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)

on things above

Posted on September 27, 2017 by Kim Halloran-Fry

The date I tentatively expected to wrap up my Facebook fast has come and gone. A funny thing has happened this time. I am in no hurry to rejoin the conversation, which does not appear to have become less abrasive nor more edifying in the time that has passed. Perhaps it isn't quite accurate to say I am 'away' since I still pop over to share something in our little family group or to leave a birthday wish. There was an actual feeling of withdrawal when I first deleted the app. The same thoughts flitted through my head as I have heard so many others voice:

How will I keep up with the news?

Who will I talk to? (bigger question if you are home based)

What about morale? Stimulation? Rapport?

Well, the best way to find out is to just press on. Worse case scenario you just jump back in.

What have I noticed? First, it's true. You'll be out of the loop. I was already pretty close to the edge anyway lol. You won't hear about who did what – either on your small screen or on the big ones – until it is old news. Or maybe not at all. It is true that if you turn off the TV (which happened years ago) and you also sign off social media you will have to make a concerted effort to follow the news. Or maybe you will go whole days without following it. You might forget to be upset about things you can do absolutely nothing about. If you have an engaged circle of curious and thoughtful people around you, however, you will be hard pressed not to be abreast of the breaking news and can readily investigate whatever seems to require your attention.

Will your world then go silent? On the contrary. I have enjoyed some wonderful private conversations the past several weeks. While the Facebook feed has been increasingly draining, the Facebook messenger app has been such a blessing.

Did I get bored? Oh my word, no. We have had such successful school days, days so full we have a backlog of home/art/food/book/music ideas. Even with those hours reclaimed from social media there is still not enough time in each day to do all we would like. There is more than there was, though. More importantly, each activity is leaving me energized and motivated to do other interesting things. As a friend said, we do math (and all the other challenging tasks we do here) because there are solutions to those problems. Few things boost morale like actually solving problems, even if they are small.

Some of the online time I had has been rerouted to reading longer articles and revisiting favorite blogs. It turns out many of us have come to that same conclusions. Slow reading and slow writing, as my friend Susan says. (Consider replacing some random scrolling with one of Susan's essays. It is SO good to have her back.)

I have gathered up a few of the articles about all this:

7Ways to Honor God by Limiting Social Media

Social Media Pro/Con

Why I Deleted the Facebook App don't miss her "what I did instead"

Why I Deleted All My Facebook Friends

10 Reasons I Deleted My Facebook

Since we aren't suggesting anyone go full-on Luddite here, here are some helpful considerations before hitting the share button:

4 Questions to Ask Before Posting on Social Media

Does it even need to go on social media…..

Social media

and when to embrace silence entirely:

because this might just be true….

Social media

"Don’t let ennui keep you digitally distracted. Fight the good fight." more on that here

“Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.” Colossians 3:2

Main Lesson Monday

Posted on September 26, 2017 by Kim Halloran-Fry

These are a smattering of the notebook pages the kids have created this month. Not perfect, but perfectly delightful to me.

Hours

So one of my favorite lessons grew out of our recent thrift store find of Classic Poems to Read Aloud. We memorized All Things Bright and Beautiful last week. It was actually memorized in a matter of hours once I bought packs of gum as a reward. I am nothing if not pragmatic, y'all. So after that I had pulled out Hillaire Belloc's Mathilda for a hilarious contrast. They thought it was a little gross and creepy so we discussed satire, parody, and cautionary tales. They recorded the definitions and we found the rest of his tales here. Each picked out one to record in their notebooks. They still they are gross and creepy and I am still amused.

Some math pages:

Hours

We print out the free puzzles of the week for each grade level from Critical Thinking Press. I truly believe that never before has critical thinking been more………critical. These puzzles sometimes hurt my brain but they get everyone talking and working together, especially this week when they DID NOT INCLUDE A SOLUTION. Don't worry. I'm not bitter or anything. We are just still hashing this one out. Go ahead. Download. Then tell us who you think stole the headphones 'k?

And some random real life practice finding nouns in a magazine article. It is often easy to figure out a pattern in a language exercise book. Then they are at a loss when faced with actual text someplace else. This practice got us discussing abstract nouns since the mid elementary student who underlined in blue found most of the concrete things quickly, but missed the abstract – which is totally age appropriate per the whole Trivium age group delineations. This was a quick game and isn't perfectly checked either btw. There are more anchor charts and grammar pages to help springboard discussion over on my pinterest board here.

This next page just makes me laugh. Every time. (yes, I know it is misspelled)

Your life lesson of the day is right there. That "slightly downhill' part? It's a concept to live by if ever there was one hahaha! Working hard on that over here. Just gonna leave that there and wrap up now lol.

that autumnal beginning

Posted on September 21, 2017 by Kim Halloran-Fry

“That old September feeling, left over from school days, of summer passing, vacation nearly done, obligations gathering, books and football in the air … Another fall, another turned page: there was something of jubilee in that annual autumnal beginning, as if last year's mistakes had been wiped clean by summer.” – Wallace Stegner, Angle of Repose

I began to put out the autumn decor a bit prematurely, when we cleaned the storage room after the fire evacuation. It was still in the 90's then. It was a few weeks before that I snapped this photo of the baby acorns. Then, very suddenly, last weekend, it became fall. Autumn, when it came, descended very definitely and without hesitation. It is now chilly, cold actually. We are scrambling to find our sweaters and socks after a summer in sandals.

It is sort of wonderful, this new season. A time of gathering – new titles to explore, (see above) new texts begun, new seasonal recipes, the promise of Christmas at the end of this glorious indulgent semester. My favorite time of all is autumn. So full of promise. Perhaps because my life has long revolved around the academic year, September is our new year.

Here is where we start fresh.

Starry Sky Journal

Reflections from Starry Sky Ranch

Author Archives: Kim Halloran-Fry