Our Easter

He is risen! Alleluia!

I felt real joy today for the first time in a long time. It's like that first breath of warm spring air after being inside most the winter; like the realization in gazing outside that suddenly the grass has turned green and buds have broke through. When you know that God will never abandon you, but you suddenly feel His omnipresent love surrounding you as well.

The boys made clay bunnies and a clay Easter egg basket this week. (Disclaimer: I helped sturdy up parts of the figures so they wouldn't crack while baking in the oven.) 

I made cheesecakes and a seven-layer salad to take to my parents' for dinner after Easter morning Mass.

We gave the boys their Easter baskets as soon as they woke so Eli could get to enjoy the moment as well before heading off to bed. There are a couple sweets in each basket, but mostly useful things. Each has a new book, a flashlight, a pack of new superhero socks, and an umbrella.

After Mass we headed to my parents' place. We enjoyed mimosas with our Easter meal. After dinner we donned mud boots and hunted for eggs. Of course we had to visit the baby goats while we were there. Thanks to Mom and Dad for all the hard work they put into making the day fun for these guys, and for the delicious food!

Oops! Not an egg. Try again! There you go.

Happy Easter!

Greater Love

Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends. John 15:13

At the Cross her station keeping,

Stood the mournful Mother weeping,

Close to Jesus to the last.

Through her heart, His sorrow sharing,

All His bitter anguish bearing,

Now at length the sword has passed.

O how sad and sore distressed,

Was that Mother, highly blessed,

Of the sole-begotten One.

Christ above in torment hangs,

She beneath beholds the pangs,

Of her dying, glorious Son.

Is there one who would not weep,

Whelmed in miseries so deep,

Christ's dear Mother to behold?

Can the human heart refrain

From partaking in her pain,

In that Mother's pain untold?

Bruised, derided, cursed, defiled,

She beheld her tender Child

All with bloody scourges rent:

For the sins of His own nation,

Saw Him hang in desolation,

Till His spirit forth He sent.

O thou Mother! font of love!

Touch my spirit from above,

Make my heart with thine accord:

Make me feel as thou hast felt;

Make my soul to glow and melt

With the love of Christ my Lord.

Holy Mother pierce me through,

In my heart each wound renew

Of my Savior crucified:

Let me share with thee His pain,

Who for all my sins was slain,

Who for me in torments dies.

Let me mingle tears with thee,

Mourning Him who mourned for me,

All the days that I may live:

By the cross with thee to stay,

There with thee to weep and pray,

Is all I ask of thee to give.

Virgin of virgins blest! 

Listen to my fond request:

Let me share thy grief divine;

Let me to my latest breath,

In my body bear the death

Of that dying Son of thine.

Wounded with His every wound,

Steep my soul till it hath swooned,

In His very Blood away;

Be to me, O Virgin, nigh,

Lest in flames I burn and die,

In His awful Judgment Day.

Christ, when Thou shalt call me hence,

By Thy Mother my defense,

By Thy Cross my victory;

While my body here decays,

May my soul Thy goodness praise,

Safe in Paradise with Thee.

Beauty on Ice

Last night mother nature blanketed us in sheets of ice. It sounded like she was hurling thousands of tiny stones at the house all night. Lights were flickering, but thankfully we never lost power.

It started as a drizzle...

Trees across town did not weather the storm so well. There are branches and trees down all over. Thankfully the tree over our driveway is still hanging in there, but the neighbor lost some big branches from his. 

I had an appointment right after lunch, so I headed out early to de-ice the Suburban. With my trusty hair dryer I was able to get one of the doors open, and started the Suburban to try to melt some of the ice sealing the rest of it shut. Danger lurked overhead when emerging from overhangs or while under trees; ice cascaded from roof and tree tops all day. A big chunk of ice fell from a limb as Eli was driving to work and chipped his windshield. 

It could have been so much worse. I'm reminded of the ice storm we had in February 2007, during which we lost power for a whole week. I was seven months pregnant with Aidan then, and we ended up having to camp out in my in-law's basement until linemen were able to get new poles and lines up. 

Despite it's destructiveness, ice can be so very beautiful. Though some of you have probably already seen most of this, the whole purpose of this post was to share some of the gorgeous photos the storm provided a backdrop for. :)

Resurrection Garden

We recently made a Resurrection Garden for our Lenten table center piece. I'm not sure why I put it off so long; it took a lot less time than I imagined, and the boys loved playing with the leftover clay.

We used a medium-sized terra cotta saucer for the base, oven-bake clay for the earth (though most other Resurrection gardens use real dirt and grass seed, we went the easy, permanent route), sheet moss for greenery, sticks from our wood pile for crosses, and rocks from our walk-way.

I started out by forming the tomb and Calvary out of clay. The clay of the door to the tomb was formed around one of the large rocks so that it could be used as the stone that sealed the tomb. I kept the clay about 1/4 inch thick, so it's hollow under the hill of Calvary. The boys pressed rocks into the clay for the path. The crosses were made by snipping sticks into appropriate-sized pieces and hot-gluing them together. They were also pressed into the clay to make holes for them to stand in, and then removed. I popped it as shown into the oven (without preheating) the terra cotta wouldn't crack) at 275° for about 20 minutes.

Once out of the oven and cooled, Aidan painted the clay earth colored. The crosses were hot glued in their places.

Sheet moss was then hot glued around the crosses, path, and over the tomb.

It's like a little stage, reminding us what season we are in, and what drama is about to play out this Holy Week. We are using My Holy Week Missal, a gift from Liam's godmother (thank you!) to teach again the stories of Palm Sunday, Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday, as well as reading the appropriate passages from the Bible.

Eli's Mom so generously let him snip some pussy willows for an arrangement for our centerpiece. (Thank you!) That too is a reminder of the new life that was given to us by Christ's Sacrifice, as well as the new life of springtime.

Birdsong

Happy Spring!

Funky Junk Day

It's strange how bodies react to stress. I've been dealing with some things lately that have really been taking their toll on me. The doctor thinks it's fatigue that's been causing muscle and joint pain, severe headaches, exhaustion. I decided to ween myself off of coffee halfway through Lent, which is a decision I'm seriously questioning the benefits of. I'm really missing my cup of sanity while trying to rework our homeschool curriculum.

So when a friend asked if I'd like to have a girls' day out and hit up Funky Junk-a-Loo, I was definitely on board.

There were so many things to look at, with two levels of vendors set up, and so many people. As it happens, I was shorter than 80% of the people in attendance, so I had problems seeing things unless I could get close to them. A few times I had to employ deep breathing exercises to calm a palpitating heart. I didn't buy anything, though there were a lot of great upcycling and craft ideas everywhere.

We had lunch at Panera Bread and a nice long conversation. It was exactly what I needed, and the best part of my day. I thank God for the good friends I have in my life!

I picked up a couple office and organizational supplies for next school year before heading home (and resisted the urge to pick up a box of cupcakes!!!)

Coming home it looked like the White Witch took over our town! Hard to believe spring will be here in a matter of hours.

I have to thank my husband for agreeing to stay home with the boys, as unthrilled with the idea as I'm sure he was. Nevertheless, he had pork loins grilled, a loaf of bread baked, and toddler sound asleep when I came home.

I may have to leave more often....

The Great Purge: Part I

"Lay not up to yourselves treasures on earth: where the rust, and moth consume, and where thieves break through and steal." Matthew 6:19

Since last summer I've been determined to get rid of the junk cluttering our home. Or not junk, treasures...depending on who you ask. I used to think that all I needed to do was to find the perfect way to organize everything. If everything had it's own spot, voila! Organization would be achieved. Not so. At some point someone will want to get something out, and it's messy all over again. One too many things out at the same time equals chaos.

I started thinking about the Indians who traveled around with so few belongings, just to be closer to their food source. And the pioneers' sole possessions packed into a wagon for their move west; much of which was abandoned trail-side for various reasons. Simplification must be the answer. Our lives are not made better by an excess of things. I also firmly believe children's imaginations grow by leaps and bounds when not suffocated by things.

I weeded so many things out of the house and garage last year that they grew into Thing Mountain by the back door and inspired the garage sale I had last fall, detailed here. Appalling enough, most of it was just stuff I didn't want to store anymore. What if I actually got rid of stuff I liked but didn't need? Or stuff that was used occasionally but not really necessary? What if I dug deeper...until it hurt?

I got a real wake-up call the first spring we lived in this house. Tree roots grew into our sewer line, causing four inches of sewage to back up into the basement. The basement where 30 years of memories were stored in cardboard boxes. Who knew toilet water could wick up a stack of boxes four high? Everything in the bottom boxes was a complete loss. The less soggy contents of the higher boxes were only saved if they could withstand a rigorous disinfecting.

The offending trees were removed, and garage filled with soggy basement items to be sorted through. You can see a "water" line on the white box in the center of the upper photo.

I threw away a lot of memories that month, filling two standard-sized dumpsters with stuff, most of which had been precious enough for me to haul from house to house in over seven different moves. Treasures that included a diploma and my ballerina music/jewelry box that I adored as a little girl; a little pink bassinet flower arrangement from the day I was born, and my first-ever Doc Martens that cost me over half a paycheck back then. I cried, I hurt for far too long over those things. I snapped a few photos to remember things by before tossing them in the dumpster.

And then it hit me. None of those items were worth much, but the memories were priceless. I didn't need to keep the item to retain the memories, and the memories are what I was most afraid of losing. After that point, anything I felt a twinge of hesitation to pitch I simply snapped a photo of: memory secured, item gone. (I'm truly working on my photo hoarding issues, as well...baby steps! Ironically, given my family's genetic history, I'll probably leave this world in the fog of Alzheimer's disease, finally stripped of my memories.)

The whole process was liberating, and I finally felt free from the weight of all that stuff we would never have to shuffle to another house again. Letting go felt so good.

It's scary how quickly I got to the point of things accumulating ridiculous piles again. At the point of stuffocation. Genes may play a role in all this...I'm sure there have been a few hoarders in my family tree. Coming from an era of "waste not, want not", everything could be repurposed. And oh how I love to fix things. However, it's so bad my husband has banned me from buying any more storage totes, guys. If I want to store any little thing more I need to empty out a tote I already have. The horror.

Being so prone to falling down the rabbit hole of nostalgia, I'm really not sure how I'm going to tackle the whole desk drawer, file cabinet file, and two large cardboard boxes labeled "Memories" and "Scrapbook". Any previous attempts to weed things from these areas has resulted in many lost hours of memory-induced stupors. Reducing the amount of clothing we have is also a problem area for me. Possibly, just possibly, this pair of something-or-other might fit the last boy, though it never fit any of the others.... Pure silliness. I'm also paralyzed by gifts that were given to us, even if years ago. It's hard to let go of the guilt; I don't want to seem ungrateful of others' generosity. Someone is going to have to come over and dump toilet water on it all, I fear.

There are so many ways to organize and declutter, especially now when it has become such a "fad" pursuit. Probably most popular is the KonMari Method developed by Japanese organizing consultant Marie Kondo (keep it only if it sparks joy, though I hesitate to implement much from her method because of it's strong Shinto overtones, most notably that things have sacred power), not to mention hundreds of blog posts citing tips, tricks, and secrets to simplify and organize. I love this list of 116 things to throw away... things you wouldn't think are problematic but can really add to your home's clutter.

If I kept everything that "sparked joy" I would not get far. The number of things that I find beautiful, or imagine will be useful someday, is frankly ridiculous. And so I need some other rule to guide me in my pursuit of lessification. After all, attachment to stuff is nothing but materialism. I'm reminded of a grammar lesson from my elementary years: "It is improper to use the word love in reference to a thing. It is only lawful to use when speaking of a person." Oh how many times I've misused love.

"For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart, also." Matthew 6:21

My new checklist for purging things other than clothes; any point that gets a "no" to both questions is gone:

• Is it currently being used? If not, will it for sure be used in the next six months?
• Is it integral to the beautification of our home? Will it be used in the next six months?
• If we have multiples or many similar items, are they all being used? Are these multiple items helping to relieve chaos or clutter?
• If it's broke, can it be easily fixed? Is it too expensive to replace?
• Are you fine with tripping over this item every day?

In the spirit of not overwhelming you with too wordy a post, I'll update with purge-posts as they happen. If they happen! 

Happy Spring Cleaning!