Trying Something New

Part of praying the Hours, or really any Prayer Rule, is the Psalter.  In the Roman Catholic Liturgy of the Hours, you pray most of the Psalter over a four-week cycle.  In the Eastern Churches, the Psalter is divided into twenty sections or parts, called Kathisma, and you pray the entire thing once a week. (Twice weekly during the Great Fast).

This is my first Philip's Fast as an official Ruthenian Byzantine Catholic, so I am trying to incorporate some Eastern practices into this period of preparation for the Nativity of Our Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ.  Silvia, who blogs here, is doing a Kathisma Psalter prayer group in which participants each pray one Kathisma each day for the period of the Philip's Fast, praying the Psalter twice through in that time.  You are assigned a beginning Kathisma and then you just pray them in order every day - this means that every day the entire Psalter is prayed, and because the names are on the post I linked, we are all praying for each other.  I think that's beautiful!

As for the rest of what I'm doing for the Fast, I am of course adhering to the St. Martin's Fast guidelines of the Confraternity of Penitents and will try to be vegan on Wednesdays and Fridays (too much vegan makes me cranky, I have to have a bit of cheese or some cream in my coffee). This, plus the rotating Psalter prayers, the Hours and my other intercessory prayers, should make for a (hopefully) fruitful Philip's Fast.

Where Have All the Paper Boys Gone?

I recently began following Lenore Skenazy's blog, Free Range Kids.  Reading the posts has made me much more aware of, shall we say, "less-than-free-range" opinions coming out in casual conversation.  Just a couple of days ago I was reminiscing with someone about the way things used to be, and the convo turned to paper boys:

ME:  Remember paper boys?  I was a paper boy [actually I was a paper girl, but I digress].  Why don't they let kids deliver newspapers any more - oh yeah, something BAAAAAD might happen.

OTHER PERSON:  Yes, the paper companies are probably worried about kids being molested or kidnapped, or something even worse, so they were smart to switch to adults and make the routes only easily done in a vehicle. That way they don't have to worry about parents suing them.

ME:  You know, now that I think about it, I would say it is actually safer for kids to deliver papers now than in was when I was a paper carrier.  Now the customers can pay online, by mail or phone, and the carrier does not need to have any personal contact with the customer at all.  When I carried papers, I had to collect the money every two weeks from my customers, most of whom I dealt with in person.  Also, papers don't have to be delivered as early in the morning now; I delivered evening papers but my Sunday route had to be done before 7 am and now the deadline on Sundays is 9 am.

OP:  You're probably right about the things you mentioned, but you've not considered the pervs who lie in wait for kids out unsupervised.

ME:  And just how many stories have been in the news about kids carrying newspapers who have been assaulted, kidnapped, molested, killed, etc.?

OP:  {crickets}

ME:  exactly.

A Home Economics (or Lack Thereof) Lesson

Lightning McQueen has a 4H meeting this evening and this is our month to do snack.  I needed something for 45 (!) kids that wouldn't put me in the poorhouse - most families bring granola bars or a veggie tray and juice boxes, but after I checked the prices I decided to do apple juice in a jug (2 gallons) and homemade oatmeal cookies.  Lightning and I made a double batch of cookies yesterday, and he and the other two were told in no uncertain terms that there was to be no cookie thievery, because we still needed to bake another double batch of cookies to have enough (we had to do them over 2 days because Crockpot and Drumstick only lay one egg each per day and I'd sold all but 2 eggs on Saturday afternoon).

This afternoon I was finishing up a project and I could hear Lightning in the kitchen cracking eggs, so I came downstairs after a few minutes - ready to really lay on the compliments for taking the initiative to bake the rest of the cookies on his own.

Imagine my, um, astonishment to find HALF the already-baked cookies EATEN, and a good amount of the cookie dough of the as-yet-unbaked batch gone as well.

Now all three of them are in the kitchen making a double batch of shortbread to make up for the cookies they ate (had to be shortbread because I can't think of another kind of cookie that doesn't require eggs that we also have all the ingredients for).  Sigh.

Someday I will laugh about this, just like I may be able to eventually laugh about the time I stayed up past midnight the night before a homeschooler's meeting to bake cookies for 25 kids and when I got up the next morning over half of them were gone.

My children are very sanctifying at times.

I've got the joy, joy, joy, joy, down in my heart........

I sincerely hope that no one ever says that I am a joyless person.  I wouldn't mind very much being called ugly, or vain, or opinionated, or weird, because I think of myself as those things quite often.  But to be called joyless? That would really hurt.

Go see what Father Dwight has to say about that.

Happy Veteran's Day!

Today was our annual Veteran's Day visit to the WV National Cemetery in Grafton.  The photo above is a memorial plaque outside the office and gravesite locator kiosk at the entrance to the cemetery.

Some views of the graves of those who served our country.

 The above is the gravestone of the husband of one of my mother's friends.

 Above and below are photos of the oldest grave in the cemetery, a soldier who fought in the Spanish-American War.  This grave was relocated from the original National Cemetery in Grafton (which we have yet to visit; perhaps next year) which is closed to new interments.

One day I'd like to go to Arlington and witness the wreath-laying at the Tomb of the Unknowns there, but until then this is a very fitting substitute.

If you served our country, in any capacity, during war or peacetime, please accept my heartfelt thanks and know that you are in my prayers today.  If you are the family member or loved one of one who served, thank you also.  If you didn't serve, please thank someone who did!

This evening we'll be attending the Veteran's Day parade, in which Birdman will be marching as a member of a color guard.  I'll take pictures and post them in a future entry.

Pardon my Rant, Please.

I went downtown this morning to pick up some work from a boutique for which I do "overflow" tailoring, and when I came back home the pictures below are what greeted me at the entrance to my neighborhood.  Our neighborhood, while not as historically 'pretty' as some others in my town, is a really nice place to live, relatively quiet (unless you live on the hill below me; then you have to deal with college students' loud raucous parties at intervals throughout each semester) and has some nice old - as in over 100 years old - homes.  I know about the 100+-year-old homes because I live in one of them.

Anyway, about a year and a half ago our neighborhood association decided to commission two signs at the most-used entrances to our part of town, this sign is the larger of the two and is two blocks from my house.  the other sign is very similar but is about 1/3 the size.  The original sign was designed by Jamie Lester, who used to live about 3 blocks from me and who designed the scene found on the West Virginia state quarter.  The sign was installed, a nice flower bed was designed and planted, and we Woodburnites were quite happy with it until about a month after it went in, it was stolen.  Someone dismounted it from the brackets that hold it to the posts and just carried the whole thing away.  If you look at the pictures you can see that this would not exactly be a 5-minute job; it was held in place by a whole bunch of lag bolts and the posts are 4x4 lumber.  No trace of it was ever found, so the NA had a replacement made and installed around the beginning of last summer.  Now this.  I am just disgusted that someone thought this was a fun thing to do.  It's one thing for college students (yes, I think this was a college 'prank') to throw plastic cups around in the street after a wild party, to hold mud wrestling bouts in a kiddie pool in their back yard, to carouse until ungodly hours when their neighbors (including yours truly) are trying to sleep - those are things that the Litter Control Officers and Police Department are quite capable of doing something to deter.  But this is unconscionable.  I hope by some miracle of the internet, the perpetrators' parents happen upon this post, realize THIS is what their kids were vaguely bragging about, and haul their sorry butts to the police station to turn them in. 

Oh, and you can see in the bottom photo that they stole the street signs from the pole at the intersection (and pushed the pole over too), as well as signs from SEVEN other intersections within 3 blocks of my house.  Yeah, real mature.

Things to Think About

My high school graduating class was the last to get all the way through primary and secondary education without any influence from the federal government via the Department of Education.

What do bishops and cardinals talk about when they are not being bishops and cardinals?  I occasionally have a mental image of a few bishops around a kitchen table in some episcopal rectory somewhere, playing Monopoly; a couple of cardinals in a hotel room after some sort of synodal session, arguing over who is going to go fill the ice bucket and yelling at the tv over a game of football.

My yard looks naked without any endorsement signs.  I am forcing myself to wait to publish a congratulatory post until the election results here are certified.  It's very difficult, but I could always use more patience.

I am very thankful that I only have one more Tuesday night of Reader's Class (I got another 'that was beautiful' at last night's class).  Being a Church Reader is a lot more than 'pick up the book and do the reading.'

You meet the nicest people in the unlikeliest places sometimes.