Easter! St. Gregory Pocket expansion; More knitting; The curriculum of culture
I hope you had a wonderful Easter! We have things to catch up on, you and I!
Of course it was a wonderful day of sunshine, wind, singing (for most of the Triduum including the Vigil and Sunday morning!), feasting with friends and the family who could make it, for which we are so grateful, and general celebration and gratitude. I was so tired on Monday…
And Easter being so late, it feels like we have to launch ourselves into the garden and get all the outdoor things done!
My old compost bins had fallen apart after many years of service, as I’m sure you could tell by looking out the window in my kitchen sink photos, so the Chief spent a good solid amount of time in making new ones. We use found pallets (the heat-treated ones, not the ones with toxic chemicals). He cuts one into two parts to make the dividers for the three bins. Another day I’ll give you a tour!
And I saw these reed fences at the local job lot place and thought they would be a nice, inexpensive way to spruce up the view as you come up our driveway… and he made me a new gate. I see that one of our rabbit-fenceposts needs to be straightened…
Of course we no sooner take the plow off, than the grass needs to be mown!
St. Gregory Pocket Expansion Corner
For years and years, we’ve encouraged you in ways to make good friends for yourselves and a good future peer group for your growing children. These are just our ideas from our own experiences — it’s not something you sign up with us to do, but rather a template in your own mind and a way to use social media (Facebook) to do real-life things with people who have in common, perhaps, that they love the ideas here on the blog and want to build a community.
Anyway, I have a thought for you and your single friends and relatives.
There are a lot of single young people out there who are really challenged to find a mate! I think it would be good to include your single friends in your gatherings. Now we are starting to have the possibility of nice outdoor Sunday bbqs and casual get-togethers. Young families invite each other over — how about also asking some of the singles in. your community?
Dating is almost always so dreary! It’s pressure. It’s awkwardness. It’s actually not easy to find out whether you like someone under the artificial circumstance of… getting together to see if you like someone. And if you know you don’t want to marry the person (and sometimes, often, you know right away that you don’t), it’s just too much rejection for no reason.
So while I do think casual dating has a place (an almost forgotten role, not easy to pull off), I think that even better would be opportunities to meet in organic groups, and be with others over time, and get to be friends.
I realize there’s the other issue of the friend zone, causing paralysis, but that community of married friends I’m talking about — the St. Gregory Pocket that has the future and the good of all in mind — can play a part in preventing an obviously good couple from stalling out. If friend zoning looms, you married people can take the party concerned aside and urge a move into the next level of, yes, dating, at which stage it’s not awkward, but necessary.
In other words, let’s help our unmarried friends find spouses! Let’s brainstorm. Let’s include them. Let’s do more than set them up to go out. It’s a crisis, people!
Tell us in the comments how you promote marriage among your single friends!
Knitting CornerI made another mouse!
Part of me is annoyed at how fiddly this process is, and part of me just loves them and can’t stop. I have started a third one… (this is the pattern).
I love the kitty too – did we discuss that one?
This is the first mouse I made — I gave it to my granddaughter for her birthday:
The pattern calls for overalls and little hats. Since I wanted these to be girl mice, I just sort of made the overalls into a dress (and for the new one, I made the pattern for the pullover into a dress by just lengthening it a bit).
I made two little caps but they didn’t really work, to be honest. So I made little headbands instead.
The overalls pattern includes a place for the tail to come out. I made the dress with that little hole, but later I closed it. Now the tail just comes out from under her dress.
I did sew the dress and headband right onto the mouse. In my experience, having toddlers’ dolls’ and stuffed animals’ clothing come off is super annoying.
So this is the new finished mouse:
I crocheted her little headband…
She has little embroidered eyes and a mouth that’s hard to see in the photo:
These are all stuffed with pure wool roving, and you have no idea how nice that makes them feel! I think you can really tell the difference from polyester fiberfill. They are so nice and squishy!
While I was at it, I took out the little doll I wanted to give Deirdre’s 2-year-old at Christmas, but didn’t, because I hadn’t liked her clothes at all — the ones she came with — but found it hard to figure out how to make new ones!
I had tried to make this little dress and petticoat with bits from my stash, and it was okay but they didn’t quite fit and I sort of gave up, with all that was going on at that time.
So while I was knitting the little animals, I made myself just alter the dress while it was on her, and then I figured out that the bunny pullover would work for her. I don’t think the purple is right, but the yellow yarn I had in my stash was just falling apart as I worked with it, so this very Easter-egg ensemble is what we’re going with!
I think a sort of trashy-looking doll gets transformed by throwing away the polyester clothes and giving her new ones, however hacked-together they might be! It takes practice, and the only way is… to practice!
Oh my goodness, I didn’t even have time here to talk about my new washing machine — that will have to wait for next week!
from the archivesI don’t know where on the curriculum acquisition curve you currently are (so done and ready to think about anything else for a season, or looking ahead to next year?), but I just want to say that there isn’t a magic bullet for “teaching your child Bible stories and truths” or “teaching critical thinking” or “mastering Western Civ.” All that is something only a mature culture can bestow. We had that. It was handed down to us and then we set about erasing it. Now a new generation wants shortcuts.
Know that it starts with singing nursery rhymes and telling fairy tales. It’s a slow process and can’t be forced. There has to be room in the curriculum for this sort of reading, not as assignments but as offerings to be enjoyed and discussed in a natural and organic way.
Contrary to what you might read, C. S. Lewis did not say to himself, “How can I teach children about Christ?” He told a story and everything he knew, from the earliest folk tales to the greatest epics to the most sublime philosophy, informed his storytelling. And that’s why Narnia is compelling.
And let’s not discount Pauline Baynes’ contribution to the lasting charm of the books. You can read a wonderful account of her life and work by someone who knew her, here.
This ability of man’s mind to synthesize and transform what it has known into a new creative work that also transmits truth and goodness is something AI can’t do, by the way. Time and time again, writers and publishers start with the wrong end of the stick — “Let’s retell the Gospels,” and I fear, from the results, that AI is involved, instead of the right one: “Let me delight my readers with the truth I have learned, in beauty.”
This is not a matter for overwhelm for parents. Just stick to the tried-and-true. Want your child to know Bible stories? Then tell him Bible stories written by old story-tellers (and read the Bible too) — I have a chapter about this in my book. Want to delight your child? Do it the way your great-grandmother did. Until our culture can be purged of its shortcut-seeking ways, ignore its blandishments.
Dear Auntie Leila: Are fairy tales always appropriate?
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