Sharing this playlist of vintage winter music again! One of my favorites for this time of year…
No.594: Advent at the Farmhouse // Potato Stamped Wrapping Paper
Oh man, I couldn’t have come up with a more frugal project if I tried, ha! The idea came to me after we received a package in the mail with gobs and gobs of kraft paper packaging. The paper wasn’t crumbled tightly and I thought I could reuse it for gifts. Fast forward a few hours, when I discovered that a handful of potatoes had the dreaded green sheen, and the potato stamped wrapping paper project was born!
My daughter and I followed this tutorial to make the stamps and then used washable paint (affiliate link) we already had in the school room. Zero dollars spent and it turned out adorable! My favorite frugal accomplishment of the month so far.
No.593: Advent at the Farmhouse // Homemaking Notes for the Second Week of Advent
This post contains affiliate links.
The weather outside is //
As I look outside my window // I can see the beginnings of a new project: stacking rocks around my in-ground beds. I get outside daily with the animals, but I wanted another reason to bundle up and breathe some fresh air this winter. My pigs have been tilling up so many big rocks in their paddocks and they’ll be perfect for a homemade weed/grass barrier. My goal is to get outside and collect at least one armful every day. I’m sure I’ll get some kids to help me most days too!
As I look around the house // it’s beginning to look a little like Advent around here! We decorate very slowly in order to fully embrace this season. You can feel the anticipation in the air.
Plugging away // at school. We usually take the month of December to slow down and enjoy “Advent School”, but not this year. Our schooling has been done in fits and spurts this fall as we’ve worked hard on homestead projects before cold weather hit. I wouldn’t say we’re necessarily behind, but we’re definitely not in a position to coast along for three weeks, ha! The kids are working hard on that math and science and history.
On this week’s to-do list //
– celebrate the feast of Saint Nicholas (today!)
– celebrate the Immaculate Conception with a special dinner before evening Mass
– wrap some gifts
– organize the winter gear in the mudroom
– organize my “Selling” bin and pack neatly for listing items in the new year
Giving myself permission // to say: “not this year.” My life is so full and I just can’t do it all. I’ve been agonizing about things that are so small in the grand scheme of life, but still feel so important. My expectations for myself are often so high and unrealistic! Even so, I’m letting myself off the hook on Christmas cards and fun, unique gifts for extended family this year. I’ll get back to those things in 2022.
Currently reading //
I’m on the home stretch for reaching my 100 books in a year goal! Just a few weeks to go…
- Fiction: The Possible World by Liese O’Halloran Schwarz
- Nonfiction: Communism and Conscience of the West by Fulton J. Sheen
- Religious: Come Lord Jesus: Meditations on the Art of Waiting by Mother Mary Francis, PCC
On the menu this week //
Monday: Sicilian chicken soup and fresh bread
Tuesday: one pot kielbasa pasta
Wednesday: Feast of the Immaculate Conception! special meal TBD
Thursday: Refrigerator Cleanout Night
Friday: bean and cheese burritos
No.592: Advent at the Farmhouse // A Meditation on Wonder
Come, Lord Jesus: Meditations on the Art of Waiting by Mother Mary Francis, PCC is one of my favorite Advent devotionals. When we first moved to the farmhouse, I was heartbroken to find that I had misplaced the book! Everywhere I looked online, the prices seemed astronomical and I thought I’d never find another copy. But God is so gracious. Randomly, I found myself on a monastery’s gift shop website and lo and behold, they sold it and at a reasonable price! It’s really the little things, isn’t it? (P.S. I just checked and it looks like they’re all sold out at Clear Creek. Sad. It is available on Amazon for Kindle, though!)
Anyway, I’m reading it again this year and wanted to share two little parts about wonder for today’s post:
Let these precious hours of Advent be given to wonder. When we feel depressed by our faults, let us wonder that God can forgive us so much; let us be filled with wonder and praise that God goes on believing in us, hoping in us, and trusting that we will somehow yet realize his dream of us. I love to watch the flower bulbs in the community room putting their little shoots through what looks like a dark tangle of mulch. If these were sentient bulbs, I think they might say, “This is too hard. How can I push through such a tangle of things?” Yet out of this rather depressing-looking tangle come up these tiny, pure white heads. We can learn so much from the bulbs. We are like sentient bulbs and we cannot say, “I cannot push through; it’s too hard.” We who have grace, who have power given us by God, we can push through. And so I think it is a very solid Advent practice to pray, “God, grant me the grace to push through. Grant me the grace to realize my own possibilities, to realize your dream of me.” – PAGE 36-37
In these Advent days, let us wonder more than ever before that God should have chosen such a way as he did to save us. Who could have dreamed that the almighty, omnipotent God would enter into humanity in such a way and in such circumstances? According to our human reckoning it was all wrong. The place was wrong; the situation was wrong. There were no human worshipers at first, and the angels themselves quickly disappeared into the night. Be filled with wonder at God’s way of doing things! And then be full of wonder at the way he lived. With all his miraculous powers, with all his infinite love, he was rejected by so many and yet he went on. He was not thanked, but he went on. By some he was not loved, but he went on. We are filled with wonder above all at the pinnacle of redemption, the triumph of his love. Again we would say that this was all wrong, to be reduced to such a condition, tortured and bleeding to death on a cross. But it was the triumph of his love. Let us be filled with wonder at God’s way of doing things and apply this to our lives. – PAGE 38
May your Advent season be filled with wonder, especially at God’s unfailing love for us.