Deogratias

Our Weblog Pseudonyms

OK, we've spent long enough being wishy-washy about what to call our family members on this blog.  Due to security concerns, we have decided not to use our real names.  At first I thought I would use initials or give everyone a number, but I think I want to have more fun than that.  And since the favorite topic, movie, game and thought in the house is STAR WARS, we decided to go with that.  Our 12-year old boy wants to be Darth Vader, our 9-year-old wants to be Han Solo, our 7-year-old wants to be Luke Skywalker and our 4-year-old wants to be Luke Skywalker too.  We'll go with Luke1 and Luke2 just to make everyone happy.  Dh picked Yoda and we'll call the dog Jabba the Hut.  I, being the only female, will be one of the few female characters in Star Wars - Princess Leah.  Of course, for purposes of this blog, I'll will be most often "Me" and "I".

Our Garden

We planted our vegetable garden on March 24, 2007.  It was 4 days before the Farmer's Almanace says is past the last frost, but we thought it was probably safe.  Thus far our garden consists of:

4 Celebrity Tomatoes: Medium fruit, expected maturity: end of June

6 Better Boy Tomatoes: Large fruit, expected maturity: mid July

1Big Beef Tomato: Large fruit, expected maturity early/mid July

1 Early Girl Tomato: Medium fruit, expected maturity mid May

2 Bell Peppers: 4.5" x 4", expected maturity mid July

2 Sweet Banana Peppers: unknown

2 Zucchinis: 6-8" expected maturity mid May

2 Crooknecked Squash: 6" expected maturity mid May

1 Cucumber: unknown

4 Broccoli : unknown

4 Pole Beans: unknown

Family History Research

Family history has always been important to me, and I have pursued it in spurts throughout the years.  Most recently, the death of my grandmother and the search through her old pictures has sparked my interest of late.  Pictured here is Maebelle who lived from 1886-1920.  She died leaving a husband and five sons, one of whom was my grandfather.  I am currently in a quest to learn more about her.  Her husband is WR, and he lived from 1871-1941.  My father remembers his grandfather helping him onto a city bus on the day he died. 

Our Busy Weekend

We had a fun-filled weekend full of sports and music.  It all began Friday afternoon when AP had a special piano lesson in a room full of piano teachers, parents and students.  The teacher is an expert in the Suzuki Method for piano, having studied in Japan and the US and being a teacher for many years in NY.  She came to town for the weekend to share her expertise with us.  AP played Christmas Day Secrets, and he did a wonderful job.  Many of the audience members as well as the teacher were impressed by his ability to learn the new concepts she was teaching.   I was very proud of him. 

JL and NW had baseball games on Saturday and both performed superbly.  Unfortunately, I missed JL's game because of the Parent Talk with the piano teacher. 

Sunday mass was wonderful as usual, despite the fact that all the beautiful statues and images were veiled for the Sunday before Palm Sunday.  Father explained that this is to prepare us for holy week by taking away our consolation.

Afterwards some of the boys and dad went to practice baseball for a while.  I stayed home and had fun going through my geneology material.  I managing to organize much of it and to locate a long-lost photo of my great grand parents in my box of stuff. 

The day ended with a couple of long-awaited neighborhood baseball games in the yard with many participants and much fun.    Amazingly enough, one of the games was played without a ball, but that didn't stop the fun.  All it takes is imagination!

My First Post

I would like to take this opportunity to welcome you to my brand new blog, while at the same time welcoming myself to the world of blogging.  I'm thrilled to be finally getting started with this new adventure!  If you're wondering about the blog's name, it is Latin for "Thanks be to God" as well as the name of a bishop from the 5th Century who just happens to be the Saint of the Day for today (March 22).  St. Deogratis was Bishop of Carthage in Africa and had a deep respect for the value of all human life.  Overall, I consider him a fitting patron saint for my blog.

Initially I was going to name the blog after characters in a book we are reading in our homeschool.  Robin Hood had a "Band of Merry Men", and I have a "Band of Merry Boys (4 boys and one man to be exact), and Robin Hood had "Merry Adventures" as do we.  Deogratis came up as a second thought, and I realized that our "Merry Adventures" should come second to showing our thanks to God. 

Thus, our new  two part Mission Statement has been written for me.  It is to 1) show Thanks to God, and 2) to have Merry Adventures.  If we do these things, learning will almost necessarily follow.