Culinary Lunacy

I'm throwing in the towel.  I think the culinary gods are trying to tell me something.  I just shouldn't be cooking right now.  Maybe it's because the weather always seems to break and be beautiful right around the time that I'm supposed to be inside preparing something for dinner.  Or maybe I'm just losing whatever minor touch I had.  (I never considered myself an excellent cook, but certainly didn't think I was a horrible one!)

It all started with an under-salted, over-cooked lentil soup.  Normally I'm very careful about both these things, so I was disappointed in myself.  But no biggy, it didn't taste horrible, and I didn't think anyone else noticed.  Until Caeley asked me to pass the salt.  Doh!

Then I killed the yeast in the cinnamon rolls I made for the huge Easter bash.  With tons of my friends in attendance.  With a recipe I'd been bragging about because it claims to be the "Best Cinnamon Rolls EVER."  Of course.  Granted, they still tasted okay, but to have the picture of the gorgeous, fluffy, highly risen rolls on the computer screen, and to compare them with the ones that I took out of the oven, with barely any rise at all....well, that was strike two for Team McVearry.

Last night I burned, and I mean COMPLETELY burned, the roasted broccoli.   Everyone was on the back porch hanging out, and I didn't want to miss out on the social time.  I tried to force myself to eat a couple pieces, but it was just nasty.  (I should've taken the strike three as a hint to head back to the dugout!)

But oh no!  As we speak, I have two quiches in the oven, both of which have overflowed the pans, are continuing to leak and cook on the BOTTOM of my oven, and I have no idea why!!!  In fact, I used fewer eggs than I normally do to conserve my egg stash that is running low.

I give up.  I don't know what's wrong with me, but I'm not cooking any more.  Too much effort and not enough pay off.   I'd rather just hang out outside with the girls.  Oh wait, I have Caeley's First Communion events to host:  a coffee / pastry time with Ken's family and then lunch with my family!  Perhaps I should consider serving Humble Pie.  It seems I have quite a lot of it laying around.

The Garden: Early Spring 2011

I need to start keeping better track of the garden and the progress (or lack thereof!) it makes each year.  Some things do well (BASIL OVERLOAD!) and some things just don't (carrots--BOO HISS!)  I'm always really gung-ho about writing stuff down at the beginning of the season, but as the summer wears on, I run out of space on my little "garden planner" sheet of paper, and give up making any more notes.  Now that I'm all "technological," I have no excuses.  So, this will be the place where I post pictures, make garden notes, and remind myself what to do and what not to do the next season.  And if nothing else, it will give me something green and (hopefully) bountiful to look back on in the dead middle of winter to remind myself what I have to look forward to in the spring!!

Here are the pictures of our "early season" so far....

February after prepping the garden:

First greens popping up

Strawberries that have been coming back for 5 years now! (Survived the move from the old house!)

Mint and lemon balm back...this year it looks like the lemon balm will be much more established.

First round of planting-some kale seedlings (S.) and some direct seed (D.S.) stuff...The big bushy thing is chives which come back each year.

Broccoli and cauliflower, which never seem to work, but which I insist on trying every year because we eat so much of it (the stuff from the store.)  I keep crossing my fingers that one year it will surprise me and actually grow.  I think this might be my last year, though.  It is taking up half of one side of a bed...which is a lot of space to waste.

This new box was created especially for my own personal stash of cut flowers and sunflowers.  Ken took over the other butterfly garden this year.  Apparently I'm not good enough at flower gardens.  I just like to throw some seeds in rows (maybe in clusters if I'm feeling daring) and see what happens!  So, now I get my OWN space for pretty stuff.  I'm cool with that.

About 2 months later....

This is why I love greens.  SO easy, survived a quarter inch of snow on top of them, and almost ready for a yummy salad!

Another thing I didn't have luck with 2 years ago, but I'm trying again: sweet peppers.  Apparently they are just really hard to grow around here, but we love them, so I'm giving it one more shot.  (I'm sensing a theme here...)  This time I'm putting them in a container to see if the problem was the nutrient content of the soil in my beds.  We'll see.  I know some things are finicky about nutrients, pH, etc. but I don't pay much attention to that part of gardening.  Maybe one day when I'm an old, bird-watching lady with nothing to do but test and amend soil.  For now, what grows grows, and what doesn't doesn't.

Round two of planting finished: tomato seedlings are in, on far side of boxes under red cages that you can barely make out.  Some other stuff planted as well.   Here's how it all looks from different angles: 

(Side note: the marigolds planted in the middle of each bed section are for pest control, not because I am terribly fond of marigolds.  Apparently bugs hate them, and since I've had no problems with crop-destroying bugs, I will continue to do it!  I'm wondering if the stink bugs will ever become a problem, and if they dislike marigolds too.  If that's the case, I will be planting them in my closets.)

The broccoli and cauliflower are getting bigger, and every year I get hopeful at this point.  But what has happened in years past is that I get enormous green leaves, and no actual crowns of anything edible.  So, I'll wait and not get excited this year.

You can see the four tomato plants in this pic...two in each box.

Wildflowers are starting to sprout!!!

As I told my friend Elizabeth, I get stupidly joyful over watching things grow (this includes children and gardens!)  At any given moment during this time of year, you can find me aimlessly wandering through my garden, straining my eyes to see if anything has popped up through the soil yet.  And when something has, I feel like it's a special little present that God has given me...to be able to grow some things for food, some things for beauty, and to partake in creating something with Him.  It's just so cool.  

For a complete look at what I HOPE we will get out of the garden this year, I'm attaching my new, technologically savvy garden plan...It will be much easier to read and edit now that it's all organized and not written on a dirt stained, water-logged piece of paper.

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0BwBIk4GF8IXFOTNkOWY0ZjMtYjliNy00ZWQxLWFlZDEtZTE5OTMwOWZhM2Nk&hl=en&authkey=CLn6678B

PS: The blueberry and raspberry bushes were put in this year, so we don't expect a harvest from them for a couple years.  Kicking myself for not putting them in when we moved into this house, but we weren't sure we'd be here as long as we've been here!  Oops.

Rod and Todd # 1

I can't pretend to be cool enough to be a Simpsons expert.  I leave that to my husband, who has a somewhat savant-ish way of remembering movie and show titles, lines and quotes, names of actors, etc.  A couple years ago he called our children "Rod and Todd" and I was completely confused.   "You know," he said, "from the Simpsons?"  No, can't say I did!   (Lest you think I'm a complete reject,  I do remember watching the show now and again with my brother, but with my swiss cheese memory, there's no way I'd remember that type of detail, especially not after having kids!)   So, for those of you who are like me...a brief synopsis: Rod and Todd are two Christian kids that lived next door to the Simpsons, named Rod and Todd because their names both rhyme with God.  Apparently they did a lot of religious pretend games, Ken's favorite quote being, "Let's play Walls of Jericho!"  Here's a brief clip from YouTube to acquaint you with the pair:  (Couldn't find the Walls of Jericho one, sorry!)

At first, I wasn't sure if Ken's calling the girls this was a good thing or bad thing, but I do know that on a pretty regular basis we have our "Rod and Todd Moments!"   Here are the quotes from today:

Caeley:   I think I could go on singing Alleluia forever.

Caeley to Meara:  What do you say we play mass today??!!  Mom, can we use crackers as the host?

These little moments are so funny to me.  Rather than being "weird" or embarrassing, they remind me that I am not completely failing at raising my children in the faith.   At least I can see, in a fairly visible way, the joy that they are taking in their faith and their complete lack of fear in witnessing to it, even if it is only to each other at this point!  I will try to remember to keep track of these funny moments now that I have an easier place to file them away.  I think they'll get a kick out of reading them years from now!  Feel free to share any Rod and Todd moments you have at your house!

Death to Life

I'm so glad we live in a place that experiences a change of seasons.  And it's always right around the "changing time" that I feel this the most strongly.  Seeing the little signs of life (through all the raindrops) has been so wonderful this Spring.  Yes, the rain has been somewhat depressing, but keeping our eyes peeled for the tulips opening, the lettuces beginning to pop out, the Wren's eggs hatching in the granola box in the garage...they've all made us so happy, and made us realize that life IS springing forth from the bleak darkness of winter, even if it still feels rainy and cold to us.  (Not today--what a special Easter surprise with SUNSHINE and warm temperatures.  Alleluia indeed!)

We've also had our own little Spring experiment happening right under our noses inside the house.  We ordered caterpillars from Carolina Supply Company a couple weeks ago as part of our "insect nature study."  (I put this in quotes because I'm not the hugest fan of insects, and didn't know how else to begin our study, and ease our way into bugs other than to do it in an uber-controlled environment. Don't laugh.)   The caterpillars arrived in their little jars of "food" all alive and hungry.  And they just ate.  For days and days.  One piece of cherry pie.  One piece of chocolate cake.  One slice of swiss cheese.  One slice of salami.  And then one nice green leaf.  Then they felt much better.  But now they weren't tiny caterpillars, they were big, fat caterpillars.  Then they built small houses called cocoons (or chrysalis') around themselves...

We put them (attached to their paper) into their special cage.  They stayed inside for a few days (maybe a week), then they burst forth into BEAUTIFUL BUTTERFLIES!  What a sight!  (These are Painted Ladies, if you are interested.)  

But Eric Carle leaves out the BEST PART!  Watching them and looking at them closely is so much fun! We noticed mouth parts, eyes, the shapes of their abdomens, the little hairs on their legs and bodies, the proboscis.  (We even invented a new word for when butterflies are using that part: proboscising...say that ten times fast.)  And a few days later, we also noticed the mating.  Holy cow.  That's all I'm going to say about that.  Quite an educational experience for all of us!  (And a somewhat scary peek into life in the "wild," but if you want more details, you'll have to grow your own butterflies!)

This morning, Easter morning, we released the bunch of them, 9 total (although I think at one time we counted 10....that might've been a mistake...) to the sunny backyard.  The whole experience was a really neat thing to do at Easter.  It kinda reminded me in a cheesy sort of way of the resurrection story.  Jesus the caterpillar doing his thing, teaching His peeps, performing His miracles, spreading the Good News.  Then He "dies" and is in His "cocoon" for three days.  And when He emerges, it's His BEAUTIFUL, glorified self.  

(Is it bad that I just called Jesus a caterpillar?  I hope you pardon my simplicity and just "go with it" for the sake of the analogy!)  The big difference is that I will most likely not see this Painted Lady again.  But I sure hope that I'll see Him again.  That's what today, Easter, is all about...the hope of Heaven, the hope of a new life for all of us.  The promise He made to us that death is not the end.   

It was a wonderful day, more lovely than even words can explain, so along with our caterpillar-Jesus analogy, I'll leave with you a pictorial look at our Easter.  (And a million thanks to the Legare family, whose generosity, hospitality, and love always give me a small taste of what that "one day" in Heaven will be like!) 

Stop and Smell the Tulips

We took a much needed day off today to go visit some friends and our old stomping grounds in Baltimore. It's always such a fun time, but today seemed especially special.  I got to meet my friend Jennifer's new baby, a tiny boy among all our big girls!  My girls got to spend time with their "best friends" whom they have known all their lives.  (I met Jennifer after Mothering Magazine published one of my letters to the editor seeking out like-minded parents in the Baltimore area.  Caeley was nine months old and her daughter Olivia was 4 months old.  And the rest is history...)  We visited the Tulip Gardens, this amazing grassy park full of all sorts of tulips.  What signs of spring for real!  And what a difference heading south makes!  It amazed me how much more the trees were green and how much more the the flowering trees were all bedecked in their petals.  It still feels like winter is trying to keep a foot in the door up here!  There were so many funny moments in the day---the first being Caeley's comments as we pull up to a mall before meeting our friends.

C:  Is that an ACE HARDWARE?
Me: Yes, yes it is.
C:  They have an ACE HARDWARE up here?
Me: Yes.  They have a lot of stuff here.  It's a city.
C:  Wow, that's really cool.  This place is really cool.
(Note: I have no idea how she even knows what an Ace Hardware is, or why she thinks it's so cool.  We do not live SO much in the country that she's never been to a hardware store!  In fact, we live right down the street from one, so this entire interchange just made me hysterical inside.  I can't laugh at her these days, though, as she takes it very personally.)

Later on in the day, I had Meara and her friend Natalie in my van heading back to Jennifer's house after our picnic.  Meara is just giddy with excitement to have her BFF in the car with her.  She's going on and on about something in her crazy baby talkish way, and all I get from the whole bunch of gibberish and giggling is "Natalie, I just giggled so hard I think I tinkled in my pants!"  Oh dear.  I did laugh then.

And lest we forget Baby A.  She thoroughly amused me by "attempting" to smell the flowers at the garden.  She kept trying...

...and trying...

...and trying!








She finally just gave me this total look that said it all:

What a lovely way to spend a Wednesday!

Deep Thoughts by...

I miss chocolate.  I miss coffee.
I miss sugar.  I miss toffee.
I miss Facebook.  It doesn't miss me.
But I love Jesus, and He loves me.

The End

On Parenthood, Grace, and Bettering

April has been such a full month for us.  Maybe at some point when I get a chance, I will post about some of the random goings-on, but today was such a special day---Caeley made her First Reconciliation.  I knew that she was going to be nervous, so I've debated for months about whether or not I should also receive the sacrament with her as a show of solidarity.  (I must confess, confessing is not one of my favorite things to do.  It has not been a lifelong habit instilled in me from the time I made my own First Confession.  It's something I have slowly and somewhat reluctantly gotten back into only in recent years....and only a handful of times at that!  I am getting much better, thanks to the example and encouragement of some awesome, faithful friends! BS, that's for you all.)

But swallowing any of my own misgivings, I decided we would go together and make a special "mommy-daughter afternoon" out of it.  We arrived early to find the door to the church locked, but stood outside with a very nice sister (nun) who entertained us with stories of her own childhood and how her mother raised her to be so faithful.  (Yes, I was taking mental notes on that conversation!)  Once we were inside, we spent a minute or two in the pew just praying.  We got in line, and Caeley seemed so nervous, but she did it!  She was in and out in a flash, and it was my turn.  (Not so speedy for me, but I blame the fact that I'm not 8 and have a little more to say!)

Afterwards we drove down to our favorite grocery store, talking the whole way in the car about how she was feeling, how wonderful and forgiving God is, and how confession is such a good thing.  How it isn't just about being forgiven of our sins, but also about giving us the grace we need to be better people.  We also talked about the joys and struggles she has been feeling lately.  It was our first true "heart to heart" conversation...one that will be recorded on my heart forever.  (It will also be memorable because our entire trip was taken in a horrible rain storm, complete with flooding, cars in ditches on the side of the road, and our own driveway almost impassable!)

On the car ride home, I couldn't help but but feel so truly blessed.  Seeing my oldest daughter waiting for me in the pew, and then having her praying next to me as we did our penance together, was like nothing I've felt as a mother yet.  This was the little girl I birthed into being 8 years ago.  I remember the moment she made me a mother, the moment I lifted her purple, wiggling body from the water and put her to my chest.  I remember thinking to myself on that day, so clearly, that there must be a God, because how else was her existence possible?  And today, there she was, on her knees next to me.  There she was, making me want to be better for God, but also for her.  Making me want to stand by her and be strong for her in that moment, and in all the tough, scary moments to come.  Making me want to walk toward Christ with her.  It made me realize how ironic parenting is---that it isn't always about me raising these girls and helping them to find their vocations and their way to Heaven.  It is also so much about them bringing me there too.

A Use For Potholes

The gigantic potholes in the driveway that are now full of muddy water finally have a use:  the girls decided they make the best place to jump and splash on a beautiful day.  The old me would've cringed, but the new me stood by wishing I had my camera, watching the joy that is two girls getting sloshes with mud and muck.

Our Homeschooling Schedules : First and Second Grade

I have had some questions from folks about my "homeschool planning" and curriculum choices, and thought I would just start keeping a common place where everyone who is interested can just come and glean what they need from my stuff.  I am not really sure the best way to share things, but will try to start out with Google Document links to some sample schedules from last year (First Grade) and this year (Second Grade.)  I hope that this will be a good place to start for those of you who have asked what we have been up to.

Here is our current Second Grade Weekly Schedule

Here is the schedule we did last year for First Grade: First Grade Weekly Schedule

I should also add the "proviso" that these schedules represent a PERFECT homeschooling day, and by no means ever look exactly like what you see on paper.  It has been an especially humbling experience to try to come somewhere close since the baby has been born!  And we've kinda given up "tea time" in Lent, since tea time is normally the time when we eat more "special treat" types of things (and when mommy re-fuels for the afternoon!)...all things we have tried to give up for Lent.

Please also note that my "philosophy" of homeschooling would probably be called "Catholic Charlotte Mason with a bit of Classical thrown in."  I don't do any one particular "brand" of homeschooling whole hog, but pull from many and varied resources to figure out what materials to use and how to schedule our time.  For example, I love Charlotte Mason's methodology in terms of narration, dictation, nature study, artist and composer study, but I get a lot of ideas for supplemental reading and literature from my classical resources.  When you dig into it further, although there are some key differences, a Charlotte Mason and a Classical approach go wonderfully together!  You can look more fully into both these approaches by checking out the following websites...

Catholic Charlotte Mason Website

Ambleside Online

...and by looking through the following books:

Real Learning: Education in the Heart of the Home

The Well Trained Mind

Designing Your Own Classical Curriculum

I am still working on our schedule for Third Grade and will try to get that up when it's done.  That could be next week, that could be July!  :-)  For now, I hope this is some help to those who have asked.

Hamster Wheels and Sunshine

It's that time of year again. Although I haven't been homeschooling that long (and certainly not long compared to the veteran homeschoolers that I admire and look up to) I DO know that tis' the season to spin crazily in the curriculum hamster wheel. (I must pause and ask Alexis: Did YOU coin that phrase or did I? I know we've used it together in many a conversation, and I don't want to steal your phrase, so consider this is a citation, if it is indeed yours! My memory, as usual, fails me.) I'm really really really trying to stay off the wheel this year, and so far it hasn't been terribly hard. It also helps that I LIKE the science, math and history programs I used this past year, and we plan to just continue (or let's be honest, just finish) the next level of each.

(If you care to know my curriculum choices, keep reading: if not, skip this lengthy parenthetical section! We did Apologia's Exploring Creation with Astronomy, and plan to continue with the Botany next year. We use Math U See for Math. For history we are using a TruthQuest guide for US History and SOTW Volume 1 for Ancients. We are not even close to finishing SOTW since we started midway through the year, and I supplement with lots of library books. So really, there's not all that much left to decide!)

The hardest part of choosing school stuff is always the literature. My girls are big "read me a story" types, and so literature ends up being the highlight of our school day. That means if I choose poorly on those, we really feel it. It's like I hear that deep, scary movie voice saying, "You have NOT chosen wisely!" Cue wicked laughter. (Case in point: we went for a "budget" version of some Native American Indian Legends for the third term this year, and when I tell you that it's a travesty and a wonder that this book ever was published, I'm not exaggerating. The stories make little, if any sense, and I don't consider myself so challenged as to not be able to understand a book of short stories written for children. One has to wonder what was going on in the dark smoky wetus in which these tales were transcribed. But I digress...) Every year, without fail, I spend the longest portion of my hamster wheel exercising on selecting and scheduling the literature portions of our school plan. I have some ideas for now, but will spend the greater portion of the next two months figuring out and fine-tuning what I think will work for us.

There is good news for us hamsters, though! It's pretty much a certainty that the "head spinning" feeling of curriculum choosing is cured simply and easily with bouts of regular sunshine. (Then again, isn't EVERYTHING?) The converse is true also: the worst thing EVER is to have a cold, rainy, muddy spring. It only invites crazy people like me, who refuse to just do the sensible thing and buy (pardon me, I don't like this term, but I don't know what else to call it) a boxed curriculum, to sit inside on our computers, or in bed on our iPhones, or on the toilet on our iPads, pouring over 30 different versions of Pilgrim's Progress. Or maybe we'll do Robin Hood. But it must be the "right" Pilgrim's Progress and the "right" Robin Hood. Abridged? How abridged? Unabridged? Illustrated or not illustrated? Or better on audiobook? Or free on iBooks or Kindle or Nook? Which free version looks better? Oh dear. You see how it has been coined the "hamster wheel."

ENTER SUNSHINE on a dashing stead to rescue mommy homeschooler from said HAMSTER WHEEL. As if in direct response to my over-jealous exercising of late, the sun arrived, and we spent the better part of yesterday outside. (I should point out, that another cure would probably be me ACTUALLY exercising, not just pretending that I exercise on a giant hamster wheel. But for now, I think the pretend stuff will have to do.) For an entire afternoon, I avoided all decisions about books, curricula, scheduling, book lists, etc. It was wonderful. We went to mass on campus (Jesus heals too!), ate lunch out on the student terrace by the cafeteria, played by the water fountain, and tried to soak it all in. After getting home, baby took a nap, and us big girls laid on a picnic blanket in the sun and played the "read me a book" game until the main reader was also asleep herself. :-)

And now it's raining. And cold. And where IS that iPad?

To blog or not to blog...

It has been a long, hard decision whether to start a blog or not. About 3 years ago, I made a weak attempt to start one, got about 8 posts into it, and just couldn't continue. I'm not sure why, but I know that part of me was still clinging to the "paper and pencil" journaling I have done since I was a child. It seemed inconvenient to always have to sit down at a computer to jot a quick thought, and so my old fashioned method, however sporadic, continued.

Then, along came Facebook, which is basically a shortened, interactive blog for people who only have (or care to make) time for brief sentences or mental snapshots. I LOVE Facebook. I MISS Facebook, which I gave up for Lent. (Talk about feeling isolated from the world and in my own lonely desert for 40 days!) I plan to love fiercely on Facebook at some point on Easter Sunday. I'm sure I'll have about a gazillion updates, which I won't have time to read, but I'll be back AND back in the know about what's going on with everyone. (And thanks to those of you who A.) realized I was gone, and B.) told me you missed my Facebook presence. As cheesy and stupid as it sounds, it means a lot to be missed, even if just in a virtual sense.)

In the meantime, my iPad arrived. It shipped from halfway around the world. I had to wait almost a month to get it. And with it has also come the realization that jotting down a few thoughts will no longer require sitting at a desk! I could do it in the car. I could do it in a jar. I could do it in the van. I could do it with a can. I could do it here or there. Say, I could do it ANYWHERE! And so, I think it has been decided. I think I will try to keep a record of our days using the awesome and quite portable technology now at my fingertips. (And I'm not gonna lie, I just really need to start writing stuff down and taking more pictures, because as most of my friends, and ALL of my family know, I inherited my father's memory, which means I can't remember what happened to me three seconds ago.)

A few notes before we begin....

What I hope this blog is: a place for me to write down the epic joys, but also the humbling failures that are just part of the experience of parenting and homeschoolng. I hope to keep a record of my gardening progress, a record of what we are doing in school, and the milestones that the girls hit along the way. (There might be some chicken lamentations thrown in. I miss them. What more can I say?) These posts and thoughts are really for my own "record-keeping" if you will. I do not believe for one minute that they will be of use to anyone. I DO hope that my family and friends will enjoy hearing about the funny antics of the three little ladies in the house, and what we're up to in this little corner of the world.

What this blog will NOT be: a place to brag about how perfect and wonderful my life is, because there are plenty of blogs out there depicting the rose-colored tales of "perfect Catholic homeschooling mothers doing everything perfectly, motherly and Catholicy (I made up that word) and flowery froo-froo." And while I love to get on those blogs every now and again to steal an idea or craft, for the most part, they give me something akin to a panic attack and lead to nothing but feelings of inadequacy about basically every choice I've made in my life. I will decidedly NOT be one of those bloggers. This will not be a place where I claim to have all the answers, or really any answers. About anything.

Oh, and there will be lots of parenthetical statements and run-on sentences. I just love them. That's how my brain works. Consider this a forewarning and also an apology.

PS: This "official first post" is dedicated to Alexis and Ellie, who have inspired me, made me laugh, and made me realize that blogging can't be all that scary!