At Considerable Cost

“Look, she’s still playing school,” my mother told my father the first time they visited the seventh grade classroom of my first teaching job.   As a little girl, I played school nearly every day, even sending friends home with homework and decorating the door of my room with holiday themes for each month.   I taught elementary and middle school for nine years before I stayed home after the birth of my oldest child.   As part of my training in college, I was trained to analyze each lesson after it was taught and figure out what worked and what did not work.   It became a habit that I maintained throughout my teaching years.    I was a successful teacher, with an organized classroom and I could handle some of the toughest students, but I was barely keeping my head afloat as a mother.    I finally went back to school for all the lessons my teaching years could offer.   Most often, when I see my...

This year, I was able to attend the annual Our Lady's Mother's Day brunch at our church.   The past few years, I've either had a nursing baby or we've been out of town.   It's such a nice event.    Ladies host tables; each table is beautifully decorated around the theme of one of the titles of Mary. The guest speaker was Jennifer Fulwiler , a former atheist who converted to Catholicism.   She blogs at Conversion Diary and for the National Catholic Register .   It was a beautiful, moving talk; there's no way I can begin to summarize it.   This is the link for Jennifer's post where she wrote about the story she shared with us.   Few dry eyes in the room as she finished.   It was humbling and she had to have been led by the Holy Spirit as she spoke to us.   It was refreshing--spiritually, mentally, emotionally-- to spend such a beautiful morning with wonderful women.   I'm so glad I was ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4AZBhmVk6E It is always amazing to me how music can transport me to another time and place.  Tonight, on a rather nostalgic bent, I began searching for songs I remembered from my younger years.   I came upon this one from singer/songwriter Paul Overstreet.   It was a favorite of mine and I can remember sitting and listening to it as a teenager, then as a college student, praying that one day I might be so blessed to attain what I secretly considered the ultimate occupation.   My secret desire of my heart while all the while hearing advice about graduate schools and career paths, changing majors, etc... And I realized, no I believed,  that I have arrived; I am living the dream.   Arrived not to a mere occupation, but to my vocation, the journey that will lead to my ultimate destination, eternity with God, in heaven--a reality of homemaking which I didn't understand as a young girl.    It really is...

I'm old enough that I remember the television commercial slogan, "Calgon, take me away!"   Sometimes, Mama just needs a little break--a little respite from the daily routine.   I'm not one for spas and my favorite form of "retail therapy" is garage sales which are limited to Saturday morning.   So, what was I to do Sunday morning of this past busy weekend? A civilized coffee break with all my favorite little unnecessary necessities was in order.  Instead of the usual Fiesta ware cup and cream and sugar set, it was time for the china cup and saucer and my most recent splurge, sugar cubes.  They used to be so common, but now they are hard to find.    It may seem silly, but those little cubes just make me happy and I think they are beautiful in my mother's cream and sugar set.  Another favorite item is my toast rack.   It's something I always noticed when I watched British television shows. No matter what the social class, there was ...