Thursday's List

READING: In This House of Brede by Rumer Godden. As it turns out, this is one of those books that everyone in the world knows about except me. Brede is about a group of Benedictine nuns living in cloister in the late 1950s. It is truly one of the best books I've ever read and I hate putting it down, hate that it is finite and that I'm almost finished. Rumer Godden did a remarkable job of explaining the hows and whys of cloistered life, and also of making each nun, so anonymous in their black and white habits, come to life with vivid characterization.

LISTENING TO: The beautiful sound of a vaccuum cleaner that I am not pushing: The girls and I are doing a little cleaning. Our housekeeping gets very lax over the summer.

FAVORITE NEW FIND: There is a bee-yoo-tee school in my city that offers a full range of services, from hair styling (yay!) to Brazilian waxes (eek!) for lovely low prices. The students are all supervised closely and everyone is so nice. Meelyn got her hair cut yesterday and it looks amazing. Naughtily, I told her that I wanted to wait to see how her hair came out before I scheduled an appointment for myself. She's thinking about getting a pink streak; I'm thinking about getting a manicure. Aisling is thinking that any lapses in grooming can be attended to by an extra squirt of mango-papaya body mist. We all grow at different rates.

HAPPY TO SAY: Hamlet tickets are ordered and our reservation confirmed and the first day of the workshop is less than two weeks away. I am terribly excited. It kind of feels like waiting for Christmas. Also feeling terribly pleased about our homeschool group's upcoming tours at the Indianapolis Museum of Art - I'm working with a person there and hoping to get something a little bit new for this year. And art! Art classes are working out perfectly for our schedule, plus we have the excitement of Speech Club starting up in our other homeschool group. I was a bit surprised to find out how much the girls are looking forward to this. Hm.

I also went to confession last night with the family, right before the Mass honoring Mary's assumption into heaven and that's always a good, good feeling, no matter how much I hate the idea of being held accountable for my stupidity and how much I dislike the notion of humbling myself. "Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The fervent prayer of a righteous person is very powerful," wrote St. James. It seems that he knew what he was talking about.

"Confess your sins in church, and do not go up to your prayer with an evil conscience. This is the way of life. . . . On the Lord’s Day gather together, break bread, and give thanks, after confessing your transgressions so that your sacrifice may be pure," wrote the author of the Didache in AD 70 (4:14, 14:1). It is a good to know that the four of us are doing something that has been happening since the earliest days of the Church, following the ancient pathway of Christians.

FAVORITE THING TODAY: The girls had volleyball practice for three hours this afternoon and I had that time to myself. I think back on that vacation week without them and I shudder, but having three hours every now and then is a blissful thing.

HOURS OF SLEEP LOGGED LAST NIGHT: Enough-ish.

SCRAPBOOK PAGES THIS WEEK: None! I'm enjoying not worrying about it. If it gets done, it gets done. If not, the world won't stop spinning. Truth be told, there's not that much going on in these declining weeks of summer that needs to be documented anyway.

THE CAUSE OF MY STRESS: Strangely enough, for anyone wound as tightly as I am, I don't seem to feel stressed about anything right now. I think it's because all of our homeschool stuff for the next year is falling into place with gratifying simplicity. Why is that? It makes me very nervous when I'm not....concerned....about something. There! I did it! Now I feel stressed!

PRAYING FOR: A good homeschool year for us, our seventh.