At Considerable Cost

By this time last year, I was already shopping for our family First Communion dress.   As I have posted before, I like bargains and I will save costs where I can.   Even my wedding dress was a great price.   That wasn't exactly on purpose, as it was the one I wanted at first glance, but I did work the summer before our wedding to pay for it.   My parents had paid for my college education so that I started my career with no college debt, so I thought I could handle paying for the dress. Simple empire waist, with white pearl beading on bodice.   Mama and I made my veil.  There have been a few times, though, when I didn't worry about costs.   One such time was when we purchased the baptism gown that would become our family baptismal gown.   We bought it before our eldest daughter's baptism and it has been used by all three children.   It is beautiful linen with hand-knitted lace trim on the gown an...

I'm sure that my family was no different in that we had stories that were told and re-told over the years.   These were usually humorous anecdotes and I suppose those which involved children made up the majority of the tales.   Mama like to tell a story about me and a purse.   It was not uncommon for our family to visit cattle farms and ranches on Saturdays.   One of our common destinations was the ranch of a family friend, Mr. Berchman.   He was a Cajun character.   His life seemed to be a series of exciting stories and it was always interesting to visit his home.   When I was about four, we went for a visit and I accidentally left behind a little coin purse.   We visited again about a month later and I found that Mr. Berchman had not only kept the purse for safe-keeping, but he had filled it with pennies. A few months later, we visited Mr. Berchman again.   Mama would always laugh as she described...

When I write about parenting or marriage, I come from the vantage of one on a journey who can simply share mistakes and little insights along the way.   I am far from feeling that I have any solid wisdom to share on those topics.   One area where I have a little more confidence from experience is that of entertaining, or what we used to call "having people over," before the days of cable networks dedicated completely to food, decorating, crafts, and parties. My confidence stems from lessons learned from my mama and experience from almost sixteen years of marriage.  One of my friends who shares my love of hospitality always expresses gratitude that she was trained by her mother to make her home and events welcoming to others.   It is a precious gift and one that I think may have skipped a generation or two in recent times.    I really do enjoy having friends and family in our home.   I like to welcome people, nurture them and make ...

I've seen some posts recently on Facebook and Pinterest of the "cute," "amazing," and "fun" things being done in order to teach classroom and home school students about plant and animal cells.   The fact that I've just used three sets of apostrophes does not bode well for my opinions of these cell activities. Here are a few well-intended examples: Candies placed atop a gelatin "cell" Poster board model Pizza "cells" and then there's the cake "cell" When I was in seventh grade, we were given the assignment of making a model of a plant cell and an animal cell.   The normal completed project in our class consisted of poster board models.   The more elaborate ones were formed with play dough.   The teacher showed us best examples from past years of both poster board and play dough versions.   I was all set to make a stunning play dough one as I sat down at our kitchen bar.   Then, my dad walked ...

This week, Leila at Like Mother, Like Daughter , announced a Master Bedroom Challenge: Make Your Bedroom Beautiful and Useful .   It was a perfectly timed challenge for me.   As part of the Reasonably Clean House series at the blog, Leila recommends beginning the process in your master bedroom.   Her reasoning is right on target, as I've learned after nearly sixteen years of keeping --or trying to keep--our house.   Our bedroom is last on our list to work on in this house.   Since we moved in over a year ago, we've worked on all the other rooms .   Now, it's time to start making the master bedroom come together.   It's a large wonderful space.   My mama always said the problem with a bigger house/space is it is easier to clutter it and you aren't as wise with organization.   She was right.   Lot of corners and spaces to "store" things in this room until I get to them.   Plu...

I think this year was the first one I remember when there was not a single message about Halloween posted on the server for our Catholic mom's prayer group.   There was one article posted on the Facebook group page, but no arguments ensued on the main e-mail server.   That was nice.   We'll see how we get through girl scout cookie season.   And no new Harry Potter novels or movies, so that shouldn't come up, either. My memories of Halloween contain no gore, no horror movies.   I looked forward to the huge hot dog and marshmallow roast at our friends' house.   Dressing up was fun and it was the only time I got to wear make-up during my elementary school years.    That was back in my pre-Catholic days.   Pre-baptism of any kind days.   The only people I knew who didn't celebrate Halloween were Protestants who thought the holiday evil because of its Catholic origins/connections.   I w...