House Art Journal

The photoshoot from this year's Wonderfully Fashioned Tea & Fashion show takes as its inspiration the Mysteries of the Rosary.

  I've started to move my writing over to Substack, an app I've been reading for years. I'll try to still post here but I wanted to invite you to subscribe if you are interested.  Click here to subscribe.

  A student of mine gifted our family this hand-carved statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and it is a joy to display it throughout the month of June, with flowers from my garden. Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us and on our country.

My daughter is now married. Like my own marriage and childbirth, my main emotional reaction to this event was, "How am I supposed to feel?" There was joy and pleasure but also simple shock at the momentousness of the moment, so unnerving as to be unreal. These are the sort of pivots in the stream of life which you have to keep holding up in front of you and wondering over.  I remember my own wedding bouquet, made by a florist, so huge I termed it a "bush" and ripped it down to half its size. We forgot about it at the reception. On my honeymoon, I threw it into Lake Michigan and watched the pink petal roses and white freesia float off dreamily in the vast silver and blue and gray magnificence of the Lake. My own daughter wanted a bouquet from my flower garden instead of the florist, and decreed that I only was entrusted to make it. Her groom's mother had bought her lilies, since my daughter loves them and there were none in my garden, but I paired these with whit...

This post was supposed to have been published years ago, but I never got around to putting it together. For the sake of my sister, I'm doing it now. It's fall, and fall is the perfect time for a cloak. Unlike cardigans which are more of a spring thing, cloaks seem particularly fitting to fall, mainly because, unlike cardigans, cloaks communicate mystery. And mystery is precisely the sort of ambience you want for Halloween! These directions are for a sort of cloak poncho, the simplest kind to make and wonderful for children. The first step is to buy the right amount of fleece in the color you want. Our family uses either gray or red, for obvious literary reasons. Take the child you'll be making the cloak for and (you can do this in the store) measure the amount of fabric you'll need to buy to cover them from the part of the legs where you want the bottom of the cloak to fall (knees, calves, etc.) up to their shoulders, and double it. If you want the cloak floor length, m...

To subscribe to  The Culture Recovery Journals on Substack, click here! For the past year, as part of my morning ritual, I've been handwriting my thoughts on recovering culture in our rapidly culture-less society in some little journals, about fifteen minutes a day. This past fall I was delighted to see the first article to come out of it published in Soul Gardening Journal . Entitled, "A Theology of Locality," it discusses how important proximity is to our souls. Catholic spirituality underlines this: the sacraments cannot be received by avatar: you need to be physically present in order to receive Christ in the Eucharist, to receive His mercy in confession, or even to attend Mass. In our Technopoly, such proximity is more important than ever. I'm not going to post the article here, because Soul Gardening desperately needs subscriptions, and I want to encourage you all to subscribe, or even just donate. I'm sure you can get a copy of the journal it's in...

Today my youngest was delighting in her baby sneakers so I snapped a picture of her enjoying her feet: we received the shoes used, and, as the picture shows, they are even more well-loved now. They are certainly adorable, nearly as adorable as she is. I love the combination of the worn cotton canvas and the worn-down-to-the-plastic beads still winking in the sunlight.

Working on my new novel series from 4 am to 6 am at this desk has been a blessing this past summer. I write at a salvaged desk that just fits between our two bookshelves in our parlor ("away room") surrounded by some of our best-loved books (including the History of Middle Earth, gifted to us by a great friend). Someone noted this desk is very neat. That's because the only thing I do here is write my novel.  This is my "regular" desk where everything else in my life gets done or gets lost. I am grateful for both desks.  And there you have the two halves of my life these days.

Please consider praying and fasting today to end abortion. 

In small amounts, they can brighten my day!

Rainy day. Working on John Paul 2 High Book 5. And Cora is working on learning to crawl. I just bought the little carpet square sample on the floor at a thrift store, and it makes me absurdly happy every time I see it. I must really like rainbow colors, judging from my sticky notes on the plot analysis board.

My daughter Joan convinced us to plant popcorn this year. Popcorn must be dried, so we decided to combine drying corn with harvest decoration, thus getting a double-Morris score ("Have nothing in your home which you do not either know to be useful or believe to be beautiful." - William Morris   Both!=double Morris)

My teen daughter used a window-paint marker to make this delightful mural on the car window next to the baby's seat. What a sweet way to entertain the baby during countless hours in the car!

So many of my babies have spent time in my office next to my desk chair as I work away, and I am always trying to entertain them.  When they are little I like to dangle a soft toy above their legs so that they can move it around as they wiggle and kick--good foundation for movement control! But how to hang a soft toy easily and safely was always a concern -- until some common office tools came to the rescue. One large binder clip and two paper clips made the perfect office baby mobile, and I can change out the toy for another one to keep her interested. This will work until she gets into grabbing the toys -- then I'll either hang the mobile higher up or find something more secure than paper clips. Always glad to find something that works!

Summer is approaching and lots of us are preparing for extended vacations. Next week my daughters and teen son embark on a cross-country trip to see their uncle ordained to the priesthood, for example. Given that they are flying and hitching rides with relatives in already-crowded cars, they have to pack light. But that's fine, because for years, we've used a few principles to create a travel wardrobe that will last a week or more. Now, I didn't come up with this idea myself. I read the basic plan in the sidebar of a women's magazine when I was a teen, and committed the plan to memory. Since I don't have the original, I'm reproducing it here. Obviously the model uses a girl's wardrobe, but this is fine, since our female tendency is to pack more than we need, whereas my sons and husband would toss a toothbrush, a spare tshirt, and a pair of boxer shorts into a bag and consider themselves packed for a weeklong trip! Below, I've shown pictures ...

I should still be in bed, taking the last days of my post-partum bedrest, but it is difficult not to be swayed by a quiet early morning, and the chance of a cup of coffee and the last piece of lemon pound cake shared with your husband before the rest of the house gets up.  So I found myself stumbling out of bed, and sitting in the early morning light, and enjoying the few minutes of silence before the daily roar began.

On April 24th, 2014, our ninth child and fifth girl, Cora Regina was born at our local hospital, weighing almost 9 lbs, and unbearably cute. Even though she was our first c-section after eight home births (she was breech), we were so happy to have her with us safe and adorable!

Being that I was due to give birth, I delegated all Easter cooking to my oldest daughter -- and my, she rose to the occasion! She created a French Toast Casserole (in the pan in front of the teapot) from a magazine recipe, made even more delicious with homemade blackberry jam, which eliminated much of the cloying sweetness. When I had exclaimed several times over the flavor, she said, "Mom, what you're not tasting is corn syrup."  She served it with whipped cream from our family cow, sausage links, and exquisitely fried potatoes chopped into tiny golden pieces. My son and I had set the table using all our fun spring china -- miniature teacups, peacock-printed dessert dishes, fragile demitasse, and small gold chalices to hold the Easter eggs. A patterned folk tablecloth, painted wooden napkin rings, and cherry blossoms in blue mason jars added to the celebration of color. It was a wonderful breakfast, for a truly wonderful feast day.

On Good Friday my husband's idea of a hands-on devotional was to have the whole family pick rocks out of our freshly-tilled field, as a meditation asking The Lord to soften our stony hearts. It was a good morning's work, but we were amazed at how many rocks it generated!

Whether that Chesterton-loving guy is a collegiate bachelor or a husband of many years, we hope that this Gilbert-themed basket will make him very happy. Of course we had to start with the books, namely a G.K. Chesterton classic, Orthodoxy (and this writer's personal favorite) , although What's Wrong With the World or The Poet and the Lunatics might also work, depending on what's needed to read. Be sure to browse our collection of popular and obscure Chesterton books at www.chestertonpress.com . The second choice, like Chesterton himself, may seem absurdly whimsical: the Fairy Tale Novel Alex O'Donnell & the 40 Cyberthieves . But this book is actually dedicated to GKC himself and features a very Chestertonian adventurer, Alex, as the hero.  Lastly, any serious fan of the great man will appreciate this handsome illustrated edition of Chesterton's epic poem The Ballad of the White Horse, with extensive annotations and stunning illustrations by Ben Hat...