Thanksgiving on the Homestead

Tomorrow we will have a national day of thanksgiving and celebrate it with lots of food.  Do people really understand the reason for this holiday?  Yes, we've all heard the stories of the pilgrims and the Indians and the first feast, but now it seems that most just want turkey and goodies and football.

At our house, we have the feast but we also have a tradition of prayer and verbal thanking God for our blessings.  We go around the table and each person says at least one reason that they are thankful this year.  It can be a riot with the little guys, but the older ones seem to take it seriously.  And as much as I hated being put on the spot with this tradition when I was younger, it is the one thing I remember and carried into my married life besides the pre-dawn turkey baking wake up call.

So tomorrow, when the feasting is beginning, take a moment and recall all that you are thankful for.  Imagine that tomorrow you might wake up with only the things you thanked God for today. 

Menu:

Roasted turkey: I slather mine in butter by placing it under the skin and inside the cavities.  I usually throw an onion and garlic in there, too.  I'm not really one for stuffing, and only one of my kids likes it, so we are Stove Top Mix people.

Mashed potatoes and gravy: I hate making gravy so I will take the drippings from the turkey and use a gravy mix.  Look ma, no lumps!  I prefer Yukon Gold potatoes, but I think all I have are russets.

Yam Casserole with Marshmallows: I just found this recipe and thought it looked so yummy!  We are going to try it, since everyone in my family just decided that they actually like yams.

Green Bean Casserole: the good old fried onion topped kind.  Yums.

For dessert we will feature homemade cherry cheesecake and double layer pumpkin pie.  I'm looking forward to that last one!

Memorial Day Grilling!

Yes!  We are having a BBQ party this Sunday afternoon to celebrate Memorial day.  It should be fun, since friends and food are a winning combo almost always.  But my grill!!  Besides only half of the gas blowers funnels outlets working (just the left side, thanks) it could use a good scrub.

I usually give the wires a good scrubbing before I lay the meat on but it's probably time for a good, deep clean.  When I ran across an article on I Dream of Clean, I was jazzed!  Easy, swift, and done with things around the house - no special trips for special supplies.  That's right up my alley.

Here is what it said:

• Start with a cold grill so you don’t get burned. Cover the grill racks completely with two layers of aluminum foil.
• Turn on the grill and keep it on for about 15 minutes. There may be tons of smoke but they say not to worry in the article! It’s the cleaning magic!
• Let the grill cool.
• Once cool, open the lid, remove the foil and bunch it into a ball. Use the ball of aluminum foil to scrub the grill grates.
• Rinse the grill grates with cool water.
• Enjoy your clean grill and get ready to cook out!

Easy Peasy, as my kids would say. 

So my sad little grill, that could really use a replacement, will be clean and shiny while only firing on half it's side (pun intended).  Good thing Uncle Steve will be bringing his grill along!





photo courtesy Morgue File

Mardi Gras, Fat Tuesday, YAY!

Hey! You know what today is? It's Fat Tuesday! Yup, time to use up all your milk, butter and eggs and prepare for the dark dreary of Lent. It's not that I don't like Lent. Okay, I don't like the dreary dank feeling I get from the Lenten season, but I much prefer the happier times of the year.

Regardless, today is Mardi Gras! If you can't visit New Orleans, then join me in an (imaginary) toast to the Big Easy...


Learn more about the history of Mardi Gras.

Happy Valentine's Day!

So Hubbers had a bizniss meat-in 4 hours from home all day today. I'm missing my sweetie, but there's no reason not to share the love.

Hope your day was a blessing!

Happy Thanksgiving

It's the beginning of the holiday season, marked by the traditional Thanksgiving dinner. We're spending time with family today and hope you enjoy yours as well.

Oh Yeah, that was Easter, huh?

A shot of Cousin Brad (as Caiaphis), Auntie Brigid (random woman), and Mini Brigid - my daughter RooBoo. This is a picture from the passion play on Good Friday, 2008.

Thanksgiving Treats for Kids

Here's some great ideas from Family Corner for fun Thanksgiving treats!

Edible Pilgrim Hats

The kids will just love making these and it will keep them busy enough to stay out of my hair as I holiday bake next week. Grampa on the Farm is coming out, too - maybe he'll do this with them!


Hand Print Turkey Cookies

They look a little creepy to me, but the kids will p robably like doing them. Something about a hand that you eat? ...shudder... Maybe instead of this we'll do hand print PAPER turkeys with construction paper. A bit more tolerable to me.



Family Corner.com has so many more great Turkey Day ideas - decorating, cooking, crafts, coloring, and more! I won't be paid by Family Corner for this affirmation, but by my children and their joy. Visit anyway!

Pentecost, The Filling of the Holy Spirit

When the time for Pentecost was fulfilled, they were all in one place together. And suddenly there came from the sky
a noise like a strong driving wind,
and it filled the entire house in which they were. Then there appeared to them tongues as of fire, which parted and came to rest on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues, as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim.

Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven
staying in Jerusalem. At this sound, they gathered in a large crowd,
but they were confused because each one heard them speaking in his own language. They were astounded, and in amazement they asked,
“Are not all these people who are speaking Galileans?
Then how does each of us hear them in his native language?
We are Parthians, Medes, and Elamites, inhabitants of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia,
Egypt and the districts of Libya near Cyrene, as well as travelers from Rome, both Jews and converts to Judaism, Cretans and Arabs,
yet we hear them speaking in our own tongues of the mighty acts of God.” -- Acts 2:1-11

Reading from: US Conference of Catholic Bishops

May: The Month of Mary, Queen of All, Mother of God

I came across this post at SFO Mom Barb's blog this week and was wanting to share it. It touched me deeply. I hope it does you, too. It also inspired me to write my own, speaking on May.

A number of traditions link the month of May to Mary. In ancient Greece, May was the month dedicated to Artemis and the reverence for this goddess was transferred to Mary with the Christianization of Europe.

More generally, pre-Christian rites of spring (fertility rites), such as the Maypole, were subsumed by the Church into a festival of the Mother of God. This sacred holiday is traditionally known as Beltane, and is practiced today in Earth-based spiritualities. It is also the Celtic holiday for the goddess Brid, who was subsumed into the Catholic church as St. Brigid.

Alfonso X, king of Castile wrote in his Cantigas de Santa Maria about the special honoring of Mary during specific dates in May. Eventually, the entire month was filled with special observances and devotions to Mary.

The tradition of honoring Mary in a month-long May devotion is believed to have originated in Italy, but spread eventually around the Roman Catholic world in the 19th Century together with a month-long devotion to Jesus in June and the Rosary in October.

At one time, the domestic celebrations of the month of May were widespread, especially by setting up a small May altar in the home. May crowning became popular in the United States, especially prior to Vatican II. This practice continues in many parishes today.

There are many ways to celebrate Mary's month:

• Honor the ever-beautiful Virgin with a Rosary, or at least a decade of the Rosary, each day.
• Perform a May Crowning
  
• Read some inspiring poetry on, or about, her.
• Set up a little Shrine to her outside or inside your house.
• Love her!

May Crowning: A statue of Mary is laced with a wreath of blossoms to indicate Mary's virtues - which we, as the faithful, are to imitate.

We will take our foot tall indoor Mary statue and perform our own May Crowing. The children will pick flowers from the garden (I have beautiful grape hyacinths and paperwhites up right now, as well as a few tulips, and the lilacs will be in bloom very soon) to keep in a vase next to her statue.

If you are worried about Catholics worshipping statues, please see this excellent article.

If you are worried about Catholics "praying to" saints or Mary, please see this other excellent article.

If you have any other important questions regarding the Catholic faith or my beliefs in general, please drop me a comment and I will reply as soon as possible.

May Magnificat

MAY is Mary's month, and I
Muse at that and wonder why:
Her feasts follow reason,
Dated due to season-

Candlemas, Lady Day;
But the Lady Month, May,
Why fasten that upon her,
With a feasting in her honour?

Is it only its being brighter
Than the most are must delight her?
Is it opportunest
And flowers finds soonest?

Ask of her, the mighty mother:
Her reply puts this other
Question: What is Spring?-
Growth in every thing-

Flesh and fleece, fur and feather,
Grass and greenworld all together;
Star-eyed strawberry-breasted
Throstle above her nested

Cluster of bugle blue eggs thin
Forms and warms the life within;
And bird and blossom swell
In sod or sheath or shell.

All things rising, all things sizing
Mary sees, sympathising
With that world of good,
Nature's motherhood.

Their magnifying of each its kind
With delight calls to mind
How she did in her stored
Magnify the Lord.

Well but there was more than this:
Spring's universal bliss
Much, had much to say
To offering Mary May.

When drop-of-blood-and-foam-dapple
Bloom lights the orchard-apple
And thicket and thorp are merry
With silver-surfed cherry

And azuring-over greybell makes
Wood banks and brakes wash wet like lakes
And magic cuckoocall
Caps, clears, and clinches all-

This ecstasy all through mothering earth
Tells Mary her mirth till Christ's birth
To remember and exultation
In God who was her salvation.

-- Gerard Manley Hopkins

Some information from Fr Jack, Wikipedia, The Marian Library, and Catholic Answers.


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World Breastfeeding Week: August 1 - 7

Laissez les Bons Temps Rouler!

Fat Tuesday is today, the day before Ash Wednesday and the dark of Lent. How will you celebrate?

Mardi Gras, literally "Fat Tuesday," has grown in popularity in recent years as a raucous, sometimes hedonistic event. But its roots lie in the Christian calendar, as the "last hurrah" before Lent begins on Ash Wednesday. That's why the enormous party in New Orleans, for example, ends abruptly at midnight on Tuesday, with battalions of streetsweepers pushing the crowds out of the French Quarter towards home.

The official colors of Mardi Gras, with their roots in Catholicism, are: purple, a symbol of justice; green, representing faith; and gold, to signify power.

At our personal Shrove Tuesday event we'll be having Pain Perdu (French Toast), breakfast sausage, real maple syrup, pineapple OJ, eggs and cantaloupe. Plus dessert. I have lots of ice cream in the freezer that MUST. GO.

Mardi Gras literally means "Fat Tuesday" in French. The name comes from the tradition of slaughtering and feasting upon a fattened calf on the last day of Carnival. The day is also known as Shrove Tuesday (from "to shrive," or hear confessions), Pancake Tuesday and fetter Dienstag. The custom of making pancakes comes from the need to use up fat, eggs and dairy before the fasting and abstinence of Lent begins.

But we'll also be talking about what Lent is, what it's for, and why it's important and not the dreary time that everyone I think it is. (I always picture Lent like dark rainy days with drapes drawn in a moldery old house, sadness and deep, painful thought.) We'll talk about sacrifice, penitance, and the love of God for all his people. We'll eat sugar until our eyes pop and then dance like the madwomen we are.

Man, it's a good thing I went to Curves last night!!

So, Laissez le Bon Temps Rouler!! Which is, of course, Cajun for "Let the Good Times Roll!"

The information in italics came from the American Catholic website unless it's my own personal commentary.

Intercessions for Life

For the littlest among us,
That the children carried in the wombs of their mothers
may be nurtured in safety and joyful expectation;
We pray to the Lord:
Lord, Hear our prayer.

Thank you Faithmouse for this small reminder in a day devoted to love, that love is what sustains life.
As Barb, SFOmom quoted today: "All You Need is Love".

The Story of St Valentine

A brief, nearly terse synopsis of St Valentine of Rome, from the pages of http://www.catholic-forum.com/

Profile

Priest in Rome, possibly a bishop. Physician. Imprisoned for giving aid to martyrs in prison, and while there converted the jailer by restoring sight to the jailer's daughter. While Valentine of Terni and Valentine of Rome sometimes have separate entries in martyrologies and biographies, most scholars believe they are the same person.

There are several theories about the origin of Valentine's Day celebrations. Some believe the Romans had a mid-February custom where boys drew girls' names in honor of the sex and fertility goddess, Februata Juno; pastors "baptised" this holiday, like some others, by substituting the names of saints such as Valentine to suppress the practice. Others maintain that the custom of sending Valentines on 14 February stems from the belief that birds begin to pair on that date. By 1477 the English associated lovers with the feast of Valentine because on that day "every bird chooses him a mate." The custom started of men and women writing love letters to their Valentine on this day. Other "romance" traditions have become attached to this feast, including pinning bay leaves to your pillow on Valentine's Eve so that you will see your future mate that night in your dreams.

Died

beaten and beheaded c.269 at Rome; buried on the Flaminian Way; relics later translated to the Church of Saint Praxedes

Patronage

affianced couples, against fainting, bee keepers, betrothed couples, engaged couples, epilepsy, fainting, greeting card manufacturers, greetings, happy marriages, love, lovers, plague, travellers, young people

Representation

birds; roses; bishop with a crippled or epileptic child at his feet; bishop with a rooster nearby; bishop refusing to adore an idol; bishop being beheaded; priest bearing a sword; priest holding a sun; priest giving sight to a blind girl

A Catholic Life: Week of Prayer for Christian Unity

This is the week to pray for Christian Unity - that we may all be united by our love and obedience to Christ, Our Lord.


Today's 2nd reading from 1 Cor 12:12-14, 27

Brothers and sisters:
As a body is one though it has many parts,
and all the parts of the body, though many, are one body,
so also Christ.
For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body,
whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free persons,

and we were all given to drink of one Spirit.
Now the body is not a single part, but many.
You are Christ’s body, and individually parts of it.

A very good article and daily prayer:
A Catholic Life: Week of Prayer for Christian Unity

Solemnity of Epiphany

Father, you revealed your Son to the nations by the guidance of a star. Lead us to your glory in heaven by the light of faith. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

The Wise Men from our Nativity set have been travelling toward the manger scene all Christmas season long. The kids enjoyed trying to find the new location of our Magi every few days. Today they will finally make it. Hurray!

I did some research on Epiphany, which I know is the coming of the Magi, and found a family activity of Blessing of the Home on Epiphany.

Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God

I am delving deeper into my faith every day and encourage you do to the same. Here are some snips of information about today's feast:

http://www.udayton.edu/mary/questions/yq2/yq263.html
http://www.wf-f.org/SolemnityMary.html
http://www.nccbuscc.org/nab/010107.shtml

Vigil of the Solemnity of Christmas

+Hail and blessed be the hour and moment in which the Son of God was born of the most pure Virgin Mary, at midnight, in Bethlehem, in piercing cold. In that hour vouchsafe, O my God! to hear my prayer and grant my desires, through the merits of Our Saviour Jesus Christ, and of His blessed Mother. Amen.

Our Lady of Guadalupe

The Feast Day of Our Lady of Guadalupe commemorates the day that the Blessed Mother appeared to Juan Diego, a poor Mexican Indian. On Dec. 9, 1531, Juan was hurrying over Tepeyac Hill, near what is now Mexico City, when a lady appeared. Tradition has it that the Virgin was dark-skinned and spoke to Diego in his native Indian language. Our Lady told him to tell the bishop to build a church where she stood.

But the Bishop did not believe Juan and required a sign. Juan Diego was directed to the top of a hill in mid-December to gather roses for the Bishop, upon Mary's direction. She instructed Juan to place the roses in his tilma, a poor quality cloak worn by the poor at this time, and not to show them to anyone but the Bishop. When Juan opened the cloak for the Bishop, fresh dewy roses fell out, apparently arranged by the hand of Mary herself. She also left for us an image of herself imprinted miraculously upon the tilma which should have disintegrated after 20 years. This year marks 475 years since her apparition and the tilma is still available today and defies all scientific explanations of its origin.

Our Lady of Guadalupe is called both The Protectress of the Unborn and Patroness of the Americas. The tilma features a true picture of Mary, as it was placed on the cloth herself. Visit this site for the miracle of Mary's Eyes as shown on the tilma of St Juan Diego.

In my time studying about this miraculous apparition, I have decided that I am being called to be more active in the anti-abortion movement. Please join me in a simple prayer:

Jesus, Mary and Joseph,
I beg you to spare the life of the unborn child,
who I spiritually adopt,
in danger of death by abortion.

Feast of the Immaculate Conception

The Magnificat

And Mary said:

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord;

my spirit rejoices in God my savior.

For he has looked upon his handmaid's lowliness;

behold, from now on will all ages call me blessed.

The Mighty One has done great things for me,

and holy is his name.

His mercy is from age to age

to those who fear him.

He has shown might with his arm,

dispersed the arrogant of mind and heart.

He has thrown down the rulers from their thrones

but lifted up the lowly.

The hungry he has filled with good things;

the rich he has sent away empty.

He has helped Israel his servant,

remembering his mercy,

according to his promise to our fathers,

to Abraham and to his descendants forever.

Luke 1:46-55

The Feast of St Nicholas!

Today is December 6th, the Feast of St Nicholas!

I admit, I've been lax in learning about the saints, but with 1 child having taken 1st Communion already and 1 preparing to do so, I decided that I needed to learn a little more. I'm a convert to Roman Catholicism, so every little bit helps.

Here's a GREAT site to learn a little more about St Nick. You can bet I'm spending time there today... St Nicholas: Discovering the Truth about Santa Claus