I had started another book, that I just couldn't get into - but then it got to be halfway through March, and I needed to find a book that I could handle before the month was over, or risk falling behind schedule in month three of my plan.
For the unfamiliar, The Story of a Soul is the Autobiography of Saint Therese of Lisieux, known as "The Little Flower". She was a Carmelite nun, entering the convent at 15 and dying at 24. I've known the basic story of St. Therese for a number of years, but one thing I had never considered is how she became declared a Saint, when she had a short life of a cloistered nun. Few people probably knew of her existence during her life, and it is this autobiography that introduced the world to St. Therese.
I'm pretty sure I could read this book a dozen more times and get more out of it every time. I will admit that the flowery language was difficult for me - I'm just not the biggest fan of the style. She also bounces around a lot (and apologizes a lot for her bouncing around!) It is easy to see that she just wrote - she didn't think of writing a book, she just wrote about what she was told to write, and let the Holy Spirit be her guide.
I was surprised to learn that St. Therese had a lack of consolations in prayer, as I often think of Saints as having intense God experiences regularly (as some Saints did, of course!) I loved this particular line:
"Don't imagine that I'm overwhelmed with consolations. I'm not. My consolation is not to have any in this life. Jesus never manifests Himself nor lets me hear His voice. He teaches me in secret. I never learn anything from books, for I don't understand what I read. Yet from time to time a sentence comforts me."
Also, when she talks about her "little way" - the little sacrifices she makes, it is clear that she does so humbly and with humility:
"You see, Mother, that I am a very little soul who can only offer very little things to God; it often happens that I let slip the chance of making these little sacrifices which give such peace, but I'm not discouraged. I put up with having a bit less peace and try to be more careful next time. Ah! How happy God makes me! It is so pleasant and easy to serve Him during this life."
I wish I had some great and profound thoughts about this book, but I guess all I need to have a very little thoughts - and perhaps to work harder towards making little sacrifices in life for God.
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Friday, March 16, 2012
Quick Takes Friday
I don't know if I have 7 things to say this week, so we'll just have to see how far I get!
1-
I'm having a bang-my-head-against-the-wall kind of day today. Enrollment for the virtual charter we are hoping to get Charlotte in for next year opened this week, and I faxed in all the documentation asked for. The complication is in proving that we are Colorado residents, because we don't have the preferred documentation (mortgage or rental agreement) or the secondary documentation because everything is either in FILs name, or sent to FILs address. I even added a notarized and signed document as suggested by one of my contacts at the school. At this point, I am just waiting for a call back to see if it is a simple fix, or if it will be more complicated. The most irritating part of all is that all four of us were born in Colorado and have never lived in any other state...and I just can't seem to prove that we are residents!!
2-
My CCD class was WAY hyper this week - all of them had excessive amounts of sugar before class, and were wound up from taking their state tests (which they informed me are no longer CSAPs, but TCAPs - still, crappy state level standardized tests by whatever name...) and the only way we made it through my lesson was by bribing them with 5 minutes to run around at the end of class if we got through my lesson. I don't know how, but we made it through - and they got to run around until their parents picked them up!
3-
Cookie drama should be over for the year. One mom returned 39 packages after the last day for sales - but on the same day she returned them, I got a call from a GS state employee, and she gave us permission to sell our remaining cookies at our local community night. In the end, we have 9 leftover packages that the troop will pay for and use for snacks. Not too bad!
4-
It is getting to that part in the school year when I would rather be planning school for next year than doing what we are supposed to be doing this year. I guess the good news is that we are taking Holy Week off from school, so I get a little break - maybe even enough time to clean the house better.
5-
I have started reading aloud novels to the girls during school. I've done it in previous years, but for the first half of this year, so much of our time was spent on PAL Reading program from IEW that I didn't have much time for extended read alouds. So far we have done "Little House in the Big Woods" (Charlotte's pick) and today we finished "The Wind in the Willows" (Eva's pick). Charlotte has picked what we will start next week, keeping with the little house books, we will do "Little House on the Prairie" followed by something Eva chooses.
6-
Hubby came home today with some random tickets to an Eagle's cover band fundraiser and dinner in a local town for tomorrow night. I guess a neighbor offered the tickets to hubby, his brother or his dad - and no one was interested, except hubby who said that we could use them if he got off work earlier tomorrow so that we could go to church in said town before the concert. I guess he should be getting off work a little sooner than normal tomorrow!(I don't know if I really want to go to an Eagle's cover band concert, and I am hoping that they will sell tickets at the door, since the girls will be with us...we'll see how it is!)
7-
I'm kinda liking the fact that St. Patrick's Day falls on a Saturday. Our local parish is St. Patricks - and they have an annual card party to celebrate (not a particularly well attended event, either, as you may have guessed!) I have a little bit of a grudge against the event, as I was forced to cancel CCD classes when I was DRE and St. Patrick's Day fell on a Wednesday. At that same card party (while I was expecting Eva) I was berated for eating half a sandwich midway through the card party, because we were supposed to eat until the end. Church ladies can be so catty about things...anyway, I will admit a little bit of schadenfreude every time something goes wrong with one of the card parties...and I am extremely glad to have an excuse not to go (because I know MIL would try to convince me to come) with Saturday night Mass - and I bonus excuse with the weird concert tickets.
More quick takes at Conversion Dairy!
1-
I'm having a bang-my-head-against-the-wall kind of day today. Enrollment for the virtual charter we are hoping to get Charlotte in for next year opened this week, and I faxed in all the documentation asked for. The complication is in proving that we are Colorado residents, because we don't have the preferred documentation (mortgage or rental agreement) or the secondary documentation because everything is either in FILs name, or sent to FILs address. I even added a notarized and signed document as suggested by one of my contacts at the school. At this point, I am just waiting for a call back to see if it is a simple fix, or if it will be more complicated. The most irritating part of all is that all four of us were born in Colorado and have never lived in any other state...and I just can't seem to prove that we are residents!!
2-
My CCD class was WAY hyper this week - all of them had excessive amounts of sugar before class, and were wound up from taking their state tests (which they informed me are no longer CSAPs, but TCAPs - still, crappy state level standardized tests by whatever name...) and the only way we made it through my lesson was by bribing them with 5 minutes to run around at the end of class if we got through my lesson. I don't know how, but we made it through - and they got to run around until their parents picked them up!
3-
Cookie drama should be over for the year. One mom returned 39 packages after the last day for sales - but on the same day she returned them, I got a call from a GS state employee, and she gave us permission to sell our remaining cookies at our local community night. In the end, we have 9 leftover packages that the troop will pay for and use for snacks. Not too bad!
4-
It is getting to that part in the school year when I would rather be planning school for next year than doing what we are supposed to be doing this year. I guess the good news is that we are taking Holy Week off from school, so I get a little break - maybe even enough time to clean the house better.
5-
I have started reading aloud novels to the girls during school. I've done it in previous years, but for the first half of this year, so much of our time was spent on PAL Reading program from IEW that I didn't have much time for extended read alouds. So far we have done "Little House in the Big Woods" (Charlotte's pick) and today we finished "The Wind in the Willows" (Eva's pick). Charlotte has picked what we will start next week, keeping with the little house books, we will do "Little House on the Prairie" followed by something Eva chooses.
6-
Hubby came home today with some random tickets to an Eagle's cover band fundraiser and dinner in a local town for tomorrow night. I guess a neighbor offered the tickets to hubby, his brother or his dad - and no one was interested, except hubby who said that we could use them if he got off work earlier tomorrow so that we could go to church in said town before the concert. I guess he should be getting off work a little sooner than normal tomorrow!(I don't know if I really want to go to an Eagle's cover band concert, and I am hoping that they will sell tickets at the door, since the girls will be with us...we'll see how it is!)
7-
I'm kinda liking the fact that St. Patrick's Day falls on a Saturday. Our local parish is St. Patricks - and they have an annual card party to celebrate (not a particularly well attended event, either, as you may have guessed!) I have a little bit of a grudge against the event, as I was forced to cancel CCD classes when I was DRE and St. Patrick's Day fell on a Wednesday. At that same card party (while I was expecting Eva) I was berated for eating half a sandwich midway through the card party, because we were supposed to eat until the end. Church ladies can be so catty about things...anyway, I will admit a little bit of schadenfreude every time something goes wrong with one of the card parties...and I am extremely glad to have an excuse not to go (because I know MIL would try to convince me to come) with Saturday night Mass - and I bonus excuse with the weird concert tickets.
More quick takes at Conversion Dairy!
Friday, March 09, 2012
Quick Takes Friday
1-
Well, over a month and no blog posts. I'll simply blame that on cookie season, which has been keeping my already busy self even more busy recently. Both girls overshot their goals by about 100 packages, mostly because so many of the girls in the troop were not selling at all or not selling as many as last year. We had to get those troop cookies sold! My final paperwork is due on Sunday, so after that I am COOKIE FREE for several months (although I'm sure we'll start getting harassed about next cookie season before I know it.)
2-
Bret and I love "The Office", and while watching it off our DVR last night I had to pause right after this scene to try and share it on facebook, but sadly I couldn't find it last night. Today, however, is a different story. So, here's Kevin's cookie season rap:
3-
Monday is the day that enrollment begins for the virtual charter we are looking at for Charlotte. So, I printed off last year's info packet to start pulling together documentation (birth certificate, immunization records, proof of residency, IEP, etc.) and the hardest thing for me is proving that we live in the state of Colorado. What's particularly funny about this is that Bret, myself, Eva and Charlotte were all born here, and have never lived in any other state. BUT we don't have a rental agreement or mortgage or housing bills in our name, since we live in one of the farm's houses. So, hubby and his dad are hopefully going to sign a notarized letter stating that we live where we live. The hoops one must jump through to get speech therapy services...
4-
I really need to get moving on my "Catholic book a month" plan if I am going to get through 12 books this year. I was doing really well in January, reading two of my selections. I started a third in February, but haven't been able to get motivated to read it at all - I was hopeful, since it was another historical fiction, that I'd get right into it, but no such luck. I may have to give it up and start something else on my list instead. February was my homeschool/everything else burnout month, so I'm hoping as the weather warms up, I'll get a little bit more ambitious.
5-
Hubby and I went to the Living the Catholic Faith conference last weekend in Denver. We had a great time -left home Friday at lunch time, pricelined a nice hotel, and spent Saturday at the conference followed by Mass at the Cathedral. I really enjoyed all of the talks I went to, and hubby liked most of his, but in the end thought that maybe he should have come with me for Jen Fulwiler's talk instead of to the talk "Engaging in the Public Square" which he thought was too basic and too much of an introduction to activism. (go figure!) We ran into quite a few people from our rural region, and had an interesting conversation on the way home because of them. I noticed that none of them showed any interest and in fact, were surprised when I said that I was attending/had attended Jen's talk titled "When Your Loved One is an Atheist." I mentioned that I had a hard time believing it wasn't a talk that everyone at the conference should have heard - I just can't even envision having a life where you don't have anyone that you care about that is an atheist. Hubby's point was that definitions like being an atheist or agnostic are a white collar thing. Since we do live in a farming community, he mentioned that people out here are either Christians or not church attenders, but no one uses the definition of atheism or agnosticism because more blue collar workers don't have the leisure time to contemplate the existence of God or not - it is just not a question they think about, since they are busy working at a physical and physically exhausting level - not to mention that farmers tend to work way more than a typical 40 hour work week. I had never really thought about it that way, but I guess I'll have to take his word for it, since I still don't really understand rural mentalities.
6-
This week the local public school had Thursday and Friday off (mostly because of state basketball, even though neither the boys or girls made it in this year, but I guess also because the teachers had parent/teacher conferences this week.) So, we didn't have Catechism classes on Wednesday evening, or Girl Scouts on Thursday - I had a really nice and relaxing week! Just preschool Monday and Wednesday, Bible Study last night, and a Girl Scout manicure and ice cream party tonight (as our end of cookie season celebration!)
7-
This year for history, we are doing Connecting with History Volume 2. I haven't been as good this year about keeping up with history. Last year we did history every day, but with our travel schedule/doing so much school in town, this year hasn't been as good. However, in all my slacking on history it happened that we read a book and did the Hillside discussion guide on St. Valentine on St. Valentine's Day. I noticed this week that we are about to start the unit during which we read a book about St. Patrick and do another Hillside discussion guide...and we are very close to St. Patrick's Day! It's almost as if I planned it! How serendipitous!
Well, over a month and no blog posts. I'll simply blame that on cookie season, which has been keeping my already busy self even more busy recently. Both girls overshot their goals by about 100 packages, mostly because so many of the girls in the troop were not selling at all or not selling as many as last year. We had to get those troop cookies sold! My final paperwork is due on Sunday, so after that I am COOKIE FREE for several months (although I'm sure we'll start getting harassed about next cookie season before I know it.)
2-
Bret and I love "The Office", and while watching it off our DVR last night I had to pause right after this scene to try and share it on facebook, but sadly I couldn't find it last night. Today, however, is a different story. So, here's Kevin's cookie season rap:
3-
Monday is the day that enrollment begins for the virtual charter we are looking at for Charlotte. So, I printed off last year's info packet to start pulling together documentation (birth certificate, immunization records, proof of residency, IEP, etc.) and the hardest thing for me is proving that we live in the state of Colorado. What's particularly funny about this is that Bret, myself, Eva and Charlotte were all born here, and have never lived in any other state. BUT we don't have a rental agreement or mortgage or housing bills in our name, since we live in one of the farm's houses. So, hubby and his dad are hopefully going to sign a notarized letter stating that we live where we live. The hoops one must jump through to get speech therapy services...
4-
I really need to get moving on my "Catholic book a month" plan if I am going to get through 12 books this year. I was doing really well in January, reading two of my selections. I started a third in February, but haven't been able to get motivated to read it at all - I was hopeful, since it was another historical fiction, that I'd get right into it, but no such luck. I may have to give it up and start something else on my list instead. February was my homeschool/everything else burnout month, so I'm hoping as the weather warms up, I'll get a little bit more ambitious.
5-
Hubby and I went to the Living the Catholic Faith conference last weekend in Denver. We had a great time -left home Friday at lunch time, pricelined a nice hotel, and spent Saturday at the conference followed by Mass at the Cathedral. I really enjoyed all of the talks I went to, and hubby liked most of his, but in the end thought that maybe he should have come with me for Jen Fulwiler's talk instead of to the talk "Engaging in the Public Square" which he thought was too basic and too much of an introduction to activism. (go figure!) We ran into quite a few people from our rural region, and had an interesting conversation on the way home because of them. I noticed that none of them showed any interest and in fact, were surprised when I said that I was attending/had attended Jen's talk titled "When Your Loved One is an Atheist." I mentioned that I had a hard time believing it wasn't a talk that everyone at the conference should have heard - I just can't even envision having a life where you don't have anyone that you care about that is an atheist. Hubby's point was that definitions like being an atheist or agnostic are a white collar thing. Since we do live in a farming community, he mentioned that people out here are either Christians or not church attenders, but no one uses the definition of atheism or agnosticism because more blue collar workers don't have the leisure time to contemplate the existence of God or not - it is just not a question they think about, since they are busy working at a physical and physically exhausting level - not to mention that farmers tend to work way more than a typical 40 hour work week. I had never really thought about it that way, but I guess I'll have to take his word for it, since I still don't really understand rural mentalities.
6-
This week the local public school had Thursday and Friday off (mostly because of state basketball, even though neither the boys or girls made it in this year, but I guess also because the teachers had parent/teacher conferences this week.) So, we didn't have Catechism classes on Wednesday evening, or Girl Scouts on Thursday - I had a really nice and relaxing week! Just preschool Monday and Wednesday, Bible Study last night, and a Girl Scout manicure and ice cream party tonight (as our end of cookie season celebration!)
7-
This year for history, we are doing Connecting with History Volume 2. I haven't been as good this year about keeping up with history. Last year we did history every day, but with our travel schedule/doing so much school in town, this year hasn't been as good. However, in all my slacking on history it happened that we read a book and did the Hillside discussion guide on St. Valentine on St. Valentine's Day. I noticed this week that we are about to start the unit during which we read a book about St. Patrick and do another Hillside discussion guide...and we are very close to St. Patrick's Day! It's almost as if I planned it! How serendipitous!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
