Holy Cow has it been miserably hot here. It’s been hot and sticky with high temperatures and high humidity for about 10 days now, and wow, is it wearing on all of us. Thankfully we have window AC units for bedrooms, so the kids are sleeping well at night, but during the day, everyone is crankier than usual. Buuuut, rain is in the forecast, and the sky actually looks dark, so I’ve got my fingers crossed that it will cool off a little bit, even for a little while.
In the meantime, as we wait for the rain, here are some updates about our family . . . .
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1.The MOST EXCITING part of my week came when I found out that my Marian Consecration for Families with Young Children is available for pre-order on Amazon! I was expecting it to happen in a few weeks, so I don’t have all the details I wanted to have for you ready ready yet along with this announcement, but they’re coming soon I promise (along with a special thank you for those who do pre-order).
One thing I do want to share, because people have asked, and the “Look Inside” feature is not active yet on Amazon, is how the book is structured and what you’ll be getting when you purchase it. The book follows St. Louis de Montfort’s traditional 33 day period, but the topics for each day’s meditation are designed to help introduce your child to a Marian devotion. There are days on Mary’s childhood, major apparitions, what we can learn from Mary, and even a section to help guide your family through the process of Lectio Divina.
Each day has a simple meditation and some conversation starters designed to engage your child, and they sit opposite gorgeous full page illustrations from Rebecca Gorzynska (seriously, you’ll be bowled over by how amazing they are). In the back of the book, parents will find a section that is devoted to helping them explain the day’s topic to their children, where to find more resources, and how to answer some of the questions the topic might bring up.
I’m beyond thrilled with how the book turned out, and cannot wait for it’s release date in September. In the meantime, make sure you’re up to date with all of the pre-launch and launch day fun that’s coming by signing up for the Elevator to Heaven Newsletter and following me on instagram (and pre-order your copy too!).
2. Today is Friday, which means it’s the actual end of our week. Mark gets 3 of the 4 weekends a month off now that he’s full-time urology. It’s really wonderful . . . except for that 4th weekend. That one is miserable. We experienced our first one last weekend, and the man worked 18 hour days for 4 days straight (Thursday-Sunday) because he was covering patients at 4 different hospitals. And then he went to work as usual on Monday morning. Yikes it was rough on all of us.
Buuuuuut this weekend someone else in his program is on call, and we get to enjoy 2 whole days with him. I’m hoping that we can get some projects done around the house, and am very much looking forward to not being the only parent at home to tell the kids to pick up their toys.
3. Our garden is booming! My mom always had beautiful gardens growing up, and while I adore having flowers around (and we have tons of those too), I find that I often forget about them and don’t take the joy in caring for and tending them that she does. I just assumed I wasn’t cut out to be a gardener, until this year when I had the chance to grow vegetables. I have loved watching our veggies grow and take such joy in the watering and weeding.
So far we have tomatoes and peppers ripening, and snap peas that the kids harvest daily for snacks. The watermelon, cantaloupe, and spaghetti squash are all in blossom, and we have teeny tiny cucumbers growing. Our old next door neighbors gave us a cutting of their black raspberry bush when we moved, and that is producing at least a handful of fruit each day, much to the children’s delight, and the baby blueberry bush we added this year has obliged us by producing a few gorgeous berries.
4. Homeschooling is going well this summer (you can check out the full post on that), and, joy of joys, we were able to start G’s therapy up again this week. They had a great first session back, and there is already a marked change in G afterward. She is much more peaceful after her time with Amanda, and much more settled in herself. We’ve known that the quarantine has been hardest on our social butterfly, but hearing her open up missing friends and family today was more than a little heartbreaking, though I’m so grateful she has an outlet for her feelings. And it was good for my momma-heart to be reassured that she is really okay and all will be well.
5. I am reading an amazing book, and the further I get into, the more people I want to tell about it. It’s called Lies My Teacher Told Me, and is all about high school U.S. history textbooks (because for most of us that ‘s the last history class we had) and the way that they do and do not cover different events. I’ve been shocked by the things I didn’t know, and grateful for what I was actually taught, and it’s definitely making me look at what I want to teach my own kids. It’s well worth a read.
Okay, that’s just 5 for today, but they were long ones and it’s time I got some chores done.
Happy weekend all! And don’t forget to click on over to Kelly for the rest of the quick takes.