Leila Marie Lawler's Blog, page 6

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The post Make your homeschool four days a week! appeared first on Like Mother, Like Daughter.

Archeologists find evidence of what may have happened at the colony in Roanoke.

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Published on August 24, 2024 06:50

Lots of chit-chat; Instant Pot yogurt method; setting reasonable goals this homeschool year!

What do we think of those shades on my chandelier?

This week I did a lot of just ordinary, daily-rhythm sorts of things. As I get older, I find it a bit harder to push myself through tasks that I used to do quickly on my way to doing other things.

My washing machine got repaired, at last. Took a week due to the repairman dropping his phone in water, along with the info for ordering the part… The laundry (comprising many towels, sheets, and our own things from the previous week that included a long weekend with six grandchildren) took up a good bit of my energy.

It probably amounted to the equivalent of one busy laundry day for you or from the time when I had everyone here, playing sports and doing what they did, getting all the things dirty.

I wrote a piece for my other blog; Phil and I did our podcast; I did some harvesting of tomatoes (which I just popped into the freezer for another day) and we harvested honey, inviting friends for dinner and extracting it all together, since it's boring to do it by ourselves, and fun to have friends over.

We put the yellow cloth on the bench so we (I) wouldn't smash into it the next morning — the back stairs door is right there on the left and I would surely come down in a fog and send everything flying!

It was so nice to be able to do this job over in the new area of the kitchen. The other side, my work side, had all the elements of dinner, and I could just clean up while the men spun the extractor, and they could rinse their hands and put lids around without getting in my way. It was glorious!

Later today I will get some gallon jars out of the garage and pack this honey up. Phil reckons we have another hive to harvest in a few weeks, so I'm hoping for a good amount for the year.

If you want to see our process, I have a highlight on my Instagram page!

I made bagels enough for the week and more. As I said last week, a dozen bagels wouldn't get you very far in a busy young family, but for us, they last and are worth the effort for sure.

I was thinking, as I do with everything I make — a habit I have from long experience — of how to scale bagels and English muffins for a crowd large family.

I think if you made the dough (recipe doubled, of course) the day before, keeping it in the fridge (your second fridge of course), you'd be able to do the finicky part of it on the second day (boiling for bagels, skillet baking for English muffins). If you did it pretty early in the morning, you might not mind the disruption of it. A handy child could be trained to help you for sure.

You would certainly save a lot of money, not to mention the superior quality. The downside as with all home-baked goods is that it's just that superiority that makes it go so much faster.

The Homemade Paradox.

Instant Pot Yogurt

And this morning I took the bulk of the gallon of milk I bought when the kids were here (so much left over — we will not drink it before it goes bad) and put a half gallon of yogurt in the Instant Pot, in pint wide-mouth jars.

If I had a huge demand, I would use quart jars, making a gallon at a time. I think half-gallon jars would fit in the IP — off the top of my head.

Rosie says her kids turn their noses up just a bit at store-bought, citing “Habibti's home-made” as their standard, which of course makes me so proud.

The key is to buy one container of the exact kind of yogurt you really prefer. For me, it's Siggi's whole milk plain skyr. It's not billed as Greek yogurt but it's very thick and just the right amount of tanginess with excellent flavor. Some brands are too sour for me, some too bland!

I get the milk up past 190°F in the first step, and I do this on the stovetop, setting a timer so I don't boil it over. I find that using the IP yogurt setting doesn't get the milk hot enough and doing it twice complicates things. I prefer to just do it on the stove in a covered pot.

It takes about 13 minutes for me — you have to stand there and watch it to know when to set your timer next time. I use an instant-read thermometer so I'm not guessing, but there will be bubbles all around the sides and into the center, without the milk bubbling up and out.

Then I let it cool for about 1 hour and 10 minutes, depending on the ambient temperature. I use the thermometer (and timer) again. The milk should be between 100° and 110°F.

I add the yogurt (either the one I've bought or a bit from the previous batch of homemade). About 1/4 cup or even less for a 1/2 gallon of milk.

Use a whisk but stir very gently. You don't want to disturb the protein molecules very much — those are what are going to give you the thickness.

Now I put it in the Instant Pot. I put about an inch of very warm water on the bottom up to the rack. Place the covered jars (4 pint for 1/2 gallon, 4 quart for a gallon) and set it to 11 1/2 hours. For me, the texture and flavor of what results is just right. No straining required. Doing it directly in the jars, in the Instant Pot, and not having to strain it takes away all the annoying work of making yogurt without buying a piece of specialized equipment.

And yes, you could certainly use a big cooler. This link is to me using a little cooler!

Like everything else, you have to experiment, look up other people's methods, fiddle, and see how it turns out for you. If you have a toddler whose itchy fingers can't stay away from buttons, turn your pot's panel to the back! Ask me how I know to do this… let me say that if it's not set when you open it up, suspect those little fingers and start again!

Homeschooling Advice

Every summer my heart dies a little when I see moms declaring that they will have to do school all summer since their kids didn't get through what they were supposed to during the school year.

{If you live somewhere where summers are oppressive, just apply the appropriate filter to what I am saying here. No need to tell me that “we take off in October, we live in Arizona” or what have you. What I'm saying still goes, relative to whatever your situation.}

The first thing that strikes me is robbing children of the one absolute joy they have (as regards school) — the joy that comes on that last day when you turn your books in and burst out of pris the building, knowing you will have not one burden on your shoulders until the distant day they imprison you agai start the new school year.

Homeschooling doesn't have, or shouldn't have, this same binary effect on the child. In theory, it's all joy and wonder in the bosom of home, but let's admit that we all, by sometime in late April, have a sense of wishing it all to go away, at least the schedule/curriculum/checklist part of it — and we're the grownups.

The children are desperate.

Stop torturing them.

Let them go.

The second thing is this:

The idea of a certain amount of material needing to be covered by everyone at the same rate in order to keep up with a standard set by people who have demonstrated their ignorance of the proper development of the child let alone the true nature of education is an idea we need to be wary of adopting.

I'm sure you're making your curriculum plans now. Good for you!

Might I suggest something?

Spend an hour or two looking at and setting concrete goals for each child.

Don't make the goal “Getting through this material.”

Instead, in the section in your binder for that child, make a goal for each of the studies you would like to undertake — studies tailored to that child, not “all second graders.” In general, they will coincide somewhat, but if you have a child who already reads but is left cold and staring out the window at the idea of addition and subtraction, your plan for that child is — and ought to be — different from the one for the child who has built a working water mill but can't read.

I really do recommend getting a pen and a piece of paper, one for each subject. Write down, under “John, Second Grade,” thinking about where you were last year with this child who regarded being asked to do his workbooks for 1/2 an hour as the most exquisite torment every devised by woman (the parts between asterisks are my notes to you, not to be written down):

Language Arts Goal: Read an Easy Reader book. Read signs on the road. Memorize a short poem each quarter, or nursery rhyme. Write a thank you note of three lines. Write a grocery store list for me as I dictate. *this is so helpful to you* Write our daily dinner menu *also helpful since you know you will be asked approximately 100 times a day “what's for dinner?” — let John write it out and read it to them if necessary*.Math Goal: Complete fluency with basic addition and subtraction. *This may seem to fall very short of accepted standards, but you will never get anywhere until this fluency is mastered, so buckle down and make it the goal, or you'll be doing it in 5th grade*Religion Goal: Memorize the 10 Commandments. Learn basic prayers by heart. Lead a decade of the Rosary.Science Goal: Learn about the seasons. Begin a nature journal (record date and temperature, draw). Learn to measure various things (weight, length, height, etc).History Goal: Learn the history of your state *but in a fun way by going on field trips and reading plaques on the side of the road*.Art Goal: Learn to draw leaf shapes (and other things to be recorded in nature journal) and have a personal notebook with whatever drawings he would like to do. Learn about one artist a quarter. Learn to make [whatever craft interests you or him].Music Goal: Learn a hymn and a folk song every quarter; learn and memorize two pieces on the chosen instrument; learn basic music theory (rhythm, time signature, scales).

And so on… these goals then inform your curriculum choices. No point in getting a math book with multiplication drills if he really needs to know the addends of 10 and 100.

For more ideas, go to Ambleside online, but remember — whatever you choose from there must support and not undermine with its elaborate unreality, these goals. Pick and choose.

Using your goals, take a hard look at your curriculum and schedule. Language and math should be every day (four days a week). The other things can be once or twice a week. The child left up to himself will likely do more and read about these things all the time, so don't worry about it.

If one day in February you become aware that your child just knows and can, without thinking, just say what 10 – 8 is and what 3 + 7 is and in general has a good grasp of his math facts, having played a lot of Parcheesi and Yahtzee and even Black Jack, then — you are done. It doesn't matter how many drills are left.

If he can read a Little Bear book, you've reached your goal.

If you get to early May and he still can't read, just leave it. He will. (You need to read Better Late Than Early by the Moores –maybe your library has it). Slogging through the days with phonics lessons, when he just wants to be out playing catch, will only make everything worse.

Of course, you will still be reading out loud to your children, because that's life, not schoolwork. And if you start a chapter book and find you can't finish it and just happen to leave it in the bathroom, well, who knows what will happen? If the book is exciting enough, you may find he figures it out himself. If you just happen to give him a set of dice to fiddle around with, will you be to blame if he learns his math facts?

And of course, with the child who gobbles up all the learning, setting goals is a good way not to waste his time with others' ideas of things, things he has already mastered long ago.

I write at length about all these things in my Summa Domestica.

But I just want to say, take my advice and confine your year to a reasonable, non-burdensome length and give your children a break, and yourself too. Plan on this now and don't let end-of-school-you rob you of your peace.

Who are you comparing your child to? Just help him with reasonable goals.

I won't be posting next week, as I'll be at the conference in Colorado (and then visiting Suki and baby Maria and all the others, yay!). But after that we'll talk over some other school issues. For instance, really — don't plan more than four solid school days a week… you'll actually accomplish more!

Remind me…

bits & pieces

Looking for some inspiration for yourself and for your children? I think the boys especially could benefit from hearing about Fr. Willie Doyle and it seems like these entries, prepared for the anniversary of his death but ever edifying, would be wonderful to read aloud at breakfast or any time . He is a great favorite of mine — truly heroic as a chaplain in WWI who went with his men into every battle — and very loving. I don't know which of the books these accounts come from — it would be good to have at least one of them.

“Fr. Doyle’s example worked good. His cheerfulness, his energy, his enthusiasm were infectious and inspiring. His whole conduct was marked by gentleness and a kindly thoughtfulness that gained him loyalty and affection. In the playing fields he was a tower of strength. I can still recall the admiration with which I watched him play full-back, or stump a batsman who had his toe barely off the ground. But above all he gave the impression to us boys of one who lived much in the presence of God. I know one boy, at least, who entered the Society of Jesus, partly, at any rate, because Fr. Doyle was such a splendid man and splendid Jesuit.”

It has always struck me as unacceptable and really, hilarious, that feminists claim Anne of Green Gables as their own, simply because she was spunky. Just as every other heroine of every enduring story is! Who said we haven't always admired spunky girls? It's a stupid lie to claim that literature used to feature compliant, boring females — quite the contrary! Not to mention that the story is written by a woman before “women's rights” or the vote, and Anne herself finds her dreams and happiness marrying and having seven children! What nonsense. Here is an excellent essay on the subject (with a correct dismissal of the egregiously bad Anne with an E series): The Kidnapping of Anne of Green Gables by Jonathon Van Maren.

from the archives

You can take care of normal sicknesses at home. Don't let the fear-mongers get to you!

Complaining children? Here's my secret to nipping it all in the bud.

liturgical living

Our Lady of Knock

follow us everywhere! share us with your friends!

Here is my affiliate link to my Amazon page — the only affiliate thing that goes on here on LMLD, which is why the page loads quickly and you don’t have to keep closing pop-ups etc! Thank you for opening it and shopping if you are so minded — as some have asked me. If not, don’t worry one bit!

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

My “random thoughts no pictures” blog, Happy Despite Them has moved over to Substack! — receive it by email if you like, or bookmark, so you don’t miss a thing! The old one is still up if you want to look at the comments on past posts. It will take me a while to get things organized, but you'll be patient, I know!

There you will find the weekly podcast done by Phil and me, called On the Home Front. Do let us know what you think!

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

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

Consider subscribing to this blog by email. We would love to pop into your inbox! The subscription box is on this page on the sidebar!

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

Auntie Leila’s Facebook (you can just follow)

The boards of the others: Rosie’s Pinterest. Sukie’s Pinterest. Deirdre’s Pinterest. Habou’s Pinterest

The post Lots of chit-chat; Instant Pot yogurt method; setting reasonable goals this homeschool year! appeared first on Like Mother, Like Daughter.

Back in July we talked about how to cut down on the hollering, remember?

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Published on August 17, 2024 10:18

A little more on hollering; English muffins; links!

I remembered something about it!

Last weekend I had six of my grandchildren here (ages almost 2 to 11!) while Deirdre and John went to California for a quick getaway.

Of course, occasionally I had to get them all to come to me so I could tell them something. At one point I called, “Front and center!” and got very little response… so I remembered how the Chief and I used to use that phrase to call our kids and they would indeed appear.

So I rounded up this younger crew and told them about it.

“When your mom was a little girl, and I needed everyone to come to me, I would call ‘Front and center!' and they would come running! We taught them to pretend they were in the Army and line up in front of us at attention. [Standing straight with feet together, arms by your sides, and then saluting!]

“They would wait for me to say what I had to say, and then they would say, ‘Yes Sir Ma'am Sir!' and go do it!”

Of course this cracked my grandchildren up totally! I gave them instructions (after making them practice standing at attention saluting, and then — “At ease!” which means being more relaxed with feet apart while listening) and then demanded a “Yes Sir Ma'am Sir” from them as they rolled off, having received their “Dismissed!” — laughing hysterically, to do whatever it was I had requested.

Used sparingly, this works so well — the more children you have, the better it works! We found that in general, kids love to play military roles, like being the XO or radio man, saying Aye-aye and “you have the con,” and requesting “permission to speak freely SIR” — watching a movie like Hunt for Red October with the older ones can set off a great trend in the family.

By the way, the weekend reminded me that there always will be a lot of shouting in a big, busy family. I think I said that in my previous post. These little ideas are just a way to make it a little less so, and a little more tolerable for our poor nerves. Basically, great reductions will be realized if we train them to come to us.

We've had so much rain and so I don't have much to show for my garden. I have a feeling I'm about to be busy with tomatoes! But who knows — no one can get out there.

The worst part about having had all those kids here and it having been super hot and then super rainy is that just as they left, just at maximum, peak laundry, just as my attention turned to my housekeeping, my washer broke.

Still waiting on a part… so things are not super photogenic around here! And there are a lot of towels that are feeling very neglected right now…

Bread Corner

I made a batch of English muffins. I think I made about 14, which I did not take a picture of. Supper was upon me, so I actually put the last four into the fridge to do later. So this photo is my comparison of one muffin (bottom) that had the extra fridge rest and the other that did not (top).

Before we get into it, I just want to say that in general, I think supermarket bread is just awful. While our kitchen was out of commission, and since it's just the two of us, I bought the tippety-toppest bread from the supermarket. We don't eat a ton of it and I don't have access to any sort of artisan bakery, so that's what I bought.

And it was okay, but it was very expensive and certainly not as good as homemade sourdough (and it really was sourdough, unlike most boughten bread that says it is but does have yeast).

The mother who is trying to give good, homemade food to her family is going to work very hard at it. (One thing that makes me a wee bit skeptical about some online moms offering big-family content is that it just doesn't look like enough food to me!)

I have lots of ways to make this easier — most notably my “Save a Step” methods that get you ahead, keep everything homemade, and don't leave you shattered (the way, in my opinion, the once-a-month cooking methods or the spend-all-day-making-everything-right-at-that-moment ones do).

Growing children eat a lot! I think it's worth it to bake your own bread, for their health and also for your budget, but you have to prioritize the efficiency side of it.

My eyes roll so hard at the videos of people demonstrating making one measly loaf of bread. Seriously?? You are wasting your time if you don't make as much as you, your mixer or your hands and your oversize bowl, your oven, and your freezer can handle.

Three huge or four regular loaves are the minimum per batch. And if everything is out and getting messy, make more than one batch. Once you get into the rhythm of it, you can have a couple of big baking days a week and put a few loaves into the freezer each time.

When all my kids were here, I tried making bagels on occasion, because we went through quite a number of them every week. While they were tasty, it was exhausting, because it's a two-step process to bake them — you have to boil them first. I decided that I would focus on loaves of bread and dinner rolls and compromise on buying bagels with the least additives.

When I make bagels or English muffins now, I always think about how you would do it if you had your platoon there, ready to demolish whatever you carefully shaped and painstakingly made with all those steps. So I don't know.

As I survey my dozen English muffins, knowing what I know — that they would all disappear in one breakfast's time — I am not sure it scales to the point that it would be doable. Maybe with the two griddles I can now deploy on my 36″ range? But they have to be cooked well in the middle, which I think requires a bit of time under a lid.

Anyway, I will tell you how I do it.

You can use any English muffin recipe. Here's a highlight on my Instagram that shows my whole process! (Don't forget to follow me and share with your friends!)

The main thing is to have the dough quite hydrated, looser than if you were making a loaf of bread. Shape each little ball of dough very gently so as not to de-gas after the dough has risen.

Let them all rise very well. Don't rush this part. They need to be pillowy so you get the nice nooks and crannies and are not left with a sort of dinner roll texture.

They freeze just fine.

bits & pieces

There is a sort of purgation that has to happen before children can have their imaginations restored or formed, if they are used to being entertained, especially by digital devices. This post explains it very well. Here on LMLD, I try to explain how the environment you make, with its peaceful order and liturgical rhythms as well as all the books, musical instruments, board games, bikes, balls, and normal non-digital childhood paraphernalia, will eventually call to them. Make no mistake: they will be bored and cranky until the process has its way!

If you are wondering about AI (Artificial Intelligence) from a philosophical perspective, I recommend this essay (and the ones preceding it).

A good graphic on the difference between the vaccine schedule when my kids were little, and now. Remember, the people telling you everything is normal remember the former and haven't quite wrapped their minds around the latter.

The Eternal Root of Homelife — John Cuddeback

Sometimes we really need antibiotics, and we can be very grateful they are there when we do. It's important not to overuse them! They have side effects, some of which are quite severe, and of course, it's disastrous when a resistance is built up. There are ways to treat many infections besides antibiotics. I remember a nurse telling me I could cure an infected toe with three warm soaks a day and a little antibacterial salve. This is, believe me, a better choice than Cipro, which is what the doctor wanted to prescribe. It takes some effort, of course. But it's worth it. Many of the more dangerous antibiotics are prescribed for UTIs, which is why I researched, tested, and shared with you a protocol for curing and preventing them without such a drastic course of action.

from the archives

You don't have to play with your children (one reason parents are dependent on devices — they think they will have to be their child's sole source of diversion otherwise)An honest look at IVF (podcast with Fr. McTeigue)Tips for a calm, practical pregnancy, from Deirdre

liturgical living

Saint Lawrence

Thursday is the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin! As a holy day of obligation, it takes a little preparation and an extra scoop of ice cream!

follow us everywhere! share us with your friends!

Here is my affiliate link to my Amazon page — the only affiliate thing that goes on here on LMLD, which is why the page loads quickly and you don’t have to keep closing pop-ups etc! Thank you for opening it and shopping if you are so minded — as some have asked me. If not, don’t worry one bit!

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

My “random thoughts no pictures” blog, Happy Despite Them has moved over to Substack! — receive it by email if you like, or bookmark, so you don’t miss a thing! The old one is still up if you want to look at the comments on past posts. It will take me a while to get things organized, but you'll be patient, I know!

There you will find the weekly podcast done by Phil and me, called On the Home Front. Do let us know what you think!

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

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

Consider subscribing to this blog by email. We would love to pop into your inbox! The subscription box is on this page on the sidebar!

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

Auntie Leila’s Facebook (you can just follow)

The boards of the others: Rosie’s Pinterest. Sukie’s Pinterest. Deirdre’s Pinterest. Habou’s Pinterest

The post A little more on hollering; English muffins; links! appeared first on Like Mother, Like Daughter.

An interesting article about the medieval celestial model and the modern one and the music of the spheres.

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Published on August 10, 2024 09:13

Feminism vs. Trad Wife; Bread; Knitting; Links!

Enemies of our happiness exist. They will find ways to penetrate the chinks! It's hard to know every meaning of Our Lord's warning, “Narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it,” but one thing that comes to mind is how easy it is for us to be sidetracked and made discontent, even when we've made a positive commitment to what we know is good.

When people begin to find solidarity with others and affirmation for doing things the world is set against, like turning away from the conflict-driven mode of feminism and marxism in general and seeking a more peaceful way of life, a strange thing starts to happen.

It's almost as if the forces of destruction get nervous and twitchy at any sign of resistance and have to come up with something to destabilize our intentions.

You start to see something you might not have expected. It's not direct opposition, because leftism knows it has no arguments and most importantly, no counter-examples. There is no demographic or population of happy, contented feminists who can be observed directly and held up as the beneficent outcome of revolution, making it all worthwhile (so if you are inclined to comment something about how you're a cheerful feminist, try not to, because this empirical fact cannot be assailed by anecdote). The best they can do is say that there isn't enough feminism, which of course is an unverifiable way to go about things.

Here's the new tactic I'm talking about: Right now I'd love to write something encouraging here, offering my experience, including the things I failed at, to help you be more content in making your home, for the very good reason that the home is uniquely important, and while someone has to earn money to finance it, the wife keeping it, in love and devotion, is what makes the world go round. But I'm having trouble, because just at the moment when I think a lot more people (men and women) are open to hearing this truth, having seen the utter destruction of feminism all around us, and getting practical ideas about how to make it a reality, that twitchy gaze I was talking about turns on some public self-proclaimed exemplars of, well, let's use the term, “Trad Wife” life.

Maybe most of us weren't paying that much attention. But the critiques bring up my own unease with those claiming to represent something I thought many were wanting to give a try. Suddenly very online enemies of home, children, and men (yes, they really are), who, to be very clear, have their own agenda, start exposing what they see as the underbelly of the perfect picture of domestic bliss.

It's true — we might observe an uncomfortable dynamic between spouses who say reasonable things about what's wrong in our society, but don't demonstrate it in their interactions or even in their writings. There could be religious beliefs that don't accord with Biblical truth in some way, large or small, within Catholicism or outside of it, while claiming to be godly.

It could be as simple as how much of their lives they are displaying for what can only be called public consumption. Surely that's not what we mean by the hidden life, lived for God in accord with His precepts? This is the phenomenon of the Trad Wife. Monetization isn't traditional, even as we acknowledge the appeal of all the images and even critiques of modern life the purveyors offer?

It's at that moment that the tired old voices of discord pounce. “See?” they demand, “There's something so strange here, something sinister, something that proves we were right all along, that the only way is to cast of the shackles of the past and…”

To finish that sentence is to leave us in a bit of limbo, since as I say, we too feel uneasy; but perhaps we see that feminism and whatever ideology ends up pitting any group against another leads to the same old place: loneliness, bitterness, setting ourselves against God. Most of all, it leaves children to be ravaged by every force imaginable. Truly, the mother in the home is central to civilization itself.

I think it's important to keep in mind the idea of “controlled opposition” — the phenomenon presented as the opposite of what you know to be false, but isn't therefore true. If you flip over to it just because it's opposite, you're controlled by it — manipulated into going back to the first, bad thing when the new, opposite thing shows its seams.

And the thing that is the controlled opposition can be very clever: Nothing is more normal and simply the way things always worked in a healthy society, for wives to be traditional! Nothing more appealing (though most won't admit it)!

Yet the Trad Wife idea, trend, influence, is only a parody of it, though often so very, very close as to be hard to distinguish (sometimes not — I'm often shocked at how overtly pornographic it can be). Interestingly, of the Trad Wives I've seen, there are common elements that aren't traditional: 1. being constantly online as an ongoing example or role model with nothing kept private (whether male or female, because there are male promoters of Trad Wife), and 2. professionalizing the brand and branding the life.

You can also think of it as a false dichotomy. Are our choices equality and viewing men as the enemy OR submitting to power? Those don't seem like good choices. I'm not seeing God-given authority and respect for hierarchy, grounded in the love with which Christ loved the Church, i.e. dying on a cross for her. Power and authority are distinct.

People have asked me what I think about the whole Trad Wife thing, and the reasons above are why I haven't said much. It's almost impossible to be drawn into discussing the problem without falling into that false dichotomy and being a victim of that controlled opposition.

And it's beyond obvious, yet somehow not up for discussion, that feminism is a brutal ideology with an unimaginable body count. Those reporting on any dissent for complicit media have themselves made choices and bring their bias to the table. Nothing they say can be taken as objective.

It's all too tiring! I'd rather just be here, offering my encouragement and trying to show how life lived in accord with God's plan will always be more peaceful.

I submit that the true path through these thickets is never going to look like a “movement” — it will be the result of prayerful meditation on Scripture and Tradition and the history of how Christian women have lived until the time when everyone lost their minds with the Will to Power. It will be a brave attempt to put what we learn into practice, out of love of God, our spouses, and our children, in the home.

Anyway, I was going to write about something else but it will have to wait til the ground that's been poisoned has a chance to recover a little. In the meantime, I encourage you to peruse the archives here, as I've spent the last 15 years trying to articulate all this. I even wrote a book about it: God Has No Grandchildren: A Guided Reading of Pope Pius XI's Encyclical Casti Connubii (On Chaste Marriage) – 2nd Edition. (affiliate link)

Household Corner

The break in the heat had me baking more bread…

… and pulling the rest of the garlic, setting it to dry in the garage. The ground bees have been sorted.

Next I need to pull onions and patiently await the ripening of the tomatoes, peppers, and maybe even eggplants! Probably not.

Knitting corner

I also knit most of a sleeve in my Altheda sweater! I decided to be very OCD about the stitch count and intervals between decreases, as the #1 reason for me to procrastinate on a project is getting in the weeds about matching lengths of things (for instance, if I'm making the second sock, I will work in a fog of self-doubt if I think the length of the foot is off or I have forgotten that “easy little change I'll certainly remember” in the heel. Hence all the little stitch markers:

But I still question whether it will fit me, even though I've tried it on myself and my dress form. Oh well, I'm plugging away at it and feeling more optimistic now that the sleeve is close to being done!

bits & piecesDid you know: Not a single routine childhood vaccine was licensed based on a long-term placebo-controlled trial. Not one. Aaron Siri

I found this a good meditation: To a Friend, on Persevering in a Most Unholy and Unchristian Age — and in the same vein, but shorter, Phil's thoughts on hope.Divorce never ends for kids.from the archives

How to encourage good conversational habits in your children

Ask Auntie Leila: Cheerfulness

liturgical living

St. Pantaleon

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Here is my affiliate link to my Amazon page — the only affiliate thing that goes on here on LMLD, which is why the page loads quickly and you don’t have to keep closing pop-ups etc! Thank you for opening it and shopping if you are so minded — as some have asked me. If not, don’t worry one bit!

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

My “random thoughts no pictures” blog, Happy Despite Them has moved over to Substack! — receive it by email if you like, or bookmark, so you don’t miss a thing! The old one is still up if you want to look at the comments on past posts. It will take me a while to get things organized, but you'll be patient, I know!

There you will find the weekly podcast done by Phil and me, called On the Home Front. Do let us know what you think!

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

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

Consider subscribing to this blog by email. We would love to pop into your inbox! The subscription box is on this page on the sidebar!

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

Auntie Leila’s Facebook (you can just follow)

The boards of the others: Rosie’s Pinterest. Sukie’s Pinterest. Deirdre’s Pinterest. Habou’s Pinterest

The post Feminism vs. Trad Wife; Bread; Knitting; Links! appeared first on Like Mother, Like Daughter.

Two more rules for an even more peaceful family situation or at least a less exasperated one

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Published on July 27, 2024 11:32

How and why to stop hollering across the house; Grandma’s rhubarb coffee cake; Links!

The other day I shared on Instagram a little reel from Rabbi Manis Friedman with a little tip: Don't ever call your spouse from another room — don't summon each other, don't shout from across the house. “It's not dignified,” he says!

It called to mind a memory. Long ago, when we were married but hadn't had children yet, or our baby was very little, I stopped by the home of friends — maybe I was dropping something off? I can't remember, but it was a “dropping in” sort of thing and they were in the midst of a busy morning. The house was small but they were just hollering to each other even as they talked to me! One would leave the room and the other would start shouting to him or her, as the case may be, for really no reason at all!

At that moment, it occurred to me that this isn't a good idea. All that hollering wasn't going to be okay with me.

Let's have a little chat about this and about how we can be realistic about the work and effort it takes to train ourselves to have good habits.

There's a trendy idea out there about “manifesting” the perfect life you want to have, as if envisioning it will bring it about. Comment “MANIFEST” and your dreams will come true!

Sure, we need a vision. We need role models and images of what can be so we have something to draw us to the good. Without the picture we don't even know what we are missing. But getting from here to there? It's not about hypnotizing ourselves! Believe me, if we try it, all that happens is we get bitter about all the others who are standing in our path, obstructing our perfect happiness!

The realism comes in when we accept the work involved to master the habits needed to attain our goal. That part is not about a weird trick in our brain, it's about lining up our will with what has to happen and having fortitude in attacking our disposition to do otherwise.

Lots of people get disillusioned with family life because it can be mayhem. Women in particular feel very disappointed when they desire to devote themselves to their family, but real life feels loud! Grating! Not quiet! Excessively disruptive!

They then turn to things that they can control and downplay the importance of motherhood. This is the root of a lot of what drives feminism, at an elemental level, if we are honest about it. Even starting a business or going back to school can seem easier than facing the noise and disorder of home. Yet the disorder is a result of husband and wife not taking steps to train themselves and the children in better ways.

But good news, there are practical tips to making things more peaceful! You can get the good habits needed to have an environment you actually want to be in!

Rabbi Friedman is right. It's important to avoid shouting and hollering at your spouse from another room. I think I went home and talked to the Chief about my experience, though he doesn't remember it. I'm pretty sure I said I thought we should try not to yell, but if something is important, to go into the room where the other is and say what we need to say. I know he agreed because that's what we do, for the most part.

When I posted the reel, I got several responses about “I yelled because the baby was coming — ‘Come catch the baby'”!! This is a reasonable exception! I myself made allowances in my post for a spider in the shower…

It means a lot when your spouse comes into the room to ask you something. It elevates the tone of your interactions. Even if you have to communicate from room to room, leading with “My Dear?” “Darling?” “Hon, where are you?” softens the blow.

Once you agree on this rule for each other (with the normal caveats! obviously! and by the way, this will be different for different families and sizes of houses, and that's fine), it becomes crystal clear how things should go with the children.

Here are the rules we made and explained (over and over again, because that's how it goes! be willing to put in the work!)

It's naughty to yell for Mama or Papa. Get up and come find me. (What will happen when they are following this rule is that they will yell to find out where you are and you will holler back “KITCHEN” or wherever you happen to be. I never said there will be zero yelling and hollering!)

If there is a true emergency, then please do yell for me.

If I get there and it is NOT an emergency, you will have to stop your activity to do an extra chore for me (or worse, depending on the stubbornness of the subject). (NB: Make a list of extra chores like wipe down/vacuum a set of stairs, tidy up the shoes in the mudroom, sweep the porch, windex the sliding door, and so on. If they are yelling during a chore for no good reason, then they should finish that chore and then do another one.)

If you don't make and enforce these rules, you will end up in ridiculous situations like one that happened to me when we lived in a raised ranch house (the main part upstairs, TV and game room downstairs). I thought I definitely heard, “MAMA!!!” “WHAT?” I responded… and then waited. “WHAT?” I responded again. Nothing. It seemed so quiet, so I was worried that maybe there was trouble, but I also was elbow-deep in something. “WHAT!” I yelled again. “WHAT” finally came back. “WHAT?” I yelled. “WHAT WHY ARE YOU CALLING US? WHAT DO YOU WANT?”

Aye yi yi. Time to go back to my rules!

Which leads me to another point: If they really do yell for you for no reason, just ignore them. It's fine.

Mama and Papa can holler for kids. This is definitely a hierarchy matter (which is why it's not appropriate for spouses to yell for each other). If you have to go find a child to tell him what to do, you will be worn out before second breakfast. But, and this is important, when that child hears his name, he should know to come to you.

The bad habit is allowing the expectation that you are going to shout all the instructions from wherever you are! Not feasible, yet sadly often done.

“When you hear me call you, come immediately! If you are in the bathroom, you can shout that. But otherwise, come instantly. If I have to come get you after I call you, there will be trouble.”

Now, sometimes a child is absorbed in play or work or reading. So think before you summon him. That too should be respected (if it's being done at a more or less appropriate time). I think parents often make the mistake of demanding prompt obedience to some whim they have, without taking into consideration the state of mind of the child.

And sometimes the child is trying to carry out one task when another is demanded of him!

But I promise you, if you display respect for that aspect, the fact that he too is a person (even if 2 or 3) and may be busy with something important to him, he will learn to obey promptly when you call. That's family life at its best: wanting to do the will of the others in love and respect, with the proper deference to the order of authority. Remember, that order works both ways; it's not about power but about the good of all.

Wait until you have a child old enough to be sent on the mission of taking a message — so great. “Little Jonny, please go say to Papa, ‘Mama sends her compliments and would like to know if he would be ready for supper a few minutes early' — can you do that for me?” And eagerly he runs off!

Less shouting is going to help a lot with making home a place of happiness. Try it!

Baking Corner

I made my mother-in-law's Rhubarb Coffee Cake and thought you might like the recipe! It's super moist and has a great contrast between and amongst the sweet cake, tart rhubarb, and crispy topping.

It can be mixed up very quickly and is ready to go. You could substitute fruit and it would be delightful because the cake part is just so good, but there's something about the sourness of the rhubarb that gets me every time! I'm sorry I don't have a photo of the interior — I took this one to the Rosary group my friend hosts and didn't have a chance. When I make it again I will update with a good shot of a piece from the side.

I loved it the first time she made it and she was so nice to write out the recipe for me!

By the way, I used to think it would be better to have all the random recipes printed out all clean and tidy, preferably in the same format and font (as if I'm the kind of person who will do this!), but as I get older, I find it endearing to come across the handwriting of a friend or relative, and even the splotches don't bother me. The little idiosyncrasies even make the recipe easier to find in my binder. (I will type it all out below.)

Rhubarb Coffeecake Like Mother, Like Daughter (and Mary Lawler)

Preheat oven to 350°F
Grease one 9 x 13″ pan or two 8″ round cake or pie pans (you can see I chose neither — any pan in the ballpark will work)

Cream until light and fluffy:

1/2 cup butter (I did change this, from the original margarine, of course!)
1 1/4 cup sugar (the rhubarb is very tart and this does not taste like a lot of sugar; if you use fruit instead, reduce the sugar to 1 cup I think – try it!)

Beat in:

1 egg

Add dry and wet ingredients alternately:

2 cups all purpose flour (I used 1 1/2 cups of AP and 1/2 cup whole wheat)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup buttermilk (sometimes I don't have that but I use 3/4 cup yogurt/sour cream mix and 1/4 cup milk, whisked together)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Fold in:

2 cups chopped fresh or frozen rhubarb

Sprinkle this mixture on top:

1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons soft butter
1/2 cup chopped pecans (I used a bit more)

Bake for 40 minutes or until a tester comes out clean. Cool and enjoy!

bits & piecesTony Esolen with a beautiful meditation of a poem by George Herbert, a poem with a hidden secret! “Now here’s the amazing thing about this short poem. In itself it models the kind of hidden motion we ought to have.” Enjoy, and tuck away for poetry class this fall…

Here's an inspired song, their “alma mater”, written for Wyoming Catholic College by my friend Peter Kwasniewski, conducted by another friend, Paul Jernberg. The Latin lyrics, by Nancy Llewellyn, are translated in the video itself, but I also posted them as a comment below the video after Peter shared them with me.

A reader sent this video, about how old-fashioned awnings can greatly cool off your home! I recommend reading the comments as well — they have a lot of tips about practical ways to shade from the sun.

Last week I posted about the conference I will be speaking at, A Return to Tradition, in Littleton CO at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic Church. It's already sold out, so sorry about that, but you can see the streaming option if you go to their website.

from the archives

Another favorite summer recipe: Eggplant Obsession! I love that you can make a batch and serve it another day at room temperature.

liturgical living

Saint Apollinaris

follow us everywhere! share us with your friends!

Here is my affiliate link to my Amazon page — the only affiliate thing that goes on here on LMLD, which is why the page loads quickly and you don’t have to keep closing pop-ups etc! Thank you for opening it and shopping if you are so minded — as some have asked me. If not, don’t worry one bit!

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

My “random thoughts no pictures” blog, Happy Despite Them has moved over to Substack! — receive it by email if you like, or bookmark, so you don’t miss a thing! The old one is still up if you want to look at the comments on past posts. It will take me a while to get things organized, but you'll be patient, I know!

There you will find the weekly podcast done by Phil and me, called On the Home Front. Do let us know what you think!

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

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

Consider subscribing to this blog by email. We would love to pop into your inbox! The subscription box is on this page on the sidebar!

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

Auntie Leila’s Facebook (you can just follow)

The boards of the others: Rosie’s Pinterest. Sukie’s Pinterest. Deirdre’s Pinterest. Habou’s Pinterest

The post How and why to stop hollering across the house; Grandma’s rhubarb coffee cake; Links! appeared first on Like Mother, Like Daughter.

Return to Beauty: A New Renaissance in Catholic Art

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Published on July 20, 2024 08:58

I’m back with chitchat, a real magazine, and links!

We came back from Maine with five grandsons bunking here for a night (and then three for another night) and extended family still around, followed by the massive project of roofers doing their thing with all that entails in terms of noise, dirt, and temporary nigh-imprisonment inside!

So I can't say I've spent my time before writing this doing my beloved puttering and home-keeping. Between the brutal heat/humidity and the never-ending sense of running around catching up, my photos are not going to inspire! Sorry!

So what should we talk about?

In the garden, I did harvest half the garlic! First I got the scapes and made garlic scape (and parsley) pesto. Here's a scape I missed!

I need to harvest the rest, but I got sidetracked when it got too hot and Bridget found ground bees in one of the rows. (She went home on Thursday, so now I'm on my own!)

Now the Chief has dealt with that danger, so I can do it.

I really encourage everyone to plant garlic, even if you hardly plant anything else at all. It's so rewarding. You can order cloves in the fall if you want to, or you can plant the largest, best cloves of garlic you buy at the store. They will grow, don't worry.

I did buy a bunch from a seed place long ago, and ever since have been planting from the best of what I harvest (the biggest cloves yield the biggest heads). It's a travesty to think that, apparently, grocery store garlic comes from China! There is no reason not to grow your own if you have any room at all.

The hard neck variety I plant here in Zone 6a, Chesnok Red, goes in like other bulbs in the fall. You harvest in July around here. It keeps very well and is quite tasty!

I used to plant in one bed, but two harvests ago I realized a better way.

I now plant on the north side of about four of my beds. That way, the garlic can grow but I can also use the bed in the spring for other things.

So this year, for instance, I planted beets and lettuce just in front of them. I found it vexing to think I just wasn't going to have the bed until July, especially because I'm usually not that motivated to plant anything new at that point, mainly because it's always super dry.

Here is a row that needs to be pulled, along with its row of fairly bolted lettuce:

Here's how it was, so neat and tidy, in early June!

Garlic takes up very little room in a row like that. You can see how I have virtually the whole bed left to work with. I'm pretty proud of this discovery!

I hang the garlic heads in the garage to dry out. It's not very aesthetic in there (there's a reason I call it The Garage of Death) but it is quite airy (we hardly ever really close it up and even if we do, it's just a country structure, not at all sealed up) and of course, out of the sun.

Oh, and I wanted to tell you about a new in-real-life journal. You may be familiar with Hearth & Field, a publication available online, very pleasing… I've shared some of their things here in the past.

Well, they are offering that almost bygone experience of receiving a magazine in the mail — and sitting down with it in your hands and enjoying reading the printed word on the page!

I say magazine but it's really more like a book. No doubt these will be kept lovingly on the shelf, where they will sit high and disposedly! There are many articles of varied nature, having to do with all the subjects that occur to the inquiring mind, interested in the world around and within. There happens to be a longish interview with me in this inaugural issue! But it's only one of a myriad of offerings, including recipes and how-tos and essays, just like the online version, but for real!

One's subscription includes a leather bookmark (handmade) which I didn't think would matter to me but I actually love (however my photo of it is lost in the mists and it itself is upstairs), and your choice of one of three handmade mugs.

Everything is beautifully packaged. I think this subscription would make a great gift for someone who would appreciate the finer things.

To subscribe, go to this link. If you love the site, you will love the journal!

bits & piecesI went on Brian Shepherd's podcast to discuss with him That Hideous Strength! And Order and Wonder, and Abolition of Man… I would love to know what you think! And check out his other podcasts — I enjoy listening to what he has to offer, because he's lively and who doesn't want to be thinking about and discussing C. S. Lewis's writings?

Put it on your calendar if you are near Denver and want to come: I will be at the women's conference there, A Return to Tradition, in Littleton CO at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic Church. I will be speaking on the 23rd.

As we go into discussions about AI, it's important to know about first principles and how they bear on ethics and predictions. This article is quite helpful: The human paradigm of knowing, how it is different, why it is not replicable with AI, by Thomas B. Fowler

Do you ever think you might want to read the Rule of St. Benedict, but know you need a guide? I feel that way, and so was happy to stumble upon this Substack: Incola ego sum in terra. The author posts (sends to your email if you subscribe) one rule a week, with commentary. This week, the subject is the cellarer of the monastery, his duties and approach. As I read, I thought of the wife, and how like the cellarer she is!

“Let him have the care of everything: let him do nothing without the permission of the Abbot.

Let him observe what is commanded him, let him not sadden his brothers.

If any brother perchance asks him for anything unreasonably, let him not sadden him by rejection, but deny the wrong request reasonably and with humility.”

How closely these commands track with the observation in Proverbs 31 of the virtuous woman:

“She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness.
She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness.”

They track with the challenges too. The mother also sometimes has to answer unreasonable requests. This rule helps her to see the importance of how she responds. The author's commentary is excellent because it shows how important to the hierarchy of the monastery the wisdom of the cellarer is — how his obedience fits in with his authority. The wife too has to find her way in this paradox, of being obedient to the head while having a tremendous effect on the flourishing of her community. And the implication is that the head (abbot or husband) delegates and trusts. The trust arises from the constant effort of both to “die to self for others” — hence the warning that the cellarer not be self-indulgent (also given to the abbot, of course). Mothers can heed this as well. We need to learn how to deny ourselves so that we can be alert and have the inner resources to strive to avoid bringing sadness to those in our care, especially when we have to be strict with them.

While families are not like monasteries (though monasteries are like families), the Rule can help us learn Christian living in its daily practicalities.

Incredible, especially for those of us who just love Sigrid Undset! 100 Years After Sigrid Undset’s Conversion: The First Vocation From Lillehammer, Norway She seems to be involved in the details — well worth a read!

How divorce never ends: It will affect your kids for the rest of their lives

from the archivesBooks about marriage

There is no other plan — marriage is the plan

follow us everywhere! share us with your friends!

Here is my affiliate link to my Amazon page — the only affiliate thing that goes on here on LMLD, which is why the page loads quickly and you don’t have to keep closing pop-ups etc! Thank you for opening it and shopping if you are so minded — as some have asked me. If not, don’t worry one bit!

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

My “random thoughts no pictures” blog, Happy Despite Them has moved over to Substack! — receive it by email if you like, or bookmark, so you don’t miss a thing! The old one is still up if you want to look at the comments on past posts. It will take me a while to get things organized, but you'll be patient, I know!

There you will find the weekly podcast done by Phil and me, called On the Home Front. Do let us know what you think!

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

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

Consider subscribing to this blog by email. We would love to pop into your inbox! The subscription box is on this page on the sidebar!

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

Auntie Leila’s Facebook (you can just follow)

The boards of the others: Rosie’s Pinterest. Sukie’s Pinterest. Deirdre’s Pinterest. Habou’s Pinterest

The post I’m back with chitchat, a real magazine, and links! appeared first on Like Mother, Like Daughter.

Five Poems Every Catholic Should Memorize.

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Published on July 13, 2024 11:26

An apologia for pragmatism; my renewed bulletin board; and links!

Just about all the analyses about the demise of our culture go on at length about political philosophy, policies, historical influences, top-down conspiracies, failures of legitimate and successes of illegitimate authorities, economic blunders, and so on, but I have yet to come across one that puts its finger on the actual problem to explain our bewildered state, our sense of impending doom, and our descent into chaos. Yet it has to do with the most fundamental institution: the family.

Where men and women don't fall in love, marry, and have children, society simply loses its will to create, to grow, to care — and will not flourish. It can't solve its problems, though it can endlessly wrangle about them. Conflict will reign.

But what good does it do to try to observe this fact, to try to put it into words, when it is so big, no one can see it? And what experts in economics and politics have the patience to lay their vast knowledge at the feet of a simple truth, located in the human spirit and not in complex models and statistics?

Instead I regard my task as something different: pointing out to anyone who will listen the way to do it.

Even if it's just one man and one woman deciding to have faith and live differently from the way the world things they should, they need a little encouragement from someone who can honestly say, “If I can [sort of, after a fashion, not very well,] do it, so can you!”

I believe that hearing of the worthiness of the goal of restoration, and acknowledgement that anyway, it's what we want to do in our heart of hearts, and then hearing how to do it so we can overcome the fear that we won't be able to, is the way forward.

There is philosophy: the deep contemplation of eternal truths, of being, of knowing, and I maintain that standing at the kitchen sink, a woman can engage in deep thought and even prayer, unbeknownst to anyone else and maybe even herself. There are principles, and they are worth considering. There is abstract rumination, which isn't quite philosophy and has the effect, often, of paralysis.

Going over and over the internal arguments — especially the ones about the sexes and children — doesn't even get us over to the sink. Not only will we not be contemplating any great notions — we won't even be doing the dishes. And when the dishes pile up, the sense of failure overcomes us! Never mind world war! Even in the kitchen things are not right.

The reason I say plan your meals and get the laundry under control — and even the reason I post pictures of my little corners and doings — is simple. The pragmatic approach can get us to where we need to be where thinking, after a point, won't.

I can't tell you how often I have observed both men and women fail to come to grips with the real challenge because they are uselessly re-hashing long settled debates (settled, that is, in reality, but not according to the self-serving plans of the forces that keep the pot of social commentary stirred).

Actually having a plan (thinking, yes, but also making a list) to do the very minimum I have to do (not the maximum!) in order to have a happy, peaceful home and then doing it, even if I need a nap somewhere in there, helps me reconcile myself to a very important task, which is actually saving the world the only way I can.

A man has trouble sacrificing himself to the work necessary to provide for his family if his family never really gets established and always seems to be on the brink of disaster, if not abandonment. So the wife at the heart of his home really does help him take heart when he sets out to do his job — and save the world, the only way he can!

How did ordinary, normal people get to the point where they agreed with the idea that having and nurturing children is bad? Or that making the home is stupid and unnecessary? Or that being bound to one person in a complementary union, for life, is disposable?

In his book The Well and the Shallows, G. K. Chesterton famously remarks, “It has been left to the very latest Modernists to proclaim an erotic religion which at once exalts lust and forbids fertility.” He implicates Christians in that category, the “very latest Modernists.” “The new Paganism literally merits the reproach of Swinburne, when mourning for the old Paganism: ‘and rears not the bountiful token and spreads not the fatherly feast.'”

The fatherly feast. When did we become convinced that bounty — the bounty of children where God gives them — must be resisted?

So strange, but not when you observe the perpetual anxiety that has us enthralled, so that we never question the main premise, and never assent to the cost of living in a way to affirm that the good things of life are not monetary, nor ought we to monetize our blessings.

My approach is to show the pragmatic beginnings for the woman, the heart of the home, so susceptible to doubt, so ready to be swayed by the voices pulling her away! Tidy up that room, fold that laundry, start that supper early. Detach from the sense that your hours need to be billable, so to speak. Be inefficient in the eyes of the world and efficient to your own standards. Prudence means leaving plenty of time, for everyone in your life depends on you being available.

When did we determine that our availability, secured by our resistance to outside commitments, especially transactional ones, is a burden? It is, in fact, freedom, both personal and societal. And without the availability of the mother, we are even less able than we thought to help others restore peace in our world.

From today's Office of Readings, Psalm 106:

40 Contempt was poured forth upon their princes: and he caused them to wander where there was no passing, and out of the way.

41 And he helped the poor out of poverty: and made him families like a flock of sheep.

42 The just shall see, and shall rejoice, and all iniquity shall stop their mouth.

43 Who is wise, and will keep these things: and will understand the mercies of the Lord?

{By the way, I'm taking a summer break as my children make their way back here and we have a bit of vacation, so I shall see you, God willing, after the first week of July! I will probably post on Happy Despite Them and other social media, linked below.}

Decorating Corner

I've been trying to force myself to put up pictures and other decorations — in the kitchen and all over. I have severe commitment issues about this, but doing the kitchen has made me realize how unfinished it all looks if you don't put up your personal touches. So I think I've been doing a pretty good job!

But when I thought I was done in the kitchen, I realized I had eliminated the spot for the chalkboard and/or bulletin board, and combined with not having a free-standing fridge, this meant I had a little pile of pictures and prayer cards and mementoes that was literally a pile I moved around from place to place, but actually it just was on the sofa where I do my computer work.

I couldn't tidy the den (sofa and beyond) until I found a place to put these little objects.

I moved the Gourmet poster (which I actually won back in the day from their site!) up to the laundry room where I believe I will be the only person ever to see it but for now that's fine. It's fortuitously covering a defect in the wall there, so we'll go with it.

I got the old bulletin board out of the garage, cleaned it up, and painted the frame one of my favorite yellows, Benjamin Moore San Mateo Beaches, which we used in the Chief's office.

Now most of my pile is taken care of. But not all… and also there is no room for actual active items so I think I need something else, maybe in the pantry…

Knitting Corner

I told my husband not to turn on the TV last night without making me first get out my sweater and pattern so I could finally face casting on the sleeve before sinking into couch-potato mode — and he didn't!!

Husband fail!!

But I was able to reach the basket and pull it over to me without getting up, so it happened. The stitches are picked up and here's hoping I can finish this sweater before it gets cold again.

Ask Auntie Leila (and crowd-sourcing) Corner

Dear Bethany asks:

I'm in the midst of planning our coming homeschool year, and would like to know if you have any recommendations for saint's biographies for 8th or 9th grade students. We use Ambleside Online, and while I love many of their book choices, all of their spiritual formation books focus on missionaries in the 19th and 20th centuries. We'd really like to expand the focus to Christians in other times and places. I'm guessing there are certain biographies that are considered classic, but really don't know where to begin looking. We have already considered Augustine's Confessions, but would like to look at more options before deciding. So, can you suggest any?

I answered:

That's a good idea! Ignatius Press has a whole series on the saints that is very good.

These look excellent. I haven't read them all but Rosie's MIL, my friend Ann, has, as have many of my other friends, and they all recommend them. The ones written by Louis De Wohl are excellent for sure.
There is the Mark Twain book about St. Joan of Arc (affiliate link), which used to be our Suki's favorite at that age, and Chesterton on St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Francis of Assisi (affiliate link).

I will ask on the blog if people have books to add to the list!

Readers, consider yourselves asked! Thank you!

bits & pieces

Diabolical Marks of Self-Inflicted Violence by Fr. Jerry Pokorsky. “The IVF industrial complex violates God’s law, deforms the natural relations of men, women, and children, disposes of unwanted babies, and treats humans as animals. Some suggest that IVF technology is “pro-life.” If so, Doctor Frankenstein’s techniques are also pro-life. Authentic science exalts—but does not mutilate—the handiwork of God.”

The Galileo Controversy: “It is commonly believed that the Catholic Church persecuted Galileo for abandoning the geocentric (earth-at-the-center) view of the solar system for the heliocentric (sun-at-the-center) view.” Is this correct? A good article about what really happened.

Modern Architecture: Designed to Demoralize? by Michael Strand. “Disregard for the knowledge we have about humans and humane environments is contributing to a public health crisis. There is no nicer way of saying this. Modern architecture is doing a huge disservice to the planet and to people, and it is being done in the name of aesthetic relativism and other ideologies that don’t stand up to the slightest scrutiny. It is a depraved philosophy and one we are paying for dearly, not only psychologically but financially, ecologically, and socially.”

from the archives

Poetry Day! It might be fun to start in the summer. Instead of “summer school” which is torture, why not do something you might feel you don't have time for in the regular curriculum? A good way to spend those hot afternoons?

Ask Auntie Leila: Should my kids play sports, and when?

To be happy at home

liturgical living

St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More, martyrs

Monday is the Solemnity of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, so tomorrow night might be good for a bonfire!

They are literally saints and martyrs for marriage! Be not afraid!

follow us everywhere! share us with your friends!

Here is my affiliate link to my Amazon page — the only affiliate thing that goes on here on LMLD, which is why the page loads quickly and you don’t have to keep closing pop-ups etc! Thank you for opening it and shopping if you are so minded — as some have asked me. If not, don’t worry one bit!

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

My “random thoughts no pictures” blog, Happy Despite Them has moved over to Substack! — receive it by email if you like, or bookmark, so you don’t miss a thing! The old one is still up if you want to look at the comments on past posts. It will take me a while to get things organized, but you'll be patient, I know!

There you will find the weekly podcast done by Phil and me, called On the Home Front. Do let us know what you think!

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

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

Consider subscribing to this blog by email. We would love to pop into your inbox! The subscription box is on this page on the sidebar!

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

Auntie Leila’s Facebook (you can just follow)

The boards of the others: Rosie’s Pinterest. Sukie’s Pinterest. Deirdre’s Pinterest. Habou’s Pinterest

The post An apologia for pragmatism; my renewed bulletin board; and links! appeared first on Like Mother, Like Daughter.

So here is the first change — a post about it here:

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Published on June 22, 2024 08:56

New tile around the fireplace; herb garden and a swarm; links!

Kitchen Reno Corner

Dear Katie in last week's comments asked to hear about the new tiles around the hearth, so here you go!

Back when we replaced the old insert with the new wood stove, we had to bring the situation around the hearth up to code. The code here says 18″ from the glass needs to be made of a fireproof material (including the option of putting a hearth pad there).

Before we repointed the bricks and whitewashed them:

And after:

To make it to 18″ on the floor from the stove door, I just needed one row of 4″ tiles. My mother (Habou as we called her), ever the squirreller-away of pretty things, happened to have a bag of Mexican Talavera tiles in her studio, which she cheerfully handed over. Nothing made her happier than pulling out something that would work for you! And honestly, looking back, I realize how much I relied on that!

These beautiful tiles weren't quite right for the application — they are not really floor tiles and chipped easily. I was always in a bit of an anxious state, what with the dragging out of the heavy fender, dropping of logs, waving of iron poker, and so on. I did love how they looked!

Further, you can see how the one board beyond the tiles got dried out and had its finish degraded — can you see that it's discolored? The heat from the stove actually goes beyond the 18″ and it would have been better to have put another row of tiles in, but I didn't have any, and they would really have been even more vulnerable.

So when the floors had to be ripped out for this renovation, I thought about what tiles I wanted to go there. Anything porcelain, even heavy-duty floor tiles, was going to have this same issue, to some degree, of chipping.

I thought it would be great to have stone tile. My thinking was that if the stone chips, it's still stone all the way through. I love those European stone floors, don't you? I had a vague idea about that…

I went through all the types: marble, limestone, granite, slate. Even brick. Some were too fancy, though lovely (marble); some were way too big (limestone) — it becomes a real issue of how you are going to cut it.

I couldn't find brick tile that I liked, and whatever it was had to be thin (I couldn't use actual bricks!), so we could achieve the all-important flushness with the floor, as this is, like every other area in the kitchen, a pathway and in this case, tripping hazard. And would I whitewash it, and so on.

I have fireplaces in this house elsewhere… most have a big marble piece in front of them.

The black marble one in the dining room actually has a brick hearth, maybe brick-like porcelain, I'm not sure. It's not what I would have maybe chosen myself!

Yet it works.

In fact, I had to go look at it to know what it was — I couldn't remember when I was just thinking about it! To me, it's “normal” and not anything that struck me one way or another. That made me realize that I didn't have to get matchy or too particular. I just needed something classic and useful.

This is the value of old houses and ways. We can tend to get obsessive about things that our forebears just really didn't worry about!

I actually brought home slate tiles — I think they were 3″ x 9″ — but as I thought about how I wanted the herringbone pattern, the space for them seemed too limited for their size. I think slate would have gone really well here, looks-wise, but I realized I needed a smaller tile.

It could use a mopping! Ashes…

By the way, I went to several specialty tile places, and it was at the big box store that I found what I wanted: Basalt Herringbone Honed Mosaic tile. (I'm not promoting this in any way — not sponsored!)

The marble version was tempting. It's really beautiful. But in the end, I thought this was more rustic in keeping with the general aesthetic here and not clashing with the whitewash, though I admit I was nervous about all the black! We used a charcoal grout.

You can see that I designed it to cover a much larger space than what we had before.

My thought was that it would guard the wood floor from the heat and also provide a tactile warning underfoot to the person walking there that there are… obstacles, e.g. a raised hearth.

I think in person it's not as busy-looking as it is in photos.

I liked the sort of frame in the dining room, defining the hearth, so I had the contractor do that here:

It's time now to put the fireplace things in the garage and clean up around here, but I think it all turned out pretty well!

It's very durable and I don't have to worry about damage. This is a working fireplace for sure! I just wanted to eliminate that anxiety.

I hope all this detailed discussion helps you think about how to solve problems and pull together various design elements. The homemaker can do so much to make the home inviting and pretty, but it takes thought! Lots of pondering! It's so easy to get sucked into the marketing and trends. How to step outside of all that and achieve a timeless, classic environment, given our place and means? I mean, what is classic in Massachusetts might not be so in Arizona. And most of us don't have a bottomless pocketbook.

A big part of how I proceeded was to examine how things were done in the past, including pinning many, many pictures to my Pinterest of old things. I made a board for this particular problem and didn't actually find many examples of things that fit my situation in general, much less of of a whitewashed fireplace with wood floor, but I did find one with a black herringbone hearth and that's what inspired me and helped me settle on the basalt.

In this project, I tried to find materials and methods in the here and now to capture that older way that ends up being so homey and welcoming.

Garden and Bee Corner

The Chief caught a swarm! He's so happy about that. We now have three hives! Our friend JJ set one the trap up in our yard. He's had great success with them, and sure enough, the bees came!

The vegetable garden is coming along too. I returned from Colorado two weeks behind, but things are mostly in now. I hope next week to show some of it!

This week I caught up with annuals — the virtue of being late is you can shop the BOGO sales! And I think the herb garden and porch are looking fine with the pots of geraniums and so on, not to mention that the front of the house got painted while I was gone! Much needed and oh so satisfying!

My sage bloomed, which I don't recall it ever doing before:

I planted some lemon verbena:

And I simply can't do without red geraniums!

On to our links!

bits & pieces

Married fathers matter. Happy Father's Day!

The Mystery of Similarity by D.T. Sheffler. “Despite the grand, cosmic conclusions, Platonism begins from very simple, ordinary observations. These observations are so simple and ordinary that we are liable to miss how mysterious they really are and how difficult it is to understand the deeper structures of reality that must be in place for these simple, ordinary observations to hold true. Part of the enchantment that Socrates weaves over our minds with his persistent, annoying questions is that he makes the simple and ordinary seem difficult and strange in order that we might begin to think about the ordinary for the first time. Among these ordinary mysteries—and leading straight to the heart of Platonism—the common experience of similarity is perhaps the most strange of all.”

J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and the Cosmic Music of the Beginnings

30 Medieval Manuscripts, Digitized

Natural Light is An Essential Nutrient: Decades of Forgotten Research Show How Much Modern Lighting Has Harmed Human Health. I'm not necessarily able to understand everything in this article, but it seems just common sense to me that we need natural light and are depriving ourselves of it in general. I come from a background of Egyptians loving to go to the beach and hang out there all day, who also brought umbrellas and took refuge in the shade. They didn't bake out there but they also did not avoid it at all. Let's use more hats and less sunblock this summer and try to access some vitamin D!

An excellent interview of Joy Pullman, who speaks with a definitive grasp of her subject: Gender politics and how they are changing our already burdened administrative state.

from the archives

Emergency Summer Reading: The Gift of Modesty — I do think a big part of modesty is finding pretty things to wear instead of all the trashy fashions out there. It's easy to say “don't expose yourself” — much harder to say what one should wear! Fortunately, there are more options now. Feel free to link in the comments to what you have found!

Ask Auntie Leila: Summer in the home school

follow us everywhere! share us with your friends!

Here is my affiliate link to my Amazon page — the only affiliate thing that goes on here on LMLD, which is why the page loads quickly and you don’t have to keep closing pop-ups etc! Thank you for opening it and shopping if you are so minded — as some have asked me. If not, don’t worry one bit!

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

My “random thoughts no pictures” blog, Happy Despite Them has moved over to Substack! — receive it by email if you like, or bookmark, so you don’t miss a thing! The old one is still up if you want to look at the comments on past posts. It will take me a while to get things organized, but you'll be patient, I know!

There you will find the weekly podcast done by Phil and me, called On the Home Front. Do let us know what you think!

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

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

Consider subscribing to this blog by email. We would love to pop into your inbox! The subscription box is on this page on the sidebar!

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

Auntie Leila’s Facebook (you can just follow)

The boards of the others: Rosie’s Pinterest. Sukie’s Pinterest. Deirdre’s Pinterest. Habou’s Pinterest

The post New tile around the fireplace; herb garden and a swarm; links! appeared first on Like Mother, Like Daughter.

Here's another something to read aloud with the family — it's so funny! Translation can be so funny!

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Published on June 15, 2024 08:47

Kitchen Renovation: How to spend less for more classiness: cabinet hardware

Maybe to some, my kitchen looks so different that they assume it is way out of reach. “We'll just do the normal thing because we could never afford that.”

What if I told you that the little touches here are the most frugal? That you'll spend way more if you do it the conventional way? For instance, that a built-in, wired and plumbed island costs more than a custom-made furniture one?

Or that buying your hardware through the kitchen showroom costs a lot more than the way I did it, even though my knobs and pulls are solid brass?

Let's go around the kitchen and see what I did, specifically regarding the hardware.

Remember, the design principles I had in mind for my 1860s kitchen were these:

Using the space, which is funky and full of pathways and other obstructions making it quite inefficient in many respects, as fully as possible — which really did mean customizing the cabinetry to the quarter of an inchTrying to keep a classic “unfitted” lookChoosing materials that are as real as possible and where possible, in keeping with the place and time (New England, 19th century)Compensating for the total gutting of the room (other than the fireplace) with an “implied evolution of styles” so that we didn't end up with a “time stamp” that would date the renovation to a certain year's trendsKeeping in mind that I did use this kitchen for almost a quarter of a century and know what kinds of things will make me crazy and what kinds of things I like, and not be talked into things that are not for me

Since I knew I would have a built-in fridge, the appliance pulls were a must. You need their sturdiness and size because these doors have a suction seal and will be yanked on multiple times, a day hopefully forever.

Overall, from my Pinterest investigations, I had decided that the general look I wanted was brass (with a little mixing of metals in the materials for the faucets). It seemed the most fitting, given the criteria above; I like the warmth and so on.

I remembered various voices saying that you want the things you touch to feel good: real, solid, not prone to peeling or cracking. The finish on the ceiling lamp by the door is far out of sight and you'll never touch it. It's okay for it to offer a general nod to whatever look you're trying to pull off: the Lowe's $40 schoolhouse fixture is going to do the job — I don't need the $200 Pottery Barn version.

So I was willing to go big for the appliance pulls, and keep in mind that the last time I bought a knob for my kitchen was when I ran down to Home Depot to get a porcelain one to replace one that broke and it was maybe $3. We are talking a combination of not going into this market with either experience of what I needed or familiarity with current prices (which of course have skyrocketed even when you account for the usual increases).

In other words, I was super out of touch.

For all these reasons, early on in this process I had major, major sticker shock when I realized that one, (1), A SINGULAR pull would cost at least $40 for something rather unaesthetic and completely unsatisfactory from Home Depot and up to $160 for the solid brass that of course I craved. Each.

I needed three.

I went through all the stages of grief, including wondering if they could be DIY'ed using towel racks (not really and would still cost a lot: wow, towel racks are expensive!!) and spending days and days searching for alternatives.

Finally I ascertained that these Massey appliance pulls, 12″, from Rejuvenation in aged brass were the ones I wanted. But no way, no way was I going to pay $420 plus shipping.

For days I searched online, and finally I put in the exact thing I was looking for (“3 Massey appliance pulls Rejuvenation 12” aged brass) on Facebook Marketplace. And lo and behold, up popped a listing for exactly that!

“Bought too many, new in box” for around $50 each which was pretty good but — I saw the listing had been up for 17 weeks. So I offered $30 each and I would pay for shipping (saving myself an hour's drive to the city, which I would have made if necessary). The answer came back, “how about $125 and I pay shipping.”

Um… yes. I'm still not sure how I got away with that, but phew! (Keep in mind that designers overbuy and are happy to unload afterwards.)

Now, the thing I think most people do is just get all the pulls and knobs from the same line.

But each Massey pull is $16-65.

Each knob is around $14. Count up all the ones you will need and you see how much it all ends up being? Don't get me wrong, they are beautiful.

But I couldn't help think there must be some other way to get that hardware. I could accept, reluctantly, that the appliance pulls needed to be appliance pulls. But the rest of it?

Surely those brass knobs have been around forever? Why are they so much?

I found a guy near me on FBMP who was selling the Home Depot version of the knobs — which is the “around forever” version and just fine — for a few bucks less each, new in the box.

I bought a couple of boxes off of him.

But I did want something like those Massey drawer pulls or something other than knobs for the lower cabinets/drawers. I like this kind and wanted one for the spice/oils/vinegars pull-out by the stove:

Maybe it's just me, but I like having just one. I don't generally want to reach under for this type of cup pull for all the drawers, particularly the ones I know from experience I will use with wet and possibly even floury hands. Anyway, it wasn't cheap. I can't remember now why I decided to order and keep this, but there it is.

Finally I found what I was looking for: the pulls I wanted, but that aren't official “kitchen hardware” — in fact, they are window hardware!

They are called Sash Lift/Door Pulls, and for the lower drawers I got these, that are around $10 each (better than $20 for the Massey ones!) and these for the upper drawers — they are slightly smaller, and here's another place where the contractor raised an eyebrow, but at the time (not now, apparently) they were several dollars cheaper and I prefer the slight variation, both in size and in shape. I think the eye rests with it.

I like them because they are easy to clean around, which is going to be necessary with me as the cook, and they don't have anything sticking out to catch your clothing — the rounded aspect is also key for sanity. They are timeless and in fact would have been in the old-fashioned hardware store in the center of town back in the day.

I also needed new doorknobs in places. Again, you can run up your bill here. This classic style at House of Antiques is upwards of $150.

By now I knew to run to FBMP, and I found a guy practically giving away these simple but satisfying ones that add the elevated touch, for about $2 each — I put one on my front door too:

There is a deadbolt lock above, so the knob didn't need a lock.

When you are doing a renovation costing tens of thousands in repairing rotting beams, tearing out faulty wiring, and re-doing wonky plumbing, it can seem like it doesn't matter to spend $500 here and $500 there, but it does! You will, regardless. So you have to be strict with yourself where you can!

By the way, this Pinterest board has a lot of the items I ended up getting — vs. this one, which has all my inspiration pictures.

On to our links!

bits & piecesI recommend reading this little article about C. S. Lewis on making reading a hobby (and of course, he was one of history's greatest readers) with your rising high school student. Give him something to aim for!

How the Bible and the Liturgy Illuminate Christian Marriage — Peter Kwasniewski with another jam-packed talk and I don't just say that because he starts with a quote from me!

I'm sure you've encountered someone who has used a surrogate or casually mentions someone they know who did. Please be convinced of its absolute evil. People need our visceral yet well informed reactions. They need to know something is repugnant and unacceptable.

For the price of a month's disposable diapers, you could buy a permanent supply! Not to mention if you buy them second-hand! I know the cost of having a baby seems so high, but there are ways! Cloth diapering can seem impossibly out of the realm of possibility, but once you just try it, you realize it's not what you thought at all. It's much nicer for baby and for the parents too.

Another amazing Carmelite foundation — monks in Wyoming!

from the archivesOur guide to Father's Day gifts! A post about a historical novel that also has general tips for homeschooling (don't you find the end of your school year the most inspirational for next year? jot your ideas down somewhere where you will find them in September!)

liturgical living

The Immaculate Heart of Mary

From today's Office of Readings: Mary Stored Up All These Things In Her Heart

follow us everywhere! share us with your friends!

Here is my affiliate link to my Amazon page — the only affiliate thing that goes on here on LMLD, which is why the page loads quickly and you don’t have to keep closing pop-ups etc! Thank you for opening it and shopping if you are so minded — as some have asked me. If not, don’t worry one bit!

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

My “random thoughts no pictures” blog, Happy Despite Them has moved over to Substack! — receive it by email if you like, or bookmark, so you don’t miss a thing! The old one is still up if you want to look at the comments on past posts. It will take me a while to get things organized, but you'll be patient, I know!

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

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

Consider subscribing to this blog by email. We would love to pop into your inbox! The subscription box is on this page on the sidebar!

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

Auntie Leila’s Facebook (you can just follow)

The boards of the others: Rosie’s Pinterest. Sukie’s Pinterest. Deirdre’s Pinterest. Habou’s Pinterest

The post Kitchen Renovation: How to spend less for more classiness: cabinet hardware appeared first on Like Mother, Like Daughter.

Can appreciation of art be taught? A Charlotte Mason perspective

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Published on June 08, 2024 08:52

A new granddaughter, a (long overdue) wedding quilt, and links!

{The view up their street! For this New Englander, this is epic!}

I'm in Colorado and hence, on Mountain Time not to mention out-of-my-routine time! I'm here to be with Suki and her family for the birth of her new little one, their fifth, Maria Isidora Rose!

She is 7lbs 13 oz which is tiny for this family! She's doing so well and so is Suki.

The baby was late (par for the course!) so I changed my flight and had time to finish up the wedding quilt for Suki and John. If you've been following along, you know that I put on the afterburners starting this winter, and yet was not done by the time we boarded for our flight. I told my husband that we were packing it up and I was finishing it here, and if I didn't, we would just pack it back up and take it home! Since I did have to stay longer, I didn't have to do that. I finished.

Yes! 12 years later, it's done! To be fair to me, I just started it maybe last year? I win the award though — you know, the award for slowest quilter!

I have documented this process a bit along the way, sharing with you my annoyance at my own inability to settle on fabrics, patch, design, or really anything. I settled on “Flying Geese” with sashing, but it was all very much a matter of putting it together as I went along, instead of starting out with a good plan.

However, in the end, it “came together on the plate” as they say on Top Chef, and is, in fact, very Suki! (And yes, we spell her nickname both ways all the time! Her name is Suzanne.)

When she was planning her wedding, she wanted it colorful — You can read about the reception here and see how we decorated the barn (Rosie's in-laws' barn — fortunately they are among our very best friends!). A big part of the style was the multi-colored napkins, a lot of which I incorporated into this quilt.

Not all, because some of the actual fabrics I used were not good enough quality (good enough for the purpose, but wouldn't have stood up in a quilt). And I ended up buying other fabrics to round things out.

Since I'm here, I thought I'd show you a couple of other quilts that I made in the past. I am trying to make each of my grandchildren a quilt — I'm a bit behind of course, being outpaced by the births; some come at more opportune times for me, so those families have more. For these guys, I've made one so far but have taken notes from the other kids as to what they would want. Mostly animals!

This one is a simple “Log Cabin” quilt — a patch I really love. I made it about 5 years ago I think.

My OCD makes me twitchy with myself, because I do love things scrappy but I also overthink how they go together.

I quilted this one with “Baptist Fans” — the wedding quilt is just outlines of the patches. For both, I used DMC Pearl cotton floss. My hands are getting too arthritic to do proper quilting with tiny stitches.

I think little fingers have been pulling threads, but that's okay.

And long ago, when Suki went off on her own after college, I made her this whole-cloth little throw because I loved the fabric so much.

The backing was from my stash and I machine quilted it quickly — the idea was just a quick throw to remind her that we loved her!

It's cute that she still uses it — it's quite faded now.

If you feel like you're too busy to do too much crafting, that's a satisfying project — two nice pieces of fabric, sewn together. Doesn't get much easier than that.

bits & pieces

In the comments on last week's post, Mrs. Bee directed us to this article about chimney closets. I know about Irish “airing cupboards” built in or near the furnace to counteract the effects of the damp on sheets and so on. The cupboard I was posting about there is truly, it must be admitted, not of a very useful size. And of course in most of three seasons, the wood stove is not in use, so it's not particularly warm. But in winter it is. I will ponder it!

I'm sure you've read or watched Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker's speech. (If not, please do! it's remarkable how people have misrepresented his words, and actually, as I tweeted, equally remarkable that they have withstood this intense scrutiny.) I really appreciated this spirited commentary.

David Clayton and I wrote about the importance of the number eight in the liturgy and thus, in sacred art — the transcendent meaning of this number and the necessity of representing it in our lives. I thought this article by a Benedictine Monk offered a wonderful perspective on the subject, as it relates to the feast and traditional observation of Pentecost and its octave.

from the archives

Ask your children to do a little more — they can! The start of summer is a great time to revisit the chore list, let the bargaining begin (with older kids — can be fun!), and get some needed help out of them. What they can do, a list!

I have gotten a rash of questions about homeschooling in the high school years, and I think I did write about this in The Summa Domestica. I have a podcast here about teen culture — you know, the question of their education is so close to the question of how they spend their time. Young children have to learn certain very specific things and all spend their time pretty much the same way. As they get older, they need time to develop their interests, interests that do determine what they will study. There are certain basic subjects but I would caution not imposing an intensive scholarly curriculum on every child (in the homeschool or in school). Very few children are cut out to be scholars or even go to college, yet all will have some area where they can develop their interests and productivity. I realize I haven't tackled the subject in the depth it needs…

liturgical living

St. Bede, the Venerable, St. Gregory VII, St. Mary Magdalene de'Pazzi, St. Madeline Sophie Barat, and Ember Saturday of the Summer, or Pentecost Embertide!

follow us everywhere! share us with your friends!

Here is my affiliate link to my Amazon page — the only affiliate thing that goes on here on LMLD, which is why the page loads quickly and you don’t have to keep closing pop-ups etc! Thank you for opening it and shopping if you are so minded — as some have asked me. If not, don’t worry one bit!

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

My “random thoughts no pictures” blog, Happy Despite Them has moved over to Substack! — receive it by email if you like, or bookmark, so you don’t miss a thing! The old one is still up if you want to look at the comments on past posts. It will take me a while to get things organized, but you'll be patient, I know!

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

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

Auntie Leila’s Facebook (you can just follow)

The boards of the others: Rosie’s Pinterest. Sukie’s Pinterest. Deirdre’s Pinterest. Habou’s Pinterest

The post A new granddaughter, a (long overdue) wedding quilt, and links! appeared first on Like Mother, Like Daughter.