Tending Our Lady’s Garden – Daybook

For today, November 10, 2008

Outside My Window…It is cool and brisk outside. The maples haven’t yet lost their leaves and are a fiery red. The ash tree *has* lost all of its leaves making it look very sad when our favorite crows land atop its tallest branches to survey the yard for crumbs of bread left for them.

I am thankful for…daughters old enough to be of significant help when chores demand it. What an extraordinary comfort and assistance!

From the kitchen…I tweaked my fall menu this weekend and I can’t tell you what a huge relief that is. I hope to work on a master grocery list later this week.

I am wearing…a denim skirt fluted at the bottom and a white cardigan over a white t-shirt.

I am creating… a safer environment for the crawling doodlebug. I picked up everything down low for her in the learning room yesterday. I picked up all the low dangerous stuff from the kitchen on Saturday. The challenge was finding a home for it…in a way that didn’t look stuffed. Then the children and I visited the attic and found the bins of baby and toddler toys. We cleaned them up and set them out. The doodlebug seems quite content! Perhaps that will buy me a week of her not eating all of my maps.

I am reading… I’m embarrassed to tell you the number of books waiting for me to read them in my reading basket! I haven’t been reading enough. This week I hope to go through my reading basket and deciding on some reading plans for the next couple of months. In the meantime, I am enjoying and learning much from The Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy.

I am hoping… to make some yummy pumpkin recipes later this week.

I am hearing… the constant pounding of the hammer and ball activity that I set out for Doodlebug…but that Peanut is now obsessively hammering away on.

Looking to the rhythm of the liturgical year… We are just a couple of weeks from Advent – I am starting to think of my plans. In the meantime, Martinmas is tomorrow.

Around the house… I’m pleased with the evolving sense of order we created here this weekend, but in doing so, I neglected the dusting and cleaning my bathroom which is in dire need of a sprucing. I’m hoping to somehow dust a little this week, clean my bathroom, and maybe, just maybe attack my closet which is a mysterious cave of clothes, bins, and no longer used baby paraphenalia. It looks like a stroller graveyard in there. So uninspiring.

I will claim a moment… I’m so excited that Rob and I decided to set aside 2 nights each month to ourselves, a pizza, a bottle of wine and a netflix movie. Our children aren’t old enough to babysit for each other yet, so night’s-in are what we have. I love this special time!

A Few Plans For The Rest Of The Week: See “Around the House” above! Though realistically, I think I’d just like to keep up with the laundry, meals and lessons. That in and of itself will be challenging!