Pondered In My Heart

Just Think...

As my father would have said, "Who'd 'a thunk it!"  I've been tagged for a Thinking Blogger Award by Elizabeth, who we all know Thinks For Real. So of course I've been thinking and pondering about who makes me think. The hard part is thinking of some thinkers who haven't already been thought of by all the other tagged thinkers.

If you get tagged with a Thinking Blogger Award, you are then supposed to do the following:

1. Write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think.
2. Link to this post so people can easily find the origin of the meme.
3. Optional: Proudly display the ‘Thinking Blogger Award’ with a link to the post that you wrote.

Let's see -

1. Matilda is very good at reminding me to look at things through the eyes of a little child. When you have Big Kids around, they tend to get a lot of your attention, as they are rather Big, and Matilda reminds me to think of the Littles. The simple things in life such as birthdays cakes and step stools and blankets are really very big things in the lives of little ones, and Matilda knows just how to connect with and delight the children in her care. And she makes me smile and remember to waltz.
2. Cheryl is already a wonderful wife and mother yet she is always thinking of new ways to grow in these roles. Whether it's cleaning and organizing, expressing her femininity, developing soothing routines for her children, developing manners, or even trying to overcome her night owl tendencies, she is always selflessly seeking ways to enhance her family life.
3. Helen inspires many of us to think deeply and draw nearer to Our Lady through meditation and prayer  that we may better imitate her virtues. Helen also makes me think about parenting and attachment and generosity and perseverance in love.
4. Alice is so full of love - for Our Lord and Our Lady and her dear family and her friends and all of God's creation. The thought of Alice makes me think of love - am I being loving enough? Am I expressing my love? Does what I'm doing or saying show God's love to others?
5. Louise makes me think of all things gentle and beautiful. She also makes me think of how to make each day A Time To Keep. How will my children look back upon their childhoods? What words will they choose to describe these days? This mother? This family?

So, there's plenty for you to read and think about for quite a while!

All Things Bright and Beautiful

Michael and I continue to marvel at how our new house  is 'infinitely more than we could ask or imagine'. When we first thought about moving we yearned to find a place with a little bit of land. We hoped to find a couple of acres where the children could go off and explore nature on their own beyond the confines of a suburban backyard. We wanted them to be able to hike and climb and splash and discover and identify like so many happy characters out of so many jolly books they read. We knew that this would be our last planned move, and our last chance to find that for our children.

But we soon discovered that we couldn't have our cake and eat it too. To find a house with acreage we would have to move too far away from the conveniences we had grown accustomed to. Michael spends so much  time driving to work and then to numerous music lessons in the evenings,  it was unthinkable to move further away and extend his travel times. We also didn't want to re-locate to a rural area and be far from church, friends, doctors, dentist, orthodontist.  So we ended up with a beautiful house in a suburban development. But we are on the edge of the development, and it is surrounded by trees and woods and creeks and for now at least, fields. And now that spring weather is finally here the children have been delightfully  investigating our new surroundings.

There's a bit of wetland with ancient looking cattails.

We often see deer in the woods in the morning on our way to Mass, and Josiah found some fascinating bones.

Today Lydia caught a lovely toad... 

...and some of its future offspring. She also caught two tadpoles now named Tad and (Jill) Pole. 

They returned home with video of this guy singing:

And Jonathan wanted to take his investigations to the microscopic level. I think this critter looks like he came out of a Dr. Seuss book, or maybe he's just having a Bad Cilia Day.

   

So even though we still live in the suburbs, we are amazed at the beauty and wonder of all the great outdoors God has provided for us in our new habitat. The children won't be living off of pemmican anytime soon, and they probably won't even find a diamond in the stream , but there are many delightful treasures to be found just the same. Wonderful are all Your works Oh Lord!

Photos all taken by the adventurers themselves.

Like Mother...

Mary Rose asked if she could dress her baby dolls before bed. I told her no, it was too late, she had best get to sleep. After she went off to brush her teeth she came back and explained, "I can say my bedtime prayers while I dress my babies and then I won't be wasting any sleep time!" Hmmmm...

More Saturday Views

I detect a pattern here....

...but here's an industrious type!

This is Eliza in her Little Miss Montessori mode.

You Know They're Growing Up When...

...your teenaged boys are found sneaking out of the house in the middle of the day to fly paper airplanes together and one of them explains, "It's okay, Mom. It's good male bonding."  And he correctly presumes that phrase will work like a charm.

Checkup!

Eliza had a checkup with the cardiologist today. She behaved like the sweet angel she is and sat perfectly still for her EKG - I kept her in rapt attention by counting the twelve leads. She sat on the exam table intently working a puzzle while a parade of caregivers filed in to take turns listening to her heart. Her leaky heart still sounds the same, and the Physicians' Assistant declared, "She looks great!" The cardiologist exclaimed, "She looks great!"  That assessment and that word great are the most wonderful sounds to our ears.

Except of course for Jonathan, who thinks swell would be better, but he's an organist. ;-)

Happy Birthday Kateri!

Oh, Kateri, Kateri, Kateri!

How did the time fly by so very fast? Why do the nine months last forever and then the next twelve whiz right by? How is that?

One morning I saw a friend at daily Mass, the only time I have ever seen her at this church. Just back from her honeymoon, she had with her a gift of a relic. The newlyweds had visited a priest friend who collects relics. He was sending a relic of Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha to a mutual friend who has a special daughter named after Blessed Kateri. And so my friend was going to drop off the relic to this other friend after Mass.

Jonathan piped up, “We’re going there too after Mass! Mom has to drop off a rosary!”

And so it was true– I had just made a Mother Teresa rosary as a gift for this friend.

“Can you drop off this relic for me?” my friend asked.

 

I was elated at the opportunity! I knew my friend would be so excited to receive this most special gift, and I was going to present this surprise to her. She just lived a few blocks from the church, and I drove the short distance fairly bursting with anticipation. I had put the relic in my lap for the brief trip to keep it safe and close at hand. Then I looked down at my lap and realized where the relic was resting. And I asked Blessed Kateri if she would intercede for me for a new blessing. Just a few weeks later it was clear the answer would be Yes!

We went through the cautious elation, clinging to Jesus, I trust in You once again. We remember the sheer joy of all of the ultrasounds- that most glorious sound in all the world of the lovely lub dub coming from within. And then later we saw the lub dub came from a perfectly formed heart. It was a very joyful time. I was due on April 16, Easter Sunday!

But there were new lessons of patience to be learned. I remember my friend telling me that Blessed Kateri’s feast day used to be celebrated on April 17, the date of her death. I laughed out loud at the ridiculous thought that my baby could be born then – I’m always several weeks early! Easter came and went and neither I, nor any one else, could believe how very great with child I still was. Eventually we had the most lovely labor and birth, waking up at 2:12 on the morning of the 18^th and it being very clear that, honey- it’s time!

I’ll also never forget the first night home with her. She was born at 3:44 in the morning and I spent the rest of the day in the hospital never sleeping a wink. So when we got home that evening I was quite looking forward to a well- deserved good night’s sleep. But God and Kateri had other ideas. I’m a very slow learner with this Patience stuff. Kateri was up every hour screaming, not very pleased with the harsh realities of Life Outside. If I held her upright to burp her or tried to change her diaper the screams grew even louder. I remember blithering and praying, “Lord! Have mercy! We’re old!” I remember thinking of Sarah and Elizabeth and wondering about the trials of geriatric motherhood. I remembered people long ago foolishly asking if Mary Rose was a ‘good’ baby, and I would foolishly reply, “Oh yes! She has to be – she’s number five.” Then Eliza never had the energy to cry a peep as an infant. And our dear sweet Kateri has taken it upon herself to cry enough for all three of them. Lots more of that Patience training. Lots of time to spend singing and dancing and rocking and praying with this precious baby girl.

Kateri still does everything with full-bodied gusto! She screeches with glee and shrieks with displeasure. We call her Kat-eri when she’s happy and Ka-teary when she’s sad. Tonight her brother observed that she looked fierce eating her birthday cake. She stuffed that cake in her mouth with such delight, alternating fistfuls, savoring every crumb. She squealed at her presents and immediately smothered her new baby doll with squeezes and hugs.

We are so very blessed to have this lovely, lively little girl! One smile from her melts your heart. One screech will certainly get your attention. And one soul, this precious little life, reveals so very much about the goodness and love and mercy of the God who created her and gave her to us to love and cherish.

Happy Birthday Kateri! We love you!

Simple Pleasures

First Cones!

Kateri was so delighted she screeched with glee...

...and Eliza made a grandiose sentence to commemorate the occasion:

"Mama, um-cone!"

"Um" is her word for ice cream. Does um-cone count as a compound word?

Stopping to Hear the Bells

I can't stop thinking about this article in the Washington Post (Hat Tip to the ever-resourceful Karen). The short version of the story is that Joshua Bell, virtuoso violinist extraordinaire, stood playing in a Washington subway station incognito.

"No one knew it, but the fiddler standing against a bare wall outside the Metro in an indoor arcade at the top of the escalators was one of the finest classical musicians in the world, playing some of the most elegant music ever written on one of the most valuable violins ever made. His performance was arranged by The Washington Post as an experiment in context, perception and priorities -- as well as an unblinking assessment of public taste: In a banal setting at an inconvenient time, would beauty transcend?"

Apparently not. Joshua Bell played like, well, like Joshua Bell.  His 3.5 million dollar Stradivarius sounded like, well, like a Stradivarius.  He started with Bach, and yes, of course it sounded like Johann Sebastian Bach.

Few people noticed. Fewer still cared. Just a handful of people paused to listen.

The ones most drawn to him were of course the children. They found him irresistible. But their grown up chaperones always whisked them away. 

Only one person stopped to listen until he finished. This woman recognized him and knew who he was because she had just seen him in concert a few weeks earlier.

This story just amazed me. My husband read it and chuckled at the absurdity, laughing out loud at the incredulity of the accompanying video.

But I just felt so struck by the utter impossibility of it all. How could this happen? Here in America? In a city? How could no one have the time, the sense, the heart, the knowledge, the appreciation, the Ears, to Hear? To take the time to be touched. How could Bell, Bach and a Strad not touch a person’s inner soul? Deep down inside where Music penetrates to the very core of a human being where even words cannot go. How could people just keep walking by, buying their lottery tickets, getting their shoes shined. Oblivious.

We of course like to think of ourselves that surely we would have recognized greatness in a subway station, even though the tails and tie and spotlights and concert hall were missing. Surely we would have stopped and noticed and listened and recognized and appreciated the beauty and greatness and talent and majesty that was Joshua Bell playing Bach that day?

This got me thinking about beauty and our quest for it in our lives. I thought of so many of these beautiful, beauty-seeking mothers who live their lives teaching beauty to their children. They write about the beauty they find and all are enriched to read of their discoveries. They do not shoo their children away from the beauty that surrounds us, hurrying them on to the “important” things in life. These women stop and share beauty with their children. Their lives are spent cultivating the natural sense and appreciation of the beautiful that children possess, just as children have a natural instinctive knowledge and attraction to the holy.

I thought of how so many of these blogs I read are beautiful to look at. Yet the photos that grace their pages are sometimes of the most ordinary things: a field of dandelions, a pot of seedlings, a bit  of fabric, a carrot top bathed in sunshine, sprouting in a dish. These women recognize beauty. They hunger for it and they constantly are on the lookout to satisfy their soul’s cravings. Karen queried, “Is beauty irrelevant?” Does beauty matter? We spend our lives trying to implement the answer, which our children already know – a resounding yes! Why else would God have created 250,000 species of flowers? Why the beauty of mathematical formulae or the order of the very universe? Beauty is an attribute of God the Creator and it matters mightily. St. Paul instructs us to think about those things that are beautiful (Philippians 4:8)

And so I hope it's not just a whim of pride that makes me think surely we would have stopped and listened and appreciated and recognized the beauty of Joshua Bell’s subway performance. I probably would not have recognized Mr. Bell, but I would like to hope we would have delayed and lingered and listened and drunk in the beauty. I would like to think my children have enough of a sense to know that mom stops for beauty. We are in the habit of pausing for beauty, often running for the camera to try to capture what is so often fleeting. The smile of a baby. The soaring of a hawk. The piece on the radio – we turn up the volume and pause to listen. This is how we live our lives. This is what matters.

It’s a beautiful way to live.

Happy Birthday Lydia!

Lovely, Lyrical

 

Young, Youthful

 

Dashing, Daring, Domestic

Intelligent, Independent

Artistic, Affectionate

   

LYDIA!

Many happy returns of the day! We love you!

Happy Easter!

Alleluia! He is Risen!

Hear the bells ringing they're singing that you can be born again!

I love how this picture of our church this morning sums up so much. You have the crucifix transformed by the Risen Christ, yet Christ has not left us - right there we have the Tabernacle with the red candle lit . He is always present with us!

Hear the bells ringing they're singing Christ is risen from the dead!

The angel up on the tombstone said He has risen, just as He said!

That's our littlest angel, Kateri, learning to bless herself  with my twenty-two year-old angel, Michael, helping her out. Yes, his flesh is a bit older than that, but twenty-two Easters ago he became a new creation!

Quickly now, go tell His disciples that Jesus Christ is no longer dead!

Joy to the world! He is risen! Alleluia!

He is risen, Alleluia!

I love this picture taken last night at St. Catherine Laboure Church of Easter lilies with Our Lady and St. Catherine.

He is risen, Alleluia!

Many blessings to you and yours during this glorious Eastertide!

(Song lyrics from Keith Green's Easter Song, which always resounds loudly through our house on Easter Morning!)

More Saturday Scenes

Kateri gets an early start in learning how to make nut roll.

The family that stays together ...

 

...dyes  together!

 

Holy Saturday!

The kitchen is buzzing with activity and my little aproned busy bees are aflutter with excitement!

The boys have actually voluntarily cleaned their rooms! You can see the floors! This is huge. Makes me want to say the A-word!

But back to the kitchen...

Three dozen eggs are cooling and awaiting their colorful hues.

The Lily Mints are being shaped with care. The Birds Nests are sitting pretty.

And Jonathan is getting the Kalacs started. After lunch break we'll start on the poppy and nut rolls...

Birds Nests

In a large glass bowl combine

¼ cup butter

¼ cup peanut butter

¼ cup chocolate chips

Microwave until melted.

Add 4 ½ cups marshmallows and microwave until melted, about 30 seconds more. Stir until blended. Then mix in 4 ½ cups chow mein noodles. Butter your hands and shape mixture into little nests. Set them on wax paper and add candy malted eggs or jelly beans. They will set and dry a bit after they cool so they’re not so sticky. One recipe makes about 18 nests.

If you double this recipe (we always do) you’ll need two bags of noodles. These are a fun and easy treat for the children to make. We have also made them for a bird themed birthday party, and they would also go along great with any bird study. Buy some extra ‘robins egg’ malted eggs now while they are available if you wish to make them again later in the year.

My Grandmother’s Kalacs

This is the Hungarian version of Easter bread. It’s similar to any of a number of traditional Eastern European sweet breads, rich in eggs and milk, made for the holidays. As written this recipe makes two large round loaves. You guessed it – we always double it and make four.

¾ cup butter, melted

2 cups warm milk

4 teaspoons yeast dissolved in ¼ cup warm water

7 cups unbleached flour

1 cup sugar

1 teaspoon salt

3 beaten egg yolks

Mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Add the milk and yeast mixtures and knead 10-15 minutes. We double this recipe and mix it in our electric mixer for about 15 minutes. Form into a smooth ball, cover and let rise at least until doubled. Deflate and divide in two pieces. Flatten out each piece and sprinkle with about a third of a cup of cinnamon sugar and a handful or two of raisins.

   

I just sort of roll the dough up from the edges and seal in the goodies, then I flip it over and give it a final rounding with my hands. Place loaves on greased cookie sheets and let rise until doubled. Brush with beaten egg. Bake in a preheated 350 oven for 45 minutes or until done. Their crusts will be dark due to all of the sugar and dairy. Try to let it cool at least a bit before slicing. Some like it buttered, some are scandalized at the thought. If by some chance it is not all gobbled up while fresh it is delicious toasted. Splendid with tea! We will of course be exercising a final push of Lenten self-restraint and saving it for Easter breakfast.

Hope you are having a happy, holy, Holy Saturday!

Good Friday

After the reading of the Passion at today's liturgy Father indicated that a brief homily was permitted at this time, but what more really was there to say? It reminded me of another Good Friday homily given by a different priest - so very simple -

Jesus loves me, this I know

For the Bible tells me so

These words are the crux of our faith. And the utter simplicity as well as magnitude of this is all summed up by the Cross. Today we just look at the Cross. We meditate and venerate. We just marvel in wonder and mystery and thanksgiving so encompassing that no word can hold how our hearts really feel.

The love of God, the love of God

Can you see, on that tree, the love of God?

The love of God, the love of God

There for you, there for me, the love of God

He bleeds for you, He pleads for you who are needy

To let Him be

The love of God

He gave all for you

Hear Him call to you who are weary, "Come to Me..."

The love of God, the love of God

Can you see, on that tree, the love of God?

There for you, there for me, the love of God

Here for you, here for me, here for free,

Jesus, He's the love of God

(lyrics to 'The Love of God" by Marty Goetz)

And we wait....

Have a blessed and holy weekend and don't forget to start the Divine Mercy Novena!

New Beads!

At long last I have my latest creations posted at Beads of Mercy! I had taken just a couple of weeks off from designing after Christmas, and then I was busy with lots of custom orders. And then all of a sudden we moved. But my Dear Husband has very kindly taken the time to update my website for me. You'll find nine new rosaries, five bracelets and two chaplets on the New Items page.

Thank you, Dear!

Joy in Mudville

It must be true - Mud Season! I read it there and I've seen it here:

But who knew mud could be so cute?