I'm trying to power on through.

Yesterday I decided to try to do all the interlocking THINGS that I felt like I needed to do, rather than remain in a paralyzed state by simply thinking about it all.

I tend to have a crystal clear idea of the tasks that face me -- as I'm drifting off to sleep, during Mass, or while I'm in the car doing errands. But somehow, while I'm home, I get into a seriously moronic state where the most productive thing I can do is check my email, which mainly consists of deleting spam.

And also, the gridlock! -- thinking about not only what I need to do, but also what I really want to post about, which is the proper disciplining of children...and not a subject to jump lightly into!

But no more gridlock. I've turned over a new leaf.On Tuesday it was mind-blowingly hot -- breaking all records -- and there I was, in the very heart of the 95 degrees, contracting heat stroke by digging my raspberry bed.

Later I lay down for a while trying to recover and wondering if this was indeed how I was going to check out -- with the blood giving one surge too many into my brain. They were going to come in and say, "poor Mom, she really overdid it in the garden."But no, all was well, and the cooler air yesterday made me insane in a different way. While I was thinking about my discipline post, I DID STUFF.

Okay, my friend Therese's mysteriously knowledgeable Filipina sister-in-law told her to put a concoction in her fruit trees (in milk jugs) to ward off those little bugs (are they thrips?) that get in the fruit. The MKFS-I-L says that you don't need to spray if you do this.So I felt that this had to be done right away for my pear trees, only I really didn't want plastic, so I went very eleganza with wine bottles from the recycling. Here is the recipe:

2 cups vinegar
1 cup sugar
1 quart water
1 banana peel (I used three, hate me)

MKFS-I-L just puts them in the jug, but I blended them first so as to get it all in the wine bottles. The thought is that the bugs go in there and die. But they die happy.

A friend was in need of a dinner, since she just had a baby, and I knew I couldn't face it during that heat...but I could face it yesterday, and I used the bananas left over from the skins for the concoction to make the best banana cake you ever want to taste. (Sorry, bad pic!)I also made rolls... ...and cole slaw, but I got the main dish, chili, out of the freezer, along with our dinner, which was leftover corned beef (note to self: the potatoes really don't freeze well).Making a dinner for a friend is one of those things that I can't be sensible about. For some reason I can't just make twice as much for dinner and give her some. No. I have to agonize over the whole production, including worrying that I'm making too much, overwhelming her with leftovers she can't deal with along with a new baby -- or too little, causing her to wonder why I'm such a silly person. I worry that what I'm making won't appeal to the kids, or won't seem special enough. Anyway, I decided that she would rather have a dinner than not, so I just went for it.Oops, I left my rings on! Remember when I told you about my rings, and how they were too small? Isn't that odd, how over the years (30!), rings get smaller??

Well, I found an amazing jeweler who could enlarge my wedding ring, magically (using a laser torch or something), and who reset my engagement ring with rubies! I love them so much...I feel like I'm a young bride again. I can't help showing them off to you! Just in time for the weddings, I feel so completely enchanted.

I had made up my mind not to wear them while making bread, gardening, or any of the other activities that wore them out (they were literally worn out! as well as too small). But I forgot...so you get a little peek at something that gave me agonies for a while (could we really spend the money on this? can I justify it? is it right when we have so many expenses?), but now just makes me happy (and my husband told me to stop worrying about it, so I obey :).

Meanwhile, why were there still down coats and heavy boots in the mudroom?

Must. Clean. Mudroom.

Yes, people, I just went ahead and did it.Of course, do clean the mudroom you have to trash the porch......and the yard (which is already trashed, or rather, in the process of getting untrashed, on account of the big blue boom from the fall, remember?)...
... and the kitchen!!...{By the way, here is a copy of Langstroth's classic "Hive and the Honeybee", of which Chief, AKA the most difficult man in the world to buy a present for, got three copies this Christmas because now that he keeps bees, it does open up a world of gifts, and yet...I'm thinking of doing a little giveaway of this book, but I'm not sure if anyone would be interested. Are you interested? Are you reading the middle of this amazingly informative post?}Aaaaanyway, it was necessary to do a load of laundry first, and this is the very pitiful way that I have of hanging out my clothes. I am working on getting a clothesline up, but our yard is too wet or too shady or too pine-needle-y or too all three. I love my drying rack (made by the Chief! Isn't that great?) but it's hardly up to the job of anything but a small load of permanent press stuff.At least somewhere in there I got the piggies painted. A girl has to have her priorities!

So there you have it. Not only did I go nuts, I took pictures!

Frugal for beginners.

1. Stop buying things because it makes you happy to spend money.

This is very much like a similar syndrome regarding food. You know, the one where you eat an entire bag of Oreos? Why? Because you're hungry?




Nooooo. It's because for a little while -- not while you are actually eating them, but just before you eat them -- you think it will make you happy.

Doings

*I fixed the video so you can see it! I hope :) *

We just got back from a road trip -- visiting college in Pennsylvania with Will and going to the concert in D. C. at which Suzanne conducted her composition, As Prophets Had Foretold: Four Marian Meditations.

If you would like to see the video of the performance, go to Happy Despite Them, our family blog.

Naturally I looked at the copy of the score (which includes the words) and left it on the coffee table in her apartment. Soon I will update my post with this valuable information.

And when I've done our laundry I'll check in with you again! XOXO!

Two big ways to save money.

I'm a fan of money-saving tips, but I often get overwhelmed by too much advice at once. Does that happen to you?

I also find that important advice is mixed in with silly stuff, like "refinance your mortgage" with "use your coffee grounds twice"!

Basking

I'm basking in Easter!After a mad rush to get a few things done... ...including some more seed planting (the ones I did last month... ...are starting to appear!), Holy Week was quite peaceful.Although the far away kids stayed far away for Easter Sunday, we had a restful and beautiful day.With so few to set the table for (5!), I broke out the bread plates along with the rest of Grandma's china :) Those lumpy rolls are supposed to be bunny buns! And to amuse the young one, we borrowed Jen's idea (normally I would feel no need to up the crazy quotient at my house on Easter morning :) and used miles of ribbon, going up and down both staircases and around bedrooms (each bedroom in this house has two entrances!) to create a little excitement in the Easter basket hunt. The Chief thought I had lost my marbles as I made him follow the line to the grownups' basket, and Will resorted to extraordinary means to win the race... (read: cut the ribbon rather than untangled :).

When I talk about Order and Wonder, nothing illustrates what I mean better than the feast days. Each year there is the order of the same round of liturgies, the same foods, the same "things we always do".This very predictability frees us to be astonished yet again by the poignancy of Palm Sunday and the Last Supper, in which we embrace the Passion -- and yet feast before the feast, willing to sing Hosannas even though we know what is coming (and our part in it). We feast out of gratitude for the gift of the priesthood at that celebration of the Passover, even as the cost begins to dawn on us.On Good Friday, the sadness is overwhelming, isn't it? How would we explain that to our children? No, we must experience it in the dreaded monotony, if you want to call it that, of doing the same thing every year -- yet every year the monotony falls away and we are there, shouting "Crucify Him!" along with the others. It's ghastly, isn't it?

Then the Vigil, with tired little ones, standing in the dark, waiting, understanding what this growing candlelight means at last -- The Light of the World -- hearing each of the many readings from Scripture, seeing the promise of Christ in the passing of the weary years of darkness from the very beginning, throught the suffering and death, until the amazing NOW, when He is here, risen, for us!The very best we can offer is to be a part of this journey with our children. Not only as something we do for them, but with them. Our family, in our home, is where all this new understanding --old, yet new! -- spills over into a loving enjoyment of the gift of the wonder of each other!

Every Sunday this feast lasts the day. Every Easter it lasts as a Solemnity (a high holy "day") for eight days and as a feast for fifty days! How happy God wants us to be!

Frantic activity.

All I want to do is share interesting things with you, but the activity level is ramping up around here.

Prepare for Holy week. (No spring cleaning! Just hoping to get the wood dust out of the dining room before Easter!)
Re-caulk shower.
Repair lawn.
Clean up damage from ice storm.
Put in garden.

(Waiting for the sun to shine just a little....)Wedding planning! Talking to caterers...making guest lists...having long conversations about menus....In addition, we are trying to finish up the dining room table that the Chief made me. For almost three decades I have used a rickety thing as a table.

No, seriously. It is a reproduction of a bygone answer to a temporary table -- it is meant to go against the wall as a sort of occasional table, and it expands to seat 8 or more, having about 3 leaves.
Yes, this is it! Don't laugh so hard! {There is another leg over there on the left that I cut off. It's a really bad picture, okay? The top flips over, and there is a sort of expanding brace underneath that pulls waaaay apart. You chuck in your leaves, and voila! Seating for 8, temporarily.}

But you can only imagine how un-sturdy such a thing is.

For years it was a family joke that someone -- usually Suzanne, for some reason -- would quickly duck underneath at that crucial moment when a guest unsuspectingly leaned all his weight on his elbows in a sort of post-prandial moment of relaxation.The center of the table would sag, the leg that held it having shifted, and at a panicked raising of my eyebrow, she would quietly disappear to shore it up.

For years I've dreamed of a really strong table that any amount of grown men could take their ease at.And now I have it. The Chief made it from some cherry wood planed from trees cut down in our yard. That sounds romantic, but after a 9-year journey, they might have been better used as firewood! {Above is the table with some conditioning sanding sealer being applied...after this I mixed three shades of stain to find a color I liked --it's now perfect, after a terrible run-in with some stain that was basically black! Remember my headache about the kitchen floor? It's impossible, I've decided, to know how to get the color stain you want. A dire fate.
He sealed it all with oil-based poly.}

More level-headed persons would have opted for a boughten table...but we're not level-headed, and I've never, in all this time, had any luck finding anything I liked in any of my thrifty haunts. He got the legs on EBay.It turned out a bit smaller than I had thought at first it would be (it still only seats 8), but it is very sturdy and I love the rustic quality it brings to this room that is quite a bit out of my league, formality-wise.
And yes, it has a middle leg! Hopefully one that won't shift :)