Mama-luia

So I showed you my little Christmas tribute to Patrick. But it wouldn't be fair to ignore the beautiful thing he did for me. And really, it was beautiful. For starters, when we first moved in here, we made strides in setting up the kitchen (an essential for my sanity's sake), our living room and our bedroom. Patrick's office became kind of a "dumping ground" for office-related things, and only recently is beginning to take some shape and order. And then there was Noah's room. Since he was sleeping in our room for quite awhile, we just kept putting off decorating it. Or even, tidying it. There were stacks of outgrown clothes everywhere, waiting to be put somewhere, piles of kids books, and basically every generic baby item just sort of existed in this room, all without a clear place to be. On several occasions I cried over this. I would try and get things organized and feel like a failure because I couldn't figure out where to begin. I felt eve...

(If you are looking for some inspiration for mindful mothering, go here or h ere . If you want to bake something show-stopping, go here or here . But since this is my blog, I won't provide you with either. Consider yourself warned: this is a mindless post. If you want to read something mindless, continue on.) I have a rash on my arms. A nasty, burning bright red rash. Every time I try and wash the dishes, the water stings so much I feel like I'm going to weep. I was pointing this out to Patrick -- dare I say, complaining? -- when he said, why not wear rubber gloves? It hadn't occurred to me! ... And yet, something in me revolted at wearing rubber gloves to go about my daily tasks. I hate the sensation of them on my hands, and I know whenever I wear a ring with rubber gloves, they bother me all the more (and now that I am married, the ring doesn't come off... even if I wanted to take it off... chubby having-had-a-baby fingers.... ). But the dishes need to get do...

I have been meaning to show you something since Epiphany.... I have no good reason for putting off posting it, but here it is: In our efforts to make Christmas simpler, Patrick and I decided to make gifts for each other this year. Now, I'm not very crafty, or sew-y, but I can do a little bit of each. Here is my attempt at something for my dear, hardworking (dare I say, overworked ?) husband. He slaves away so Noah and I can play all day (well, that is, stay at home together)! This wall-hanging is now proudly found on our bedroom door. As you can see, it spells the word "love" -- all from repurposed fabric which had interesting purposes to begin with. The letter "l" is from a fabric scrap of one of the first d resses I ever made. I was in grade 5, I was taking sewing lessons, and wearing ankle-length spaghetti strap dresses over ribbed long-sleeve tees was all the rage (what?! I was born to be a homeschooling mother, what with such a uniform!). ...

On Sunday coming home from Mass, both Patrick and I complained, "Oh shoot! We forgot to buy the chalk!" We dashed over to my parents' house, in hopes of finding some, but there was none to be found. Since we don't go shopping on Sundays unless absolutely necessary, we were chalk-less on Sunday. Why, pray tell, would I want chalk? Because Sunday was the feast of the Epiphany (in Canada, at least) , and it's traditionally the day for the blessing of the homes. We heard of this tradition originally through Madonna House, and our very Madonna House-oriented friends. Something just seized me about it's beauty and simplicity. Christmas, despite our best efforts to be as un-commercialized as possible, is still a really noisy busy day. We were very blessed to exchange much simpler gifts with our family -- we were given especially thoughtful homemade gifts from my sister! -- and our day was pared down to only one turkey dinner this year, instead of two (yes...