{bits & pieces}
{A good stack of cute mittens whipped up in no time with chunky yarn, including hacking one pair when I of course ran out of yarn. Not pictured: the pair I made, having conquered two-at-a-time Magic Loop, only to find at the veeeeerrrrrryyyy end that I cast on different numbers of stitches at the start. And I’m not crazy about the yarn, to the extent that I’m not sure I can face making two more; although I did buy — and wind into a ball — extra so I wouldn’t run out. SIGH.}
This spring, probably in May, the Chief and I are going to go to Europe! Some of our dear readers over the years who live in Europe have asked me to let them know if this ever happens, and it’s happening. Bridget is studying abroad this semester (in the Rome program of The Thomas More College, which is an amazing opportunity — if you have a child headed to college, do check it out) and we would like to visit her and do some traveling of our own.
Do you live in France, Italy, England, Ireland, or somewhere in that neck of the woods? Would you be interested in meeting up with me and the Chief?
Send me a message at leilamarielawler at gmail dot com — don’t worry, we’ll just see what’s up, no commitments, no pressure — and we will see what we can do!
This week’s links:
The Incredible Thing We Do During Conversations. “When you take into account the complexity of what’s going into these short turns, you start to realize that this is an elite behavior,” says Levinson. “Dolphins can swim amazingly fast, and eagles can fly as high as a jet, but this is our trick.”
Habou alerted me to amazing churches that are built from the top down.
If you have 4 minutes, you can watch lace-makers at work in Italy, young and old. A friend passed this along with the comment that “it’s a nice short video, showing the passing down of beauty and gracious living; the music is pleasant too.”
If we had had the mental wherewithal to post a {bits & pieces} during the Christmas season, I would have made sure you read this great post then. However, for this, the Vigil of the Baptism of the Lord, perhaps it is still appropriate — perhaps it will encourage you as you look back over the season and wonder if your efforts to keep the feast were worthwhile. Be sure to read right to the end. In fact, it’s one to read aloud to the family as I did, without knowing where it was going: Old Earl’s Christmas.
Are you studying the Normal Conquest? Our dear friend Cathy sent this link our way: An animation of part of the Bayeux Tapestry. My mind immediately turned to working with a history timeline with the children. You could show them this video, which would help them to learn to “read” such a “document.” It really brings the tapestry to life without overdoing the didacticism. I think this animation would help with the timeline work and make it more enjoyable and creative — imagine what children could do with trying to copy the artwork in their own way.
I love that you all want to talk about organization stuff like using sticky notes for the To-Do list — me too! In this post about making your own notebooks, I mentioned binder rings. Here is a nice post (not mine): mini books using binder rings. Soooo appealing to me…
The next best thing to reading our favorite authors (C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Jane Austen, etc.), as I always say, is reading about them. This article called Beyond Romance of Jane Austen’s Work is a promising start to what seems like a good series. It’s especially nice to read a clear argument about happiness. Man is made for happiness, and even those who are bad still seek happiness and think they are obtaining it, only to be disappointed.
Your long read for this week — but very much worth it: Awakening the Moral Imagination by Vigen Guroian. Especially if you consider yourself “more about facts.” It’s not enough to know morality as a sort of science, or teach it by precept (except for really fundamental things like learning the Ten Commandments, which is different and far from what contemporary teachers are thinking of); far less are “values” substitutes for virtues. This essay succeeds in discussing fairy tales and Nietzsche and Chesterton — so you can see why it’s a bit longer! I addressed the issue of how to teach a child character more briefly, with no overt mention of modernist philosophers, in this post: Just Say No to “Books That Build Character.”
From the archives:
I just updated this post about a super frugal dinner, Boston Baked Beans, to add the information about just how cheap it is. That’s because a reader challenged me about running the oven all day. Dear Margo in the comments mentioned baking something slow along with the beans (like rice pudding!) and of course there’s always getting that butternut squash cooked the right way (I still have some from the harvest, even with stashing a bunch!) and doing the pot roast for Sunday — all of which would make it almost paying you to bake your beans.
Self control and where to get it: Musings on teaching children self control (and why) as well as thoughts on where our impatience with them really comes from — maybe something to throw into your resolution mix in this new year.
Standards and Solidarity: 10 Ways to Give Your Children the Gift of Purity — it’s all remote preparation. Don’t panic.
Tomorrow is the Baptism of the Lord. If you have a chance, do view this movie called The Star of Bethlehem. It brings a whole new meaning to the psalm about how “the heavens proclaim your glory, O Lord.” (Psalm 19) Happy last of the Epiphany!
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