Happy Lent!

This year, even though it's early, I'm ready for Lent.

Not ready like, "I have my ducks in a row," unfortunately, more ready like, "I need some serious spiritual growth!"

 This year it's the Year of Mercy, so, we are focusing on the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy.

I love it when we have a theme!

We had been working on the virtues, so we made matching posters for the works of Mercy.

As with the virtues, the Works of Mercy are drawn in pencil  and are colored in when we discuss (and hopefully practice) them.

Extra bonus: we are talking about which virtues help us with which acts!

 Choclo and Oob helped create a little altar in a corner of the dining room.

We have a cross, a candle, the sacrifice bean jar (you put in a bean each time you do something special for God), and a fountain (Jesus is the Living Water).

We also have a basket of stones with different titles of Jesus carved on them, and we are planning on switching the one on top of the fountain every so often.  The one there now says, "The Good Shepherd."

 Also on the altar (but not in the picture!) is a Bible and a bowl of paper grapes and leaves for our "Vine and Branches."

Also not in this picture, each branch has a name on it, and the vine is labelled Jesus. 

Unlike the sacrifice beans, the point here is to watch for others bearing fruit during this season.  When you see someone doing something kind, for example, you tape a cluster of grapes or a leaf to their branch.

And many thanks to Zorg and Leena for this years vine and branches!

In case you are interested in "Walking With Jesus" with us, here is the printable version I gave my Religious Ed kids to color.

You can use it as a template, or just print and color it yourself!

The idea is to color in a footprint each day, starting at the lower left cross. 

Some years we also drew flowers around the footprints to represent the acts of love we had done that day.

Please note, the cross itself is the symbol for Ash Wednesday (the first footprint is Thursday), and each Sunday is a picture relating to that Gospel (no footprints on Sundays).

Lastly, because it is now a Tradition in my house:
 

Happy Mardi Gras!

 We have had a hectic couple of days, so we spent the day doing some Mardi Gras stuff, and some Getting-Ready-for-Lent stuff.

I have to admit that before meeting our close friend from New Orleans, we didn't really celebrate Mardi Gras much.

We started making King Cake for him, but I had never tasted one before.  I followed internet recipes carefully, but it always seemed like just a lightly sweet bread (with frosting and sprinkles).

Unfortunately, it was after Fr. Mark returned to New Orleans that I tasted my first actual King Cake.  I immediately knew what I was doing wrong!

I had been treating it like a bread, but it's really more like a cinnamon roll!

I swapped the bread flour for pastry flour, added filling, more eggs, and kept the dough much wetter.


Bingo!

Tender and delicate like a cross between bread and cake.

Not too sweet, but perfect with the kick of frosting.

Worth making a tradition! 

Now we enjoy it every year, never forgetting to raise a slice to Fr. Mark: Laissez les bon temps rouler!

Poem of the Week: Ode to Bird Watching

Ode To Bird Watching

Now
Let's look for birds!
The tall iron branches
in the forest,
The dense
fertility on the ground.
The world
is wet.
A dewdrop or raindrop
shines,
a diminutive star
among the leaves.
The morning time
mother earth
is cool.
The air
is like a river
which shakes
the silence.
It smells of rosemary,
of space
and roots.
Overhead,
a crazy song.
It's a bird.
How
out of its throat
smaller than a finger
can there fall the waters
of its song?
Luminous ease!
Invisible
power
torrent
of music
in the leaves.
Sacred conversations!
Clean and fresh washed
is this
day resounding
like a green dulcimer.
I bury
my shoes
in the mud,
jump over rivulets.
A thorn
bites me and a gust
of air like a crystal
wave
splits up inside my chest.
Where
are the birds?
Maybe it was
that
rustling in the foliage
or that fleeting pellet
of brown velvet
or that displaced
perfume? That
leaf that let loose cinnamon smell
- was that a bird? That dust
from an irritated magnolia
or that fruit
which fell with a thump -
was that a flight?
Oh, invisible little
critters
birds of the devil
with their ringing
with their useless feathers.
I only want
to caress them,
to see them resplendent.
I don't want
to see under glass
the embalmed lightning.
I want to see them living.
I want to touch their gloves
of real hide,
which they never forget in
the branches
and to converse with
them
sitting on my shoulders
although they may leave
me like certain statues
undeservedly whitewashed.
Impossible.
You can't touch them.
You can hear them
like a heavenly
rustle or movement.
They converse
with precision.
They repeat
their observations.
They brag
of how much they do.
They comment
on everything that exists.
They learn
certain sciences
like hydrography.
and by a sure science
they know
where there are harvests
of grain

Ode To Bird Watching

by Pablo Neruda

translated by Jodey Bateman

HT: All Poetry
Image: a pair of purple finches, a female cardinal and a house wren at my feeders!

Ready for Lent?

I suddenly realized how close we are to (and how unprepared I am for) Lent.

Me: Gah!! It's only 5 days until Lent!

The Emperor: Quick!  Let's eat all the chocolate!

Return of the Fun Jar

 One unanticipated side effect of the oldest two Zoomlians being gone more, is extra time to do special things with the younger Zoomlians!

I made each pair a "Fun Jar" with ideas of special fun things we can do together. 


These ideas range from things that most people would recognize as educational to things that some people might not. I came up with the initial 11 ideas, hopefully the kids will add more ideas.

Choclo picked first: "clay sculpting."  He and Oob decided the best sculpting experience would be with edible clay, so we made some (cream cheese, powdered sugar, coloring and flavoring).

Oob made this tank and some grapes (left), and Choclo made this caterpillar and shark (right).

Actually, they made lots of things, but they had fun eating and giving away their creations- a consumable project! 


Zorg randomly picked "candles or wax dipping." He and Leena decided to dip things in wax. 

This was interesting because I  hadn't thought of this as being  particularly "educational." It just goes to show that things are interesting because you are learning something.  I often see the reverse proven: thing sare boring because you aren't learning from them, regardless of how "educational" they supposedly are.

At any rate, they came up with a fascinating assortment of things to dip in wax: leaves, apples, CDs, paper things, and a partially inflated balloon.

The balloon was fascinating!  Zorg had intentionally not tied off the balloon so that he could deflate it slowly after the wax froze.


 They peeled some off and wanted to look at it under the Cyclops (a microscope that connects to the TV).

Did you say microscope?! Sure!!

The wax was encrusted with tiny bubbles!









 Then they dipped their fingers into the partially cooled wax and looked at those impressions and then compared them to the actual skin.

And they spent the rest of the morning looking at skin, hair, scars, and an assortment of fibers.


Amazing!  I definitely count the Fun Jars as  a win, particularly because each project tended to  spill over into fun for all 4!

Groundhog Day

This is not an actual picture of the soup I made on Groundhog Day, but it's close.

It was supposed to be alphabet soup with chicken... but then I realized I was out of chicken... but then I realized I had an odd number of leftover meatballs (not enough for a meal, too many to toss). 

So I dumped the meatballs into the soup and called it a day. But it looked odd.

Then I remembered that particular day was Groundhog Day!  It immediately occurred to me to tell the kids the odd meat in their soup was groundhog! I restrained myself.

And then, after they had eaten the soup,  it hit me!  The meatballs had pork!  They really were ground hog!

And now my kids are telling me I ruined their lives.

Wordless Wednesday: At the Aquarium

A Really Great "After"

 My problem is that I forget to take the "before" picture.

My parish, which had been redesigned in the 80s to give it a plain austere look, has been re-redesigned to make it a simple but beautiful place to worship. 

I am so happy!!

We switched parishes last summer because we felt the Lord was calling us to Holy Redeemer. 

We had been attending here for daily Mass for years, but had never been members, mostly because it was a very hard place to take kids - there was nothing to look at! 

It had a large gray striped tapestry covering the back wall, a very small crucifix,  seven hanging candles, and a plain wooden box tabernacle.

 Imagine our surprise and delight when they announced, a month after we signed up, that they were going to redesign the sanctuary!

And now it's done, and it really is lovely! 

They divided the sanctuary with the wall with three arches (now there is a small sacristy in the back) and they brought back the parish's original tabernacle with the Annunciation on it. The crucifix and statues of the Holy Family are new.

I particularly like their statue of Our Lady with Baby Jesus - love those baby toes!

I know it's better for the kids, but I also find it so much easier to pray when I have a concrete visual reminder of heavenly things.

Dante in the Year of Mercy

I was so impressed by this that I really wanted to share it.

 I had missed the fact that the Holy Father was recommending Dante in the Year of Mercy, but I always think of The Divine Comedy as we approach Lent.  I guess because I first read it during Lent, but also because it had such a profound effect on my understanding of the nature of sin and repentance.

It Don't Mean a Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing

Mxyl, Klenda and Leena went off swing dancing this weekend!

  Zorg was off at the Polar Plunge, or he would have gone, too.


The dance was a fundraiser for a crisis pregnancy center, and the Polar Plunge is a fundraiser for Special Olympics.

A very nice time was had by all!




Here's a version with Ella Fitzgerald!