New Blog

Hello everyone!  I've decided to do a cooking blog, I hope that having a specific focus will make blogging easier and more enjoyable. You can find me now at www.thedownhomecook.blogspot.com

Blessings!

Goodbye

After tossing it around in my mind for the last year, and especially the last few months, I've decided I'm done blogging.  It's simply not enjoyable for me anymore.  I will leave the blog up for a few days and then delete (I've downloaded it to keep for myself).  I sincerely appreciate all the support and comments I've gotten over the last few years.  Thank you so much for reading, and God bless you all!

Homesteading and homeschooling

Homesteading and homeschooling both used major focuses of my blog, and I have questions about both pop up now and again, so I thought I'd go ahead and address them (I don't think I really have in the past!)

Homesteading-  Well, I am still very interested in this.  I would absolutely love to have a family farm and live off the land as much as possible.  However, it is a lot of work.  Even just enough livestock and produce for our family is a good amount of hard work, and it's more than I can handle on my own.  My husband, however, is enjoys the fruits of the labor (ie, food!) but is not at all interested in labor aspect.  I don't say that as a dig on him, he just does not want to do it, and he's honest about it.  He was sick of living outside of town ("town" being a small town with a population of about 5K), and while I could have pushed him into moving farther out into the country and getting livestock and such, I didn't feel it was fair to either of us when he had clearly stated he didn't want to.  And, as I'm not able to do the "heavy lifting" work and the children can only contribute in a very limited way, it was not feasible to take on a family farm effectively on my own.  Furthermore, it was just not a financial reality.  The only homes available with a few acres of land in our price range were either very small or run down, and we don't have the know-how or inclination to remodel and such on our own. So, it's a dream that will go on the back-burner, and I'm okay with that.  I do hope one day that it's something we can do, but we will see.  I have enough space here for some veggies, and I'd like to look in to the legality of having a few laying hens (I could get a "tractor" coop to move around the yard for them). 

Homeschooling- I am not currently homeschooling any of the children, which feels strange after three years of homeschooling my oldest!  She really wanted to go to public school, and as dh and I are both adamant that junior high is out of the question, fourth and fifth grade were her last chances.  While I wish it were more academically rigorous (ie, classical!) it is a very nice school.  Small, rural, with none of the liberal PC junk infecting many larger schools.  It's the school that our 6 year old with special needs has been attending since preK (it houses the developmental pre-school for our area), so we're very familiar with it.  She's doing well and enjoys going, so she will go again next year for fifth grade, and we will be homeschooling again for junior high.  After that, we will re-evaluate based on her needs (for example, if she's certain she wants to attend a 4 year college, it's imperative that she be able to take full advantage of all available scholarships.  In that case, we would probably send her to high school, at least for 11th and 12th grade).  I don't enjoy doing pre-school, so I've always sent the kids out for it, and our 3 (almost 4!) year old attends a Christian pre-school.  She's enjoyed this year and has a lot of fun, but I think I will homeschool her next year.  Frankly, it's a lot of money for what's effectively a playgroup (which is not a criticism of the school, it's lovely!  But pre-school in general is really more about learning to get along with other kids and preparing  for how public school is structured than anything) and because of the time difference between her school and the other girls' (they start at 8, she starts at 9) it's a lot of back and forth driving that's inconvenient.  For now, I plan I homeschooling her from next year on, but I do admit I feel a fair amount of conflict about it.  As I said, we really like the local elementary school, and I go back and forth on whether or not they're "missing out" if they don't go.  If I'm honest, the turning point for me with my oldest was when we went to dd2's Christmas program.  She just looked very wistful and sad and said a few times that she really wished she could be up there with the other kids.  It probably sounds silly, since in the scope of things it's such a small thing to "miss out" on, but I guess in the moment it was kind of one of those "knife in the heart" things where I really questioned if I was doing the right thing but not allowing her to go when she earnestly wanted to. 

At any rate, dd2 repeated kindergarten this year, and after starting on Strattera for her ADHD, she really made significant academic progress.  She won't be held back again (the school system only allows a child to be held back twice K-12) but even with the progress she's made, she's still significantly behind her peers.  So I believe she will spend much of her time in the resource room with the special education teacher next year, and I'm okay with that.  I personally don't feel it's fair or reasonable to make her sit in the classroom while they learn things that are beyond her current abilities.  It just makes her frustrated and bored.  Much of the focus in 1st grade is on learning to read, and as she's nearly blind, I would much rather have her in the resource room getting one on one attention and instruction with Braille readiness than listening to other kids learning to read when she's not even able to distinguish most letters of the alphabet (even when significantly enlarged and contrasting colors are used, there are only a couple letters she can identify).  At this point I'm pretty confident that she will continue at this school until she's ready for junior high, and then she will board down at the Indiana School for the Blind and Visually Impaired.  I would like to get her in sooner, but I just feel like before that she's not going to be emotionally ready to be separated from us all week, and I want her self-help skills strong enough that she doesn't need to rely heavily on the people there for help with her personal hygiene.

I think that about sums it up for now!  I hope that helps clear up any questions.

Wordless Wednesday

I read this beautiful story on Yahoo! about an elderly woman who had given her baby for adoption after being raped as a teenager, and finally reunited 70+ years later.  The baby girl she lovingly placed with a pastor and his wife went on to marry and have 6 children of her own, including one son who is an astronaut.  Although the article doesn't discuss abortion, I can't help but think of it.  Mrs. Disbrow would certainly have been a poster child for abortion.  But this is a side of it that is rarely talked about-it isn't just the aborted child that's lost, but generations!

In a few days, it will have been 33 years since my husband was born and placed for adoption.  He was born just a few years after Roe V. Wade.  His birth mother could have legally killed him.  Instead, she made the difficult choice to give birth to him and let him go, and because of her gift of life, I not only have my husband, but four beautiful children.  Someday we will have grand-children, and great-children.  Generations of a family that would have never existed if not for one woman's choice decades ago.  I am so very grateful to her for that, and I hope that wherever she is, she is loved and blessed and has peace in her heart. 

7 Quick Takes

1. 2012 is just around the corner!  That means it's almost time for me to set a new book reading goal at Good Reads.  Last year, my goal was 36 books.  I read...22.  Ouch.  Well, what can I say, I have four children!  I think I'll shoot for 30 this year.  
2. Speaking of books, give me some suggestions!  Right now I'm reading Little Women, which I've never read before, though I've seen the movie (rare thing for me, I normally read the book first...but Little Women is REALLY LONG...)  I'm also up to book #6 in the Wheel of Time series (fantasy) and book #3 in the Dresden Files series (fantasy/mystery).  I'm pretty much up for anything, book-wise!
3. We had a wonderful Christmas!  The children loved their gifts, and my mother and brother spent the day with us.  As a bonus, all four of my children behaved themselves at Mass (together...at the same time...) and for good measure, as we were leaving, our 6 year old turned around and yelled "Happy birthday, Jesus!"
4. I could use prayers for my health.  I've been dealing with menorrhagia (extremely heavy periods) for many years, but every cycle is worse and worse, and many of the conventional treatments are not compatible with our views on life, so treating it isn't easy (and it has far surpassed the point where "just living with it" is even remotely a possibility.  I won't go TMI, but I will just unequivocally say that it is absolutely debilitating for me to the point I'm severely depressed before and during my period).  I go back to the OB in February, I hope to finish ruling out underlying causes.
5. My number one "resolution" for the new year is LOSE WEIGHT!  I lost a large amount of weight after I had our second child (over 80 pounds), and unfortunately, over the last few years I've gained it all back, and then same.  It's frustrating to have to start all over, but I've done it before and I know I can do it again.
6. I sadly found out that the rescue we adopted our pug from a couple years ago had all of their dogs seized!  To be fair, I did feel that they had too many dogs in a small space, but I also think they were kind-hearted people who got in over their heads.  We adore our little pug, and I hope everything works out for them and the dogs that were taken.
7. This will be the first NYE in 7 years that I haven't been pregnant and/or nursing (Finn weaned at 13 months, which I wasn't expecting, since his sisters nursed for over 2 years!)  I don't plan on getting drunk (yuck!) but grandma is going to take the little kids so we can have a few friends over for the evening.  Have a fun and safe NYE, and don't forget that New Year's day is a Holy Day of Obligation (plus a Sunday, so you should be at Mass, anyway!)

Emmanuel (God with us)

Holy Scripture tells us that "Pride is the beginning of all sin."  (Sirach 10:15)   I'm not going to attempt to delve deeply in to that (St. Thomas Aquinas covers it nicely in Summa Theologica, as does CS Lewis in Mere Christianity), but it's an interesting thought, isn't it?  We tend to think of pride a positive trait; being proud of one's hard work, proud of your family, etc.  But what's the dark side of pride?

As Lewis points out, pride is the root of rebellion.  And rebellion, of course, leads to disobedience to the Lord.  "Who is GOD to tell me what to do?"  People often speak hatefully of the Catholic Church, with our complicated hierarchy that helps to guide Christ's flock.  "Who are they to tell me how to live?  How dare some celibate old men in funny clothes tell me what to do with my body, or my money, or my family!  It's my life and I'll live it how I want!"  Who is God to tell us how to live?  What right does His Church have to interfere in our private decisions?  I think there's often a lot of hurt behind the angry words.  People feel that God, and by proxy, His Church, have no right to tell them how to live, because they couldn't possibly understand.  Because God seems so far away.  Our world is so sick and hurting...so many people feel God is absent from their lives, and instead of fleeing to the comfort of His arms, their pride hardens their hearts against Him, and they turn.  But God has written His love on our hearts.  There's no hiding from it, and when we refuse to abandon ourselves to that love, our response is to put up angry walls of hatred.

What right does He have?  How could He understand?

Our Lord, our all powerful, omnipotent, omnipresent GOD, Alpha and Omega, loves us so earnestly, that He become flesh and dwelt among us.  We have the image of the nativity this time of year, but how often do we really stop to ponder what it means?  Our GOD not only humbled Himself to become a mere human man, but he came in to the world as a tiny, fragile, helpless infant.  He could have come to us, as the Jews expected, as a powerful earthly King.  He could have opened up the Heavens, with the trumpets of the angels blaring, bringing fire and brimstone and forcing every knee to bend.

But instead He came, quiet, meek, weak and small.  Because we are quiet, meek, weak and small.  And really, aren't we?  We can puff up our chests with pride and boast about how big and strong we are, we can stomp our feet and thumb our noses and say "We don't need you, God."  But inside, our souls cry out to the Lord.  Inside, we are tiny, fragile, and helpless.  Just as our Lord once was.  How could he not understand? 

He was born a tiny baby.  He offered up His body, broken and abused, on the Cross.  He stays with us here on earth, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, but under the humble guise of bread and wine.  He shows us that true strength is in meekness and humility.  True power is in sacrifice and obedience.  And true freedom is only found in joyful prostration to our Lord.

This Christmas, when you gaze adoringly at the sweet-cheeked Infant, think of everyone who is lonely and hurting in our sick, lost world, and pray earnestly that they feel the loving arms of God around them, and His peace and grace in their hearts.  This is my Christmas wish every year, for myself and everyone.