Shhh. It's a Secret (but tell everybody)

Hey, come close! Let's hatch a secret plan;-). My sweet friend, Colleen Mitchell celebrated a birthday yesterday. It was kind of a lonely affair down on the mission field in Costa Rica. Today, she and her men are off to the jungle for three days, bringing gospel joy to the indigenous folks who are their neighbors. They will be far from internet access. While they are out, might we send some birthday love her way? An anonymous donor has promised to match donations made to The St. Bryce Foundation, up to $500. Wouldn't it be *grand* for Colleen to see $1K in the St. Bryce account in honor of her birthday when she returns to the mission house for Easter? As we set to walk the days of the Triduum together in the comfort of our parishes, can we offer alms to this mission and to a family we dearly love? Nothing is too small a donation. There's an easy peasy button at the St. Bryce site. (You can even wish Colleen a happy birthday in the notes section). Please party plan with me! And share, share, share this post. She's in the jungle--she won't see it until we've all shown up to share the love. 

Go here to donate, please, please, please!

(and thank you)

Yesterday...

She played with fabric. I played with my camera. Together, we waited.

I can't help but sit back in awed wonder.

For all of time, we've done this--women gathering.

Sharing stories.

Passing time.

Waiting.

Hoping.

Praying.

And yet with each birth,

it must feel new.

Bluebells and Baby Talk

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I find myself:

::noticing God's glory

Yesterday was perfectly beautiful! Sunshine and a breeze, bluebells and fairy spuds, and a body of water begging our uninhibited play. We took about 300 pictures. I asked Mary Beth to upload a few. What you see above is what she chose. And you can't even tell it's bluebell season. We began the day with a long walk around the Bluebell Trail. There were plenty of flowers there, though it's not yet peak bloom. Then, we went and plopped down at our favorite creekside spot--the one that is  fairly short walk from the parking lot so we didn't have to haul all the food and water and photo equipment down the longer trail. And we discovered that a very large swathe of bluebells and trees had been obliterated. Not sure what "progress" is planned there, but it certainly doesn't look as glorious as the tableau God created. Makes me sad. And also determined to add some flower pictures to the end of this post.

::listening to 

rain and birds outdoors and utter silence inside. Yesterday ended in sleepovers--lots of children with "fresh air poisoning" are still sleeping hard this morning.

::clothing myself in 

Capris and a T-shirt  of Mike's. The temperature is due to drop 40 degrees over the course of this day. I'm sure my summer sleepwear will gvie way to jeans and a sweatshirt before the day is finished. 

::talking with my children about these books

Bull Run Regional Park (our bluebells playground) is right next to the Bull Run Battlefield. We've punged into a Civil War reading binge for the next few weeks. In addition to Ken Burns' series and this fun book to get us going, we're reading these great books, from a previous year's Civil War study. I started to cut and paste them here, but this post already has the potential to be ridiculously long.

 

::thinking and thinking

about babies. Kristin is due any day. I love babies. I love pregnancy and childbirth and, with one exception, I really love postpartum, too. I have a million things I want to share with her. Things that beg to bubble up and over in a rush of enthusiasm. I'm sure she feels like I've shared a million things. But I haven't. Probably I've shared about a hundred. The rest I ponder in my heart. (Or mention to Mary Beth;-). 

::pondering prayerfully

"We need saints without cassocks, without veils - we need saints with jeans and
tennis shoes. We need saints that go to the movies that listen to music, that hang
out with their friends (...) We need saints that drink Coca-Cola, that eat hot dogs,
that surf the internet and that listen to their iPods. We need saints that love the
Eucharist, that are not afraid or embarrassed to eat a pizza or drink a beer with
their friends. We need saints who love the movies, dance, sports, theatre. We
need saints that are open, sociable, normal, happy companions. We need saints
who are in this world and who know how to enjoy the best in this world without
being callous or mundane. We need saints”."
– Quoted by Pope Francis at World Youth Day 2013 Or maybe not...

::carefully cultivating rhythm

These are our blubebell days. This is Holy Week. We are going to have a new baby in this family within a week. Still, there is rhythm. The days begin with deep draughts of Jesus. You should see the view from my "Bible chair." Oh, wait, I'll show you:

So, it's a little difficult to get up and get going. I'd like to just sit here all day and look at that tree and journey with Jesus to the tomb and on to Glory. But the bluebells are blooming and the greatest feast of the Christian year approaches and, well, sitting isn't really for moms. So, the rhythm of the ordinary--laundry, groceries, even some lessons--is woven into the extraordinary: bluebells, babies, and resurrection. 

This is a pretty amazing time of life.

::creating by hand

over the winter, I created a workshop. I poured heart and soul into it and I felt God's hand guiding mine as I typed. It was a pretty wonderful creative experience. The workshop is nearly over and I can honestly say I've never spent a lovelier, more Spirit-filled time online. 

And now that those words are all said, I'm turning my attention to baby sewing and baby knitting that didn't happen. Maybe, just maybe I'll get some of it finished before our granddaughter appears.

 ::learning lessons in

community

::encouraging learning 

in time management.  Mary Beth is taking classes at our local college for dual enrollment credit. I consider these classes to be such a great gem in our high school homeschool experience. I am able to guide them very practically through the acquisition of skills necessary to succeed in college. She's been a joy to work with and her classes this semester have been thoughtfully presented. Still, learning to balance un moveable deadlines is a skill that homeschoolers don't have have. Until they do;-).

::clicking around

So, I've had very little online time at all this year. I spent January and February really focused on writing the workshop. I spent March on the workshop and some very intense weeks traveling back and forth to Charlottesville. And April? April is whipping by in a blur of bluebells and (hopefully soon) baby. The full step back from the online world has yielded some unexpected perspective. 

About 4 years ago, the internet didn't seem like a very friendly place to me. I had grown wary of nearly every click. Comboxes were especially terrifying. I tried to navigate around those uneasy feelings and I kind of limped along on old paths. With this break, I've had a chance to reframe from focus, to come back and explore and discover the online world of motherhood anew. I've also broken in a new computer and it doesn't know any of the old, haunting places. I'm visiting a few, friendly, familiar places and I'm finding some new-to-me ones. I'm even venturing into comboxes and enjoying conversation in mine. Mostly though, I'm limiting myself to just a few minutes a day and I'm very intentional about spending those moments only in places that encourage me and challenge me to better live my vocation. What are some of your favorite places to visit online?

::begging prayers

for Michael and Kristin and Baby Girl.

for cancer patients and for all the people who love them. Cancer is a hideous, horrible disease and watching it devour someone you love is incredibly painful.

for all the intentions of our prayer community. (I promise to be more faithful to our weekly posts, starting this week!)

For college students, especially the ones who are lonely and feel forgotten.

::keeping house

We managed to pull off some of my lofty Lenten cleaning plans. The garage is in great shape, comparatively speaking. We've deep cleaned some cabinets and closets and Ithought I had the laundry monster under control. Last night, though, I noticed that it has reared its ugle head  yet again in the little girls' room. I think they just have way too many clothes. Or something. I'm not sure what.

::crafting in the kitchen 

I think it's a good day to come up with an Easter menu. Got any great ideas?

::loving the moments

When I can sit in the sun with a friend and watch my kids romp in the water. Love those moments so very much!

::giving thanks 

for Joy Messimer, who took my Restore Workshop ideas and made something tangible and beautiful of the words. She's such a blessing.

living the liturgy

These are very liturgically dense days. The altar serving schedule, the youth group schedule, the straddling still between two parishes and the wanting to be at the basilica downtown, but not wanting to be too far should Baby Girl decide that Easter is a great birthday--it doesn't get much richer than this, if only I see the richness and not mistake it for complicated tangles.

::planning for the week ahead

The bluebells.

Easter.

Kristin is due April 17th and they won't let her go more than a week, so... we're going to get to hold a newborn this week!

Think Upon These Things

Late last week, I opened a gift of hand-dyed, handspun cashmere yarn. Elizabeth DeHority thought perhaps that I could knit something before Michael's baby arrives. She has always had a ridiculous (and uterly unreasonable) faith in my creative ability. I found the idea preposterous. But I remembered three years ago, when knitting was new to me and miraculously, I knit so many shrugs I might have lost count. So, I cast on. The reality is that my skills haven't progressed much in the last three years and those shrugs might be the only thing in which I have any degree of confidence. another tidbit? I knit most of those shrugs in medical waiting rooms that year. Turns out this year finds me waiting for doctors again. (Patrick is improving; thanks for your sweet concern.) Another pink shrug it is. I love those shrugs and this yarn is extraordinary and knitting is the perfect thing to do while one waits.

Will I finish before the baby girl arrives? I have no earthly idea. I do know that I can sort of see the potential for sitting and knitting and waiting amidst the bluebells in the next couple of weeks and that idea has all kinds of appeal. This waiting is so strange to me--to know that a baby is coming and to have absolutely nothing tangible to do while I wait is sort of crazy. All offers to help nest have been firmly declined. All my usual third trimester go-tos: stocking freezers, cleaning house, assembling baby equipment, long walks, pelvic rocks, packing bags, more pelvic rocks, midwife appointments, and bottomless glasses of water--none of those are in the grandmother realm this time (though I suppose it couldn't hurt me to clean my house and to take a long walk with a bottle of water;-). The one thing in my baby prep habits that remains is to pray hard--incessantly really--the way that I prayed myself into labor when every one of my babies was waiting to push its way into my arms. And so, that's what I do. Pray and pray and pray. This is uncharted territory for all of us, but prayers for pregnancy, labor, delivery, and postpartum? Those are woven in wide ribbons through the fiber of my soul. Those I know.

I put aside the baby sewing a bit. This baby has everything she needs for those first few days. I think I have time to sew. And, frankly, I have a house full of children for whom some more utilitarian sewing is necessary. Dance competition season is upon us and I'm gathering ill-fitting costumes from nearly every class in the studio. There is much to be tucked and tacked and I'm really happy to do it. In the course of taking from a child a costume that doesn't work at all and making it something he or she is comfortable in and happy to wear, I usually get to know that child a bit. And I really, really like that. I like putting names to faces and being the friendly fingers that make an uncomfortable wardrobe situation a bit better.

And, it's not just my girls who need sewing. My boys have found ways to bring things to my attention, too. Please know that little mending item has not been sitting there since November. He found an out of date notepad. The task was dispatched the very same day.

I've been reading John Paul II this week, getting ready to celebrate his canonization, and honestly, looking at old, familiar words through eyes grown a little older and a perspective shifted  just slightly from where it was when I was a young mom and he was a father on earth. I'm so grateful for the great cloud of witnesses, so glad to draw upon the wisdom and the grace and the faith of the people God gave me to love as I was learning about motherhood. We've suffered losses in the last year, tremendous losses of godly friends and influences. I'm surprised about how difficult it has been to come back to this place and to write again. I know well that revisiting grief over and over again in this space is not what I am called to do, but there have been more days than I ever imagined when I've just had nothing else to say. Much the way that birth transforms us--changes us every time--so, too does death. Every time. 

There is no doubt that for our family this will forever be the season where death and birth walked hand in hand. It is much too soon for me to know what that means.

Tell me what your needles are busy doing. What you're reading in these last weeks of Lent?

Date Night

I guess there is enough gray in my hair these days that people suddenly have decided I’m old enough to have “regrets.” Recently, several different people asked me what I would do differently if I had my years of early parenting to do over again. Without hesitation, I told both of them, “Date nights.”

When our children were little, my husband and I very rarely planned date nights. I had a nursing baby for nearly all of 25 years. I was committed to attachment parenting. And really, who do you have come to babysit seven children at a time? It just seemed so impossible to go out by ourselves. We did lots of “at-home dates” — just closing the door to our room and setting aside focused time after the children were asleep. But it’s really not the same.

Then, for our 25th wedding anniversary, Mike insisted we go to northern California for a week without the children. In that week, I became a strong and vocal advocate for honeymoons (we’d never had one) and date nights. As a change of scenery and an easing of momentary responsibilities melted day-to-day tensions, I relaxed into the happy company of my husband’s undivided attention. And I found I really liked it — and him.

Like a child who wants to buy everything in the souvenir shop at Disney World so that she can take the whole amazing adventure home with her, I resolved then and there to take a little “evening out adventure” with my husband at least once a month forevermore. I recognized that this was beneficial for our whole family. I shared those sentiments recently with my friend, Youth Apostles Father Peter W. Nassetta, who affirmed for me how necessary date night is. “Sometimes, parents become so focused on their kids that they forget about each other,” he said. “Kids need parents who love each other, and they need to see it!

Date nights can help children see their parents take time for each other. Of course, the parents benefit, too. They deepen their love for one another by taking the time for each other.”

When Mike insisted on an enormous seven-night date to northern California, he was insisting on making our relationship a priority. I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to leave the kids, didn’t want to travel all the way across the country in an airplane. Didn’t want to do all the work that came before and after the trip. But I said “yes” because I knew it was really, really important to him. So, we flew to wine country. Did I mention that prior to this trip I could count on one hand the number of glasses of wine I’d had in my lifetime? The trip was amazing.

In my attempt to bring home the whole souvenir store, I found an amazing local winery and determined to learn about wine in order to share my husband’s wine- tasting hobby. Then, I — who had never really been into wine at all — signed us up for the wine club. Further, I said that we’d come out and pick up our monthly deliveries instead of having them shipped. I thereby committed to a mini-honeymoon kind of date once a month.

That was a year and a half ago. Now, Rappahannock Cellars wine is a staple in our house, and that trip to the foothills once a month is a cherished “tradition.”

I’m going to entice you out to join us for a date next month. Rappahannock Cellars is hosting Slow Food, Vast Wine, an annual fundraising event benefiting a local Catholic atrium and Montessori center. The center is a beautiful place for children to encounter the Good Shepherd in their weekly atrium sessions. A good number of the center families rely on financial aid to afford the tuition, which is kept as low as possible. Every year, Rappahannock Cellars hosts a gala of local food and wine, together with live and silent auctions. This year, the event is April 26. The beautiful setting near Front Royal is just perfect for a date night getaway that will refresh your souls and make you feel like you’ve just been on a little bit of a honeymoon. And that can only be a good thing, right?