The wonderful book, A Homeschool Mother's Rule, was so inspiring, but when I read it, I could not implement it because my children were so much younger than hers.
But that has changed!
All four older kids can do kitchen work now. So now, we have 4 jobs, and they rotate the jobs every week.
1) washing the dishes
2) drying and putting away the dishes
3) clearing the counter and table of remaining items
4) spraying the kitchen table and counter
They have stopped complaining about a job, since it is for a week; a group attitude has taken root, in which they accept whatever the job is, since it is not theirs for long.
So I no longer clean up after any meal, on a good day! Sometimes I'll help wash dishes if it is intense, but then 2 people dry and put them away, and it all goes very quickly.
I cook in the morning, enough for 2 sit down meals at lunch and dinner. Huge pot of stew with rice, 2 casseroles, 2 ovens' worth of roasted chicken and a huge salad. I simply cannot believe the volume with which I am cooking now. But if I put it together in the morning and let it cook before lunch, then I am done cooking and cleaning the kitchen for the rest of the day! I LOVE IT!!
I learned that from the monks at Christ in the Desert monastery. I am SO grateful for their example!
Thursday, August 23, 2012
Something Different Around Here
On my silent retreat last month, I "heard" silence for the first time in ten years. It was a beautiful sound! I heard my heart and God's more clearly.
In evaluating what needs to change and what should remain the same in my life, I discerned that only one main thing should change: NO MULTI-TASKING. It is killing my joy, which is trying so hard to be strong and plentiful!
So I have re-arranged my homeschool day:
-an hour for prayer and exercise
-an hour for housework, including putting dinner together
-three hours for homeschooling
-50 minutes for lunch (eaten together in silence, listening to classical music)
-10 minutes for closing my eyes and doing NOTHING
-three more hours for homeschooling
-10 minutes for closing my eyes and doing NOTHING
-50 minutes for business, phone calls and email
-one hour for housework
-one hour for dinner and clean up
-on hour for family music lessons and reading together in the library
-family prayers
-bedtime
Sundays, NO Cleaning, NO Cooking, NO Computer
My favorite part about having implemented this plan is how much I have to deny myself! I get so tickled that I "cannot" rotate the laundry while I am teaching math to someone, or that I "cannot" check my email until after school. It is a strange feeling, to break the double-tasking experience, and I feel intense relief that I am just going to be where I am, when I am there!
I LOVE IT!!
In evaluating what needs to change and what should remain the same in my life, I discerned that only one main thing should change: NO MULTI-TASKING. It is killing my joy, which is trying so hard to be strong and plentiful!
So I have re-arranged my homeschool day:
-an hour for prayer and exercise
-an hour for housework, including putting dinner together
-three hours for homeschooling
-50 minutes for lunch (eaten together in silence, listening to classical music)
-10 minutes for closing my eyes and doing NOTHING
-three more hours for homeschooling
-10 minutes for closing my eyes and doing NOTHING
-50 minutes for business, phone calls and email
-one hour for housework
-one hour for dinner and clean up
-on hour for family music lessons and reading together in the library
-family prayers
-bedtime
Sundays, NO Cleaning, NO Cooking, NO Computer
My favorite part about having implemented this plan is how much I have to deny myself! I get so tickled that I "cannot" rotate the laundry while I am teaching math to someone, or that I "cannot" check my email until after school. It is a strange feeling, to break the double-tasking experience, and I feel intense relief that I am just going to be where I am, when I am there!
I LOVE IT!!
Feast of Rose of Lima
Happy Feast Day, Rose of Lima! She was a woman who transformed the face of South America because of her love for Jesus. So inspiring!
We cut ROSES in honor of St. Rose!
We cut ROSES in honor of St. Rose!
Sunday, July 1, 2012
Friday, June 29, 2012
The Angelus
We got to see, hear, and be BLESSED by the pope at his praying the Angelus on Sunday in St. Peter's Square.
Annie began saying, almost incessantly: "See pope! See pope!"
We finally said, "The pope is taking a nap."
Now she seems to think he is ALWAYS taking a nap, as her new refrain is: "Pope is take a nap!"
We love you, Benedict!
We pray for your intentions.
Thank you for your prayers for us!
Living Cruciform
One of the richest treasures of late is the way Ron's and my thoughts have converged on the same topic without realizing it.
Ron's class, Faith and Culture, emphasizes the writings of Pope Benedict XVI, one of Ron's heroes. Ron chokes up just talking about the pope, sometimes. To Ron, he is a misunderstood saint, a man whose take on Western culture is unsurpassable, and yet he is burdened with an inability to "advertise" himself well. Benedict, in Ron's opinion, suffers from underwhelming his audiences, and his personality does not have what it takes to compensate for the deliberate undermining of his credibility by the secular media.
At any rate, one of the messages Ron has taught most forcefully this summer is that the Christian life is about being Cruciform: conforming one's life with the Cross of Christ. Culminating in martyrdom, true Christianity is incompatible with "prosperity theology" and all attempts to idolize comfort, indulgence, and self-preservation. Ron has ruminated over his generation and the one he is teaching: we do not know war or poverty or hunger. His students write things like, "The martyrs are examples of great faith, but the time is past that there would ever be martyrs anymore." Our generations fail to realize how recently WWII was, and how soon we will likely see such tortures again.
As Ron has become concerned about how far the pendulum has swung away from Christianity that knows how to suffer, I piped up: "It is really the faithful Catholic family that continuously reminds the faithful how to life a life outside of oneself." To be open to life through the duration of one's marriage is to be constantly ready to give, to serve, to think about and love someone else. It is to give up being at the center of one's own life.
I have a friend who says that she had not come to a close relationship with Jesus until she married and lived out the Church's teaching of Humanae Vitae. Only then, she said, did she have to give up her self-reliance, and in her new found dependence, had to become more intimate with the one on whom she was dependent.
The faithful Catholic married life is a life of self-donation, of giving up one's life for another (or in some cases, MANY others!). This is one of the ways that contemporary Americans, despite the selfishness of the culture, can get back to the heart of the Christian faith, a life lived in the spirit of Christ Crucified.
Ron's class, Faith and Culture, emphasizes the writings of Pope Benedict XVI, one of Ron's heroes. Ron chokes up just talking about the pope, sometimes. To Ron, he is a misunderstood saint, a man whose take on Western culture is unsurpassable, and yet he is burdened with an inability to "advertise" himself well. Benedict, in Ron's opinion, suffers from underwhelming his audiences, and his personality does not have what it takes to compensate for the deliberate undermining of his credibility by the secular media.
At any rate, one of the messages Ron has taught most forcefully this summer is that the Christian life is about being Cruciform: conforming one's life with the Cross of Christ. Culminating in martyrdom, true Christianity is incompatible with "prosperity theology" and all attempts to idolize comfort, indulgence, and self-preservation. Ron has ruminated over his generation and the one he is teaching: we do not know war or poverty or hunger. His students write things like, "The martyrs are examples of great faith, but the time is past that there would ever be martyrs anymore." Our generations fail to realize how recently WWII was, and how soon we will likely see such tortures again.
As Ron has become concerned about how far the pendulum has swung away from Christianity that knows how to suffer, I piped up: "It is really the faithful Catholic family that continuously reminds the faithful how to life a life outside of oneself." To be open to life through the duration of one's marriage is to be constantly ready to give, to serve, to think about and love someone else. It is to give up being at the center of one's own life.
I have a friend who says that she had not come to a close relationship with Jesus until she married and lived out the Church's teaching of Humanae Vitae. Only then, she said, did she have to give up her self-reliance, and in her new found dependence, had to become more intimate with the one on whom she was dependent.
The faithful Catholic married life is a life of self-donation, of giving up one's life for another (or in some cases, MANY others!). This is one of the ways that contemporary Americans, despite the selfishness of the culture, can get back to the heart of the Christian faith, a life lived in the spirit of Christ Crucified.
Saturday, June 23, 2012
Chin Chin! (That's Italian for "Cheers!")
After not cooking a lick for 6 weeks, I have exploded in a cooking craze--I have made lunch and dinner every day this week at the outdoor kitchen here on campus. We use the outdoor grill and bread/pizza oven. I am whipping up things I have only dreamed of in years past (thanks to the little cookbook I picked up in Florence).
Last night, we made the best homemade pizzas I've ever had (again, not talent, just a good recipe!), AND a homemade lasagna for the next day. Ron is AMAZING in his wielding the outdoor oven and grill with charisma! The director of the program said that even he, in all these years, has not mastered the bread oven. My husband HAS THE GIFT!!!!
Last night, we made the best homemade pizzas I've ever had (again, not talent, just a good recipe!), AND a homemade lasagna for the next day. Ron is AMAZING in his wielding the outdoor oven and grill with charisma! The director of the program said that even he, in all these years, has not mastered the bread oven. My husband HAS THE GIFT!!!!
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Jake getting a College Education
This summer, Jake is absorbing lots of the college lectures he is hearing!
He mentioned to me that "Dr. Hansen and I love history." (Well, Dr. Hansen is the history professor!)
Saturday, June 16, 2012
It's a Grand Night for Singing
Here is little Annie singing, "It's a Grand Night for Singing," from State Fair:
"It's a grand night for singing, the stars are bright above,
The earth is aglow and to add to the show,
I think I am falling in love--
falling, falling in love."
"It's a grand night for singing, the stars are bright above,
The earth is aglow and to add to the show,
I think I am falling in love--
falling, falling in love."
Lots of Blood
The only real problem has been all the BLOOD! So many accidents!
While Ron and older kids were in Assisi, I got glass in my toe. It took me 3 days and a grueling self-surgery to get it out. A true, bloody mess.
Then, when the girls and I were in Siena, I had a sense that there was about to be lots of blood. So I gave them a big, "No bleeding!" speech--no running down hills, no dashing across gravel roads, etc.
Then, on the sixth leg of our journey home, Mary got a deep gash in her leg. None of us knows exactly what she got cut by--some thorn or glass as we walked to the campus from the last bus station. When I saw it, I knew it was worthy of stitches. I cried there on the street, so upset I could not help her. We just had to keep walking to get onto the safety of the campus. Some sweet local ladies helped us with our bags, since now Mary could not carry hers, and Annie was dangerously close to the cars on the street. We were sort of vomited onto the perimeter of the campus--bags, purses, dress up masks, water bottles, dumped onto the private property of UD. The ladies left us, and I got Mary some wipes to stem the blood flow until we got up to the room. I got nauseous, dealing with all the blood. I disinfected and butterflied it with my well-worn First Aid kit (ransacked during the glass-in-toe episode). I had nightmares that she was not up to date on her tetnus and that she was permanently brain-damaged. I woke her in the night several times, to check on her.
In the morning, I determined that she was not responding to the butterfly, and should take her to the ER. So Randy I. who was thankfully here on campus, fluent in Italian, had a car at his disposal, and a daughter who could babysit my other daughters (Yes, a MIRACLE!), took me to the hospital.
Two hours later, we had returned Mary to the campus with one stitch--given without anesthesia (MEAN Italian doctors!!!). While the gash warranted about 5, the doctor chose to give one stitch so that pus could drain from either end.
The doctor acted as though I should have come in the night before. I felt like it was overkill to go in at all. It is all so hard to discern! It was as stressful as anything I have been through in quite a while!
Just to top it off, Clare has a bloody knee; Leigh dropped a glass jar; Annie grabbed a knife (that she could not have reached one month ago--growing before my eyes!) and slit Clare's finger. Gosh, I'm on my second First Aid kit, and both are ransacked!
I did throw a true fit when Clare picked Annie up to let her see out the second story window. We have had a firm "Feet on the floor" rule for all heights. Somehow, this rule just could not get through Clare's head. It is like Aristotle's description of our minds being like wax, sometimes soft, and sometimes hard so that it does not receive impressions. Her head was hard as stone on this topic, and she has been reprimanded over and over. So yesterday, with all the other health and safety issues, I really made a scene.
The strange thing about Clare was that, when we recovered, it was like she was happier and more relaxed than ever. She responds so well to such harsh treatment! Jake, on the other hand, shuts down. It is so strange that different children have such different brain chemistry. Well, what ever it takes to keep these children alive and healthy!
While Ron and older kids were in Assisi, I got glass in my toe. It took me 3 days and a grueling self-surgery to get it out. A true, bloody mess.
Then, when the girls and I were in Siena, I had a sense that there was about to be lots of blood. So I gave them a big, "No bleeding!" speech--no running down hills, no dashing across gravel roads, etc.
Then, on the sixth leg of our journey home, Mary got a deep gash in her leg. None of us knows exactly what she got cut by--some thorn or glass as we walked to the campus from the last bus station. When I saw it, I knew it was worthy of stitches. I cried there on the street, so upset I could not help her. We just had to keep walking to get onto the safety of the campus. Some sweet local ladies helped us with our bags, since now Mary could not carry hers, and Annie was dangerously close to the cars on the street. We were sort of vomited onto the perimeter of the campus--bags, purses, dress up masks, water bottles, dumped onto the private property of UD. The ladies left us, and I got Mary some wipes to stem the blood flow until we got up to the room. I got nauseous, dealing with all the blood. I disinfected and butterflied it with my well-worn First Aid kit (ransacked during the glass-in-toe episode). I had nightmares that she was not up to date on her tetnus and that she was permanently brain-damaged. I woke her in the night several times, to check on her.
In the morning, I determined that she was not responding to the butterfly, and should take her to the ER. So Randy I. who was thankfully here on campus, fluent in Italian, had a car at his disposal, and a daughter who could babysit my other daughters (Yes, a MIRACLE!), took me to the hospital.
Two hours later, we had returned Mary to the campus with one stitch--given without anesthesia (MEAN Italian doctors!!!). While the gash warranted about 5, the doctor chose to give one stitch so that pus could drain from either end.
The doctor acted as though I should have come in the night before. I felt like it was overkill to go in at all. It is all so hard to discern! It was as stressful as anything I have been through in quite a while!
Just to top it off, Clare has a bloody knee; Leigh dropped a glass jar; Annie grabbed a knife (that she could not have reached one month ago--growing before my eyes!) and slit Clare's finger. Gosh, I'm on my second First Aid kit, and both are ransacked!
I did throw a true fit when Clare picked Annie up to let her see out the second story window. We have had a firm "Feet on the floor" rule for all heights. Somehow, this rule just could not get through Clare's head. It is like Aristotle's description of our minds being like wax, sometimes soft, and sometimes hard so that it does not receive impressions. Her head was hard as stone on this topic, and she has been reprimanded over and over. So yesterday, with all the other health and safety issues, I really made a scene.
The strange thing about Clare was that, when we recovered, it was like she was happier and more relaxed than ever. She responds so well to such harsh treatment! Jake, on the other hand, shuts down. It is so strange that different children have such different brain chemistry. Well, what ever it takes to keep these children alive and healthy!
A Holy Journey
The trip home would be hard--so we offered it up for a special intention. Each child was given strict instructions about what they could and could not do, and they were SAINTS. A laborious trip wound up being a true blessing!
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