Deogratias

The season is not over for our players.

The two youngest coincidentally have the same team name.

 

A Confirmation and Some Congratulations

The following photograph confirms our decision ...

to make television, video games and computers completely off limits for all children in our household until further notice.

This young man in the photograph reading the newspaper during lunch time is the same boy whose life was a continual quest to find some sort of electronic entertainment just two short months ago.  He would sneak and watch in the closet or through a window or creep into Mom and Dad's room from the back porch.  He would lie on the bed with his thumb in his mouth and be southed by the "idiot box".  Now he's reading the paper and asking me the meaning of words he reads.  Now he's building things and creating games and doing.

Let's not forget the congratulations today.  Congratulations to Alex who soon will have a brand new Kawai upright piano to play.  He wants it NOW, but he will  have to wait a little while for the piano to be voiced and delivered.  As soon as I can find our video camera which is in a box somewhere, I'll be making a recording of his playing and attempt to post it here.

Finally, we are very sad that our Atlanta Braves have ended their season rather than going to the playoffs like they did for 14 years in a row (a record not surpassed by those wretched NY Yankees, BTW).  However, we are happy that our own Chipper Jones who won the 2008 MLB batting title. 

Tracy Carmony of Channel 11 News wrote the following:

Chipper Jones walked in his only at-bat against Houston on Sunday and earned his first National League batting title, edging St. Louis' Albert Pujols.

Jones finished with a career-high .364 average; Pujols went 1-for-2 on Sunday to finish at .357. Jones' average was the highest for an NL batting champ since Barry Bonds won with a .370 average in 2002.

"It's a tremendous feather in the cap, from an individual standpoint," Jones said. "It's one of those things that brings instant credibility. Hopefully, I already had it around the league. But once you have the label of batting champion, you're respected and recognized by that."

Go here to read the  whole article. 

I Love Fresh Food

It may sound strange but one of the most heartwarming occurrences around here was walking into the room and finding my 10-year-old son eating an apple nearly to the core.  I said something to the effect that the apples sure are good, and he replied something like this. "They're great!  This is real food made by God."

If you don't know this particular 10-year-old boy well,  you are unaware of  how picky he has always been about food.  He ate baby food for about 2 weeks and then he began refusing it.  From that point on, about 9 months or so, he had only breast milk until he was able to put food into his mouth and eat it himself.  He never ate a vegetable until he was 3 1/2 years old, and then we made him sit at the table until the vegetables were eaten.  It involved many tears.

So, to reward my apple-eating boy and his  brothers, I made a delicious Apple Cake, with recipe courtesy of Nadja Magdelena at Patch of Dirt Farm.  The apples come from our neighbor's orchard.  They're not too pretty from a marketing standpoint, but they sure are yummy.

 

And here's the cake prior to baking with my biggest helper.

Other treats obtained from our neighbor's orchard as well as from a couple vines on our property are muscadine grapes - yummy.  I've been walking all over eating them and spitting the seeds on the ground in hopes that more will pop up next year.  I'm the only one who likes them so far, but I'm hoping with enough exposure that will change.  After all, at one point Alex didn't like apples either.

 

Speaking of fresh food, I just said goodbye to my favorite seller at our local weekly farmer's market.  With his once huge supply of tomatoes, beans and okra dwindling down to nothing, he said this will probably be his last week.  "But Lord willing, I'll be back next year,"  he told me. 

I bought some green beans from him a while back which were delicious.  And snapping them brought back memories of sitting under the tree in my grandparents' back yard and snapping beans for canning.  It was so cool how my grandfather grew the food and my grandmother canned it every year.  I wish I had been able to appreciate it at the time, but hopefully they know that I appreciate it now. 

I have grown to realize that nothing tastes better than fresh homegrown  grown food.  I hope that is something I'll be able to pass on to my boys.  I know that it's an uphill climb trying to ignore the seductions of advertisers portraying their "fake food" items as delicious.  It takes a lot of my own "advertising" around here to counteract that.  And of course it helps that the boys have been off of TV for nearly a month now.  Only the Braves games, of course. 

Piano Stories

Alex has now been taking piano lessons for three years, and while he hasn't progressed as quickly as some, he has mastered many songs and had some great performances.  Last Sunday was no exception.  He played Minuet 1 by Bach and did a superb job. 

 

Next he will begin working on a piece not in the Suzuki Piano book to break things up.  His teacher's recommendation, which we were very enthused about, is The Entertainer, by Scott Joplin.  Can't wait to get started.

So at long last we've decided that if Alex is going to continue playing, we're going to have to get him a better piano.  No, we can't afford a grand, but we're looking at some studio uprights and hope to be making a purchase shortly.  It's tough making a decision on something like this, of which we have very little knowledge.  One piano dealer tells us one thing and another tells us the opposite.  Who do we believe?  Which one really sounds better?  I can't tell!!

Useful Science Projects

My science project for the day is homemade deodorant.  I found the recipe here a while back and have been meaning to try it out for a while.  It seems pretty simple:

3 Tablespoons shea butter
3 Tablespoons baking soda
2 Tablespoons corn starch
2 Tablespoons cocoa butter
2 vitamin E oil gel caps (puncture and squeeze out the oil)
Essential Oil

Melt all the ingredients (except the oils) and stir. Microwave for 30 seconds.  Add the oils, stir and  pour in a jar.  Place into jar and place in refrigerator to set.  Yield 1/2 pint.

I bought some essential oil at a local herb shop and ordered the shea butter and cocoa butter here.  The rest came from my grocery store.

I hope this works out, because I'm looking forward to taking deodorant off of my grocery list.  We've already eliminated shampoo and conditioner and will soon be off of Tide as well. 

I'll post about that later, but suffice it to say the homemade hair cleaner has been a big hit around here.  My hair has never been more manageable and shiny, and it doesn't get dirty nearly as often.  The kids love it too and their hair looks great!  We do get funny looks when we tell people we haven't used shampoo in a couple of months though.

The Red Cape Tango and the Planets

Imagine taking a 10 year old boy to see a symphony only to find that the first piece was written in honor of Superman!  I could hardly believe it when the conductor made this announcement.  Alex and I just smiled at each other.

It's called The Red Cape Tango, and it's the final piece in Michael Daugherty's The Metropolis Symphony.  It was incredible, with lots of drama and cool sound effects. 

The review in Amazon said this:

Michael Daugherty is one of a talented and eclectic group of American composers who have successfully worked in both rock and classical music styles. His compositions celebrate American popular culture--his latest opera, Jackie O, is based on the life of you know who. His largest and most ambitious work to date is this suite of pieces based on characters and events from the Superman comic strip. Rumor has it that the original title was supposed to be "Superman" Symphony, but Marvel Comics wouldn't give permission to use the name. In any case, the music is jazzy, snazzy, faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to ... you get the picture. --David Hurwitz

Next was an incredible piano soloist from Moscow with the orchestra playing Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini by Serge Rachmaninoff.  You can hear it if you listen to my music.  The pianist was incredible! 

After intermission the orchestra played The Planets by Gustav Holst.  Included was Mars, the Bringer of War and Venus, the Bringer of Peace and Saturn, Bringer of Old Age. 

Alex disagreed with the title for Venus, saying that it shouldn't be called the bringer of peace because it is the planet which most closely resembles hell.  When I asked him how he knew what hell was like he informed me that St. John Bosco had been to hell and that he said that it was very hot!

Another Sad Event

Update:  My grandmother died peacefully on September 13th at 6:25 a.m.  Her funeral will be on Tuesday morning.  She will be buried next to her husband and my mother.

I received a couple of phone calls tonight regarding the health of my 102 year old grandmother.  She lost her husband 50 years ago, her oldest son 10 years ago and her oldest daughter  in May, and it looks like she will be leaving this world soon as well.  Apparently she may not survive the night.

I say it is sad, but it's not exactly sad for  her.  She has told my husband and me several times that she was ready to die, not because she is depressed, but she has told us that she is ready to move on.  It's hard when you get to the point where you can't do anything that you like to do she said. 

Grandma is  a good Catholic woman who attends Mass as often as she can and receives communion even if she can't attend Mass.  The priest that said my mother's funeral Mass spoke so fondly of my grandmother and the joy he received everytime he visited her. 

Her name is Margaret and she was born in 1906.  Please pray for  her, her remaining 3 children and all of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

 

Just today I was looking forward to visiting her on our return trip to Pennsylvania in November.  She was so wise the last time we saw  her in her reflections on my mother's death. 

"Sure we'll miss her, but we're just gonna have to get used to it," she told us.  "She's better off."  My aunt thought that sounded harsh, but I knew what she meant.  I knew she had cried at the funeral and getting over her loss was going to be difficult.  After all, my mother was her primary caregiver up until a couple of months prior to her death.  I knew she was going to have a hard time getting used to it.

Grandma was so appreciative of the lovely flowers we took her from the funeral, as well as the flowers so many others had sent her.  She sat and chatted with us for about 20-30 minutes, despite the long sad day.  How sad it is that that is probably the last time.

The Great American Pass-time

As Skip Caray would have said, we got 4 1/2 innings of free baseball on Sunday.  Andrew managed to squeeze in a nap too!   
A ball boy threw a game ball to Jacob, which he is keeping as a prized souvenier.  We spent  innings in the hot sun,  6 1/2 innings in the shade and a disappointing loss for our team...

 

The kids got to run the bases!

 

They even got to hang out in front of the dugout for a minute.

 

And see an interesting airplane car.

 

In the end we got to stand and look at the nearly empty stadium.   What a day!

 

Then last night, Jacob, Alex and I got to do it again.  We got 4 free tickets from Home Depot for buying $200 worth of stuff during the month of July.  We sat on the other side of the field this time, and got to watch Chipper Jones' 21's homerun of the season fly over the wall, as well as 2 homeruns from Kelly Johnson!  What a blast. 

Week in Review II

Thursday we went to Homeschool Soccer.  Nicholas and Andrew are playing, and I'm so glad they are.  In the morning they were balking about havinig to go, but when it was over they kept going on and on about how much fun they have.  And at this time they are outside with Lee playing soccer in the yard.

 

 

Friday night Lee and I went to a dinner for volunteers at the church.  Then Saturday was baseball day.  Andrew had so much fun playing for the first time. He was the only one on his team to get an opponent out, and one of the few who was actually paying attention.  You know how it goes with 5 and 6 year olds!

 

Nicholas struck out and had to play  outfield, but he had a great time!

 

On the way home we saw a live snake in the middle of the road.

Sunday we'll be going to 8 a.m. Mass and then attending the 1:35 Braves game.  We're not taking any of the dogs, despite the fact that it is "Bark in the Park", but we do plan on taking advantage of Kids Run the Bases Day!  Can't wait!!

The Week in Review I

Sunday we experienced Hurricane Max and Hurricane Cleo.  We had friends over and were preparing homemade ice cream, but after hearing a loud noise we discovered the ice cream bucket was turned over in the mud.    These shots are all that was left after they got finished with it. \

We punished the puppies by making them sleep outside, but it turned out to be punishment for ourselves when we awoke Monday to find the mess: 

Lee worked on our new gate and I spread lime on our future lawn.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tuesday must have been uneventful because I don't have any shots from that day.  I think we just stayed inside and rested.

Wednesday I took the Alex and Nicholas to their Simple Machines class, which they both enjoyed. I amused myself while waiting by sitting in the garden reading and observing the amazing nature.  See the and the bee on the butterfly bush, and the huge black and yellow argiope spider. This just confirms my decision to plant a bunch of these bushes around the house.

 

The photos from the rest of the week included cute shots of the kids, so I'm going to have to include them in The Week in Review II