Monday, April 27, 2020

Poem of the Week: Pied Beauty

Pied Beauty

Glory be to God for dappled things –
   For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
      For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
   Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;
      And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
   Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
      With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
                                Praise him.

Thursday, April 23, 2020

Happy 18th Birthday Leena!


 Leena Beana is an adult!

And I'm really behind on my blogging because her birthday was last month!














18 Awesome Things About Leena:

1. She's always willing to help out.
2. She's great at audio and video editing!
3. She tells horribly hilarious jokes and puns.
3. She is a gerbil whisperer.
4. She runs two hilarious Twitter accounts!
5. She plays piano in the basement or the reading nook, and the whole house sounds great!
5. She really cares about other people.
6. She has a beautiful singing voice.
7. She's on the honor roll for her college classes.
7. She likes to have adventures.
8. She has over a thousand subscribers on her You Tube channel!
9. She's a sweet and loving sister.
9. She draws amazingly well.
10.  She can have fun with people much older than she is.
12. She can have fun with people much younger than she is.
12. She has dozens of music compositions on her Sound Cloud Channel!
13. She and I are in charge of the flowers for our parish!
13. She makes great baked beans.
14. She writes scripts, short stories, and novellas.
15. She's always up for crazy ideas.
15. She knows a LOT about G2 Bionicle.
16. She's a wonderful voice actress.
17. She gets paid to write music, do art, and voice act!
17. She is ridiculously musically talented.
18. She's a sweet, thoughtful and loving person.

Tuesday, April 21, 2020

Catching up Easter

 For our Easter dessert we made these fabulous chocolate eggs filled with cheesecake mouse and a dollop of apricot jam.

We made the "shells" by dipping very underinflated balloons in melted chocolate, then hardening them in the freezer.

They were delicious!



And everyone cooperated with my attempts to get a family portrait in their Easter finery... as much as they usually do anyway.

But honestly, this is what we're actually like, so it's hard to complain.

And we did more pysanky eggs, and had loads (and loads) of sweets, and a fabulous egg hunt, and a happy Easter!



Monday, April 20, 2020

Catching up Holy Week

I took a vacation for Easter week!  I mean, I was still here, along with the other 9 people in the house, but after all the work and planning for Holy Week and Easter, I just needed a break.

In fact, I did most of the things I usually do except homeschool, but I also spent some time just relaxing, and it felt marvelous!

So, catching up, for Palm Sunday and Easter, we decided to decorate the church the way we usually do (but with fewer flowers since our flower shop was closed).

Holy Saturday morning


It turned out beautifully, and I was really glad we did it.  It was still Easter, after all, even if there was no one to see it except God and our priests.

Well, it turned out, I should have been checking the parish website, because they were actually taping the Masses and putting them on You Tube!

Then I was really glad we had gone ahead and decorated!!

The Triduum at our house was really lovely.  We streamed the services, of course.

The Zoomlians did the living stations for us.


















And we each did a variety of meaningful things on Good Friday.

















As well as some beautiful music that I can't figure out how to upload.

And then it was Easter, but I think I need to put that on another post!

Thursday, April 2, 2020

April Fools

 This year I started out small with Crazy Pancakes for breakfast.  These were regular pancakes, but made with Dr. Pepper instead of water. 

They were really good, but a bit delicate since the extra fizz from the soda made them very light.

Lunch was probably the best, although I actually had two people that didn't like it.

These grilled cheese sandwiches are actually grilled...

But the "bread" is vanilla cake and the "cheese" is orange creamsicle frosting.

The people that liked them really REALLY liked them.

The two people who didn't eat at the exact same time as the rest of us, however, bit in thinking they were real cheese, and didn't like them.
 I forgot to take a picture of dinner, but it was spaghetti pie.


And we had ice cubes for dessert.

You can probably guess that they were gelatin!


Lent Video Retreat: The Missions of the Trinity


Wednesday, April 1, 2020

Mostly Wordless Wednesday: Lent


Someone was commenting that in 2018, Ash Wednesday was on Valentine's Day and Easter Sunday fell on April Fool's Day, and we were all sure that would be the weirdest Lent in our lifetimes...

This has been SO strange, and yet so full of grace.

I can see that the Good Shepherd will always tend us and supply every need, even in the face of the impossible.

Blessed be God forever!

























Lent Video Retreat: The Persons of the Trinity