The weekly “little of this, little of that” feature here at Like Mother, Like Daughter!
Welcome to readers new and old!
If you are new here, I wanted to say come on in and have a seat!
Lately my blogging has been reduced pretty much to these posts that we call bits & pieces — a little update and then links that have caught my eye during the week.
I used to post a lot, and then the call to round up everything that I've written about in the past 11 years into a book took hold of me. Contrary to what you might think, I have been working on it! In fact, I have a very rough draft of… wait for it… over 800 pages.
So please commend my soul to the Almighty.
Anyway, if you just got here, my hope is that you will look around and say, “Oh, wait, I can do that, if she can do it!”
The archives are full of answers to your questions: What to do with my three-year-old, how to avoid homeschool burnout, what to serve for dinner, how I can be hospitable on a budget, what to do with those teenagers, how to start prayer with children, whether it's going to work out to move and how to tell…
Go up to the menu bar and hit “Start here” — and then poke around all those categories. On the side is a category menu as well.
Your garden can be considerably less weedy and more productive than mine… your house can be neater than mine… your bread can rise higher. I hardly know what I'm doing, but I'm here to encourage you in all things related to home making. Make no mistake — this is the highest calling!
For as Dr. Johnson reminds us:
To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition, the end to which every enterprise and labor tends, and of which every desire prompts the prosecution.
This week my granddaughter (almost 6) pulled the garlic in the bed that's inside the rabbit fence (there's still another harvest in the bed near the hives). Look how nice and big those heads are! The variety is called Organic Chesnok Red Garlic from High Mowing.
And I think I'm getting the hang of composting after 20 years. I've had a good supply for the garden and it seems to “cook” up pretty quickly. Maybe it doesn't look like it in the photo, but the first bay on the left is ready to be turned, and the other two have a good amount of finished compost in them of various stages. But I think that in a way, the almost finished compost is even better, because the worms come and finish the job.
On to our links!
- I'm poking around a new blog that was recommended to me. Here is a post that caught my eye (you can tell what's on my mind right now): Gardening for Less from The Prudent Homemaker. I think I'm pretty darn frugal but there is always something to learn! I also just need to do better (and it wouldn't hurt to have some more sunny areas in my yard!)
- Things can change quickly. Here in Massachusetts I never had one smidge of trouble homeschooling my children. The law is pretty clear and pretty simple. But now the early distant warning has sounded. Geoffrey Vaughan, in an excellent article about what lies ahead: If Angels Educated Men, says, “There seems not to have been a particular event that triggered the change in policy [in his school district]. Indeed, according to the elected officials of the school board, there was no change in policy. But one does not need to look far to find an animus against homeschoolers in the educational establishment.” As Vaughan points out, homeschooling will always be, in a sense, marginal.
- In an article I have shared before, Christopher Caldwell makes the point about the vulnerability of families when the state slides towards mob rule: “… a Swiss sexologist described the anti-gender-theory parents as groupuscules, or “splinter groups.” Parents, of course, are always groupuscules, usually consisting of two people, sometimes of one. The assumption here seems to be that parents are entitled to speak on their children’s behalf only as part of some nationwide patriotic front.” (My emphasis. It's a long article, but well worth reading. The theme sharpens right at the end.)
- Once you realize that the key to the LGBT agenda is domination, it's possible to resist. The slogan “love is love” sounds irrefutable, but it conceals a lie.
- This past week marked the anniversary of Mary Jo Kopechne's death at Chappaquiddick, when Ted Kennedy left her to die in the car he drove off the little bridge over the river. Clan Lawler watched the movie and read Mark Steyn on the whole mess. “You can't make an omelet without breaking chicks, right? I don't know how many lives the senator changed – he certainly changed Mary Jo's – but you're struck less by the precise arithmetic than by the basic equation: How many changed lives justify leaving a human being struggling for breath for up to five hours pressed up against the window in a small, shrinking air pocket in Teddy's Oldsmobile?”
- The burning of Notre Dame Cathedral has revived the stone carving arts. “Notre Dame made people realize these skills are still needed and still important,” he says.
- Children need to hear and learn excellent church music, in church! (Of course, acknowledging all that is in this article begs the question of why there should be family Masses at all, but baby steps I guess.)
- It's unthinkable that some Christians would want to entertain the notion of Communism as anything but an evil ideology. And yet, it's happening. Educate yourself. Read the Gulag Archipelago by Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Read Bob Royal's Twentieth Century Martyrs. Read this, from Rod Dreher: Jesuits Rehabilitate Communism. Edited to warn you that this article has a disturbing image of a victim of the communist terror. To read the article without the image, you can save it to a reader service like getpocket.com and read it there.
From the archives:
- I have a four-part series on things to do to make your family and marriage as strong as they can be. Since we're just coming off of a week of people posting about natural family planning, perhaps you'd like to read the third in the series, The Third Secret. (The final one is here, with the others linked within.)
- Do you keep bees? Here is my tutorial on how to harvest the honey.
Today is the feast of St. Pantaleon.
Jacki says
Auntie Leila, I love your third secret, and we have lived our seven years of marriage that way, losing our first baby then welcoming three beautiful children. However, I’ve had three miscarriages in a row this year. We’re getting ready to see a specialist to see if they can figure out what the problem is but they’re leaning toward a blood disorder (I’ve had a lot of complications in my other pregnancies). We’re at a loss of what to do if the doctors can’t find an answer and/or a solution. Do we start using NFP to avoid pregnancy the rest of my fertile years (I’m 37)? But then what if we avoid away the baby that would have lived… Do we keep being completely open to life even if that means more miscarriages? All the miscarriages have been both physically and emotionally taxing and have been hard on our family. We dearly want more children. I would love your insight on a situation like this. We don’t really have many people we can talk to about the situation.
Leila says
Dear Jackie — I really encourage you to wait until the tests are done to worry about all this, and then at that point to resolve not to worry! The answer will come to you.
I am happy to discuss in email and will respond to you that way with more particulars. Feel free to remind me if you don’t hear from me (my email is leilamarielawler at gmail dot com) — I’m going to be taking Bridget to her new apartment in DC early this week.
But truly, just wait for the tests. Pray pray pray and be at peace. (And I hope the people doing the testing are well versed in the female reproductive system — also do all your homework because it’s amazing how mistaken they can be!)
Ellie says
Oh my goodness that post on grieving is gold. I have been chatting with friends recently about how we don’t know in modern times how to accompany people in the hard things. That is so helpful.
Liz says
Years ago we had a home study consultant (the term for the person at the Dept of Ed who oversees homeschooling in Vermont) said at a meeting with homeschoolers that she didn’t want to see any child fall through the cracks. Ironically, I could easily point out to her students who had, in fact, fallen through the cracks at our local elementary school, despite an extremely low student to teacher ratio. Our superintendent was much more honest. He believed that every child should have to go to public school (of, except for those going to posh secularized private schools). No Catholic schools or Protestant schools should be allowed (clearly he was unfamiliar with Supreme Court decisions on the subject).
We have been fortunate in Vermont that successive groups of homeschooling parents have worked with the Department of Ed and the legislature to craft laws on homestudy that are far less onerous than the ones we operated under in 1985. In 1983 the State Board of Education was campaigning for a law that would have put homeschooling out of the reach for all but a small minority of families. That effort was the impetus for homeschooling families uniting for change. Authority over homeschooling was removed from the Board of Ed and a law was passed which the Department of Ed itself found acceptable. At least two of the most recent homestudy consultants have been former homeschoolers and the law has been tweaked at least once more to reduce the amount of paperwork required (an advantage to the DOE as well as the families). One of the things we insisted on was that we wanted homeschooling regulated at the state level because local superintendents could be much harder to challenge with only a handful of families in a district. I would hate to homeschool in Massachusetts.
I get to see how much easier the new scheme works because my daughter follows the “like mother, like daughter” principle and homeschools our grandchildren (and is surpassing her mother as she does it).
Leila says
Liz, that’s very interesting about Vermont. MA should be fairly good to homeschoolers. The general law for the state is broad and straightforward, and no consultants. Since the local superintendent is responsible for ALL schooling in his district (including private schools), it makes sense to be under his jurisdiction. The more local the level, the more control the citizens would have over a *bad* administrator. In theory, it would be easier to get rid of a tyrannical superintendent of schools than some bureaucrat at the state level.
I actually think that homeschoolers themselves are responsible for much of the trouble they experience in this state. Often, fear overcomes common sense and knowledge of the law. Wishing to avoid trouble, parents acquiesce to demands that far exceed what the law requires — demands that then become “our policy”. When this happens, even more unsure parents then are dealing with a district that has become accustomed to a certain level of interaction — often even just some assistant who’s been given the task of implementing whatever protocols they have. I find this incredibly frustrating!
Emily says
800 pages! Wow!
That being said, I cannot wait to read it. Your archives are such a font of great inspiration and encouragement, even for a non-married person like me!
Leila says
Thank you, Emily — you are so encouraging!
Dixie says
I mean, I know you can’t publish it that way, but I kind of want to just read all 800 pages.
Emily says
Me too! 🙂
Lisa says
I would read every word. 800 pages sounds perfect.
Leila says
You all are so cute
Andrea says
Why not a multi – volume set?
Caitlin L says
I can hardly express how dear this blog is to me. I’d read the book as-is already! But for now will be content bouncing around the archives. I re-read a lot of what you’ve written, especially the Library Project and Detsruction-proofing posts, and consider you a mentor, even though we’ve never met. Thank you for keeping it all up. Your example of a family that shares a common culture and how you all still *like* each other gives me hope for the family I am raising.
{Chesnok– that’s the Russian word for garlic! There, I used my degree today 😉 }
Cirelo says
Irony of ironies, we had our children join a fantastic Mennonite choir in order to learn the music of the church. It’s the only place nearby where you can hear/learn excellent classical (Catholic!) Music. Children in Mennonite churches grow up singing so beautifully, it’s still part of their culture.
Leila says
Amazing! Rosie had to go to Harvard to learn it all (I was too clueless in those days) — in the belly of the secular beast!
Christine says
Auntie Leila,
Your four-part series about making your family and marriage as strong as possible in our current culture is spot on!! Thank you for the sagacious advice:-)).
My two cents worth after celebrating 25 years of marriage is limiting frivolous screen time upon arrival home after a long day at work. I understand the need to decompress and zone, however, at least in our household it has caused unnecessary breakdown in communication, resentment, and sets a bad example on how to use time productively for our kids. One of my friends jokingly referred to electronic screens as “the other woman”!! So true, unfortunately, in many cases.
To remedy some of this in our household, my husband and I have made an effort that EVERYONE (adults & children) under our roof cheerfully greets everyone else in the house upon arrival home after work, school, activities, etc (teenage grunts are prohibited).
Carolyn says
I love your writing, Auntie Leila! Can’t wait for the book.
Also, perhaps you could put a note next to the link for the commentary on the America communism piece—the linked article contains disturbing written content and a graphic photo that appears twice. I’m all for revealing the evils of communism, but sometimes less detail is better when I’m trying to fall asleep at night!
Leila says
Oh, yes, Carolyn, I will do that. It is very disturbing. So much so that I almost didn’t share. But then I thought — people really don’t know how evil this ideology is. But I will put a note.
Dixie says
I’m glad you did post it, though, Leila (although a warning is a good idea). A picture is worth a thousand words. It is like the photos of Emmett Till. Till’s mother insisted on an open-casket funeral for good reason.
Also, about that particular priest — JPII once said something to the effect of, “he died in my stead.”
Cayce says
The post about how to help the grieving is one of the most beautiful, moving, and helpful posts I have read in as long as I can remember. Thank you so much for that link.
Kerry says
A book a book!!!! I am sooo excited for this!