I made some progress over the last week on the sweater’s neckline. Alas, I think I’m going to have to frog it back because I’ve gotten too many stitches on the needles. I do think I have conquered the new skills for the increases though, so these rows will go much faster once I start again. I knew starting something like this would definitely test my limited skill set, but the only way to learn is to practice and try new things!
I’ve been reading back through Laying Down the Rails, which I’ve had forever and have read once before. Sonya basically collated all of Charlotte Mason’s writings about discipline and forming character into one volume. It has very little commentary from Sonya herself, but many helpful notes and explanations in the margins that further clarify what Charlotte is discussing. After reading A Mother’s Rule of Life I realized that we had fallen off the tracks, so to speak, in character training and development, and this resource is helping me think and pray through where I’d like to go from here.
The children and I are reading through The Mysterious Benedict Society
Sharing with Ginny.
from Ginny’s giveaway last month, and it arrived just as we left on our travels. I cannot say enough good about this book. I truly have walked away from my time with this book in the last two weeks with such a deep and profound sense of peace. I am sure that must surprise one, seeing as how the word ‘rule’ is in the title, but really and truly. Lovely. I’m not even sure where to start with my thoughts regarding it. I remember being a young mother, with first one little baby and then two, in my little snug house on a hill, and how much I rejoiced in the simple tasks of motherhood and homemaking. Perhaps it was because it was all new, and such a tremendous change from my life previously, but I remember that time very, very fondly. When I think of that time, I think of peace. But as is true, another chilld comes a long, or two, or three, or four, and life gets super intense and well, just explodes! Crisis happens: a cancer scare. A lost job. The death of a child. Serious illness. Two plus years of unemployment and then under-employment. More serious illness. And we forget why we’re here and why we’re doing it.
. It seems my predictions about Gale were true. I was so unbelievably sad when Finnick died- after all he had been through and experienced and sacrificed, to die in the sewers seemed especially unjust. At least he had some time with Annie. And Peeta. Man oh man oh man. Wow. And Prim! And President Snow! And, and, and, and….wow. It is definitely a roller coaster ride to the end. And Katniss. I have to say, she’s the first heroine in literature lately that is represented honestly. I deeply appreciate that as a woman. She doesn’t win on beauty. She doesn’t win on wit. She doesn’t even on win on skill. She doesn’t win, period. She loses so much. In the end, she lives, and that is enough, and that is the brave thing. To bring forth life into so much death and brokenness-that was her true act of bravery. To let love win. If there’s anything I carry away from this series, it is that. So so good.
