Living a Catholic Life in the Modern World
Blowing the dust off my poor negleted blog.
Today is the first day for us to use the clothesline. There is something about hanging the clothing outdoors that I really like. Maybe it is just a nostalgia thing, but they way line dried clothing smells is very good.
The Simple Woman’s Daybook
is hosted by Peggy at The Simple Woman’s Daybook
Thank you Peggy.
FOR TODAY : April 20, 2008
Today is a beautiful spring day. The sky is blue, the air is warm, flowers are blooming everywhere. The cherry tree is in full bloom.
Outside my Window – The cherry tree is in bloom, Ashley mowed the grass Saturday so the lawn looks nice. We had a fire in the fire pit last night.
I am thinking – Mostly about plans for next year. I have Christopher’s curriculum laid out and I am putting books in. I think it will be a good year.
From the learning rooms – This week for me is planning for next year. For the kids it is the usual week.
I am thankful for- Our zoo membership. We had a lovely day at the zoo last Thursday.
From the kitchen – Taco casserole for dinner. I need to go shopping again.
I am reading – I am sort of dead ended right now.
I am hoping – That I can get this week refocused from the last few weeks.
I am creating – Hannah’s first communion dress. This is the big project for the next week or so.
I am hearing – Nothing except the hard drive hum.
Around the house – This weekend I planted some flowers. I have some more work to do outside. I need to do some reorganising.
One of my favorite things – My new bike. I am still really fond of my bike. It is a lot of fun.
A Few Plans For The Rest Of The Week – I am still playing catch up in so many ways. maybe I will just stop calling it catch-up. Catch-up implies that I think I should have more done, and while I do I am not sure I want that extra pressure.
Today we are planning on going out to the coast. Two of my sister-in-laws will be there and several of my nieces and nephews. Hopefully the getting out and doing something will do me good and help me get over the last bit of this cold thing.
This morning was the first real pregnant morning. After tossing and turning most the evening I gave into the morning and crawled out of bed, then the woozies hit. Morning sickness has plauged all my pregnancies. It starts out with the “normal” morning sickness at about 8 weeks. The typical barf before breakfast sort of thing. This gets steadly worse for the next two month until I am nearly incapable of eathing anything all day long or even smelling anything at all. Then it goes away just in time for me to feel waddelly. But babies are so sweet (just keep thinking that and it will all be ok)
When Rachel was preparing for her First Communion I created a couple tools to help her prepare. The first tool we created was “Rachel’s Jesus Book” and the second was a social story about attending mass and receiving Communion.
Since Rachel was born she has attended religious services. First in the LDS Church and then when she was about three we started attending Catholic Mass. By the time Rachel was 9 we had been attending weekly mass in the same parish for about three years. Mass wasn’t something new to Rachel. The Jesus book was created to help her more fully understand the imagery in mass.
The social story was more a practical guild to receiving the Eucharist. The order of the mass, how we receive and what it means. I want to think that having the two separate books helped Rachel pin-point the Eucharist as the pinnacle of the mass. Attending worship services as a community, the prayer of the mass, the divine liturgy are all very important, but they are nothing without the Body and Blood of Christ. Continue reading “First communion Social Story”
Ok, so it isn’t Friday, it is Saturday, but I really enjoyed doing this the last time I did it, but I keep forgetting it until Saturday. Jen at Conversion Diary is the master of the day. Here are my seven thoughts.
I keep thinking that we really, really need to pray for the president. A change of hear is possible for anyone. Maybe with prayer Pre Obama’s heart will be soften toward the unborn. On the other hand I want to ask those Catholic people I know who were expressing before the election how this one issue shouldn’t count so heavily, “Why didn’t you listen?” . Obama wasted no time undoing the Mexico City Policy and there is no reason to think he won’t do exactly what he promised Planned Parenthood he would do.
I laugh: “Liturgical dancing makes Baby Jesus cry… and my eyes bleed.” Too funny.
I miss Kyle when he travels.
Go carts are a lot of fun.
Going to bed later and later and getting up at the same time in the morning isn’t working out that well.
The white carpet must go.
I will be posting more on the communion dress project tomorrow.
This is part three of the first communion dress project… also known as “how to recycle your wedding dress”
You can check out the first and second installments of this project.
I created some piping:
Then I started sewing. At this point I am following the instructions in the pattern.
Here is the first seam:
I zig-zagged the edge to keep it from fraying.
As I mentioned in my last segment I have purchased satin for the sides and sleeves. You can see the two fabrics here:
There is just an ever so slight difference. I am still not really stressing of it, so far it looks fine to me.
One thing that I have been concerned over is the embroidery getting clipped in the new seams. You can see this happening here:
In addition to the weird shading thing my flash on my camera is doing you can see where the embroidery is caught in the seam.
To fix this I am embroidering over the seam, recreating the flowers that are sewn through.
Part four – the zipper (eeeek!)
This week I have been thinking a lot on the importance of community.
Last night one of our neighbors knocked on the door just as we were putting the finishing touches on dinner. Their tarp-tent-temporary garage thing had been pushed around by the strong winds and they needed some help moving it back and setting right. So Kyle put on his shoes and went out to help them. We count ourselves lucky to live on a little street with really kind neighbors.
Kyle sent this to me. I think it is just amazing.
I set up the simplycatholic.net URL to come here. I have been toying around with having the custom URL for a while but I finally bit the bullet.
Simply Catholic 