Snow, Sew, and So much more

 

I remember practially holding my breath by the radio in the morning, burrowed deep beneath the covers, waiting to hear the announcer tell us if school was canceled. If we missed the announcement, there was frantic dial spinning and rapid tuning to catch it on another station. No more. Now, within seconds of the decision, my phone starts dinging with the news, heralded from far and wide.

And my kids don't even go to school!

The school decision has a domino effect, even here. No school in the neighborhood means that friends can come play in the middle of the day. It means that dance is canceled and the studio firmly closed. It means soccer becomes a last minute dcision and a moving target--everybody and his brother scrambles to secure indoor space all over the region and at all hours of the day. Why, sure, I didn't have anything planned or anything, let's just go check out driving conditions in two different counties.

School has been canceled for the whole week. They've even made the decision for tomorrow already.

"School" is not canceled in the Foss household. Actually, I'm feeling pretty good about the whole thing. If my children get some work done every day this week, I figure that makes up for the week when the school kids went back after  Christmas and we were still distracted by the presence of our college boys. We're all even now. More or less.

Not a lot of sewing is happening here, much to my surprise. I've been distracted away from pajama sewing by a little Valentine towel embellishment. And, as in years past, for some reason, snow means a beeswax furniture polishing blitz. We're stocked up on Daddy Van's Beeswax polish. Bored children get the polish and a rag. Kitchen cabinets, furniture, banisters--there's no end to the polishing that can be done while the snow falls and the wind howls.

We did made some really pretty snowflake ballerinas with a whole bunch of girlfriends. This craft was surprisingly successful even with tiny girls. The girl total that day was around ten, I think and everyone enjoyed the craft. I highly recommend clicking that link and giving it a whirl (or a twirl).

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 There is, of course a basket of "Snow Books." The basket grows fuller every year. Here's a list of favorites. Christine Scarlett sent me some recommendations last year (or mayb the year before) and we've added to our basket based on her suggestions. So, here's hers and mine, all together and happy.

::Our Snowman by M.B. Goffstein (I love the line, "Year after year, these things work," and I look for opportunities to say it in real life.)

::The Snow Child retold by Freya Littledale, illustrated by Barbara Lavallee (other versions available)

:: The Mitten by Alvin Tresselt, illustrated by Yaroslava (Jan Brett and others have also done this.  It is fun to do a comparison.) Jan Brett's is here.

::The Hat by Jan Brett (Hats and Mittens: they go together;-)

::  The Snow Speaks by Nancy White Carlstrom and Jane Dyer (enchanting and one of my favorite illustrators.  Pull it out again during the Christmas season.)

::  Winter Harvest by Jane Chelsea Aragon and Leslie Baker (a calming evening story)

::  Owl Moon by Jane Yolen and John Schoenherr (Caldecott, classic)

::  Ollie's Ski Trip by Elsa Beskow (nice one to read on a day of sledding, skating, or X-C skiing)

:: Flannel Kisses by Linda Crotta Brennan, illustrated by Mari Takabayashi (a just-don't-miss book favorite)

::  City of Snow, The Great Blizzard of 1888 by Linda Oatman High, illustrations by Laura Francesca Fillipucci (true story)*

::  A Day on Skates, The Story of a Dutch Picnic by Hilda van Stockum (for older readers or as a read aloud over several days)

::Snow (I love the lyrical Cynthia Rylant. She does beautiful things with snow.)

::Snowsong Whistling (We pull this one out in the autumn and love it together through February.)

::The Snowy Day (Karoline's favorite for several years. We even have a Peter doll.)

::Owl Moon (Another Caldecott. I love this story of a late night adventure with Dad.)

::Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening (beautiful, effortless poetry memorization)

::My Brother Loved Snowflakes (this one, with the one just below, makes the spine for really good unit study on the science of snowflakes

::Snowflake Bentley (Caldecott-worthy woodcuts, true story)

::The Rag Coat (this one makes us so grateful for warmth)

::Jan Brett's Snowy Treasury (all the Jan Brett snow books, bound together. Definitely a treasure.)

::The Three Snow Bears (another Jan Brett favorite)

::Katy and the Big Snow

 Here are some more links for snow discoveries:

• Six-fold symmetry of the snow crystal (click here and then click on "Nature, Number, and Geometry")HT: Kim
•   Make a virtual snowman
• The Snowflake Bentley Website
• Learn some new facts about snow
• Intermediate level list to help understand winter weather
• Snow art, snow castles, virtual snowflakes, and lots of snow info
• The official site of the Snowman story , with some games
• The FEMA Winter Storm site for kids
• Jan Brett activities

::And, finally the popcorn and marshmallows. This is standard snow food, but my littlest children probably don't know the whole meaning behind the tradition. When Michael was little, there was snow predicted one day. I made a big deal, stocked the snow books, talked it up in a big, big way. He was so looking forward to snowballs. No snow. So, I popped popcorn and made popcorn "snowballs." Saved the day. Now when snow is forecasted, I stockpile the ingredients for popcorn balls. That way, we have big, round, white balls no matter what.

 

Melt two sticks of butter in a very big pot.

 

While the butter is melting, pop 1 cup of popcorn, the old fashioned way.

Dump a bag of marshmallows into the melted butter.

  Stir until melted.

 

Pour the popcorn into the melted marshmallows and stir well.

 

Generously grease your hands with butter. As soon as the marshmallow-coated popcorn is just barely cool enough to handle, form into balls.

Even if you don't have snow, read the books and make the popcorn balls. Childhood should be sweet.

So, what about you? Is it cold and snowy there? How are you spending your days. Of course, please tell us about your sewing and your reading. And also, let us know if you have any snow links to add to the list.

And the snow,

while it is here,

reminds us of this:

that nothing lasts forever

except memories.

~from Snow

 

The Cure for the Crankies

Warning: There's no magic bullet;-)

I felt it creeping over me, a sort of sinister shadow, familiar, yet unwelcome. Even as the words escaped my mouth, I wondered at them. How could I say such things in that tone? It was the shadow—the cranky shadow. Irritability, annoyance, impatience all whined their way into the dialogues of the day.  And here I was, fully in the grips of the complaining crankiness I detest. 

How did I arrive here? More importantly, how could I find my way out? Try as we might to put them blame elsewhere, Crabby Mommy Syndrome has its root in sin. Those things which make us cranky usually point straight at our disordered attachments. Those attachments are one of four things (many thanks to St. Thomas Aquinas for nailing it all down so astutely): power, pleasure, wealth, or honor.

Every single time, when I put it to the test, Crabby Mommy Syndrome matches up against these vices. I’m irritated beyond words at the clutter and the chaos in the house. I feel like if I have to sweep the same floor one more time, I might break the broom over someone’s head. My sense of power is offended. I want control.  And without control, I think I’ll just lash out at someone so I can fleetingly feel like I have power over the situation. 

It’s so noisy, there are so many different conversations happening at once, that I’m certain my ears will burst at the assault. I yell for everyone to be quiet, the irony hitting me before the words leave my mouth. Quiet is my creature comfort. I take pleasure in silence. And silence isn’t a bad thing, unless the quest for the comfort it brings leads me to offend love. Apparently, sometimes I want quiet so badly, I’m willing to sin to obtain it.

On an otherwise calm afternoon, three reminders pop up in my inbox for soccer and dance fees just as a child texts to tell me that he’s lost his retainer. I think that wealth is not my vice, but I feel the shadow hovering as I worry about meeting each “request” for money. And then I snap at the next person who comes along and asks for something—anything, it doesn’t matter who or what. Sin lurks in disordered attachments.

Finally, there’s honor. Nothing accelerates Crabby Mommy Syndrome faster than a disrespectful child.  When our children are rude to us or when they disobey, it’s easy to forget that they aren’t put into our lives to make us feel good about ourselves. No doubt, they are commanded to honor us. No doubt, they must learn to obey. But they are to do so for their spiritual health, not for the health of our egos. Occasions of disrespect on the part of our children are occasions for us to control our passions and to correct with patience so that both parties grow in virtue. In the face of stinging disrespect, though, it’s easy to fall prey to bitter crankiness. 

So, how to remedy Crabby Mommy Syndrome? How to grow in grace and respond with charity when I’m truly ready to tear my hair out in exhausted frustration? Get close to Jesus. Rely on His grace. Stay firmly fixed on His Word. Make haste to confession, receive His forgiveness, and begin again. Get to Mass (alone if I can manage it). Pour out to God himself the struggles of my heart.  Tell Him about the hurt and the frustration and the weight of things of the world. Empty it all before the throne of mercy and beg to be filled with Him. It’s not a quick fix. It’s not a magic bullet. It’s not easy. But it is the only light that truly dispels the shadow.

The Pharisee in Us

I sat at the kitchen counter in silence this morning, raw honey poised over bitter tea, Bible open to this morning's Gospel, and it hit me in a way that it never has before today. Late last night, I read an email from a reader that began, "I stopped reading your blog because it always made me feel bad about myself. Everything in your life is perfect and if it isn't, you spritualize it until it is." 

Stirred the honey into the tea, grateful for the sweet that chases the bitter.

I get some variation of that email pretty often. Usually, my reaction is to be sure that I write something very soon after that makes it clear that I'm not perfect, my kids aren't perfect, my life isn't perfect, and none of us are under the delusion that any of it is. Perfect. This time, though, it didn't hit me that way. This time, I sort of understood what she was getting at.

I read places and come away feeling less than, too. It's not so much about perfection, it's more about something seeming being better ::  more peaceful or more beautiful or more hopeful or holier. My favorite social media is Instagram. I love a picture. I really, really do. I love the way a picture can tell a whole story. Instagram (and all its sisters) is a slippery slope towards filling in all the blanks outside the frame and making a false idol of one's neighbor. 

Yep. False idol. 

Them are fighting words. I have to tell myself that fighting false idols is critical to my spiritual health. This morning, reading today's Gospel, I thought about that email.

Mark 2:23-28

As Jesus was passing through a field of grain on the sabbath,
his disciples began to make a path while picking the heads of grain.
At this the Pharisees said to him,

“Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the sabbath?”
He said to them,
“Have you never read what David did
when he was in need and he and his companions were hungry?
How he went into the house of God when Abiathar was high priest
and ate the bread of offering that only the priests could lawfully eat,
and shared it with his companions?”
Then he said to them,
“The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath.
That is why the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath.”

 

 In my early internet days, it was easy to see the Pharisaical Danger. That is, I could spot what looked like pharasaical behavior in the women who read other women's words and judged those women's lives "not holy enough." It seemed cut and dried. I'd been hurt by those women, and maybe that's why that kind of pharasaical behavior really wasn't a temptation for me.  I learned to avoid those places and, to a great degree, those people, on the web and in my day-to-day life. Those were the esay to recognize Pharisees, so concerned with the letter of of law that they missed the Love of the Lord. But there's something else here about that Pharisee.

 

And this Pharisee:

 

Luke 18:11-14

The Pharisee took up his position and spoke this prayer to himself, ‘O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity—greedy, dishonest, adulterous—or even like this tax collector.I fast twice a week, and I pay tithes on my whole income.But the tax collector stood off at a distance and would not even raise his eyes to heaven but beat his breast and prayed, ‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner.I tell you, the latter went home justified, not the former; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.

 

There is the obvious puffed up chest-beating, but there's also a more subtle, more insidious, and simpler warning. The Pharisee compares and in his comparison, he makes two mistakes. He wrongly judges his neighbor and he wrongly judges himself. This pharasaical behavior is the one where we think we are one thing, when in the eyes of God, we are something else entirely and the one where we think our neighbor is one thing, but she's another altogether. We aren't the Pharisee who thinks he's holy enough, we are the one who thinks she's not good enough. Or just plain not enough. Further, we might even have a false understanding of the person to whom we are comparing ourselves. The take away? Don't compare. Pharisees compare. It can't be good.

 

Jesus did a lot of talking about the Pharisees. He really, really wanted to leave us with words which would help us to avoid false images of ourselves and our neighbors. The Pharisees were all about false images of both self and neighbor. 

 

My reality is that regardless of what my blog looks like and regardless of what the graph on my site meter page portrays, I am God's. I belong to Him. He suffered and died for me. It doesn't matter where else I click on the interwebs, I am of infinite worth to Jesus, no more or less valuable than my neighbor. And so is the woman who wrote to me last night. We have value. We are loved just as we are, in all our brokenness. In all the places that would make for ugly or boring or uninspiring blogging. In all the places that blogs don't accurately reveal. And in all the places that look beautiful. He is there. Loving the real us. 

 

It is true that I can click along and take suggestions and gain insight from people who walk with me. And that can be a very good thing. It is also true that I can make false idols of each and every stop on my blog reader. I fix my gaze on my own icon of my neighbor and on the distorted vision of myself reflected in my perception of her.

 

And then. We have a mess.

 

Then, I have just surrendered myself on the doorstep of someone else's life and not at the foot of the cross.

Then, I begin to live on my own power and I am destined to sputter to a stop.

 

Why do we compare? We toss about restless on a sea of images and words that could be used to encourage our hearts and instead, we compare. We become the Pharisee that Jesus was so careful to warn us not to be. 

 

God created me uniquely. Everything in my life--my husband, my particular children, my location, my gifts, my struggles, my infirmities--all of it is God's to use to shape me into His vision for me. His vision for me is different than His vision for my neighbor. He calls me uniquely. There is a life He intends for me and me alone.  And so, my life will look different from hers.

 

We can learn from one another. We should encourage one another. But comparing? Finding ourselves lacking in the light of someone else's life as it is portryed on the internet? That's not what He wants for us. He wants a community that encourages and builds up. He wants us to link arms and look together towards Him. He wants us to look to the community for support in living vocation. Unique vocation. 

 

The Pharisee compared himself to his neighbor. The simple lesson of this Pharisee: don't compare.

 

I understand why she stopped reading here. I've done the same thing elsewhere. And truly, my heart breaks for her. It breaks for the terrible feeling of clicking away from the beauty in someone else's life, the witness of what God is doing in another family, and feeling lost and forgotten, and not good enough. My heart has hurt in the just the same way. The Pharisees didn't carry iPhones. I wish they had. It would all be so much simpler if it were spelled out: "Don't be like that foolish woman who clicks there and thinks that. Isn't it obvious that's the near occasion of sin?"

 

But no. It doesn't work that way. We have to discern. 

 

The keys at our fingertips, the windows into another woman's heart, can be among the tools in God's hands to use for our good, to shape us into the person He created us to be. Can we do that without creating idols of the tools; can we look instead to the Master Craftsman to see how He would have us use them?

 

We have to. We have to leave the bitterness of comparison to be able to taste and see the sweetness of encouragement. 

Consider the birds of the air...

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Look at the birds in the sky; they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them.

Are not you more important than they?

Matthew 6: 26

Good Morning! Is today feeling all Mondayish? The to-do list is converging with don't-have list (you know, time, money, energy, patience, discipline...) and you're wondering how in the world to make sense of it all. Look at the birds. Tiny creatures out there in the great big world! Wee little brains and delicate, hollow bones, yet there they are on a bright 17-degree morning all dancing in concert with one another. They're full of energy and well organized and seemingly ready to take on the day. It's all about their choreographer.

None of it under their own power or ability.

He does it. The Lord is the wind beneath their wings and they are utterly dependent upon His good providence. 

Are you not more important than they?

Lord, Hear Our Prayer

Gospel

 John 1:29-34

John the Baptist saw Jesus coming toward him and said,
“Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.
He is the one of whom I said,
‘A man is coming after me who ranks ahead of me
because he existed before me.’
I did not know him,
but the reason why I came baptizing with water
was that he might be made known to Israel.”
John testified further, saying,
“I saw the Spirit come down like a dove from heaven
and remain upon him.
I did not know him,
but the one who sent me to baptize with water told me,
‘On whomever you see the Spirit come down and remain,
he is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’
Now I have seen and testified that he is the Son of God.”

 

Think

 

I would say that St. John never spoke in a more admirable manner than when he was asked who he was, for he always relied on the humble negative; and when he was obliged to answer positively, he said that he was only a voice, as much as to say that he was nothing; word in truth, well worthy of a prophet and of the great among them..." ~St. Jane de Chantal

 

Pray

 

Dear Sweet Jesus,

Help me to remember that my vocation is see and testify to you. Turn my eyes away from the idols of "success"--prestige, recognition, notoriety. Remind me as often as necessary that true success is the honest testimony that Your are God and You alone have my heart. You are the author of my accomplishments. I have to hold the pen and take dictation from You--nothing more.  There is only one opinion that really matters, only one "job" for me to do, only one voice for me to hear-- Yours. Your opinion. Your unique job for me. The voice of Your approval alone. Help me know this in every fiber of my being, God. My life depends on it.

 

Act

 

Turn of the computer. Leave it off. As we settle into ordinary time, consider this:: 

 

With all vigilance guard your heart,

for in it are the sources of life.

Proverbs 4:23

So often, in our restless moments, amidst the beautiful that we mistake for the mundane, we mindlessly click to find someplace to rest our hearts. We are assualted by the many, many images and words and miss the opportunity to hear His Word. Confusion in a blur of voices, caught in the comparisions with strangers on the Internet, we cannot distinguish the nuances of His whisper to our unique souls. For this week, try something different. Instead of seeking sustenance on Pinterest, open a cookbook, chop an onion, sift  and stir with a child. Feed your family; feed your soul. Instead of scrolling endless images on Instagram, sit in silence and candlelight before an icon. Learn the lesson written there. Instead of reading status updates on Facebook, gather children onto your lap or make a dedicated, heartfelt phone call and ask, truly ask, "What is on your mind?" Listen to the answer. 

 

How can I pray for you this week?