seven quick takes: prayers for the middle east, tips for success in homeschooling and making friends

One

Please remember to pray for the persecuted Christians in the Middle East. The Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter, the order which Joseph and I are closely associated with and love dearly, have called for their apostolates to make today, August 1st, a day of prayer. Happy coincidence leaves Joseph able to visit our beautiful FSSP parish in DFW, so he's able to partake in Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. 

Meanwhile, back on the home front, I fed the kids cake as part of their breakfast, but I didn't eat any, so there's an equal amount of sacrifice and prayer going on here. 

Two

Molly, our oldest (for my new Edel friends), woke up before anyone else in the house today. I found her quietly sitting at the dining room table, fully dressed in a maxi skirt and tucked-in shirt (her mama's sig look), her hair brushed and adorned with bows and hair ties. 

Six is a good age. Parents of younger children, there is a light - a very, very bright one - at the end of the toddler tunnel. 

And it looks like this:

And it is good.

Three

Speaking of the six-year-ex-fetus above, this is beautiful. Pro-abortion advocates simply cannot deny the humanity of a child in the womb. They can deny humanity and personhood to that baby, but they cannot deny that that child is a human. 

Four

One of the Facebook groups I'm in has a thread discussing a book club. 

4.1 - I used to be in a few book clubs and I miss it. Any local takers?

4.2 - I need something that doesn't involve me wanting to curl up and rock back and forth and deny that I ever read the words that have forever been seared into my memory. 

I've been reading Unbroken, can you tell?

The first part of the book is absolutely doable; the story is woven into a fascinating tale and the author makes even the most mundane parts of Louie's life sound incredible. I burned through it. But then he gets to Death Island. And I just can't follow him there. 

I've long since had a problem with reading non-fiction because this stuff really happened to a real life person. I know this is obvious to everyone else in the world, but I just can't seem to remember this fact until I'm living in a perpetual state of anxiety attack; it takes about a day worth of nausea for me to realize I can't dodge the storm cloud hovering over my psyche and the cause is the non-fic sitting before me. Back to my happy lit it is.

Five

Speaking of happy fiction....here's something that borders on fiction, with how infrequently it happened in the last year.

Behold, our school calendar, so craftily put together.

Pintrest domination.

I had ambitious plans, a la Shower of Roses grandeur, to have our calendar background to coordinate with the liturgical year colors, and then I remembered that Jessica Gordon I am not and I just quickly pinned the calendar to a plain old background and patted my crafty little back.

We've done two weeks of school. Two weeks, y'all. I did skip a day because...closets and house blessing....but I made up for it and we finished our first two weeks. Holla at the homeschooling queen. 

Six

I should note that the first two weeks of school are solely focusing on the core subjects (reading, writing, arithmetic, religion) and look like this: 

• Wake up at a decent time
• Eat a decent breakfast
• Let mommy drink a cup of coffee, for the love of all that is holy
• Get dressed and do chores
• Fight over doing chores
• Fight some more over chores
• Finally sit down to study
• No, you can't have a snack
• Get through morning prayers and religion lesson
• (Am I teaching them enough religion? That went really quickly....)
• Start calendar time 
• Grimace that my children still STILL don't know the difference between year and date
• Survive that lesson
• Math lesson that drags on and on and on because the four-year old insists on doing it, too
• Reign in impatience at Saxon 1 because it's teaching the same thing over and over
• Remember that this is foundational math and not beat head against the wall
• Feed the natives lunch
• Clean up from lunch
• Consider a nap and desperately wish for one
• Remember this is real school and get back to it
• Give my children a handwriting worksheet and read them a saint story
• Sing a song and call it music
• Tell my first grader to read to my kindergartner while I hide in a quiet place in the house
• Collapse on couch and convince myself homeschooling is the best option

As you can see, our days aren't hectic and it's probably less than most families do, but we survived two weeks, so shake my hand and pass over the gold medal, because I'm proud. Look for updates on the other fifteen subjects I felt were necessary for our kindergartner and first-grader to learn, as I'm supposed to be starting them next week or so. Emphasis on the so.

Seven

We had our parish priest over (did I mention that seven thousand times?) and he kept asking us if we knew "so and so" and we'd say...."Um, no." After about five of those answers, he said he was determined to get us connected with the Catholic community in the Austin area. He said it's hard to get plugged in, but once we do, we're *in.*

So, connecting us he's doing. I got an email from him the next day, cc'ing half a dozen other families, introducing us to them.

His intentions were good, his intentions were good, his intentions were good.

I already have a reservation on a that hole in which I can hide next Sunday, don't worry.

But props to the parish priest that encourages/forces a congregation to be a family. 

I've long waxed eloquent on our other parish priest (we kind of jump between two parishes...welcome to being a Latin Masser), Fr. Moses, for coming up to a group of us talking after Mass and quietly saying that there is a new family at the parish and we will go introduce ourselves to them, thankyouverymuch (and I think his eyes were giving the subtle hint that this was under pain of severe penance the next time we entered his confessional). I really, really appreciated that from him. And I think the new family did, too. I've been that new family....we are that new family. Vom to being that new family who now has friends. -_-

Check out Jen's post for better quick takes!