First Sunday of Advent

Exert, we beseech thee, O Lord, thy power and come; that by thy protection we may be freed from the imminent dangers of our sins, and be saved by thy mercy.
                     Collect from the First Sunday of Advent

Today is the first day of the new year.  And it's the end of the world, again.  So we pray, "Lord Jesus, come and save us."

Last Sunday after Pentecost

Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful; that, becoming more zealous as to the fruit of the divine work, they may receive the greater remedies of thy goodness.
                         Collect from the 24th and Last Sunday after Pentecost

This is all about cooperating with grace.  We should respond intentionally, with a will, to the promptings of grace.  If we do so, God will give us greater graces to do greater works.  It is a picture of progress in holiness:  do the small things according to the grace you are given, and do those things to which you are called because they are the duties of your state in life, and furthermore do them wholeheartedly, and God will grant you greater graces to do greater things, to which you again respond wholeheartedly and grow in holiness.  We should all be concerned about growth in holiness, because the end of the world is at hand, and we know not the day nor the hour.  Let us, therefore, strive to gain the greater remedies for our sinfulness from the goodness of God.

Meal Planning

Life around here is a little unpredictable.  What is appropriate for dinner sometimes depends on whether the baby is being quietly happy and cooperative, or fussy and difficult, or I am exhausted because she has been fussy and refusing to nap all day.  It doesn't really work right now for me to plan out specific meals on specific days.  I also don't have time I want to spend of writing a new meal plan every week.  On the other hand, having no plan means it gets to be dinner time and everyone is hungry and I have nothing quick and simple to fix.  That in turn results in grumpiness.

My current approach is to have about ten standard meals and keep the ingredients for them on hand all the time.  When I run out of something, or it gets low enough that I can't make that recipe again, I write it on my grocery list, which is stuck to my refrigerator with a magnet along with a pencil.  I periodically change some of the recipes in this list to keep things from getting boring. 

This solution works pretty well for me.  When dinnertime rolls around I just go to my list and pick something appropriate for today's situation.

Perspective

Several years ago I was at the house of friends and saw their two-year-old doing something I knew she wasn't supposed to be.  I frowned at her (I gave her what I call the "teacher look" -- you know, the one that says, "I see you misbehaving and you better quit before I have to come over there.") and she stopped, put her lower lip out, and cried.  I felt pretty proud of myself.  After all, I got a two-year-old to stop misbehaving with just a look.  (The middle school kids I was teaching in school at the time? They were not at all impressed by my teacher look.  I don't think it works above about seven years of age.)

Today my baby fussed.  Why?  She was asking for my attention.  I, being involved with something else, frowned at her (just frowned, nothing like the teacher look).  She cried.  I felt like crying, too.

Oops.

So I told her I was sorry, and I picked her up and cuddled her, and I left what I was doing on the floor, abandoned, until she took a nap half an hour later.

If I were a saint, I would never frown at a baby.  As it is, hopefully I'll do better for at least a week ... or maybe a day ... a couple of hours? ...

Mea culpa.

7 Quick Takes (Vol. 6)

1.  I've been thinking about the reasonableness of the Catholic Faith.  It is interesting that the healthy way to live is also often the moral way to live.  For example:  it has been recently in the news that "the pill" is a carcinogen on a level with things like asbestos and cigarette smoke.  If you've been leading a moral life according to the teachings of the Catholic Church, then you've got nothing to worry about, because you haven't been using any form of artificial "birth control."

2.  I threw together a dinner last night that my husband and I really liked.

Anne's Jambalaya with Beans

In a large skillet combine 1 cup white rice, 2 cups water, 2 cups pinto beans (a little more than one can), 1 14.5-oz. can crushed tomatoes, 1 small onion (chopped), 1/2 pound smoked sausage (chopped), and 2 teaspoons Tony Chachere's Creole Seasoning.  Bring to a boil and simmer uncovered until rice is done, about 15 minutes.

3.  I've been talking about images again, so here's another picture from the dining room.



4.  My baby has been watching me eat, which caused me to realize that I have some bad habits, and that I'm lacking some good ones.  Yesterday was a pretty good day;  I haven't had peanut butter or crackers all day, and I said the grace before meals out loud before breakfast.

5.  This is horrifying.  Rutgers University Professor Helen Fisher, of the Center for Human Evolution Studies was on the Joy Behar show and described having lots of children as littering.

6.  Happy feast day to all the Elizabeths out there!  Today is the traditional feast of St. Elizabeth of Hungary.  In only 24 years she was a wife, a mother, a widow, and finally wore the habit of a third order Franciscan.

7.  It's time to go attend to my baby.  My monastic bell is fussing.  My little vox Dei is calling.

More Quick Takes at Conversion Diary

Small Successes

1.  Baby and I survived and even enjoyed my brother-in-law's wedding and reception last weekend.  If only wedding reception bands weren't so SO loud it would have been perfect.  Such events are a little more complicated with a nursing not-quite-five-month-old (including the standing up in the bathroom feeding) but we managed, and it was really pretty good.  It helps, of course, that my husband is very helpful about holding her part of the time so I don't get totally exhausted.

2.  I have a pound of dry beans almost done in the crock pot.  They just need to be portioned out and frozen and then they'll be ready and waiting to go in anything I want to put beans in.

3.  I washed our sheets yesterday for the first time in far too long, which means that I was on top of the rest of the laundry enough to be confident I could finish and have them back on the bed before bedtime.  That, in turn, was because I got five loads of laundry done the day before.

Happy Thursday!

Good Example

It seems to me that the easiest way to teach a child to do something is to do it yourself.  Children are sponges; they absorb and imitate everything.  Having a baby who is newly interested in watching me eat is causing me to rethink my eating habits.  Is what she's seeing me do what I want her to learn?  Not really.

So what needs to change?  I should eat healthier things.  I should snack on fruit instead of peanut butter or crackers.  I should be sure to pray out loud before and after eating.  These are the habits I want my daughter to have, so these are the habits that I must form in myself.