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With Thanksgiving right around the corner, it seemed appropriate to focus on gratitude this week. I’ve been feeling pretty worn down and this practice definitely helped bring me back to center and fortified my resolve to keep going. Anyway, I made a big list of things I was thankful for throughout the week and here are just a few:
The incredibly kind comments and encouraging words on my previous post. Getting more sleep than I have in months. How much my children enjoying cooking and baking. Little buds appearing on my Christmas cactus (maybe it’s a Thanksgiving cactus now?). Early morning fires in the fireplace. When my husband surprises me by starting the coffeemaker before he leaves in the morning. Hanging out and shooting the breeze with my kids. A “boring” week without any big catastrophes!
Hoping to document the abundance around me all year long!
Around here, abundance looks like…
+ celebrating my first high school graduate! He really wanted to finish his senior year six months early, so I gave him the year’s worth of assignments and he got to work. I’m so proud of his diligence and perseverance. Since this is my first graduate, I had to figure out how to make it “official” and thankfully, there are many great options online. I created an official-looking transcript through Fast Transcripts and ordered his diploma through Homeschool Diploma.
+ revamping some used gift tags. My parents used beautiful tags for our gifts last year and I just couldn’t throw them away. I covered the backs with some book paper (left over from last year’s junk journal – I’m a hoarder) and then used a Sharpie to write each family member’s name. If they make it through the hullabaloo of Christmas morning, I’ll be able to use them again and again.
+ gaining some momentum with the Weather the Storm Challenge after a few lackluster weeks! Money seems to be falling through our fingers with home/car repairs (and I’ve been doing quite a bit of Christmas shopping too!) so any way I can save a dollar or two feels like a huge win. This week, I:
- used the weekly grocery store ad to buy chocolate chips, applesauce, and coffee on sale
- used a $20 coupon that we earned from using our grocery store rewards card
- sold eggs to friends
- organized and inventoried the deep freezers
- used tissue paper that I saved from a recent ThredUp order to package a sale
- made chicken broth
- finished the last project in the kids’ abandoned Paint by Sticker book (so calming! I loved it)
- designated two ratty sweaters as “pajama sweaters” to give them one more season of use
- decided against sending Christmas cards (the Christmas budget is a bit slim this year)
- made bread
- found a new with tags pair of sneakers for my son for half of the going price on ebay
- helped my husband with my boys’ haircuts
- made it to November 22nd before turning on the heat! (that little heat wave earlier in the month sure helped)
+ selling six unneeded items for the Car Loan Payoff Plan: two books, a single cloth napkin (I called it a “replacement”), a sweater, a pair of sneakers and a video game for my son. After shipping and fees, I made $27.05.
Reading //
- “My Father, I am Yours” from St. Francis de Sales at TAN Direction // “Have you fallen into the snares of trials? Regard not your misfortune; look only to God; He will have care of you. Cast thy solicitude on Him, and He will provide for thee. Why trouble yourself by sighing or pining about the accidents of this world, since you know not what you ought to wish for, and God will always wish what is best for you? Await, then, in repose of spirit, the effects of the divine good pleasure, and let it suffice for you, since it is always good; so Our Lord ordered St. Catherine of Siena, saying: ‘Think of Me, and I will think of thee.’” I needed this reminder.
- If Your World Is Not Enchanted, You’re Not Paying Attention from L.M. Sacasas at The Convivial Society // “Enchantment is just the measure of the quality of our attention.”
- On Conquering White Whales: Stemming the Tide of Cultural Ignorance from Fleur Forsyth-Smith at Intellectual Takeout // “This battle for the hearts and minds of our students may begin in elementary schools, but it must first originate with us: the parents and the teachers. By immersing ourselves in the best that has ever been thought and said and written, we are able to stand on the shoulders of giants, for they have given us the platform from which we can propel ourselves out of ignorance into the lofty pursuit of truth.”
- How Risky Play Fights Childhood Anxiety from Lenore Skenazy at The Coddling of the American Mind Movie // “What if the ways in which we are parenting are making life harder on our kids and harder on us? What if by doing less, parents would foster better outcomes for children and parents alike?”
- Embracing Candlelight in Darker Days from Patricia Patnode at Theology of Home
New Additions to The List //
- Hunting the Unicorn: A Critical Biography of Ruth Pitter by Don King
- Collected Poems by Ruth Pitter
- Aquinas’s Shorter Summa: Saint Thomas’s Own Concise Version of His Summa Theologica
- The Quiet Season: Remembering Country Winters by Jerry Apps
Loving //
- this thought-provoking part in The Letters Home post from Grandma Donna // “There is an addiction today and it is an addiction to instant. Everything ‘now’ is causing us to waste our life, and this is not why we are here on this earth.”
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