Ordinary Time

It seems it is time to once again disabuse my readers as to my perceived wonderfulness.  Because it's just not true and I don't like to feel a fraud.  Also, I would hate to feel I was the cause of someone feeling badly about themselves because they were coming up short in the comparison game.  In the blog world, the reader will nearly always come up short because the truth is, the contest is rigged.  You only see what I choose to show you.  Everyone has a desire to put themselves in the best light possible and I am no different.  When I post a photo, I don't choose the one that shows the pile of dirty dishes in the sink, or the counter that still contains remnants from Christmas, or the floor that has every single toy we own strewn across it.  Since blogs don't come with soundtracks, you can't hear the children bickering, or the child who is whining because he doesn't want to pick-up, or the mother shouting because once again she has lost all patienc...

I know I write about cooking a lot.  While I really would rather be upstairs sewing (wait 'til you see what I'm currently working on), I have a houseful of people who need to be fed.  Since it's something that has to be done, I might as well make it interesting... and yummy. One of my Christmas presents last month was the book, The Lost Art of Real Cooking by Ken Albala and Rosanna Nafziger.  I love this book.  I mean, how can you not love a cookbook with this paragraph in the introduction? "The premise of this book is a simple one.  For the past half century, Americans have been convinced that cooking is drudgery, an odious task to be avoided at any cost, so that time might be freed up to do other more Important things.  We were enticed with a constant stream of ingenious gadgets meant to make our lives easier, as well as products cheerfully advertised as being Quick, Convenient, and Simple to prepare.  For the sake of saving labor, these new prod...

I can't keep up this level of intensity, so I'm doing a fun and frivolous post.  And what's more fun and frivolous than cookies?  These are the cookies we've been eating here for the past couple of days.  A. and TM decided they really needed to bake cookies on Tuesday and these are the ones they made.  I don't know what their official name is, but we call them Doreen Cabianca's Sugar Cookies around here.  She was the mother of one of my best friends in grade school.  I believe the story goes that I had them at my friend's house and raved so much about them that my mother asked for the recipe.  Oh, and one important note if you're going to make them.  DO NOT think that you can substitute all butter instead of the butter and shortening combination.  Because if you do, you will not have cookies. Instead, you will end up with a baking sheet of flour-y melted butter that you have to throw out.  Trust me, I know. Doreen Cabianca's Sugar...

That pretty much sums up how we've been feeling the past 24 hours.  We have heard from person after person who has been praying for our new little girl and from many other people who have spent time at Shepherd's Field and met and loved her as well.  It is no small thing to discover you are the answer to so many people's prayers, especially when that was never your purpose... we merely fell in love with a little girl. The shock of it all is beginning to wear off and the stacks of paperwork on my desk (as well as my regular day-to-day responsibilities) are beginning to make themselves known.  I don't enjoy being knee-deep in paperwork, but I keep reminding myself that it is all worth it.  There are so many things we have yet to work out and decide... the whole money piece, travel logistics, bedroom logistics, medical care, etc.  It is a huge list and I become overwhelmed by it at times.  Once again, through the process of adopting, I'm sure I will find my...

My life seems to mirror the hymn I teach my choir each year.  The year we waited and waited to bring K. home it was On Christ the Solid Rock I Stand .  The year I was pregnant with the twins?   Who knows, that year is a great big blank.  Last year, when I had two new darling babies it was Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing.   This year we are doing the hymn in the post title and it couldn't be more true than today. You see there is a little girl living in China whose picture I came across last month.  I wasn't really looking at lists of waiting children, especially waiting children in China.  We don't qualify because of family size and income.  But I couldn't get this little girl, who wanted  "mommy and daddy to love her and sing to her and cook her good food", out of my head.  No matter what I did, she wouldn't leave.  So J. and I decided to take the next step and when that next step was successful, we took the next one....

I had a couple people express interest in our history co-op so I'm afraid the rest of you are stuck with it as well.  As I have said, we have met with our history co-op for 12 years, meeting once a week for an hour and a half.  We have a six year cycle that moves us through the eras in history in chronological order, spending one year on each one:  Ancient Egypt; Ancient Greece; Ancient Rome; the Middle Ages; the Renaissance; and the Enlightenment.  We end the Enlightenment just after the American and French revolutions and then we head back to Egypt.  As families we each cover US history and the history of the 19th and 20th centuries on our own. The Nuts and Bolts We have always limited the group to five or six families.  This keeps the numbers at a manageable level but has enough parents (mothers in our case) so the teaching is not overwhelming.  When we first began, we had fewer and smaller children so we all met together as a group.  While...

Here is what I get to see all the time.  Isn't it sweet?  Even K. has Knuffle Bunny memorized now.  L. is sitting next to B and G. is on his lap. And A. has been taking advantage of the little bit of hair G. and L. have on their head.  She has discovered if she uses rubber bands made for braces, she can get two little pony tails on G. and L.'s heads.  Here's G.: And what happens not very long after her hair is done: And here is L.: