Ah, variety!

For those of you who have an interest in purchasing our eggs (see ad in sidebar), I am happy to announce that our newest flock is laying a colorful bunch this season! The traditional white, a deep brown, the ever-popular bantam egg, and also a blue-green shell (from our Araucana hens) will be featured in every dozen. Call now to place your order!

(Props to the husband, who grew, clipped, and arranged the lovely tulips and lilacs for my kitchen table. Tres fragrant!)

In which i mock myself

I've had a major case of blogger guilt lately: To blog or not to blog about this or that profound or mundane-but-beautiful moment in the life of my family at this or that fleeting moment of quite time that i just happen to get on the computer? And should i even be on the computer when it's stinking gorgeous outside?! Am i neglecting my children?

Honesty is the best policy, methinks, and i have to fess up that spring is always a very busy time around here, just like it is eveywhere else.

What, with two April birthdays (Joe is 27 tomorrow. Happy Birthday, honey!!) a trip to the zoo (pictured above, it was a blast), dispersing 12 tons of gravel hither and thither around the acreage (i've been shoveling, wheelbarrowing, dumping, raking, etc with a baby on my back and feeling quite the uber-girl while we construct a nice 400 sq.ft. patio and other garden paths), and being blessed with a crop of 80 degree days, I hardly remember we have a computer.

Distractions, distractions, distractions!

Theology - preschool style

"There was nothing, and then... God wanted me."

That phrase, lifted from a retreat talk given by one of my favorite priests of the Community of St. John, is going to be painted onto a plaque and nailed to my kids' bedroom wall.

Why not? It's a basic truth that testifies not only to the dignity of the person, but also to the uniqueness of each soul created and loved by God, and whom He will love and hold in existence forever.

Nothing.
Then me.
Forever.
Why?
Because God wanted me.
He wanted me.
He continues to want me, at every moment, and without end.
He keeps me in existence, and continues to create and love me in a way He's creating and loving noone else, because I am the only me He created.

The phrase is concise and authentic. My preschoolers can understand it already, and on so many levels. So up on their lavender wall it will go, as soon as i can find my acrylic paints.

Happy Birthday, Rosemarie!

Doesn't she make a cute 2?

Sacramentals sacrificed?

This has been the most efficacious Lent of my life. Perhaps it's because the fulfillment of my penances is, for once, not tainted by a merit-diluting sense of dread. It may also have a little bit to do with the fact that those with whom i keep company (4's and under) often confuse impiety and piety, and thereby make me the stand-out:

"Ugh, Mommy! (wipes vigorously at forehead) I gave up holy water for Lent."

Ducks!

This Indian Runner possesses the ability to mystify my fat little baby.

Firearms and Trampolines

Me to the preschooler: "Thomas, you must put your guns away right now, or else you won't participate in gymnastics tomorrow."

Is it wrong for me to be balancing the influences like this? I mean, is it very, very wrong?