Miryam, my Little Miss, has just turned six! She is a never-ending source of entertainment and love. Behold, her past year in quotations….
Mother Mary, pray for us.
When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me, speaking words of wisdom. And in my hour of darkness, she is standing right in front of me, speaking words of wisdom.
I don’t know if Paul McCartney actually had a relationship with Jesus or Mary, but the first few lines of Let It Be are poignant, regardless.
Women of today need the wisdom of Mary.
It’s a bit difficult to sell this point, I admit, to those who haven’t become her friend already. The “meek” quality of her example, so often highlighted in the Christmas story, which is the only exposure some people have to her, can be off-putting to modern women. But maybe it’s not the meekness that we need to imitate these days, at least not primarily.
What we need is….
Buy More Veggies
Let me humbly begin by mentioning that I just used up some extra homemade cream cheese frosting that’s been in the fridge for five days by squirting it onto chocolate teddy grahams and basically making epic makeshift mini oreos. #lifehack
Anyway, back to the subject at hand: vegetables!
Well, actually, first, I need to talk about candy for a second. When I was first married, with no employment except catching up on Dexter and learning how to meal plan and cook, I finally gained the “freshman fifteen” that I had managed to avoid in college. Darn. Sugar is a weakness for me. I quickly learned that it’s WAY easier to not buy candy at the store, than to buy it and then mete it out in moderate portions at appropriate intervals at home. So, I made myself a rule….
St. Zelie Martin
I’m pretty sure I have mentioned St. Zelie Martin at least a few times. She is one of my very favorite saints. She is the namesake of one of my miscarried babies, and a woman who captivated me from the first moment I heard about her. I consider her a mom for all moms: any mom or would-be-mom can look to her for inspiration, encouragement, comfort, and intercession. In case you’re not very familiar with her, I’d like to introduce you to her….
It is a truth universally acknowledged…
….that the public library is wonderful.
Now, please tell me you’ve read Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. If you haven’t, I enjoin you to open a new tab in your internet browser right now, go to your library’s website, log in, and request a copy. If you don’t have a library card/account already, sign up for one. My library system is doing virtual-only accounts, from which one can check out digital media (ebooks and audiobooks), as well as request hard copies of books for curbside pickup at the brick and mortar library.
[I promise there is more interesting content in this post than just me raving about libraries. Click that button to see for yourself!]
Word of the Year
Do you pick a word of the year? I have in the past, but it’s never really stuck. I never think about it early enough to put meaningful thought into deciding on my word, so I tend to go for the random word generators, and then if a word doesn’t “speak to me” immediately, it feels silly and shallow, and I either nix the whole idea of a word of the year that year, or I put it on the back shelf of my mind and eventually forget about it altogether.
Recently, however….
Goodbye, 2020!
Happy new year almost!!!
I’m sitting on my couch, surrounded by leftover Christmas mess, watching my kiddies play together through the abundance of windows that look out into the backyard, listening to chill music that my hubby put on as cooking background music while he makes his grandmother’s lasagna recipe for our dinner. I’m feeling pretty good about life today. It’s a perfect day to reflect on the year.
I’ve compiled a selection of the new things I’ve tried/done/made this year for you below. Many of these have been mentioned before in previous posts, but some are new news. Enjoy! ….
We Bought a Tree
While this is primarily the story of how we bought a Christmas tree, I wanted to sneak in the shorter stories of our other recent “big” purchases as a family, just because I like telling the stories.
((A Grill))
We’d never owned a grill during our seven years of marriage. Well, I take that back. We had a George Foreman for the first five years, something Justin already owned when we met. It was our go-to method of cooking chicken to put on salads, among other things, before we got our sous vide. It didn’t survive the We’re Moving Purge of 2018. Anyway….
Another Underwhelming Covid Birthday
So, yes, Luke turned four! But, it was during “coronavirus times.” So, it was underwhelming. As expected. Miryam had a lovely birthday in February 2020, pre-covid-panic. Justin had the first pandemic birthday, and I managed to actually take a photo of his birthday angel food cake this year, but otherwise it was not particularly exciting. Cecily’s birthday went not-as-planned… My birthday was downright depressing.
Luke’s birthday remained.
A couple months ago, I had dazzling dreams of his festivities. Maybe we would….
Luke at Three
My little Lukey turned four this past week! He is the darlingest, most photogenic, “ornery-sweet” boy I could ask for. Also, he says some hilarious things. Please enjoy this year’s installment of his quotations that I documented….