Important Kitchen Discovery

There is a reason why you never see a recipe for chocolate rice pudding. Tastes great. Looks like, well, this.

Believe me, better focus would not have helped.

Now for the appalling truth: I suffered a nigh irresistible temptation to freeze it and pass it off as a ground beef and rice lunch. Fortunately the temptation was only nigh irresistible.

What I'd really like to do is serve it to my mom (possibly the only person on the planet who would think it was really really funny when it happened to them).

Since I'm sure that you too want to serve this to your mom (Mother's Day is coming), the original recipe is here. I added cocoa powder and a pinch of nutmeg and instant coffee.

The Mission and the Mistake

The Elizabeth Foss post discussion has mutated. I talked with Angel and The Emperor about it and we decided our fascination wasn't about our house (or your house) being clean or not. It's really about our understanding of what God is telling us and our specific missions as families and individuals. [Edit: the rest of this post is not actually about Elizabeth Foss! Her post just provided the jumping off point for the discussion. See the comments for more information.]

I think that when God gives us a clear understanding of what He wants us to do, we have a strong inclination to think it is what He wants everyone to do. God often tells us what He wants us to specifically do. God very rarely tells us what He wants everyone else to specifically do.

I'm not talking about general things like "Love each other" or "Thou shalt not kill." He's covered those things already in a nifty little book! Please don't interpret this as a diatribe against all external standards!

I'm talking about, as an example, knowing that God is a God of order, discovering how He wants you to reflect that order in your life (all good so far!), and then applying your discovery of God's plan for you to those around you. It's a bit like this logic: The Church is infallible. I am part of the Church. Therefore, I am infallible. :) That's great (except it's a terrible mistake).

Honestly, I think this error is the basis of the Mommy Wars. God has told me in no uncertain terms to stay home/go to work/home school/public school/whatever, therefore for anyone to do otherwise is wrong. But the gift (of knowing your mission) was to implement it in your own life and possibly to help others with a similar call.

I say possibly because, even if someone has a very similar call to yours, if you impose your call over theirs you are robbing them both of the joy of discovering that call and their natural unique growth in response to that call. But I think we fall into the trap of wanting the reinforcement of everyone doing it our way.

Angel also raised the point that, to avoid the mistake, the focus needs to be on God. Let's say that I have the insight that God is infinitely loving, nurturing, and creative and that my home school needs to reflect that. It is far better for me to write a post examining these attributes in God and then use examples of how I try to integrate that knowledge into my home school than for me to tell you that mine is The Godly Way to Home school. This gives you the gift of the insight and some practical ideas but let's you determine what (if anything) God would like you to do about it.

Comment Format Change

I've been having trouble with spam in my comments. I do hope nobody got tricked into clicking on the links they were posting. I didn't try it myself, but I presume they were nasty. At any rate, I am switching to the word verification system. Sorry for the inconvenience!

What to Do on a Spring Afternoon?

Well, you could make 53 paper airplanes before the Prime Minister discovers what you are doing with the new case of copy paper.

If you time it right, you can even get the mailman to show you a new way of folding a plane and how to attach a large rubber band to the nose of your plane in order to sling it much further and faster.

I Saw the Pope!

Zorg jumped up and down, punched the air and yelled, "I saw the Pope! And he blessed me!"

And he did, too!

The Emperor and I took Mxyl, Klenda, and Zorg, and we, along with a few (thousand) of our closest friends, got to see the Holy Father.

We stood on the bottom steps of the Basilica near the Dominican friars (we're Dominicans too!). The friars had a big sign "The Dominicans love the Holy Father" and , when the pope saw it, he smiled, rolled down his window, and blessed us!

You've probably seen the details of his visit on TV, but actually being in his presence, even briefly, was extraordinary. There is such a sense of his gentleness and his delight in the people of God. What a gift!

A huge thank you to my dear friend, Betsy, for the ticket!

2 Years Ago

Oob Discovers the Magic Tissue Box!

You pull one out
and it's still there.
You pull that one out
and it's still there...
(Repeat 248 times)

All Sorts of Things

have been happening here! We got an unexpected visit from our friend, Fr. Joe. We met him when he was here in the states (for a few years) preparing to set up a university in Nigeria, but we haven't seen him since he baptized Choclo (nearly three years ago).

When we first met, Leena was about 7 months old and she positively refused to smile at him. He took this as a challenge! Within 2 months, she cried if we tried to take her away from her best friend, Fr Joe. Still, I was surprised that Choclo and Oob both went immediately crazy for Fr Joe. We had a lovely evening and we hope he visits again soon!

We had the scouts Blue and Gold dinner and the boys won an award for their Olympic stadium cake. I thought I had a picture of it, but I can't find it!

We've been outside gardening and organizing and playing and hiking and digging and just messing around.

We had another lovely visit to the Arboretum, this time to the Asian gardens where we noticed how lovely all the little leaves are when they first emerge. Quite as pretty as flowers and we had fun sketching them.

I've been doing quite a bit of spring cleaning and organizing, kicked off, no doubt, by Elizabeth Foss' post. I've thought a lot about it, and I just disagree with her statement that large families are either very organized or very disorganized. This after walking around for a week thinking, "I plan out my meals a week in advance, I know where all the homeschool materials are: we're very organized." Followed 10 minutes later by, "This closet is messy, there are toys under the bunk beds: we're very disorganized." I ended up siding with Jane Bennet from Pride and Prejudice (speaking to her sister, Elizabeth). "Lizzy, you do not make allowances for differences in situation and temper." I think we're reasonably organized with room for improvement as time and circumstances allow, and I think that's a fine place to be. I also think that the Emperor and I are not temperamentally suited to having every closet hung with herbal scented ironing.

There Are Some Real Wierdos Out There

We were at the grocery store. In fact, it was the same store where I had the perfect shopping trip some months ago.

I was heeding Lissa's advice about enjoying a shopping trip rather than seeing it as a task to endure, and we were having a great time. We practiced estimating the weight of the produce. We wondered about how lobsters keep track of 16 appendages (not counting their tails!) We bought seaweed (and decided to make sushi).

At some point, the kids who were walking (I was backpacking Oob and Choclo was in the cart) organized themselves in size order and followed me in a line while quietly quacking. Of course, 4 kids quietly quacking totals to some not terribly quiet quacking, but I didn't think they were being too loud. Every so often I would stop suddenly, turn on the suddenly silent children and ask, "Do you hear ducks?"

It was a fairly busy time at the store, so we passed a lot of people. Not a single person reacted. Not a smile, not a frown. Bizarre! And sad, really: not a single person quacked up.

April Fools!

Yes! Zoomlians celebrate April Fools day! It's more of a jokes- that- make- everyone- laugh type day than the practical joke kind of thing. For example: the menu stated that we would be having bagels for breakfast. How ordinary. Although, when we went shark tooth hunting 2 weeks ago on the Chesapeake, we did have to bring cream cheese (because of all the bay gulls). But not on April Fools day! Instead, surprise! We had banana splits. And when they peeled open the bananas, they were "magically" pre-sliced!

The picture, incidentally, shows the after breakfast cleanup when all the kids put rubber gloves on their feet and pretended they were ducks (Why not gulls? We had a theme going here!).

Continuing the bird theme, do not miss the rare, newly discovered (on April 1st) colony of flying penguins.