Easter Morning

This about sums it up: I’m exhausted from celebrating last night but, hey. I’ll still stuff my face with sugar.

He is RISEN!

My Bird Phase

Last year sometime, I’m not entirely certain how long ago, I entered my “Bird Phase”. And while one can’t be certain I’m thinking that it’s less of a phase and more of a “situation”. Buying expensive feeders, seed, binoculars is sounding more and more reasonable to me. Getting up at crazy times of the morning and traveling crazy distances is sounding more possible – maybe more essential. I was even seduced by a week-long birding camp for educators that’s being offered this summer – but only until I pictured leaving my babies for that long to go look at birds and realized that there would be time for such an activity when I am discharged from active duty motherhood.
I am beginning to feel like either a.) an old woman or b.) a crazy person because I spend a LOT of time reading field guides and staring out my kitchen window trying to master the differences between the LBJ’s (Little Brown Jobs) or squinting to see the details of the shape of a black silhouette flying by. So I am here to sort through and share the reasons that I’m so "enthusiastic” about the bird world.
1. I’m already a naturey kind of person. I’m not a sporty person but I do love to be outside. This is not a new development.
2. Birds are all over the freaking place. In the normal run of my day and WHILE fulfilling my home-bound responsibilities I can be connected to the natural world (even in the winter!). Doing my dishes, weeding the garden, running errands. Birds are always there.
3. They are not all sparrows. Not that there’s anything wrong with a house sparrow – I find them very entertaining actually. But really, there’s a lot more variety if you start to notice what’s going on out there. Just there – right in your yard or on the telephone wires next to the highway.
4. It’s something to “do” when out in nature. I love to take walks or hikes but I find myself hesitating to go out very often because I don’t always (sometimes, but not daily) want the ‘emptiness’ of my mind when I’m just walking. Watching the birds gives my mind just enough occupation to allow me to really engage and enjoy a walk.
5. "In contact with nature, a person rediscovers his correct dimension, rediscovers himself as a creature, small but at the same time unique, with a capacity for God because interiorly he is open to the Infinite." Benedict XVI
God’s creation points us to God – it orients our compass in the correct direction. Birds are just one part of that nature but they are so ubiquitous and varied that there’s a lifetime of discovery and engagement there if you are interested in them.

OK, so that clarifies some of it for me. Now on to my very exciting week of observing the birdies.
Fri. (2 ago): Driving the kids to co-op I saw these big dark lumps in the leaf-less tree up the road. They looked like dozens of squirrels nests. As we got closer it became apparent that they were not nests at all but Black Vultures! I pulled over and right in front of us (10 ft?) I counted 34 vultures. They were not (thankfully) eating anything – just roosting – and they were not (thankfully) Turkey Vultures – the red heads give me the heebee-jeebees. 
Wed. I went out alone for the evening and spent the first part at a Nat. Park nearby. I saw some sort of Flicker flying by and then I watched what I think was a Merlin (kestral) or American Kestral eating something up in a tree. VERY cool.
Fri: Driving to co-op had a Turkey Vulture fly out of a quarry and nearly into the side of the van. A little creepy. Saw a Red-Tail Hawk. AND – watched a Cooper’s Hawk carrying something off right in front of us. I jotted down my notes about what I observed and then spent an unreasonable amount of time trying to identify it when I got home. I’m pretty confident that I got it right in the end.
Sun: Spent an hour watching the feeder after a HUGE rain storm the night before. Those birds were Cr – azy. Here’s my list of observations:
Finch Family – dozens of Gold Finches and Pine Siskins fighting it out for the thistle. House Finches dipping in occasionally too.
Sparrow Family – EEEK!!! SO exciting! I saw two new sparrows – AND identified them!!! The White-throated Sparrow and the Chipping Sparrow. The White-throated looked pretty regular (except the white on his head) until you looked through binoculars and then you saw the beauty. Also, the Juncos are still hanging out and all over (they, the Pine Siskins and the White-throated Sparrows are about the migrate to Canada to breed for the summer).
Female Downy Woodpecker is a frequent visitor these days.
Mourning Doves
Tree Swallows (or Purple Martins) flying around in the yard.
And some unidentified brown bird (my best guess is a female Eastern Tohee)
All of this excitement within an hour while I drank my coffee – poured over my bird books – fed the kids breakfast - and reoriented myself towards God. It was a very good morning.
So pardon me if I include so bird-related posts every now and then. I am finally embracing my inner-bird.

Black Vulture (we live at the far Northern edge of their border)

American Kestral

Pine Siskin

Slate-colored Junco

 

Chipping Sparrow

Cooper’s Hawk

Tree Swallow

White- Throated Sparrow

The Domestic Monastery

I came across this at another blog, which by the way – is humbling and inspiring. It was born out of a truly tragic and horrific story and shows the marks of a woman who truly know Christ through suffering. I do not know her but I wish I did. She did not write the article but shared it and maybe you have already seen it but I hadn’t so I thought I’d put it here.
This reflection is wonderful and it’s something that all mom’s – especially the variety of mom that is home all day, every day with children – should think about.

THE DOMESTIC MONASTERY
Carlo Carretto, one of the leading spiritual writers of the past half-
century, lived for more than a dozen years as a hermit in the Sahara
Desert. Alone, with only the Blessed Sacrament for company, milking
a goat for his food, and translating the Bible into the local Bedouin
language, he prayed for long hours by himself.
Returning to Italy one day to visit his mother, he came to a
startling realization. His mother, who for more than 30 years of her
life had been so busy raising a family that she scarcely ever had a
private minute for herself, was more contemplative than he was.
Carretto, though, was careful to draw the right lesson from this.
What this taught was not that there was anything wrong with what he
had been doing in living as a hermit. The lesson was rather that
there was something wonderfully right about what his mother had been
doing all these years as she lived the interrupted life amid the
noise and incessant demands of small children. He had been in a
monastery, but so had she.
What is a monastery? A monastery is not so much a place set apart
for monks and nuns as it is a place set apart (period). It is also a
place to learn the value of powerlessness and a place to learn that
time is not ours, but God's.
Our home and our duties can, just like a monastery, teach us those
things. John of the Cross once described the inner essence of
monasticism in these words: "But they, O my God and my life, will
see and experience Your mild touch, who withdraw from the world and
become mild, bringing the mild into harmony with the mild, thus
enabling themselves to experience and enjoy You." What John
suggests here is that two elements make for a monastery - withdrawal
from the world and bringing oneself into harmony with the mild.
Although he was speaking about the vocation of monastic monks and
nuns, who physically withdraw from the world, the principle is
equally valid for those of us who cannot go off to monasteries and
become monks and nuns. Certain vocations offer the same kind of
opportunity for contemplation. They, too, provide a desert for
reflection.
For example, the mother who stays home with small children
experiences a very real withdrawal from the world. Her existence is
definitely monastic. Her tasks and preoccupations remove her from
the centers of power and social importance. And she feels it.
Moreover, her sustained contact with young children (the mildest of
the mild) gives her a privileged opportunity to be in harmony with
the mild that is, to attune herself to the powerless rather
than tothe powerful.
Moreover, the demands of young children also provide her with what
St. Bernard, one of the great architects of monasticism, called
the "monastic bell." All monasteries have a bell. Bernard, in
writing his rules for monasticism, told his monks that whenever the
monastic bell rang, they were to drop whatever they were doing and go
immediately to the particular activity (Prayer, meals, work, study,
sleep) to which the bell was summoning them. He was adamant that
they respond immediately, stating that if they were writing a letter
they were to stop in mid-sentence when the bell rang.
The idea in his mind was that when the bell called, it called you to
the next task and you were to respond immediately, not because you
want to, but because it's time, it's God's time. For
him, the
monastic bell was intended as a discipline to stretch the heart by
always taking you beyond your own agenda to God's agenda.
Hence, a mother rearing children, perhaps in a more privileged way
even than a professional contemplative, is forced, almost against her
will, to constantly stretch her heart. For years, while rearing
children, her time is never her own, her own needs have to be kept in
second place, and every time she turns around a hand is reaching out
and demanding something. She hears the monastic bell many times
during the day and she has to drop things in mid-sentence and
respond, not because she wants to, but because it's time for that
activity and time isn't her time, but God's time.
The rest of us experience the monastic bell each morning when our
alarm clock rings and we get out of bed and ready ourselves for the
day, not because we want to, but because it's time.
The principles of monasticism are time-tested, saint-sanctioned, and
altogether trustworthy. But there are different kinds of
monasteries, different ways of putting ourselves into harmony with
the mild, and different kinds of monastic bells. Response to duty
can be monastic prayer, a needy hand can be a monastic bell, and
working without status and power can constitute a withdrawal into a
monastery where God can meet us. The domestic can be the monastic.
By Fr. Ron Rolheiser, OMI, in the Seattle, WA, The Catholic Northwest
Progress, Jan. 18, 2001.

My only thought to add to it is that we must not spoil our children in our own attempt at self-denial. Sometimes the best thing for them is to see that Mom/Dad/Brother/Sister is a person too and they have to wait to have their need met. Frequently though telling them to wait and then living with the fallout can be much more difficult then giving in to them. So it probably comes out in the wash. It’s a wonderful reflection to keep in mind during these difficult and demanding years.

It’s All in the Presentation…

Breakfast in the shoe was quickly followed by lunch in the shoe. Hotdogs. With ketchup. I know, I know. We just can’t help but be gourmet around here, it’s in our bones.

Dear Santa...

[Yes. Anthony still writes a letter to Santa every two weeksish. Usually it's a letter for the whole family. Here's tonights example. He's recently discovered exclamation marks. Sometimes he's so sweet and funny - My favorite is the section that he wrote for John.]

Christmas List

Rosie

Dear Santa I want a doll with cloths and a bed with a pillow and bat and boll and a stroller to go with it. A boock about prinsusis and a agnas sait costyom (Agnus saint costume) with a lalb (lamb - funny that he remembered the 'b' at the end but didn't get the 'm'). And a new ester bascit (Easter baskit) with prinsusis all over it. And more!

Anthony

I want a ship as lon (long) as me. And I want a video game that I can be a race car driver and race other race car driver's lice (like) the one at the Fredric Chuce Cheeses except that myn will be on the TV. and I want some camaflosh aremy pants and army shirt and an army coat. And I want a boa and arose (a bow and arrows) like the one at Walmart. And I want a lot of sords and alot of guns and sheld's to go with the sords. and lots more presents!!!!!!

Thomas

Thomas wants some cow some hores and some sheep and some geese and a tracter and a big barn.

CeCe

CeCe wood lik some new baby toys and some new cloths and lots more.

Momy

Momy just wants us to feel happy. She just want CeCe to have new cloths..........

Dady

Dady is the same way except that he go's to worc....so he wants to have new boocs about Jesuse and other saints.....

THE END

By Anthony Love

[For the record Santa, while I do want everyone to feel happy I also wouldn't mind if you dropped an ipad and maybe a pair on binoculars under my tree. The End. By Alexis Love]

Costo vs. Aldis: In which I am nerdy and maybe tacky...

*Blogger has decided it thinks paragraphs are too fancy for it's blogs so instead of paragraphs I will put a ~ symbol. Oi ve. To some folks thinking a lot about money is tacky. They think it unseemly to always be going after a bargain. Not refined perhaps. They take pride in not shopping at the big W or not wading through "other people's junk" at garage sales or thrift stores. ~To others it is practically a religion. They spend enormous amounts of time clipping coupons and perusing the ads to find the very very cheapest place to buy their beans that week. They then diligently spend time soaking said beans so as to not have to spend the money on canned beans. They go after pennies on the dollar and it hurts them to not get a deal. ~I have absolutely no shame - no shame whatsoever - about filling my house with "other people's junk." It is frequently an upgrade from my own junk. And I have no qualms about checking out with a cart full of Cheerios because they are on a once a year sale. ~On the other hand, I do not find couponing to be worth the time investment on my part. I am interested in large savings with a minimal output of my time. For me, efficiency is the name of the game. Efficient use of my time and money. ~I recently spent some time on a food buying efficiency project which may be handy for some other families out there. If you think this sort of project is tacky then you can just stop reading now because this is not the post for you. It's seriously nitty gritty and it's boring unless you have, for some reason, been looking for this information. I know I was. :) ~On to the details: We go on a giant shopping trip once a month to both places and then a quick one half way through the month to replenish our milk. We buy ten gallons of milk twice a month (20 total) and freeze half of the them each visit. We get most of our produce on these two trips but will also supplement with fruit on sale from the grocery stores if we run out. ~Here's my Aldi's vs. Costco cost comparison. The first 4 pages are the prices that I have collected (it is by no means exhaustive) and my shopping list is the last page. Frequently I only recorded the cheaper price. If it's on the list and there's only one price listed that is the cheaper price - if there is only an asterisk that also denotes the cheaper price. There are a couple of exceptions. We buy Costco milk (which is .50/gallon more then Aldis) in spite of the possibility of saving $10/month by going with Aldis. For whatever reason the Love-gullets are not huge fans of Aldi's milk. The brown sugar price is actually the same but I can't use the brown sugar fast enough if I buy it from Costco so I go with the smaller bag at Aldis. I go with natural peanut butter so we get that at Costco because Aldi's doesn't carry it, though their peanut butter is much cheaper. We buy Huggies diapers from AmazonMom and they are .01/diaper cheaper then Costco, I didn't compare then to Aldi's diapers price-wise or otherwise. We do a lot of steam-in-bag frozen veggies. I stock up on those at 10/10 sales at the regular grocery. We get our eggs local from a farm or grocery so I didn't compare those prices. Meats I find much cheaper to stock up on when grocery stores have sales then buying them at either place. All the prices are taken from the Maryland Costco and Aldis so if you live elsewhere then things may differ. Also the shopping list is arranged according to my own local stores. ~So, while it's really just designed with our own needs in mind and is always a work in progress, I hope it helps someone else too.