Archives for December 2024

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Merry Christmastide!  During this joyous time of year, I’ve been thinking about Pope Saint John Paul II’s 2001 Midnight Mass homily entitled Proclaim Christ Child’s Message Of Hope Throughout The World.  I hope it fills you with hope, joy and peace as it did me.

Like the shepherds, we too on this wonderful night cannot fail to experience the desire to share with others the joy of our encounter with this “child wrapped in swaddling cloths“, in whom the saving power of the Almighty is revealed. We cannot pause in ecstatic contemplation of the Messiah lying in the manger, and forget our obligation to bear witness to him.

In haste we must once more set out on our journey. With joy we must leave the cave of Bethlehem in order to recount everywhere the marvel which we have witnessed. We have encountered light and life! In him, love has been bestowed upon us.

We welcome you with joy, Almighty Lord of heaven and earth, who out of love became a Child “in Judea, in the city of David, which is called Bethlehem” (Lk 2:4).

We welcome you with gratitude, new Light rising in the night of the world.

We welcome you as our brother, the “Prince of Peace“, who “made of the two one people” (cf. Eph 2:14).

Fill us with your gifts, you who did not hesitate to begin human life like us. Make us children of God, you who for our sake desired to become a son of man (cf. Saint Augustine, Homilies, 184).

You, “Wonder-Counsellor“, sure promise of peace; you, powerful presence of the “God-Hero“; you, our one God, who lie poor and humble in the dim light of the stable, welcome us around your crib.

Come, peoples of the earth, open to him the doors of your history! Come to worship the Son of the Virgin Mary, who descended among us, on this night prepared for down the centuries.

Night of joy and peace.

Venite, adoremus!

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Hoping to document the abundance around me all year long!

Around here, abundance looks like…

+ attending Midnight Mass.  There is something so beautiful about entering a warm chapel in the middle of a dark, cold night.  Our little Oratory was packed – standing room only! – and I felt waves of gratitude for the ability to celebrate His birth with all of these people right as the clock stuck twelve.  What a way to begin the Christmas festivities!

+ a wonderfully simple Christmas morning.  My kids always receive only three gifts each (along with their stockings), so I try to choose items very intentionally.  Some years are a bust, but I think I did okay this year!  Some hits: a personal Keurig machine, a leather jacket, a wood carving kit and book for inspiration, a wearable throw blanket, an old-school boombox for listening to music and audiobooks, and Legos.

+ picking up next year’s wrapping paper for 50% off.  I needed a few skeins of embroidery floss at the craft store and popped into Homegoods next door to check on the paper.  They still had a decent selection and I found four simple designs that will work for next year!  I saved $8.

+ taking inventory of all of my craft supplies.  I have collected a lot of items over the years and I think 2025 is the year that I use ’em or lose ’em.  I organized my rolling cart with materials and I’m excited to start making beautiful things.

Reading //

• Keeping a Long Christmas from Charles Coulombe at Crisis Magazine
• Making mixtapes from Austin Kleon // This is such a fun creative project.

New Additions to The List // 

• Saint Thomas Aquinas: The Person and His Work by Jean-Pierre Torrell
• The Domestic Revolution: How the Introduction of Coal into Victorian Homes Changed Everything by Ruth Goodman
• Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Virgin Mary: Unveiling the Mother of the Messiah by Brant Pitre
• The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper by Roland Allen

Watching/Listening //

• Lessons 1-2 of the Introduction to St. Thomas Aquinas course from Aquinas 101 at the Thomistic Institute
• some of the episodes of Something Was Wrong Season 20 // This catfishing story was WILD.

Loving //

• this French holy card that roughly translates to: “The Christmas Lullaby: with Mary, let us watch over the child Jesus, let us sing His praises, let us admire His beauty, let us contemplate His grace, let us adore His divinity!”

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A reminder to myself, my children and maybe anyone who needs the nudge: look up.

We live in an age where we’re seemingly always attached to our screens.  Our necks ache from that consistent downward posture, we walk around like zombies.  We feel that invisible chain of constant attachment, we acknowledge the unconscious compulsion that urges us to check “just one more thing.”

It’s not just technology, though.  We spend so much time intensely focused on our struggles and crosses, the flaws on our bodies, the appearance of our homes.  We fill these inadequacies with food and fillers and new purchases from Amazon.  We don’t mean to be selfish – maybe we don’t even see ourselves that way – but we’re swept up in the everyday battles of life with our eyes firmly concentrated on our navels.

Of course, as Thomas Aquinas encourages, virtue is found in the middle.  I don’t mean to say that the only alternative to our age is to be a technological Luddite, completely forgetting about our appearance and home.  But there is a better way and one that I need to remember.

Look up.  Look at the beauty of the world around you.  Look at the suffering of others and seek ways to help alleviate some of that pain.  Make eye contact with strangers.  Smile.  Look up.

Hoping to document the abundance around me all year long!

Around here, abundance looks like…

+ saying goodbye to a piece of home decor.  This is so silly, but I have had the same wicker laundry basket since I went away to college in 2003.  Twenty-one years of use!  Sadly this year, bigger and bigger pieces started snapping off – a handle here, a big hunk on the side there – and try as I might, it’s just not salvageable.  I’m sad to see her go, but I definitely think I got my money’s worth, ha!

+ making bows for the little pre-lit tree decorations on either side of our front door.  I already had a roll of wired ribbon in my Christmas stash and after watching this tutorial, I got to work!  So simple but with a big impact.

+ selling eleven unneeded items for the Car Loan Payoff Plan: seven books, a dress and three DVDs.  After shipping and fees, I made $41.86.  And great news: I have to double-check some numbers in our budget, but I think we’ll be able to pay off the remaining balance by New Year’s!  One step closer to financial freedom.

Reading //

• The Rules of Discernment: A Practical Guide – Rule 3 from Megan Hjelmstad at Spiritual Direction // “Chasing material, emotional, or worldly consolation might initially get us what we want, but we will only be momentarily appeased. Seeking spiritual consolation allows us to be more joyful and at peace regardless of our circumstances.”
• Blue-collar jobs might be the best jobs from Elle Griffin at The Elysian // I’ve been diving deep into this topic after finishing Shop Class as Soulcraft last week.  A similar argument could definitely be made for farming!
• A Renaissance is Upon Us from Nate Marshall at The Blue Scholar // “But with the schools listed above, taking up a hammer, let’s say, is an embodied act that demands the recruitment of the interior life such that what its face is applied to is ordered rightly: both to spec, making it technically good, and to Jesus, making it liturgically oriented. Tech support and Our Lord ought to be pleased with our good work.”
• Christmas in Heaven: Stefan Lochner’s ‘Madonna in the Rose Garden’ from Denis McNamara at Benedictine College // “Though at first glance The Virgin in the Rose Garden presents the unified simplicity of a woman with a child sitting in a bucolic setting, it then presents layers of fascinating detail like the womb of the Virgin itself: strawberries in the field symbolize the blessed souls in heaven, angles with wings like peacock feathers symbolize glorified eternity, apples being offered to Christ to signify the undoing of the poisonous fruit eaten by Adam and Eve. To ponder the mysteries of the painting is to ponder the mysteries of God himself: profoundly simple and endlessly fascinating.”

New Additions to The List // 

• The Good Good Pig: The Extraordinary Life of Christopher Hogwood by Sy Montgomery
• Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxas
• Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
• Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis

Watching/Listening //

• Preparing for Christmas through the O Antiphons from The Norbertine Fathers of St. Michael’s Abbey
• 3 Books That Made Me Obsessive | The Home Librarian Series from The Commonplace
• The Impossible Cleanup That Followed The End Of WW2 from War Stories

Loving // the incredibly kind women who have visited my blog this year.  I am so grateful that you choose to spend your time here with me and I have been so blessed by your comments and emails and financial support on my Ko-fi site.  (Thank you especially to Natalie!)  What a gift it is to pursue the intellectual life with such diverse and interesting women.  I can’t wait to see what we’ll learn in 2025!

Wishing you a very Merry Christmas from my family to yours. xo

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

Back in September, I wrote that ordinary days are a privilege and a gift.  We just had a week of uneventful, boring days and I was almost euphoric about it.

Some ordinary things from this week: Working together to complete a puzzle on the kitchen table.  Keeping a blazing fire in the fireplace.  Staying cozy indoors while it poured outside.  Washing piles upon piles of laundry.  Reading a silly read aloud to my littlest boys.  Making progress on my cross-stitch project.  Watching the kids strategize and cheer each other on as they played their joint Saint Nicholas gift.  (I found it secondhand for cheap – BIG hit!)  Driving around to see the neighbors’ lights and decorations.  Getting sick myself after caring for two kids with colds.  Reading and reading and reading.

Hoping to document the abundance around me all year long!

Around here, abundance looks like…

+ decorating our Christmas tree.  Just recently, I got a taste of the consumerism-pushing influencers on Youtube – new tree, new decorations, new new new.  (I’m sure it’s even worse on social media.)  Can I just be the voice of reason and say that not only is that financially unrealistic for most people, but it may also be removing important family memories in the process?  There is something special about the comfort of the same, the repetition of things that make us a family.  Our tree is a hodge-podge of glass ornaments and kids’ crafts and non-breakable bulbs and DIY creations made over the years.  I love to listen to the kids as they remember the when/where/hows of each piece.  Our tree isn’t internet-worthy, but it’s ours.  And isn’t that more important?

+ getting a much-needed surprise Chip Drop.  Our woodchip pile was pitifully small and I was starting to worry about how we would keep our permanent pig paddocks fresh through the winter.  God provides!

+ apparently getting all new floors!  The second opinion was sent to insurance and it looks like they’ve approved the replacement of not only the ruined half of the dining room, but the entire first floor.  We’ve been here, there and everywhere looking at samples and I’m pretty overwhelmed.  So many choices!  Hoping to settle on something classic that we’ll enjoy for years to come.  Thankfully, the work won’t begin until after Christmas so I have a bit of time to make a decision.

+ selling three unneeded items for the Car Loan Payoff Plan: a decorative Christmas garland, a book and a slip.  After shipping and fees, I made $10.01.  Not much, but every little bit helps.

Reading //

• The Rules of Discernment: A Practical Guide – Rule 2 from Megan Hjelmstad at Spiritual Direction
• Vapid Vibes: What does our culture want us to want? from Peco at Pilgrims in the Machine // “Sometimes, in life, affirmation is deserved. Some entitlements are legitimate. Encouragement is always good. But we have started to normalize narcissistic specialness. More than ever, we think we can function and succeed on ego fumes and the vapid vibes of hype and sentiment.”
• Gratitude in Adversity, Lessons from St. Jeanne Jugan from Emily Malloy at Theology of Home // “Life presents countless challenges. It is the gratitude cultivated in the face of adversity that leads us up the mountain toward holiness; a gratitude that can only be formed in detachment from our own will as we conform ourselves to God’s.”  A beautiful saint!
• Living Intentionally in a Tech-Driven World: My Journey to Balance from Miltiadis Raptis // “It’s important to recognize that technology itself isn’t inherently bad. It has brought us countless benefits, yet many people believe it’s to blame for the shallow relationships and procrastination that plague our society. The truth is, the fault lies within us. Just as sugar isn’t responsible for obesity—it’s our overconsumption of it—technology isn’t to blame for our lack of meaningful connections. It’s how we choose to use it.”

New Additions to The List // 

• Paddling My Own Canoe: A Solo Adventure On the Coast of Molokai by Audrey Sutherland
• Advent of the Heart: Seasonal Sermons and Prison Writings, 1941-1944 by Alfred Delp
• Time of the Child by Niall Williams
• Jeanne Jugan: Humble So As To Love More by Paul Milcent

Watching/Listening //

• How To Be Extremely Frugal | Better Spending Habits In 2025 from 2 Sister Bees
• 4 Tips to PREPARE for NO SPEND JANUARY 2025 from Kate Kaden // Making goals and getting inspired for the new year!
• Creating a Beautiful Phenology Wheel: Nature’s Calendar from Marion’s World // This is incredible.
• Why You Should Take Ownership Of Your Education – The Education Revolution! from Rob Pirie

Loving //

• this “Rockefeller Center Joy” Christmas puzzle // We picked this up at a local toystore on Small Business Saturday.  So many cute details!
• these battery-operated candles for the windows // Quite possibly my favorite Christmas decoration to put up each year.  So simple and beautiful.
• this little poem:

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

I’m reading an older book from 1976 called The Spiritual Writings of Saint John Bosco.  (I bought this at the used bookstore for $3 but look at what’s it’s going for on Amazon!!)  In one section, the author shared a quotation that John Bosco had written down on his Breviary bookmark.  The quote is from Saint Maximus of Turn: “Validiora sunt exempla quam verba, et plus est opere docere quam voce.”  Deeds are more powerful than words, and teaching is done better by example than speech.  I’ve been thinking a lot about that quote ever since.

Some of my favorite people are the ones who actually say very little.  They don’t lecture or bloviate, but live their lives simply and with purpose.  They donate their money, time and talents without telling…well, anyone.  They stay true to their convictions in a joyful manner.  I want to be more like that.

Hoping to document the abundance around me all year long!

Around here, abundance looks like…

+ days of headaches and fatigue.  I just finished this book and decided to implement some nutritional changes right away.  This was probably a bad idea, but I decided to reduce my coffee consumption and completely cut out sugar at the same time.  Oh man – the detox!  So rough.  Thankfully, by Friday, I was feeling much better and was headache-free.

+ returning to the Weather the Storm Challenge after a week off for Thanksgiving.   ‘Tis the season for spending money, but I’m trying to find the sales and deals to make it a little less terrible for our wallet.  This week, I:

• avoided the grocery store, only purchasing milk, coffee and yogurt
• used every last roll of wrapping paper for my family’s gifts (just bits and pieces of scraps left!)
• listed a few items on Poshmark/ebay/Pango
• reused an Amazon mailing envelope to mail a resale order
• used a Cyber Monday deal for dog food
• combined Kohl’s cash (that we earned buying a Christmas gift) with a sale to get a thermal base layer set for my daughter for $3!
• made banana bread with overripe bananas

+ the charts I printed from Debt Free Charts to keep us motivated on our financial goals.  Most of them are free!  What a blessing.

+ focusing on reading the books I own.  Due to the impact of this book as well as other activities I want to pursue in 2025, I decided to pause my book purchasing and focus on the ones I already have.  I printed out the 100 Books chart from Debt Free Charts for extra motivation and hope to cut my physical TBR in half!  To make the process a bit more fun, I also made a numbered list of 100 books I own and will use a random number generator to pick my next read.  So far, so good!

+ selling two unneeded items for the Car Loan Payoff Plan: one children’s book and one felt Christmas garland.  After shipping and fees, I made $2.77.  I’m taking a bit of a reselling break for the rest of the year so these numbers will probably be pathetic, ha!

Reading //

• The Rules of Discernment: A Practical Guide – Rule 1 from Megan Hjelmstad at Spiritual Direction // “This first rule zeros in on an important truth: we wouldn’t choose sin if it didn’t contain some apparent good or promise of fulfillment. We are not drawn to sin because it is damaging, but rather because it proposes some good that the enemy has accused God of withholding from us.”
• It turns out technology isn’t the future. Fertility is. from Peco at Pilgrims in the Machine // “If youth means energy, in the sense of the vigor and dynamism of young people, it also means energy for the rest of us. When my own kids were young, they were like natural antidepressants. I might have had a difficult day at work, or a sleepless night, yet their presence was almost always uplifting. Most of my kids are now encroaching on adulthood, yet the energy is still there—if a bit more complicated. Their growth has also brought on an increasing sense of role-reversal: When children are small, we are their foundation. When we are old, they become ours.”
• The Pleasures of Working Together from Tessa Carman at Hearth and Field // “At a certain age, grandchildren were paid for hourly labor. But I was raised with the conviction that doing noble work — such as feeding people — was worth doing, no matter what you were paid. Money wasn’t a measure of good work done. It was a means to an end, and certainly not the best reason to do a thing.”
• Grapes, Grit, and Grandeur: My Year with John Steinbeck from Matthew Long at Inner Life

New Additions to The List // 

• The Children of Men by P.D. James
• Van Gogh Has a Broken Heart: What Art Teaches Us about the Wonder and Struggle of Being Alive by Russ Ramsey
• The Infernal Machine: A True Story of Dynamite, Terror, and the Rise of the Modern Detective by Steven Johnson

Watching/Listening //

• I Filmed Plants For 15 years | Time-lapse Compilation from Boxlapse // So cool.

Loving //

• my well-worn and much-loved pair of flannel pajamas // This week was COLD.
• this small business specializing in curated stocking stuffers // So fun.

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

My husband and I celebrated our nineteenth wedding anniversary this week.  Nineteen!  Time flies when you’re having fun.  That’s not to say that our marriage hasn’t had its share of bumps in the road.  We almost quit at one point, but I’m so grateful that we ultimately drew back to each other and kept going.  It reminds me of a quote from G.K. Chesterton about being two stubborn pieces of iron:

Very few people ever state properly the strong argument in favour of marrying for love or against marrying for money. The argument is not that all lovers are heroes and heroines, nor is it that all dukes are profligates or all millionaires cads. The argument is this, that the differences between a man and a woman are at the best so obstinate and exasperating that they practically cannot be got over unless there is an atmosphere of exaggerated tenderness and mutual interest. To put the matter in one metaphor, the sexes are two stubborn pieces of iron; if they are to be welded together, it must be while they are red-hot. Every woman has to find out that her husband is a selfish beast, because every man is a selfish beast by the standard of a woman. But let her find out the beast while they are both still in the story of “Beauty and the Beast.” Every man has to find out that his wife is cross—that is to say, sensitive to the point of madness: for every woman is mad by the masculine standard. But let him find out that she is mad while her madness is more worth considering than anyone else’s sanity.

— G.K. Chesterton, The Common Man 

Nineteen years of living and creating and working together has welded us tightly together.  May we never take each other for granted and may we stubbornly cling to each other in all of life’s storms.  Marriage is a gift.

Hoping to document the abundance around me all year long!

Around here, abundance looks like…

+ positive updates for all of our in-process shenanigans.  My husband’s skin is healing slowly but nicely after his basal cell carcinoma surgery.  My son’s car was ultimately deemed salvageable and will hopefully be ready to be picked up next week.  As for the hardwood flooring, we hit a snag when our first contractor quoted us an astronomical amount for the repair, but a second opinion brought a much better price point.  Hoping to hear from our insurance and get a plan in place soon.

+ cleaning the house like a fool!  We took Wednesday off from school and I deemed it the perfect time to work on some much overdue chores.  I scrubbed the grout in my shower with this new-to-me tool, I shaved the couch of fuzz and dog hair with this much-used tool and I deep cleaned the kitchen to get ready for Thanksgiving cooking.  A very productive day!

+ rolling with the punches as we still don’t have a usable dining room.  We set up our Thanksgiving table in the living room and ate in front of the fireplace.  So ridiculous but one story we’ll be telling for years to come.

+ finishing up most of my Christmas wrapping!  My goal was to finish all of my shopping before December so actually getting them wrapped was just icing on the cake.  So excited to have a calm and relaxing Advent season.

+ selling three unneeded items for the Car Loan Payoff Plan: a book, a pair of pants and a pair of kids’ snowbibs.  After shipping and fees, I made $15.46.

Reading //

• The Ignatian Rules of Discernment: A Practical Guide–Introduction from Megan Hjelmstad at Spiritual Direction // “The heart of Saint Ignatius’ Rules is this: in every moment, a great battle is being waged all around us, a battle between good and evil. The object? To win the most valuable territory in the universe—your soul.”
• When It Feels Like the Plane Might Go Down from Shawn Smucker at The Courage to Live It // “What, then, will have been the point of hoarding anything? Of taking the safe route? Of doing anything other than those things that lift up others, create relationships and community, and leave the world a better place than we found it?”
• Leninthink from Gary Saul Morson at The New Criterion // A long, but worthwhile read.
• Friendship in Marriage: What Really Makes a Home from John Cuddeback at Life Craft // “Aristotle saw that true friendship is all about virtue: it is rooted in virtue; it grows through virtue; its goal is virtue. Spouses have the best natural opportunity to discover and enact this reality in a context perfect for friendship but also more than just friendship. Theirs is a relationship intrinsically oriented to generating and cultivating the life of others; and as a sacrament, their relationship takes on even deeper spiritual signification and implications.”

Watching/Listening //

• 2025 Is Your No Buy Year! How I BOUGHT NOTHING For One Year from Taryn Maria
• Allow The Book To Change You – Read To Discover Not Validate from Rob Pirie – The Cause

Loving //

• this card game for aging Millennials // My husband and I bought this on a whim while we were out Christmas shopping.  We’re already considered “Geriatric Millennials” so definitely the target audience.  We laughed so hard.
• this quote from Richard Winn Livingstone (I need to read his book, A Defense of Classical Education!):

A man who knows the origins of the world in which he lives, looks at it with more understanding, walks in it with securer and more certain steps; he is less intimidated by words, for he knows their history, less inclined to either excessive respect or contempt for existing institutions, for he sees how they came to be there.