is it, your New Year’s resolutions’ best friend — How to simplify your To-Do list with sticky notes.

I’ve finally figured out a system for keeping myself in lists that help me get things done, rather than a system that exists for its own sake. Do you know what I mean? Those planners that require their own block of time to manage? As if managing my life isn’t hard enough, I have to manage the planner as well?

 

My tree may not last too much longer. It smells amazing, though! I feel like the whole question of how long to keep the tree around answers itself as its poor branches droop ever lower and its needles start to make me insane as they swoosh to the floor every time I come near.

And just like that, our minds turn to clearing out and getting organized.

Every morning, this is the conversation between me and the Chief:

Him: “So, hon, whatcha doin today?”

Me: “Oh, getting organized…”

Sound familiar?

Let’s talk lists, which are our friends.

I’m a huge fan of cut-up scrap paper. There’s nothing like a piece of paper that costs you nothing — that you are re-purposing and recycling — that you are being virtuous by using! I like to grab a pen and a scrap of paper and make a list. For years, that’s how I did my to-dos. Just jotted them down.

 

There’s nothing that says “you are so thrifty” like finding a use for a piece of paper that’s so old it has a FAX number on it, am I right??

{I pause this post to say: that the only effective way to make your grocery list is in order of the aisles. You are going to forget things, even written down things. Make it less likely to forget — although of course not impossible — by using the layout of the store, rather than the order the things occurred to you, in your list. If necessary, re-write the list, which you can do because it’s just scrap paper.}

Nowadays I might take a picture of my list to have it on my phone. But I’ve not yet found a way to make the actual list, organized by aisle, that beats just writing it down on a piece of paper!

 

However, for your To-Do list, I’ve found a way that’s been working for me for a while now, and solves the “where the heck are my little scraps of paper” issue. It might help you, because it makes use of one of the most important principles of time management, which is this:

Only have 3 to 5 things on your To-Do list.

I read an interesting article (don’t know where, sorry) that said that the most effective corporate executive types have only five things on their To-Do list. But as a mother, I know that there are already many, many things which we haven’t chosen that are already on the list before we even get started, such as laundry, making meals, changing diapers, tidying up… and we also have to have planners for homeschooling and menus. And then we get to the To-Dos…

So I say 3 things.

Three things on your To-Do list each day.

The big question becomes, how to figure out what those three things are?

And the answer is also simple. You need a little chunk of time to do it, and I recommend doing it in whatever you consider your prayer time. This is because what we do with our time is very much a spiritual issue. So it’s actually a good use of prayer to sit in God’s presence and discuss all those things that weigh us down.

Go ahead and talk it over with Him, pen and paper in hand. Make a list of 10 or 25 or 50 or however many things you think need to be done. It’s the Master List. It should have All The Things. Getting photos organized, cleaning out closets, calling the insurance company, figuring out a bill-pay system, planning your school year — all the calls, all the projects, all the commitments.

Now, looking at all those things, which are the top three that you could do today?** Maybe the insurance company simply must be called today. Okay, that’s #1. Maybe you have to go to the store or everyone will starve. And maybe there is a pile of boxes blocking the door that have to be taken out to the garage.

There you go. Three things… in addition, of course, to all your other duties, which just get done whether they are written down or not, so unless they are out of the ordinary (say, there are four laundry baskets that must be dealt with or you can’t do your normal laundry), just don’t write them down.

Now what I’ve discovered is that using sticky notes really helps and represents a significant (although considerably less thrifty***) improvement over the scrap-paper method. The improvement consists in giving you a visual, which I find important, and also in allowing you to discard that which you have completed, which I find gratifying.

I had something like this mind and tried to find a method already worked out. I found this one, and I encourage you to read up on how she implements the sticky-note method. I refined it a little for my purposes.

First, it seems really important to me that your notes go onto durable pages. I was picturing a small spiral-bound photo album, the pages of which are practically laminated. You don’t want too many pages, though, because that’s too much pressure to multiply the tasks! We have enough tasks as it is. But I couldn’t find what I was looking for.

The pages should at least be cardstock, to be sturdy enough to take a lot of sticking and unsticking of notes. And that’s hard to find. I had this notebook that Natasha had given me. It’s from Minted, very cute. The pages are rather thicker than normal notebook paper, and it’s a good size.

 

In theory you could have a “notebook” that consisted of two covers — just a folder, really. You would open it up and there would be your To-Dos. I guess you’d need one more page to stow your unused sticky notes on. But…

… I realized I wanted tabs.

Fortunately, you can get sticky tabs. The main thing is that the ability to change this system around — its flexibility — is very appealing to me. I don’t like my organization to be too dedicated. I like to be able to feel that I’m not a slave to it, but rather that it’s serving me. I guess I have commitment anxiety when it comes to organization. (The sticky aspect has already worked out when I realized I hated having the tabs on top and needed to move them to the side. Phew.)

I quickly realized that I might have three or however many things to do today, but there are going to be a lot of other things that need to stay near the top of the list. And that’s my “tomorrow” tab. I like to see the queue, you know?

Your Master List — that list of the overwhelming bazillion things you have to do (but suspect you’ll never get to) — can go in the back pages. And you can have other, less pressing notes under their own tabs.

 

Mine has been in use, so forgive the somewhat shabby nature of it. This is the page, above, that I open to every morning. It never changes — only the stickies on it change. (The inside cover is printed with that little picture of Pippo. Cute.)

On the left are prayers, special intentions, for people (you are on it, dear reader! Pray for me too!).****

On the right are the To-Dos — JUST FOR TODAY. Some days I need a sort of schedule and almost hourly breakdown, and that’s when the longer sticky note comes in handy. But usually it’s one task (or set of tasks, as I like to make the most of my notes) per note. I can move the notes around, of course, so that I have a visual of which to do first.

When it’s done, that note gets thrown away. (If I need an archive, there’s that Master List and I can cross it out there. But most tasks are not memorable! “Go to the Bank” is not something I need to remember that I did, years from now!)

And there’s that little stash of the notes inside the back cover, replenished once in a while when needed.

This is my “tomorrow” page, which is a loose conglomeration of vague things that need to be done, eventually; or even just thought about.

I also have a page for my blog ideas, my crafting hopes and dreams, and so on. I have other notebooks and an index card file for other organizing of more extensive thoughts and notes, but for T0-Dos, this is the way that works the best for me.

There you have it. I’ve always wanted a To-Do system that’s flexible, portable, simple, and visual. I’ve tried many, many others. This is it for me. I still jot things down on scraps of paper (especially shopping lists), but now I move them to sticky notes when they become official To-Do items.

Tomorrow I will post about a way to make yourself a little notebook with cardstock that would be just right for this method, just because I’ve had my eye out, and can’t find the kind of notebook I think really works. The pages have to be fewer than your regular notebook (really, you would only need about 8 pages, max), and they have to be stiff. Such a thing is easy to make, though. See you then!

{Behind all of this is the essential series about Getting Control of Suppers and Laundry — posts found in the menu bars up above), which I’ve written about extensively and which all started with this: Can Your New Year’s Resolution Take the Reality Test? Or, My Secret to Straightening Out Your Life}

____________________

*If you can swing it, get a paper cutter. It doesn’t have to take up a lot of room — I hang mine up on a nail in my craft closet. A paper cutter is awesome and makes paper crafting so much more fun and possible.

**If you have a new baby and/or a houseful of sick children, know that you must have a To-Do list but it’s all about what’s on the list. If you can throw away three notes that say “Wash face brush teeth,” “Change diapers,” and “defrost chicken broth” then that’s a good day’s work.

***The expense was holding me back. Post-Its are ridiculously pricey (also I’m not a fan of the colors). But knockoffs are fine and once you get started, keep your eye out for the ones put on clearance in various places. Soon you will have a stash of them. I decided it was worth it to use what turns out to be at most about three a day (usually I put like items together on a note) for me to have a sense of peace about how my day was going. I figure you can buy a lot of marked-down sticky notes for one expensive planner! It’s all very ironic because up until literally last year I really detested sticky notes and couldn’t fathom why anyone wouldn’t just cut up some scrap paper. But this is a valid use for them, I must say!

****The prayers are right there because I bring this notebook to my quiet prayer every morning. Putting my day before God — my actual To-Do list — for a portion of my meditation is important to me. It’s where the rubber meets the road in doing His will. Yes, even going to the grocery store is His will for me, if it’s what I need to do today. One of the most important questions we can ask each day (and each moment, really), is simply, “Am I doing what you want me to be doing now, Lord?” “Do You really want me to tear out that closet today, Lord, or is there something else on Your mind?” (Also, taking the list to prayer makes it possible to be just a wee bit less distracted, if you are the distractible type, not that I would know about that. Instead of fixating on that important thing I just remembered I have to do, trying to memorize it, I can jot it down and go back to prayer.)

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Our Favorite Posts from 2015

Thank you for reading and tagging along with us through another year! If you know us well, you know that there are always ideas percolating around these parts (meaning our heads, when they’re not too groggy), and the posts don’t always keep up with the ideas. We’d be writing up a storm and saturating the internet with all our opinions – never leaving you a day without a fresh post (there are a handful of us, after all) – if only we could slow the seasons down a bit or at least just get the kids to nap.

But when we look back, we do see that we’ve recorded a lot of fun memories and a few worthwhile thoughts, and we hope that you’ll enjoy revisiting these with us. Without further ado, here are a few favorites from each of us from the past year:

Auntie Leila’s Top Picks (with comments from Auntie Leila)

Deirdre’s Guide to Wedding Planning  — You can find all the posts about wedding planning linked in this last one, her secret to happy wedding planning!

How to figure out where to relocate (Aka: Ask Auntie Leila: Relocation Priorities and the Desirability Quotient) — If you can choose where to live, what priorities should you have, and how should you rank them?

Sukie with a demonstration of nursing a squirmy toddler out in public  — Makes me proud, and the pictures are so sweet!

Rosie’s Top Picks (with intros from Rosie)

Taking Care of New Mamas Culture — Post Partum Does Not Mean One Day After the Baby Comes

Family Dinner Culture — The Secret to Planning Menus

I find this fascinating. The bees arrived after I moved away, so I’ve never seen this process in person: The Honey Harvest: a Tutorial

Also fascinating and appealing to me (if we weren’t on military healthcare, I would be seriously looking into this): Why We Love Being Medically Uninsured

Suki’s Top Picks (with Suki’s comments)

Post Partum Does Not Mean One Day After the Baby Comes — Des was six weeks on Christmas. I had an easy recovery, but there’s still the mental fog, and a huge need to slow down for the baby – and myself! (I also loved the controversy in the comments, stirred by my conspiracy theory!)


The Secret to Planning Menus — It’s not just about the food!

And of course, Desmond’s Birth . :)

Deirdre’s Top Picks (with my comments)

Secrets to Taking Common-Sense Care of your Sick Child at Home! — Wisdom from Auntie Leila on one of the best topics for the collective memory department. I have a theory that the whole vaccine debate would look very different if everyone had the basics down about how to care for sick children and keep germs contained, etc.


Will you forgive me if I offer one of my own posts as a favorite? Your Marriage is Your Gift to Others: A Guide to Registering — part of my {pretty, happy, real weddings} series, is one of my favorite things I’ve ever written, actually – which surprises me, because I didn’t expect that I’d end up recording anything too remarkable when I went to share advice about setting up a wedding registry. All you lovely readers supplied great advice in the many comments.

 

Bridget’s Top Pick (with her comment)

Hope For When You Regret the Past — A reminder that God is much kinder and much simpler than we expect Him to be.

 

And that wraps it up for us!

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{pretty, happy, funny, real}

~ {pretty, happy, funny, real} ~

Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life ~

Every Thursday, here at Like Mother, Like Daughter!

This photo of our Christmas appetizers (and asparagus prep) is courtesy of Joseph:

You can cure some salmon now and it will be ready in two days! It’s super easy! The recipe (method, really) is in this post about “Curing Salmon With Ease.” It could. Not. Be. Easier.

(Don’t tell Sukie we put anything on the piano. But at least there are no drinks on there, or I’d really be in trouble… )

Checking on the bees is not a usual activity for Christmas Day in New England, nor is prancing around outside in shirtsleeves trying to capture a family photo. But that’s how it was this lovely Christmas. Now we are back to ice and snow, but that’s okay. It’s still Christmas and we’re still celebrating!

I hope you are still celebrating!

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The Fifth Day of Christmas

Happy Fifth Day of Christmas!

I’m busy too (the comings! the goings!), and Thursday is New Year’s Eve — and the Seventh Day of Christmas! Get ready to join us on {pretty, happy, funny, real} with your blog post or Instagram on your “Days of Christmas” and how they are going (how about hashtagging it #PHFR12DaysOfChristmas?).

And/or add your favorite posts of the year — we will be doing a post roundup for you from our favorites here on the blog. Do the same with yours! Or if you are doing the Instagram #2015BestNine, link that IG. Let’s see that year’s round-up!

My thoughts are turning to the new year. I would love, love, love to do another series with you, my dear readers. What’s on my mind is two fantastic — and related — books that I read this past year with our St. Greg’s Pocket, and I was thinking that you might want to do the same with yours. (I have to figure out the details — a podcast? Periscope? Is two books too many? — but if you want to get a jump, the ones I have in mind are Romano Guardini’s The Spirit of the Liturgy and Pope Benedict/Joseph Ratzinger’s The Spirit of the Liturgy.)

If you don’t have a St. Greg’s Pocket, it would be good to start one (or check that link to see if there is one near you)!

Maria Von Trapp writes about how the time between the Epiphany and Ash Wednesday is so fitting for visiting — just that good, old-fashioned kind of fun gathering of families and/or interested couples. There’s a lull between the holidays and the penitential season — but before outdoor work starts calling our names — when we can enjoy cozy hospitality and friendship.

To me, there’s something very heartwarming and encouraging about pondering how even entertaining can be liturgical — that is, can be made to fit into the very rhythm of life — interior, cosmic (the seasons in nature), and religious. We seem to want to gather together anyway, don’t we, in these still short — but lengthening! — days, and it may be that making actual plans with this encouragement in mind will be the tipping point for us to put our thoughts into action.

I’ve found that if there is a book that we friends are reading in common, it makes for wonderful conversation.

Also, we need to craft! I’m hoping to show you a few things I made and think about what would be good to work on in the coming year. Those quilts won’t sew themselves! What are you hoping to make in the new year?

 

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{pretty, happy, funny, real} ~ Christmas Eve edition

~ Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life ~

Every Thursday, here at Like Mother, Like Daughter!

Last year I posted this motet for you, and I am going to go ahead and post it again. This version is a bit different from the other, and you can just listen if you don’t want to read the music. It’s so beautiful.

I keep seeing people try to make us think that we only need to know one thing about Christmas. But Christmas is a mystery — O Magnum Mysterium — O Great Mystery! We will never get to the bottom of it or reach its heights.

I have mentioned a book that bears reading, re-reading, and bringing to prayer (not something that one often says about a theological work). It’s called Cradle of Redeeming Love: The Theology of the Christmas Mystery, by John Saward. Habou had recommended it to me and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve opened it up anew.

The first chapter of the book is named after this text — of the motet, which is taken from the Responsory at Matins (Morning Prayer in the Liturgy of the Hours) of the Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Days of the Octave of the Nativity of Our Lord (Christmas!).

You might say that the first mystery of the Christian faith is the Trinity. And the second great mystery is the Incarnation. This text marvelously and limpidly expresses mystery, ineffability, poverty, creation, power, and lowliness. It expresses love.

Latin text:


O magnum mysterium,
et admirabile sacramentum,
ut animalia viderent Dominum natum,
jacentem in praesepio!
O Beata Virgo, cujus viscera
meruerunt portare
Dominum Christum.
Alleluia.


English translation:


O great mystery,
and wonderful sacrament,
that animals should see the new-born Lord,
lying in a manger!
O Blessed Virgin, whose womb
was worthy to bear
Christ the Lord.
Alleluia!

I’ll leave you with a few passages from the book:

“Year by year, after the high drama of Holy Week and Easter and the calm contemplation of the weeks after Pentecost, [the Church] insists that her children go back to the humble beginning, to share the prophets’ yearning for Christ to come and the Virgin’s joy at His birth. Thus, by the law of her praying, the Church establishes the law of believing and therefore of the theologizing. The liturgy’s ceaseless return to Advent and Christmas proves beyond doubt that these and all Christ’s other mysteries are unsearchably rich in meaning, repaying unceasing contemplation.”

“Every educated Christian probably first met the mysteries in the beauty of the Church’s sacred art, when his mother showed him Baby Jesus in the Crib, with Mary and Joseph kneeling nearby.”

Quoting St. Bonaventure:

“The mysteries are these: the blessed fecundity of the undefiled Virgin; the humility, at once sublime and singular, of the superblessed Child; the courteous devotion of Blessed Joseph; the devout credulity of the simple shepherds; the new mirth of the angelic spirits; the beginning of the happiness of the whole human race; the beginning of the radiance of the Christian religion.”

Quoting Fr. Faber:

“Bethlehem exists as a living power… in the souls of men… forever alluring them from sin… forever impressing peculiar characteristics on the holiness of different persons… its works remain, and adorn the eternal home of God.”

Merry Christmas!

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{bits & pieces}

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

 

Due to my advanced technological approach to filing away potential {b&p} material (namely, opening a bunch of tabs over the course of weeks and then accidentally having the browser close on me and for whatever reason, after the seventh tab-gathering/browser-closing, not being able to “restore previous session”), I don’t actually have much to share with you today.

But I’m choosing to imagine that you’re all in the same boat that I’m in (namely, you’re mostly keeping it together but also slightly behind on everything and you really should be stamping addressing writing Christmas cards rather than sitting here at the computer anyway), and you don’t need much reading right now.

 

 

Normally I’m squarely in the school of waiting until Christmas to bring out the Christ figure of a Nativity set (as you know from this post about observing the 12 Days of Christmas, it has always been an important part of my understanding of the mystery of Christmas to wait for the little Jesus until Christmas morning). This set is more for Finnabee’s hands-on experience, however, so I’m allowing the presence of the Baby during Advent.

 

The rule is she has to play with these pieces in the living room, at this little coffee table. No running around the house dropping them!

 

 

Meanwhile, the Magi are traveling towards the other Nativity set that’s in our Little Oratory…

 

 

At some point I need to get around to bragging about The Artist having made me these bookshelves. It was my Christmas gift from him last year – the first woodworking he’s ever done! Such a good husband, that Artist.

 

But no time now! Trying to keep this short and sweet!

 

(If you could see up close, you’d see that the manger is empty in this one:)

 

 

This week’s links:

I’ll just go ahead and start with my top pick for this week:

 

In Defense of Domesticity. This article is so good. There is so much to unpack here. Do you remember how I brought up koselig that last time? Here, the author delves into this current topic of Nordic “coziness” and brings it home to so much more. From the article:

“Marriage and family were no longer the shared life they used to be. Processed foods and laborsaving devices removed much of the art, and much of the dignity, from the woman’s role as mother. She was left at home to manage menial household tasks. Domesticity became dull, something to be outsourced. Even a woman’s role as child-bearer and mother has been taken out of her hands and into those of specialists, often men. Hark! The advertisers are singing! The domestic arts can be traded in for purchasable products so everyone will have more time to sit around. We have been so successful at freeing up time to sit it’s actually killing us, and it will take more than a height-adjustable standing desk to get us on our feet again.”

Read it as a reminder of many of the things we are getting at here at LMLD.

Books:


Another great read, from the NYTimes: Our (Bare) Shelves, Our Selves. Don’t underestimate the power your physical book collection imparts to the collective memory in your household and your culture!


Miscellaneous:


Ever wondered what the story was behind that funny quasi-accent in old movies? I definitely have – many times! At last, an explanation (short video).



Do you have any plans with your Pocket in the New Year? Don’t forget to snap a photo if you get together, so that we can show your shining faces here on the blog and get some encouragement from you! I have been so grateful for my Pocket here in Manchester in this past year. In some ways, it feels like we’re just getting a slow and creaky start as a group and there is so much more to come (because it’s happening naturally, it takes time); in other ways, it feels like we have bonded a lot in a short time! This morning I started a meal train for the mom of the newest “Pocket baby,” and there were four meals listed on it by noon. I was so proud.

 

From the Archives:


Vespers, or, Building the Culture of Love



Sometimes I like to dig for something random from way back when, like this post from 2008: A pink and green baby quilt



Decorating Mistakes Real People Make by Taking Design Ideas Seriously



And that’s a wrap, folks! A blessed conclusion of Advent and a very Merry Christmas to you all!

 

~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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