on my mind

In a house which becomes a home, 
one hands down and another takes up 
the heritage of mind and heart, 
laughter and tears, musings and deeds. 
Love, like a carefully loaded ship, 
crosses the gulf between the generations. 
Therefore, we do not neglect the ceremonies 
of our passage: when we wed, when we die, 
and when we are blessed with a child; 
When we depart and when we return; 
When we plant and when we harvest. 
Let us bring up our children. It is not 
the place of some official to hand to them 
their heritage. 
If others impart to our children our knowledge 
and ideals, they will lose all of us that is 
wordless and full of wonder. 
Let us build memories in our children, 
lest they drag out joyless lives, 
lest they allow treasures to be lost because 
they have not been given the keys. 
We live, not by things, but by the meanings 
of things. It is needful to transmit the passwords 
from generation to generation.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Refresh our sensibilites

“O Lord, refresh our sensibilities. 
Give us this day our daily taste. 
Restore to us soups that spoons will not sink in, and sauces which are never the same twice.
 Raise up among us stews with more gravy than we have bread to blot it with, and casseroles that put starch and substance in our limp modernity. 
Take away our fear of fat and make us glad of the oil which ran upon Aaron's beard. Give us pasta with a hundred fillings, and rice in a thousand variations.
Above all, give us grace to live as true men - to fast till we come to a refreshed sense of what we have and then to dine gratefully on all that comes to hand.
the  Drive far from us, O Most Bountiful, all creatures of air and darkness; cast out the demons that possess us; deliver us from the fear of calories and the bondage of nutrition; and set us free once more in our own land, where we shall serve Thee as Thou hast blessed us - with the dew of heaven, the fatness of the earth, and plenty of corn and wine. Amen.” 


― Robert Farrar Capon, The Supper of the Lamb: A Culinary Reflection

Summer time in May

Another school year just about done.  I have had three students in different classes comment on how the Charlotte Mason feast and atmosphere really affected them. They loved learning! They noticed from the education experience they had the previous year. 
One is a Senior and the other two are 11 and 12. 

Tomorrow my students give the Great Speeches of the 20th Century: dramatic presentations of speeches which turned and tuned history. They had to edit the speeches down to 10 minutes. We have Teddy Roosevelt's speech he gave in 1912 when he was shot and finished the speech to George Bush on Sept. 20, 2011. Daughter home from college but has three final papers due in the next days but she is home. Home cooking and writing a paper for Ethics is first on the list. She's playing 

some songs from Lala Land right now. Her roommate from Malaysia is here too. Great 

sisters .... then both are off to Paris for a summer program. Janet is a brave soul. She hasn't been home since August. Her father is a Chinese pastor who runs a school in Malaysia. 

Sweet spirit and brings laughter... her famous saying is " God will show the way. " I have

repeated that phrase many times to myself and as a prayer. 

More on the books, etc... for this course they are taking. I am doing some of the reading too.

Love  Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone dancing: