Archives for July 2024

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Vacation has a way of making you see life in a different light.  I took a much-needed break from technology that week, leaving my computer at home and my phone mostly in my bag.  It was wonderful!  I was immersed in real things, real conversations, real memory-making.  It was just the reminder I needed that we’re made for so much more than the technological prison we put ourselves in.  I felt the freedom and I wanted more!  

Fast forward to being back home and life is back to breakneck speed: kids here there and everywhere, a husband working long hours, a neglected farm that needs constant attention, school starting in just a few weeks…  Technology is needed for so many important day-to-day things but I’m also guilty of using it just as a mindless escape.  I need to carry the peacefulness of vacation into this messy reality at home!   I’m still in the brainstorming phase, but I’ve nailed down five “micro goals” to keep that mindset going:

Put your feet in the grass.  Get off the screens.  Sit in the sunshine.  Chat with the people around you.  Be a creator, not just a consumer.

It’s a start.

Hoping to document the abundance around me all year long!

Around here, abundance looks like…

+ LAUNDRY.  So much post-vacation laundry.

+ getting back to work on the farm.  Our second batch of 175 chicks arrived, I picked overripe vegetables for the animals, and I got a small start on the massive weeds invading the garden.

+ starting a biiiig project, one tiny section at a time.  I’ve complained about my first floor walls for years at this point.  They have a textured surface and are impossible to clean.  I thought the only way to fix the problem was to skimcoat over it and I had resigned myself to years of saving for a professional. ($$$$)  BUT!  One road trip conversation and a Reddit post later, I realized that I could just remove the texture with a putty knife!  A putty knife!  I started with a wall by my back door (in case I messed up) and it worked beautifully!

+ planning for the new school year.  We hope to begin in mid-August, so lots of preparation to do.

+ selling fifteen unneeded items for the Car Loan Payoff Plan: a card game, three pieces of clothing, three books, a Bible, one pillow insert and six reusable produce bags.  After shipping and fees, I made $57.95!

Reading //

• Let Them Be Born in Wonder: How the brief life of a storied liberal arts program changed lives the world over from Fr. Francis Bethel at Comment // “Senior devised a formula to synthesize these first two steps, which especially brings out the central emotion to be cultivated at each level: gymnastic begins in experience and ends in delight; music and poetic education begin in delight and end in wonder. Delighting in reality, wondering at its mysteries, with a healthy imagination, a memory full of stories, songs, poems, experiences, one would be ready for life and eventually for more elevated, abstract studies.”
• Your Boyfriend Isn’t Your Camera Man from Freya India at After Babel // “I don’t think it’s trivial, for example, that we’ve been conditioned to use the person we love as a tool—a tool to gain approval from an audience that most of the time we don’t even like or care about. I don’t think it’s trivial that the compulsion to document the perfect memory can degrade the memory, turning it from that time we watched the sunset together on the beach to that time we argued after I demanded Instagram photos and you couldn’t get the angle right. I don’t think it’s trivial that some people sacrifice their real-world reputation to improve their online one. These things matter.”
• America’s Mental Health Crisis and the Loss of Meaning from O. Alan Noble at The Dispatch // “And this is the fundamental challenge for modern people. To live the good life requires reflection on what the good life is and resonance with the real world.”

New Additions to The List // 

• Why We Remember: Unlocking Memory’s Power to Hold on to What Matters by Charan Ranganath
• The Flickering Mind: Saving Education from the False Promise of Technology by Todd Oppenheimer
• Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry

Watching/Listening //

• My 2024-2025 Classical Charlotte Mason Curriculum Pick | The Children’s Tradition with Amanda Faus from The Commonplace // The educational philosophy they spoke about has made me reconsider how I want to move forward with my two youngest this year.
• Amplify Excellence Through Classical Education – feat. Andrew Pudewa from Memoria Press // Some interesting thoughts on copywork and writing.
• Purgatorio Cantos 1-6 of 100 Days of Dante from Baylor Honors College

Loving //

• my new homeschool lesson planner for 2024-25 // Can’t wait to fill it up with a feast of good things!
• this Lego search-and-find book // I purchased this for the trip, but it’s still been perused daily since we’ve been home.
• these ant traps // I set these out before we left on our trip and man!  They worked miracles!  I think we finally have our annoying ant problem under control.
• a poem by Anna Kamieńska called “Small Things”:

It usually starts taking shape
from one word
reveals itself in one smile
sometimes in the blue glint of eyeglasses
in a trampled daisy
in a splash of light on a path
in quivering carrot leaves
in a bunch of parsley
It comes from laundry hung on a balcony
from hands thrust into dough
It seeps through closed eyelids
as through the prison wall of things of objects
of faces of landscapes
It’s when you slice bread
when you pour out some tea
It comes from a broom from a shopping bag
from peeling new potatoes
from a drop of blood from the prick of a needle
when making panties for a child
or sewing a button on a husband’s burial shirt
It comes out of toil out of care
out of immense fatigue in the evening
out of a tear wiped away
out of a prayer broken off in mid-word by sleep
It’s not from the grand
but from every tiny thing
that it grows enormous
as if Someone was building Eternity
as a swallow its nest
out of clumps of moments

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Bringing back this prompt once again.  (Here’s part one, part two, and part three.)  I love that it reminds me that there is much to love, even in the everyday minutiae.  Here’s my list:

Teenage boys and their pull-up challenges.  Watching how much Sammy (our Great Pyrenees) loves the baby piglets.  Getting so much out of The Divine Comedy!  Little brothers playing happily together.  Eating “pink lemonade” blueberries right off the bush.  Shady spots outside during boiling hot days.  Rain.

Hoping to document the abundance around me all year long!

Around here, abundance looks like…

+ the terribly unbearable heat!  It has been SO hot lately.  Our days have been focused on keeping the pigs cool with splashes of cold water, mud wallows and frozen foods.

+ selling two unneeded items for the Car Loan Payoff Plan: one reusable shopping bag and a shirt.  After shipping and fees, I made $8.14!

Reading //

• LOTS of new information in Nuclear War by Annie Jacobsen, including this (less scary) fact:

In the 1950s, President Eisenhower created the U.S. highway system with this kind of dual-use in mind.  He modeled America’s original “National System of Interstate and Defense Highways” after “the superlative system of German autobahn,” he wrote in his presidential memoirs.  Not only could U.S. highways facilitate large-scale evacuation of cities in a nuclear war, but the broad, flat interstate lanes could be used as runways for takeoff and landings on bombing runs.  For setting down a helicopter in the median strip, or along the side of the road in the grass.  This is how many of America’s mid-century transportation systems were designed. (p.100)

• What City Kids Learn on My Farm from Larissa Phillips at The Free Press // “Here are some things I have taught the kids who visit my farm: animals don’t care about your feelings, and sometimes we kill them to eat them. It doesn’t matter how desperately you want to find more eggs, the hens don’t lay on demand. Tomatoes aren’t ripe in June. The stalls aren’t going to clean themselves. Cuts, scrapes, and stings aren’t really a big deal. And there will always be poop.”
• You Don’t Need To Document Everything from Freya India at Girls // “Influencers are of course the most extreme examples—but this impulse is so ingrained in everyone now. This pressure to post everything. And I think it’s a massive cause of anxiety for Gen Z. There’s a sense now that something didn’t happen if you don’t share it. There are young people who wouldn’t understand going to an event, travelling somewhere, being in a relationship, if they couldn’t post about it. They would not see the point. They simply cannot conceive of a life that exists without an audience consuming it.”

New Additions to The List // 

• What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets by Michael J. Sandel
• Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
• One Poor Scruple by Josephine Ward // another Melisa recommendation!

Watching/Listening //

• Harmed by Prescribed Medications: the Untold Story of Pharmaceutical Companies from Best Documentary // This was very eye opening.
• The Letter: Appalachia’s All-Time Classic Remastered from The Appalachian Storyteller
• Inferno Cantos 19-27 of 100 Days of Dante from Baylor Honors College

Loving //

• The Homeschool Printing Company // I needed a PDF file printed and spiral-bound and they did awesome work!
• dried mango // I’m obsessed.

This post contains affiliate links, which means I may receive a commission of any sale made at no extra cost to you.

If you didn’t think I was an odd duck before, this will probably convince you: I like to read the local obituaries.

With the exception of the occasional heartbreaking childhood cancer or teenage suicide, the majority of the obituaries share the stories of lives well lived.  A few examples (I removed some of the more specific information):

John, 95: “He was an avid reader and also enjoyed his extensive collection of old movies and many genres of music. He was an active member [in his church] and deeply valued these relationships.”

Stanley, 80: “He will always be remembered as a giver, mentor and support to those who knew and loved him. And besides his passion for his career, he could always be found on the golf course with good friends…Stanley was a devoted and loving husband, father and grandpa and was the foundation of his family. He was always there to support his family and friends, even if just to share a joke to make you smile.”

Barbara, 91: “Bobbie’s life was characterized by her strong Christian faith, devotion to family and her compassionate servant’s heart. She was active in her community throughout her life, serving [her local church]… Bobbie served for many years in various community and civic organizations. She was selfless, content in all circumstances and experienced great joy in caring for family, friends and those in need.”

Reading about these lovely people always makes me introspective: What will my legacy be?  What will my children write about me?

Those behaviors have to be cultivated today.  If I want to be remembered as “content in all circumstances” like Barbara, I need to practice that right now.  If I want to be known as deeply valuing relationships like John, I need to act like that today.  An important reminder to focus on what matters most.

Hoping to document the abundance around me all year long!

Around here, abundance looks like…

+ homemade decorations for the 4th of July.  I love the kids’ creativity.

+ fresh produce all over the kitchen counter!  Our onions and potatoes are ready and the tomatoes are ripening like crazy.  Time to include those ingredients in the meal plan.

+ selling four unneeded items for the Car Loan Payoff Plan.  This week, I sold one pair of jeans and three books.  After shipping and fees, I made $9.64!

Reading //

• The Greatest Gifts We Can Give Our Teens from Kathryn Whitaker at Mothering Spirit // “Please Jesus, let them make mistakes, I want to yell. By ‘helicoptering’ faith formation and mowing down all obstacles, we are preventing our children from the (often painful) experience of growing up and owning their own faith. The two greatest things we can give our children is the space to fail and a community to love them through it.”
• I Regret to Inform You That We Will All Grow Old, Infirm, and Unattractive from Freddie deBoer // A little crass, but interesting.  The comments were interesting too.  (And the whole conversation makes me think of one of my favorite books, Being Mortal by Atul Gawande.)

I personally think that another influence lies in the bizarre modern ideology that insists that everything that people have always done is so much harder now, against all evidence. There’s this pervasive cultural attitude that everything is so. damn. hard. now, that human beings have never faced so much difficulty just getting by. This notion is bipartisan, though I do mostly associate it with left-of-center culture, which for the record is politically ruinous. The reality is that it isn’t, actually, uniquely hard to live now, and if you are lucky enough to live as a healthy person in the middle class or above in the United States, you enjoy a life that 99.99% of human beings in history would look on with incredible envy. Which is not to say that life isn’t hard; life is very hard, for big-picture reasons that I’ve laid out many times. It’s just that life was always hard. It’s hard to be a person. Our existence is a cosmic accident, our lives are outside of our own control, and we inevitably die, so of course life is hard. But it was always hard, and that which is hardest about being a human is that which never changes. There’s nothing special about now. It’s just that a lot of people have made the bizarre choice to promulgate an elite culture in which everyone complains all the time about how hard everything is, to socially deleterious effect. (And, for the record, the only real escape from the hardships of life is to find the dignity to bear them without showy complaint, which is the opposite of what everyone is doing.)

New Additions to The List // 

• The Shoes of the Fisherman by Morris L. West // Thanks for the recommendation, Melisa!
• John Fisher and Thomas More: Keeping Their Souls While Losing Their Heads by Robert J. Conrad Jr.
• A Daughter’s Love: Thomas More and His Dearest Meg by John Guy

Watching/Listening //

• How to Make Architecture Great Again! Interview with Michael Diamant from Rewire the West // A really interesting conversation about classical vs. modern architecture.  I think I want to be a classical architect when I grow up.
• The Day Stockholm Became a Syndrome from Best Documentary // Fair warning: there is quite a bit of language, but I found it fascinating from a psychological standpoint.
• The Medieval Mind of C.S. Lewis: An Interview with Dr. Jason Baxter from The Commonplace // I LOVED this.
• Session Three of Wit, Learning, and Virtue: The Legacy of Civil Servant, Thomas More course from Belmont Abbey College
• Inferno Cantos 13-18 of 100 Days of Dante from Baylor Honors College // So good!

This post contains affiliate links, which means I may receive a commission of any sale made at no extra cost to you.

There seems to be lots of discussion online lately around “trad wives.”  I’m not on social media and am out of the loop so I don’t know the full extent of the issue, but – as usual – my thoughts are probably outside those strongly drawn lines.  (I’ll beat this drum all day long: You don’t have to believe in binary thinking!  Resist the boxes!)  Here’s my big picture take: an educated woman, whether at work or at home, can only make the world a better place.

A career-oriented woman can be “educated” but not necessarily wise.  A homemaker can also lack this wisdom.  It’s a tragedy for both.  So what do we do?  We stop being defensive.  We stop taking other people’s choices/opinions personally.  We stop attacking the other side.  And then we get down to the arduous task of learning.

You don’t need a college degree to read.  In today’s day and age, the library is free and used books are super cheap.  The pursuit of wisdom is right at your fingertips if you desire it!  And in my opinion, the rewards are enormous.

A woman who reads understands more of the complexities of the world.
A woman who reads learns the history of the past so as not to repeat it in the present.
A woman who reads sits at the feet of great thinkers and molds her views accordingly.
A woman who reads can identify bias, propaganda and lies.
A woman who reads wrestles with current issues in a much deeper way.

To me, the argument between women who stay home and women who work is just silly. The bigger question for me is…do you read?

Hoping to document the abundance around me all year long!

Around here, abundance looks like…

+ making our yearly batch of tallow from beef fat.  Another amazing example of making something from “trash.”

+ four new little piglets on the farm!  Our gilts will be ready for breeding in late fall, but we needed an intermediary set of pigs to raise in the meantime.  They are tiny and adorable and we can’t wait to find out their personalities.

+ selling twelve unneeded items for a new challenge that I’m calling the Car Loan Payoff Plan.  (Nobody likes to talk about it, so I will: I hate debt and it causes me a lot of stress.  With the success of the Farm Sitter Vacation Fund, I’m encouraged to keep going so that I can help remove some of this mental burden.)  Anyway, this week, I sold two pieces of clothing, eight books, an address book and a Disneyland autograph book from the 1990’s.  After shipping and fees, I made $219.24!

Reading //

• Building People with Three-Dimensional Memory from Ruth and Peco Gaskovski at School of the Unconformed // I LOVED this.
• Five Poems Every Catholic Should Memorize from Julian Kwasniewski at Tradition & Sanity // “The marvelous thing about poetry is that it allows us to get in on another’s moment of wonder; and then we have a little piece of his wonder to view the world through. Imagine each great poem you learn as if it is a sliver of stained glass: once your pocket is full of them, you have many lenses you can view the world through.”
• A People Without Culture: What the End of Reading Truly Means from Nadya Williams at Providence Magazine // “This loss of culture, both oral and written, has significant implications for how any human society, let alone a democracy, functions. How do you communicate with other flesh and blood people with neither the ability to read nor listen deeply? This is a civilization-destroying kind of crisis.”
• Want of Wonder: Seven Suggestions for Becoming More Childlike from Michael Warren Davis at Hearth and Field

New Additions to The List // 

• The Devil’s Advocate by Morris L. West
• How to Read Churches: A Crash Course in Ecclesiastical Architecture by Denis R. McNamara
• A Place of My Own: The Architecture of Daydreams by Michael Pollan

Watching/Listening //

• Schubert / Symphony No. 5 in B-flat major, D. 485
• Inferno Cantos 1-12 of 100 Days of Dante from Baylor Honors College // I am enjoying this so much!
• Session Two of Wit, Learning, and Virtue: The Legacy of Civil Servant, Thomas More course from Belmont Abbey College

Loving //

• these cooling towels // So nice to wrap around your head or neck when working outside.  The heat has been unbearable lately!