A 7QT Summer Reading Edition

Most folks like to post about their summer reading before it happens. As in, "Look at all these lovely books that I'm going to read this summer!" Those are awesome people. I'm happy if I'm able to look back on the season and say, "Hey look! I read something this summer!"

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But of course... having some guided inspiration never hurts when one is creating a to-read book list - especially if it's for the kiddos. So I was excited to stumble across Jamie C Martin's book: Give Your Child the World.

Amazon was out of stock for 10 days after you guys bought up ALL the copies of #giveyourchildtheworld 😍 But they finally have more - so go snag them now at 42% off: amzn.to/1OeVyWy (And thank you! ❤️)

A photo posted by Jamie C Martin (@jamie_cmartin) on Jul 10, 2016 at 7:03am PDT

It's a reference book with lists organized by age group and geographical region. To launch her book she and another blogger, Sarah MacKenzie (of Read Aloud Revival fame) are running a online/virtual book club where the only "responsibility" is to read one book from the region for the week. I jumped at joining the book club because:

1. This is the kind of responsibility I can handle!
2. It guarantees that I will have at least 1 book every week to read to the Spitfire that is not Maisy-related. #winning

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Multi-cultural week

So, when I said jump you may have thought I was just being all writer-y and stuff. (Cause I's is good at being writer-y). But no, I was so excited to get on board that even though I didn't yet have GYCTW, I looked on Instagram to see what other people were checking out, and then drove 20 miles to the only library that had these books... On the day before the library would be closed for a 3-day holiday weekend... 3 hours before closing time. No really. I wanted the books and I wanted to get started NOW.  It was the "Maps" book that I knew the wee girl would love, and I was right. She is very much into maps these days. She likes to draw maps leading people to dragon caves and she likes to look at maps and show people where Grammy and Poppy live...
"And this is Michigan." (She says as she points to Africa) "Grammy and Poppy live here."
(Yeah. We're still working on it...)
We had to return that book yesterday because it was due and someone else had reserved it (I'm guessing a fellow GYCTW-er), and for the first time the Spitfire almost refused to give it to the librarian. I guess we know what's on her birthday gift list this year...

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Africa week

This week was kind of a bust. I still didn't have GYCTW and Instagram wasn't being helpful. I found these 2 books on my own, and I thought they were awesome. But the only one I could get the little girl to sit through was "Imani's Moon". It was a sweet story of a little girl who gets teased by the other girls in the village for being small, but then she "rises" to do a very big thing. It has that magical element of literature that the author of Love in the Time of Cholera is also known for... what's that called again? (See. I'm very writer-y). Anyway. good book. And I loved the illustrations in "For You Are a Kenyan Child" but I couldn't get the Spitfire to read it. I'll try again another day...

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Europe week

Ah, Europe week... a.k.a. the week I caved and got a book with Maisy in it. I think the Spitfire was beginning to suspect that I was trying to #givemychildtheworld or something, so she started being very obstinate about her reading material. But I also lucked out with finding City Cat - cause if a book is not about maps, or Maisy, then it will still be read if it has a cat in it! This story is about a cat who follows an Italian family on their vacation around Europe. The illustrations are perfect, and while the prose is a little less-than perfect, we still really enjoyed it. Actually, I double-lucked out with this one because not only did City Cat have a cat in it, it also has a map of Europe in it! #winningagain

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Our #giveyourchildtheworld picks for North America week! Glad "ABC of Canada" was available as an eBook, or none of our selections would have been from @jamie_cmartin 's excellent book. A suggestion though? Future editions should definitely include "Migrant" by Maxine Trottier - a gorgeous book about a low German speaking, Mennonite migrant worker family that travel between Mexico and Canada each year. The story is told from the viewpoint of the youngest daughter who likens her life to that of different animals she sees... Very wistful and poetic... It's broadened my world as well!

A photo posted by Sara Rooney (@rooney.sara) on Jul 21, 2016 at 3:53pm PDT

Oddly, this week North America only includes Canada and the United States?? And even though I finally had a copy of GYCTW in my hands, absolutely none of the books in her list were available at our local library (though if I wanted to drive 10 miles south I could get most of them! #nothin'doin'). ABC of Canada was available as an ebook though. I also feel like I might have a golden touch with picking books on a whim, because I picked up Migrant and I have absolutely loved it. (The jury is still out for the Spitfire. At this point, though, what would you expect? #gottalovethatgirl #andhashtags #alwaysthehashtags )

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And that's it so far! Next week is Middle East Week, followed by Asia Week, Latin America Week, and Australia/Oceania/Polar Regions Week. These upcoming weeks are the most exciting for me, so I'll be sure to make some reservations at the library and save myself some gas money.

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As for myself? I'm still firmly situated in my non-fiction/memoir camp. It's cozy here. I like it. Here's what I'm reading/have read/will read:

Maybe I should say "have read, am reading, may read"?

What I find particularly awesome about this, is while grabbing the pictures of these books off Goodreads, I found this:

Look at that! AHEAD of schedule! #thatsafirst #oki'mdonewiththehashtags #promise

What about you? What are you reading this summer (to yourself... to your kids)?

Check out other good blogs to read over at This Ain't the Lyceum, and leave your recommendation there (if not here).

That Time I Spent $10 on a Grasshopper - a 7 Quick Takes

Sometimes I know exactly what I want to do to celebrate a certain feast day. For instance, St George's day we do pretty good at. Food? Check. Coloring pages? Check. Library books? Check. Funny YouTube video of St George and Dragon that will give my daughter nightmares for the following week? Well, um... yeah. Check. (Sorry about that one honey!)

And then there are days I think I have figured out, but when I go to execute... it turns out to be more than anticipated.  The nativity of St John the Baptist (June 24) was just such a day.

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I actually began thinking about this day waaay back in May. (In a departure from my normal 5-6 day lead time.)

Proof.

But as you can see, I didn't get very far in my thought process. So I did some research...

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What I really love about this particular day is its cosmic connection to the calendar. We know from Luke 1:36 that when Gabriel announced to Mary that she would have Jesus, Elizabeth was already 6 months pregnant with John.  So that would make John and Jesus' birthday roughly 6 months apart too. Both John's and Jesus' birthday are celebrated shortly after the summer and winter solstices, respectively. Thus after Jesus' birthday, the days get progressively longer and after John's birthday, the days get progressively shorter. A very real and cosmic way of depicting how John said, "He must increase, and I must decrease." (John 3:30)  I find this super cool. What I don't find too cool (or even comfortable) was John's diet and wardrobe: he lived in the wilderness eating locusts and honey, and wearing a shirt made of camel hair. (Classy.) This little cartoon makes it all look really cute though:

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But back to the story. Up until a week before JTB's day I was still thinking I would make some kind of cake with honey in the shape of a grasshopper... which the more I thought about it, the more I feared it would end up on CakeWrecks. So I ditched that idea in favor of something that I wouldn't have to make myself... hmm.... honey... what dessert uses honey? Ooo! I know! Baklava! And I'll decorate them with those plastic grasshoppers you can find everywhere. So with that plan solidly cemented in place a full 7 days in advance (go me) - I went about my week.

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Come Thursday (the day before the big day), I figured it was time to go out and get that baklava and grasshoppers that you can easily just pick up anywhere that sells... you know... baklava and grasshoppers. Shoot. Where did I think I could just do that? I didn't have any luck at Target. So I headed to Michael's thinking I could at least get a few grasshoppers there. We scoured the whole store looking for the green little things, with E constantly asking, "Mommy? Where are the grasshoppers? Is this a grasshopper? Mommy? Is this a grasshopper? Mommy? Where are they?? OOHH!! Look! Dory! and NEMO!!" The Little Dude meanwhile was growing more impatient with every minute he was strapped into the cart - so when I finally found a tube that had plastic bugs in it - including one measly little grasshopper - I decided that was good enough and I threw it in the cart and headed up to the checkout to pay for it.

$10.86

Ten freakin' eighty-six. For a grasshopper. Well, for a grasshopper and 13 other plastic bugs, that now I will find strewn all over the house and will forget that they're not real, so when I see them I will scream and freak out until I see they're plastic and then I'll feel silly and will silently curse myself for thinking that buying this tube of craptabulous stuff for $11 was the good and right thing to do. For the kids. *sigh* Well baklava shouldn't be too hard to find, right? One failed trip to a store, and 3 phone calls later... yeah, sure. Not hard at all! (Bangs head on table.)

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However, John the Baptist's birthday was celebrated and even enjoyed! In the morning the wee girl and I colored these pages of JTB both with, and without, locusts. The wee girl is also on a bit of a Lego kick these days, and wouldn't you know it? I found a retelling of the story of John the Baptist on YouTube - done with Lego!

She didn't like it. (Of course.)

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And dinner didn't go too badly either, if you ignore the fact that I fried the microwave. (Pro tip: insert food before turning on microwave.) I even did a little decorating!

If this counts as "decorating." And yes, that's a party hat on John.

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So... best laid plans and all that. At least I'm prepared for next year.

Yeah, buddy. That's where you will stay for the whole year so I don't lose you and have to shell out another 10 bucks.

I'm a little late in posting my 7QT so when you click over here, you'll have a lot of (much better) blogs to read! Don't forget to say hi :)

Geeking out over veggie burgers

Confession: sometimes I do this "liturgical living" thing because I'm lazy.

Allow me to explain. Ever since we started to suspect that our diet might be having an impact (of the negative variety) on our family's health, I've been using tools like "Plan to Eat" to do meal planning. But as anyone who's ever planned meals will tell you, no matter how many apps, tools or articles you have, sometimes meal planning is just plain hard and/or boring. It's a chore.

So one of the ways I've countered this is with themed days - Meatless Mondays, Fish-on-Fridays, leftovers-on-Wednesday, Sunday Roasts. (We tried Taco Tuesdays, but that one didn't really stick...

...unless you mean to his face. Then it stuck very well.)

The "Fish-on-Fridays" one is the expressly Catholic one in the list, as Canon law says that "Abstinence from meat, or from some other food as determined by the Episcopal Conference, is to be observed on all Fridays" (Can. 1251) - and for some reason fish is not considered "meat".  So, with Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays pretty much figured out that just leaves Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays to plan. (Genius, right? ;) )

BUT that paragraph goes on to say that "Abstinence from meat... is to be observed on all Fridays, unless a solemnity should fall on a Friday." And yesterday, was just such a solemnity - The Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus!

"Come, and have hamburgers to celebrate."

(I'm terrible. Sorry. But this solemnity is a truly beautiful one - even if the paintings for it are so kitschy - as Fr. Jim Martin said so well.)

And here's where I'm lazy. Once I figured out that we could have meat on Friday I dreaded the thought of planning and cooking something - so I suggested to the husband - why don't we just go out to eat instead? This is often easier said than done with little children, so we decided fast food would be the way to go. And we were both totally on board with that until we remembered - eating hamburgers often results in us getting sick. (We're not really sure why.) So that sent us back to square one. Until we remembered this:

Also known as "Vegan Heaven"

Yes, Amy's Drive Thru - where everything on the menu is vegetarian! (Or vegan, if you so desire). The way I figured it, is that since it was a solemnity we should be celebrating and that can easily be done without meat. Just going out makes it special enough, right?

We brought our own pages to color:

Say, "Vegan CHEEZE!"

The wee girl and little dude LOVED it. I've never seen her eat pizza so fast! Both of them could hardly be contained in their seats, they were dancing around so much. And best of all? Paul and I felt perfectly fine afterwards! You guys, we went to a fast food restaurant and didn't get ill! I can see us going here a lot more often.

Amy's Drive Thru: "Runs on Love" ...and us? On the Sacred Heart.

Blessed Brunch!

Ever since Jenna posted her idea about Blessed Brunches, well, just about a year ago now, I've wanted to help host one. God, in His wisdom, knew that last year wasn't the year for me to do it - but I was priviledged to attend one in Berkeley - and I was so... blessed! (for lack of a better word).

But this year has been different! After hosting some lovely women for a weekly devotional during Lent (which just transformed our Lenten season), we all agreed that we would like to get together again. And I knew that a Blessed Brunch would be just the thing!

So today, on the Feast of the Visitation, we had our brunch. It was truly a spiritually refreshing time and a perfectly fitting way to celebrate this feast. This evening I sat down and wrote the women a little email to express my gratitude:

Hello Sisters in Christ,
I had a truly lovely time with you this morning, and I hope you did too! Thank you all for coming out, sharing food, and sharing your heart! When I got home this afternoon I was overwhelmed with your genorosity of spirit - I was grateful my littles went down for their naps with no trouble so I could sit and process and read a bit. Today's Gospel reading was the story of the Visitation, and what should I find in today's devotional, but this:
"But there’s another reality of the Visitation that was pressed hard in on me today, and it is that of Jesus. It would be easy to assume that Jesus was just along for the ride on Mary’s journey to Elizabeth, but that wouldn’t be true. Today’s Feast reminds us that it is as much about Jesus visiting Elizabeth and baby John as it is about Mary visiting Elizabeth.
"It is Jesus who compelled John to leap for joy in his mother’s womb. It is Jesus who prompts Elizabeth to praise and honor Mary. It is Jesus, quickening inside her, who compels Mary to sing her song of thanks to God.
"We, too, each live our own moment-to-moment Visitations... What is one way that Jesus has visited you this week? Make an act of gratitude for His visit to your heart."  That's what this afternoon felt like to me: yes, I met you. But I also met Christ in you. And I am grateful.

Let's do this again soon!
With affection,
Sara

Keeping on, keeping on... (a Seven Quick Takes)

This post starts out lighthearted, then gets kinda deep, then ends on a few light notes again. A journey, if you will... we just keep on keeping on...

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I've had a lot of deep thoughts over on the FB this week... Lesson #1

(The results are similar and both benefit from use of a wet-vac.)

Lesson #2:

(Oh the *smell*!)

#3: Many folks understand that summer is nigh when the weather starts to get hot... me? I judge it by whether school is out...

Judging from my replies to this post though, I guess there could be some debate on this way of reckoning time?

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This blog recently turned 1 year old and I've begun to do some re-thinking: namely, should I keep this up? Has it fulfilled its purpose? Do I need to revamp its "mission statement" and keep it going? I don't know what the typical lifespan of a blog is, so I can't be sure, but is this like a mid-life crisis of a blog/blogger?

I don't really want to stop (so I guess that's reason enough to keep going) but I do want posts with purpose... so is my purpose giving friends and family a deeper look into our daily (faith) life? Is it posting all the weird/great stuff I'm learning about Catholicism? Is it about giving my fingers (and brain) something else to do besides picking up duplos for the umpteenth time? Is it all of the above? I don't have an answer yet - I'm just throwing these thoughts out into the wide world of the web. We'll see what comes...

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Happy Memorial Day weekend (for those readers in the US of A)! This weekend celebrates both this holiday and the Holy day of Corpus Christi. I have no idea how to celebrate Corpus Christi here at home, but I read a post by Michele Chronister on Corpus Christi and the Mystical Body of Christ that gave me some food for thought. It's not nearly as deep/theological/academic as the title would suggest. It's more about family and love and loss and is actually quite touching.

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Also filed under love, loss, Memorial day, and "quite touching," is this piece on Fr Emil Kapaun. What an amazing man of courage! It reminds me of the verse from Hebrews 11: "the world was not worthy of [him]." Truly worth reading. Truly.

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This past weekend I attended a mothering blessing.

Gifts for an expectant mother... At least this is what I've been asked to bring! I'm excited to see what will be done with them! #motheringblessings

A photo posted by Sara Rooney (@rooney.sara) on May 21, 2016 at 2:11pm PDT

We had a lovely time making flower crowns, eating delicious food (mostly vegan, as the mom-to-be is vegan - but there was some faboolous brie there too!), and sharing words of blessing. I brought a poem from Carl Sandburg that I don't think is about being a mother - but gosh - it sure could be.

I love you for what you are, but I love you yet more for what you are going to be. I love you not so much for your realities as for your ideals. I pray for your desires that they may be great, rather than for your satisfactions, which may be so hazardously little. A satisfied flower is one whose petals are about to fall. The most beautiful rose is one hardly more than a bud wherein the pangs and ecstasies of desire are working for a larger and finer growth. Not always shall you be what you are now. You are going forward toward something great. I am on the way with you and therefore I love you.

Love you and baby too!

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I've got a climber on my hands. If he can get a knee up, he's on it. And where the knee fails, his chin/mouth somehow seems to help (see as evidence, the small puddle on the platform of the slide):

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It's all good though, because I've got a reader on my hands too...

C.S. Lewis.  #raisingthemright

And that's the view from here! See more school-year-end reflections (as I call them! ha!) over at This Ain't the Lyceum.

Seeing Red...

What I've learned today: if you want a picture of your family all dressed in their lovely #RedForPentecost clothes, do it as early in the day as possible. Even if it involves grabbing an unsuspecting neighbor off the sidewalk - because... well, we all know why because.

(This is just my way of saying sorry folks. There will be no cute pictures of me or my kiddos today. Mea culpa.)

We celebrated two birthdays today - Grandad's and the Church's! Paul and I sang Happy Birthday to both parties - and the Spitfire didn't sing to either. (Little Dude did bang his fork for both - so I'm going to say that it was his way of providing some much needed percussion.) It was kinda nice to open and close the day with that song. We sang it in the morning while Skyping with Grandad and all our UK aunts and uncles; we sang it in the evening at dinner. And in between there was a whole lot of "readjusting expectations".  Case in point: for once we were totally ready for an on-time departure for church but when I turned the key in the ignition - the engine refused to cooperate. Really? This is how we're rewarded for trying to finally be to church on time? OK. Plan B - throw the kids in the stroller (but hey! It's red!) and walk to St Rose (Also red!) instead. So yes, plan A was thwarted but I think by doing this we were rewarded. We ran into friends that we haven't seen for a long time and afterwards, we got to stop at a coffeeshop for treats- which is something I *always* want to do after Mass but never do because kids. Carseats. Blah.

And of course, after that - we were already downtown - why not make an afternoon of it and go out to lunch? I'm sure the kids didn't mind having pizza one more time this week - it was also red (sauce)!

So why the red for Pentecost? Honestly, I can't remember - I'm sure you can Google it (Here let me Google that for you) But looking for red became a fun theme to my day, both online and off. Here, at least, are some of the high points of that search:

Rose petals representing Pentecost’s "tongues of fire" fell onto congregants during Mass for the Feast of Pentecost, today, at the Pantheon in Rome. CNS Photo by @Paul.haring @catholic_news_service

A photo posted by James Martin SJ (@jamesmartinsj) on May 15, 2016 at 6:16pm PDT

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Rachel Held Evans wrote a guest post for Shauna Niequist - a beautiful reflection on the Holy Spirit:

We are born into a windy world, where the Spirit is steady as a breeze and as strong as a hurricane. There is no city, no village, no wilderness where you cannot find it, so pay attention.

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I don't think my friend intended to do this - but I thought it was lovely and I included her photo in the #RedforPentecost tag along...

Diablo uprising #mtdiablo #sunrise #unitedairlines #jetsetting

A photo posted by Kris K (@klotzwalkin) on May 15, 2016 at 9:43am PDT

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Like I said before, sorry there's no pictures of my own to add here - but Lord willing - we'll celebrate the church's birthday next year! How did you celebrate Pentecost this year?

Seven Quick Takes (and No Witty Titles)

Happy Mother's Day weekend! Because this is now end-of-Saturday, I've had the luxury of being able to read a few other folks' 7QTs and see IG posts on how others are celebrating Mother's day. So, in return I thought I would share a few things that have been happening around here...

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Mas-TI-tis!!! (Don't worry... it's non-infectious!)

Oh. Is that TMI? Well, then, don't watch this hilarious video from Hello Flo...

Yeah... I'll just leave that right there. Moving on!

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So the day that I was flat on my back with, ahem, what was just previously mentioned, there was a really good webinar hosted by the Blessed Is She folks on "Living Liturgically for the Uncrafty Busy Family." It was really lovely! (And I got a little shout out at 2:38! Ha! :) ) Overall, I left encouraged and felt like I had received a confirmation in the things we have been doing. And since this year's word is LEARN, I attended looking for one thing that I could incorporate - and I think (much to my daughter's delight but husband's bane) - that I'd like to try and incorporate singing more. This will probably happen at next Advent (so Paul has time to adjust to the idea. ;) ) But music really is such a big part of *my* life - it only makes sense to incorporate that into our family worship. If you have the time/inclination, I would really recommend watching the webinar. It has a lot of good information in it. I hope Blessed Is She will do more in the future!

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One day, our yard will be an amazing garden... Home to birds and bees and butterflies! But for now I will take my two wine barrels filled with cherry tomatoes, and call it good. #countingmyblessings

A photo posted by Sara Rooney (@rooney.sara) on May 7, 2016 at 8:03pm PDT

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Everyone has heard of taco salad, right? Well this week, I had a whole bunch of lettuce, leftover chicken tikka masala, and some Indian style brown rice; so guess what I made? Tikka salad! Served with a little dollop of sour cream on top (just like its Taco cousin) and it was delicious. I know I can't possibly be the first person to think of this, but if I am, y'all need to tell me so I can go copyright it or something. So good.

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Earlier this week, I learned about Rogation days - just in time to kinda observe them with the family. From what I understand, there are 4 Rogation days in the church year, 3 of them being the days that lead up to Ascension Thursday (which just passed). And because I learned about them, I also learned about Ember days (a 3 day period celebrated 4 times a year). Both these periods really appealed to Paul and I for their "yin and yang"ness. Basically, during the Ember days, we praise God for the beauty of nature and her seasons; and during the Rogation days, we ask for God's protection from nature's destructive abilities and for an increase in our crops. Well, the only "crops" we have at the moment are cherry tomatoes (shown above) - so we busted out the holy water (for the first time since the kiddo's baptism!) and got to work. We decided to bless every plant we could... Evelyn loved it.

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We also decided to pray for the farmers who provide us with our veggies each week: Singing Frogs Farm. We love them and the farm so much! (As it turned out, praying for small farmers was also in line with Pope Francis's prayer intentions for the month of April - so, yay us!)

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And this month his holiness's prayers are for women! Just in time for mother's day! ;) (Though I sincerely doubt that's why he chose that intention!) God bless you and your mama, tomorrow and always.

Head on over and wish Kelly a Happy Mother's Day