Just got back from our retreat and checked email. Found a notice that ground beef sold for the last two weeks at our commissary is being recalled for possible E coli.
Gee, do ya think this has anything to do with upset tummies around here?
Monthly Archives: May 2008
Weekend Getaway
School is done, the children have been properly rewarded, and we’re going To Peka for a Strong Bonds Marriage Retreat this weekend (not this specific one, but one like it). The hotel is free, the meals are free, the childcare is free (and the older kids get to go to the zoo and the movies).
Can you hear the Wahoos?
Understatement of the week
“I do not know how you came into existence in my womb; it was not I who gave you the breath of life, nor was it I who set in order the elements of which each of you is composed.” 2 Maccabees 7: 22
Fritz paraphrases 2 Maccabees 7:1-41
Once there was a widow with seven sons. The king said that everyone who was Jewish had to die. They brought the widow and her seven sons to the king. The king said to the first one, “Will you eat this meat?” The first one said, “No.” They tortured and killed him. Next, the second brother said, “No.” They tortured and killed him, too. The same thing happened to the third, fourth, fifth and sixth brothers. Finally, they went to the seventh brother. The king asked, “Will you eat this meat?” The mother spoke to her son and said, “Do just like your brothers.” The youngest brother told the king, “You are not nice for killing my brothers.” He still would not eat the meat. They tortured and killed him. Then they killed the widow.
Maccabees doesn’t gloss over the torture part of the story. “Not nice” is putting it mildly.
The Loveliness of Rosaries
I have a few rosaries.
In fact, I could host quite a large rosary group and there would be no need for anyone to BYOR. These are just some of the “downstairs rosaries.” The glass jar has nine rosaries made of plastic beads. To its left is one made of knotted rope in a bag with how-to instructions ready to be given to someone who wants to learn.
Except for the two on the left made from olive wood and the children’s rosaries on the top right, these rosaries are very inexpensive and are the kind given away by various groups. The ones in the middle came in the mail with a request for money. I have to figure out how to donate anonymously. If you buy one Mass card, you end up on 20 mailing lists. I don’t like that.
These manly ones are given out to soldiers everywhere. I think Bill keeps one in his uniform. You never know when you might need to pray really hard (September 11th?).
The only rosary in the picture that I actually bought is the wooden children’s rosary. I used to have two wooden ones, but my kids can manage to break anything if given a chance. The other rosary is made from a really hard plastic and was given to Mary by her Godmother. She likes the way they feel on her gums.
I’ve learned the hard way to keep the nice rosaries out of the reach of little fingers. Kids of all ages are drawn to rosaries. They like the way they click in their hands. They like the pretty colors. They like the texture. Me too.
These are my special rosaries. Two were gifts from my husband and two were gifts from my in-laws.
Bill bought this one in New Mexico. Indians made it from cultured pearls. The “rope” between the beads is silver.
Here is another olive wood rosary. I keep it in my bedside drawer. It gets used a fair amount. The beads are nicely spaced, and the smooth wood feels comforting.
This one is blessed by the Pope. Therefore, it is too good to be used! It stays in its little box on my dresser, and I look at it and smile. Peter is irresistibly attracted to this rosary and its little box. I will pray its beads someday. I think I’m just waiting for a really important request.
My favorite rosary is this delicate blue one that Bill got in Letnica on this pilgrimage. He sent it to me just before Jenny was born. The first time I prayed it to thank God for a safe delivery and a healthy baby. It was used frequently in the next few months as I prayed for strength, prayed for my milk supply, prayed for my sanity, and prayed for a speedy return for my husband. This rosary has seen many, many tears.
The beads are tiny and pointy and the spacing between the decades is difficult to discern by touch. At first I thought this was a disadvantage, but as an exhausted mother of little children who almost always falls asleep while praying, I came to appreciate that to pray this rosary I needed to pay attention. Instead of the soothing feel of sanded wood, my sensitive skin must gently hold each sharp bead and deliberately move to the next to avoid prickles. I need to look at the rosary to know when I’ve finished the decade.
Should I live to be an old woman with clouded eyes and arthritic hands, this rosary probably won’t be easy to pray, but it will nonetheless be my likely first choice. What will it matter if an old woman has to go around two or three times because she can’t tell when it’s time to stop? That long dead husband is probably still in purgatory and grateful for all those extra Hail Marys.
Surely none of my offspring would be so foolish as to bury me with my wedding or engagement rings. I hope that someone else can wear them and have even a fraction of the joy my marriage has given me. Just bury me in my newly repaired pearl necklace (thank you Pearl Girl) and holding this rosary. I sure hope I have people praying the rosary for me.
Geography Bee
We’ve told the kids we’re going to visit another city this coming weekend.
We’re going to the capital of Kansas.
What is the capital of Kansas? If you ask Jenny, she’ll tell you it’s Peka.
Why? Well, that’s where we’re going TO: Peka.
The final countdown
Tomorrow begins our last week of school.
Now before I hear any whining from you folks with a month or more to go, please realize that we began our year in mid-August. I had never started that early before, but we did like the locals do. The public schools end at the end of the month. I am doing CATs the week after Memorial Day, so we still have that, and it’ll formally finish us up at the same time that they do. This is our last week of stuff in the syllabus.
Thank goodness.
Last week was a very bad week. It was so bad that Bill suggested we take a week off. Had we even two weeks left, I would have, but with one week to go, delaying the end even more was depressing than suffering through. My students and I were in agreement: we wanted the school year to end. We simply disagreed on how best to accomplish that. I thought if I cut all unnecessary work and even reduced the number of problems in core assignments, we could quickly be done. My children felt that we should just move into summer vacation with nary a backward glance at those remaining worksheets.
Both sides dug in their heels, and by Friday I was exhausted from the battle. Bill told the kids they’d be sent off to school if they didn’t start treating their teacher better. And honestly, I was all ready to sign them up, but only if they could start right away.
Fortunately, I just needed a weekend to breathe. Yesterday, I stopped at the store and bought three bags of candy with which to bribe reward my students for speedy, accurate and tear-free work. I’ve promised them a special trip on Wednesday if they can get the whole week’s worth done by 10 am that day (totally do-able), and I’ve promised them a mid-week movie night on the last day.
We will get through this. And maybe we’ll even like each other when it’s all over.
Worth $117k?
This year, they’ve calculated a stay-at-home mom’s “worth” to be nearly $117,000 a year (if we could get paid). Working mothers would get an additional $68k for their “part-time” duties. They didn’t calculate a homeschool mother’s worth. Nor did they mention that dads do a fair amount of taxiing kids, sports team coaching, and middle-of-the-night vomit cleaning. Equal invisible pay for equal work? Bill thinks working dads should get more than $68k, because men always get paid more than women.
Of course, it really doesn’t matter. This is not real money we’re talking about. It won’t pay the mortgage or buy the groceries, no matter how many duties or job titles we add to our resumés.
There are few employers who really “own” you quite like a family. A parent is on call 24/7/365. What person in their right mind would work long for a company that required you to respond at a moment’s notice and gear your entire life (even your social and religious activities) around its needs? Many jobs (firemen, doctors, police) require on call status, even round the clock, but at some point you are on your own. You can go where you want when you want and without accounting for your activities.
But I can think of one other employer where you are on duty all the time. An employer who can call you in the middle of the night and expect you to do something. An employer who requires knowledge of your whereabouts at all times and demands being able to reach you even if you are on vacation. An employer who is fickle and erratic and doesn’t necessarily care if there is time in the schedule for you to attend Sunday Mass. And that would be the US military.
Arguably, one of the hardest jobs in the military is that of First Sergeant. Here’s a day in the life of. High in responsibility, high in work load. I often view myself as the 1SG of our home: Bill issues the orders, I execute them (the orders, not the children!). Base pay for a First Sergeant with 16 years in is a mere $47,640.
The bottom line is that our true worth is seldom related to our paycheck. Most salaries are determined by market forces (the notable exception being government jobs, and, while I’m not saying an E8 should make more, I am saying that US Senators should make much less). While a six-figure income may impress the neighbors, if you need it to impress yourself, the stay-at-home career might not be for you.
Fakin the Funk
One of Bill’s newest favorite websites is the Urban Dictionary which has a slang word of the day. Weeks and weeks ago, he taught me the term chicken bone tight. I have determined to incorporate this phrase in my language, but I keep messing it up. At first I couldn’t remember anything but the chicken part, and now I keep saying “chicken bone slim.” Yes, I am preparing to embarrass my future teenagers with my total uncoolness.
I’m fakin the funk.
Every few days, Bill says, “And today’s Urban Dictionary word is…”
And I respond, “Chicken bone slim?”
He sighs and says, “Chicken bone tight, dear.”
Today I said, “What does it mean again?”
I’m hopeless.
Doing business the old fashioned way
About two weeks ago the realtor called to say they had received our deposit check for a house we plan to rent, sight unseen, in Virginia. Since they are closed on the weekends, I told them Bill would be there first thing on Monday morning, the 16th of June, to take care of any paperwork and get the keys.
The realtor wanted to send me the lease to review but said we could sign it on the 16th. She wanted to fax it, but I don’t happen to have that capacity here at home. Honestly, I think in 10 years of “working from home” having a fax would have been convenient perhaps twice. Each of those times, Bill had the fax go to his office.
He doesn’t have an office here.
I suggested email, but the realtor doesn’t have a scanner, and the software used to generate leases isn’t emailable. The realtor was beginning to adopt a certain tone that really annoyed me. I wanted an email; she wanted to fax. This was clearly, in her opinion, my problem, not hers. I suppose, if I were the sort of person willing to jump through hoops to please someone else, I could have figured out a solution. When I worked for a living, that’s what I did. But since I’m the client, I really didn’t feel it necessary to thumb through the phone book, find the nearest place that accepted faxes, get their number, call her back, round up six kids, drive to the store, and pay money for 30 pages of legal gobblety gook.
Fortunately, we had time on our side, so I told her she would have to mail it.
She seemed confused. Like she had never done that before.
I assured her that it would only take 2 or 3 days to get here, and we had weeks before we were moving. “I suppose so…” she said hesitantly.
She never mailed it.
She called back today. Apparently, this office does things differently than her old office, and the lease would have to be signed in the near future. She started in on wanting to fax it again. {Pet peeve: business people who can’t remember having this exact same conversation with you two weeks prior.} Again, she said she couldn’t email it. Again, this was my problem.
Again, I told her to mail it.
Again, the uncertainty about exactly how that would be done.
The thing is, I know the owners of this house, and I trust that everything works out always. So not only do I not fear that the house might be rented out from underneath me if I don’t get that lease signed ASAP, I know with my deposit money and a signed offer to rent, they can’t rent it out from underneath me, and even if they did, I would simply find another house (with a realtor who knows about stamps and those blue collection boxes you see all over).
We’ll see if she manages to put the lease in the post. Perhaps I’ll toy with her and tell her I didn’t get it? Couldn’t she just email me?
Boys vs Girls
Katie just doesn’t get her brothers.
“Moooooom, Peter’s bleeding!” Peter might have been bleeding, but he did not want to stop playing. She stood in the kitchen stamping her foot and looking at me. It was obvious that I was expected to do something. The child needed medical attention.
“Moooom, you can see Billy’s underwear through his white baseball pants!” Actually, I pointed out to her that you couldn’t see his underwear because he is very particular about his shirts which are always neatly tucked into his pants. You could see his orange striped shirt, but not his underwear. This was very embarrassing. For her. Billy was happy to be wearing baseball pants and nothing, not even lack of white underwear, would stop him.
Not too long ago, there was a verbal scuffle in the living room. Parental intervention revealed that Fritz yelled at his sister for “interrupting” the hockey game. Fritz was chastised for his poor behavior, but I felt it necessary to explain to Katie that men do not like having their sports viewing interrupted.
“Nobody likes it when somebody talks during a show,” protested my husband, also a bit grumpy for having his hockey game disturbed, and not at all pleased at being the target of sexist remarks.
“In a woman’s mind, there is a big difference between a movie with dialogue and a hockey game.”
He didn’t agree, and I doubt any man in my life would. Which is why I will continue the sexist training of my daughters. Once they master Men and Sports 101 which covers talking during games and commercials (especially ones for beer), as well as blood, injuries, clothing, hygiene and good luck rituals, we’ll move on to level 201 which will discuss techniques for turning off the TV so you aren’t interrupting when you do talk.
Reit This Way 