November was quite the month for rainbows here. For weeks there seemed to be an afternoon rainbow on a near daily basis. Twice I raced outside to get pictures and captured a few decent shots. Amazing! Absolutely beautiful! And I even managed to get a picture of my beloved family, muddy from playing outside, to stand still long enough to grab several different photos I will treasure of them positioned so the rainbow came down toward them, my treasure at the end of my rainbow. Caught two in this example. Rainbows always bring to mind the story of Noah from … Continue reading
Tag Archives: family
What to do when your first grader is NOT an early reader? What to do when readiness is slow to arrive? What do you do when well-meaning friends and family fuss because it looks like this child is going to be behind? You take a deep breath and evaluate. Learning style of teacher and pupil. It is a constant question–what curriculum do I use? I used Seton for a very long time. It was not the first curriculum I tried back in the day more than twenty years ago when I first embarked on home schooling. I tried Kolbe (classical) … Continue reading
CHRIST IS RISEN! INDEED HE IS RISEN! ALLELUIA!!!! I spent Lent this year discerning the directions I have been going, the use of my skills and talents and experience, and I’m read to implement some changes around here. First, I’m going to blog more Catholic Home Schooling. The reason for that emphasis is the diocese once more sent out wonderful Easter greetings in the form of an advertisement for the Parish schools in our diocese. But as always, ignoring the VALID CATHOLIC SCHOOLS WHICH ARE HOME SCHOOLS. CATHOLIC Home Schools get pretty much lip service or a slap in the … Continue reading
THE LIFE-CHANGING ART OF TIDYING UP is all about beauty. The ordinary beauty we make for ourselves in our homes. Yet in a culture that devalues beauty, attempts to define it down to function, and links the value of everything to the money it can produce, our lives are filled with clutter and ugliness. Returning to my original discussion of the loss of beauty in our culture see how wrong the culture has this entire concept? “What is beauty?” is a question that this culture is as ill-equipt to answer as Pilate was to answer his own, “What is Truth?” … Continue reading
An empty desk is functional but is it beautiful? A cup holding pens is functional, but a pen cup made from cut glass in a metal frame is beautiful beyond its function. So it is with all things pertaining to beauty including the art of tidying. Marie Kondo, in her book, THE LIFE-CHANGING MAGIC OF TIDYING UP, writes of taking an object into one’s hands and asking, “Does this object bring me joy?” That action is about aesthetics, not about function. An object may be beautiful due to its function but what causes you joy is not merely function–it is aesthetics. … Continue reading
“The warp of that garment is life, all other issues are weft, and without the warp all you have is a pile of tangled threads.”– Ann Seeton All the social issues of the Catholic Church are good things, they are each only a single weft thread that weaves in and out of the warp threads and all together create a fabric, one that is, to borrow a phrase, a “seamless garment” BUT, one must never ever ever forget that the warp threads of that garment are life, and without life you haven’t any garment at all, you have nothing but … Continue reading
Once more, I visit the topic of visualizing my space. This is supposed to help me learn the mind-set that will make keeping a tidy home possible. I am getting these ideas from the book THE LIFE-CHANGING MAGIC OF TIDYING UP by Marie Kondo. Today, I am visualizing my kitchen more fully. I have a lovely huge kitchen. It has granite counter-tops which are pretty. The backsplash is white tile with colored tile here and there in a random pattern. The cabinets, a bit battered, are cherry. The appliances are a mix. There are black and white and stainless finishes … Continue reading
People in our culture are starving for beauty. I remember when Trudy Krise, a wonderful woman, would bring her deserts to class for the snack. Those days we had standing room only! People stood around the table exclaiming over the beauty of her deserts. They were indeed a work of art, and what is more, they tasted BETTER than they looked! People are so starved for beauty that knowing her art would be at the next class was all it took to get standing room only. Why the popularity of the Extraordinary form of the Mass? We often call it … Continue reading
Continuing with visualizing my home as directed to in the book THE LIFE-CHANGING MAGIC OF TIDYING UP by Marie Kondo, I am thinking only of the front entry, the first view visitors have of my home, and my first sight each time I return home. Right now, the front door bumps up against some things my husband has stored there. When the things that do not belong here first arrived, it was supposed to be temporary. I can do with anything temporarily. I have, sadly, had to face the fact that what I consider temporary and what my husband considers … Continue reading
Beauty is missing from our culture. Oh, there are still a few beautiful buildings put up, and you can buy pretty things, and you can find artists making art, but the everyday making of beauty is missing. We have devalued it until it has almost completely vanished. The mentality that if your work is not producing a paycheck then your work has no value is killing off everyday beauty. Home making is both work and an art form that is almost dead from neglect because it does not bring in a paycheck. Few are those who knit or crochet beautiful … Continue reading