Welcome!

Jogged over here into August to preserve space in September... Does that make sense? Too bad we can't do things like this in real life! (Like ~ Oh, I don't have time to deal with this now... Let's just put it back in August....)

So, anyway, let me set the scene... It's really Sunday, September 14th, 2008. We've been to Mass already, had eggs, bacon, and fruit smoothies for breakfast, and now we're dispersed for the afternoon.

Dad's working on bills...

Michelle's doodling on a sketch for her art class...
(Rumor is that it's a portrait of Uncle Dave.)
Catherine is playing daredevil games on the swing...

Setting an example for Theresa...



While Anna plays in the dirt.
Here's the Parable of the Volcano Queen...


And Gabriel and William prepare a mid-afternoon snack...


And, you can see what I'm doing, right?

I'm just enjoying it all.

I love slow, unstructured Sunday afternoons.

Just poppin' in here to make note that there are a few...

Things I Cannot Eat Just One Of:

(One handful, that is. )

(Oh, and, um, please 'scuse the dangling preposition there...)

1. Peanut M&Ms

2. Fiddle Faddle

3. Fig Newtons

(So much for the diet this day. I just ate a sleeve...)

Simple Woman Monday, August 11th

Peggy at The Simple Woman hosts this lovely excuse for visiting kindred spirits. Run over there to catch up on a cornucopia of Monday morning thoughts!

Outside my Window.... Sunny and fairly cool today! Everything is moist from the thunderstorms here over the weekend. Our trees and shrubs are dripping with happiness! Our high prairies suffer from a scarcity of rainfall through periodic drought years and we're hoping these weekend storms are a sign of a turn toward wetter weather, in general through the end of the summer.

It's so funny that it was cool and rainy here over the weekend (SO not the norm!), while it was cool, sunny and dry in Virginia (the reverse of usual I'm told). We told Paul we brought some Colorado weather to Virginia for him in celebration of his graduation ~ and it would appear that Virginia weather came to fill the gap here.

I am thinking... We loved visiting the beautiful and historic Washington DC/ northern Virginia area this past weekend, but we are soooo glad to be home in Colorado. (How do y'all in the DC area stand all that traffic!?)

From the kitchen... Got the BEST cookbook on sale at Borders over the weekend. It's called Cooking Thin with Chef Kathleen and I'm very excited about using her ideas and recipes! I highly recommend this book for anyone who hates the word diet, but knows they need one...

I am creating... snowflakes with Catherine (7) today ~ Don't ask why; Cathy just thought it would be a fun thing to do...

I am going... to bed early tonight. I'm pooped out from our non-stop weekend on the east coast! Stay tuned for a few pics of the sights we squeezed in while we were in the DC area...

I am wearing... Total comfort wear today: black stretchy capris and a long white t-shirt that says "I child proofed my house... but the kids keep getting in!"

I am reading... The cookbook mentioned above, plus curriculum information for starting the schoolyear in a week or two.

I am hoping... Paul gets settled back into his daily routine with relative ease. He still has a couple of semesters before he graduates from college, at which point he chooses whether or not to sign on as a second lieutenant in the Marines. Having graduated from OCS, he has their welcome; now it's up to him.

I am hearing... the swamp cooler humming, occasionally tickling the chimes in the dining room... Cathy and Anna at the table cutting out snowflakes, Anna wanting to read a book with me ~ which we'll be doing here in just a minute.

Around the house... The children left the house so nice and clean for us when we got home from the airport last night, that the only thing I have to do is catch up on laundry. Thanks, kids!

Few Plans For The Rest Of The Week... Getting our sophomore and our senior boys ready to head off to Omaha for school this weekend. Gearing up for homeschooling with our four girls in kindergarten, second, fifth and ninth grades.

Here is a picture thought I'm sharing with you...
A happy reunion! ~ Paul and Nicole right after Paul's graduation from OCS on Saturday. That ten week separation was way too long!

Hoo Rah!

My husband and I got to spend this past weekend in beautiful Quantico, Virginia, where our oldest son, Paul, graduated from Marine Officer Candidate School (OCS). And I gotta say ~ What a wonderful experience!

Whether you are for or against our military involvements, liberal or conservative, Republican or Democrat, it'd take the worst kind of curmudgeon to miss the strength and goodness radiating from the Quantico parade deck Saturday morning. The young men and women in our armed forces represent a small sampling of what is right and good in our country and I have never been so pleased and proud as I was this weekend to meet these fine young people ~ every one of them strong, confident, cheerful, respectful, and willing to sacrifice for the good. If you don't believe it, check out what they had to endure to reach graduation day!

These men and women contradict every dire prediction about the future of our American youth. And it heartens me to know that for everyone of these 800-some fine young people there are scores at home, just as wonderful, who have not been called to military life. These are the children who don't make the headlines ~ except as one in a figure that is a graduating class ~ from military school, from college, from the seminary... On the homefront or on the front lines, behaving with honor and responsibility. They're out there, folks; have no fear.

There are a lot of things in this world to worry about; I won't even start a list, because you know what they are. But, our weekend in Quantico, Virginia has left me with one overwhelming impression: we have more in this country to be grateful for than to worry about.

Meet the 2008, Marine Officer Candidate School graduates, the largest graduating class in USMC history!

Congratulations, Paul!

We're so proud of you!

"Hoo Rah!"

Feast of Our Lady of the Snow

Our Lady of the Snow is such an unusual feast to be celebrated on August 5th, isn't it?

In the heat we've been suffering here in Colorado lately, just the cool thoughts of this feast day are welcome! But the origins of this feast are really interesting, too, and it's always wonderful to learn of Our Lady under each of her many titles.

This, the oldest image of Our Lady in Rome, kept within the "Lady of the Snow" basilica of St. Mary Major in Rome, is known as Salus Populi Romani (Well-being of the Roman people).
It was brought to Rome from the Holy Land from St. Helen, mother of Constantine, and is said to have been painted by St. Luke!

Needless to say, today is a day of great celebration at St. Mary Major. Imagine attending the patronal high Mass at any of the great Roman basilicas! At any church, it would be a beautiful honor, but I would love to be at St. Mary Major to see Mass today. In celebration of the feast, a snowfall of white rose petals will descend from the ceiling!


Our Lady of the Snow, pray for us!

August 4th, Feast of St. Dominic

Founder of the Order of Preachers, or Dominicans, the patron of our fifth son, Dominic Alan, and a dear helper. We 've been blessed with his aid on many occaasions, but have been blessed especially in his particular intercession in purchasing cars. We think he would have been a hobby mechanic if he had lived today.

Simple Woman Monday, August 4th

Peggy at Simple Woman hosts this lovely excuse for visiting kindred spirits. Run over there to catch up on a cornucopia of Monday morning thoughts!

Outside my Window.... Sunny and cloudless; looks like another scorcher.

I am thinking... Gosh, I have a lot to do this week!

From the kitchen... Have to figure out what to take to our church potluck tomorrow night and have to figure out how to stock the fridge for the kids while their Dad and I are in gone this weekend.

I am creating... A bulletin board at our church detailing the progress in transforming our new building from Baptist to Catholic. Also working on the flowers for the altar for the big dedication ceremony tomorrow night.

I am going... To Quantico, Virginia, to see my oldest son graduate from OCS. We're leaving Thursday morning and coming home Sunday afternoon.

I am wearing... denim skirt, white tee, with a bright pink flowered button down over it and matching pink flipflops.

I am reading... Still reading Ida: a Labor of Love ( a true story about the life of a pioneer woman, a mother of eight children, in the mining camps of Colorado in the late 1800s.)

I am hoping... To get over the insomnia phase I've been suffering lately and get some sleep before we go to Virginia.

I am hearing... Gabriel and William trying to wake up big brother, Kevin, who's asleep on the couch doing an excellent job of ignoring them.

Around the house... Monday stack of laundry, as usual. My pantry is getting to be quite the mess, but I don't think I'll get to it this week. Maybe I'll assign that job to one of the big kids...

Few Plans For The Rest Of The Week... Church work preparing for our church building dedication through Tuesday, lunch at a dear old friend's house on Wednesday, then scrambling to get packed and prep the kids for our trip on Thursday.

Here is a picture thought I'm sharing with you...

Our Dominic on the Feast of St. Dominic!

Relaxing on a floating log after we climbed up to St. Mary's glacier last Wednesday. You can't tell by the way he's lolling there, but that glacier lake water is COLD!

Bad Haiku Festival!

Finally, it has arrived ~ the long-awaited, eagerly-anticipated Haiku Festival over at Haiku Queen Laura's! Here are our contributions. It was good to stimulate a little brain activity around here! Can you tell by some of our haikus that this might have been needed?

Make sure and run over to Catholic Teacher Musings for scads of good Bad Haikus!

Theresa's (9):

*

Summer

I go to the pool.

I don't need to go to school

Summer is so cool.

**

Mine:

*

Sunny, hot, and slow
Still a million things to do
It's frying my brain...

**

Dominic's (14):

*

I write a poem.

Even though I cannot think

I still have to write.

**

Michelle's (13):

*

The pain in thinking...

Oh how often must you think,

"Oh, why must I think?"

&

What wonder fills me

in the vast forest of words

and song in the sea?

**

Jon's (17):

*

Oh the joy I've had

Working my weary bones bare

Having made beauty.

**

Kevin's (19):

*

If few are love's words,

In these few you should believe ~

To give without thought.

Just About Finished!

Befores and then Afters:



















We had used this central room as a living room for a while, but we decided we like it as a dining room. The ancient gas furnace is gone; central heat is coming to the old farmhouse for the first time the middle of this month. Hallelujah!



















We have yet to choose light and outlet covers and have a couple trim issues to tweak. I still want to make a flower arrangement for the top of the piano and find a painting for the right side of the fireplace. Also, the yellow below the chair railing will be tempered with a subtle sepia and copper paint wash technique. We hope to get to that next week when we have more time to play with it. I'll post some pics as we finish up.

Jon is my artist and I'm counting on him to help me get it right! (You hear that, Jon?)




















You can see where we covered a small doorway into the kitchen on this wall. Since we added the big arch on the opposite side of this room over Christmas vacation, it wasn't needed for flow, and the extra counter space we'll be able to add now on the kitchen side will be fabulous!




















Ta Da! Our new piano fills this space much better than the old furnace, we think. You wouldn't believe how much exercise this old girl is getting in our house!



















This book case balances out the heavy furniture on the other side of the room, but kinda dwarfs the doorway into the next room.


















Adding the trim and color seems to help with the proportion over there, but I don't know... Still working on that.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My undying gratitude to my husband, and especially to Jon and Dominic, who really did most of the work and trouble shooting on this project. You guys never cease to amaze me! I love it, love it, love it!

(The kitchen is next, right?)

On spelling mistakes, homeschooling, and blogging...

An alert reader (anonymous, perhaps, because s/he was embarassed to be correcting me) pointed out a typo I made in a post back in September of last year. It was ironic (and embarassing, indeed!) that the post was about our homeschooling children. But I have to admit, though it is a bit of a smudge on my face, I had to laugh about it. You see, grammar and spelling are my main pet peeves. I go through our local newspaper with a red pen and have been known to correct signs hanging on check-out registers in stores. It is Homeric that I let that homonym slip-up slip by! I can't believe my kids missed it! I can't believe my husband didn't call me on it! Any one of them would have been tickled to death to catch Mom in a spelling error! I can't believe I did that; I'm mortified!

Not really.

I'm not perfect, doggone it. The truth is out. And I'm not being sarcastic. Really! Homeschooling Moms are rarely Rhoades Scholars, (Did I spell that right?) and many of us muddle through some of our schooling subjects with fear and trembling. (If you're worried about my English skills, you should see my Algebra!) But we muddle through, working hard to balance our children's knowlege of the arts and sciences with their spiritual growth, their physical health, and their joy of living and learning. All this while keeping up on the laundry, the politics of the world and our own extended families, the cheapest place to buy gas, diapers, and milk. Not to mention blogging.

Why do we DO this? Well, moms, you know it. It's all about love. I love my family, and do my best for them in every single way I can. I know I fall far short, but I'm happy to wear myself out for these people. So much so that I choose a lifestyle that is a leap of Faith, allowing God's full reign in our family. So much so that I choose to homeschool because I know it's best for our family at this time in our lives. So much so that every moment of my life, and every corner of it, has a child in it. So much so that I may skip that extra proofreading of a blog post to make cinnamon toast for one of them, or read one of them a story book, or correct someone's math papers...

So much so that I know, especially with schooltime coming around the bend, I need to spend more of my time caring for the needs of my family, editing and proofreading my life and routine here at home ~ and less time on the computer, worrying that I've let a typo slip by. (Because I do worry over that!)

So, I'm editing my time on AWTY. My plan is for Monday to be my blogging day. Friday I'll try to just post some pictures. And I'll try to zip around and visit the amazing, inspiring and resourceful blogging friends I've made as often as I can. But, knowing I have a tendency to lose all track of time on the internet, I'm having to make rules for myself. I have NO self control when it comes to chocolate and blogging.

Please do pop in and visit. I'd miss you all if you didn't! I'll be here, but I'm just going to try to be a little less of a blabbermouth.

I'll be around on Friday, the first day of August, the month of the Immaculate Heart of Mary to show you some pictures of our (almost) finished dining room! (Wait 'til you see it! The boys did an amazing job!)

Here we go in our little yellow rented jeep...

to see...

God

in His Magnificence...

And in His details...

(which are also magnificent)

We got to take all these pics last weekend, driving from Ouray, Colorado, over Campbird Road to Yankee Boy Basin, over Brooklyn Pass, over Owl Creek Pass, past Silverton and Durango to Mesa Verde National Park, and back to Ouray. (Though the pictures are not necessarily in that order.)

I'm so grateful to my wonderful husband for working things out so we could go. And I thank God for the art gallery He set up for us to take pictures of. It was the perfect trip, You Guys!

...I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

~ Robert Frost