In an interview with Dr James Dobson the author Emilie Barnes relates that she found herself frustrated and overwhelmed as a young mother. The house was a mess and by the time the children were put to bed she could not point to what she had actually accomplished in the day.  She prayed sincerely for how she could commit her day, her children, her husband, and her work to the Lord.  She says:

So I began, first of all, from that time when I had those five little babies under five years old, I began to get up before dawn, as Proverbs 31 says, and I spent that little time with the Lord. And I committed my day, my works unto him. And it was because of that that all of a sudden things began to get put together. The days that I spent that five or ten minutes with the Lord, gave him my day, those children, emergencies, interruptions, all the things that were going on in my life, it seemed by the end of the day I'd had time for a nap or to sit down and read a magazine. My meals were in order. My family seemed to be happier. Now, it wasn't perfect every day, but the days that I really committed my life and my works were the days that I found success at the end of the day.

Lindsay Boever who wrote regularly at the wonderful My Child, I Love You blog is now on Instagram.  She shared a particularly convicting short story today here. 
When she entered the novitiate years ago the novice master asked her one question daily: What do you have to offer….  It was a Socratic exercise which led to a simple, but profound lesson. 

What skills best equip us for success? Make a list then click over.  

"Our vision is so limited we can hardly imagine a love that does not show itself in protection from suffering. The love of God is of a different nature altogether. It does not hate tragedy. It never denies reality. It stands in the very teeth of suffering. The love of God did not protect His own Son. The cross was the proof of His love – that He gave that Son, that He let Him go to Calvary’s cross, though “legions of angels” might have rescued Him. He will not necessarily protect us – not from anything it takes to make us like His Son. A lot of hammering and chiseling and purifying by fire will have to go into the process.”

Elisabeth Elliot 

My queen and my mother,
I give myself entirely to you;
and to show my devotion to you,
I consecrate to you this day,
my eyes, my ears, my mouth, my heart,
my whole being without reserve.
Wherefore, good mother,
as I am your own,
keep me, guard me,
as your property and possession.
Amen.

From the May altar at home.

"For I remember it is Easter morn,
And life and love and peace are all new born."
– Alice Freeman Palmer

This will go down as a most unusual Easter celebration, one that found us in our houses deprived of mass and extended family, with so many unknowns. We set the table and made the ham but it was a more subdued holiday than our children are accustomed to having.  Someone had the idea to use the Zoom platform to have a virtual get together. It was both wonderful and bittersweet.  We are grateful to be able to see the babies in their Easter dresses and Will in his little button down shirt showing us his new car, though it is not the same as real life hugs and kisses. 

The adult boys came to the rescue of flagging spirits by staging a most epic egg hunt, even for our family which is known for pretty next level egg hunts.  Late Saturday night, long after we had gone to bed they hatched their plan.  When I woke up Sunday morning and began to make breakfast I wiped my hands on the cloth laid over the stove handle and the first egg dropped.  When I opened the carton I found another plastic egg among the real ones and realized what they had done.  What followed was a long pursuit of eggs hiding bizarre places such as inside of hollowed out oranges in the fruit bowl.  Fortunately someone thought to keep a master list of hiding spots to refer back to. 

 Later in the day, when the babies were down for the night, we tried some virtual games together. 

I have been thinking about Easter readings which mention purging the leaven of malice.  Leaven is what causes dough to swell and puff up and malice, of course, is ill will towards others.  The passage would encourage us to consider how easily and often we can swell up with self-righteous judgement and bear malicious feelings towards others.  We know so little, really, about each other.  So little.  Surely much less than we fancy we do.  It cooks up such a bitter loaf in us.  

Our day ended with snow falling.  It continues to blanket the woods even now. That's ok though.  It is just deepening my feeling of hibernation and helping to hush the world outside. 

When walking the dogs we noticed how brightly the girls' window shines from the side of the house.  It made me think again about the reading today.  I hope that, despite all that is plaguing us, that what is spilling out of us is still beautiful, devoid of malice, and pointing to One Who is perfect. That's my goal anyway, however short I SO often fall of that. 

from the kitchen:

Sourdough everything.  A friend sent me some starter and I am trying to get up to speed about its care and feeding. I actually have no idea what I am doing but hey, I've never let that stop me.  Family reports that the pancakes today were "much better than usual," which I think is a compliment.  

wearing:

Pajama pants.  Not gonna lie.  We started this quarantine thing more official like but we are in more self comfort and support mode now. After a late movie with the girls I let them sleep in today so I got semi-dressed and ready to face only the fam anyway.

The girls and I had a talk about some positive, creative steps we could take during lockdown and they decided to sew.  We are going to get the machine set up and work on some paper bag skirts. Looks like we will be making or mail ordering spring outfits this year. 

watching:

Pride and Prejudice with the girls last night.  I love the Kiera Knightley version. It was two hours of complete escape. 

The Office with the guys.  Often.  This plague may seriously go down as The Office Pandemic for us.  

outside:

Most of the snow is melted.  At the moment.  It's spring in the Rockies and it's quite likely that was not the last hurrah.  Snow means green grass later though. Meantime, the stellar jays are making a clatter out back.   Tiny finches have made an appearance.  We are going to try to get a bird feeder set up by way of first steps to bring more winged creatures to the yard.  

The deer have been feeding out near the fence line. I never tire of them. 

From the learning room:

The Current War was a hit with me anyway.  We covered electricity and circuits in middle school science this month.  Youtube Kids has many short video demos to flesh that out. 

Still on our WWI study and we hit the Romanov family and the Russian revolution.  The girls revisited Anastasia and read about all the Anastasia imposters and how the mystery was sadly resolved with the advent of DNA testing. 

around the house:

We bought a clipper set to groom the dogs ourselves.  (Insert dramatic music here.) The groomer is closed and the dogs cannot wait weeks or longer.  Again, YouTube to the rescue.  See above comment under "from the kitchen."

reading:

We began The Door in the Wall together.  It is a fast read with lots of spiritual and practical relevance to our current plague. Resources we are using include…

Door in the Wall study guide

Bubonic Plague video

Spanish Flu for Kids here and here

Also doing a personal reread of Simplicity Parenting more on that next

big thought:

As with any public crisis I have returned to and referred folks to Kim John Payne and Simplicity Parenting.  Highly recommend a listen to Podcast #5 lower on the page entitled Filtering Adult Information is More Important Now Than Ever Before.  I love this man.  He has such a heart for children and families. It is easy to let ourselves off the hook and blame circumstances beyond our control but we need to sincerely consider the ways we might be contributing to their stress.  There are simple steps we can take to get our children and ourselves through crises like these. He urges us to consider whether our words are true, kind, necessary, and securing. I know its a temptation for me, especially with the adult kids handy, to jump into conversation without that consideration. 

Also included in the podcast is good info about pacing and imagery in contemporary cinematography and its impact on young brains. 

It's been a long time since I have soaked beans and worked them up into purees and soups. It was such a familiar part of my life for so many years.  I knew right where to find the hand lettered recipe, so familiar to a younger version of myself.  That me wandered the aisles of small health food stores in the late 80s, soaking up the scents of natural soaps and dry goods bins and herbs in big glass jars which were weighed out on a kitchen scale and bagged to bring home. Later, babies in tow, friends and I would gather every month to unload the co-op semi truck in a church parking lot and separate our orders into piles while the children played.  The older kids remember being rewarded with fruit leathers or natural licorice at the end of those long days.  We coop women were all so very different. There were hippies in head scarves and tank tops working side by side with Mennonites and suburban moms like me.  I think I knew then what a remarkable thing it was: the unity we had. We were driven to live simply, eat clean, and raise happy children.  

This week finds us in the middle of a quarantine and the middle of lent.  People are growing tired of boiled eggs and tuna, but we can't just drop by the store every few days.  I turned to the pantry.  The beans were measured out into my Instant Pot for a presoak.  The water was drained and seasonings added for a second pressure cook.  Finally the beans ran through the food processor. The whole process was wrapped up in one morning instead of babysitting the soaking and simmering beans for many hours. There was no chance I might forget and let the water boil dry, scorching the bottom of the pan. It's a whole new world, for better and worse.

I am grateful for technology that enables me to meet my goals but also for hand written recipes with little, imperfect doodles along the edges. I'm glad of the reminder that before there were glitzy websites there were just home cooks, experimenting, trying to nourish the people they loved. And it was enough.  

I cook differently today.  My younger children have a different palate due to my autoimmune conditions and things we have learned in the years since.  I don't necessarily wish to return to the "good old days" when I was very sick, but rather bring the best of those ideals and practices into my life today.  Especially during lent, old favorites return to the rotation. 

"There's a reason certain books become classics… We return to great–or favorite–books over and over again, poring over the words, folding over page corner after page corner, underlining key passages and making marginal notes to reinforce our understanding. It's the same with cookbooks, only with the addition of random ingredient dribbles and sauce stains supplementing our other forms of commemoration. While we occasionally try something new, we always return to our comfort zone, knowing that pretty much everything we need to make one of our favorite recipes is right there on the shelf." – Bookslut

There are good days and bad days in quarantine.  Yesterday was the latter.  Between new technology, lots of big people in close quarters, job layoffs, and general frustration it was a very long Tuesday. We did get a good BBQ Pork Loin in the crockpot, I worked out, and finally at day's end a couple of the big boys squeezed around the laptop with me and watched The Office reruns. Wednesday has been better to us. Some lately's in Daybook style, since this template seems to be a fave….

From the kitchen:

A surprise hit was Leftover Oatmeal Muffins.  We toss far more food than is thrifty or right, but no one likes cold oatmeal even if I reheat it.  It is a shame to see wholesome whole grain goodness go to waste though.  I did not have high hopes for these but can report they were light and flaky and devoured with gusto. 

Watching: 

BBC's They Shall Not Grow Old was superb.  I am not sure all my kids agreed, but I could listen to those men for hours. It was far more graphic than expected but did not seem to faze anyone but me. We watched Sea Biscuit earlier in the week, which came later chronologically, and will be trying to find a few more family friendly WWI views like Anne of Green Gables and War Horse next.  If you have favorites do send. 

Reading:

Curious tidbit from The Easter Book…

It has been a most….penitential…lent so far. Tess completed a report on St Therese today after reading a biography which prompted a heart to heart about resignation to Divine Will and redemptive suffering and so on. That bit about quarantine though?  Wild coincidence isn't it? sigh.  

Listening to:

We caught some Andrew Lloyd Webber live this morning. Shared a little background with the younger kids.  Clearly we have a cultural knowledge gap there.  Trying to decide which musical to watch with them.  We are not terribly musical-ish.  

Towards wellness:

Making liposomal vitamin C.  

Just will mention that, despite what it looks like, if you imagine this to be anything like, say, Tang, just put that thought out of your head.  Whooooo-eeeee.  

Barre Workout  a fave, even if it challenges my balance skills. 

Sent boys out to the lake today. Trying to assure big kids are getting sunshine daily.  Though I also made them text me pics of the park they went to as proof they are still social distancing.  I'm a lotta fun that way.  

"If y'all go together you will look like a gathering!  How will you prove you aren't friends hanging out?"

"Mom.  MOM.  We all look alike."

"Good point.  Have fun."

From the learning room:

Ukulele lessons online

My few years hanging out with Leo have come to a close. I wrapped up my long, drawn out War and Peace project last night.  Honestly I don’t even know how I feel about it.  Tolstoy famously quips that pure, unadulterated sorrow is as impossible as pure, unadulterated joy.  In the same way I can say I feel great kinship with Tolstoy, his ideas, and his characters today.  I also can say the man’s pedantic, fatalist rambling  made me sometimes want to pull my own hair out.  There was a lot of that.  Still I read.

And read.

And read.

At times completely enthralled and other times not even sure why I kept trudging on besides the fact I felt deeply connected to the people and committed to seeing it through. 

I ended up seeing through War and Peace, Anna Karenina, Resurrection, and The Death of Ivan Ilyich and am now applauding myself enthusiastically because first, I am not that smart and second, my attention span is about as impressive as my energy level as a rule. It was a goal set and met though – despite all that life threw at me during the project – and that is worth noting with satisfaction.  

It is both sad to finally be walking away from these people and places and exciting to consider where to go next. My plan is to read a few of the boys’ high school lit novels which I have not yet read so we can hash those out better.  Sometimes I read ahead of them, sometimes I read aloud to them, and sometimes they summarize what they are reading.  It makes for a family book club of sorts. 

Years ago I was inspired by Joyce Swan working through her oldest’s assignments each evening so she could teach and troubleshoot more effectively.  Constant relocation and many years of night nursing prevented me from doing this as well as I had hoped.  There are still children to teach however, and if I can’t get to all the work ahead of them it is still helpful to do what I can.  Reading is a wonderful way to come together with your big people no matter where they spend their days.  It will be good to reconnect in this way. 

Tolstoy advises: A man on a thousand mile walk has to forget his goal and say to himself every morning, 'Today I'm going to cover twenty-five miles and then rest up and sleep.”

And so it is here. I’ve tried not to look at the whole journey and just tackle each day’s leg of it.  If I fell a bit short sometimes, I went a little further the next day. This is the way we chip away at the classics.  Eventually you look up and an epic work is under your belt.