No.876: Last Week at the Farmhouse // Deeds Are More Powerful Than Words

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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.