Welcome to This Week’s Miscellany, the occasional round up of Carrots family updates, photo dumps, books I’m reading, links I loved, and big news.
How is June almost over?! I feel like summer is flying by. As a homeschooling mom, summer is actually the season I look forward to all year because I get a little break when the kids are at vacation bible school and swim lessons. We still do some school because I like taking breaks whenever I want to during the year (AKA you can’t make me teach math today if I feel like going to the zoo). But the kids get to do a few fun summer activities here and there and I get to work on writing projects. And when I say writing projects, I mean keep plugging away at my book and try to avoid getting distracted by anything else (but all the ideas in my brain! so hard to ignore them!).
I’ve been really into this salad lately. It’s baby spinach (or baby kale, either is yummy) with blue cheese, red onion, bacon, and pickled beets. No one is more surprised than I that I am suddenly Pickled Beets Biggest Fan. I’m not even pregnant so I don’t know how to explain this wacky turn of events. Beets. Who knew?
I also have been working on setting up our family altar. We sold the little table we had at our old house for our altar because it was not going to fit in our teensy apartment at the farm and we hadn’t replaced it. But then this little gem showed up in our local Buy Nothing group! Perfect! With a little shelf for religious books! (If you don’t know about Buy Nothing groups, definitely check out the movement here. It’s basically a hyper local gift economy. I’m such a fan.)
On My Bookshelf:
This post contains Amazon affiliate links.
I just re-read Laudato Si. It is so inspiring, challenging, and hopeful. Highly recommend to every human being. And I’m in the middle of The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey. It is wonderful and I can feel a War of the Roses phase beginning for me. Why is it so fascinating?!
Podcasts:
Tsh Oxenreider and I chatted recent reads (A Man Called Ove for me and Dark Matter for her) on The Simple Show.
Christy and I had a ball nerding out over the British monarchy in our episode about The Crown vs. Victoria.
And I’m partway through this fascinating episode of The History Chicks about Lucy Maud Montgomery.
Links:
25 Struggles Only ENFPs Will Understand: Thought Catalog (Strong ENFP over here, so I related to ALL OF THIS. )
The History of Pews Is Just as Terrible and Embarrassing as You’d Imagine: Christ and Pop Culture
This fascinating piece from the Telegraph about sacred spaces prompting young people to convert.
Here’s a snippet: “Around 13 per cent of teenagers said that they decided to become a Christian after a visit to a church or cathedral, according to the figures. The influence of a church building was more significant than attending a youth group, going to a wedding, or speaking to other Christians about their faith…The study suggests that new methods invested in by the Church, such as youth groups and courses such as Youth Alpha, are less effective than prayer or visiting a church building in attracting children to the church.”
This is one of the reasons why it is SO important that church architecture communicates the depth and beauty of the Christian faith. Beauty matters. Big shocker that age segregated programming is less effective than prayer or visiting a sacred space. Ahem.
Are We Letting Consumerism Plan Our Families? We, A Great Parade
The Cheapest Generation: The Atlantic
Well that about wraps it up, folks!
It’s been pouring in central Texas so we’ve been relaxing, eating BLTs, and watching movies inside together today!
This pic cracks me up because you can’t even tell where Olaf the Goldendoodle’s face is. He has one. I promise.
Wishing you a wonderful weekend!
Lots of love,
Haley
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Buynothing sounds neat. Have you heard of Freecycle? I never saw anything on it that I was looking for, but I liked the concept.
Hayley, do you have a favourite shop for rosaries?
The link to the Atlantic article is a repeat of the previous link. A heads up
Thanks for telling me, Amy! I updated it. 🙂
I’d love to know your recipe (or Daniel’s) for pickled beets! 🙂
I love pretty much anything with blue cheese, especially when combined with scallions or red onion and bacon! I might have to pass on the beets though. I keep trying them (they do show up in the CSA box regularly) but I have yet to develop a taste for them.
Just read The Cheapest Generation article. It hit home. We just now bought our first car (after 10 years of living without a car) but I still prefer to walk or bike with the kids if possible. We’ve made lots of choices that favor experiences and material simplicity. Fun to see this is a wider pattern!