Anyone else...

... glued to the TV this evening to watch Downton Abbey?

Oh, hallelujah!

Sometimes, you find a product that just seems to answer all those unspoken longings of the heart... and dare I say it? I think I found mine:

The Rubbermaid Reveal mop.

How does this answer all my deepest desires? Well, it doesn't... but it certainly makes my job a lot easier!

I have one of those other mops -- you know, the kind that requires pads and refill bottles and such. My husband was able to rig the top of the bottle so that I could pour my own cleaning solution in there, but it was a rather messy endeavor, and I still had those nasty pads to contend with.

This mop seems to have been developed by someone who actually USES a mop on a regular basis. For instance --

-- it comes with a bottle so that you can put your own solution in;
-- it has washable microfiber pads... and not just one, but TWO, so that you can have one at all times;
-- the pad is much bigger, so cleaning the floor takes less time; and finally
-- it doesn't require batteries!

THANK YOU! Thank you, Rubbermaid, for coming up with a mop that addresses all the complaints I had with my other mop!

There is a $4 coupon floating around out there as well, so you can pick up one of these for about $21. Some of the reviews I've seen said that it stopped working after 3-4 months, but I'm hoping that's just a fluke.

For now, however, I am so happy to have a mop that works!

Happy New Year!!!

May God bless us and keep us;
May He make His face shine upon us;
May the Lord be gracious to us and grant us His peace.

Happy New Year! May 2012 be a year of peace, joy, and blessing for all!

I am not one to make resolutions. I wish I were stronger in character so that I could make them (and stick with them!), but so far that hasn't been the case.

BUT, since my brother was here and asked me what mine WOULD be if I were to make them, here's my list:

Offer to God the first 10 minutes of every day.
Speak (and yell) less and listen more.
Continue the task of purging the clutter from my life.
Take time to be creative.

Anyone have any they'd like to share?

Quote Journal

I have been keeping a quote journal since 2006, when I read that many of the great thinkers in the past several hundred years did so -- not that I think I'm a great thinker, of course, but I realized that this was a fantastic idea. Too often I find myself trying to remember some quote from "some book I read... written by someone...", which is completely useless.

With the possibility of googling just about any quote I'm trying to remember, a quote journal may seem silly.

But it's not.

I find myself going back through it, and being inspired again by thoughts and passages that I wrote down years ago.

So, in the spirit of Julie from Happy Catholic (who has kept a quote journal for many years and does a much better job of it than I do!), I offer my first installment from my journal -- a quote I came back to over and over again when my father-in-law was battling brain cancer:

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"Souls are like athletes, that need opponents worthy of them, if they are to be tried and extended and pushed to the full use of their powers, and rewarded according to their capacity. My father was in a fight with this tumor, and none of us understood the battle. We thought he was done for, but it was making him great."

--Thomas Merton, The Seven-Storey Mountain

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Pinch me! I'm dreaming!

Can it be that I actually have some time to sit down and blog? Wow!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas -- we certainly did! I had the joy of seeing my parents and my sister (and got to talk to my brothers), which made it a joyous time right off the bat.

Unfortunately, the only "down side" to it all was... can I say this?... Christmas Eve Mass. We had to go to the children's Mass, which is always a disaster -- not because of the music, or anything like that.

It's me.
I can't handle distractions well.
(go ahead... laugh at the lady with 8 kids! You see why this is my path to holiness...)

While my heart cried out to focus on the birth of my Savior, the rest of me couldn't help but be distracted by all the kids who figetted, squirmed, squawked, cried, stage whispered, and danced around me. God have mercy on me, but I just can't take it.

I try to show grace and offer it up... I really do... but after awhile I'm shooting "death looks" at the parents and begging them inwardly to TAKE THEIR CHILD TO THE CRY ROOM.

I was in tears by the time the Consecration rolled around.

Next year we're skipping the children's Mass and going to Midnight Mass.

OK, now that I've gotten that awful confession out of the way, I'll move on.


To focus on the positive side, here's some of my favorite gifts:

My faith. No, I'm not just trying to sound all "holier than thou" so that someone may be impressed. I am grateful beyond all telling for the ways that the Lord has led me so far.

My family (my husband was off to the side talking to a friend, so he didn't make it in the picture. Trust me, though... I'm thankful for him, too! *grin*) We are all healthy, well-fed, well-cared for, and I'm so thankful.

And yet on top of that, I have material things to be thankful for, such as:

My new pump pot. I know that sounds a bit odd, so let me 'splain. My husband, dear man that he is, makes me a pot full of (decaf) tea every morning. It has now become a joke in our house that I know he loves me because he "made tea this morning." As long as there's tea in there, I know we're good for another day. *grin* On those rare occasions when I've run out of tea bags, he'll leave me a note that says, "I still love you, but I couldn't make you tea today."

ANYWAY, my old pump pot was good, but this one ROCKS! It only requires one pump to fill up the entire mug, the tea bags don't get stuck around the pipe that sits down in the carafe, AND... get this... the tea is still piping hot 17 HOURS later! Wow! For this northern chick who has been raised with the belief that a good hot cup of tea is the cure for all ills, this present is amazing!

 Books, books, and more books. As long as I have a stack of books to read, I am a happy camper! (this isn't all the books I received... these are just the ones on my desk at the moment...)



My St. Anthony medal. Seeing as he is now our official (by popular acclaim) patron saint here at Chez Ouiz, I am thrilled to have a medal to wear!

This chair. No, we didn't buy it. A friend got two of them at a yard sale for $5 (total), and after a few months the thin fabric gave up the ghost, and it was in tatters. I wanted to chuck 'em out to the curb, but my husband wanted to keep them because they were so comfortable. Being the amazing man that he is, he managed to take them apart piece by piece and figured out how to put them back together. My job was to take the pieces he took off and figure out how to duplicate it with the new fabric. We now have two ridiculously comfortable chairs -- whoo hoo!


The final gift I want to mention is also in the picture above. See that fuzzy little munchkin off to the side? We've had her for over a month or so, and she is an answer to prayer (although a frustrating answer, to be sure!)

A dear friend of mine got a Havanese several years ago, and I just fell in love with the dog -- pretty amazing for me, because I am NOT a dog person, and especially not a "little dog" person. However, her dog was so cute and friendly I found myself reluctantly warming up to her. This same friend bought a second Havanese two years later, and sent me a picture saying, "whenever you guys are looking for a new dog, you should get one of these!" Well, there's no way we could ever afford one, but one night I found myself sitting at the computer, looking at the picture, and just tossed up a quick prayer: "Lord, You know how much we've struggled with (our current dog) and how I'm finding myself irresistably drawn to Havanese for some bizarre reason. We couldn't afford one, but if You ever want to drop one in our lap, I'll take it!"

Well, 3 weeks later, my friend calls me. She and her family decided that they were a one-dog family, and were going to send this puppy back to the breeder.... unless we wanted her.

Of all the prayers I have ever uttered, and all the answers I have ever received, this one shocked me the most.

"Wait... wait a minute, Lord... did You actually just drop a Havanese into my lap?"

Yes, He did.


Off to work on the many crafting/organizing projects I have swirling around in my head!

Merry Christmas!

Wishing all of you a very blessed and joyous Christmas!

I hope to begin blogging again now that the Fall Semester is over, presents have been bought and wrapped, cookies have been baked, and life (perhaps?) will slow down just a bit....

May the Lord bless you all!

He still keeps me laughing

I got back to the car after making the standard "newspapers and doughnuts" run through the grocery store. I was tired after holding the baby at Mass/Sunday School for over two hours, and I was ready to get home.

As I was reaching out to open my door, I saw my husband taking Grace out of the car.

He looked at me with sympathy, and then said, "I'm so sorry, but Grace really has to go to the bathroom."

Ugh. Going back in there was the LAST thing I wanted to do... especially since she had taken her shoes off, and I was going to have to carry her all the way to the back of the store.

As I was walking away my husband called out across the parking lot cheerily:

"Offer it up!.... Offer it up for all those who are incontinent!"

Needless to say, I laughed all the way to the back of the store.

Ah, with the weather turning cooler here in South Carolina, our thoughts here at Chez Ouiz turn to hearty stews, fuzzy sweaters, mugs of hot tea, and...

acorn people.

You know how certain things just "stick" with your children, and without realizing it you made a new tradition? Well, it's been that way with us and acorn people.

These are just two that I could grab rather quickly in the kitchen, but trust me -- these little guys are everywhere! I find them looking down from the shelf as I'm folding laundry, or sitting on the counter as I'm cooking supper, or nestled among the fall decorations.

I showed the kids how to make little dolls out of wooden balls, pipe cleaners, felt, and acorn hats about five years ago, and it was an instant hit. No sooner does all the swimming gear get put away then I am asked, "When are we going to make acorn people this year?"

I begged them to at least hold off until after all the birthdays were over... and so we had a great time pulling out all the stuff this past Friday and spending a cold, blustery afternoon making all sorts of little guys. I am amazed at the creativity they put into them, year after year... and I hope that this is the sort of thing they remember about their childhoods -- the little traditions that make up our family life.

Is This Thing On?

I know. I know. Again, I've let a month go by without posting. Heck, I haven't even read much in the blogging world over the past month! I have NOT been idle, however.

Weekend Wrap-Up

1. We have survived another round of October birthdays, and may I say that I don't want to see cake ANY time in the foreseeable future. Five of my children have birthdays in October... and three of them have their birthdays in the SAME WEEK. We don't do big parties here -- can anyone blame me? I do want to honor each person with their own special day with their own special cake and their choice of dinner (and presents, of course!), but other than that I really can't picture making October even MORE stressful by adding birthday parties to the mix. Add another 10 days to the mix to factor in the time it takes to shop and plan for each child's birthday, and you can see that 15 of the 24 days that have gone by have involved birthday preparations of some sort.

2. I am still leading a Bible study every other week. This time around we are going through the book Catholicism for Dummies, which is extremely good, despite its title. We realized that a refresher course on the basics would be good for all of us, so off we go! We're also going to be watching the Catholicism series by Fr. Robert Barron. I realize that so many of you good people are getting to watch this on PBS, but for some reason the great state of South Carolina decided that we really didn't need to see it. Not to be deterred, our group decided to just buy it ourselves! Sometimes you just need something beautiful to remind you yet again why you're doing what you're doing and Who you are doing it for...

3. For more of a "pick-me-up," I've been reading conversion stories at the Defenders of the Faith blog. Wow! There are some amazing stories out there, and just seeing all the various ways Our Lord goes about bringing people in just thrills me. It's made me look back at my own life with great thankfulness as well, as I can see all the various twists and turns along the way, and how He has been guiding me the whole time.

4. Homeschooling is going very well, and so far I've managed to make it with God's grace through 13 weeks without feeling burned out or resentful. For those who may not know, I spent 7 years using Mother of Divine Grace as a sort of suggestion, while trying to create this amazing history and science program that would somehow cover ALL my children, so that we could learn together as a family.

It didn't work.

It's a beautiful idea, and one that works well when kids are close in age (like my 3 oldest are). When more kids entered the picture, and the range of ages began to spread further apart, I could no longer hold it together.

When I was (very) pregnant with Joseph, I poured it all out to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. I was tired and overwhelmed at the thought of trying to teach 6 children while dealing with a toddler and a newborn. What was I supposed to do? The answer that I believe I got was this: Teach them all separately. I started laughing, and I said, "That's either the craziest idea I've ever had, or that just came from You."

Since I had no other options, I decided to give it a try. We were going to do Mother of Divine Grace by the book (since I was too burned out to try to create anything on my own) and everyone was going to have his own history/catechism/science program to do.

Amazingly, it has worked, and worked WELL. Two years into the "great experiment" and we're still going strong! Praise God!

That's just a quick wrap up of the entire month of October here at Chez Ouiz!

It pays to homeschool!

So I don't miss moments like this...

Christopher was sitting at the table, working on his math lesson, when he put his pencil down, looked at me like he had been really pondering something special, and then said --

"Ya know, Mom, if I had a pet dung beetle, I'd think Sisyphus would be a good name for him."

[it took me several minutes before I could stop laughing....]

Where We Were

All the week before my son Sean, then 3 yrs old, had been asking me:

"Mommy, what would happen if a plane flew into a building?"

It was an odd question that came out of the blue, and haunted him all week long. Sean has always been a kid that needed to know the why's and how's of everything, and that week, that was the question that he wouldn't drop. I did my best to explain how something like that was very rare, but would be very devastating if it DID happen. I wondered why on earth he would even be thinking of such a question -- after all, he wasn't normally fascinated by planes, and we never watched anything other than PBS kids' shows, so he wouldn't have seen horrible images from the news...

On the morning of 9-11, we were in my bedroom folding clothes and listening to the local Christian radio station. The DJ came on the air to ask all listening to pray about some "accident" that had happened at the WTC. Curious, I walked into the living room to see if there was anything about it on the news. As I turned on the TV I saw the Tower on fire. Sean came into the room and I held him close and said we needed to pray for the people in the accident.

"See, Sean? THIS is what happens when a plane hits a building. We need to be praying for all the people, baby..."

And at that moment, I saw on live TV the second plane slam into the building.

I fell to my knees, cradled Sean in one arm, Reilly (who was a toddler) in the other arm, and wrapped them both around my very pregnant tummy, and cried my eyes out for the people who were dying before my eyes... for my country, which would never be the same... and for my children, who would now be growing up in a world that was VERY different from the one I wanted for them.

May God have mercy on our nation.

The readings for today were extremely appropriate, weren't they?

Life with a Toddler

Christopher was frustrated yesterday because he couldn't find the book he needed to do his Religion assignment.

"Mom! Have you seen my Baltimore Catechism?"
"It's on the shelf with the others."
"No it's not! I've been looking everywhere for it and I can't find it!"
"Did you look on any other shelves?"
"Yes! AND I looked in the living room AND I've asked all the other kids, and they can't find it either!"

So, everyone dropped what they were doing and went on a mad search to help Christopher find his catechism book. We looked everywhere, and it was no where to be found, it seemed.

A half-hour later, Christopher's exultant shouts of "I found it! I finally found it!" rang out.

It was in the bathtub.

Along with my shoes.

And the can opener.

Even with 8 children, I still forget that when the baby starts walking, stuff starts disappearing, and gets tucked away in strange, strange places.

Homeschooling Updates

We are finishing up Week 4, and may I say that I am THRILLED with how everything has gone so far?

Yes, yes, I know that it's easy to say that in the beginning of the school year. The proof will be in the middle of February, when everyone is simply tired of the routine, the work, and the feeling that this will never end.

Still...

I have to say that even though I thought the idea of "teaching them all separately" was the craziest idea I had ever heard, I am now seeing the wisdom in that approach for my family. There are homeschooling moms out there who have a great gift for creating a curriculum that encompasses the various ages of their children, and turns every subject into this incredible family event -- I, sadly, am not one of those moms. I would *like* to be, but I have to recognize my limitations.

Has anyone else started their school year yet? If so, how is it going for you?

Alright, alright!

It has been brought to my attention that I haven't blogged "in almost a month!"

It's true.

I have been bogged down with homeschooling planning and reading for quite some time now. I don't ever remember a time when I felt this unsure, this unprepared, and this inadequate for the task before me.

At the same time, I think that's a good thing.

Our homily this Sunday was on (of course) the miracle of the feeding of the 5000. Father B had a wonderful homily, in which the message came through to me loud and clear, in a way it never had before. The message was this: Andrew's "offering" of the 5 loaves and 2 fish that he had found was pretty much laughable. I don't mean that in a bad way -- it's just that when seeing the vast number of hungry people, that small amount of food wasn't going to cut it, and he knew it.

He offered it to the Lord anyway.

Jesus was able to take the little that Andrew gave him, and turn it into a meal capable of not only meeting the needs of those there, but filling 12 baskets of leftovers.

I have been trying to make my small resevoir of patience, stamina, and desire to homeschool meet the needs of my children (not consciously, but still...). It doesn't work. I don't have all that one would need to do this job. However...

...I can offer what little I have, and give all of it willingly, to Jesus, and He is more than able to multiply it miraculously so that it not only meets the needs of my children, but flows over abundantly.

For the past 8 days, that is exactly what He has done.

I have never felt quite so inadequate, and have never been quite so aware of the fact that yes, I'm giving everything I have, but that is NOT what is meeting the needs of my children. He is taking my natural abilities and inclinations, and increasing it in such a way that we have been able to homeschool in a much more relaxed manner (even when teaching six children... seven actually, since Grace wants to do it all... all while dealing with Joseph, who demands constant attention and is getting into EV-ER-Y-THING that he can get his hands on. Truly. From tearing the printer apart and throwing all my books on the floor to daily dumping the dog's water all over himself and the floor, Joseph is "Captain Destructo" from the word go...)

I am NOT a patient person, and for me to be able to deal with all this graciously and still enjoy my time with my children is proof positive that Jesus is extremely active in this household!


For any who may be curious as to what homeschooling looks like in our family of 10, I'll give you a quick peek. I tried last year to be much more regimented, and I think it backfired with my personality. I'm a "stick-to-the-rules-and-check-the-boxes" sort of person who can't handle being behind or off whatever schedule I've set up. That made last year very stressful for me in that I always felt like I was failing.

This year is much more relaxed. I realize we've only been doing this for 8 days, so the data points are few indeed, but still, it seems to be working so far...

7-8 am           breakfast, cleanup, dishwasher, beds made/get dressed/teeth and hair
8-8:30 am      whatever daily housecleaning chores are on the list, like bathrooms, scrubbing walls, etc
8:45 am          individual Bible reading for each child, followed by Morning Offering and Bible memory
9:00 am          Math for all, with me sitting down with Thomas (3rd grade) first to get him started
9:30 am          sit down with Marie (1st grade) for her entire list of subjects

Whenever any child is finished with math, or any other subject, they are to come to me so that I can check it immediately and have them make whatever corrections are necessary.

10:30 am       Marie is done, and I finish up whatever Thomas needs my help with on his other subjects

After that, it's first come, first served. I tend to go from youngest to oldest, trying to do all the "together with me" subjects first so that I can move on to the next child. We take a snack break at 10 am and try to do lunch around 12. After that it's a quick lunchtime cleanup, followed with more homeschooling for Reilly and Sean. I try to have both of them at the table so I can bounce back and forth between them. Sean and I usually finish around 3 pm with Henle Latin.

3:30 pm         Me -- fast cleanup, empty dishwasher (kids are finally outside!)
4:30 pm         Kids and I start supper (we alternate between boys' week and girls' week)
5:00 pm         Toy pick up; kitchen crew sets the table
6:00 pm         We eat
7:00 pm         Prayer and cleanup
8:30 pm         Joseph goes down to bed
9:00 pm         The rest of the crew goes to bed, although the older ones read/play games
9:30 pm         I made breakfast for the next day
10:30 pm       I wonder where the heck another day went! *grin*


It looks very regimented, but that's actually just the normal flow of the day. I'm not looking at the clock, barking out orders this time around... I have given myself permission, as it were, to spend the time with each child that he needs, which has made ALL the difference in the world. They have all said that this year is going better, and by God's grace, may it continue to be so!