Advent in Two Minutes

Loved this from Busted Halo!
Don't forget their online Advent Calendar!

Wordless Wednesday: Botanical Lighthouses

Packing on the Fun

 I ended up needing more body butter, so I got more ingredients from Bulk Apothecary.

It turns out that they ship things very quickly (a plus).

They also ship things cushioned by those cornstarch derived, water dissolving, packing peanuts (a huge plus!).

Choclo and Oob knew exactly what to do: you dip a peanut just a bit at a time in a bowl of water, then stick it to a dry peanut.

They were mostly interested in making giant robots, strange spiky balls, and letters, but the possibilities are endless!

Advent Poem of the Week

ADVENT
(On A Theme by Dietrich Bonhoeffer)

Pamela Cranston

Look how long
the weary world waited,
locked in its lonely cell,
guilty as a prisoner.

As you can imagine,
it sang and whistled in the dark.
It hoped. It paced and puttered about,
tidying its little piles of inconsequence
.
It wept from the weight of ennui,
draped like shackles on its wrists.
It raged and wailed against the walls
of its own plight.

But there was nothing
the world could do
to find its own freedom.
The door was shut tight.

It could only be opened
from the outside.

Who could believe the latch
would be turned by a pink flower —
the tiny hand
of a newborn baby?

© by Pamela Cranston, 2011

HT: Journey With Jesus

Advent Plans

It's true: we've been sick, we couldn't travel, we couldn't see family.  But it's an ill wind that blows no good: we have been able to excavate our Advent stuff and get ready in a fairly stress free way!

So, here's our plan.  Once again we have six kids, and therefore, once again, we have six things to do each day of Advent. We rotate through who does what.

Kid 1: The Advent House.  Behind each door is a piece of the Playmobil nativity set and six pieces of candy.

At this point we have many random pieces of many Playmobil nativity sets, and we set them up in a wooden stable from a long lost breakable nativity.

Anyway, the Bible doesn't specify how many kings showed up, or how many donkeys were at the stable, so as long as we stick to one Mary, Joseph, and Baby Jesus, we are fine.

Kid 2: The Jesse Tree.  That's the little tree next to the house.  Each day has scripture readings tracing salvation history and, of course, a matching ornament.



Kid 3: Unwrap a seasonal book.  This was an idea we picked up on the interwebs somewhere and it has been a big hit.

Plus it makes sure nearly all the books get read!

The only challenge is to choose which are the best 25 Christmas books...

Kid 4: The Advent Calendar.  This year I found a really beautiful one on Amazon.  It's big, it's double sided, and the windows are randomly arranged around the main picture so that opening them doesn't destroy the image.  I love it!!

Kid 5: Advent Candles.  They light and blow out the candles on the Advent wreath each day.  We are still using glass enclosed "7 day" candles, and we highly recommend them!

Kid 6: Choose an ornament.  This way our house gets slowly decorated over the course of Advent.

Besides the individual stuff, we always have an empty manger to which we add hay.

 We try to do good deeds, make small sacrifices, or spend extra time praying to prepare our hearts for Christmas.

Each time, we put a little hay in the manger to make Baby Jesus' bed (and our hearts) a little softer when He comes.

 We have a very beautiful statue that we put in the manger at Christmas and it is always the first thing the kids look for on Christmas morning.


Other stuff is less tangible.  We'll all donate money for a Heifer project. We'll try for more daily Masses (easier when we have no one sick!), and we like to see how many of the corporal and spiritual Works of Mercy we can fit in.

Happy Thanksgiving!

She's Off!

Yes!  Klenda passed the test with flying colors, and now has her learner's permit!

I took her for her first drive on Saturday, and she took to driving like a duck to water!

Go Klenda!!

But not too fast!!

The Cold and Fever Within

Last Thursday, all the kids woke up with a sore throat.  I was delighted.

Not that sickness was good news, but that they all were getting it at the same time.

Let me tell you a story:

Waaaaaay back before I had kids, I was an immunology research lab technician. I had a particular talent for cell culture.  I had excellent aseptic technique.

My technique was good enough that I was able to do intracellular culture in human cells in a bacteria lab without a laminar flow hood and my cultures were never contaminated. All of which just means that I know what it takes to protect something from viruses and bacteria.

Back when I had all little kids, my worst nightmare was a stomach bug.  So when a kid got sick, even though I knew it was likely a highly contagious, super tiny norovirus that would be impossible to contain without a hospital's isolation unit, I had to try.

Using absolute best possible practices, maintaining strict isolation and using copious quantities of bleach, I achieved the following: I delayed the spread of the stomach bug so that, 12-24 hours after one child stopped vomiting, the next one started. And we were sick for a solid month. To add insult to injury, the severity tended to increase with each child.

I don't regret trying, because I had to know if it was humanly possible.  It isn't.  The only way to have only one young child get a stomach bug is to have only one young child.

After that, as soon as one kid got started, I encouraged them all to group hug, and give the sick one lots of kisses.  When they're sick, faster is better.

Back to the present day, I was delighted that they were all getting the cold at the same time, and that they were likely to be all over it by Thanksgiving (we can't visit my folks if we have a respiratory infection).  Alas, this took a turn for the feverish, and on Saturday, 6 of 8 had high fevers.  Today, 7 of 8 have low fevers (I got the fever early and am over it - a brilliant move on my part, since I need to make large quantities of tea right now).

I'm not sure what will happen for Thanksgiving, but, on the bright side, no one feels awful, just feverish, stuffy, and sneezy, so we've been having a nice time relaxing together!

Poem of the Week

The Cold Within

Six humans trapped by happenstance
In bleak and bitter cold.
Each one possessed a stick of wood
Or so the story’s told.

Their dying fire in need of logs
The first man held his back
For of the faces round the fire
He noticed one was black.

The next man looking ‘cross the way
Saw one not of his church
And couldn’t bring himself to give
The fire his stick of birch.

The third one sat in tattered clothes.
He gave his coat a hitch.
Why should his log be put to use
To warm the idle rich?

The rich man just sat back and thought
Of the wealth he had in store
And how to keep what he had earned
From the lazy shiftless poor.

The black man’s face bespoke revenge
As the fire passed from his sight.
For all he saw in his stick of wood
Was a chance to spite the white.

The last man of this forlorn group
Did nought except for gain.
Giving only to those who gave
Was how he played the game.

Their logs held tight in death’s still hands
Was proof of human sin.
They didn’t die from the cold without
They died from the cold within.

By James Patrick Kinney
HT: All Things If

Secret Body Butter Recipe

It's a secret because I'm making a batch for my mom.  I'll tell you, but don't tell her, ok?

Body butter is for when you live in a very cold and/or dry place where lotions aren't enough to moisturize your skin. If your skin gets dry enough to crack, body butter is for you!

There are a lot of recipes, and I have made several.  My favorite to make for my mom is this:

1 part vitamin E oil
1 part almond oil (more if you need it softer)
3 parts cocoa butter
3 parts coconut oil
3 parts shea butter

The cheapest source for most of the ingredients seems to be Bulk Apothecary.  I'm guessing if you got the one pound sizes, you'd spend about $35 counting shipping, and have 4 batches or so: 8-12 Christmas presents, although you wouldn't need them all to be in the same season - the ingredients will be good for several years. They also have containers, I think.

Also, most recipes don't include vitamin E, but it's wonderful stuff for people whose skin gets really damaged by the cold. 

Melt all the solids in a microwave, mix it all together, and let it cool a little.

Now it can be poured into soap molds to make body butter "bars," or into a container for a tub of body butter.  I've never been able to figure out what the exact consistency will be until it's cooled.

If it's too firm, I often remelt it and add more almond oil to loosen it up (or pour it into bars).

If it's too soft, I can either whip it into "whipped body butter," or remelt it and add either cocoa butter, or beeswax.

You'll note my recipe has no additional scent.  It does smell subtly of coconut and chocolate, which works well for my mom (allergic to every fragrance known to man), but you could add any fragrance oil you like.

I do a lot with fragrance oils in soap, and my suggestion with body butter would be to add half of what you think you need to start out.  Also, try out different scent combinations on cotton balls before committing it to more expensive materials,  A fringe benefit: the cotton balls make nice drawer sachets!

I think a peppermint with orange or vanilla would be nice, particularly as a Christmas gift, and it's hard to go wrong with bergamot (a citrusy herbal scent) and jasmine. You might want to stay away from peppermint, ginger, or cinnamon oils if it's for someone whose skin is damaged - those oils could irritate sore skin.