No.854: Last Week at the Farmhouse // The Power of Silence

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The painting above is a little blurry and the exact details are unclear (is that a woman?  is she in a cemetery?), but I felt the emotions evoked deep in my soul this week.  It’s that “fall on your face in front of Our Lord” exhaustion where you’ve clawed your way to the weekend!  Anyway, it is done, we survived and God’s mercies are new every morning.

I’ve been slowly reading The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise by Cardinal Robert Sarah and this piece of advice seemed timely for me:

The silence of everyday life is an indispensable condition for living with others.  Without the capacity for silence, man is incapable of hearing, loving, and understanding the people around him.  Charity is born of silence.  It proceeds from a silent heart that is able to hear, to listen, and to welcome.  Silence is a condition for otherness and a necessity if one is to understand himself.  Without silence, there is neither rest nor serenity nor interior life.  Silence is friendship and love, interior harmony and peace.  Silence and peace have one and the same heartbeat. (p.32-33)

Here’s to finding little pockets of silence in the midst of this loud and messy life.

Hoping to document the abundance around me all year long!

Around here, abundance looks like…

+ working together (multiple times) to get a silly pig back into her paddock.  I swear…with every turn of the season, pigs always decide to get a wild hair and run amok around the property!

+ learning a tip for keeping sweaters looking great.  I wish I had saved the Youtube video, but the woman basically shared how any sweater made with acrylic or nylon or polyester will quickly look worn out.  She said your best bet would be to look for 100% cotton or wool because they hold their shape longer and are less likely to pill or show wash wear.  Two of the three sweaters that I just purchased on ThredUp were 100% cotton, so I’m anxious to see if this tip holds true this winter.

+ completing more small tasks for the Weather the Storm Challenge and feeling more motivated than ever.  When we were getting gas one afternoon, we overheard the gas station owner warn that we could see another $1-$1.50/gal increase by the end of the year.  This would be pretty devastating financially for us (as we live in the country and my husband has quite a work commute) so I’m already thinking of ways to get ahead now in case the owner’s prediction comes true.  This week, I:

• used the weekly grocery store ad to buy peaches, blueberries and russet potatoes on sale
• purchased five canned goods to put back for winter (diced tomatoes and soup)
• sold eggs to friends
• counted up and wrapped change to deposit at the bank
• fixed a small crack in my dustpan with duct tape
• listed a few items on ebay/Poshmark/Pango
• cooked two whole birds for dinner and then used the carcasses to make broth
• froze that broth into Souper Cubes (creating a stockpile for winter soups and stews!)
• added food scraps and toilet paper rolls to the compost pile
• turned off the A/C and opened the windows

+ getting paint on the back hallway walls.  After a ridiculous amount of research, I decided to go with Benjamin Moore’s Simply White for the trim and Ballet White for the walls.  I had them color matched at Home Depot and spent most of Saturday getting to work.  The walls themselves aren’t perfect and I already know I need to re-sand a few places and repaint, but…progress!

+ selling seven unneeded items for the Car Loan Payoff Plan: seven books.  After shipping and fees, I made $15.84.  A slow week.

Reading //

• How to begin a letter-writing habit from Shannon Hood at Of Permanent Things // “We are drowning in electronic communication–much of it is meaningless, and very little of it is of lasting value. None of it is tangible. I write letters because they embody all of the best aspects of communication. Letters are meaningful, intimate, private, tangible, and worth holding on to.”
• It Pays To Be Cheap from Addison Del Mastro at The Deleted Scenes // Food for thought and the comments are great too.
• The Prophets of Technocracy from Dr. Ben Reinhard at Hearth and Field // “I suspect that the difficulties encountered by educators can be replicated, with small modifications, in every profession and every state of life: rejecting, as far as we are able, the empty glamours of the technocratic age, asks more of us than we might suppose. It does not mean returning simply to the status quo ante of 2019, or 2010, or 1993, but a radical re-examination of what it means to be fully human. In pursuit of this, every moment, every action, every thought clawed back from the reign of the Machines is something to celebrate; every moment yielded to them should be an occasion of regret, if not outright repentance.”

New Additions to The List // 

• The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales by Oliver Sacks

Watching/Listening //

• Amazon Empire: The Rise and Reign of Jeff Bezos from Frontline PBS // An eerie documentary to watch as I read The Every by Dave Eggers.
• Lectures 1-3 of George Orwell: A Sage for All Seasons on The Great Courses // Did you know George Orwell is actually a pseudonym?

Loving //

• D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths // I’m reading this with my little boys and we are all really enjoying the crazy stories.
• this english muffin bread recipe // Makes two loaves and holds up to sandwich making.  I always omit the sugar and you can’t taste a difference.

P.S. Something seems to be wrong with my posts being delivered to email inboxes.  I’m looking into the situation and may have to find a new program.  So sorry for the inconvenience.