For housewives

We made bread yesterday, a cottage loaf sprinkled with a dash of parmesan and paprika.

For St Zita, patron saints of housewives. St. Zita spent her life from age 12 until her death at age 60 as a servant in the household of the Sagrati family. Zita believed that "A servant is not pious if she is not industrious; work-shy piety in people of our position is sham piety." One morning, when she had inadvertently over-stayed in church praying until sunrise, she hurried home to find the bread dough already prepared for the oven. She questioned every one, but no one would admit preparing the bread. It was soon evident that no human hands had shaped the loaves. A delicious fragrance surrounded them, and Zita became aware that angels had been at work while she prayed.

Patron of housewives? Would you say that I am a housewife?

The dictionary to hand defines a housewife as a married woman who manages her own household.

Well, that definitely describes a whole part of my life!

And it makes me think of Mary, Our Lady, praying and working. And loving.

If you put all the love of all the mothers into one heart it still would not equal the love of the Heart of Mary for her children. St Louis Mary de Montfort.

Menu Plans

Menu Plans? Am I sick?

No, just feeling inspired ( or guilty) ...after reading Lisa's blog. Lisa posts a menu plan every Monday..

On Monday nght, after having flown back from Melbourne, gone straight to work, arriving home around 8.30 p.m., we had meat pies from the freezer for dinner.

And I thought about my busy week, and Lisa's influence, and my favourite TV cooks ( Nigella and Jamie) and what we had in the house..and made my own rough, very rough, menu plan.

Lisa, you have encouraged me to post my meagre plans. No comparisons, right?

Monday
Meat-Pies-From-The-Freezer

Tuesday
Welsh Rarebit or Poached Eggs in Bread Rolls ( read here how to poach eggs in cling wrap. A Science experiment all on its own!). Served with or on blessed bread rolls from the St Anthony Mass on Tuesday night. And with a salad of cos lettuce, sliced beetroot, three bean mix.

Wednesday
Use up that pork from the freezer.
Thai Red Pork Curry, using cabbage and carrots instead of sweet potato and snake beans.
Rice. Microwaved pappadums.

Thursday
Women's group and no dinner for me. I planned for the kids to make
Quick Tomato Pasta Sauce, to serve with penne and Garlic Bread Rolls..again using up those bread rolls.

Friday
Vegetarian Zucchini Slice with grain bread ( or The Last Of Those Bread Rolls).

Saturday
St Paul the Hermit... we traditonally serve pork on this day .Still have pork left in the freezer from Christmas..so perhaps Satay Pork with rice and any available salad/fruit/vegetables.
Unless we have friends for dinner..in which case we will do a barbecue, plus bread, salad, dairy free carrot cake with custard.

Sunday
Mmm. Another vegetarian meal. Perhaps
Nigella's Macaroni Cheese or Channa Dahl or Peanut Butter Pasta.

Unless, again, a friend stays for dinner..and then we might have chicken!

Monday again

Use up those Meat-Pies-from-The-Freezer again, after work and an Information Meeting, with any leftovers, including leftover salad, from the weekend. Or cook anything we didn't cook on the weekend!

Should I be daring and plan a menu for next week, too??

Pegging Prayers for All Souls

I have talked about pegs, pegs in our day, before.

And Lissa has that great blog post on pegs, too.

Lately, I have been trying to naturally, rhythmically, seamlessly, add more prayer into the life of our family.

I used the idea of pegs yet again.

Specifically, I have pegged an additional prayer to our evening Grace before meals..most days..especially those days when we don't have visitors and when we are actually home for dinner, however late that dinner may be. Even if that dinner is leftovers again, or make yourself a sandwich again. ( She says guiltily. She who hasn't cooked a dinner since Wednesday of last week. NO, Pam, I didn't end up cooking last night, either!)

During September, we re-visited the Latin prayer ~ Memorare before dinner. Food means I have a captive audience!

In the month of October, I pegged the prayer to St Joseph to grace before dinner.

This month of November, of Holy Souls, I am pegging this prayer..

My Jesus, by the sorrows Thou didst suffer in Thine agony in the Garden, in Thy scourging and crowning with thorns, in the way to Calvary, in Thy crucifixion and death, have mercy on the souls in purgatory, and especially on those that are most forsaken; do Thou deliver them from the dire torments they endure; call them and and admit them to Thy most sweet embrace in paradise. Our Father..., Hail Mary...., Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord; and let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace. Amen.

Liturgically speaking, for All Souls and Requeim Masses, the priest may wear black vestments.

The use of black represents Christian realities. Christians are people of hope ; we are also aware of the reality of sin and of judgement. We do not presume to know the state of another's soul. We know that we have a tendency towards sin and that we do not always resist, nor always repent of our sins. So, we hope and pray.

Black has overtones of mourning , and acknowledges our emotional response to loss , and reminds us of our need to pray for the repose of the deceased's soul. It also is a reminder and symbol of our belief in purgatory, where the suffering souls require our prayers and Masses.

Black represents our mourning and reminds us that there is work to be done -- the work of prayer.

The gold or silver which adorns the black vestment gives us that silver-lining of Christian hope .

Some of my kitchen cupboards

With the new organised look..pink, blue and white boxes! Containers for ( nearly) everything! I can find things....

I kinda, sheepishly, like housework, I love working, I am just bad at it.

I lead a semi organised life, you know?

And when you are working - like yesterday, six loads of washing, grocery shopping, cleaning the kitchen cupboards, cooking for a dinner guest , in between reading some of the letters of St Ignatius of Antioch, - the physical work allows one to create a mini cone of

silence. (Remember Get Smart?)

Quiet in which one can pray. Or think. Or compose sentences for your next writing or blogging attempt. While also having the cone of silence interrupted, interrupted in a nice, familiar, I-love-this-family way, by your kids talking to you, laughing at you, making their usual witty comments and asking their usual myriad of questions.

Part of the draw of housework is that it is a fantastic counterpoint to thinking work. One friend who works from home says: “If I am stuck on a work problem, I take out the ironing and watch old episodes of Dallas on cable. I think I am pretending I am my mother, and it is comforting.” The Joy of Housework

I play at being a good housewife, a 1950s televsion mother. Or Mrs Brady from the Brady Bunch. ( Greg pointed put - Did she wear a short black skirt and knee length bright pink and green striped Ramones socks to clean, as you do, Mum?..) My kids can be so sarcastic!

Heaven forbid that any of us take a moderate approach to cleaning. That is too boring. And with boring comes another kind of shame. Take my screen visits to Flylady: when I am reading her tips on the website and my husband or kids come into the room, I immediately switch screens as if I had been looking at porn, because I don’t want them to know that I have sunk to this sink-shining low. Reading about housework is my dirty little secret. It sure beats actually doing any. From that Times article above.

Organising the linen cupboard

Montessori preschool style. Labelled baskets. So hopefully the kids can put things away IN THEIR PROPER PLACES.

Feeling virtuous..and organised.

What Dh Did

What Dh Did..as in the book What Katy Did..when I was away in Cebu for a Kumon conference..He came home from being away for work himself..and promptly re-organised our main-bedroom-cum-my-Kumon-home-office,...complete with new red sheets for the bed. And I came home to Belle, our cat, sleeping on the bed...

Splendor in the Ordinary

A book by Thomas Howard.

Howard describes how, even in the rush of every day life, in the common ordinariness of our homes and our activities, we can find chances to love and serve God and discern His leading.

We are taking part in a book discussion of this title at the Unschooling Catholics email list. The topic is close to an unschooler's heart. We believe that we can see learning and relationship in the day to day doings, by being aware and seizing the moment, by emphasizing our routines and rhythms. So, too, perhaps, we can see God in the same things. In our family. In our household routines.

Chapter One – The Household – Learn to see the holy in the ordinary
Excerpts –
The ancients used to hallow places. They set aside groves and grottoes and mountains, and built temples and shrines and enclaves..modern Christians often find it difficult to keep alive any notion at all of mystery, or of the hallowed, except perhaps as a sort of cloud or glow that ought to suffuse their imagination when they pray or worship..

Somehow we have gotten swept into a millrace, and its nonstop flailing and thrashing just to keep ourselves from drowning. The sheer necessities of modern life sweep us farther and farther from any sense that it is all hallowed, really. What are we to do?

..A possibility would be to accept the fact that life comes tumbling at us nowadays, but that it is nonetheless possible for us to see our ordinary daily routines as proceeding among the hallows, so to speak; and by stirring up in our minds the things that we vaguely acknowledge anyway, to begin to hallow those routines by doing once more what men have always done with things to hallow them; namely, offering them up in oblation to God. As literally as Abel offered up sacrifices from his ordinary routine of work.

..To do this, of course, we will have to recover the sense of the hallowed as being all around us...We will have to refuse resolutely the secularism that has made ordinariness unholy. We live in a dark age, and somewhere in this murk there has got to be lights burning in shrines and on altars, bearing witness to the presence of the holy.

But what shrines and altars?...I would like to suggest that at least one place ( among others) which may be hallowed anew as the place where the celebration of all the mysteries may occur, and where all of life may be offered up in oblation to the Most High, is the family household. Within these four walls, under this roof, the lamps are lighted. The offering is here; the vigil is here; the feast is here; the faithful are here. All the eating and drinking and the working and playing, and the discipline and serving and loving that go on here – they are all holy. For these common routines of ordinary life are not only necessities and functions: they are also messengers to us from the hallows.

Unschooling Chores

I have been re-energized by some of my recent blog reading.

Reading the blogs of other unschoolers. Thinking about their ideas and lives. Remembering to adopt some similar attitudes and activities in our unschool.

Attitudes and activities towards things like cleaning. Or chores.

Now, we have never been the kind of family that was good with chore charts. I think if you are going to make such things work, you need consistency. And you need to be good at follow up - at making sure chores get done - and at inspection.

I am not good at any of these things. So, we gave away chore charts over ten years ago.

We just work on the everyone pitch in and help out clean.

Many times, this means I do more housework kind of stuff than others. That I am the one who cleans up more. Tidies up other people's messes.

But, I believe this to be a gift. I am given the gift of service. I am given the gift of family. Thank God, that I have a family to care for.

Before you raise your hands in horror, please know that I have feminist leanings...That I am a strong woman...That this attitude of service doesn't mean I am a doormat-slave-slash-servant. I am a servant in a vocational sense, in a serving others with joy sense. And I am free to ask for help, to ask others to do things, to make lists and say who wants to take a job. To ask for co-operation. It is my choice to clean. I could make other choices. Leave the mess. Pay someone to clean.

Many times, too, this everyone pitches in and helps out attitude means that some members of the family do more than others. Those who notice things more? Those who have more of a servant's heart? Those who are less likely to grumble if asked to do something?

I don't feel bad about this..I feel it is just part of life...

And it helps not to think of home maintenance as chores but as creating a home for those who live here and a welcome for those who visit.

I often re-arrange cushions or ornaments or chairs when cleaning; add some flowers; change prints or a centrepiece. Strew something new or different. Or just leave clear spaces for hanging out; reading nooks; music corners; a space for others to put their currently important things.

I feel free, too, to not be hindered by times and typical chore charts. Or cleaning routines. Who says we have to do a whole house at a time? Or one whole room? Or one chore? Or clean in the morning and rest in the afternoon/evening? Or do a whole, fantastic job? Bits and pieces, fits and starts, a wipe down here and a vaccuum there, a small amount every day, a good enough job may be all I have time for.

Suits me.
Step by step.

If I only have fifteen minutes to clean or tidy, I pick my area of most concern and I go. If someone walks by or needs me, I ask them to give me a hand so we can talk together, or I can carry a baby or toddler while cleaning with the other hand as I did when all were little, or I can smile at someone or listen to someone. From the middle of the clean.

It is amazing what can be done in fifteen minutes. Or at ten pm at night, when picking up the house before computer and bed. Or in the extra ten minutes when waiting for something to cook . ( Although be warned - don't get so involved that you forget about cooking and burn something..I speak from experience here!).

Yesterday, I was inspired by this blog post on cleaning in bursts while caring for the family. The pictures on this blog tell more than a thousand words. More than my word-y blog post.

Remembering my cleaning spurts, I started in on the second cutlery drawer in the kitchen - the one with the knives, the ice cream scoop, the wooden spoons, the measuring cups, the...you name it. I tidied that drawer, threw away unwanted stuff ( who needs two boxes of confetti!) and sorted and categorised. In my fashion.

On a roll, I extended my cleaning spurt and cleaned down all the kitchen cupboard doors, went around the house wiping down skirting boards and marks off walls, cleaned the piano keys (hey, they are sparkling white again!) wiped down the kids' bathroom, tidied my bathroom, tidied two of the kids' rooms and ( roughly, organically, not artistically ) sorted their junk, ahem, items of concern, into boxes for them.

Woo hoo! An hour and one half later, this unschooling house looked better. I felt better. And I still had time to talk to dh and the kids, to answer their queries, as I worked.

Unschooling chores by working in service, with a positive attitude, in spurts and with others. Creating a new unschooling landscape. Doing cleaning while being with family..

A two -for- one.

And, as a reminder of that positive attitude, read this...The importance of a positive attitude towards creating a home was even emphasised in the 1800s, by the legendary Mrs. Beeton ~

AS WITH THE COMMANDER OF AN ARMY, or the leader of any enterprise, so is it with the mistress of a house. Her spirit will be seen through the whole establishment; and just in proportion as she performs her duties intelligently and thoroughly, so will her domestics follow in her path. Of all those acquirements, which more particularly belong to the feminine character, there are none which take a higher rank, in our estimation, than such as enter into a knowledge of household duties; for on these are perpetually dependent the happiness, comfort, and well-being of a family. In this opinion we are borne out by the author of “The Vicar of Wakefield,” who says: “The modest virgin, the prudent wife, and the careful matron, are much more serviceable in life than petticoated philosophers, blustering heroines, or virago queens. She who makes her husband and her children happy, who reclaims the one from vice and trains up the other to virtue, is a much greater character than ladies described in romances, whose whole occupation is to murder mankind with shafts from their quiver, or their eyes.”
PURSUING THIS PICTURE, we may add, that to be a good housewife does not necessarily imply an abandonment of proper pleasures or amusing recreation; and we think it the more necessary to express this, as the performance of the duties of a mistress may, to some minds, perhaps seem to be incompatible with the enjoyment of life.....

GOOD TEMPER SHOULD BE CULTIVATED by every mistress, as upon it the welfare of the household may be said to turn; indeed, its influence can hardly be over-estimated, as it has the effect of moulding the characters of those around her, and of acting most beneficially on the happiness of the domestic circle. Every head of a household should strive to be cheerful, and should never fail to show a deep interest in all that appertains to the well-being of those who claim the protection of her roof. Gentleness, not partial and temporary, but universal and regular, should pervade her conduct; for where such a spirit is habitually manifested, it not only delights her children, but makes her domestics attentive and respectful; her visitors are also pleased by it, and their happiness is increased. Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management

I am a Superior Wife!

64 As a 1930s wife, I am Superior Take the test!

And I did the test to prove it..........The 1930s Marital Scale

For dinner tonight....

...I made rissoles. A good old fashioned Aussie favourite. I felt like such a good mum. Good wife. Good housewife. I had time to cook!

Ignore the cocktail glass - I was drinking a Sidecar while cooking.

Cocktails while cooking? Definitely a 1950s housewife!

Trinity Cake

Made this Apple Teacake for Trinity Sunday.

Why?

Well, the three rings of apple slices on the cake represent the three-persons-in-one- God of the Holy Trinity.

Okay, a rather tenuous connection, but it worked for us.

Actually, I baked three cakes. One for eating yesterday and two for the freezer for unexpected visitors. Or just for us.

I feel such a warm glow, I feel like I am a wonderful, organised housewife, baking and storing food for my family. Especially after surgery!

Just call me Modern Homemaker, please.

Isn't my dh sweet?

He cleaned out the kitchen cupboards for me, while I am on light duties after surgery.

Of course, he had a fit over their disorganised state - he wants to know just how may recycled containers did I think I needed to have?

I don't know, but I tend to hoard them, just in case.

But I won't any more. I promise. Not after dh's hard work. And his fit. So cute, so funny!

And I must admit to liking the clear spaces in the cupboard ~ Hey, I have room for things now! Kitchen things...

( And dh does have a cute b*tt in that pic...).

Household Organisation

Dh re-organised the kitchen pantry yesterday. With my assistance, of course.

Now, my house is organised for the big things - you know, for LIFE. We manage to keep a fairly neat and fairly clean house, we do a lot of activities, we homeschool and have a full life, have a lot of people over and life generally works well. There is flow.

However, the little things tend to be kept in a more random manner. The bookshelves will be neat but with little order to the books. The cupboards will be useable and things can be found but there is little system to the storage.

This extends to to the kitchen. The kitchen is a little thing in the scheme of things, right?

Well, a disorganised pantry drives dh nuts.

And, on Saturday, when I visited a friend in her new house, I saw her new really large pantry, much larger than mine. That didn't make me envious. I could care less.

But I did feel pangs of guilt over her neat pantry. Everything put in sections, one could find anything at a glance.Lots of food.

Nothing higgeldy-piggeldy.

I like higgeldy-piggeldy. I like eclectic. I like a scrapbook approach to life ~ - in the small things ~ and a loose organisational stucture for the big things.

But I still felt bad about that pantry.

So, I started the pantry tidy up on Sunday morning. And dh took over, he is much better at this sort of detail than I.

Didn't he do a magnificent job?

Dh said " I love all your good intentions", when he found the pressed flower kit, the gingerbread men kit, the gingerbread train kit, the Chistmas cake baking mix. I buy these kits to do with the kids but we don't alway get around to it...Dh laughed at all the homeschooling and parish stuff I keep in the pantry ~ not much room for food.

And, he said "How can you run such a great Kumon centre, a great business, do so many things and be organised, and yet keep a basic thing like a pantry so disorganised?"

I don't know. Are these things related?

And the even bigger question is ~ Now, how do we keep our pantry this way???

What's for Dinner?

Oh, gosh, I am so bored with thinking of dinners. I don't even cook every night, as sometimes the kids cook and sometimes we buy takeaway. But it is still hard to think about dinners, to find dinners that are easy, not too expensive and quick to cook, especially when we are home late ( most nights!).

Didd a Google seach this morning and came up with sites and ideas.

What's for dinner tonight?

What's for dinner - make dinner time family time

What's for dinner, recipes by email

And a blog devoted to What's for Dinner, put together by another mum

This, too, is another "mummy's blog", with daily recipes ~ I want to try the Blushing Penne Pasta.

Feel free to share suggestions.

I made a cake!

I felt like eating Christmas cake.

Yes, I know it is Lent (hence the purple ribbon trimming) , but I haven't given up cake for Lent ( I have other penances). And I like Christmas cake any time of the year. And my tummy has been so unwell that it is fun to be able to eat some things..Well, there are many things I still can't eat, but I wanted to give cake a try.

I baked this yesterday afternoon, the house smelt warm and cosy and delish during the baking. We ate the cake wth soup for dinner, after Mass and Novena to St Anthony.

This pic is ( much needed) proof that I can bake a nice cake! lol!

ETA ~ This is a nice recipe, that I have used in the past. ( For Mary:-))

Look. New teapots.

Very kitsch, I know, but still kinda fun. I have the teapots on my dining table, as part of a centrepiece ( Yeah. Bad taste!)

Organisation

Or perhaps I should say - re-organisation.

This afternoon, I enlisted the family to help with some household organisation. We cleaned out the laundry - all the junk above came out of our laundry! Wow!

And see the finished laundry - lots of clear white space. Very nice.

I recently bought wire shelving units for use at my Kumon Education Centre ( work) and used one here in the laundry. Helps to keep things sorted and neat.

We also re-arranged bedrooms Again.

There is a lot of re-arranging going on in our house, as two older sons have moved to Sydney. Perhaps temporarily. We hope permanently.

An answer to prayer.

Nevertheless, adding adult sons back into the family mix calls for re-arrangement. Of physical places ( so Luke and Greg can have their own rooms - this is the two eldest sons).

And of mental and relational spaces - getting along together, giving each other room to move and breathe, to be different.

Letting go. Remembering that the way one parents and relates to an adult son is different to the way one relates to and parents a younger son.

Funnily enough. it is my dh who finds this the hardest. Maybe those male and female differences again ? Do fathers find it harder to parent less, to let go? Or am I just an unusual mother ~ letting go is not what I find hard.

What do I find hard?

Being the mediator between these relationships, helping both parent and son to see each other's point of view. ( Those males!). Can be wearying.

But worthwhile.

Like all aspects of family life.

Re-organisation of space, I find, ends up helping with re-establishing and re-orienting relationships.

I am pondering on these thoughts and words, on our family life and on my role as a parent.

Some of us went to a Latin Mass this morning, and the Gospel reading was Luke 2: 15-20. Fr. mentioned this line ~ But Mary kept all these words, pondering them in her heart.

I got to thinking - How often do we mothers ponder things, ponder about family life, keep these thoughts close to our heart?

I'll keep up my pondering, my re-organising, my re-arranging, my praying.

I need it!

The Feast of the Archangels

Yesterday was the Feast of the Archangels.

St Michael, St Gabriel, St Raphael.

What did we do?

We began the day with Mass, Reconciliation, then breakfast at Mc Donalds, in celebration. The kids had various activities and parties to attend, we did odd jobs and closed the day by seeing the movie Rush Hour 3 in the early evening.

Pizza and then our traditional dessert for this feast - Devil's Food Cake. To remember that St Michael cast the devil into hell.

This year, the cake was made by Jonathon and friend. We and our visitors enjoyed the cake, a great way to remember this feast!

Oh, and my dh is home, after being away for September for work. He bought me a gift - a perpetual calendar, with the title above ~ You Say I'm a B#%h Like its a Bad Thing!

A motto for every day - today's is most applicable. Or so say my sons and dh .

I understand the concept of cooking and cleaning, just not as it applies to me.

Well, true, I guess. Except I am in housewifey mode lately. Even searched for my copy of Speed Cleaning, a book gift , given to me last year ( in jest? ). Found it hidden in the pantry..

I read the book, looking for ways to remove rust from our carpet - found you needed CLR. What the !!?? What is CLR?

The Glossary told me it stood for Calcium-Lime-Rust and could be purchased at the supermarket.

I bought it today and also ended up buying several other nifty cleaning things - who knew that the cleaning aisle in the supermarket could be fun to shop!

And, yes the CLR, removed the rust.

Happy Feast Day!

Our Lady and Notebooks

I have often toyed with the idea of keeping a notebook or lapbook or something similar, on the theme of Our Lady.

Adding to it throughout the liturgical year.

My thoughts never became action. That is, not until our little Catholic homeschool group met for the Feast of the Assumption. My turn to plan an activity.

We discussed the Assumption of Our Lady and prayed the Litany of Our Lady.. I gave each child a coloured file folder and some sheets to insert - the beginnings of the notebook.

The idea is to add some writing and/or artwork to the folder, throughout the year, as we celebrate the different Feasts of Our Lady.

Religion, Art, Reading, Writing, Discussion/Language Skills - and, perhaps, sometimes, Group or Collaborative Work.

And, most of all ~ a nice keepsake . As we learn about and honour the Blessed Mother.

On Wednesday, the boys added an entry to their notebooks - their choice, something on either the Holy Name of Mary or on Our Lady of Sorrows. We read and shared their entries.

Some entries are hand written and hand drawn, others are produced at the computer.

~ Ad Majorum Dei Gloriam ~

Organization 3

The main bedroom was also cluttered. I had a very large old desk for my work desk for Kumon. Quite frankly, it was too large for this room. It fitted well in our last house, an old house in Adelaide. But it swamped the smaller main bedroom in this new, more modern house.

I came up with a solution. Remove the desk and use bookshelves to store all my Kumon supplies. I never actually plan at my desk anway. I used my desk for storage. I tend to do all my Kumon planning in the kitchen and family room, while the children are busy and so I can be available to help them with their activities.

These are the shelves - and, suddenly our bedroom room seems larger and the space is freed for our rowing machine( the treadmill is on the garage/activity room!) and for a framed photo collection.

Up to now, I have been reluctant to put up paintings and photos. We might move again, has been my thought. We have moved so frequently.

However, we have been here for two years so I am gradually getting brave enough to put down roots, to add paintings to the walls in this rented home.