FOR TODAY (December 23, 2008)...

Outside my window...There is snow and gray and bare trees
I am thinking...that maybe I should get away from my compueter
I am thankful for... having enough food to eat and the fact my husband has a job...
From the learning rooms...Son is helping me cook
From the kitchen...doing the prep work for tomorrows food so I can relax tomorrow
I am wearing...my husbands gray zip up sweater over a blue t-shirt with jeans and black socks
I am creating...A Christmas Eve Bash
I am going... for a walk later
I am reading...blogs
I am hoping...for peace of mind
I am hearing...The Catholic Radio station and the click of baby playing with toys
Around the house...I need to straighten
One of my favorite things...Cholate Mousse cake
A few plans for the rest of the week:Christmas Mass, play in the snow, practice more, do banking and grocery shopping

Here is thought I am sharing...Enjoy the simple things in life.

The new atheism

I have heard said that unlike past atheism where people really thought about what was true that the current atheism is a fad. I understand this as it seems that many people who push the anti-religion view point consider themselves to be more intelligent than those of us with faith. It almost seems that people call themselves atheists because it instantly makes them an intellectual without having to open their minds and really search for the truth, even in places that they would rather not look: traditional religion and especially Christianity. That would definately not be cool and intellectual sounding.

An example of this would be the atheists who put up their sign denouncing religion in the Washington State Capitol. They announce to the rest of us misguided fools (and I parapharse)that the natural world is the only one that exists and that religion results in the "hardening of hearts and the weakening of minds." What do they base this on? Really? Religion has done no good in the world? There are many non-religious people, even atheists, who would not agree with this. It seems that it is the need of this particular group of people to stroke their own egos and that is their ultimate purpose in putting up such a sign.

New Back Ground

Hooray! I figured out how to put a cool back ground on my blog. I never googled under the right search before. I searched under blog backgrounds and came up with so many good free options. This is the link I where I found this back ground. Simply Chic Blogs.


http://simplychicblogs.blogspot.com/search?q=blog+pictures

O Lord and Ruler

O Lord and Ruler of the House of Israel, who appeared to Moses in the flame of the burning bush and gave him the law on Sinai: Come and redeem us with outstretched arm.

O Wisdom

Today begins the O Antiphons. These go from December 17 to December 24. There is a link with some excellent information below. We are (rather casually) continuing to make our Jesse Tree ornaments that we started last year. It seems that there are different characters included in different Jesse Trees depending on which version you choose. We are using the version on CatholicCulture.org. This one includes the O Antiphons.
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http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/liturgicalyear/overviews/seasons/advent/o_ant.cfm

O Sapientia (December 17) O Wisdom (Eccl 24: 5), you came forth from the mouth of the Most High (Sir 24: 30), and reaching from beginning to end, you ordered all things mightily and sweetly (Wis 8: 1). Come, and teach us the way of prudence (Isa 40: 14).

New Baby on the Way!

I am 11 weeks and 1 day along. Had an ultra sound today to make sure baby was alive and well. (I worry about this due to past miscarriages.) A miracle on the Feast of Our Lady of Guadaloupe.

Holiday Blues

It is the day before Thanksgiving. I don't know if I am looking forward to the holidays. The time goes by so quickly leading up to Christmas. I want to hang onto this time to really prepare myself spiritually and materially. It probably has to do with perfectionism more than anything else. I want to do it right so I never get started. It's important to remember to just get started and do something.

It doesn't help that I am feeling kind of depressed. I may need to ask the doctor to up my Wellbutrin. My general malaise seemed to start when the whether became cooler around September. I understand it is pretty normal for people to need more meds in the fall and winter months. I haven't told anyone about it really. Is it real or is it in my head? Will an increase in meds help? I will call my doctor on Friday if he is in.

Again I am not sure if I like the name of this blog. Woman of the House sounds a little too important for me. I suppose that's what I am or one of the things that I am anyway. I am also Julie the housewife, Julie the musician, Julie the mother, Julie just me. I don't know.

Day 3 and Day 4

I don't think we went out at all yesterday. Yesterday I was starting to get bored. I have enjoyed being alone with the baby thus far because we have really had a chance to spend some one on one time where we can be just the two of us. However yesterday I was feeling ready to have the rest of the family back home and today I am really looking forward to getting back on a regular schedule. In my alone time I have watched more t.v. than I normally would and I have been eating more junk food. I have been able to see how my family keeps me on track from being without them.

I just learned today that many of the boys have gotten a sickness that includes vomiting. One of the boys happens to be my son. He is apparently still throwing up this evening. I hope that he will be half way better for the car ride home tomorrow.

Wanting to Change Others

Yesterday I visited a friend who I have recently become in touch with again. She is a Christian. She was baptized Catholic and received first communion but shortly after that her family stopped going to mass. I think she started going to church again about around the time she met her husband over four years ago. She goes to Protestant churches but she believes in infant baptism and she seems drawn to liturgical churches such as Lutheranism. It seems that her and her husband are continually trying to find the right church for them. She was telling me that she thinks Evangelicals miss out on a lot by not celebrating different liturgical seasons like Lent. They are currently attending a Lutheran church after having previously attended a Baptist church for a period of time.

She also seems to prefer churches that offer communion on a regular basis. I want to say to her why not just go for the real deal and become Catholic. She was asking me how often Catholic churches receive communion. Catholics not only believe that the Eucharist is the body of Christ but also that priests have the authority to make this miracle happen because of apostolic succession. The bishops have come down to us from the apostles who were ordained by Christ himself. By what authority do Lutherans and other churches who believe in the Eucharist in their own way claim that their pastors can make this happen?

Any way at this point it seems that we are a little fearful of going into any depth about our religious differences. At least I am. I pray that she comes back to the Catholic Church and brings her husband along. I am sure we will learn a lot from each other as we become better acquainted. I suppose it is good just to have a Christian friend with some solid theology behind her beliefs in this day and age. Heck its just good to have a friend.

Day 1

Yesterday was day 1 of my husband and son being gone to camp. Did I do anything that I had aimed to do. Yes!

I spent some time organizing/cleaning in the basement.
I went for a walk with Clare in her stroller and practiced Tae Kwon Do. (This wasn't on my list but it should have been.)
And finally a friend ended up calling me yesterday thank goodness (I'm terrible at taking the time to call people) and I am going to go to her house today.
I vacumed too.

Not too bad. I really need to practice my bass though. Maybe today.

Self-Searching

Well husband and 12 year old son are away until Sunday. I am home alone with baby girl, now 10 months, for the rest of the week. Here is a list of what I hope to accomplish:

1. Declutter basement
2. Practice music
3. Visit friend(s)
4. Work on my rule of life-house work scheduled
5. Blog
6. Think about what I need to do for myself or self-searching

What do I need to think about in my self-searching?

I need to think about any perfectionism that I have that is not from God. How do I "rule over" my husband and my son? I feel that I need to make sure my husband does what he is supposed to being in : taking care of his diabetes, gettng enough sleep, making sure he stays on schedule and I'm sure I will think of a few other things. Whew! how exhausting! Why do I feel I need to take care of these things for him? How can I let go of the need to control?

I was thinking about this yesterday and today and was wondering if I look at his imperfections because I am afraid to deal with my own. Does it keep me from having to examine my own life? I was thinking about this when I was decluttering the basement yesterday. There is so much of my stuff that I keep that I don't need to keep and I have in the past looked at the stuff he has held onto and judged it as being worthless.

I also need to look at what I need to do to have more joy in my life. It was recently brought up at a homeschool mom retreat that we were meant to have joy in our vocation and that it is our obligation to find out what is taking away our joy. There are so many times when I am angry when I am depressed. Why is this? The question is , "What is taking away my joy or, "What do I need to do to bring more joy into my life or to at leasts allow more joy into my life?"

Something that I think would make a difference in my life would be to reach out to people and form close relationships with others outside my family. Husband and I have always talked about having people over for dinner but we never do. There are some women in the homeschool group that I would love to talke to more at length and in depth about marriage, children, etc. I will think about this.

My husband has been working late for the past few days. This has left me with time to surf the net. I have been revisiting Catholic homeschool blogs that I haven't seen in a while and this has got me hankering to restart blogging again (not that I have done it very extensively so far).

I love looking at other SAHM blogs! Its easy to tell that many of them have a lot of effort put into them. They are something that these women have worked to make their own and they really can be a great source of inspiration to me as I am sure they are to others. Blogging is an accessable form of self-expression, a way to feel that you are reaching out in some way to the larger world outside your home.

Sunday Night

I'm not ready for the week to begin. I feel overwhelmed. It's almost midnight and I haven't really looked at what son is going to do for homeschooling this week.

I have so much to be grateful for

My mother suffered so much while on this earth. All she wanted was to be a good Catholic wife and mother which unfortunately didn't work out due to my father's mental illness as well as some of her own problems that were never resolved. I have every thing that she ever wanted in my life: a faithful Catholic husband, wonderful children, the opportunity to stay home and take care of my family. Mother pray for me that I may appreciate and be humbled by all that I have.

Why did I decide to homeschool and do I really want to continue?

This is my second year of homeschooling my now 12 year old son. Of course the question I get asked the most is: "Why did you decide to homeschool?" Of course it's difficult to give a difinitive answer but here is a list of reasons that I often give for my reasons to homeschool:

1. I was unsatisfied the the rogeour of my sons school
2. I saw that my son felt that he could not talk about religion formally at school ( he compartmentalized the place of religion in his life).
3. I had been hearing a lot about homeschooling on Catholic Radio.
4. I loved looking at the Catholic homeschool curriculum choices and thought it really looked fun and interesting.
5. There is a Catholic homeschool group associated with our church that I had seen at various times doing fun activities.
6. I liked the idea of homeschooling and integrating faith and religion into regular school activities.

Here is a list of reasons I am thinking about giving up homeschooling, at least for the moment:

1. I feel I am very unorganized.
2. I feel like we may be getting too isolated
3. I am starting to become irritable with my son because I find it difficult at times to relate to him now that he is getting older.
4. I would like to be normal
5. A part of me cringes at overt religiosity (I have some work to do on this) and don't feel I fit in with my Catholic homeschool group


All in all the more I put into preparing studies for my son daily and weekly the more I enjoy homeschooling him. My goals for him right now are to get him to get started working on his own. He is getting better at this. I had him make out a schedule for himself. When he doesn't know what to do I tell him to look at the schedule.

Cultural Makeover

My first name for this blog was Catholic Housewife Cultural Revolution. I got the idea from Manuel 3's CD Catholic Soul Revolution and from a line in one Father Stan Fortuna's song "Ya Ya Groove" from his Sacro Song 3 CD of needing a "new culture powered by divine diesel." The idea of rehauling the popular culture through the Catholic Faith is a recurring theme in Father Stan's writings and music. This idea appeals to me as a musician who likes to collaorate with others to make somehting new and I especially like the way it plays out in Father Stan's music.

This blog is also about a revolution going on in my own heart and mind. I struggle with the humility that goes along with being a housewife. I struggle with giving and not expecting something back in return. Humility and selflessness: imagine how these things would change the culture. Imagine what these things would do for my family and the culture in my own home. Lord help me.

Shaking the Modern Mind Set

This morning when listening to Women of Grace on EWTN Radio a woman called in to talk about how, despite her Catholic upbrining and her strong Catholic beliefs, it was so difficult to shake what I beleive she called her "Post-Christian Modern Era" mindset. For her this included such beliefs perpetrated by the culture such as: God and religion are for loosers and wierdos, Christians are ignorant, narrow minded, and intolerant, etc. etc. I can't remember what else she said this mindset included but I completely understood where she was coming from. This was an attitude that I had adopted as a fallen away Catholic attending a liberal university and I still carry a lot of those ideas with me. It makes it difficult to feel authentic in my faith. I lack a sense of conviction about objective truth and it is very tempting to fall into relativistic thinking.

Today is Ash Wednesday. There is a possibly record breaking snowstorm moving through Iowa since early this morning and it is still going. This Lent I think we should read the book Mother Teresa: Come be my Light. It is a book featuring many of Mother Teresa's correspondences with her spiritual directors. In these correspondences she tells of her great darkness which allows her to suffer in order to win souls to "satiate the thirst of Christ" for these souls. Mother Teresa gives all for Christ and does not deny him anything.

What am I afraid of?

I often wonder if I am living in fear. Am I staying at home as a house wife and homeschooling my son because I am afraid of facing the world and standing up for myself? Standing up for my faith?