Monday Morning Almanac

I find myself:

::noticing God's glory

The garden is absurdly overgrown. I need to commit to geting up pin the morning and heading out to weed first thing for the next few days. It gets so hot, so quickly that the only way to stay ahead of the weeds is to dig around in the dawn.

::listening to 

absolutely nothing

::clothing myself in 

A crisp white shirt and butter yellow shorts (just as soon as I do that weeding and take a shower). I need some new shoes that are sutable for walking, maybe light hiking and that will carry me into the fall. Suggestions? Good support is an absolute must.

::talking with my children about these books

G is for Gold Medal: An Olympic Alphabet. I'm a big fan of the Sleeping Bear Press Alphabet books. Michael is off to spend nearly a month in London covering the Summer Olympics for USAToday. We're going to thoroughly explore this book and we're going to revive the highly successful World Cup Geography, Olympics version. (ESPN has no Map Madness for the Olympics. Bummer)

::thinking and thinking

about being 20-something. And how much conversation those musings provoked. More tomorrow.

::pondering prayerfully

Those who seem to be spiritually dead are not always those least accessible to the divine Word; when wood is dead, it needs only a spark to set it afire. ~ Elisabeth Leseur

::carefully cultivating rhythm

The last few weeks, I've made some pretty drastic changes to the ways I'm managing my time. I'm still working on whittling my Google Reader (#13 on the list). The whittling is proving to be time consuming in and of itself. I've always been a "continuous reader." I was the kid who read every last word of the Charleston News and Courier as a twelve-year-old in Charleston, South Carolina. My favorite columnist was "Ashley Cooper," who turned out to be Frank Gilbreth of Cheaper by the Dozen.  I read every Young Adult book in the Charleston Air Force base library. Every one. We only lived there two years! That's a bit of a digression. My point is that I used to read incessantly. I was the kid whose mother was always imploring her to get her nose out of a book. If I'd eaten cereal, I'm sure I would have read cereal boxes. I'm still always reading. The problem is that often what I'm reading is caught inside a smartphone or a laptop. And there is a qualitative difference between web reading and book reading. I think being the girl with her nose in a book is healthier. Much healthier. And I am certain that it's a better model for my children. So, I'm working on it. A lot.

::creating by hand

It's truly time to get serious about quilts (#10 on the list). And, I've dusted off my knitting needles. We'll see where that goes.

{A little wine and chocolate. Hangtime Pinot Noir. Mike says it's a little preview of September plans.}

::learning lessons in

social media addiction. I think we need to be very mindful of the dangers, to ourselves and our children. This generation of children knows nothing else than the instant gratification and constant feedback of peer interaction. It's changing to way we relate to one another, for better or worse. We have to make it for better.

::encouraging learning 

We've got to buckle down. The summer is slipping away and we haven't come close to achieving our academic goals.

::begging prayers

for all the people who have joined our weekend prayer community. I carried your requests with me to Mass and I will keep a candle lit for you throughout the week.

Please pray for Colleen Mitchell and her family. There have been torrential rains and flooding in Costa Rica in the past week. We haven't heard fom Colleen since Saturday. 

:keeping house

Big things happening in August. New paint, new furniture, and all the deep down cleaning that will come with it.

 

::crafting in the kitchen 

Nearly finished fine-tuning a solid three week paleo meal plan. I'm really, really happy about this. I see its benefits and I'm committed to making it a habit for the long haul. My kids seem fairly happy with it, too. I think some nearly-paleo chocolate chip cookies helped. Recipes forthcoming soon. I've been Instagramming pictures faithfully. Follow me there, if you like. I'm heartofmyhome. You can also click on the little button at the top of the righthand column with the camera. This works even if you don't have an Instagram account.

 I'm registered to begin the Whole30 on August 1. From the beginning of Lent until mid-June, I was following this diet for hypothyroidism, more or less. Then Kristen Kill mentioned to me she was doing Whole 30. They sounded essentially the same and I found a lot of support for the hypothryoid diet on the Whole30 pages. I made it to Day 26 in July and then caved for a grain-free, dairy-free and utterly fabulous cookie. I plan to go the Whole30 this time. 

{Dinner at the Inner Harbor. Mostly paleo. I suspect a trace of butter and probably seed oil. Best scallops ever.}

::loving the moments

alone with Mike. He was working in Baltimore last weekend. We took a chance to get away together. After a Thursday night budget meeting that stretched well into Friday morning, he came home to sleep for four hours before leaving for Baltimore. I waited up for him that night and then got up to get the girls off to dance camp for the day.  Then, Mike and I hit the road.Together, we visited Mel Kiper's home to do something with his studio lights. (Mel's wife is amazing--talk about a family business!) After that drive through beautiful countryside, we checked into the hotel. He tucked me in for a nap, pulled all the shades closed, shuttered the door, and slipped out to go work the set day at the stadium. I napped. He didn't.  But he rallied to have a date night before leaving for work in the dark Saturday morning. I amused myself by shopping, lunching, and working on bloggy things. I considered the weekend an amazing chance to get away, catch my breath, and capture his attention without having to compete with Sarah Annie. What's lovely is that he considered this a very good weekend, too. He worked super hard. But I was along on this road trip and that just made him happy. (#25)

::giving thanks 

We left Christian, Patrick, and Mary Beth to hold the fort while we were in Baltimore. They did a great job keeping the little ones safe and happy. I suggested a movie Saturday night and Patrick wan't comfortable with a movie theater, so they decided to rent from Netflix instead. Patrick suggested the playground at Chick-Fil-A to get dinner and work out some wiggles before the movie. I'm grateful that this message from Mary Beth:

was followed quickly by this one:

::living the liturgy

July 31st is the feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola. He's the spiritual genius behind the spiritual exercises. I did the Consoling the Heart of Jesus version of the spiritual exercises last April. I will celebrate St. ignatius at Adoration on Tuesday with the "little version" of the CHJ book. (#21 on the list)

::planning for the week ahead

Christian is working at a pool that is mostly empty most of the time. We'll go visit a few times this week. Karoline refuses to jump in. Sarah is nearly ready to swim. I'm happy to keep working on (#31 on the list). There's a new playground near the pool (#18). My big kids took really good care of my little ones last weekend. The house? Not so much. It's going to take me a loooong time to restore order.

{Mike was in Baltimore for the Liverpool-Tottenham match. Stephen and Nicky joined us for the match. After, they just so happened to bump into their heroes Steven Gerrard and Gareth Bale. Nicky was thrilled to snag a signature. We had dinner on Inner Harbor and had a grand time at National Aquarium the next day. }

{photo credit: Stephen Foss}

More almanacs here.

Lord, Hear Our Prayer

The internet is a formidable force for bringing the comfort and consolation and hope of the Lord to all of us. It can be an incredibily powerful medium for community. There is an unfathomable resource for prayer here. We have on the 'net the privilege of praying for people and of being witness to the miracles brought forth when fervent, faith-fulled people pray for one another.

Let's be that community of hope and faith for one another.

How about this idea? What if I pop in here every weekend, share Sunday's gospel and talk a wee bit about how we can live it and pray it in our homes? And then you tell me how we can pray for you that week? Deal?

{And please, do return and let us know how prayer is bearing fruit.}

My heart is with the family of Don Perry, spokesman for Chick-Fil-A, who died unexpectedly this week. Please pray for the repose of his soul and for the comfort and consolation of his family.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Gospel 

John 6:1-15

Jesus went across the Sea of Galilee.
A large crowd followed him,
because they saw the signs he was performing on the sick.
Jesus went up on the mountain,
and there he sat down with his disciples.
The Jewish feast of Passover was near.
When Jesus raised his eyes
and saw that a large crowd was coming to him,
he said to Philip,
"Where can we buy enough food for them to eat?"
He said this to test him,
because he himself knew what he was going to do.
Philip answered him,
"Two hundred days' wages worth of food would not be enough
for each of them to have a little.'"
One of his disciples,
Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, said to him,
"There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish;
but what good are these for so many?"
Jesus said, "Have the people recline."
Now there was a great deal of grass in that place.
So the men reclined, about five thousand in number.
Then Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks,
and distributed them to those who were reclining,
and also as much of the fish as they wanted.
When they had had their fill, he said to his disciples,
"Gather the fragments left over,
so that nothing will be wasted."
So they collected them,
and filled twelve wicker baskets with fragments
from the five barley loaves
that had been more than they could eat.
When the people saw the sign he had done, they said,
"This is truly the Prophet, the one who is to come into the world."
Since Jesus knew that they were going to come and carry him off
to make him king,
he withdrew again to the mountain alone.

Think

"The sense of futility is one of the greatest evils of the day...People say, "What can one person do? What is the sense of our small effort?" They cannot see that we can only lay one brick at a time, take one step at a time; we can be responsible only for the one action of the present moment. But we can beg for an increase of love in our hearts that will vitalize and transform all our individual actions, and know that God will take them and multiply them, as Jesus multiplied the loaves and fishes."

~Servant of God Dorothy Day

Act

What is it in you life about which you feel that sense of futility? Is it serving your family by conquering that mound of laundry? Is it opening your home more often in the spirit of hospitality? Is it stretching yourself to go into the corners of despair that aren't really very far from your home? Ask God to give you the strength and grace to begin with the first brick.

Pray

Lord, you give us all five barley loaves and two fish. Please help me to recognize them in my life, to prayerfully offer them back to you, and to be the instrument of your miracles.

Look Both Ways

I was awakened to an email alert the other day. Usually, I don't activate alert chimes on my email. I find them incredibly annoying, but I was waiting to breathe a sigh of relief upon the arrival of this particular post. So, I rubbed sleep from my eyes and blinked to read:

And then I saw that someone had already responded.

The first email is from our "boy." The "boy" is 23. He went to college, survived, graduated, got a great job at a major newspaper, and is engaged to be married. Said newspaper put him in the sports department, made him Senior Social Media Editor, and sent him to London to cover the Olympics.

His dad, of the second email, has a pretty cool sports journalism job, too. He could have offered him all kinds of advice. Instead, he reminds him to look both ways. I love that boy.  I love that dad.

Sometimes, my heart is so full I think it could burst.

needle & thREAD

I finally finished those dresses! Details, details:

The fabric is Zoe Pearn's Sweet Nothings. It appears to be very sold out. I bought a whole bunch of it for curtains and then decided otherwise. Happy thing, that.

The pattern is Oliver + S Seashore Sundress in a 3, 5, and 12. 

I'm reading Stratford Caldecott's Beauty in the World: Rethinking the Foundations of Education. It's my inspiration before heading into mega planning mode for the coming year. It's an awesome summer read whether you educate your children at home or not. We all need this book.

I'll be back within the week with a review and a giveaway.

What about you? Sewing? Reading? A little of both? What's on your summer reading list? Do you have a summer sewing list?  Or are you embroidering? Pulling a needle with thread through lovely fabric to make life more beautiful somehow? Would you share with us just a single photo (or more) and a brief description of what you're up to? Will you tell us about what you're reading, also? Would you talk sewing and books with us? I'd love that so much.

Make sure the link you submit is to the URL of your blog post or your specific Flickr photo and not your main blog URL or Flickr Photostream. Please be sure and link to your current needle and thREAD post below in the comments, and not a needle and thREAD post from a previous week. If you don't have a blog, please post a photo to the needle & thREAD group at Flickr. 

       Include a link back to this post in your blog post or on your flickr photo page so that others who may want to join the needle and thREAD fun can find us! Feel free to grab a button here (in one of several colors) so that you can use the button to link:-).

NFP: Open to the Possibility of Life

This my third installation of NFP Throwback in honor of NFP Awareness Week. For the full introduction, please read here. For the second installation, read here.

One quick note: I'm mostly offline this week. I so appreciate your comments and I've been praying for commenters on the last two posts. I promise I'm not ignoring you! I'll be back to reflect and to talk a bit in the comment box towards the end of the week.

Without further ado, here's a column from Summer 1993. My current editorializing is in pink:

With my husband's blessing, I would like to share our personal story of what embracing the Church's teaching on human life has meant in our lives. When Mike and I were married six years ago, we understood Humanae Vitae to mean an openness to the possiblity of life. That was what we wanted and we neither sought to prevent conception or pursue it. A year later, our first son was born. When I held Michael, I was awed by him as most mothers are by their newborns, but I didn't yet grasp how precious life is. It had all been too easy.

For the next eighteen months, we struggled in our roles as newlyweds and new parents. Then we discovered I had cancer. Suddenly, the child we had taken for granted took on a whole new dimension. He was joy on dark days and diversion on painful ones. Some days, he was my soul reason for living. I had nutured and comforted him for the first year of his life and he returned the comfort a hundredfold during the next. It became very apparent that God had had a plan when He blessed us with this child so early in our marriage and I was grateful we'd been open to his creation.

Since my disease had a good prognosis, it was not my life I feared [that actually came later as I learned what it is to live forever in the shadow of cancer], but my ablity to bear life. In horror and disbelief, a few days after diagnosis, Mike and I sat across from an oncologist who told us I would never again carry a baby to term because of chemotherapy. Then, we found another doctor. We chose someone who understood that I not only wanted to survive, but that I desperately wanted to have more babies. He was much more optimistic and considered my fertility when prescribing treatment. 

After undergoing chemotherapy and radiation, it was imperative that I give my body sufficient time to recover before becoming pregnant again. I also needed to know that the cancer would not recur [realistically, we never have that guarantee]. The medical community encouraged us to use artificial birth control, but my husband and I were being called in another direction.

We talked with the Couple to Couple League in Cincinnati, Ohio and they referred us to an oncologist in Massachusetts who was on the CCL advisory board. Together, Mike and I learned how to properly practice NFP. Both my doctor and the oncologist from CCL warned that it could be some time before we saw any signs of fertility returning after treatment. The benefit of NFP was that I would know as my body returned to normal.

The next seven months were the most anxious of my entire life [in hindsight, 21 years later, I can safely say that period still ranks in the Top 5 Most Anxious Times]. I watched and waited for signs that the cancer had recurred. I watched and waited for signs of fertility. I prayed for life: mine and that of our future children. And I prayed for peace.

As soon as I knew it was possible to conceive, I asked my doctor if it were advisable. He gave me cautious approval, warning me that he thought it might take a while to conceive. Because of NFP, I knew the signs of fertility and I knew I could get pregnant. [This still makes me giggle. My oncologist was as close to the perfect doctor I've ever met. He was impeccably educated and utterly brilliant. But on that day, I was sure I knew better than he did.] 

There was a lot I didn't know though. I didn't know if the cancer would recur. I didn't know if I could carry to term. And I didn't know what God wanted. I was terrified. I agonized over the wisdom of bringing another life into my world where there were so few guarantees. Ultimately, I trusted Mike with the decision. And his reasoning was simple: All God asks is that we are open to the possiblity. He cannot work if we don't let Him. Two weeks later, I called my doctor to let him know I was expecting a baby. 

Despite the ease with which this baby was conceived, I was still not at peace. Everything we had learned about discernment said that if we were truly doing God's will, we would feel His peace. I suppose if I had been genuinely faith-filled, I would have simply been patient and trusted the Lord. But I asked for big signs. At one point, I begged God to send an angel to tell me everything was going to be okay.

Our second son, Matthew Christian, was born nearly three weeks after my due date (so much for not carrying to term). The hospital was unusually quiet that night and his birth was remarkably quick. Indescribable peace settled upon us. As I marvelled at his newborn sweetness, I found myself praying aloud. "He's beautiful, Lord. Not an angel but a real, live boy to live with us and remind us always of the infinite wisdom of Your plan in our lives. When I look at him I can't believe he's anything but Your perfect will for us. You didn't send an angel, but You did send a sign--a priceless gift--didn't You?"

And the baby smiled. 

That was just the beginning. We learned well to trust. We learned that God's grace and strength had no bounds. He would offer a refresher course through the years. I shared a bit of the miracle of Patrick here. And Sarah's story--in addition to being a refresher course in grace for Mike and me--granted my older children a phenomenal view of how boundless God's good plan can be. There are more stories, not yet told here. I assure you, with every single baby, I was sure I couldn't do it. From the first (so soon and we were so young), to the last (they were so many and we were so old), each time I was sure I was not sufficient. And each time, I am certain, we could have made a good case for having a grave or serious reason not to have another.  Each time, God knew better.