Musical Taste?

What Your Taste in Music Says About You

Your musical tastes are intense and rebellious. You are intelligent... but in a very unconventional way. You are curious about the world. You love doing something new. In fact, you enjoy taking risks and doing things most people would shy away from. You are very physical. It's likely that you're athletic, but not into team sports. You have the soul of an artist. Beauty and harmony are important to you.

What Does Your Taste in Music Say About You?

French

Today is the International Day of the French Speaking World.

No kidding.

I have to admit I used to have a problem with French. The language, I mean. Because I've always been a proud student of English, the very idea of those French language purists just made me mad. How dare they be so arrogant about their language? How dare they look down their noses at English ~ especially our dear, quirky American English. Fooey on them!
(Above: L'Academie francaise)

Let me be perfectly clear that it's not the French people I have a problem with. I daresay, most of them don't give a gros bizoux about the purity of their language. I once had the pleasure of working with a very classy Parisienne, Miss Marie (Maa-ldee' ~ roll that rrrr): "I loove Ameldicans. But zay are slobs." She was a hoot. But, very, very classy. Very old school. She dressed and wore make up every day like she was going to the Academy Awards ~ and this was to dust knick knacks in a card shop.

But, to get back to the point ~ It was not our language she had a problem with, just our raggedy jeans and t-shirts. Now, that's a French woman. If she ever had a reason to use words like hamburger and microchip, she'd just say hahmboorgair and mahcrocheep. No big deal. But, to L'Academie francaise in Paris or the Office de la langue francaise (aka: OLF ~ the Canadian branch of L'Academie francaise), this would be an unforgivable scourge on the purity of the language. Gack.

Even beautiful Ontario, one of our favorite neighbors, has been infected with this language purity virus. In February of this year, the OLF fined McKibbons Irish Pub $1500 for each and every English language advertising sign hanging on its wall. Puh ~lease! They have nothing better to do over there in Ontario?

Strange as it seems to us Americans, who practically throw a party for the new words Webster adds to the dictionary every year, none of this is anything new in the French speaking world. The idea of French language purity has been in existence since before Napolean, but the rapid influx of English into the French vocabulary, starting in the '60s and escalating in the early '90s , has kept both the French and Canadian offices of the Language Police in the news. If you're drawn to reading Language articles and blogs like I am, you couldn't avoid hearing about it.

French. The very thought of it made the hackles on the back of my neck stand up.

Until... A couple of years ago, we met a French speaking Belgian nun ~ Sr. Alice (A-leese') Marie. There could be no better diplomat for the French language. It took me a while to get used to her thick French accent, but once I did, I had to admit that her pronunciation did actually improve our language in a subtle (and therefore, obviously un-American) way. Facts are facts: there is something graceful and unconsciously sophisticated about French that English lacks. They speak Louis Vuitton; we speak Walmart knockoff.

But, hey now! I don't want you to think I don't just love Walmart knockoff! It's not our American heritage to care about grace or sophistication, dadblame it! We're proud of our rugged independence and lack of airs. We've always been more heroic than subtle ~ more Laurel and Hardy than Charles Boyer. We wouldn't want it any other way!

Right?


Right?

Well...

You want to know what I really think?

Actually...

If I could get my tongue around that language, I'd feel like I had a little red wine and croissant corner in my soul that no one expected. A little sophistication... A little mystery... A little je ne sais quoi...

None of which I possess naturally, I'm afraid. I'm about as mysterious as: "French toast: No sugar, side of ketchup, please." (Don't ask. It's a regional southern thing... Mysterious, maybe, but not cool-mysterious.)

Anyway ~ Here, for your consideration, is the entire French version of April Showers ~ this time with pictures (My two-year old can't get enough of this video!)... See what you think.




Doesn't it sound especially pretty in French?

I think we might concede to letting a little French slip into our language here in America, don't you? And we really don't mind if they borrow our technological vocabulary. We understand that they don't have any of their own, and we Americans are known for our generosity.

We won't even make them pay to use our words. Zay can have zem for free. Entièrement gratuit

We love zee French.

Gros bisous à eux,
Leeza



PS~ See this though! Turn about is fair play, eh?

Stuff

Playing on the computer,

or playing in the yard,

Taking it easy,

Or working hard,

Going on a

business trip,

Or out to hunt deer,

Heading to a ballgame,

Or watching it here...

Working on the carbuerator

or mowing the lawn,

Making space on the sofa,

Starting to yawn...

When you're talking tools and toys,

Too much is not enough;

Doesn't matter when or where,

A guy's just got to have his stuff!

Gabey heading off to a nap:

"Yeah, this is enough, Mommy. It ought to do me."

Novena to Our Lady of Good Counsel

I've been thinking that, especially at this time, it would be good to offer this novena for our Successor of St. Peter. I'm also offering mine for the intentions of all of our pastors. (My apologies for publishing it so late; I hope maybe some have the chance to finish it on the upcoming feast day!)

My friend (Hi, Mary!) reminded me this morning that we have nine days until the Feast of Our Lady of Good Counsel! As a devotee of the Blessed Mother under this title, she was so kind as to send along two prayers ~ the following prayer, composed by Pope St. Pius X. There is a partial indulgence attached to this first prayer.

Prayer to Our Lady of Good Counsel:

O Holy Virgin, to whose feet we are lead by our anxious uncertainty in our search for and attainment of what is true and good, invoking thee by the sweet title of Mother of Good Counsel. We beseech Thee to come to our assistance, when, along the road of this life, the darkness of error and of evil conspires towards our ruin by leading our minds and our hearts astray.

Do Thou, O Seat of Wisdom and Star of the Sea, enlighten the doubtful and the erring, that they be not seduced by the false appearances of good; render them steadfast in the race of the hostile and corrupting influences of passion and of sin. O Mother of Good Counsel, obtain for us from Thy Divine Son a great love of virtue, and, in the hour of uncertainty and trial, the strength to embrace the way that leads to our salvation.

If Thy hand sustains us,we shall walk unmolested along the path indicated to us by the life and words of Jesus our Redeemer, and having followed freely and securely, even in the midst of this world's strife, the Sun of Truth and Justice under Thy maternal star, we shall come to the enjoyment of full and eternal peace with Thee in the haven of salvation.

Amen-------------------Shorter prayer:

Prayer to Mary Most Holy of Good Counsel to Implore Her Protection:

O Mary of Good Counsel, inflame the hearts of all Thy devotees, so that all of them have recourse to Thee, O great Mother of God. Deign, O most worthy Lady, that everyone choose Thee as teacher and wise counselor of their souls, since Thou art, as St. Augustine says, -the counsel of the Apostles and counsel of all peoples.

Let us pray: Lord Jesus, Author and Dispenser of all good, Who in becoming incarnate in the womb of the Blessed Virgin, hast communicated to Her lights above those of all the heavenly intelligences, grant that in honoring Her under the title of Our Lady of Good Counsel, we may merit always to receive from Her goodness, the counsels of wisdom and salvation, which will conduct us to the port of a blessed eternity. Amen.

Body, Mind, and Spirit

I'm trying to think of how I can write about health and happiness and how it's all wrapped up in our relationship with God ~ and not make it sound trite. You see, I need to write it more for myself than for anyone else, actually. So, how do I tell myself, in words that I will understand and take to heart, that

• the packet of hot chocolate mix ~ with marshmallows ~
  that I stirred into my coffee this morning,

  the 10 or 12 jelly fruit thingies I snitched when
  the kids weren't looking,

  the extra two breadsticks ~ with butter ~
  that I had with dinner,

  the scanty five minutes I spent reading a book
  with my toddlers today,

  the uncorrected math papers lying on the school
  cabinet,

  the walk that I didn't take this morning
  even though I promised myself I would

  
  

coincide exactly with the fact that

I've spent more time on the computer today than I have reading from the stack of spiritual books on my bedside table.

I've been reciting the rosary of late. Reciting it. Not praying it with focus and attention.

The last really good talk I had with my Maker was .... Um, I can't remember when it was.

Anyway, you get the drift...

I find myself periodically falling off the wagon for many different reasons. Which wagon? Pick your wagon: the always popular diet and exercise wagon, the organized homeschooler wagon, the attentive wife and mother wagon, the dutiful homemaker wagon, the child-of-God wagon...

And I've had good reasons to fall off these wagons.

Too much stress

too much on my mind

The children keep me so busy...

I'm too tired

There aren't enough hours in the day

If my health were better...

If I had enough money...

If I had a little help around here...

My early life didn't prepare me for "it"*

My nerves can't take "it"

I'm not cut out for "it;" I 'm not that kind of person

"It's" not that big a deal; who's going to care anyway?

I know "it's" important, but I just can't tackle "it" now...

I just don't have any willpower

My whine du jour: I'm getting too old for this...
* you name "it."

And sometimes these were valid excuses. Four babies in five and a half years gave me every reason to have a messy house in the first years of my marriage. Months of bedrest for pre-eclampsia twice in less than three years excused many bare bones months of homeschooling. I could even use a diseased knee as an excuse not to exercise for several years. Things happen. In order to handle one stressful part of our life, we often have to compensate by dropping the non-essentials. This is OK.

• A perfectly clean house is not essential ~ it's nice, but not essential.
• Meticulously organized plans and records, extracurriculars, and "brag points" are good things in homeschooling and in conventional schooling, but not essential
• Loving your husband and children and fulfilling your duty toward them pleasantly is necessary, but being a modern hybrid of June Cleaver and Gina Lollabrigida is not necessary.
• Being healthy and in control of your habits (like eating) is necessary, but being Denise Austin is not necessary.

Though we tend to expect it of ourselves sometimes, we're not super human. There are some handles we do have to let go of. Wives and mothers tend to have a heckuva long train of wagons trailing behind them.

That's the thing, isn't it?

All those wagons we talk about falling off? We're not riding in them; we're pulling them! And when we lose our focus, or just give up on something, it's not that we're falling off wagons; it's that we've stopped pulling them. Sometimes we're just being lazy, and we usually know it. Sometimes we really do need to stop or slow down. And sometimes we're perfectly justified in saying, "Hey, wait a minute! Why am I pulling this one?"

All except that last wagon I mentioned. You already jumped ahead of me to that, didn't you?

We all know it. That child of God wagon. Dang, we want to be pulled in that wagon. I know I do. But there's no room for us to ride. By our prayers, our corporal and spiritual works, our practice of the virtues we can and do pull it. And darned if it's easy. But, God willing, there's no room in there for us to ride. That's where He piles the good stuff: our crosses and the graces that go with them, merit earned by prayers we've said, those gifts earned from the Sacraments and from our good works, the gifts and fruits of the Holy Ghost...

This is the wagon that holds the strength we need to pull all those other wagons. I only hurt myself by making excuses not to heave-to on my spiritual life. Everything else is so much more bearable when I know He's walking beside me.

That's the whole point.

When I'm pulling that child-of-God wagon, I'm keeping Him company. Christ walks beside me, regardless, but if we're keeping each other company, the journey is a whole different experience because I know He's there with me.

Me and my wagons.
Him and His cross.

We are Totally Jealous...

...of Danielle and her barefoot family!
See, one of things that we have to battle out here where we live is these:

Goat heads. These are the seeds of a particularly pernicious weed that runs rampant all over eastern Colorado. And, let me tell ya, these suckers are sharper than needles, harder than diamonds and the cause of much (mild, mind you) cursing and hopping around on one foot around here.

Look how they stick into the bottom of a flip flop! This is what our feet would look like if we walked around barefoot! =sigh= So sad. I hold no grudge against the practice, whatsoever. On the contrary, every chance I could get away with it, I went barefoot as a child. Since my mom had a dreaded fear of rusty nails and tetanus, we had to carry our flipflops in our back pockets and slip them on when we got close to home (I know. It's terrible, isn't it? Don't tell my children; it's a terrible example!), but I spent a large part of my first fifteen years with tanned toes and calloused soles.

But my children would think I was crazy if I even suggested they walk around here barefoot! We don't even go barefoot in the house, because goatheads are brought in on the bottoms of shoes and hide in the carpets, where you are sure to find them when you least expect them. YOW!

Lucky Bean children!

April Showers ~ Colorado-style

Better than no moisture at all, right?

It's really just one more chance for a cozy day of indoor games

with cocoa by the woodstove. We'll miss these days come July!

Music For The Day:

Though she is preparing for her final vows, and is probablynot on the computer these days, this French version of April Showers is dedicated to Sr. Alice Marie:

Some things we'll play:

Faeries being somewhat of a theme around here at the moment,we'll print out some of these:


by zuzax10

We already know we love these:
St. Therese and Her Family

So the little boys don't feel left out:

Great fun! Check these out ~ Little Critter paper dolls!

(We LOVE Mercer Mayer's Critters!)

*

*

Fun Learning:

I think it's time to resurrect the card game "98 " to sharpen up some addition skills around here.

And maybe a kid-easy game of Scrabble later when the tile terrorist (Yuyum) goes to bed.
Note to those who may not know: Scrabble is a whole different game when our hyper-competitive teenagers aren't around! And, since Daddy is out of town for the weekend and it's just me against the 5-9 crowd, I might actually have a chance (a chance, mind you!) to win.

See, I play for the beauty of the words, not with a mind toward sabotaging my neighbor... (Ahem! You people know who you are...)

My Favorite Forward

Tissue warning! I'm the mother of three preemies, so this one really gets me!

A cold March wind danced around the dead of night in Dallas as the doctor walked into the small hospital room of Diana Blessing. She was still groggy from surgery. Her husband, David, held her hand as they braced themselves for the latest news.

That afternoon of March 10, 1991, complications had forced Diana, only 24-weeks pregnant, to undergo an emergency Cesarean to deliver couple's new daughter, Dana Lu Blessing. At 12 inches long and weighing only one pound nine ounces, they already knew she was perilously premature. Still, the doctor's soft words dropped like bombs. 'I don't think she's going to make it,' he said, as kindly as he could.

'There's only a 10-percent chance she will live through the night, and even then, if by some slim chance she does make it, her future could be a very cruel one'

Numb with disbelief, David and Diana listened as the doctor described the devastating problems Dana would likely face if she survived.

She would never walk, she would never talk, she would probably be blind, and she would certainly be prone to other catastrophic conditions from cerebral palsy to complete mental retardation, and on and on.

'No! No!' was all Diana could say. She and David , with their 5-year-old son Dustin, had long dreamed of the day they would have a daughter to become a family o f four. Now, within a matter of hours, that dream was slipping away !

But as those first days passed, a new agony set in for David and Diana. Because Dana's underdeveloped nervous system was essentially 'raw', the lightest kiss or caress only intensified her discomfort, so they couldn't even cradle their tiny baby girl against their chests to offer the strength of their love.

All they could do, as Dana struggled alone beneath the ultraviolet light in the tangle of tubes and wires, was to pray that God would stay close to their precious little girl. There was never a moment when Dana suddenly grew stronger. But as the weeks went by, she did slowly gain an ounce of weight here and an ounce of strength there.

At last, when Dana turned two months old. her parents were able to hold her in their arms for the very first time.

And two months later, though doctors continued to gently but grimly warn that her chances of surviving, much less living any kind of normal life, were next to zero, Dana went home from the hospital, just as her mother had predicted.

Five years later, when Dana was a petite but feisty young girl with glittering gray eyes and an unquenchable zest for life. She showed no signs whatsoever of any mental or physical impairment. Simply, she was everything a little girl can be and more.

But that happy ending is far from the end of her story. One blistering afternoon in the summer of 1996 near her home in Irving , Texas , Dana was sitting in her mother's lap in the bleachers of a local ball park where her brother Dustin's baseball team was practicing. As always, Dana was chattering nonstop with her mother and several other adults sitting nearby, when she suddenly fell silent . Hugging her arms across her chest, little Dana asked, 'Do you smell that?'

Smelling the air and detecting the approach of a thunderstorm, Diana replied, 'Yes, it smells like rain.'

Dana closed her eyes and again asked, 'Do you smell that?'

Once again, her mother replied, 'Yes, I think we're about to get wet. It smells like rain.'

Still caught in the moment, Dana shook her head, patted her thin shoulders with her small hands and loudly announced, 'No, it smells like Him. It smells like God when you lay your head on His chest.'

Tears blurred Diana's eyes as Dana happily hopped down to play with the other children. Before the rains came, her daughter's words confirmed what Diana and all the members of the extended Blessing family had known, at least in their hearts, all along. During those long days and nights of her first two months of her life, when her nerves were too sensitive for them to touch her, God was holding Dana on His chest and it is His loving scent that she remembers so well.

The Loveliness of Flowerpots

Hosted by Sue
at Attaining Virtue,
the latest in the series
of Loveliness Fairs
is all about flowers
and gardening.
For inspiration,
tips and reflections,
grab your garden gloves
and get set to dig in!
The fun starts Wednesday!

The Story of My Garden

Our Gardening Geneology
(Or ~ Are Thumbs Green Because of Green Blood?)

My mom could grow a mean African violet. She didn't try for much else, actually. Except one summer she threw some seeds into a half-dug bed in the South Carolina clay behind our Navy base house in the middle of a swamp. She thought the shade would be a more pleasant place to work in a garden. She assumed the humidity alone would water it. And it sorta did. We got the screwiest, sad little corkscrew cucumbers out of that attempt. It was a bit of a joke to us kids. My mom happily let the garden idea fade away after that, with little regret. She's the world's best cook, and a world-class grocery shopper; a garden was extra work and worry she didn't really need.

But, my Mom's Mom, our North Carolina grandmother, knew how to grow a garden. I found a picture once in a shoebox full of old photos at her house. I wish I had it now to post here. She's in her twenties or thirties, and gorgeous even in a pair of jeans and her hair tied up in a bandana, Aunt Jemimah-style. She's leaning on a hoe in the middle of a perfectly prosperous WWII victory garden. Even in black and white, you can smell the green of that vegetable garden. I'm not sure if her dad was a proper farmer, but I get the impression he was, and the knowlege of gardening probably came to her naturally. I still remember her for her long row of collards off to the side of the house and her many fragrant rose bushes.

(Above: Not actually my grandmother's garden...)

My Dad's family were city people. My very colorful grandmother from that side of the family grew plastic flowers and pink flamingos in her front yard. Not a gardener to be found on that side of the family tree. But they could argue up a good afternoon over cups of coffee so strong and black it made your hair curl just to smell it. So, in the interest of other kinds of seeds planted, we forgive them the lack of interest in dirt gardening.
(At right: not my other grandmother's actual flamingos)

My husband's family kept a tasteful yard in Southern California while they were raising their two boys, but being the top dog at the water department of their city, his Dad had to avoid a lush green yard for political reasons. He got a chance at gardening, though, when they bought a beautifully landscaped yard in Western Colorado. While they were there, Grandpa seemed happy to tend the plants and flowers and even scored with a bumper crop of home grown tomatoes last summer. Grandpa's definitely got promise.

But, you can see that, though a bit of heredity might have eeked through from my North Carolina grandmother, our thumbs were not nurtured green. It was never an ingrained lifestyle kind of thing for us. But, it always seemed like a good idea. Good for the children. Healthy. Pretty. What could be better than all that? So, after a few years getting used to raising up youngins, we turned our minds to raising a garden ~ starting with little more than a notion, and a Rodale's Organic Gardening book.

The Hook

(Or ~ Why We Started Watching The Victory Garden on PBS)

We had just bought an old victorian house on a half acre lot in town and had visions of a secret garden paradise. After we cut down a few dead trees, knocked down some rotting fences and hacked away about a third of an acre of weeds, we at least had the space to work with. And virgin soil. The guy who came with his tractor to plow up and smooth things out said it was so. He said he thought those prairie grasses were original. Lucky us, huh? So, we dug, and smoothed, and improved, and planted, and consulted Rodale. After much sweat and sore muscles, our very first garden was a rousing success. Everyone was shocked, including us.

We were hooked.

It turns out that, next to bringing a new baby home from the hospital, nothing is more satisfying than bringing in a basketful of tomatoes and cucumbers from our own garden. After that first experience, we always had some kind of garden in progress. Some years, especially those when I was pregnant and on bedrest, the gardens were a bit ragged around the edges. And we have a bad tendency to get all excited and work-happy from April through about the middle of June, then lose our enthusiasm in the heat of the summer. What are ya gonna do? The peas and spinach have always been good, anyway.

Reeling It In

(Or ~ How We Thought We Had It All Figured Out)

We really hit our stride out here on our high prairie farm-ette. We moved in on the day of our tenth anniversary ~ and it was a cross between being the answer to a prayer and the beginning of a nightmare. If we thought the old half acre was a project, it was a box kite next to an airplane out here on the prairie. The house was a shambles, a dark little cave of a cottage. There were forty acres of broken down century-old fences and outbuildings. If it had ever grown anything other than pigs and cows and tumbleweeds, there was no sign of it. But we had vision ~ and four boys approaching their teen years. It was a good thing, really. The best thing we ever did for our boys.

And it was a dang lot of work. For one thing, this is dry land, folks: no irrigation. But our oldest son, Paul, led the charge, and within a few years, we had a farm to be proud of. We raised dairy goats, chickens, and pigs and boarded a couple horses. We had a plot of sweet corn next to a big pumpkin patch, a raised bed "salad garden," and a landscaped yard with a beautiful perennial garden up against the house. The boys built miles of picket fences and constructed two ponds, one with a working waterfall. We planted pots and window boxes full of flowers. My husband's little lawn was prospering, and all was right with the world.

Then, when everything was perfect, we felt a call to move.

The Challenge

(Or ~ "Man, What a Bummer!")

We were gone for two years on the Western Slope of Colorado. We absolutely loved it there and don't regret for a moment making that move, even though we had no place to garden in our yard. But it was not meant to be a long term stay, anyway, it would appear. God crooked His finger and we headed back to the old farm again last November.

Admittedly, we pulled up the old dirt driveway a little disappointed, but we were determined to make the best of it. "At least," we thought, "we'll be able to have a garden again."

But, when we came back, the property was in ruins. The winter before had been extremely hard on the eastern plains of Colorado. Blizzards had stripped many of our old cottonwoods, and late freezes had killed a couple of the big trees. The salad garden and corn field were waist high in weeds and the perennial flower bed was completely taken over by horehound, of all things. (Little did I know when I planted that one little horehound plant three years ago...) The lawn was gone. Blizzards in the winter and droughts in the summer take a hard toll on a garden, even when its being tended. But ours had been left to fend for itself for two years.

As if all that weren't bad enough, the infrastructure of property was in a shambles. All our fences need to be painted and repaired, my flower boxes are in a terrible state, and not a single one of the hydrants works any more.

But, when we bought this place ten years ago, it was in worse repair. It was all bare prairie, weeds, trash, and rusted barbed wire, but we were able to bring it to life. And we'll bring it back again.

That's the beauty of gardening ~ and homemaking. The work is endless, and relentless. You simply cannot let things go, or it will be twice the effort bringing it back. But, it's always, always worth the effort. We may grumble a little while we're pulling out those danged thistles by. their. impossibly. long. roots... (Agh!), but we're always pleased with the results when we have a pristine, cleared vegetable bed dotted with sweet little sprouts.

For now, on the farm re-build, I just need my big boys home from school for the summer helping with the hammer-work and painting. We girls have already started the clearing and planting. Our last frost date is not until the middle of May, so we can't put anything tender out yet, but the peas, carrots, spinach, lettuce, radish, and pole beans are ready to go out (as soon as I get a hydrant working!). I've got the goodies to start working on my perennial and annual flower beds and planters, too.

It's far from lush here. But the sky is a huge eye-wateringly blue canvas for a landscape of clouds. The wind playfully ruffles the grasses on the rolling blond hills, tickling up the meadowlarks who swoop into the air in sudden laughing song. The remnants of the toil of a hundred years lies among the grasses waiting for us to find. As we've dug in our garden, we've found railroad spikes, tiny antique medicine bottles, horseshoes, ancient nuts and bolts, old tools and even the rusted-solid workings of a pocket watch. We aren't the first to try to make this land work for us. We feel like we've been handed the baton, though.

It's a hard-fought war, gardening on the high prairies, but well worth the challenge.

Landing It
(Or ~ Try, Try, Try Again)

You'll have to use your imagination, and please be merciful. I can't show you anything planted yet, but I can show you where it will all go and I'll try to post pictures as everything gets a coat of paint and some spit and shine and all the vegetables and flowers get growing.

There will be perennials replanted here next to the house: hollyhocks, daylilies, mini canas, all in shades of orange, yellow and red. You can just see the brick outline of the bed below.

Trying to decide what shade-loving plants to grow around the birdbath. Needs to be something easy. Maybe calladeum?

We need mostly perennials to fill in this big space. We did have a handful of tulips that survived. (What a happy surprise that was!) I'm thinking about adding shrubs or grasses maybe. It's a long way from a water source, so needs to be xeriscaped mainly, with maybe a touch of color from bulbs and some annuals in the wheelbarrow. Any suggestions for easy growing, low water zone 3-4 would be appreciated!
I'm thinking some sunflowers in varying shades might be nice in front of the playhouse. A new coat of paint and a new weathervane is in the plans, too.

I'm trying to decide between petunias and dahlias for this old trough:

Mixed annuals in bright colors for these pots (We have about ten of these scattered about).
Red, white and blue with maybe a zing of yellow in the flowerboxes on the barn.

A pot of impatience will sit on this bench at the top of the driveway. And a lot of patience learned through this whole process. But patience, promise, and hard work is what it's all about.

Children Are A Poor Man's Riches

I recently read a passing comment referring to the trend of status-symbol big families. You know, people showing off their wealth by having three or more children. (Does that make you do a double-take like it does me?) I think it was in a tax article about child-credits in our daily paper, but I couldn't find it later to quote or link to it. Likely, it's lining the puppy's living quarters now...

Anyway, you might remember that a year or two ago this trend was all the talk. MSNBC , Business Week, and NPR all got in on the discussion. And now, I guess the continuing press of celebrity births and adoptions has resulted in the big family hypothesis becoming a foregone conclusion. An article in the Washington Post this month confirms it, and the statistics bear out: the National Center for Health Statistics reports 12 percent of upper-income women had three children or more in 2002, compared with 3 percent in 1995. Yep, rich people, it seems, are inclined to show off their ability to support the expensive luxury of children these days.

It's strangely counter-counter, isn't it? Counter to popular perceptions. Counter-counter to Catholic perceptions. Since the advent of birth control, large families have belonged to the crowded quarters of the teeming lower classes, often in undeveloped countries. Or, of course, to the Catholics and Mormons. The fanatic ones. For the last fifty years or so, "cool folks," rich or not, have parented two-point-something, maybe three kids. In recent years, it's become less for reasons of a perceived economic necessity, and more a crusade to save the planet. Can't have too many carbon footprints littering up the place.

But, go figure. The informed elite are bucking worldly mores now and joining the Big Brood club. Why? Because they can.

If you're rich and cool enough, you can justify your carbon footprints, I suppose.

Who am I to complain? Catholics wear their numbers like ornaments, too, but for a different reason. They're more like baubles of obedience to the Divine Will, charms of the Faith.

Still, regardless of motivation, it ill behooves the likes of me to look down my nose at anyone bringing souls into the world. More power to 'em! Except...

I hope these greenhorns to the large family concept understand that it takes more than money to raise a "super family." It's more than just a concept.

I hope they understand that the ego which may be kickstarting some of their reasoning is poison to a family of any size.

I hope they understand that nannies and expensive schools do not a family make.

I hope they understand that love is not money; it's time and sacrifice and often heartache.

I hope they understand that the silver spoon, fishbowl lifestyle their children will likely take for granted is not the ideal environment for growing good character (Witness poor Paris Hilton).

And, unless they're really quite rich, these parents might find that their plan to show off their wealth with a quiverfull may backfire. Especially if they don't learn to moderate their lifestyles. My goodness, children are an expensive habit (blessing, luxury, whatever...), no matter how frugal you are!

You know, though, all in all, I seriously can't call this a bad trend. God loves His babies, no matter who their parents are, and He's pouring down the graces, if only people will pick them up and use them. Besides, many of these people may be rich in assets, and still poor in spirit. It happens sometimes. (Though I haven't heard of any camels getting through any eyes of needles lately...)

But, let's give them the benefit of the doubt. I don't want to come off as a Catholic snob here. These wealthy people may or may not start out with the right motives, but, if they figure it out ~ if they do it right ~ they may find out about the blessings of real parenthood. These wealthy people,God bless them, have the chance to find out what it is to be truly rich, indeed.

PS: Here's a recent article I just found on this phenomena ~ an excellent and well balanced one I thought.