the heroic details

My love for Tolkien and his writings have lead to me to read many books about both him and his wonderful works.  Perhaps it is because I am a mother, but the more I read about Tolkien, the more I find myself drawn to and inspired by his mother, Mabel. I believe she can serve as a beautiful source of encouragement for Catholic mothers, single mothers, and homeschooling mothers. Mabel, the single mother. Mabel and her husband, Arthur, were living in South Africa when J.R.R. Tolkien and his younger brother, Hilary, were born.  Mabel never liked living in South African and, shortly after Tolkien's 3rd birthday, she returned to England with her two boys.  Arthur had to stay in South Africa because of his job, but he intended to return to his family in England as soon as he could.  Unfortunately, he was never able to because he contracted rheumatic fever.  As his condition worsened, Mabel made plans to return to South Africa to care for him.  That never happened either, because A

I sit down to write this on the final day of May.  I just nursed the two-year-old to sleep, laid her in the bed, cracked the window, and sat down at my desk with a steaming mug of tea and tiny cup of chocolate chips.  A cool breeze is gently fluttering the curtains, a rabbit is nibbling on something in the yard, and a light but silent rain falls. This month the children asked me if they could make youtube videos.  I said yes, and also agreed to assist them.  We began to bring our camera on our adventures and to film our days, after which I would edit the footage into something cohesive before uploading it to our channel.  We made videos at the park, the nature center, the lake, the library, the children's museum, and the farm.  We made videos of us baking and having tea, making popsicles and eating them, and even trying to potty train Isabelle.  The kids also acted out a couple of little skits.  It's been a lot of fun for all of us.  I am certain that I will c

I fell to a cold on Holy Saturday - the 15th of April - and I'm still fighting it today, the 2nd of May.  It has been 18 days of a particularly harsh cold that I am only just now beginning to recover from.  Of course, it threw the last two weeks of April completely off-kilter and has forced a turbulent start to May. Over the last two weeks I came to an important decision for our family.  A decision that I still don't know is the right or wrong one, but the one I think  needs  to be made.  Sometimes necessary decisions are not always the "best" decisions, they are simply inescapable.  I fear shame, ridicule, and judgment from others when they find out. I'm literally standing at my computer desk to write this, gently rocking and swaying to keep the toddler asleep in the carrier on my back.  Even sitting  at a desk is sometimes too much to ask in this season of my life. My parents came on the last day of March, a Friday.  The arrived in the late afternoo

The onset of March always reminds me of this quote from Charles' Dickens Great Expectations : “It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.” March has these intermittent bursts of warm sunshine mingled with chilling rain, and a persistent cold in the breeze can still pierce you.  It is early Spring.  The best days of Spring aren't here yet, but they're close.  The anticipation makes you want to burst, much like all the hyacinth shooting up out of the dirt. In my kids case, it makes them want to wear shorts and ditch their jackets when it's not yet "wear shorts and ditch your jacket" kind of weather.  They cross their bare arms and shiver as we walk into a store, but an hour later they're rolling windows down in the car because they are too hot.  This is March. What I'm Doing I'm waking up every morning, pulling open the blinds, seeing