Trying to escape

How do I get out of here?

After the morning he has had, I wouldn't be surprised if he's trying to escape. He's managed to dismantle the kitchen, fall off the chairs, throw toys everywhere, and pull a rather large dollhouse on top of himself... all before 10 AM!

Thought for the morning

From yesterday's Magnificat meditation:

"Faith is not a thing of the mind; it is not an intellectual certainty or a felt conviction of the heart. It is a sustained decision to take God with utter seriousness as the God of my life... Often it may seem as if we only act "as if," so unaffected are our hearts, perhaps even mocking us: "Where is your God!" It is this acting out "as if" that is true faith. All that matters to faith is that God should have what He wants and we know that what He wants is always our own blessedness."

Lenten post

I hope everyone has had a very blessed and profitable Lent so far!

I wanted to list some of the books I'm reading this time around:
Pray, Hope, and Don't Worry (Diane Allen)
I chose this one because I had a deep desire to know more about St. Pio... and I was not disappointed. While the stories of miraculous healings and bilocation are amazing, it was his ministry to others in the confessional that left me awed. The Lord gave him the ability to "read souls" (for want of a better term), which produced a holy fear in the hearts of all those around him. The people who came to him for confession who were repentant and humble were comforted with the love of a spiritual father... those who tried to puff themselves up, or hide their sins, or have a proud attitude, were oftentimes chastised and thrown out. It was this "tough love" that brought them back, truly repentant this time, over and over again.

My initial thought while reading this was, "I would be terrified to be in the presence of this man... what would he say to me?"

Then I realized that if my reaction to him was one of deference and fear, what more should I feel in the presence of a Holy God?

Yes, I realize that His Mercy most definitely needs to come into play, here... but it doesn't hurt to have strong reminders that He is a Holy God, and I am a sinner in desperate need of a Savior.


Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer (C.S. Lewis)
I'm still in the middle of this one, and loving it... of course. So far the best quote is this one:

"All may yet be well. This is true. Meanwhile you have the waiting... and while you wait, you still have to go on living -- if only one could go underground, hibernate, sleep it out. And then... the horrible by-products of anxiety; the incessant, circular movement of the thoughts, even the Pagan temptation to keep watch for irrational omens. And one prays; but mainly such prayers as are themselves a form of anguish.

"Some people feel guilty about their anxieties and regard them as a defect of faith. I don't agree at all. They are afflictions, not sins. Like all afflictions, they are, if we can so take them, our share in the Passion of Christ. For the beginning of the Passion -- the first move, so to speak -- is in Gethsemane. In Gethsemane a very strange and significant thing seems to have happened.

"It is clear from many of His sayings that Our Lord had long foreseen His death. He knew what conduct such as His, in a world such as we have made of this, must inevitably lead to. But it is clear that this knowledge must somehow have been withdrawn from Him before He prayed in Gethsemane. He could not, with whatever reservation about the Father's will, have prayed that the cup might pass and simultaneously known that it would not. That is both a logical and physical impossibility. You see what this involves? Lest any trial incident to humanity should be lacking, the torments of hope -- of suspense, anxiety -- were at the last moment loosed upon Him -- the supposed possibility that, after all, He might, He just conceivably might, be spared the supreme horror. There was precedent. Isaac had been spared: he too at the last moment, he also against all apparent probability. It was not quite impossible...


"We all try to accept with some sort of submission our afflictions when they actually arrive. But the prayer in Gethsemane shows that the preceding anxiety is equally God's will and equally part of our human destiny. The perfect Man experienced it. And the servant is not greater than the master. We are Christians, not Stoics."

Shirt of Flame (Heather King)
I have absolutely loved her other two books: Parched and Redeemed, so when I saw that one of my favorite authors had written a book about one of my favorite saints (St. Therese), I knew this had to go on my list. I look forward to settling in and savoring every bit of this.


Wish You Were Here (Amy Welborn)
I had the privilege of meeting Amy, her husband, and her two small sons at a blogging conference many years ago. She is a well-known Catholic blogger who wrote this book after losing her husband suddenly. While I find the subject matter heartrending and terrifying, I long to read how Jesus has carried her through even something as devastating as this.


In addition to these wonderful books that have already given me so much to think about, I downloaded Audrey Assad's new album "Heart," which has been a constant on my iPod ever since.

Need a preview? How about this:

I find the words so comforting and so haunting:

"My faith is not a fire
As much as it's a glow
A little burning ember in my weary soul
And it's not too much
It's just enough to get me home
'Cause your love moves slow

Not that I'm ever going to meet her, of course, but if I could, I would say thank you, Audrey, for writing the words I'd never be able to get out... and yet describe my inner life so well.

May God continue to bless you all during Lent!

Oh yeah!

From Quickmeme.com and Pinterest.

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.