Caballo Peak

On Sunday, we all packed up and headed for a nearby trailhead.

Rosie and John Paul made it about 40 minutes in.

The burnt landscape was a little spooky.

This area burned in the Las Conchas fire, 10 years ago. Most of the newly burned areas are not open yet.

When I headed back with the 2 tired ones, Ed and Isaiah went on. Hours later, they called us from the top!

They even walked home from the trailhead for a total hiking time of over 4 hours. Phew. I was impressed.

I'd like to take them into a never-burned area next week so they can see the utter devastation compared to the lush, thick untouched forests on the other side of the range.

It feels a little more reasonable to have left behind everyone and everything to spend a Sunday amongst the trees, well, the rocks anyway....


"Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves."
~John Muir

Monday, Monday, how I hate that day...

Just kidding. It wasn't too bad.

My computer was down all weekend, but tomorrow I've got pictures from the top of Caballo peak. I've got multiple batches of successful yogurt to brag about.

AND

I've got a very green, very delicious giveaway brewing. Open only to followers, though, so if that piques your interest, do click me!



"See everything; overlook a great deal; correct a little."
~Pope John XXIII

Random Kitchen Notes

I had Ed drag out our juicer tonight for some languishing carrots... the juice was tasty (carrot-apple-lemon). But it gave the kids an energy surge and they had a hard time falling asleep. Woops.

Very sweet father-son juicing moment:

And today I made some seriously successful non-dairy yogurt. I go on yogurt kicks now and again, but non-dairy yogurt always makes me pull my hair out. I got some fresh tips recently, and batch number 1 thickened nicely. It was uber-sour, though, so the recipe needs tweaked. I ever-so-tentatively promise a tutorial next week. And have no fear- I do not have a yogurt maker. This batch

came from my crock-pot and I have made many batches in a Coleman cooler.

Happy weekend!


"When we pray to God we must be seeking nothing - nothing."
~Saint Francis of Assisi

Feast of St. Clare

We celebrated the feast of St. Clare today. We had a big, yummy dinner, but I didn’t take any pictures (sorry), then we went to Mass together. Turns out Clare is a favorite with our new pastor so we got quite a good sermon on her life and work. Here she is on our Saints calendar:

(Just a side note: while I do love our felt-and-flannel Saints calendar, and while I know several of my friends have eyed it with envy, let me just say it has taken me 3 years and counting , plus multiple burst-out-in-tears sessions to complete it. No wonder that super-cool pattern was in a free box at a used curriculum sale!)

In preparation for the feast, I read three very good books to share with my children:

Francis, Poor Man of Assisi, by Tomie de Paola (We read the part on Clare after breakfast.)


Little Catechism on the Eucharist (We read the miracle of Clare and the Saracens after breakfast, too.)


A Right to Be Merry, by Mother Mary Frances
(This one was more for me, but it motivated me to celebrate the day a bit more than I would have otherwise. It’s pretty rare for me to get it together to have such an organized “feast” day… I’m sure it was a special grace from Clare, as the book The Right to Be Merry literally fell into my lap in the Blessed Sacrament chapel the other day. I was feeling very despondent but the book cheered me up immediately and since I didn’t have anything else to do today, the nice big meal worked out.)

(Meaning: John Paul napped.)

I’ve been wanting to read A Right to Be Merry for years. It was worth the wait. The name Clare was added to my girls’-name-list halfway through the book, except maybe in its Italian form- Chiara?... we’ll see. (That list is getting long and I’m not getting any younger.)

Essentially a memoir by a Poor Clare nun, the book also contains a lot of history, theology, and inspiration. Much of the book is apropos for a stay at home mother, as the abbess of her domestic Church. In any case, I’m eager to find out more about Clare and I’m on the prowl for a deeper book on her life. I’m adding A Right to Be Merry to my list of books for my daughters to read before ever dating a boy graduating high school, I mean.

Some spiritual writers contend that St. Clare understood and lived the teachings of St. Francis better than he himself did. I imagine it's a pretty heated debate amongst Franciscan circles, but after reading A Right to be Merry, I nearly agree. Poverty, Joy, and Simplicity seem to emanate from Clare and her Poor Clares. Truly beautiful.


"What you hold, may you hold.
What you do, may you do and not stop.
But with swift pace, light step, unswerving feet,
so that even your steps stir up no dust,
may you go forward
securely, joyfully, and swiftly,
on the path of prudent happiness,
believing nothing,
agreeing with nothing
that would dissuade you from this commitment
or place a stumbling block for you on the way,
so that nothing prevents you from offering
your vows to the Most High in the perfection
to which the Spirit of the Lord has called you."
-St. Claire (Chiara Scifi), Letter to Agnes of Prague

Vampire Pictures

Sorry, we're awfully bored here. Isaiah has been wanting me to showcase his budding photography skills.

You see, it is very dry here and he gets bloody noses almost every day. And he's been sneaking my camera to create "Vampire Pictures" almost every time he gets one.

How does he know what a vampire is? I think I'm blaming his uncles for that one.

"Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It is already tomorrow in Australia."
~Charles Schulz

If You Give a Mom a Cookie...

See these cookies?

Don't they look good?

Well, I thought they were. But no one else really did. So I ate most of them myself. I mean, I made them for myself, secretly, in the first place. But it's not usually my habit to eat a whole plate of cookies by myself. I'm blaming the high altitude and a new brand of flour. I'm going to tinker with the recipe to save you, dear reader, from making them and then being forced to eat the whole batch. Because you're frugal, right? You never throw away perfectly good food just because it's a little dense... and chewy... and overall off in the texture department....


"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle."
-Philo of Alexandria


P.S. If you're from Kansas, doesn't the view from that window make you feel a bit dizzy? I mean, when you're used to looking up and seeing things align in nearly perfect horizontal symmetry, the fact that a landscape can lean... fairly boggles the mind....

Shakespeare in the Canyon

I read most of the Shakespeare, they did most of the bug-collecting.

I am homesick.

Homesick.

Homesick.


"You can never go home again, but the truth is you can never leave home, so it's all right."
~Maya Angelou

Montessori Moment

John Paul had the scissors. He was cutting here, there, everywhere.

Wanted to yell. Instead, I stopped what I was doing and made some paper strips for him.

And sat while he cut.

For half an hour.


"Clocks slay time... time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stops does time come to life." ~William Faulkner

Food for Thought Friday: Osmosis Jones

Here is a movie, a really funny movie. Not for your kids. For you. And for your spouse!

I've had multiple questions about how to involve or motivate one's spouse. And I'm really not an expert there. But Osmosis Jones might be willing to help.



Osmosis is a white blood cell inside of Bill Murray's aging, out-of-shape body. When a mortally dangerous germ enters the body, the mind and the immune system are at odds as far as getting the situation under control. It represents the inside of the body as a complicated city with its own police patrol of white blood cells.

(We tell our kids about the soldiers inside who need good food to fight the bad guys (germs), and that is exactly the imagery used here.)

Of course, a story is woven into it all. Bill Murray's daughter is trying to get hime to change his ways, while Osmosis is in danger of losing his job and trying to prove his abilities. Half-cartoon, half-regular picture, this movie is gross, but not disgusting, and pretty darn accurate in the biology department. There are a few innapropriate-for-kids moments, but it would be a great movie for parents to watch with their teenagers. High-schoolers could be challenged to figure out how accurate the biology really is.

In any case, even if it doesn't motivate anyone to make life-long health changes, you'll never look at a zit, a buffalo wing, or hopefully a carrot the same way again.



"The kind of humor I like is the thing that makes me laugh for five seconds and think for ten minutes."
~William Davis

Red, White, and Blue Update

It's been one month. And, wow, what a humbling month it's been.

I'm very proud of the fact that I bought a jogging stroller off Craigslist instead of ordering a new one like I reeeeeally wanted to do. It was cheap and it carries tired kids home from the park at the bottom of the steep hill.

However, we left our vacuum in Kansas so my sweet mother-in-law could tidy our house up now and then. And so I needed to buy one for the house we are renting here, as half of it is carpet. Do they make vacuums (even remotely in my price range) in the USA? That'd be a big, fat, no.

More recently, I spent the last 2 days sewing a skirt from some very gorgeous material I bought last spring for a dollar a yard (marked down from $15!). The pattern, which I bought 3 years ago, is pretty complicated and involved hemming 8 half-circle flounces. Which took 8 hours. The skirt was destined to be worn for my brother's wedding next month.

Did you notice I wrote was? Mmm-hmm- was. 2 hours ago I went to sew the gores together and... realized I had cut half the gores out backwards. Any way to fix such a blunder? No. Any leftover fabric to re-cut 4 gores? No. Is there a fabric store in Los Alamos where I can saunter in and just buy some different fabric? No.

No. No. No.

Just 48 hours of my life wasted. And 1 Japanese Weekend nursing dress purchased on ebay. I almost contacted the seller to ask where it was made, then decided to cut myself some slack. I've got a nursing toddler who will most likely be latched on during the whole ceremony.

In other words, this is an emergency situation.

Ya, I'm a little cranky over the whole thing.

On the bright side, I've found multiple good, cheap USA-made toothbrushes.

I've made 1 bookshelf, with 2 more in the garage ready to be assembled, even though I was sorely tempted to drive (40 minutes) to Wal-$%*& and buy some el-cheapo pressboard ones just to set up my homeschooling materials. It's so easy to make bookshelves, I'm not sure why I was even tempted. Except maybe I'm a perfectionist when it comes to making things, and I get extremely upset when I screw things up.

It's been a bit of a downer to realize that one can't, actually, buy only made-in-the-USA things because so many things just aren't made here anymore. But being more conscious of checking and making good choices is very helpful, in my opinion. And our kids have been very interested in the whole thing and they are definitely learning from it. So as imperfect a month of self-challenge as it's been, I'm going to keep trying.


"When an American says that he loves his country, he means not only that he loves the New England hills, the prairies glistening in the sun, the wide and rising plains, the great mountains, and the sea. He means that he loves an inner air, an inner light in which freedom lives and in which a man can draw the breath of self-respect."
~Adlai Stevenson