Cottage Blessings

The Lenten Kitchen Rebellion

For a meatless Friday in Lent, we started the day with blue smoothies. They were more maroon than blue, and how kind of the lad to wear a matching shirt.

I started the vegetable soup before Mass with a delicious recipe that calls for eight cups of any vegetable you have on hand.  In went every vegetable lingering lonely in the bottom of the refrigerator, including the rejected zucchini and yellow squash from a crudite platter.  

For a light lunch, we had seven layer dip, full of beans and guacamole and deliciously fragrant lime:

By mid-morning, I was feeling pretty accomplished.  The smoothies had been well received; the layered dip had just the right bite to it: and a healthy meatless dinner bubbled on the stove. As I was patting myself on the back for doing a pretty good job feeding the family on the second of three Ember Days, I noticed the tell tale signs of a cabinet raid:

"She's making herself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich!" came the excited report.

Someone was taking matters into her own hands. 

Ember Day Souvenir

Wednesday morning, I was thinking about the Ember Days and planning on how to observe them with the children.  There is something so perfect in the thought of spending three days in prayer and fasting to dedicate the upcoming season, in this case Spring, to God.  On the way home from Mass, I stopped for coffee at a local farm stand.  So often, if we are learning about a new liturgical season, I pick up a piece of candy or cookie to celebrate with the children, but this was Lent, so it seemed unlikely there would be anything there for them.  Then, lo and behold, what did I see by the register?

These had not been there the day before, and look at the price.  Do my eyes deceive me?  Five cents?  You can't buy a jelly bean for five cents these days.  I passed the grocer two bits and told her to keep the change, bringing home nine of these dear little watering cans.  (Yes, the college girls each get one too.)

The children loved hearing about the Ember Days of the Catholic Church, the nearness of Spring and the symbol of the watering can, reminding us to nurture and tend the seed of Faith in our hearts.  That and sweet straws of honey to remind us of the industrious bees.

You may notice a tenth watering can.  Truth is, I picked one up for myself as well!

An altar for St. Joseph

With the feast of St. Joseph just days after St. Patrick's Day, we have never really celebrated with much extravagance. This year, I am dreaming of a St. Joseph altar and celebration. March 19th is just around the corner.

Ember Days

Wednesday, Friday and Saturday of this week mark the "Lenten Embertide."  Four times a year--in Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall--the Church sets aside three days for the faithful to offer the upcoming season to God through prayer and fasting.  Here we are in the bleakest, coldest part of our record-breaking Winter, yet the Church bids us give thanks to God for Spring.  Not much is known about the origin of the name "Ember" days.  So often, we think of embers as something dying--the last bright holdouts in a fire about to consume itself.  Yet embers are better seen as something living--sparks of light and life lying in the ashes, ready to blaze again.

Ember days come clothed in purple and remind us of the promise of Spring.  The first crocus of the Liturgical Year.

 

 

Spare Time

A day or so ago, I dozed off on the couch, later discovering that Jude (age 6) had been keeping busy by shooting dozens of photos.  Here is a Jude's eye view of our life, saved for posterity.

Big brother is on the computer:

The photographer at work:

Can you find the two sisters asleep in a corner of the couch?

"Dining with Prunella" is a real oldie, going back to my one or two baby days.  (Lissa, this book came from Rite Aid!) Note to self: break out the vacuum once in a while.

He photographed practically every page:

Not to mention a number of other books, before moving on to the toys in the room.  His sisters had kindly left their dolls in a perfect pose:

Noah's Ark awaits the flood:

The dove is a model of patience:

Time for a duck-face:

Here is a lovely photo of Our Lady.  Jude is starting to get the hang of this:

Well, would you look at that?  A photo of Mom's legs as she lies slumped over on the couch underneath a small child.  The Gunther Family Flop-house is packed today:

That's it for Jude's photo essay.  Here are the proofs:

Spring Cleaning

I read somewhere recently that the Monday and Tuesday before Ash Wednesday are traditional Spring Cleaning days.  Unfortunately, it would take closer to forty days to Spring clean the many mystery areas this house, but I am going to try, starting with the pantry.  Here is a before photo:  

This shot above doesn't really look half bad, actually.  What you cannot see are all the spills on the shelves and random items jumbled everywhere.

With the assistance of my team of helpers we emptied all the shelves.

We followed the invariable rule of Spring cleaning--clean one room, wreck another:

I made a few interesting discoveries.  For example, who would have suspected that on top of this group of shelves . . . .

. . . tucked in to the the right of those candle-birdcages, someone had a secret Shirley Temple making bar:

I found this bag of cookies and asked the nearest little blonde suspect how they had come to be opened.  "I think a gooten-fee kid opened dem," she ventured.  A gooten-fee kid, eh?  A likely story.

Naturally, forts were built:

There is no better place to read Comic Strip Math:

And, here is the after picture.  The pantry is now the neatest room in the house.  The kitchen, on the other hand . . . . 

The Breakfast of Penitents

We came home from Mass yesterday to the planned green smoothies. Notice how cold and lonely this smoothie appears.

This was unposed. Looks like they were making the best of it:

 It was quite delicious actually.

 

Sweets before Lent

Danielle (3), was sitting in the kitchen having her Shrove Tuesday pancakes and bacon, when she heard her sister coming down the stairs and said, "I hear Cecilia's beautiful footsteps."

Septuagesima and forty days of menus

For almost three years, our family has attended the Traditional Latin Mass on Sundays.  One of the things I have loved most about the old Mass has been the discovery of a gorgeous little season of the year known as "Septuagesima."  Christmas season in the old calendar ends on the Feast of Candlemas--the celebration of the Presentation of Our Lord on February 2nd.  Instead of a period of Ordinary Time, we go directly from the Season after the Epiphany into "Septuagesima," three Sundays devoted to preparation for Lent.  

There is a great deal of beauty to be found in Ordinary Time, and it doesn't get anymore beautiful than this, yet I have grown to love and appreciate Septuagesima, a season that seems specially designed for people like myself--people who need a few reminders, lest they wake up one morning and say, "Is it really Ash Wednesday already?"  The three Sundays of Septuagesima knock at the door of the heart, crying out: "Lent is coming!" (Septuagesima); "Get ready!" (Sexagesima); "It is almost here!" (Quinquagesima).

We have been doing a good deal to get ready these past few weeks. After listening to a homily suggesting that families put an image of the Blessed Mother in the center of our homes during Lent, we moved our statue of Our Lady of Fatima from a side table to the mantel in the Family Room.  While we were at it, we replaced a statue of the Flight into Egypt--the last vestige of the Christmas season--with a standing crucifix, and the painting of the Nativity in our dining room with an image of the Last Supper.

I have a few Lenten resolutions for 2015.  The first is to get to Mass with the children every morning.  The main obstacle to this has always been the logistics of getting so many people out the door early and in suitable attire.  Three weeks of Septuagesima have given me time to take inventory of their clothing--how many button down shirts do the boys have?  How many winter dresses for the girls?  Who needs new shoes? Does the baby have tights?  Let's pray that it helps.

As usual, we are all giving up drinks other than water and sweets, including excess sugar.  We are abstaining from meat on Wednesdays as well as Fridays and giving up all wheat.  In years past, I have started with good intentions, but too often missed the mark--like the year we were going to give up both wheat and dairy, but went back to eating Fettucini Alfredo within a week.  This year, rather than starting out Lent with a list of things we cannot have, I have had the time to create a list of things we will have--Lenten Menus for the whole forty days.  As you will see, these menus are very plain--there will be lots of soup, many beans and vegetables, and almost nothing sweet. It is less daunting for me to think about all the things we plan to have instead of worrying about what we cannot.  (And, let me tell you, there is great comfort in being able to tell anyone who asks what you will be having for breakfast on March 21st.)

If anyone is wondering, there is a coffee exception to the "no drinks other than water" sacrifice. Alas, I would not have the strength to give up that particular crutch just yet.  Still, I am doing much better than usual thanks to the Season of Septuagesima and the gift of time to plan.

Full Nest

The college girls were home for a long weekend, so all my loves were here under one roof again.  Years ago, I would have thought that having so many children would have made the parting for college easier.  After all, it is difficult to feel lonesome for one child when there are eight others at home.  When our eldest daughter started college, the baby of the family was still a fuzzy-headed one year old.  By the time her next sister left, our baby was two and spent the first few weeks looking up at me with misty eyes saying, "Where May-ee?" "She at coll-ich?"

Mothers have a natural desire to want all their children together.  The funny thing about large families is that it takes such a long time to assemble all the members that your time sharing one home and living as a unit is fleeting. The littlest ones will not even remember it. Back when I was an Accounting major, we studied the FIFO inventory method--first in, first out.  The FIFO phase of life has come too quickly for my taste.  I miss the days when my problem was that we did not have enough bedrooms, or I needed to start tripling every recipe.

A word to every old lady who ever stopped be in the grocery store or on the steps of church: You were right, enjoy it while you can.  It all goes by too fast.