7 Quick Takes - The School and Grape Edition

--- 1 ---

As I've mentioned, we're doing Classically Catholic Memory (which I always call Catholically Classic Memory, by the way) and the history sentence that we are to memorize has been put to the tune of "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing".  Can I tell you how annoying it is to have that song constantly going through your head four months ahead of time?  What makes it even more annoying, yet effective, is that I'm not singing about lovely Christmas angels but about Christopher Columbus, Vasco da Gama and Magellan.
 

--- 2 ---

Here are 6 of the 12 pounds of red grapes we got off of the grape vines this year.  Last year we missed them completely, still not sure how, but the birds got to them first so I was determined to get them first this year.  I'd say it worked.  They're a bit tart and have seeds but they make awesome grape jelly.

--- 3 ---

Speaking of which...I made 12 - 1/2 pts of jelly yesterday and they look good.  I still have enough grapes to make about the same amount.  Now I just need to find the time.
 

--- 4 ---

Here's Mr 14 yo, my helper.  He helped me mash, stir, ladle and, of course, taste test.  Help always comes from the most unexpected places.  I think this boy has a future in the kitchen.

 

--- 5 ---

I took this picture and it looked interesting so I thought I'd post it.  Notice the steam rising from all of that good grape pulp.  Each sack made about the necessary 5 cups of juice.  From one batch I had some extra juice so I sweetened it up a bit and cooled it so we could have it with our breakfast.  Yummmmm.
 

--- 6 ---

First week of school done and I'd call it a success.  All assignments completed and done well with no meltdowns.  I promised them they could rent the Batman Lego movie if they had a good week so hopefully that wasn't the incentive for such a productive week.  We'll see what happens next week when there is no movie!

--- 7 ---

Well here's wishing everyone a happy Labor Day in advance.  We're still not sure what we'll be doing with this long weekend, but it will be nice to have everyone home for three days.  Whatever you do, have a safe and happy weekend.  

God Bless!
  

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

Theme Thursday - Shadows

It seems that whenever I struggle with a theme and/or don't have enough time to get it together for the morning (both things in this case), it works out in my favor.  It seems even the hostess is late today!  Thank you, Cari, for cooperating with my brain and my schedule.

Anyhow, we were at the school table doing school, of course, and I had been pondering all morning what to do with this theme when I saw that the sun had finally come out and was casting some nice shadows on our table.  "Ah hah," I said to myself, "there is a nice small crucifix on the table, I bet that would cast a nice shadow in this wonderful sunlight."  So I grabbed my camera and ended up with this:

 

Go on over to Clan Donaldson and check out other shadow photos.

God Bless! 

Build that Muscle

Last spring, when I was younger and crazier, I undertook the P90X challenge.  While I admit to not finishing it in 90 days, more like 110 days, I worked hard at it - 1 hour a day roughly 6 days a week; except for those weeks where I just couldn't get it together, which accounts for those extra 20 days.  Still, not bad considering all that goes on around here.

Then summer hit and our schedule changed and there just didn't seem to be a lot of time to exercise anymore.  Within a few weeks I noticed the sciatic pain returning.  About this time the girls decided they wanted to do the Turbo Fire 5 day challenge.  For those of you who don't know, Turbo Fire, while great for some people, is an exercise program where you basically throw every part of your body in a different direction to music at 90 mph.  Let's just say that after day 2, Turbo Fire and I were no longer friends.  I went down hard that time.  Weeks of back pain and the realization that I can no longer throw my body parts around like that anymore!

As summer waned on and I tried to be kind to my back, I realized that the key to staying out of pain was to exercise continually.  But what to do??  I just couldn't face P90X again, I mean once you've spent that many days with Tony Horton, you just aren't all that anxious to go back.  Just looking at the Turbo Fire discs made me hurt, well that and I promised my chiropractor that I wouldn't EVER EVER EVER do them again.

My dh had started on more of a weight training regimen and while we used to do that together while we were dating (yeah, I'd do anything to spend time with my man:), it had been a long time since I picked up a barbell.  He was going to work with me but he can only do it at night and, I don't know about any of you, but the last thing I want to do in the evening is exert myself.  

Fortunately I found a disc at the back of the Turbo Fire packet that has three total body strength training routines on it; and to top it off, they're only 30 minutes each!!!  Let me tell you, however, that they are 30 total body  butt-kicking minutes of great exercise at a reasonable pace.  This is so doable for me right now, and the good news is that since I've started my back is back to feeling like a good back again!

As I was down there at lunch time today, I was thinking about how good I feel when I do this and how I think it really is so important for busy moms to take time in their week to stay in shape (or get in shape if that's the case).

So here's my pitch:  Take a look at your weekly schedule (cause I know you all have one!) and find three spots where you can squeak out 45 minutes, 30 for the exercise and 15 for getting reading and getting unready, and then find a good total body work out!  There are a bunch of different kinds to choose from, just do some searching and pick one out that will work for you.  As my husband keeps telling me from all of the research he's been doing - muscle burns fat so go for the muscle building exercises and burn more fat when you're doing all of your other stuff.  Or, as Nike says, "Just Do It".

 God Bless!

You are "Wholly Useless"

As I've mentioned, I've been plugging my way through "Introduction to the Devout Life" and am finding it absolutely wonderful.  I'm in the first part right now and have just finished the 10 or so meditations which lead up to a General Confession.

Can I just say that this is so Ignatian!!!! I love it.  St. Francis does a wonderful job weaving the spirit of the Spiritual Exercises into these meditations.  Next up, as I said, is the General Confession, and if you've never done one you should!  Find a priest who is willing to work with you on this and then spend a good amount of time preparing for it.  It is a very freeing experience.

Anyhow, one night I sat down to do the next meditation and I read the following sentence, "God did not create you because He had any need of you, for you are wholly useless to Him, but only that He might exercise towards you His goodness, bestowing on you His grace and glory".  Now if that isn't humbling, I don't know what is.

I was really struck by the "wholly useless" portion.  The more I thought about it, though, the more it really sunk in and made sense.  We tend to think so much of ourselves and our importance in this world that we often forget that we are simply here to know God, to love God and to serve God so that we may be in Heaven with Him forever.  That's it.  Oh, and to do His will in the process.  It isn't about me, it's about HIM.  I must do His will in my life and serve Him in the ways that He calls me to serve Him for I am "wholly useless" to Him except to receive His grace, glory and goodness.

Oh that the whole world might know this, remember it and embrace it.  What a world that would be.  One without political corruptness and absolute obnoxiousness from our "stars".  Ultimately it starts with each individual person so it is best to just pull up my bootstraps and fight the good fight.  If enough people engage in this battle, maybe we can bring about a revolution of good.

God Bless!

Catholic Woman's Almanac

Joining in at Sucipio!

Moments of Gratitude:

* Getting some good sun time this weekend.

* Time to chat with girlfriends

* Good talks with the kids

* A successful birthday party for 12 teen and pre-teen boys - no one did any damage to themselves or anything else - although some of them actually tried throwing pears at the hornets nest to see if they could knock it down and then run like crazy - even though they were told not to!!!

* Thankful the boys had bad aim :)

* Time to work on my website!!

The Week Ahead:

Well school started today and in a somewhat limited format as we are not starting writing class and spelling until next week.  It didn't go too bad. This week the big girls start at the community college, too, so we'll be adjusting to all of the changes that that will bring - new chores for the younger ones, more driving coordinating, varying dinner times for everyone.  The only other exciting thing for the week will be our back to school trip to the chiropractor so everyone can get their attitude spinal adjustment!

In the Kitchen:

I think I'm going to drop this entry as I never am very excited about what is getting cooked.  Oh well, thankful we have food to feed everyone.  Though I must say that we just picked a gob full of red grapes and I will be figuring out how to fit in some jelly making time this week.  I guess that makes it worth keeping the entry for this week!

Pondering:

Nothing, my brain is too filled with making sure that everyone gets where they need to be this week.  

Praying:

* For all of us that we can have the grace and fortitude to correct our flaws.

* For Ms 17 yo that she can get the on-campus job that she is interviewing for this week and that Ms 21 yo can find an on-campus job, too.

* For peace in our hearts, in our families and in our world.

Reading:

Man my life is boring.  I'm still plugging away at St. Francis de Sales and it is wonderful but I have not have time to read anything else.  I might change this entry to "Driving" and then I can tell you all about the many trips I've taken in my car this week.   I can tell you about how we got in the car Saturday morning to leave for soccer practice and the battery that we thought was running out of juice actually ran out of juice.  Thank the Lord for my daughter's new car as it was the only other one left at home and without that we would have missed the first soccer game.  Really, I won't do that to you :)  I really need to read more.

Captured:

Let's do another dance photo, shall we?  This time friends of ours who started a Mexican dancing troupe danced at our parish's picnic. This is a very physical activity and you could see the sweat on their brows by the 2nd dance.  They did a wonderful job!

God Bless!

CCM and Our Curriculum

This year I really wanted to focus on writing for three of my four students so I am finally going to implement the IEW Student Writing Intensive B series for them.  Well, I say that I am going to do it, but truth is I'm getting a lot of help in the form of two young ladies who have English degrees who went through the program and are holding a class at my house once a week for a handful of kids.  Yeah, makes a big difference!  

Anyhow, I really want to make sure we all have the time we need to focus on writing, so I decided to get the Classically Catholic Memory - Gamma Year program and use it to cover the rest of the subjects.  Here is how I am laying that out:

- I'm taking two weeks for each week of the program (something they recommend doing), so I'll have Week A and Week B.

Week A will go as follows:

Monday - introduce all of the material, practice it, listen to the CD provided and have them start to memorize it.

Tuesday - Review all of the material for the week and focus on Religion and Latin.  This means I'll read the question and surrounding information from the Baltimore Catechism and supplement with additional information on the subject so that the kids get the context of the statement to be learned.  For Latin, the first hymn we're learning is the Salve Regina.  We're all familiar with it, so I'm using the verses to be learned for handwriting practice as well as learning the basic tune on the piano.

Wednesday - Review all of the material and focus on History.  The book gives some good background information on the topics to be learned for the week.  This year focuses on the 1500s thru the 1800s and American history specifically.  I've got some other history books, so we'll supplement our information with those books.

Thursday - Review all of the material and focus on Science.  The Gamma year covers chemistry and physics and the book gives a lot of great experiments to do to make understanding and learning the material easier to do.  On this day, I'm just following the book.

Friday is always catch up day.

Week B
Monday - Review all of the material and focus on Geography.  We'll be learning about the Americas this year and they have some pretty cool maps to work with so we'll be doing those activities and supplementing with various books on the current topic.

Tuesday - Review all of the material and focus on Poetry.  The CCM curriculum includes two poems, an easier one and a more difficult one.  I have kids for both so we will be going over both poems.  I plan on learning more about the poets and poetry in general during this time.

Wednesday - Review all of the material and focus on Timeline.  Each week the kids have to memorize around 8 major events from creation to John Paul II.  There is a lot of information contained on the cards provided so we'll be going through that and then supplementing with other books when necessary.  I'm looking forward to focusing on pairing up secular and religious history.  Sometimes I think about one or the other but rarely put them in context with each other.  When that happens, it is really cool :)

Thursday - This will be recitation day.  Each child will have a chance to show what he has memorized throughout the past two weeks.

So there you have it, a basic outline of our curriculum.  Of course we will be doing Life of Fred math at the various levels and adding in our music, PE and fine arts classes through our various other activities.  I think this will give us good coverage of all areas. I'm not sure how I'll keep updating this yet as I have a few ideas, so stay tuned to find out how this all goes.

We start on the 26th so may God bless all of us as we begin another year of educating our children for eternity :)


God Bless!

7 Quick Takes August 23 2013

--- 1 ---

Another week gone by.  Hard to believe we are almost to the "unofficial" end of summer - that being Labor Day weekend.  I guess you could say that Monday morning at 8:00 is our first "unofficial" end of summer - that being the day that classes resume for everyone here.  Hard to believe, isn't it?
 

--- 2 ---

Really, where did summer go?  We did a lot of things, mind you, but most of them involved week long commitments.  That makes it hard to get much else done when you're involved in something for an entire week at a time.  It sure makes the time fly by fast, though.  I always tell myself that next summer will be different - slower - but it never quite works out that way.  I'm looking forward to getting back into a routine.
 

--- 3 ---

Speaking of schedules, I think I mentioned here that we are trying out Classically Catholic Memory - Gamma Year - this year.  I'd love to find out how others are doing this within their own home and maybe there are people out there who are wondering the same so I thought I'd post an outline of how we're doing each of the "weeks" throughout the year.  I'll post on the weekend before the "week" starts.  In reality, I'm doing one week over a two week school period, so these posts will only show up every other week.  I'll try to include some photos of things we've done, too.  We'll see how it goes, and how hard it is to keep up with.
 

--- 4 ---

I'm looking forward to Saturday when Mr 13 yo plays his first soccer game.  I can't tell you how exciting it will be to take photos of people moving OUTDOORS WHERE THERE IS ACTUALLY A LOT OF LIGHT.  Can you tell I'm excited?????
 

--- 5 ---

One of the hardest things about our upcoming schedule is figuring out the best time to go grocery shopping.  Between the time constraints, the distance constraints and the "when is the paycheck going into the bank" constraints, this is really proving to be a tough issue.  Every time slot has its drawbacks.  This week we're all going to go after morning Mass, which definitely has its drawbacks!  Hopefully the graces obtained from Mass will remain with us throughout the trip :)
 

--- 6 ---

We did get to spend some time at a local lake this past week.  It was glorious to finally sit and soak up the sun.  The temperature was great and though the water was a bit chilly, it was still a very relaxing time.  Even Ms 10 yo thought so!

 

--- 7 ---

Soccer practice, soccer game, birthday party, parish picnic.  Yep, a full weekend here at the ranch.  Hope you all have a peaceful and safe weekend!
  
God Bless!

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