PrettyHappyFunnyReal

Pretty- Birch trees are very pretty; these were planted on the shady side of the church as they don't normally grow here. And even though our birches grow next to palms, I can pretend for a bit that I am Anne of Green Gables when I see them.

Happy- Baby girl was happy to pet her mechanical kitty after getting over her fear of mewing, purring toys.

Funny- What's so funny? I don't know

Real- my brother's t-shirt- he was a lawyer-officer-type in Baghdad's green zone, but he knows many who had traumatic experiences over there. Too real.

Fall is finally in the air

On the menu the last few days...chicken noodle soup, bean soup, bubble and squeak, artisan bread, chicken-dried cranberry-pecan-argula salad, brownies, lots of tea for sick fathers and kids...it must be fall!

We don't get the full four-season experience like those of you up North, but I can still feel a chill in the air (this has its ups and downs- we aren't using our heating system because we just learned it is full of asbestos, but baby girl got pneumonia...maybe $5000 will drop from the sky).

In celebration of wordless Wednesday, I just had to share this photo from four years back. Isn't he the cutest pumpkin ever!

PrettyHappyFunnyReal- yesterday & yesterday's feast

My favorite blog Like Mother, Like Daughter is encouraging all to find contentment in the everyday: Here I go...

Pretty Our learning room, semi-cleaned out yesterday, is becoming pretty. Since I left my camera behind with family, I don't have before and after photos.This is for the best, because it still isn't that pretty, but the girls can do math with pretty smiling faces at their desks. And they have space to put their gladiolas which are being used for a science experiment. So, life is pretty. 

Happy We have a lot to be happy about. My oldest daughter's Godparents' oldest daughter (got that?) is coming home from the hospital after being treated for a skull and femur fracture due to being run over by a car during cross country practice. She needs to do nothing for six weeks. I'm not sure if she will lose a semester of school, but she has her life and her health. In much less serious reasons to be happy, I spent 3 1/2 hours at the emergency room last evening/night with Baby Girl who ended up being treated for pneumonia. And she ate a bowl of chicken soup this morning after not eating anything for four days. So, I'm really happy. And I have been happy to offer up the minor suffering and annoyances that come with caring for a sick child for those families with truly sick children.

Funny I suppose that it is 'funny' that I was happy that Baby Girl got diagnosed with pneumonia, but I was happy to have not given her an x-ray for nothing. Now, we just have to make an action plan to prevent this in the future. She is watching endless episodes of Kipper on Netflix- maybe I will change it up to Veggie Tales or something for a little funny...any suggestions? Please don't write no videos- she is two and miserable on the couch. Even drawing is too much for her right now.  

Real  People sometimes ask me why the Byzantine-style cross has the slanted bar at the bottom. I have heard it said that the slanted bar is to show that Jesus was fully man (and fully God) when He was on the cross. He felt pain. He struggled. So the bar, put in place to support His body weight while He was being crucified, would have twisted under His pain. If one keeps their eyes open, their is a lot of catechism tucked into icons and stained glass windows and even the style of cross that we venerate.

"Come, all you nations, let us bow in worship to the blessed Cross of the Lord through which eternal justice came to us. He who deceived Adam, the first man, was conquered by a tree, and the same who fettered the royal creation by his venom has been washed away by the divine blood of Christ, and the curse of the sin has been lifted by a rightful sentence when the just Christ was condemned unjustly. By God's plan, death that had come from a tree would be conquered by a tree, and suffering would be healed by the suffering of the Lord. Glory be to the active presence of your providence in our lives, O Christ our King: through it, you have wrought salvation for all, O You who are gracious and the Lover of Mankind!"  -- from the feast of the Exultation of the Holy Cross

Low-energy, Lazy Introverted Type-A Cleans Learning Room on the Feast of the Exultation of the Holy Cross

7:30 AM- Priest-husband is off to work, slaying the dragons of hospital administration and chaplaincy. His day will be finished after we have the Divine Liturgy and Bible study at 6 PM. he and the big girls will get home after 9; I'll take the little ones home at about 8. But this morning, I should have gone for a walk with one of the big girls, but we have had our sleep disturbed for days because of our sick little girl.

8:00 AM- Breakfast and cleaning up and get your clothes on! I don't know how school families do it all before 7:45 or so.

10:00 AM- Today is an easy day in that Boy is off to preschool for the morning. The girls have some history and literature to do and will continue their science experiment (flowers, sugar, graphing differences, etc) and set up a new experiment with potatoes (light, dark, etc- it is mostly to learn the scientific method of performing experiments). Baby girl is on the couch with a bad cold. We'll get to math after I put her down for a nap and before Boy comes home.

The girls are doing school work (sorry other homeschoolers, I just can't twist my tongue and say 'learning activities, etc- I'll just call it school work) at the dining room table. But loyal readers of this little blog know that I have a one-car garage that we use for storage, family room, school room, etc room- so why aren't they at their desk in the 'garage'? Well.....

• their desks are piled with random stuff from our vacation a month ago
• I haven't returned used materials to our charter school teacher so there is an 'abundance' of unneeded things
• we are in the middle of many projects (like 'Crafters for Life' activities) that don't really have a home
• I am a low-energy, slightly (?) lazy introvert who needs a sister to come over and just sit there while I declutter, organize and clean (how can an introvert need someone to be there while she cleans, you ask? I don't know- I just do)
• I can semi-despair over getting organized like a good homeschooling mom who has a lovely, decluttered area- she is able to host meetings and have people over at the drop of a hat because she has set herself up for success.
• I can say- hey! I am not that bad! The kitchen is fine (the girls do that), the bathrooms are fine (the girls do these- except the toilets), the living room is fine, the dining table is clean (so the girls can do their work on it)...but but but- the school area is a dumping ground. Technically, it is clean (no cobwebs, no rotten potatoes, the carpet is vacuumed) but it is a cluttery mess.

 My goal for 5 PM today- the girls' desks will be cleared to work on, the cable for the printer will be found, all Goodwill bags will be in my van and dropped off before the Divine Liturgy (all the while- supervising the big girls' school day, getting them to ballet at 3:30, cooking dinner, doing just plain-old cleaning, taking care of the two little ones, making time to plan our Crafters for Life meeting on Friday, etc)....so, I am off to work this goal...

UPDATE:
 so- did I meet my goals today? well...

• The girls' desks are cleaned off and they'll be working from them tomorrow
• Two bags made it into the van for a trip to Goodwill
• I still haven't found the cable to the printer
• kitchen, bathrooms, etc are clean
• 3 loads of laundry done- except for a load that is still in the laundry
• girls got to both ballet and Divine Liturgy

BUT

I went to Target between ballet drop-off and pick-up to buy a gift for a young friend who was hit by a car. Baby Girl, under the weather, was being quite a pill, so I went to the pharmacy section to see what I could get for her. I bought a digital thermometer. Boy's temp was 98.something (he insisted he was sick); Baby Girls's temp was 104.5 in a few seconds. The doctor's office had me take her into the ER. I bought the girls fast food to eat between ballet and church (they ate at noon and wouldn't be home from church before 9...)- the decent dinner I had planned on quickly cooking wasn't going to happen. Three kids went to church with dad, and I spent almost 4 hours in the ER.

Poor girl has pneumonia.

so I suppose she has a very good reason for being a pill.

Mommy-ness, random style

So- it was a rather busy & serious weekend. The busy part? The girls had their Nutcracker audition. Oh, for the simplicity of 'do the pony' and 'do the duck' in pre-ballet at the YMCA. Now, we do ballet three times a week (almost six hours of instruction), not including our Saturdays which will be decimated until Nutcracker is finished. Not that I am complaining. It is hard for my girls to be passed over (they are 'pre-pointe' while most girls at the school are en pointe at their age). Secret Vatican Spy- ballerina extraordinaire- what am I doing wrong? Should I watch Dance Moms for pointers? just kidding. I think.

Sunday afternoon after church and church and more church, my daughters sang two songs at the hospital memorial service for 9/11 first responders. If I do say so myself, they did well under the pressure while singing in front of two chiefs of police, a fire battalion chief, various armed service members and some parishioners who joined us. Their version of the national anthem was well-received. As good Byzantine Catholics, they faced what they were singing to, the flag (ad orientem joke- haha?). To make it a true family affair, I was going to sing as well, but the baby has been quite under the weather, and she wouldn't stop clinging to me. So the final song went to priest-husband who was leading the memorial.

Being unemployed this semester, I am looking for lots of ways to save money anywhere I can  So, I saved 30 cents a can by buying plum tomatoes instead of the cheapest marinara at Trader Joe's. I was prepared to puree them with my new birthday immersion blender (thanks F! I have been making morning smoothies with it- a Vita-mix is not in my future any time soon) and make my famous spaghetti with hamburger meat, onions, mushrooms and black olives. I cooked the meat and onions in one pot so I could skim off the fat (I'm no Pioneer Woman), and I started sauteing my mushrooms in another. I always drain my can of olives and put them in with the mushrooms right away so I have a place to put the drained hamburger fat and so I won't eat all the olives before dinner! I put my whole tomatoes in with the mushrooms and started using the immersion blender. Whoops. My sauce was sort of a strange color with pureed mushrooms and black olives. Better sauce next time!

A theological thought: please get educated about the Catholic faith before you say something silly under the guise of knowing what the Church teaches. This weekend, I fast-forwarded (Hulu) through the film Saint of 9/11, a documentary about the life and death of Fr. M Judge. A policeman was giving his testimony about the day. He had rushed to a Catholic church, looking for a priest to administer the last rites to a dying person. No priest was to be found, but the church secretary told him, "In an emergency, anyone can administer last rites." The policeman was amazed to be "promoted" like that. Um, sorry. Baptism is the only sacrament that anyone can administer in an emergency. Whether God would allow someone to damn himself to hell because a priest couldn't be found for confession and last rites is another issue altogether. I believe that, through God's infinite mercy and our efficacious prayers, that man and the 'Falling Man' and many others are in the comfort of God's presence. Even before I became Catholic, I thought the concept of Purgatory ('Heaven's waiting room') was logical; I have never thought much of 'limbo,' though. So if a priest says to you, "stop praying for the deceased during the rosary, he is already in heaven as a saint," just smile a bit and go on with the intentions. And save a few prayers for the soul of that priest who does not seem to understand that all have sinned and need the help of our prayers. God is just and merciful; we shouldn't err on either side. Trust in God's mercy and love. Pray for His mercy to overcome His wrath and justice.