It's Time! The Christmas Novena

I've been looking forward to this for months. The day to begin the Christmas Novena...St. Andrew's Novena. It is to be said fifteen times a day from today until Christmas, and it is piously believed that whoever prays it faithfully will obtain what is asked.

It is a beautiful prayer. I promise it will heighten your anticipation of Christ's holy birth and help you to focus on the real beauty of Christmas morning during this busy time.

Welcome, lovely Advent and all the beauty you bring to my household!

Hail and blessed be the hour and moment

in which the son of God was born

of the most pure Virgin Mary,

at midnight,

in Bethlehem,

in the piercing cold.

In that hour vouchsafe, O my God,

To hear my prayer and grant my desires,

through the merits of Our Saviour Jesus Christ,

and of His blessed Mother.

Amen.

I'll post the novena in my sidebar from now until Christmas day for anyone who would like to join (and who, like me, need an explicit reminder!).

Giving Thanks

This and the next two picture posts are recaps from one of the best Thanksgiving weekends we've had. Funny, I didn't capture anything of the meal or the beloved company who gathered at the table, but you'll just have to take my word that it was wonderful. How I love cooking that meal.

Happy belated Thanksgiving, and Happy Advent!

Praying for Babies...

....outside Planned Parenthood. His first time. The contrast...the vision of my sweet darling (who very well could have been brought to a facility ugly as this, but whose mother chose differently) in front of this building. So striking.

Book Love

Stash Winners

Thank you to all who entered the drawing for the fabric giveaway. I'm pleased to announce the winners:

Stack 1 goes to Mary (needles...fidnet), #7 out of nine entries
Stack 2 to Lillian, #13 of 28 entries
Stack 3 goes to Christine....#7 out of 12 entries

Congratulations, ladies! Please send me your addresses so I can get your packages in the mail!

Fabric Giveaway - UPDATED

UPDATE: Entries are closed. I'll have the winners selected later today - we're baking and cooking all morning. The house smells divine of cranberries, apples, pumpkin and cinnamon. Hope yours does too!
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I have three stacks of fabric for three people. My hope here is to bless you with my excess. Don't be concerned...I'm not giving my whole stash away here. I had the girls choose the fabrics they would like to keep for their own sewing. Gianna has just begun basic hand-stitching and she loves it. Of course she does.

The rules: I'll hold three seperate drawings. All you need to do is leave a comment by tomorrow morning at 9 a.m. Pacific time, indicating which stack you would like most (choose only one, please). I'll separate the entries into each of the three drawings and use the random number generator to select the winners. (One condition. Please enter only if you are sure you'll use the fabric. The goal here is not to add to another's pile of unused belongings. :)

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Stack #1: three upholstery fabrics, for those who like to sew for the home. enough yardage here for smaller projects...pillow shams, dining seat covers, etc.

Stack #2: Heather Bailey fabrics from Freshcut, her first line. Not sure how much yardage is here...I think many of these are cut into.
Stack #3: a combination of calicos, florals, checks and plaids. Some of these have been cut.
Thank you!

Child teaching child

I only captured one photo....I didn't want to interrupt their whispers. One blurry image I'll treasure the rest of my days....

Having Less (and a Giveaway notice)

Reader Jessica asks: "I remember a while back on your blog, you mentioned that you are a minimalist and have only what you need (in terms of clothes and such). Can you tell me how you arrived at that? I'd like to get our family to become more simple in terms of our possessions...."

I get this question often both from blog readers and real-life friends, so I thought I'd share some brief thoughts here:

First, my husband and I are minimalists naturally. We both tend to get frustrated at extra stuff lying around. For my part I become easily overwhelmed by lots of things. Unfortunately this extends even to good things like books and homeschooling materials. The number of songs on my iPod can be a source of stress. [I recently moved my toaster to the cabinet below in order to have more "visual peace" (which for me equates to mental peace) in the kitchen. There was plenty of countertop space before, but I needed visually to see less stuff there.] Honestly I wish I were more relaxed. Somewhere in the middle of excess and minimalism is ideal, and we all have to strive toward that end from whichever direction we are starting.

If you don't have natural tendencies toward having less you can adopt some solid household principles. Start with one or two....say, give away clothing you haven't worn in more than a year, or keep only your children's very best artwork...etc. Try to make concrete principles so you know exactly when you need to give or throw something away. You can even adopt the general principle that if a particular object is in question for keeping or giving....always give.

Years ago I heard someone say, "If we have what we don't need, we're taking away from someone who does." I love this thought. Though I think it can be taken too far, it's a principle that comes to the forefront of my mind whenever deciding whether to keep a particular item or not. It must be a good principle, because inevitably I end up giving the item in question away and am always happy I did.

I know there's a lot more I could cover...Christmas (for that I send you to this beautiful post), birthdays, craft supplies....but hopefully this can give you a start.

On a related note, for those of you who sew or quilt please stay tuned on Monday. Let's just say the thought of having more fabric than I need has been lingering.... :)

Relief Sketch

I've been working on a large scale religious art project for the home for a few months now. I can only do a little at a time and won't be revealing the whole thing until it's done, which likely won't be until January or so, but here's a part of it...
I can't draw freehand to save my own life....but I can look at an object and do a rough sketch. Much better if it's two-dimensional, i.e. photographed or already drawn on paper. This is simply a sketch from a photo I took of a wall relief. Photographing the sculpture really helps to see where the lines and shading need to be. It's not ready yet for framing, but I'm hoping to persuade my husband to finish the blending and highlighting details. (He can draw....quite well, I might add.)


Believe it or not I've had the materials to do this very project for years now. Way back when Gianna was about eight months or so, I tried to learn sketching using how-to-books as guides. I bought these exact tools in my attempt at nude sketches (tasteful ones people - no laughing). So when it came to sketch the wall relief I had just the right colors and tools on hand. Love that.

Materials used: Sanguine and White hard pastels, craft knife for sharpening, putty rubber (eraser), torchon (blending tool), vellum Bristol fine art paper.

Goodbye to Things, Not Memories

When I opened our children's clothing storage boxes in the garage, I was rather disgusted at the sight of so much....still in beautiful condition....just sitting there, unused and untouched for years. So it's off to where it's needed.

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The things may be gone, but the memories remain. Now those same clothes will make new memories somewhere else.

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It feels wonderful.

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Three Nights, Two Sisters

"Roughing it" (ha!) in the backyard. The first was hot, the second rainy and the last c-c-cold...
...but magical nonetheless.

Swan on Lake

by Madeleine L.
With no help from mom other than reminding to darken her lines after coloring was finished.

From Draw Write Now, Book One. (Recommended by Lissa years ago. We love this series!)

Only a homeschooler...

....has a Babylonian ziggurat as a centerpiece on her brunch table. :)

Clearing My Conscience

Ha! Based on some recent (and hilarious!) e-mails from readers here, I'd just like to make it clear that in the post below I am in no way condoning abandoning your responsibilities in favor of "seizing the day", except very rarely and when we feel called to do so (by God, not our own impetuousness). I did that my first two years of homeschooling. It was fun, yes. We learned even while we neglected, yes. But I'm working very hard on the virtue of discipline this year. I must say, it felt wonderful soaking up life's goodness the other day knowing the house was clean and schooling was finished (well, all except copywork).

I just don't want those already with tendencies toward indiscipline to be poorly influenced here. I don't know who you are, but you do. :-)

Sometimes a little impulsiveness is a very good thing

A beautifuly temperate late afternoon, it was clear the evening would be warm and balmy. At four-thirty I phoned my husband at work and said, "Let's skip dinner and meet at the ocean." I packed up some granola bars and snacks, brought him a change of clothes (I knew he'd want to dive in) and we did just that.

It was light when we arrived
we played...
while the sun set
and the sky darkened to an orange glow.

I know I can be much too impulsive. The fact that this photo was taken at the same place on the same day, but in early morning hours, reveals my fault all too well.

But some of our best memories are made when we stop to notice a lovely day and just...live. As we drove away from this place, pleasantly tired, my five-year-old mused, "God is weally, weally amazing, isn't He?"

He certainly is.

Bones

I'm still here, I promise. As you can see I still haven't spent any time fixing the color or layout of this blog. I do have some ideas, but I have to go somewhere to take a picture to make them work. Ha. One of these days. I hope you'll bear with the less-than-beautiful in the meantime.

A couple of things of note:

Here's Killer in his halloween costume. (Yes, that's one of his many nicknames. Please don't judge.) Patrick loved this costume and dressed him in it often for weeks before Halloween.
About this baby, he is starting to crawl. By next week I suspect he'll be moving full speed ahead. I'm making slipcovers for our dining room chairs in preparation for what comes next. With waterproof linings.

About the wall reliefs: More should be ready soon. I know many of you want them in time for Christmas. (They are a perfect Christmas gift, if I do say so myself.) I will let you know as soon as they become available. Not this week though.

A side note to that, there seems to be a desire for truly beautiful religious art. I've been tossing the idea around in my head of opening some sort of shop dedicated to that very purpose. It's a long way off to be sure, but I do think there is need. I know many shops out there sell beautiful religious goods, but often one has to sift through pages upon pages of junk not-so-nice to get to the beautiful. And truly beautiful art doesn't have to be expensive or made from fine materials. It just has to be well-chosen. I think I can do that.

Schooling has really been going nicely this year. Some changes early on (back in August) have made it more enjoyable than ever and I plan to write more on that subject in the near future. For now, I'm hearing "Mama, mama" coming from the napping room, aka my bedroom, and you know how I feel about that sound.