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April 2015

March 2015

* April at a Glance *

Tulips

Happy Weekend, my friends! And thank you all for your wonderful comments as I passed my nine year "blogiversary." You are all very kind! :)

It is a busy week ahead as we wrap up Lent ... I am going to try to keep things in perspective as we head towards Good Friday, but it is hard when you're the one hosting the holiday! There's so much to do, bake, clean and prepare!

Today though, I thought I'd share my April planning notes with you all, since the change is upon us this week, too ... the new month arrives on Wednesday!

April is ...

* National Poetry Month

* Autism Awareness Month

* April's gem is the diamond.

* April's flower is the sweet pea.

* April's Devotion: The Holy Spirit

* April's Season: Early Spring 

* From the farms & fields: fiddleheads, rhubarb, morel mushrooms, chives, asparagus, spring greens ...

* First flowers: dandelions, forsythia, crocus, daffodils, coltsfoot ...

* In the marshy woods: red-winged blackbirds, salamanders, pussywillow, skunk cabbage ...

* Time to put out hummingbird feeders - they'll be back soon!

April Folklore: "April showers bring May flowers ... "

* Days of Note *

1. April Fool's Day, Spy Wednesday

2. Holy Thursday, World Autism Awareness Day (Light it up Blue!)

3. Good Friday

4. The Full Pink Moon, Holy Saturday, Passover

5. Easter Sunday

10. National Siblings Day

11. Archie and Oliver's Birthday, National Pet Day

12. Divine Mercy Sunday, Gladys Taber's Birthday

13. Red Sox Home Opener

20. Patriot's Day, Boston Marathon

22. Earth Day

23. St. George's Day, England's National Day, William Shakespeare's Birthday

24. Arbor Day

26. John James Audubon's Birthday 

30. May Eve/Walpurgisnacht

***

Ahhh ... April is a wonderful month! A true turning point in the year, and after this extraordinarily long winter, it will hold so many sweet surprises for us ... I can hardly wait! I'll be as patient as I can though, because each day brings something new - a subtle change in the air or the light or the feel of a day ... it's a slow process for sure, but how delicious the unveiling!

I think that's one of the nicest things about nature - even though each season returns as it did the year before, there is always that element of surprise. New birdsong, warm light, and the greening of things .... That first dandelion pushing its way through the trampled grass is a tiny miracle all on its own - it breathes some life back into our winter-weary hearts! It reminds us that - whatever we have going on, however busy we get - nature has its own beautiful rhythm and we're just along for the ride ... but what a ride it is!

:)

Well, my friends, I hope this April overview was as fun and perhaps helpful for you as it was for me! I must be off now, but I hope you all have a nice weekend, and as always, I thank you for stopping by. Wishing you all a blessed Palm Sunday tomorrow, and a lovely start to Holy Week ...

See you here again very soon!


Nine ...

Yellow crocus

Happy Sunday, my friends!

It's hard for me to believe, but it was NINE years ago today that I started this little blog! And this was the very first picture I posted - a few days later once I figured out how to post photos, lol. I have to laugh at myself a little as I look back at those first posts and pictures - I remember feeling so timid about my writing and my photos were so tiny!

Through the years I've written about so many things - my kids, our home, the seasons, my faith, food, education, tea, books and ... oh yes, calendars! I've written a time or two about calendars. ;) But I can honestly say I have enjoyed every minute of blogging. I've taken a few breaks here and there, and there have been slower phases than others - back in the heyday I was posting AT LEAST once a day - but I have never-ever wished I hadn't started nor have I ever wanted to stop.

I am grateful to have the most wonderful readers - many of you have become dear friends - and I appreciate the time you spend here and the thoughts you share. I have always been treated kindly and with much support and encouragement and so I thank you all for that. I apologize that I am sometimes often usually slow with responding to comments and emails - I truly wish there was more time in my day (or maybe the week?) so that I could spread my online time out a little more ... but I hope you all know how much our conversation means to me.

*And one of these days I will figure out a way we can all sit down to tea!*

Someone asked me recently what I write about and despite my many years blogging I had to think for a moment ... I was tempted to just say: "Well, everything!" But then I explained, I write about what I love in life ... particularly the little things that make me thankful to be alive, first and foremost ... the things that make me feel happy in my home and in constant awe of the earth around me ... things that make me feel good about what I do and who I am ...

Simple blessings that cushion my days with comfort and brighten them with joy.

Celebrate the every day

I write because it reminds me (and thereby my children) that we are all blessed, every day of our life. Even when we struggle or feel scared, sad or unsure ...  our days are not perfect, but they are always precious. As any gift from a loved one would be ....

So here's to nine years more blogging! Maybe? We'll see ...

:)

And thanks, as always, for stopping by ... I'll be back here again just as soon as I can!


Donuts for St. Joseph Day

O with donuts 2

Good Thursday morning, my friends! It's the Feast of St. Joseph!

As per our annual tradition, I baked donuts this morning for the boys, and BOY does the house smell good! These are buttermilk-pumpkin donuts with a little brown sugar topping. So easy to whip up, very quick to bake ...

St joseph donuts 1

The recipe is here, if you'd like to check it out!

Enjoy your day, and thanks for stopping by!

See you here again very soon ...


A Bright & Blessed St. Patrick's Day!

(A feast day recap. 🍀)

Stpat 1

The Feast of St. Patrick is a very special day in my calendar, because I am both Irish and Catholic! In the past we have done all kinds of things to celebrate this holiday, but we're still getting back in the groove slowly around here, so I kept things pretty quiet. But I thought you might like to see some of the refreshments and enjoyments that filled our day. :)

 Stpats 13

My Gram's Irish china was a must, even if I was the only one partaking (read - handling the china). (Next year make note - invite friends to tea on St. Patty's Day!) In the morning there were some Lucky Charms for the older boys as a once-a-year treat ... :) In the afternoon I made some Irish brown bread (recipe described here) which was plenty brown, lol - rather rustic, but nice with some sweet butter and lots of that tea.

There were books about the life of Saint Patrick and some filled with Irish blessings and Celtic prayers. And there was plenty of Irish music pouring from my iPhone, thanks to Pandora. :)

Stpats 2

(The china teacups are lovely when I can sit down - but most of the time, I just need a big sturdy mug to carry around with me.)

Some pretty cards for the day ...

Stpats 10

Stpats 11

Both by Marjolein Bastin, that wonderful nature artist and creator of cards.

Some pics of my wee (and not so wee anymore) Irish laddies ...

Stpats 3

 Little Bear and Earlybird ... a St. Patrick's Day "selfie."

Stpats 4 

Me with my handsome Earlybird - a rare smile for the camera!

Stpats 6

Crackerjack and Little Bear goofing around ... these two are like peas in a pod ...

Stpats 7

And the boy with the map of Ireland on his face - doesn't he look like a little leprechaun here?

Speaking of, we did some "research" this morning ...

Stpats 5

(From The Arthur Spiderwick Field Guide - a fascinating and fantastically illustrated book of faeries, trolls, sprites and the like.)

And there might have been a pretty butterfly left out for Little Bear, a gift from our own local leprechaun, perhaps ...

  O project 3:17 4

 Little Bear adores butterflies, or "La's" as he calls them. I'm not sure why, but he's always called them that.

In the spirit of the day, I dug up some favorite Irish movies and music ...

Stpats 14

 And we were finally able to put up a little garden flag - the snow has melted enough!

Stpats 17

And a page from A Child's Book Celtic Prayers - would make wonderful copywork - wise words, from the man of the day.

Stpats 16 

And from another favorite, A Child's Book of Blessings ...

Stpats 12

And so there we have it ... our St. Patrick's Day in a nutshell. Humble, homey, but just right for us. I was going to do a big Irish dinner, but I think I will wait until I have Bookworm home with us, too. He'll appreciate the corned beef and cabbage more than anyone!

(Though he tells me BC served that very meal in the caf tonight!)

I hope you all enjoyed your Tuesday, my friends  - and thanks so much for stopping by! I will see you here again very soon ...

🍀


Hello, and Happy Friday!

(Flashback) Feline Friday!

Archie and Oliver 1

One of my favorite photographs of "the boys," it was taken when they were very young. And it was recently chosen to appear on a local feline rescue group's annual thank you card!

:)

My friends, I'm sorry to have been MIA for so long ... it's been a very long week of illness here but we finally are on the mend. It was just a cold/cough virus - though a particularly nasty one that felt very much like flu. We were all down and out (even the baby) for a while!

But I'm quite glad to say we are over the worst of it and feeling better every day. Little Bear and Earlybird, who had both been waking throughout the nights (coughing), actually slept very well last night and straight until 6:45 a.m.! What a blessing is truly good sleep! Lots of fluids through the day and extra vitamin C, too.

I have a post in the works answering some of the questions that came up about the housekeeping calendar and I will get that up hopefully this weekend. (I am still loving the calendar but not surprisingly those cards didn't do much for me last week!) I also thought it might be fun to share what my cards next week say ... to give you an idea of how the cards play out in a given week.

So please stay tuned, and as always, thanks for stopping by (and for your patience!). Are any of you celebrating Super Pi Day tomorrow? We'll be having homemade pizza pies for our supper, and perhaps a fruit pie for dessert! :)

Enjoy your Friday, my friends ... see you here again very soon!


Setting Up a Housekeeping Calendar ...

(Part Two)

Housekeeping calendar 4

Happy Tuesday Wednesday Thursday, my friends!

(It's taken me so long to finish this post, I have to keep changing my greeting, lol.)

Well, here at long last is the second part of my Housekeeping Calendar post! I'm still working on this rather large project, and it's taking me a while to get all my cards written out ...

Housekeeping calendar 1

I'm pretty much working on it whenever I get a chance, using the large post-it note grid to guide me as I write out each day's tasks. (Explained here.) I'd like to get the whole year's worth of cards filled out, but so far I'm taking it a week at a time. I find it helpful to look over the coming week's cards ahead of time, so I can see if there are any extra chores that might need special supplies or preparation.

But on to the calendar itself! As you can see in the top photo, I have filled a small bin with index cards (one for every day of the year), and 12 tabbed monthly dividers. Each one looks something like this (today's yesterday's card):

Housekeeping calendar 8

The upper corner has the date and day of the week and then I have listed my housekeeping tasks for the day - weekly, monthly, seasonal/annual. At a glance I can see what needs to be done according to the master cleaning schedule I worked out recently (which I explain in this post) ...

Wednesdays are my kitchen days, so I've listed the basic upkeep tasks here: sink, counters, fridge/freezer, appliances, wipe surfaces, floor

I also do laundries daily, M-F.

Also on Wednesdays, since I'm working in the kitchen, I find it a good time to start my meal plan and marketing list for next week.

Two monthly kitchen tasks that are assigned to this particular (1st) Wednesday of the month:

wipe cabinet and drawer fronts

empty fridge/pantry of old food

run disposal with ice/citrus peels

Now, I know without a doubt there will be days when I don't get much of my card done (case in point yesterday, lol), but as I've said before, that's OK. I can only ask myself to do the best I can and some days my best won't include anything other than feeding, dressing, listening to and loving up my kids. Nonetheless, the tasks are there for the doing if time and energy are available.

A few of you asked when in my day I am fitting in these extra tasks (on top of the daily must-do's that often barely get done) and the answer - right now anyway - is whenever and wherever I can. With an active toddler and a special-needs son as well as a busy high schooler needing rides here and there, it's tough to designate a set time for doing chores. I do like to do things early if I can, so I try to "get on with it" before the day really gets going - but later in the day works sometimes, too ...

For example, yesterday was a long day, and not much on my card got done. But then as I was preparing supper - waiting for water to boil and a timer to ring - I grabbed a damp cloth and started wiping the kitchen cabinets and drawer fronts. In less than 20 minutes I was done. It wasn't a deep cleaning, mind you, but the fingerprints and spills were gone. (I never realized we spilled so much coffee, lol!)

*Just for the record, I don't usually do chores during nap time. I try instead to rest - and blog! - while Little Bear sleeps. Case in point, this very moment! It's a good chance to recharge my batteries! :)

Before I wrap up, here are a couple of "cozy corners" from Tuesday's cleaning (bathroom zones) ... 

Cozy corners master bath

Above is the master bathroom ... and below is the foyer half-bath.

Cozy corner foyer bath

We have four baths in all here, which is a big change from our old house where there were two (but only one working!). There is also a boys' bathroom upstairs with a shower and tub, as well as a small bath with a shower in the basement. The two shown above get the most use - for some reason the boys use the foyer bath most of the time - and they also prefer our shower - so these are the two that need a real cleaning each week.

Several readers also remarked on how my calendar is similar to the index card system described by the "Slob Sisters" back in the 1970s. And YES! I LOVED that book and even tried their system a time or two through the years. When I decided to use index cards for this new housekeeping calendar I was tempted to read back through that book of theirs, but decided not to. I liked what I had planned and since I'm easily distracted I would be second-guessing and changing things up and would probably try to over-complicate my idea. I remember (I think) they had cards for each task and some cards were white (daily?) and some were blue (monthly?) and so forth. I do highly recommend their book - Sidetracked Home Executives: From Pigpen to Paradise - for some great ideas and a good laugh, too. They're very funny ladies!

Ok, I'd best wrap up now as I finally seem to have reached the end of this post and may actually press "publish" before the baby wakes up! Let me know if you have any questions about my housekeeping calendar ... it's going well so far, I think! I will do another post about my master lists and delegating tactics ... and I still have that cleaning supplies post to get to! I would love to talk homemade cleaners and using essential oils in our housekeeping ... Speaking of, are any of you planning to do Spring cleaning this year?

See you all again soon - or as soon as I'm able! And thanks, as always, for stopping by.

:)


Cozy (Clean) Corners ...

Family room 1

Hello, my friends ~ and Happy Sunday!

I thought it would be fun to share pictures of the corners I clean as I dig into my new housekeeping calendar. So for instance, I took these pictures last Thursday. On Thursdays, according to my weekly routine, I concentrate my housekeeping efforts in the family room and adjoining sunroom. Basic cleaning duties include de-cluttering/tidying, dusting/wiping surfaces, vacuuming rugs and sweeping floors. And because it was the fourth Thursday of the month, I had two extra chores on my card:

* clean out copy corner/check printer supplies (above)

* wash the baseboards and registers (below)

Baseboards

I cannot tell you how messy that above cabinet corner was before I got to it today! There were so many papers strewn about - laying on top of, and around, the printer - miscellaneous toys and whatnot in piles ... the bottom cabinets were open a bit because stuff was spilling out from inside. (I kid you not.) So I first decluttered and neatened the whole area, then I wiped it down (hand-vacuumed behind the printer) and got it all pared down and clean. And now it just makes me so happy. :)

The cabinets do still need re-organizing. They've basically held the same mishmosh of paraphernalia since we moved in - copy papers, and oddly enough, tech stuff like cords, keyboards, and other things I can't even name. What I'd like to keep here is stuff for the printer - paper, ink etc. - and maybe ... other supplies for homeschooling? Paper, pens, pencils, rulers, etc.? Maybe also, movies to play on the dvd player? I'll have to think on this a bit. The bottom cabinets are obviously quite accessible to toddler hands ... so maybe that will be a toy cabinet ...

The registers were a bit of a pain to clean, but boy did they need some attention. They were quite dusty and there were even some old spills ... I wiped them down with hot water and then dried them off as I went along. The heat was on at the time, so it was a bit tricky, lol! (Not to mention I had a "helper" crawling along beside me trying to alternately climb on my back or pull off my sweater.)

But you know, I really appreciated my housekeeping cards last week. They kept my immediate tasks in one place where I could quickly refer to them throughout the day. And what I'm finding is that, although I'm not getting everything done, I am able to get more done than I previously thought possible. Tasks don't actually take quite as long as I fear imagine they will!

***

Well my friends, thanks so much for joining me today ... I hope to have my next housekeeping post up early this week ... I will go through the cards and show how I'm using them as a calendar. And I will have some more cozy corners to share with you next week, too!

For now, Happy March! See you here again very soon ...