{bits & pieces}
The weekly “little of this, little of that” feature here at Like Mother, Like Daughter!
I can never wrap my mind around how quickly the garden’s promise of hope becomes a done deal — this is it, sister, there’s always next year! But in truth, it has been an amazing year!
With three burgeoning hives, we are hoping for a good and even great honey harvest this year. The Chief’s dearest, fondest wish came true when he rescued a swarm from a neighbor’s low tree! He added those bees to our “weak” hive and thinks they are already doing much better. (You combine the new and old using newspaper!) I am hoping that after things calm down in the late fall, we can straighten up our hives and make them level– they look so very ramshackle! This is the kind of thing that bothers me; the Chief — and the bees! — not a bit.
On to our links!
A must-read if you are gearing up for your home schooling or if you are wondering if it’s for you: Homeschool Worries: Erased With Research & Experience — lots of reassuring words about how school as we know it in our busy age is the experiment — learning at home is the tried and true method! No really, read it!
How people in the past read aloud: The lost pleasure of reading aloud. (Hopefully not lost but it’s interesting to get a glimpse of how it may have been done before).
Yesterday was the feast of St. Louis IX of France, who obtained the Crown of Thorns — the actual crown of thorns from the crucifixion of Jesus — and caused to be made a miraculous church to contain it, a reliquary that is in fact a building.
Nothing prepares the visitor for the experience of entering this place, for which the description of “jewel box” as applied to a building was made: for the beauty, the light, the colors, and the intimate yet soaring space. From pictures I had seen, I expected a much bigger structure, but in fact, the space is tiny in comparison to the churches and cathedrals the tourist is accustomed to visiting — what happens is that to take in the extraordinary height of it and all its marvels, the photographer has to use the widest-angle lens, and that’s what tricks you into misjudging its size.
Watch this short video with your children — it’s well done and touches on the main points. You can investigate further about the lower chapel, which is also beautiful, and the subject matter of the stained glass, which struck me as impossible to assimilate. There is so much depicted there — so many scenes of Salvation History, of the history of France, of the heavenly realm — that I can’t imagine ever being able to grasp it all. Each one of those panels, going all the way up, tells its own story!
Doing a little study of the chapel, its late Gothic architecture, and the Crown of Thorns will enhance your understanding of the medieval period and its faith.
Did medieval medicine work?
Along the same lines, a book I think I’ve recommended before: God’s Hotel by Victoria Sweet, a doctor (who is not Christian, as far as I know) with an interest in St. Hildegard von Bingen and medieval approaches to health. I highly recommend it for thoughts about caring for the sick and the poor.
Mindless Iconoclasm, from Fr. Rutler.
We must always pray and atone, from Emily Stimpson Chapman. We must love our neighbor.
A fun look at mid-century kitchens, and a video from the USDA of 1949 with some innovative ideas for efficiency (maybe skip to the 3-minute mark to see the kitchen in action — I think we could implement some of these thoughts!)
From the archives:
I have so many posts about homeschooling, and I hope that they expand for you the thoughts in that first article I linked to, above. You will find them under Raising Children in the menu bar, under “education” — all sorts of help for you to have confidence that making your home educates your children!
Sometimes the most practical thing is the one that gives you confidence for the most idealistic thing. I guarantee you that if you follow the steps I outline in this post about organizing your homeschooler’s work in a binder, the old-fashioned way, you will have a lot of serenity about the coming year. If you have questions, leave a comment!
Basically, what got me started writing here is the question I always get asked the most: How do you homeschool? The answer takes ten years of blogging to begin to accomplish, but it can be summed up as “Order and Wonder”!
Today in the Liturgical calendar we commemorate St. Zephyrinus and Our Lady of Czestochowa (you pronounce that, according to our Polish community here, Chestahova, although the internet says Chestakova! Polish-speaking readers, chime in!)
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