October at home

Posted on October 20, 2017 by Kim Halloran-Fry

Oh how I love autumn. And pumpkins. Lots and lots of orange pumpkins. Pinterest suggests a coat of mercury glass paint would look fab. And it would. Daughter reminds me that, "It's just not right for this house. It's not you." Whether that is a good thing or not it is true. I have a well known, deep seated affection for all things orange and spicy and warm, so every corner is full of that right now.

The mums my husband brought home early in the month are still going strong. The pot is just slipped into the planter so when they have run their course, we can pull it back out with no hassle.

The pillows are out. I have shared before about upcycling thrifted placemats into throw pillows. I am no expert seamstress but can sew a straight line around and stuff them well.

And seasonal hand towels. I can't pass them up at the thrift store. Scarecrows, jack o lanterns, and acorns are waiting at each counter.

Printed muffin liners? Naturally.

And seasonal kitchen mitts. Because…88 cents, yall. It's not magazine worthy, but it is worth every one of those 88 pennies to make them smile when they dry their hands or reach for cornbread or rest their heads.

"Parents, your children are worth more to you than the unrealities so many of you follow. See to it that you give to your young children a home worthy of the name. Giving them that, you give them all.

There have been many as choice Homes. There have been many as true Parents. In many a soul their memory shines, like a star, and in many a heart they have lit an undying sunshine of gratitude."

Harriot Kesia Hunt

as they grow

Posted on October 19, 2017 by Kim Halloran-Fry

One thing I loved so much during the preschool years were our Montessori trays, self-contained activities presented on a wooden tray complete with all the materials needed. Truth is, I loved dreaming up Montessori trays, but my days were not chock full of empty hours with which to put them together. There was also a good deal of tray straightening and supervision required once they were created.

A mom asked me for more thoughts on this next stage of home learning and family life with no littles underfoot. This would be one of the new and different dynamics. Little people become bigger people who still love their projects. They can now print a tutorial and gather their own materials. In fact, you might stroll out from the laundry room or office and find a scene like this one.

Oct 2017 pumpkin donut web (1 of 1)

Now instead of demonstrating and directing and overseeing I am invited in to admire and give a few pointers, or better yet, to not give a few pointers. I love to hear their thoughts about what worked, what didn't work as well, and how they might do things differently next time.

PS though? There is still some straightening up to do after. ; )

clearing out

Posted on October 18, 2017 by Kim Halloran-Fry

In the aftermath of the canyon fire, the county set up dumpsters in our community to encourage homeowners to clear their property of debris and undergrowth which can ignite and fuel damaging fires under the right conditions. We were talking with the neighbors about just how MUCH crud there is to clear out once you start to dig – stuff we lived with pretty obliviously. It is a such a self-discipline thing to get out there and roll up your sleeves especially when you aren't actually finishing a thing but rather just keeping a little bit ahead of the game.

This may be one of the biggest revelations of adulting for me – just how much pruning and weeding all of life requires. I have always been more focused on planning and envisioning, planting and harvesting. Reality is those are brief lovely beginning and endings. Celebratory. The real meat of any project is the maintaining. It's not terribly glam, no matter what you are maintaining.

We won't finish this job this year but we have hauled off a lot of weeds and brush and broken branches. It's much better than when we started. I'm trusting that steady effort is cumulative. I am looking around at what else could use some digging out. One project here and there. Garbage hauled out is always an improvement.

Sept 2017 brush web (1 of 7)

the thing we need most

Posted on October 15, 2017 by Kim Halloran-Fry

“Usually, when the distractions of daily life deplete our energy, the first thing we eliminate is the thing we need the most: quiet, reflective time. Time to dream, time to contemplate what's working and what's not, so that we can make changes for the better."

– Sarah Ban Breathnach

Sabbath day thoughts accompanied by images from a drive into the mountains a couple weeks ago. No doubt the color is even more fiery right now. I wish we were there today! But we needed a lazy Sunday with naps and list making afternoon even more. A quiet walk in the neighborhood is planned instead.

Fatima

Posted on October 14, 2017 by Kim Halloran-Fry

"….for the place where you stand is holy ground." Acts 7:33

Four years ago this week we made a pilgrimage to Fatima. I realized I never shared those images here. Today, celebrating the centennial of the apparition, seemed like a good time to retrace our steps.

Fatima (8 of 13)

"…you are going to have much to suffer, but the grace of God will be your comfort." – Our Lady of Fatima

"I will never leave you"

fatima web (3 of 5)

Fatima (8 of 13)

2014 fatima web (3 of 5)

"Many persons," Sr. Lucia explained, "feeling that the word penance implies great austerities, and not feeling that they have the strength for great sacrifices, become discouraged and continue a life of lukewarmness and sin."

Then she said Our Lord explained to her:

"The sacrifice required of every person is the fulfillment of his duties in life and the observance of My law. This is the penance that I now seek and require."

"Are you suffering a great deal? Don't lose heart. I will never forsake you." – Our Lady of Fatima

taking one more chance

Posted on October 9, 2017 by Kim Halloran-Fry

Extroverted introvert, they call it. The sort who can be perfectly content with lots and lots of alone and quiet time but will chat it up with no problem when the opportunity arises. I am so that and sometimes it really serves me well. September was such a chock full month, full of driving and games and school and appointments. My husband came home a couple weeks ago in the middle of the madness and I had dinner in the instant pot. The sun was still out and it was unseasonably warm. He mentioned maaaaybe taking a walk, but fatigue was voting for sitting down instead. I ran and grabbed shoes and dog leashes and convinced him we could squeeze in a short walk before dinner with the girls and dogs.

We were rounding a corner, with girls and dogs, when we noticed a chicken coop in a side yard. A woman and her neighbor were hauling some brush out into a flatbed trailer and all chicken heart eyes I gush, "Are those your hens?" As if they would be anyone else's hens shacking up in her back yard. This urban farmer matches my enthusiasm and says, "Yes! Do you want to come see them?!?"
Um, yes. I did, in fact, want to see the chickens. A lot.

The girls and I handed dogs off to my husband and traipsed into the yard to see the small flock and we talked non stop. Where do you live? How long have you lived here? Was your house near the fire? How old are your kids? We have a big party every summer! You should come!

The next week we got together and they brought us eggs. Today we sat in my kitchen talking a blue streak while the girls got to know each other. Amazingly they too hit it off immediately and had to be appeased with promises of another visit soon.

It is hard to start fresh in another place. Whether you do it once or do it every few years. Building your tribe all over again from scratch is daunting. It takes a lot of fortitude to put yourself out there. To be honest, the first two years we have spent here have been emotionally and physically taxing. I have put off taking chances like these because it felt like one more hard thing that needed to happen and might not work anyway. It doesn't always. This is part of the package though. This is how a community is built. You can be bitter that you have to keep doing it or you can celebrate the beautiful people who come into your life. I won't kid you – I have done both of those things.

Tonight, I am celebrating.

Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family: Whatevery you call it, whoever you are, you need one. – Jane Howard

Thrifty fall reading

Posted on October 5, 2017 by Kim Halloran-Fry

Decor magazines have long been my "one weakness" as Miss Lane would say. (see below) I seem to have acquired this great love early in life. I am still carrying around vintage volumes my mother purchased in the 70's. True story.

A thrifty homemaking tip is shopping your own house. I do this each season with the magazines. They are not cheap and my style has been pretty consistent over the years. So while I might purchase something new each season, it will join the keepers on display and I will continue to glean idea from them in years to come.

PS if you somehow are not familiar with Miss Lane or if you are as fond of her as we are you will enjoy this:

October Basket and Binder (decontructed)

Posted on October 4, 2017 by Kim Halloran-Fry

Friends know my deep, abiding love for Pinterest. Let me tell how much easier homeschooling, homemaking, and all things creative are today! I remember the tremendous struggle it once was having a list of poetry to memorize, for instance, and not being able to track down a particular piece in print. Countless dead ends or false starts accrued simply because there was no way to access all the materials or patterns or whatnot. My gratitude for the internet, generally, and Pinterest, specifically, is therefore profound. So many resources right at your fingertips. You have to be smart about how to gather and make use of them however. Good ideas you cannot quickly access will not likely be put to use. It is wonderful to have it online but since we cannot and would never dream of doing all there is to do it helps to decide which of those fun things would make the most of our month and then start to plan.

I am busy printing out pages and creating binders for each month so our lists are at the ready and can be slipped out when we run to the store or library. Some of things included in our binders are:

recipes we plan to make

craft or decorating projects we hope to finish

books we will look for,

poems we will recite

hymns we will learn

seasonal worksheets

coloring pages

quotes (seasonal or liturgical)

Before I put these in page protectors I snapped some photos of some of our October pages:

There are numerous links to free fall printables, so one of those will be the cover.

One or two crafty or food ideas for each week to include feast day desserts and a birthday cake and a gift.

Oct7

The book basket is never exhaustive but rather just a smattering of titles pulled from our modest stash which will be supplemented by library books, ebooks, and online articles.

Oct7

Some links we are enjoying:

MP3 Catholic Kids Saints

St Francis animated video

St Francis bio and talk

Vintage film St Francis

St Therese film

Catholic/liturgical links

Seasonal decor ideas

If you keep seasonal binders, baskets or pin boards I would love to see them!

a soft place to land

Posted on October 3, 2017 by Kim Halloran-Fry

“A true home is one of the most sacred of places. It is a sanctuary into which men flee from the world’s perils and alarms. It is a resting-place to which at close of day the weary retire to gather new strength for the battle and toils of tomorrow."

It might seem superficial to gather autumn ornamentals when the headlines are blaring disaster, to simmer soup when the schools are practicing live shooter drills, to smooth bedcovers when nerves are frayed. I wonder, though, as I pot the mums, if we aren't doing the very best thing we could be under the circumstances. Our families are navigating a loud and unsettling world, daily. We can't fix that by ourselves. We can however create a soft place to land at the close of day, a sanctuary space to launch from every morning.

That's what I am doing. We woke to mass casualty news. We had dental appointments which resulted in prescriptions and an oral surgery consult for one boy. The brakes appear to be shot. The dog got sick on the carpet. So I put on my new dress, kept the news off where children are present, explained extraction procedures in the best possible terms, cleaned dog mess, lent my van to the teens, arranged a sitter for a parent meeting tonight, and made dinner in the instant pot so we have warm food whenever we all gather again from the four corners we are dispersed to today. Pollyanna? Maybe. Or maybe super pragmatic.

"Far more than we know, do the strength and beauty of our lives depend upon the home in which we dwell. He who goes forth in the morning from a happy, loving, prayerful home, into the world’s strife, temptation, struggle, and duty, is strong–inspired for noble and victorious living. The children who are brought up in a true home go out trained and equipped for life’s battles and tasks, carrying in their hearts a secret of strength…" - JRR Miller

I can't fix all the things. I can do the little things that will send us all out again tomorrow with that secret of strength which is home.

the two best tools for homeschool moms

Posted on October 2, 2017 by Kim Halloran-Fry

It wasn't the most expert job ever but the girls' first go at designing and making doll clothes 'all by ourselves' was fruitful in so many ways.

When I caught wind of what they were working on my mind began rapidly populating a syllabus with lessons about seam allowances and finished edges and a dozen related points before I caught myself. An article from years ago by homeschooling pioneer Jessica Hulcy came to mind. She was a leader in hands-on, thematic studies. She would probably have lesson plans for this right? There should be plans. Thorough plans. And supplies. And lots of books. No doubt, as time goes on, we will indeed explore all the above. Right now, though, I am reminding myself of the time that wise woman said that the best tools she could equip homeschool moms with were a gag and handcuffs, for themselves, for just such moments as these. The idea is that there are few things better than personal experience to instill a need to know and to light the fire of their imaginations. Sometimes the best gift you can give a child is discovery, complete with the freedom to make many imperfect preliminary steps.

Gathering all the materials myself and preplanning a foolproof unit might have resulted in a picture-perfect project the first time around. For so many reasons we are off to a much better start now. Now, they are curious: Why do you sew on the wrong side of the fabric? How do you get the seams to go on the inside? what happens if you leave the cut edges raw? What makes the dress go on easier? Now, they are curious and motivated. Now, they can't answer those questions fast enough.

What they needed most here was not a dress but an experience, a series of connections that could explode into dozens of other possibilities. They got that.

There will be more experiments. They will come out a little better every time. Their competence and creativity is amazing and before we know it we will be coming to them for tips, just like we go to their brothers and sisters for their areas of expertise. This, after all, is the real goal for us – not just to impart to them what we know, but to watch it mingle with their other life experiences to become something new and different altogether.

Sept 2017 sew web (1 of 3)

Starry Sky Journal

Reflections from Starry Sky Ranch

Monthly Archives: October 2017