This Week’s Miscellany: Vol. 11

First of all, Happy Mother’s Day to all you mamas out there! On Mother’s Day I’m also always thinking of mothers-to-be, mothers who’ve lost children from miscarriage or stillbirth, and all women who suffer from infertility. Praying that Our Lord will grant them all the desire of their hearts!

This Mother’s Day was the best ever. I woke up next to sweet Lucy and walked out of my bedroom to see Benjamin finishing up a Mother’s Day card about things he loves about Mama: She is very sweet. She takes really good care of me. She let’s me play. She is pretty. Decorated with drawing of construction equipment carrying flowers. What more could a girl ask for? Then as an extra Mother’s Day gift, he was perfect in Mass (truly amazing!). We had my folks, Daniel’s folks, and his sister and brother-in-law (with my precious niece or nephew in utero!) over for a delicious Daniel-cooked feast that we ate on the back porch followed by homemade ice cream by my Dad. Perfection.

Coming Up in the Liturgical Year: Well, it’s May, and the month when we celebrate Mother’s Day is also when we celebrate Our Lady, the Mother of God and our Mother. Do you do anything special to celebrate the Blessed Virgin this month?

Listening to: Colleen Nixon’s song “Perfect.” Colleen is an amazing musician and a dear friend in real life (she’s Lucy’s godmother!). Funny story: We met in high school when we were both in the musical West Side Story then reunited when we moved back to our hometown. We then discovered pics of our 4-year-old selves at a mutual friend’s 4th birthday party. We are wearing dress-up clothes and looking awesome. Anyhow, Colleen’s music is amazing. She sometimes sings sacred music and sometimes sings wonderful indie/pop. She has a kickstarter campaign going so that she can record another album. Please, please, please, watch her music video featuring two of Benjamin and Lucy’s little playmates: Benedict and Hannah. Adorbs! Then enter the giveaway on Kaitlin’s blog (she’s giving away Colleen’s other albums: Marian Grace, Love Is in the Details, and What Wondrous Love. Extra entries for pledging to the project. I will love you forever for supporting this lovely lady! If Colleen’s kickstarter campaign is successful and she gets to do another album, I promise to post hilarious pictures of us from when we were four, deal?

From the Garden: Summer’s bounty! Tomatoes everywhere! Basil! Potatoes! Squash blossoms! YUM.

Check out these slow-roasted tomatoes. I ’bout cried they were so good.

Links: Motherhood Is a Calling (and Where Your Children Rank) by Rachel Jankovic

A Mother’s Prayer: More Like Mary – More Like Me

I Can’t Believe You Haven’t Read Kristin Lavransdatter by Simcha Fisher (If you remember, Kristin Lavransdatter is on my 10 Books You Must Read to Your Daughter, Or How to Keep Your Daughter from Ending Up Like that Horrid Girl in Twilight)

The Quotable Benjamin:

“Is ‘serious’ the past tense of ‘silly’?” – Benjamin, my grammarian

“Benjamin, what are you doing out of bed?!”

“I’m NOT out of bed.”

And be sure to take a look at my sidebar and check out the amazing eCookbook that my friend Stephanie of Mama and Baby Love launched a couple of weeks ago. It’s called From Your Freezer to Your Family: Slow Cooker Freezer Recipes. Stephanie is a lovely gal that I met while taking our kids to library storytime. She is the super cute mom you see at the park that looks adorable even when she’s in work out clothes. I know this because I’ve seen her in work out clothes at the park and thought “she is a super cute mom.” Maybe it’s because she’s a yoga teacher. I digress. You’ve probably seen her recipes pinned all over Pinterest. Stephanie believes in eating real food, like we do, and her cooking style is influenced by the Weston A. Price Foundation and Nourishing Traditions. Win! The general idea for the freezer meals is to do all the prep (chopping veggies, etc) ahead of time and stick the ingredients in the freezer in a plastic bag. Then everything is ready to put in the slow cooker on the day you want to eat it: done.

Click here to visit Mama And Baby Love.

This eCookbook is awesome and I am so excited about aquiring a slow cooker in the near future so that I can make all of these recipes.  (We are getting our dear friends slow cooker because they’re moving to Nepal.) As far as I can tell, the recipes are all Gluten-Free, too, which is great for us because Benjamin is allergic to gluten and we always have to cook GF. (I haven’t double-checked each and every recipe but the only ingredient I saw that had gluten was soy sauce so for my gluten-free friends, be sure you get a GF soy sauce at your health food store.) Anyhow, right now you can get the eCookbook at the discounted price of $5.99 (next month the price will go up.) Seriously, friends, get this eCookbook!

I hope you had a wonderful Mother’s Day weekend! Get ready for a giveaway this week!

P.S. If you are an email subscriber but haven’t been receiving my posts in your inbox lately, it’s probably because the blog move from wordpress.com requires you to resubscribe to the new site. You can subscribe on the sidebar in the upper right hand corner. Thanks!