Goodbye November!

Mondays are laundry day. Probably my least favorite household chore but at least I have it over with first thing in the week.

For years we didn't have a drier. I love the zen of line drying clothes. The way you think of each family member as you pick up their clothing, the way you can arrange things on the line, tights hanging in row. Of course in the winter it is not always as fun and I was always the person who would yell out at the first clap of thunder and make a mad rush to get everything off the line.

Then I got pregnant with my fourth. I still really wanted to cloth diaper and there was a free drier in the house next door so we hauled it over here. If I have to use a drier now, and I am resigned that I do, (though some things I still stubbornly hang) at least it is an avocado green drier and it has a pink and blue strobe light in the back that blinks while it is running and it rings a little bell when the clothes are finished that reminds me of the "idea" bell noise in road-runner cartoons.

It also is holding my winter plants on it right now and provides a nice spot for the catfood away from Ronia, who loves a good meal served up on the floor.

Also if anyone has any good disco we could have a fantastic dance party while my clothes are drying.

Okay, okay, I like my drier.

It helps to remind yourself sometimes

Mental note on road to inner peace. . . . . Don't be the screaming lady in her pajamas.

Lately the girls have been playing with the dolls I made them for Christmas. The dolls in our house have a rather varied assortment of names. We have dolls with sensible names like Lucy and Greta (who is I believe is named for the girls' cousin) and then there are dolls with names like Chocolate, Peppa, and my personal favorite, Silverware. Julia has a fetish for flowery sounding words. They make me happy, these dolls who have very much become little personalities in our home.

I am very exited because I found out about a kind of baby doll that you can make that is stuffed with millet and is very heavy. You stitch little sleeping eyes on it and it is a sleeping baby. THey are supposed to be very good first baby dolls and I want to make one for Ronia for Christmas.

Woops I need Ben to fix my picture for me . . . .

Had to share this photo of Angelica with chicken pox! It made the rounds in our house in October.

Baking with Spelt

I'm loving it. I bought a 25 lb bag of spelt when Ronia was born and of course I just had it ground at the Burwell Morgan Mill the last week of October.

Spelt is an ancient grain, more ancient than wheat and the Burwell Morgan Mill the oldest mill still operating in Virginia and entirely water powered. I've been using my sourghdough yeast (also since the baby was born) and cooking in the bread in big Cast iron pots from my mother-in-law. I joked to Ben that if he makes me a wood powered outdoor oven we will have gone to great lengths to eat bread that probably hasn't been eaten on a regular basis for centuries.

But it is worth it for the flavor alone. Spelt is nutty and a little mild and when it was freshly ground it had a really earthy aroma. It also works well in pancakes and cookies so the versatility factor is nice. Down side is that it is a bit pricier. Only thing I haven't tried it yet in is pizza.

Gotta get more coffee. BYe!

Reclaiming Halloween.

Halloween is upon us again.

As a child, my parents went thru various stages of shunning halloween. There were years we didn't go trick or treating because my mother was convinced that Halloween was pagan practice unfit for Christians. Then there was the discovery of the true feast of all Saints. Suddenly we wore costumes again and eventually even my mother caved to peer pressure and we were trick or treating again. I never gave all the philosophical dilemmas much thought until I had my own children.

In the end I decided I do let my children go trick-or -treating. Here is why.

In Catholic Tradition we always take what is good about pagan traditions and keep it because it fits in with some aspects of Christian theology and the bad stuff we pitch, like a fabulous cheese with a few moldy spots that can be cut off. True, some cultures have let their cheese rot so badly that the whole thing has to be tossed out but usually just like a good mom, Mother Church tries to see if there is something salvageable The bad stuff of paganism (child sacrifice, etc) is shunned and denounced. Its a pretty simple formula and its worked well for centuries.

So when I returned to my analysis of Halloween I realized that the Church has put together the feasts of All Souls and All Saints. Not separated them, mind you, put them together. They are also placed at a time of year when traditionally pagan cultures turned their thoughts to the shades and spirits that dwell beyond the pale.

There is something important, something necessary about acknowledging fear, and death. They are real and increasingly we live in a culture where death is hidden and ignored. Reminding ourselves on Halloween of death and decay and fear are important, because only then does the triumph of the saints make sense and Christ's victory over them hold weight.

Yes there is a line to be walked between mocking the devils' power, and celebrating ugliness and decay, but walk it me must. I think that dressing as saints, (often offered as an alternative to other costumes) is great and should be encouraged, but the point of the saints (whose feast day follows the morning after Halloween) is that they faced these fears and triumphed . The saints' victory means nothing if act as though all is sweetness and light in this world.

Lastly the feast of all Souls is the church's plea to feed the dead (spiritually of course with acts of prayer and penance) We the faithful need one another in a very real way. just as we depend on one another for material sustenance in this life we need to think of the poor and unfortunate souls still awaiting heaven who hunger spiritually. Reminding ourselves of death reminds us of those who have passed on and are still awaiting heaven.

So yes, I celebrate Halloween.



All that being said, here is what I don't like about the modern American Halloween: the chance to mass market thousands of cheap disposable costumes and shameless commercialism. Loading up kids with tons of fake sugar,especially the attitude that it is a chance to "get the stuff" drive me crazy. This is all similar to the much more shocking butchering of Christmas. Still, all the more reason to celebrate properly or is just casualty surrendered to the cause of secularization. And that is scary, indeed.