The Feast of Our Lady's Apparition at Lourdes


On a Thursday afternoon 154 years ago, the Blessed Mother appeared to a simple peasant girl in rural France.  Today marks the anniversary of that heavenly visit, the first of eighteen total, during which the Blessed Mother identified herself as the Immaculate Conception, thus definitively approving the Church's proclamation of the dogma of the Immaulate Conception four years earlier (Dogmatic bull Ineffabilis Deus, December 8, 1854).

The only known picture of St. Bernadette at the Grotto in Lourdes.
(Taken at a visit after the apparitions had ceased)

 Here is the story of that first visit in St. Bernadette's own words:

"The Thursday before Ash Wednesday it was cold and the weather was threatening. After our dinner, our mother told us there was no more wood in the house and she was vexed. My sister Toinette and I, to please her, offered to go and pick up dry branches at the riverside. My mother said no, because the weather was bad and we might be in danger of falling into the Gave. Jeanne Abadie, our neighbour and friend, who was looking after her little brother in our house and who wanted to come with us, took her brother back to his house and returned the next moment telling us that she had leave to come with us. My mother still hesitated, but seeing that there were three of us, she let us go. We took first of all the road which leads to the cemetary, by the side of which wood shavings can sometimes be found. That day we found nothing there. We came down by the side which leads near the Gave and having arrived at the Pont Vieux we wondered if it would be best to go up or down the river. We decided to go down and taking the forest road we arrived
at Merlasse. Then we went into Monsieur de la Fittes field, by the mill of Savy.

"As soon as we had reached the end of this field, nearly opposite the grotto of Massabieille, we were stopped by the canal of the mill we had just passed. The current of this canal was not strong for the mill was not working, but the water was cold and I for my part was afraid to go in. Jeanne Abadie and my sister, less timid than I, took their sabots in their hands and crossed the stream. However, when they were on the other side they called out that it was cold and bent down to rub their feet and warm them. All this increased my fear and I thought that if I went into the water I should get an attack of asthma. So I asked Jeanne, who was bigger and stronger than I, to take me on her shoulders. 'I should think not!' she answered - 'If you won't come, stay where you are!'.

"After the others had picked up some pieces of wood under the grotto, they disappeared along the Gave. When I was alone, I threw some stones into the water to give me a foothold, but it was no use. So I had to make up my mind to take off my sabots and cross the canal as Jeanne and my sister had done.

"I had just begun to take off my first stocking when suddenly I heard a great noise like the sound of a storm. I looked to the right and to the left, under the trees of the river, but nothing moved; I thought I was mistaken. I went on taking off my shoes and stockings, when I heard a fresh noise like the first. Then I was frightened and stood straight up. I lost all power of speech and thought when, turning my head toward the grotto, I saw at one of the openings of the rock a bush - only one - moving as if it were very windy. Almost at the same time, there came out of the interior of the grotto a golden coloured cloud, and soon after a Lady, young and beautiful, exceedingly beautiful, the like of whom I had never seen before, came and placed herself at the entrance of the opening, above the rose bush. She looked at me immediately, smiled at me and signed to me to advance, as if She had been my Mother. All fear had left me, but I seemed to know no longer where I was. I rubbed my eyes, I shut them, I opened them; but the Lady was still there continuing to smile at me and making me understand that I was not mistaken. Without thinking of what I was doing I took my Rosary in my hands and went on my knees. The Lady made with Her head a sign of approval and Herself took into Her hands a Rosary which hung on Her right arm. When I attempted to begin the Rosary and tried to lift my hand to my forehead, my arm remained paralysed, and it was only after the Lady had signed Herself that I could do the same. The Lady left me to pray all alone; She passed the beads of Her Rosary between Her fingers but She said nothing; only at the end of each decade did She say the Gloria with me.

"When the recitation of the Rosary was finished, the Lady returned to the interior of the rock and the golden coloured cloud disappeared with Her".

When asked to describe the Lady of the vision, Bernadette said -

"She has the appearance of a young girl of sixteen or seventeen. She is dressed in a white robe, girdled at the waist with a blue ribbon which flows down all along Her robe. She wears upon Her head a veil which is also white; this veil gives just a glimpse of Her hair and then falls down at the back below Her waist. Her feet are bare but covered by the last folds of Her robe except at the point where a yellow rose shines upon each of them. She holds on Her right arm a Rosary of white beads with a chain of gold shining like the two roses on Her feet."

Bernadette then continued with her story -

"As soon as the Lady had disappeared Jeanne Abadie and my sister returned to the Grotto and found me on my knees in the same place where they had left me. They laughed at me, calling me an imbecile and asked me if I would go back with them or not. I now had no difficulty in going into the stream and I felt the water as warm as the water used for washing plates and dishes.

'You had no reason to make such an outcry' I said to Jeanne and my sister Marie, while drying my feet; 'the water of the canal is not as cold as you would make me believe'. They replied, 'You are fortunate not to find it so - we found it very cold'.

"I asked Jeanne and Marie if they had noticed anything at the Grotto - 'No', they answered. 'Why do you ask us?'. 'Oh, nothing' I replied indifferently. But before we got to the house, I told my sister Marie of the extraordinary things which had happened to me at the Grotto, asking her to keep it a secret.

"Throughout the whole day, the image of the Lady remained in my mind. In the evening, at family prayer, I was troubled and began to cry. My mother asked what was the matter. Marie hastened to answer for me and I was obliged to give the account of the wonder which had come to me that day.

'These are illusions' answered my mother - 'You must drive these ideas out of your head and especially not go back to Massabieille'.

"We went to bed but I could not sleep. The face of the Lady, so good and gracious, returned incessantly to my memory and it was useless to recall what my mother had said to me; I could not believe that I had been deceived."
 
The story of the rest of the apparitions can be found here.


Bernadette's incorruptible body as it appears today.

 Celebrating the Day
 
My parents visited Lourdes in 1964 and were so moved by their experience there that they named their first daughter after the humble visionary of the grotto. And so you are reading the words typed here by Lisa Bernadette. And St. Bernadette truly is my patron, my heavenly friend. I love her dearly. And for my consecration to the Blessed Mother this past year, I chose Our Lady under the title of The Immaculate Conception for my guide and intercessor.  
 
 So this day is a double celebration for me.  Unfortunately, I missed Mass this morning because I'm battling illness, but we'll pray our family rosary today for St. Bernadette's intercession, as well, of course, that of Our Lady, the Immaculate Conception.  We'll watch The Song of Bernadette, and the girls won't need much prodding to make a special dessert for dinner tonight. (I'll leave it up to them what they think that needs to be!)  And I'll copy off a handful of the following coloring pages to leave on the dining room table for the children to work on as they choose.

Click to copy.

Also, Charlotte, at Waltzing Matilda has a more simple Immaculate Conception to color here.
Strangely, I have not been able to find a single coloring page that actually pictures St. Bernadette!  But the following photograph if printed small works well for the little ones to color.  We'll print this one out and make a quilled frame for it to put at our little shrine today.

Reading Into This

"And if your mind wanders as you read, do not give up; hurry back and apply your mind to the words once more."

~ St. Romuald (c.950-1025)

Electronic vs. Paper-Published Books

Did you know that...

*  Roughly 2% of American book buyers over age 13 are active ebook users, meaning they obtained an ebook or a reader device in the last year. About half of those were first-time ebook buyers, so the usage of ebooks has probably roughly doubled in the last year.

* (There was a) 25% increase in ebook usage just over the holiday season, so it was a pretty good Christmas for ebooks.

* The most-used device for reading an ebook is a personal computer (47%); Amazon Kindle is number two (32%), followed by Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch (21%). (all the above found here)

* Nearly 50% of print book consumer who have also acquired an e-book in the past 18 months would wait up to three months for the e-version of a book from a favorite author, rather than immediately read it in print. A year ago, only 38% said they would wait this long. (here)

* Sales of printed novels over the first four weeks of 2012 fell by a over a million copies compared to the same month a year ago, according to industry figures seen by The Daily Telegraph. (here)

So.  Harumph.  Doesn't sound good for our books, does it?  I mean real books, with binding and glue and paper and that delicious library smell we bibliophiles love.  But e-books are all the thing these days, and though I was cat-in-the-creamery curious from the moment I first heard about them, I long resisted getting an electronic reading device.  It seemed disloyal, somehow, to even think of it, with all our shelves of  hardbound,  leatherbound, paperback, coffee table, kid series, and school books looking over my shoulder. How could I turn my back on forty years of contented page turning for downloaded words on a little flat computer?  How could I possibly indulge in a Victoria Holt gothic romance that appeared electronically on a cold, grey screen?  And, seriously, the idea of perusing the Summa electronically is unthinkable. I pictured the bowed heads of monks transcribing the Old Testament on parchment with quills, and they looked up at me and sneered at the very idea.

Banish the thought.

But, then...  (Well, you knew it would happen, didn't you?)  When the price on Kindles came down to a somewhat reasonable price this past Christmas, and we were looking for a gift for Afghanistan-bound Paul, Nicole suggested that an e-book device might be just the ticket. We thought that sounded reasonable, considering his need to pack lightly, and the rumor that soldiers over there have more down time than one might expect.  So, we shopped around and got him an Amazon Kindle for a good price. Then, since we were taking the plunge into biblio-heresy anyway, we decided that everybody else on the short list would probably appreciate the technology, too.  So, we got Kindles for college-kids, Kevvy and Nicole, one for high school senior, Michelle, and one for home.  Easy-peasy one-stop shopping.  The only thing we needed to add was a Christmas bow and a lecture about choosing wholesome reading material.

Of course, needless to say, everyone was thrilled with the gifts.  The big kids seemed to know intuitively how to operate theirs, and by the afternoon of Christmas day, Theresa had figured out all the ins and outs of how to use the home Kindle and was enthusiastically scanning the "stacks" at Amazon for downloads that were on the approved list.  Before I knew it, we had an amazing children's library.  For less than $3.00 each, we had the entire Fr. Brown series, all eight of the Anne of Green Gables series, the complete works of Louisa May Alcott, Frances Hodgson Burnette, Gene Stratton-Porter, L. Frank Baum, and Beverly Cleary.  Amazing.  These are all books that I would have loved to have had on our shelves long ago -- if there had been room!  And if I had been a millionaire.  But here, in the blink of an eye -- almost literally -- we now had them at our fingertips.

But we weren't done yet. Not by a longshot. All that children's lit on the skinny little Kindle took up no more space than a teaspoon on the Titanic -- and it was Mommy's turn to explore the stacks.  Before New Years' we had added Fabiola, The Little Flowers of St. Francis, the Imitation of Christ, The Little Way of St. Therese, Abandonment to Divine Providence. the rest of the exhaustive works of G.K. Chesterton, and, yes, the entire, unabridged edition of the Summa Theologica, not to mention a couple digital "shelves" of recommended novels. All for under $20! 

 Imagine.

We now have a digital library worthy of Carnegie in the palm of whoever's hand can snatch the Kindle first. And we're just getting started.

Make no mistake: I love my Kindle.  I will never, ever run out of reading material while I have it -- and it fits so well in my purse.  But, I'll never give up my comfortable, old-fashioned, wrist-exercizing books.  Real books line the happiest shelves of my memory.  And, really, this digital book thing is not perfect.

For one thing, I really have a problem with the missing page numbers.  Giving a died-in-the-wool reader a  little "thus far" percentage notation at the bottom of the digital "page" instead of a real page number is like... like.... well, like having a calculus book written in iambic pentameter. Or something like that.   Let's just say it throws me off.  I mean, seriously: how do you know what you're getting yourself into when you settle into a book without page numbers?  I can't heft the weight of the Kindle to figure out what my time commitment is going to be when I pick up the Summa.  And it's not so easy to flip to the back to see how it all comes out in the end, should I get a little anxious...

 There's no writing in the margins in a Kindle, either.  And no provenence.  We've always loved to come across an inscription on the fly-leaf of a "found" or rescued novel, saying things like: From Aunt Shirley and Uncle Fred: To Archibald: Christmas, 1942. And the littlest of our children love fingering the pages of the dog-eared books their big brothers and sisters read years ago.  Sometimes they even find slips of scribbled paper and holy card bookmarkers left like little time capsules in the pages. Don't have that kind of serendipity with a Kindle. Or that warmth.

There is something human and substantial and real about an old-fashioned book that I don't think we'll ever want to be without as a people.  What kind of a world would it be without libraries and book stores to meet in?  If you love to learn, love to imagine, there is no greater thrill than walking through those rows of books, with their solid wealth of information and imagination, and catching the eye of another book lover who's enjoying the same thrill.  The knowlege and wisdom of the ages has been passed down in books.  (A good amount of garbage, too, but what are ya gonna do?)  And, cheap and fun as the e-books may be, do we really dare depend on electronics to preserve our most treasured works when we see our economy evaporating with all the digital "money" that we pull up on a screen, too -- and can see -- but is not really there? Scary. But traditional, page-turning books have stood the test of time; they're solid and real.  Like the four Biblical investments -- land, cattle, gold, and silver, real books are always a safe investment in the future.  And they're here to stay; I'm sure of it.

You know I believe it,  having lugged umpteen-dozen bins of books around with me through four moves in seven years.  Ugh.  But, I'd do it again. (Not any time soon, please God, but I would.)

Anyway, I'm sure any readers who have made it this far are rubbing their eyes (Have no fear; you're 98% of the way there now), and I'm ready to retire for the evening with my Kindle and the Gene Stratton-Porter novel I've been reading steadily for four days and through which I have only moved 26%.  (I'm beginning to think maybe I might just as well have picked up the Summa, for all the commitment I seem to have gotten myself into here...)

But, before I go, here are some more quotes for the road:

* The rumors of the demise of independent bookstores have been greatly exaggerated. Entrepreneurs continue to enter the industry, reimagining how the printed word is distributed to passionate readers. It has been an exciting year, but we promise you that the coming year will be even more exciting.

~  Jeff Mayersohn, owner of the iconic Harvard Square Book Shop on   The Universal  Hub

* While e-book sales continue to grow, there is mounting evidence that publishers are taking notice of this desire, and catering to a growing market for top-quality, collectable books.

The Folio Society, a London publisher dedicated to illustrated hardback editions of classics, currently has a membership list of 100,000, and has recently started selling books online to non-members, as well as in select locations such as the British Museum, Fortnum & Mason's and Paul Smith. Now, the company's publishing director David Hayden says, "other publishers are catching up to the power of the beautifully designed book. That is a function of the extremely rapid move to digital reading".

Hayden describes himself as pro-tech, but argues that "the physical book is still an incredibly effective piece of technology. Your memory of reading a book, all the tactile associations that go with that, are still very powerful".
~ Jessica Holland, Long Live the Printed Book at The National 

* When it comes to the longevity of paper book technology and virtually any digital technology, there is simply no comparison. Assuming that the paper a book is printed on isn't too acidic and it's well-kept, it will last for literally thousands of years.

 Digital formats have evolved quickly and it's likely they will continue to evolve for the foreseeable future. Even if we assume that digital storage formats won't ever change again and we'll always have access to computers than can read them, the physical media itself simply breaks down in a matter of years.


The thousand year view is simple: if you're going to commit knowledge to writing in some form, you need to ensure that it will exist and be readable in a thousand years. I can tell you that I've personally gained insight and understanding about our world by reading a lightly-distributed instruction manual for rural, parish priests in England — written in the fourteenth century. Will an independently-created iBook 2 textbook be around in the thirty first century?

~ Dieter Bohn, The Verge (More of his great article on E vs. Paper here)

Home Again -- In A New House

Where Thou art ~ that ~ is home.

~ Emily Dickinson

The little boys eating breakfast before school this morning in the dining room.  All the walls in the house started out stark, glaring white.  Cathy said it looked like a lunatic asylum and she expected a man in a white coat to show up at any minute.  So, we painted.  Green is always good in my book.  The curtains aren't all up yet, but these green ones (which we want to hang better later, with a nicer rod), we felt compelled to jimmy up quick because we didn't want our dear eighty-year-old neighbor lady, whose house looks directly into these windows, to see what slobs we are as we're settling in. 

The living room -- and the patio doors, outside of which is a big, roomy porch we expect to live on when the weather gets nice.  You'll notice that, though we're far from  being finished with the unpacking, etc., the TV is up and running. Gotta have our DVDs.  How could we possibly get through the day without any I Love Lucys?

The little breakfast nook in the kitchen, which we're using for a desk.  There's no room in the dining room or living room for a proper desk, without really crowding things, and we decided we rather liked having the computer next to the window that will overlook our garden this spring.  Haven't decided on what color to paint this room.  Possibly a warm khaki or maybe a pale yellow -- but we have to live in it a while before we decide.  We do like the curtains we found, though, and will work around them, probly.

Theresa at the very popular coffee-and-tea station, which is located a convenient two steps from the computer.  Cups are above, boxes of tea, sugar, creamer, and snacks are down below.  Check out how tall the counters and cabinets are.  They were hand built in the fifties, we are told, for a very tall woman.  We call this Julia Child's kitchen.



Cathy and Anna (those lazy homeschoolers!)  trying out the top bunk in their new room.  As you can see, their room is up under the eaves just like our old house in eastern Colorado.  We've got the room all painted, but it's not all done yet, with its flower fairy curtains, etc -- so I'm not allowed to show it yet.  And the little boys' room -- I'll get some pics of that when I can walk across the floor...



Dan's office, not even close to unpacked yet.   But, check out the panelling.  Back in the '70s this was the height of fashion.  (What were they thinking?)  I remember my Dad and grandfather installing some in the "den" of our house when I was a little girl, we removed it in our house on the prairie, and here we are having to look at it again.  Uck.  It seems that most of the walls downstairs were paneled like this, but were all painted over, thankfully, except this room.  And it's only a matter of time before the girls and I tackle it. 

Lots more to share about this old house: the thrill of working with plaster walls again, the ancient weeping willow tree; the grape vines that go with the vinyard right over the fence; the "dog kennel" storage; the super-uper scary cellar (have to get some pics of that!); the cellar door -- just like in the hand-clap game, where you "slide down my cellar door, and we'll be jolly friends forever more, more, shut the door...  We miss the log house a little.  For one thing, there really is a lot less space here, but, holy cow!  Is there a lot more character -- and the stories are just beginning... The little boys tell us, for instance, that it's not them, but a couple of little ghost boys that run up and down the stairs at night.  Hmmm.....  Ya never know.

Anyway, I'll be back with more. Gotta go work on Dan's office today!

Blessings to Everyone!

Note to My Big Kids Who are Not Here to Help Move

We're moving out the contents of all the closets and dressers and the stores in the crawl space today, kids.  But the big Moving Day is tomorrow.  Aren't you boys glad you're missing out on this -- Paul, Jon, and Br. Pio?  You, too, Michelley!  (sneersnort)

But, Kevvy -- darlin' -- we're so glad you're coming!  You are our favorite son, you know.  (Just now, anyway...) You others can pray --especially you seminarians --  and that's big, but it don't get the fridge moved. Dangit all anyway.  But if you guys will pray away hernias and snow, we guess we'll give you a break.

But, seriously, we're doing alright; you should see the little Amazon-woman girls lifting and carrying!  They are amazing!  And smile and give us little concerts while they pack and unpack.  They've worked out a two-part rendition of Down in the Valley that is awesome.  Nice to have the free entertainment while we work.

Still, Wish You Were All Here!

Sure you can't drive out real quick?

(Just kidding.)

(No, I'm not, really)

It's a Brown Box and Silver Tape Kinda Day

But almost all the books are packed and moved over.
This is a big deal.

Ordinary acts today:  Moving the kitchen, laundry room and the rest of the barn over to the new place; figuring out how to make a walk-in closet out of the tiny room near the girls' room that has plaster walls that we can't nail into; remembering to eat and feed the children.

Well, maybe not so ordinary -- but all in a day, anyway.

Exactly a week before we have to be all moved over and have the old house cleaned up and ready to go for the new tenants.  Kevvy comes Friday to help with the big stuff, but 'til then, it's me, Dan, and the girls -- with the little boys running around our feet...  But, no worries!

(Sure, we can!)

Paul's on his way...

....apparently by a rather circuituous route to Afghanistan via Canada. Nobody knows why -- but, unless he's going to defend Canada now, which would be alrighty by us, we expect he'll eventually get to the predetermined destination.  All's good, though.  He's in God's hands,

as always.

Still, everyone misses him.

This picture of his sweet little guy makes me tear up every time I look at it.

-sniff-

We want a "Daddy Doll" like Gavin's.

But we'd have to call it a "Paul Doll."

And I'm not sure he'd like that.

Our 1st Lieutenent Deploys Tomorrow

You know I'll be heading out tomorrow, Gavin, buddy.

Some last minute instructions:  The most important -- take good care of Mommy until I get home.

Don't worry, Daddy.  I'll take care of everything.  I love you.

God speed and God bless, Paul!

We love you!

All our prayers are with you.

Show those guys in Afghanistan how it really needs to be done.

(See you soon in e-mail!)

Car Guy Rube Goldberg Thingamajig

Thanks to good friend, Brian, who fixed Kevvy's car so that it will now -- work.

Friday Update

Old house.  Not ours.

As I mentioned, we painted the girls' room Wednesday.  It looks nice; they love it.  And the little boys' room, we painted blue yesterday -- a shade darker blue than the girls'.  In the southeast corner of the upper floor, the little guys' room has the most "challenged" walls of the old house we're moving into.  (Did I mention it's 109 years old?)  this little room tucked under the eves looks like it was painted in the thirties maybe, and is used to be that unidentifiable shade of beigy-peachy-grey you see sometimes in old houses.  Bleh.  (What were they thinking??)  And this dull color coats particularly old, cracking, falling down plaster.  Double bleh. 

 But now, all the cracks and blemishes in that room are masked by a lovely shade of sky blue.  The trim will be a darker blue by tomorrow afternoon -- and one particularly bad wall will be completely covered in National Geographic maps of the world.  I'm hunting around the internet now looking to add to a little globe collection  to further the world travel theme.  And my satisfaction will be complete if I can find some nice, lined, map-themed curtains for the big picture window. 

Add a dark blue bunkbed, a half dozen or so small bins of toys in a bookcase, two toy pirate ships (complete with pirates and cannons) and one big Noah's ark set (complete with Noah and animals)  -- and, of course, two little boys -- and voila!  presto!  Home.



Safe Haven, by Vladimir Kush
If super-artist, Jon, were home, I'd have him paint this on the ceiling....

* Pictures coming when we're all done.

I warned you there were more...

Just One of a Thousand Decisions Today...

Busy day ahead.  Dressed in work clothes, but have to be decent enough to drop the little girls off at art class later and do some grocery shopping while I wait for class to be over.  Blue jeans and clogs day, definitely.  But, look; check it out:

 I found this old shirt when I was going through bins the other day.  I'd almost forgotten about it.  But isn't it cute?  Nice shades of brown, cute little Disney characters.  There's a Mickey Mouse near the front hem and Pluto peeking out of the pocket....  Looking right. at. my Miraculous Medal.

Ha!  How funny!  But... Um, then again....  Hmmm.  Sure makes me smile, the serendipity of it and all.  But, gosh,  is it disrespectful or not properly honoring the Mother of God?  Does Pluto look happy to see the Blessed Mother?  Or does he look manic?  Or does he look more like he wants to jump out and bite off that button over there?  Of all the silly things.... Should I wear my medal showing or tuck it in today?

What do you think?

More Love and Chocolate

*  One little girls' bedroom painted blue yesterday at the new house.  Today I stay home and tackle laundry.

Love and Chocolate

* Very, very distracted today...  And likely will be for a bit.  But thought these might be fun to post while we're busy packing and moving and painting the new rental house. When we get closer to St. Valentine's Day, we'd like to share a fun little gift to make that uses these Love and Chocolate images.  Stay stuned!

Love and Chocolate

The First in a Continuing Series...

About Love

and Chocolate.

Monday Again Already?

Outside my window:  It's cloudy, chilly, and kinda bleh.  There's just enough snow left on the ground to be messy looking, but that's ok, because my driveway is finally melted off and dry.  Which is a fair trade-off.

What else is outside my window:  Preparatory to our iminent move, Dan has been driving  back-n-forth, back-n- forth  past the front window with the big truck, pulling a little flatbed trailer, loaded with ever-changing crews of youngins and paraphernalia.  Round and round the driveway he goes, unloading all the storage bins from the barn into the house -- about ten at a time, for me to go through.  Then he loads the approved and labeled bins back onto the truck and trailer and they take it over to the new house to unload into organized paradise.  (I hope.)

What I'm doing:  I am the Queen Arbiter of Fate for all the old saved shoes, clothes, school books, notebooks, reading books, Catholic doctrine books, toy soldiers, saved baseballs with dates and deeds, holiday decorations, craft supplies, and lots of other miscellaneous flotsam and jetsam that defies categorizing...

What I'm thinking:  As much as I'd like to say, "Man, do we have too much junk, or what?!"  I can't help pouring over some of these bins.  Like, I just came across one that's probably been hiding in the deeper caverns of the bin mountain for a while.  In it was a slop- packed collection of the big boys' junk -- things that belonged to them when they were little boys: toy soldiers, special baseballs, about a million Lord of the Rings trading cards, a shirt that used to be Kevin's favorite, Paul's woodworking kit, a green tassel that the boys used to call "Crazy Woman....  Sigh....  I love my big boys, but I miss them as little boys, too.

What else I'm thinking: I can't bear to get rid of most of this junk.  Too many memories come with most of it.  I'm never going to get done with this.

A picture thought and a poem to go with it:

Inspiration

For the girls' room at the new house.

We (the girls and I) love Cicely Mary Barker's Flower Fairies and were thrilled to find this fabric:



We'll use this for the valances for the two windows in the new room.



One of two panels that we'll back and sew and trim and loop and hang.
This one's "Spring" -- the other one's "Fall."

We're all set to paint the girls' walls with that middle blue there on the paint chip; the trim and ceiling will be crisp white. Their bunk beds match the berries (or are they rose hips?) and they already have either pink or green blankets
and pillowcases that will co-ordinate.  And the bead trim (isn't it the best?) --  we'll use it on the valance and on the lamp shades we're going to customize.

 We'll post pics when we're all done! 

Family Harmony

Over the five years I've been blogging, I've enjoyed posting  pictures of family harmony at our house, but I'm afraid that in-so-doing I might have given the impression that it's all sweetness and light over here, that there's never any fighting.  But, oh, my goodness sakes.  Let me set the record straight: we get our good fair share of squabbling. I just don't generally have the camera in my hand when I'm the on-ice referee throwing players in the penalty box!

It's just this, and no gettin' around it:  any group of two or more people confined to limited space and using the same bathroom is going to wind up disagreeing about things.  Sometimes calmly and politely, sometimes not.  It's a fact of life parents have to come to terms with.  And, while the inevitability of it may make a Mom want to run for the hills (for a quiet little cabin, maybe, with a lock on the door), all the bickering and banging together of heads can also be looked at as a right of passage into adulthood and an opportunity to learn some really important things about human interaction. To wit:

1.  There's a right and a wrong way to communicate displeasure.
     a)  Hitting your brother with the butt of a Nerf rifle is the wrong way.
     b) Slamming a caprine syringe through your brother's hand is the wrong way.
     c) Cracking an egg on your sister's head is the wrong way.

2.  No matter how much a person would like to be, no one of us is the center of the universe.
     a)  Just because you got a chocolate orange in your stocking does not mean all chocolate oranges belong to you.
     b)  The world is not going to stop because you're having a bad hair day. (Dangit)
     c)  You are not the only person who ever has a bad hair day.
     d)  It's highly unlikely that anyone but you is going to notice you're having a bad hair day.

3.  Kindness begets kindness; unkindness you get right back on the snoot.

      a) If you had shared your chocolate orange with your sister, she would probably share hers with you now that yours is gone.
       b)  If you French braid your sister's hair for her, she'll tell you how beautiful your bouffant is, even if you don't think so.

      c) If you hit your brother with the butt of a Nerf rifle, don't be surprised if he throws a hard, plastic Noah's Ark elephant at your head.
     d)  If you crack an egg on your sister, well, you better just watch your back from here on out.


These are all hard lessons to learn; it takes years for them to finally take hold in most children -- and as too many of us in the adult world know, some people never do learn them!  Either they never got the memo, or they figured it wasn't for them.  We might finally have true peace to earth -- or at least in our own living rooms -- if babies were born with the capacity for perfect self control, the maturity of tactful expression, and the angelic perfection of patience and charity.  But, alas!  The little buggers almost always come into the world with the wrong ideas about just about everything.  After about six months of sweet goohs and gahs (if we're lucky enough not to have a colicky baby), the infant version of the will rears its head and the real work of a parent begins.

One-year-olds must be told they can't say "no" to Mommy and Daddy.  Two-year-olds have to learn that they can't have everything they see.  Four-year-olds need to know that the world doesn't revolve around them.  Though you try to break it to them gently, six-year-olds usually find out the hard way about an eye-for-an-eye.  And, then, when you think you've finally drummed it all  into their sweet curly little heads, the little darlings turn twelve and forget everything you ever taught them.   -sigh-  It's the life of a parent: our life's work. And it's exhausting, no kidding!  But it's important.

Because, ya know, tiresome as they are, those daily little kafoffles -- the scuffles, arguments, grudges, miscommunication, and stupidity -- are the training ground where parents do some of our most vital work. It's our job to catch the flying fists and steer the kids out of the boxing ring, or at least referee them safely to a peaceful solution -- for however many times a day we need to do it, for however many years it takes.  It's possible, I guess, for children to learn how to live in peace with their fellow human beings on their own or just by the school of hard knocks, but the lessons will be more surely honed if guided by the loving hands of parental referees.  And, though, our main aim is always going to be to be peace in the home, it's also with a parent's loving care that a child should learn what really is worth fighting for.

It was one of my proudest moments as a mother when I heard how my oldest son had flattened a friend at a party when he was in college.  It may have been in jest, or under the influence of a beer too many, but it seems a young man Paul knew made a scurrilous remark about the Catholic Church, and the next thing he knew -- without even thinking, he told us later -- Paul had socked the guy on the jaw so hard he knocked him on the floor.

That's my boy.

 I love that it was totally instinctual for him to defend his Faith.  There are few things really worth fighting for, but that one is at the top of the list.  That, and defending his wife or sisters or other women -- and maybe if someone has the gall to insult Tim Tebow in their hearing.

Yes, admittedly, it's true that in most situations, a carefully worded and gentlemanly debate would be preferable, but every once in a while, a sock in the jaw is just the ticket.

Of course, don't tell my six and seven-year-olds I said that. We'll spring the notion on them later when they're past the throwing toy elephants stage.  Uh. Maybe.