Home

Michael will be home for the summer soon. He's going to be working nearby and living here. And then, he has just eight credits and a final season of soccer on campus and he will be home again, newly graduated and living here before he is launched into the world.

Patrick is at home now. But there are opportunities on his horizon that will take him far from home --- and then home again. And then far from home. And then home again.

And of course, it is a well-established fact that my husband leaves home frequently to bless his family and then, he comes home again.

I stand at the dawn of a new season of family life. The season of leaving and coming home again.

What is this place that my family calls "home?"

Is it a soft place to land after working hard in the world?

Is it a place of encouragement and kindness?

Is it warm and familiar and predictable?

Is home an anchor in their hearts and minds and souls, the place of peace they carry with them?

Is it a domestic monastery?

I think I'll think upon these things in the next few days.

How to Climb Mount Never-rest

This post is for people who have giant mountains of laundry in their houses. It is a not a post about how to have a sensible, workable, successful laundry system. Other women have written about those, women who are wiser, women who are more disciplined. This is about crisis laundry. I am a woman who has a very bad laundry situation.

After a few weeks of intense basketball playoffs and tournaments that collided with soccer season and a string of unexpected doctor appointments and my failure to work one of those brilliant systems, I have twenty loads of laundry to do. So here's what to do (because, well, I've been here before, so I know what to do).

Bring all the dirty laundry to one location, preferably somewhere out of the main traffic areas of your house. This is not a short-lived operation. Yesterday, I had Patrick carry all our dirty laundry to my large master bathroom. Sort the laundry. This is laundry triage. The first pile is "Daddy's Laundry." All of Daddy's clothes go there and they are washed first. The second pile is towels. These are the second to be washed. That means that when Daddy gets home, all his clothes will be clean and he will have his choice of clean towels. If he ignores the piles in his bathroom, he can operate under the illusion that laundry is all caught up and his wife is an exemplary homemaker.

Then there is a pile of jeans. Everyone's jeans (except Daddy's) go in this pile. It gets washed third and we can know with certainty that everyone will have bottoms to wear very soon. Then, there are piles of lights, darks, pinks, sheets, and dishrags. I confess to have already washed all diapers before the grand laundry project began.

Laundry moves from the bathrooom to the washer and then the dryer and then ends up in the family room. The only exception is that first load of Daddy's Laundry. That gets taken back upstairs and put away immediately (remember the illusion?). As we progress through the piles upstairs, the pile downstairs grows. By the time the first game of the NCAA basketball tournament begins, there is a healthy pile of clean clothes on the couch. 

You tell a bunch of eager boys that the only way they will be allowed to sit here in front of the television and watch hours of basketball is if they fold clothes. Timeouts are for the putting away. It works. They fold. They put away. You are quite sure you are a genius. At the end of the first day of March Madness, you only have 15 loads left.

And then the baby throws up in the van on the way to soccer practice. Your mind lurches in fast motion. More sheets in your future. More towels. Several changes of baby clothes. How many people will throw up? Where will they throw up? How much more laundry will they create? Stinky barfy laundry will move to the head of the triage piles. And it will not wait its turn in the master bathroom--ew.

Dear Lord, thank you that it's only the first round of the tournament. Thank you there will be almost endless games all weekend. Thank you for an abundance of clothing, for high efficiency washers and dryers, for laundry detergent and Mrs. Myers lavender dryer sheets. And God, thank you for basketball, for oh-so-many reasons.

Podcast Notes and Spring Cleaning Inspiration

We're chatting about Cleaning and Simplifying today at the Faith and Family Livecast!

Podcast Notes:

Simplicity Parenting. At last, this is my favorite parenting book. I have never had a favorite before this book. It's not Catholic, but it's just good, plain common sense. Combine it with Lifeline, for a complete parenting library. Very simple;-).

CrazyBusy, Overstretched, Overbooked and About to Snap! This is lifestyle simplification for adults.

Simplifying Your Domestic Church a beautiful, thoroughly Catholic guide to bringing simplification principles to your environment.

Keep it Simple: The Busy Catholic's guide to growing closer to God. This is simplicity for your prayer life.

Homemaking Prayers

More Links to inspire your springtime clean-sweeping:

My Not So Simple Life

More on simplicity

Rhythm and Prayer

On Being Intentional and Making Lists

Why Bother with Cleaning? (But then, be sure to read this one and this one, too;-)

Laundry, Linens and Love

Homemaking Companion Notebook (with lots of forms to use, if you like)

More Home Management Notebook Links  (look to the righthand sidebar for lots of links)

Disconnect to reconnect?

Yesterday was golden, really. Sarah woke happy and "chatted" with me merrily before we got out of bed. My morning computer check-in time slipped away as I marveled at my baby and told time to stand still.

As more children tumbled out from under covers and down the stairs, it dawned on me that I'd made no grocery trip for Mardi Gras. I was sick at the end of last week and all weekend and the whole thing passed in an inefficient blur. We had a plan because we pretty much always do the same thing, but I had no ingredients.

Mike texted from the airport. His flight was delayed. The morning reunion was moved to noon. At least I would have my act together by then.

I put together a grocery list and pulled on my boots. Karoline wanted to go along. Sigh. Karoline's company would make this trip a good deal lengthier. She was persistent. Her coat. Her boots. Her doll. Her bear. In the car. Off we go.

Karoline tenderly put her doll in the little cart our grocery store provides for wee mommies. She asked me to please strap the bear into my cart. I did. We found the ingredients for king cake, and jambalaya, lots of sparkle sugar in green and yellow and purple. Half a dozen people smiled at us as we went about our business. Sweet girl, spreading sunshine all over the place. Time moved slowly.

We chose hot fudge and whipped cream and then, she remembered. "I really, really need a hot chocolate." I put the ice cream in my cart while I pondered possibilities. Hurry through the checkout, get home, start barking orders and get this day into full production mode? Stop for hot chocolate?

We stopped at the in-store Starbucks. She chose a hot pink balloon and then settled into her chair and chattered happily about next year when she's fifteen and her feet touch the floor. I took a picture of her with my cell phone and sent it to Mike at Newark. He agreed that she should have hot chocolate when she goes on a Mommy date to the store. On the way home, the radio reminded me that all too soon, she will indeed be fifteen and her feet will touch the floor.

The computer was open when I walked inside. Mary Beth had found the king cake recipe and she was ready to bake. Because Mike would have just enough time for lunch before leaving to direct a game locally, we decided to have our Mardi Gras feast a little before noon.

He came home to happy noises about a sparkly cake and all were fed. Three of the boys left to go to work with him. My neighbor took Mary Beth, Stephen, and Katie to sled on a big hill with her kids a few miles from home. I put Sarah down to sleep and planned to finish writing a talk and catch up on some computer work. But as the big kids pulled away, Karoline melted into a puddle of despair.

We spent the next two hours reading every Jan Brett book we own. 

We made gingerbread tea with lots of sugar and heavy cream. Time moved slowly.

Then, we tried out the new floor in the sunroom by twirling pirouettes until we fell into a dizzy, giggling snuggle.

That woke the baby. So, we played "friend moms" with our babies until the floor guys came to finish their job. Karoline helped them with the tape measure.

Mary Chris returned with the other kids and had time for a quick cup of tea before I had to take Mary Beth to ballet. She took everyone but the baby and Mary Beth back to her house so they could have a "curling" competition in the basement. Mary Beth and I hustled out the door. We had time for an errand and dinner on the run. And she needed to have a big talk. We had time for that, too. All good things.

When I got home, there were messages on the phone and messages on the computer. But I didn't get to them. We had dinner and baths and more books and then I got sidetracked by a book that had arrived in the mail earlier in the day. Almost an entire day without much more than a glance or two at the computer...

Around ten o'clock, I started catching up online. And I worried about the yet unfinished talk. And I saw the drastic changes to the basketball schedule. Grace leaked all over the place. I barely slept.

What if. What if instead of reading 300 words here and there all over the internet all day long, I just read one book at a time? One hundred fifty pages or more of complete thoughts and careful writing. Would I stop thinking in those short, snippy, often snarky phrases that mirrored what I'd read online?

What if instead of posting status updates about what's for dinner and how's the weather, I saved up my writing time so that I could write something of substance a couple of times a week? I really think there's room on the internet for longer, beautifully published pieces. I have seen some incredible ones lately--whole pieces that give chronicling life online the beauty and dignity it deserves.

What if I checked the computer after prayer and before the kids got up and then didn't touch it again until time to make sure all afternoon activities were on as scheduled? And then not again? Certainly not right before bed.

Would time move more slowly? Would I have time for more storybooks and pirouettes? More big talks (and bigger listens)? Would I feel more connected to important people and less distracted by near strangers? 

I hear there are rules in the world of social networking. What if I re-wrote those rules for me and my house?

I think we'd reconnect in the important places.

A Room Where Best Friends Begin Their Forever

As it began to dawn on us that both Katie and Karoline would lose their "best friends" (only friends?) to moves in the same week, Mike grew very protective. He wanted to do something for them. We both really just wanted to protect them from the hurt. Truth be told, the hurt wasn't limited to the little girls. For the last five years, Gracie has been in the space between Katie and Karoline. They don't have any memories of life in this house without her in it.And it's difficult for all of us to remember a time when she wasn't part of the family.

It is no secret to anyone who knows me that I deal with stress by cleaning and organizing my house. My friends remember how immaculate the house was the day the cancer diagnosis came. Mike, however, does not clean when he is stressed;-). His role was different. He instructed me to do whatever it took to create a new place for three little girls to grow up as best friends. He actually said, "I want them to have the perfect little girls' room and I want the room to make them happy." He's a very sweet guy and nothing brings out the sweet in him like his little girls. So, I abandoned my plan not to spend any money. He wanted to make a gift of this room and I was the instrument.

 

The bed was given to us by my mother when we got married. It's queen-sized. Katie and Karoline can both sleep there.TheGood Shepherd picture above the headboard was a gift to me from Patrick's godmother. I love the idea of the Good shepherd watching my sleeping babies.

This dresser came from my father's attic.

This one came from my mother's house. We need one for Sarah, but I'm going to scour Craigslist for awhile and see what pops up.

The bookcase came from Costco a couple of years ago.

My stepfather made the stuffed animal shelf for Michael's nursery 21 years ago. It has moved with us three times. And this bookcase was an old white pantry shelf in my in-law's basement before they moved. I painted it in a Home Depot Disney shade called "Invitation to a Princess." Appropriate, no?

The room didn't really need painting but it did sort of look worn. We found stickers at Target and covered all the dings with flowers and butterflies. Tah-dah! Much quicker than a coat of paint.

These curtains were too cute for words, so we picked them up when we picked up the stickers.

 

And then, I saw this rug. Hopscotch? Worth every penny just to watch Karoline try to do it. Worth even more to watch Daddy show Karoline how it's done.

Around this time, I learned that Jessica and I were doing the same thing three thousand miles from one another. That made Mary Beth and I giggle as we continued to decorate.

Above the bed are pictures of the girls in the bluebells. They are just gorgeous in these frames. We're doing one above the chest for Karoline, so there will be three in all, but Target needs a little time to replenish the stock. Costco did a fabulous job with the enlargements, just like Lori said they would.

The little girls helped with all the moving out and they were there as we moved furniture in, but we banished them to the basement while we stuck flowers on the walls and hung curtains at the window. When we invited them back to their new room, they reacted exactly as their Daddy had hoped.

 

The quilt on the bed was actually Mary Beth's. I pulled it off her bed and was delighted by the way it looked in the room.

That left Mary Beth without a quilt and so begins the story for tomorrow..