The Next Ten of the Last Twenty

Of the 100 Things I Learned the Hard Way

81. Even though the days when the babies are a) teething,  b) up all night with cholic, or c) endlessly squabbling with their siblings... seem like they will never end, oh-my-goodness, those children are gonna grow up much faster than you think they will.  First they're teething, then they're toddling, then all of a sudden they're climbing trees.  One minute they're throwing army guys out their bedroom window, the next minute they're getting married and joining the Marines. 

82.  It doesn't matter what you do to it, after two weeks in the refrigerator, nobody is going to eat that fish soup.  It is undisguisable.

83.  It's a bad idea to keep glue sticks and chapstick in the same drawer. (Or, hmm...  Maybe it's a good idea...)

84.  The modern day Merriam Webster Abridged dictionary is good for dictionary races or explaining cutting edge jargon, but it can never measure up to the 2,820 page, two-volume, 1931 edition of the New Century Dictionary I've been toting around with me since my college days.  If you play Scrabble, read 19th century novels, or need to boost a toddler higher in his chair, it is indespensible.

85.  It can be equally as damaging to praise a child undeservedly as to criticize him or her needlessly.

86.  Just because Mommy would never eat a tortilla fried with peach preserves in it, doesn't mean someone else wouldn't.  The kids don't like my vanilla yogurt with flax seed and walnuts, either, so I guess we're even.  And if they won't praise me, I won't criticize them.

87.  Until you need one, you will know exactly where to find several packages of:  AA batteries, birthday candles, or pinnochle cards.

88.  One of the most important gifts parents can give their children is to teach them by example what a loving marriage looks like -- in good times, in bad times, and in the ordinary ole day-to-day.  Like when a wife has to bite her tongue when her dear husband dresses a little funny...

89.  Because, seriously.  Even big, black clunky, dorky-looking sunglasses can look dashing if they're on the face of the man you love.  And if he buys you beer.  Beer goggles I call them.  Dashing.  (They really are, Dan!)

This shot taken at the famous Breckenridge Brewery, home of  Avanlanche Ale and Vanilla Porter.

90.  And, finally # 90, ten from the end.  I'm sitting here typing at 11:30 p.m. because there was so much on my agenda today.  It's amazing, though, how you can slip in one more chore (or fun thing) if you're on the ball.  It's the full-restaurant vs. the empty-restaurant rule:  The busier things are, the more you hustle to get everything done; the more slack things are, the more a slacker you are -- just like the waitresses with only one couple to serve.   It's good to be busy.  But it's even better when I'm working hard to be spiritually grounded, too.  Everything runs more smoothly -- or feels like it does -- when I've spent some good time in prayer, when I'm fitting in spiritual reading, when I've taken time with the children on their Catechism lessons and the lives of the Saints.   It's practically miraculous. 

There are always enough hours in the day if you have enough Deo in the hours.

Today's Feast and Some Thoughts on Farming

St. Isidore the Farmer

Prayer to St. Isidore

O tiller of the soil, dear St. Isidore, it is said that while you labored in the field, "your hand was on the plow but your heart was ever blessed with the thought of God." Now that you are with our Lord in Heaven, ask Him to give us the grace to become accustomed to offer our daily toil to Him; ask Him to bless our land and our home and our harvest; ask Him to bless us in time and in eternity. Amen.

100 Things We Learned the Hard Way

The Farming Edition
Let it be known...


We are hobby farmers, at best. We've never made any money with our operation, but we have raised a menagerie of different farm animals and had gardens of varying sizes over the last twenty years. In that time, with the help of good St. Isidore, we've enriched our diets with healthful homeraised food and stock, we've strengthened our bodies, deepened our tans, and we've learned a few things.

Such as:

81. Not everyone can grow everything. We can't grow peach trees out here on the high prairie; it's not possible. And, no matter how hard I try, I can't grow the big beautiful aloe vera plant that I envy at my friend's house. Yes, I know, everyone should be able to grow aloe veras, but I can't. It's ok. I accept it as a personal weakness.

82. Carrots really do Love Tomatoes and Roses really do Love Garlic. We've used companion planting for most of our gardening lives and can vouch for its effectiveness. There really are lots of benefits, but one of the best little tricks we've found is to plant dill just out of reach of your tomato plants. Hornworms can't resist dill and will hang out in its branches instead of on the tomatoes. There should be something like dill that would work the same way for door-to-door solicitors.

83. Let your chickens into the garden to clear out the bugs before and after planting, but don't trust them when there's anything growing there. Chickens will eat anything. Seriously. They are pigs.

84. On the subject of pigs, let me just say this: Pigs are stupid. I dont' care what they say about pigs being intelligent. Those trick pigs you see on the Animal Channel -- it's all done with mirrors. Trust me. They're stupid. Pigs will eat concrete. Pigs will roll over their own suckling offspring. Pigs will go everywhere you don't want them and will not go where you do want them. Pigs have small eyes and dirty noses and they stink. Pigs are good for bacon and little else. (Sorry, Miss Piggy. And sorry, Cathy... My mind is made up on this one.)


85. Cows are very interesting, very social, but very frustrating animals. Our first cow experience was with a beautiful black angus that we got for a deal as a bucket calf and raised up to its full half-ton adulthood. She had the most beautiful almond-shaped, shining black eyes, and long lashes. Her coat was black velvet. We named her Victoria. And we loved her; she was like a big dog and loved to follow us around, which was great until she grew up. After her babyhood was over, Victoria had to leave the companionable confines of the corral and moved out to the front-ten pasture, where the children didn't come to visit her as often. So, she solved that problem by jumping over the fence to come play with them. Not a good thing. She ate my plants and stepped on the children's feet. It's a miracle nobody got broken toes. Or worse!

After she ate the salad garden and started in on the lilacs, we added a fourth wire on the barbed-wire fence, but she jumped that, too. Her back hooves didn't even touch the top wire as she sailed over it. She trotted up and down the driveway, she nibbled my rose bushes down to a nub, and one day, while exploring the back thirty acres, she caught wind of the cattle at a neighboring ranch and went a-visiting. This changed Victoria's life. No longer did she think she was just another child of the family; she knew she was a cow, and she wanted to be where she could hobnob with her own kind. She had stumbled upon her niche and was a happy cow.

We didn't know where she was, though, and were worried that she might be holding up traffic somewhere, so we sent out the search parties. Eventually we found her, apologized to our neighbor, and drove over with the truck and trailer to haul her back.

But, now that she knew where the real action was, she was a determined woman ( I mean heifer), and she wasted no time. She jumped the fence again. We hauled her back again. We gave her a stern warning, too, but that same afternoon, she jumped over again, snorting over her shoulder at us as she hightailed it east once more. We had too many small children at that time to electrify the fence and we'd already topped our fenceposts. Short of tethering her, there was nothing else we could do. We knew we were beat -- so we sold her to our neighbor. It was for the best. You have to imagine there was no way her original purpose in our life (namely to stock our freezer) was going to be accomplished, anyway. You can't eat steak that used to be named Victoria.

86. Absolutely nothing takes the place of a good farm dog. What they do can't be taught or trained, it's an instinct that's honed with time and experience. Seriously, I believe they're a gift from God, born to watch over a farmer and his interests.

A good one:

* knows the difference between the meter man and an intruder; he might bark to announce the first, but will corner the second before he gets into the barnyard.
* chases the rabbits out of the gardens but doesn't eat the chickens.
* lets the children hang all over him, but knows the difference between a real threat to the children and an uncle just tousling with them.
* does his duty (iykwim) well outside of daily foot traffic.
* fetches a ball or a stick for everyone's entertainment.
* waits at the top of the driveway for the family to come home from outings and walks the car up to the house to greet everyone.
* doesn't dig holes or chew hoses or wander off-property because he's too busy taking care of his farm.
* loves and obeys unquestioningly.

(This describes Anthony, the dear farm dog that Bella is replacing. Bella is about half way to living up to his high standards. But she's only a year old. We know she'll be awesome as time goes on.)

87. Farm cats are essential, too, but you can't get too attached to them. They disappear and noone ever knows what happens to them. We do name our barn cats, and are sad when they vanish, but it doesn't devastate us. We accept that they've either adopted a new farm to work for or have contributed to the nutrition of a neighborhood fox or coyote. It's the natural cycle of life. I know there are animal lovers out there who would blanche at the mortality rate of these cats, and would think country folks are cruel and heartless in our acceptance of it. But, there it is. Farm cats are here to keep the mice and snakes down and they do a wonderful job of it. We make sure they are fed, watered, and cared for, but they're not pets; they're independent contractors who work a risky job with good benefits but no insurance.

88. Almost anything on a farm can be fixed with wire and bolt cutters. Or duct tape.

89. Unless you are very firm, if you live on more than five acres, you'll find yourself storing the extra boats, RVs, cars, cats, and dogs of half the people you know.

90. Farming is all about dirt. Dirt and mud. Dirt and mud and thousands of little bits of hay. Make that millions of bits of hay. This is how it has always been and how it will always be. (You didn't just hear that sigh, did you?)

100 Things We Learned the Hard Way

The last time I added to these was a year ago. My, how time flies! (Numbers 1-70 can be found here.)

71. If you need to mow the lawn, it will rain; if you need the lawn watered, it won't rain.

72. The ceramic terra cotta tiles you were so proud to have installed in the mid '90s will not be a selling point in the early 2000s.

73. The level of restless persnicketiness of any group of small children will always be in precise inverse proportion to the level of listless irritability of the caretaker.

74. Cheap Vacuum Cleaners Suck. (Well, actually, they should, but they don't. )

75. St. Joseph and St. Thomas Aquinas are sitting at the heavenly workbench just waiting to be called on to help with "guy projects" like plumbing and car mechanics. St. Martha, St. Zita, and St. Anne are always hovering around the kitchen. If we don't get their help, it's our own fault for not asking.

76. A bar of soap clogging the toilet will eventually dissolve.

77. Standing on the sidelines watching our oldest child preparing to graduate from college and get married is less like watching a dive off the cliffs in Acapulco than it is watching a ship being launched into a harbor.

78. But... one child's experience never determines another's.

Sometimes launchings are more like this:



79. Painful but worthwhile practices: double-digging a new garden plot, seasonal closet cleaning, dentist appointments, any kind of cleansing diet, potty training, piano lessons, Lent.

80. Life is like my mother's made-from-scratch soups. It pays to trust the creator; just dig in without expectations and don't ask questions. Some of the ingredients might be mysterious, but they almost always blend together marvelously, and there is no doubt that it's all good for you.

We just learned something

No matter how much you want to be a good mother and add nutrition to a pot of hot chocolate on a cold snowy day...

DON'T add chocolate whey protein powder!

* It turned out actually tasting chocolaty-good, but had the weirdest consistency ~ something between cream of wheat and pudding. Half of the kids thought it was absolutely gaggy. The other half want to save it and eat it for breakfast tomorrow.

Regardless, I wouldn't recommend it for company.

100 Things We Learned the Hard Way, 61-70

This Works for me Wednesday edition of "100 Things" fits perfectly into Shannon's theme for the week: What doesn't Work. I was due to add to our list, anyway, so here's the next installment. Make sure and run over to Rocks in My Drier to learn from everyone else's tips learned the hard way! For the rest of our 100 Things, numbers 1-59, go here.

61) Shopping on Ebay is a lot like a weekend in Vegas. It can be a lot of fun, and you can come home a winner, but don't take money that you can't afford to lose. Buyer Beware!

62) Goldfish don't like cornflakes.

63) Even though it may seem like a really good idea when the children are small to buy a dozen pairs of sneakers in a variety of big kid sizes when you find them for $2 at clearance... Well, don't do it. You won't be able to find them when you need them, and when you do find them, the kids'll hate them.

64) Three things to never go cheap on: computers, used cars, lawn mowers, chainsaws.

65) It never really saves time to put the child to bed in clothes that you think will be non-wrinkly enough to carry him over to church Sunday morning. He will definitely have a diaper leak or spill milk all over himself before you make it out to the car. You can bank on it.

66) Book store 20% off coupons are for the birds. They lure you into the store, of course, where you spend $50 on books that you never would have bought if you'd never gone in in the first place. And you save (maybe) $2.50 on only one of the books. It's a much better value to go to the library instead!

67) Bare root plants from catalogue nurseries are hard to grow. We have had only about a 50% success rate with them. Granted, we live in almost desert-like conditions here on the high prairies of Colorado and are not master gardeners, but we've found that we have a far better chance with potted plants that we hand select from a local nursery.

68) Don't trust the zone calculations in catalogues, either, to determine what will grow successfully in your area. Unless you want the excitement of a gamble on something new, the best indicator of what grows best in your microclimate is a personal tour of your neighborhood with a plant guide in your hand, or a chat with your local nursery staff.

69) Off-brand mac and cheese is just not as good as Kraft. Kraft is nowhere close to as good as made-from-scratch. (This is the recipe we use... Also found in the best homeschool/science cookbook ever: Alton Brown's I'm Just Here For the Food )

70) Over-scheduled summer vacations are just as bad as (maybe worse than) under-scheduled ones.

~ We've had years when we couldn't wait for summer to be over because we were all so bored, and summers where we ended up completely exhausted with all the events and trips and sports we crammed in. This summer we're trying to schedule one small family "event" per month (like we're going to try to go see the Von Trapp Children perform), with one bigger family trip (for the final vows of a dear Sister) in one of those months. My husband and I are penciling in four or five things we'd like to do together over the summer, too, and allowing the children to do the same for themselves. Since we have so many people to schedule, we're encouraging them to group together for most of these (likely in group A: the Bigs, and B: the Littles). Other than those things on the calendar, everything else will come as serendipity. We'll do a lot of garden work and fence painting, eating popsicles and playing on the swings, climbing trees and having tea parties, roasting marshmallows over backyard campfires and bickering over silly kid stuff...

100 Things We Learned the Hard Way

51. Mud driveways and carpeting are a bad combination.

52. When you're getting rid of the carpeting, go with tile or save up for hardwood. Laminate flooring is not nearly as "bomb-proof" as advertised.

53. Never teach a two year old to go down a slide unless you're really ready for him to go down the slide.

54. It's a rhetorical question asking a preteen with raccoon eyes if she's been trying out your mascara.

55. The bathroom will never be perfectly clean until you move out of the house.

56. The traditions that have staying power are the ones that are meaningful to all age groups, simple enough to accomplish year after year, and involve food of some kind. (Food is key here.)

57. Just accept that GI Joes are meant to be skewered, decapitated, burned with magnifying glasses and thrown out of the tops of trees.

58. Never threaten a punishment you cannot follow through on.

59. Little boys, for the most part are transparently ornery, little girls are sweetly sneaky.

60. Lent stinks.

*My husband said it was ok to say that last one and still be a good Catholic because "Lent's supposed to stink." And I really am smiling as I type this. It stinks, but we're muscling through it.

*Three days without coffee and I'm still alive, folks!

(So are the kids!)

This is the Hill...

After driving around with caffeine-drunk navigators for an hour or two Sunday afternoon, our caravan (5 cars long) finally made it to the big sledding hill in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.
Here's one happy sledder:

Theresa in her Christmas present jester hat that made William (2) laugh hysterically the minute she put it on her head.

And another happy sledder:

Cathy, "I'm just resting for a minute" in her new jester hat.

And some more of them:

L-R ~ Kevvy, Dominic, Jon's hand, Grandpa, Michelle and Paul discussing strategy.

And the tandem sled run:

Front to back ~ Kevvy, Michelle, Joh, Dominic, my brother Dave and Paul.

And, it was a cooooooold, windy day, folks, let me tell you!

Which leads me to add a word of advice to any potential sledding partiers... In fact, I'll add it to my list of "100 Things We learned the Hard Way" And here it is:

51. Never!

52. Never!

53. Never!

54. Never!

55. Never!

56. Never!

57. Never!

58. Never!

59. Never!

60. I repeat: NEVER take children under 5 years of age up on the side of a windy, cold mountain and expect them or anyone else around them to enjoy an afternoon sledding!

And here's why...

By the time we:

1. got the children out of their carseats
2. into their hats, gloves, scarves and snowpants
3. up the hill
4. and tried to get them to like the idea of sitting with us on the sleds
5. and flying down the hillside...

Well, let us just say, um, our two little boys (ages 2 and 3) were not happy...

But, as soon as Mama

1. took them home to their nice, cozy, warm, familiar house,
2. turned on Goofy,
3. got them snacks
4. put on a vat of campfire stew and a pot of hot apple cider for the returning crowd...

everyone, everywhere was happier.

Did you feel a lessening in the static of the atmosphere of the earth yesterday afternoon about 4:30 pm mountain time?? Now you would know why that was.

100 Things We Learned the Hard Way

41) Old house "charm" is not all it's cracked up to be. (This snuck in by my wonderful husband in the midst of caulking up cracks in this charming old house.)

42) If someone offers you a free cell phone, run the other way.

43) Appreciate every moment you have together with your husband. Even doing mundane things like cleaning off the dinner table mean the world when you lose that most precious and overlooked commodity, time.

44) Fold inward the front of infant boys' diapers and the back of infant girls' diapers.

45) Always keep a set of spare keys for all important vehicles and your home with a close-by neutral party, like grandparents ~ just in case.

46) It's always better to save up than to use credit, especially for luxuries.

47) Always double check on directions and times for Mass when traveling out of town; never trust the internet information!

48) Be prepared to remove all 14 ponytail holders with scissors after letting your five-year old make you a "hair-do."

49) You can't appreciate phonics until your eight-year old challenges you to prounounce: PBTHL! (Try it and see what you come up with! &:o))

50) Everything'll be alright in the end. If it's not alright, it's not the end.

100 Things I Learned the Hard Way

31) You haven't succeeded in preparing the house for important company (or a showing when you're selling), until you've broken a jar of pickles in the kitchen.

32) It doesn't matter how hard you try to "accessorize" and uber-clean the house, if it's a big old non-conforming victorian, with spotty electricity and iffy plumbing ~ well, it's all just lipstick on a pig. Clean it decently, make it smell nice, lower the price, and just be very patient.

33) Don't leave your makeup where your three year old daughter can get it. (The same thing goes for scissors, permanent markers, vaseline...).

34) Don't name an animal you plan to eventually put in your freezer.

35) Unless you are committed to the natural-ness of cloth diapers, they are just NOT worth the pain, heart-ache and expense. Especially if you have two or more in diapers. If you use a diaper service, you're sure not saving money; if you don't use a service, you will be married to your washing machine and be changing diapers 24 hours a day. The hot water does cost money, and your babies are bound to have rashes. And, seriously, washing out those poopie diapers... Yuk!

36) Never assume all the children are in the car. Count heads at least three times before pulling out of any driveway.

37) Never assume all the children in the car belong to you. Occasionally stray toddlers hook up with big families in large department stores, assuming we are the line for the daycare bus.

38) Unless you're pregnant, avoid wearing clothes that can even remotely be misconstrued as maternity, especially if you have friends and family who are likely to lay bets on you.

39) At least half of all the reading you do should be to or with your children.

40) God actually has three answers: "Yes," "Not yet," and "I have something better in mind."

(Thanks to my friend, Rosemary, and the man at the airport for this one!)

100 Things I Learned the Hard Way

3rd Installment

21) If you want to understand the concept of how a box kite works, drive a 15 passenger van through the mountains in high wind.

22) Never stock up on sauerkraut ~ even if it's on a terrific sale and y2k is an iminent threat. (We only just unloaded our last can!)

23) Moving from young parenthood to old parenthood you will come to understand the transition from cheap toilet paper and state-of-the-art paper towels, to cheap paper towels and cashmere toilet paper.

24) If you want a plant to be a groundcover, act like you hate it, never water it, and call it bad names. "Lovin' up" a plant just makes it want to be an only child.

25) You can teach your children to love one another. You can teach them to respect one another. But, you cannot force them to like one another. Certain personalities will just not mesh, no matter how much you want them to.

26) The best possible medical care you will get from yourself. Whether you believe in natural or conventional medicine, if you are not well-armed with information, aware of your own body and its symptoms (or your loved one's), and ready to go to the mat for what you believe to be the right course of action, you're not safe with any health provider. Always get a second opinion. And a third. And maybe a fourth. Do your homework. But, mostly, rely on God; He's in control, anyway.

27) Never, I repeat, never, use an inflatable air mattress to raft down a river. And, I would like to use this opportunity to publicly thank my sons' guardian angels for a most fortuitous rescue when certain people thought this was a good idea, because it was cheaper than a proper raft.

28) God did not make many Saints Catherine of Sienna. Or Saints Francis of Assisi. Most of us are meant to follow the simple, steep paths to Heaven followed by Saints like Theresa Martin and Ven. Matt Talbot.

29) It's not a good idea to leave the toothbrush you just used to clean out that yucky stuff behind the faucets out on top of the sink where a two year old can get it.

30) Never assume you understand someone else's motives and challenges. Only God does.

100 Things I Learned the Hard Way, cont'd

Installment #2

11) Peanut butter really does get gum out of hair.

12) In a healthy, normal rural environment, the idea of feral cat overpopulation is a myth. Natural predators take care of this problem as God intended, and spaying and neutering barn cats means you will soon have no cats. And there is no better birth control plan for the mouse population than a few good barn cats.

13) You won't need health insurance until you don't have any.

14) If a child can get his head in the rungs of a chair and get it stuck there, you can eventually get it back out by the same route. If you can figure out that route.

15) Some children learn to use the potty at the age of 3, some aren't ready until they're 7. It all evens out in the end (No pun intended, really!), and more harm than good will come of worrying and obsessing about the late bloomer. (If this sounds familiar, see #5 of the last installment...)


16) There is no quick way to clean venetian blinds. Hanging them on the clothesline and spraying them with the hose just doesn't work, darn it.

17) Grooming a Bichon Frise is nothing like cutting children's hair. It's more like trying to sheer a a very curly little sheep with an electric carving knife. It's a job best left to the professionals.

18) There is no better investment than the time and money you spend nurturing your children's talents. Finding a deep interest often indicates a talent, or God given gift. And building skill out of talent is for life.

19) Never leave the digital camera on the bumper of the nun's car because you know it'll be safe there. The nuns won't take the camera, but they may very well drive away with it.

20) If it doesn't truly help you or someone else to pass on a bit of information, pass on telling it.

100 Things I Learned the Hard Way

First Installment:

1) Never put concentrated liquid dish detergent in the dishwasher. (Seriously. Don't do it.)

2) Raising your own food and dairy is not less expensive than buying from the store, but the benefits for the whole family pretty much outweigh the trouble and expense (most of the time).

3) Never plant dill or horehound unless you plan to harvest every scrap of it before seeds set.

4) If the recipe says line the pan with parchment paper, line the pan with parchment paper.

5) Some children learn to read at the age of 3, some aren't ready until they're 7. It all evens out in the end, and more harm than good will come of worrying and obsessing about the late bloomer.

6) Never cut your teenage son's hair (esp. if the clipper is in your hand and set down to shave) if you're tired and giddy and inclined to giggle.

7) You're not saving money at the thrift store if you buy things there that you don't really need.

8) "New and Improved" isn't necessarily.

9) Don't underestimate the importance of that permanent basket in the car containing: extra clothes for everyone under the age of six, diapers, wet wipes, a blanket, sweaters (in winter), drink boxes and toilet paper. Always have a basket of amusements, like books, paper, toys, and a fold up stroller and portacrib. Resupply regularly, because the day you run out of diapers and wetwipes, is the day you'll esp need them!

10) Know what the small stuff is ~ and don't sweat it!

To be continued...

Help me out and tell me your Things I Learned the Hard Way ~ I'm anxious to learn!! You could save my 10 practice pancakes some pain and heartache ~ or at least save me from being laughed at by them...