{bits & pieces}
The weekly “little of this, little of that” feature here at Like Mother, Like Daughter!
Welcome to readers new and old!
If you are new here, I wanted to say come on in and have a seat!
Lately my blogging has been reduced pretty much to these posts that we call bits & pieces — a little update and then links that have caught my eye during the week.
I used to post a lot, and then the call to round up everything that I’ve written about in the past 11 years into a book took hold of me. Contrary to what you might think, I have been working on it! In fact, I have a very rough draft of… wait for it… over 800 pages.
So please commend my soul to the Almighty.
Anyway, if you just got here, my hope is that you will look around and say, “Oh, wait, I can do that, if she can do it!”
The archives are full of answers to your questions: What to do with my three-year-old, how to avoid homeschool burnout, what to serve for dinner, how I can be hospitable on a budget, what to do with those teenagers, how to start prayer with children, whether it’s going to work out to move and how to tell…
Go up to the menu bar and hit “Start here” — and then poke around all those categories. On the side is a category menu as well.
Your garden can be considerably less weedy and more productive than mine… your house can be neater than mine… your bread can rise higher. I hardly know what I’m doing, but I’m here to encourage you in all things related to home making. Make no mistake — this is the highest calling!
For as Dr. Johnson reminds us:
To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition, the end to which every enterprise and labor tends, and of which every desire prompts the prosecution.
This week my granddaughter (almost 6) pulled the garlic in the bed that’s inside the rabbit fence (there’s still another harvest in the bed near the hives). Look how nice and big those heads are! The variety is called Organic Chesnok Red Garlic from High Mowing.
And I think I’m getting the hang of composting after 20 years. I’ve had a good supply for the garden and it seems to “cook” up pretty quickly. Maybe it doesn’t look like it in the photo, but the first bay on the left is ready to be turned, and the other two have a good amount of finished compost in them of various stages. But I think that in a way, the almost finished compost is even better, because the worms come and finish the job.
On to our links!
I’m poking around a new blog that was recommended to me. Here is a post that caught my eye (you can tell what’s on my mind right now): Gardening for Less from The Prudent Homemaker. I think I’m pretty darn frugal but there is always something to learn! I also just need to do better (and it wouldn’t hurt to have some more sunny areas in my yard!)
Things can change quickly. Here in Massachusetts I never had one smidge of trouble homeschooling my children. The law is pretty clear and pretty simple. But now the early distant warning has sounded. Geoffrey Vaughan, in an excellent article about what lies ahead: If Angels Educated Men, says, “There seems not to have been a particular event that triggered the change in policy [in his school district]. Indeed, according to the elected officials of the school board, there was no change in policy. But one does not need to look far to find an animus against homeschoolers in the educational establishment.” As Vaughan points out, homeschooling will always be, in a sense, marginal.
In an article I have shared before, Christopher Caldwell makes the point about the vulnerability of families when the state slides towards mob rule: “… a Swiss sexologist described the anti-gender-theory parents as groupuscules, or “splinter groups.” Parents, of course, are always groupuscules, usually consisting of two people, sometimes of one. The assumption here seems to be that parents are entitled to speak on their children’s behalf only as part of some nationwide patriotic front.” (My emphasis. It’s a long article, but well worth reading. The theme sharpens right at the end.)
Once you realize that the key to the LGBT agenda is domination, it’s possible to resist. The slogan “love is love” sounds irrefutable, but it conceals a lie.
This past week marked the anniversary of Mary Jo Kopechne’s death at Chappaquiddick, when Ted Kennedy left her to die in the car he drove off the little bridge over the river. Clan Lawler watched the movie and read Mark Steyn on the whole mess. “You can’t make an omelet without breaking chicks, right? I don’t know how many lives the senator changed – he certainly changed Mary Jo’s – but you’re struck less by the precise arithmetic than by the basic equation: How many changed lives justify leaving a human being struggling for breath for up to five hours pressed up against the window in a small, shrinking air pocket in Teddy’s Oldsmobile?”
The burning of Notre Dame Cathedral has revived the stone carving arts. “Notre Dame made people realize these skills are still needed and still important,” he says.
Children need to hear and learn excellent church music, in church! (Of course, acknowledging all that is in this article begs the question of why there should be family Masses at all, but baby steps I guess.)
It’s unthinkable that some Christians would want to entertain the notion of Communism as anything but an evil ideology. And yet, it’s happening. Educate yourself. Read the Gulag Archipelago by Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Read Bob Royal’s Twentieth Century Martyrs. Read this, from Rod Dreher: Jesuits Rehabilitate Communism.
Things you can do for those who are grieving, from Regina Doman.
From the archives:
I have a four-part series on things to do to make your family and marriage as strong as they can be. Since we’re just coming off of a week of people posting about natural family planning, perhaps you’d like to read the third in the series, The Third Secret. (The final one is here, with the others linked within.)
Do you keep bees? Here is my tutorial on how to harvest the honey.
Today is the feast of St. Pantaleon.
Follow us everywhere. I have removed the Ravelry link (see my post on IG about why — all the comments are interesting!).
Stay abreast of the posts when they do happen:
Like LMLD on Facebook.
Follow LMLD on Twitter.
I just share pretty pictures (never political until this past week):
Auntie Leila’s Instagram.
If you want politics, rants, and takes on what is going on in the Church:
Auntie Leila’s Twitter.
Auntie Leila’s Facebook (you can just follow — my posts are public — sometimes I share articles here that don’t make it into {bits & pieces})
Pinterest is annoying me right now for many of the same reasons as Ravelry, but if you want to see my boards:
Auntie Leila’s Pinterest.
Or the boards of the others:
Rosie’s Pinterest.
Sukie’s Pinterest.
Deirdre’s Pinterest.
Habou’s Pinterest.
Bridget’s Pinterest.
And the others on IG:
Rosie’s Instagram.
Sukie’s Instagram.
Deirdre’s Instagram.
Bridget’s Instagram.
Habou’s Instagram.
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