Way back when our daughter Caroline was born, I fell in love with the book “Simple Abundance”. And since that time, I have practiced keeping a gratitude journal. If not always written down, it is constantly in my heart. At the end of a day, I take an inventory of the events that transpired and commit to finding five things for which I am grateful. Often, I find many more. It is a beautiful, prayerful practice and prepares me for my nighttime offering and petitions. Over the years I have tried to develop a practice for simplifying my life, and arranging my pursuits so as to derive maximum joy and pleasure in everything I do. Essentially, I desire to make it easier for myself to see those small beautiful moments - those dressmaker details - that make the tapestry of my life so precious. They won’t all, perhaps, be this long. But I thought it would be useful to get started with a more complete version of Simple Saturday.

In my writing and speaking I try to do the same. I have tried since I first began to write online, to fashion my weblog in such a way that will help my readers to focus on the little things that make their own lives so lovely and unique. I have hosted Tuesday Teas, and Simple Gifts Weblog Fairs. I have initiated Thrifty Thursdays on my email list - and I have also encouraged women to share those things for which they are most grateful on what I dubbed Simple Saturday - also on the email list. I have noticed that many of my online friends have been keeping a weekly practice of stopping to reflect upon various aspects of their lives.

I decided that I would also keep a similar weekly record right here on Simple Gifts to share with you all. More than any other question asked of me is “How do you do it all?”. The first and best answer is “By the grace of God”. The second answer is a confirmation of what many assume, “I am very organized” - or at least I try very hard to be. And finally, I pursue those things which I love most. That makes everything I do much easier. For my weekly record, I have drawn from the categories I list my posts in. Essentially, it acts as a to-do list as well as a reflection of gratitude, comfort, and joy. I hope that it will inspire you to do the same - in whatever fashion suits you. You may, if you wish, copy the button above to use in your own posts, linking it back to the Simple Gifts weblog.

Our Daily Bread - Mass is essential spiritual nutrition for Catholics. I share Father Augustine’s Homily for today. May we all remember to pray without ceasing.

From My Desk - Lots here this week. I have co-op orders to make. I also am working on finishing up the Spring Issue of Simple Gifts Magazine so that it will be done before the baby arrives. In a few snatched moments I will be working on a few other writing projects that are always works in progress. I am blessed to have joyful work to keep me busy and help Brian to support our family.


From my Friends This beautiful World Mission Rosary handmade for me by Jenny sits right here by me on my desk. It reminds me to pray for the unity of all peoples of the world.

From My Funny Bone I know I’m carrying a tad larger than normal, but I was actually asked yesterday by the pediatric nurse, “When were you due?” I am blessed to have this baby tucked safely in my womb until he’s ready.

From our Hearth and Home - Will had to have five stitches on his forehead this week after hitting his head on the edge of a kitchen chair. I don’t think we’ll be running in the house again anytime soon. We are so grateful that the injury wasn’t worse.

From the Apothecary - Mostly bandages and anti-biotic ointment for those stitches… Thanks be to God for the ability to provide basic home health care.

From the Barnyard - Two eggs this week. Two very expensive eggs. But they are delicious and very much appreciated.

From the Bookshelf - Arms of Love - A Catholic novel about courtship and chaste love. I picked up a copy to preview for Cate. What a blessing to have a young woman eager to follow her faith into love and perhaps a married vocation.

From the Crochet Basket - More work on the Pag Luncheon Cloth that will grace a table in our new home.

From the Knitting Basket - I’m thinking of knitting either a cap or some booties. Two new little feet and a sweet soft head to keep warm!

From the Craft Basket - Two hand-knotted rosaries for Rebecca, felt snowflakes, and a new Advent Wreath for the table. We’re also going to be working on Advent letters to spell out “JOY”, “PEACE”, “HOPE”, “LOVE” and “EMMANUEL”. A joy to create for someone else and to celebrate the rhythm of the Liturgical year.

From the Sewing Room - I’m going to make a Lambkin from Vicky’s pattern Such a pleasure to be frugal while creating something sweet and lovely.

From the Schoolroom - I’ll be switching out our baskets for the Christmas term, and replacing seasonal selections. I’m so thankful for the changes in seasons that keep life lively.

From the Nursery - I’ll be preparing the new wicker bassinet with new bedding, and ordering my birth kit. While I pray for a holy, healthy birth.

From the Kitchen - a Lemon Poppyseed cake to go to my in-laws’ Thanksgiving celebration tomorrow. I’m thankful for family to share life’s happy times, and hard times with.

From the Garden - I’ll be compiling a seed/seedling list for our 2009 CSA season, and looking forward to a few more members, too. I’m looking forward to seeing seedlings sprout and grow, and eventually feed family, friends, neighbours and strangers alike.

From the Nature Journal - Hopefully a report of our first snowfall… I do love the snow.

From My Heart - I’m praying especially for the father of Brian’s business partner, whose health took a turn on Thanksgiving Day. I am so very grateful for the first time in my vocation as a mother to be sharing this Advent journey in expectation with Our Blessed Mother. And I am praying for a week filled with many blessings for you and your families as we greet the New Year. And I have a special wish for my friend Julie who will celebrate a birthday as we open the first box of our Advent calendar!

Well, I have finally caved. I *never* thought I’d do it, but I am a newly minted member of FaceBook. I’m still learning the ropes, but with the help of my FB pals, I’ll have it down pretty soon.

The Month-at-a-Glance section is now ready! You can download a copy to print and place into your binder. Block calendars for each month are colour coded to the liturgical season and note saints days, holy days and holidays. NEW this year - the daily Mass readings are included for each and every day. PLUS, you et our exclusive “Notables” pages to help you keep track of birthdays, anniversaries, your own projects, and your children’s projects! $10 for instant download.

Want to see a preview? Click here**NOTE the quality of the preview is NOT representative of the final download.

Also available is the “Care and Keeping” medical records section. It will help you keep good track of practitioners’ contact information, insurance information, and medical records for your entire family.

Our beautiful fertility chart will help you track your cycles. Download and print as many as you want for $1.50!

Don’t forget to download the “Simple Rule” section - it is the most important part of your home management book. The instructions and worksheets will help you to develop your own agenda for each day of the week!

As the other sections are updated, they will be loaded to the shop for you to download and I will announce them here.

Is so very enjoyable - especially when you can get so much inspiration in one place! Go by and visit Mary Ellen’s Advent and Christmas weblog - O Night Divine. She has linked the St. Lucia Day article from Simple Gifts Magazine, as well as some other wonderful resources. Be sure to check the archives, too!

Well, I can hardly believe it. After four long years of searching for farm to call our very own, we are preparing to move in. Thank you Fr. Jim, Fr. Augustine, and everyone for those prayers - I KNOW that they made a difference.

We’re shooting for a December 1 move date. We’ll be taking our sweet time, beginning with cleaning and painting at the new house. I’m taking the very wise advice of some ladies on my email list to cull as I go. I’m only removing those things from this house that have a planned place in the new house. I am determined that we will be super-organized in our new home.

With God’s help, The Pea will be delivered at our new home. What a way to bless a house!

We are excited about the changes coming. There is room for goats, sheep, cattle, and poultry. There is room for lots and lots of produce to be grown, woodlands and wetlands to be explored. We have space for a beautiful little farm shop and classroom/workshop space. Our home office will have a door that closes!

We expect lots of company to help us warm our new home, so if you are nearby, please come visit! But beware that we will likely hand you a paint brish, ax, or shovel.

This promises to be the most serious nesting session our family has ever experienced.

Inspiration for celebrating winter in a family-centered home.

Have you downloaded your copy yet? If you haven’t here’s what you’re missing:

Favourite Things:: Antique quilts, feather trees, papercrafts, and china
Through the Garden Gate:: Boughs, birds and berries
Gentle Reminders and Calendar::December, January, February
Heartstrings:: Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening - Robert Frost
Children’s Corner:: Old-fashioned Teddy Bears
Traditions:: St. Lucia’s Day
Sojourn:: An Afternoon in Concord
Hospitality:: A winter’s meal for family and friends
In the Nursery:: Caring naturally for baby
Apothecary:: Home remedies for winter colds
Mother’s Workbasket:: Projects for a winter’s evening

Just $6.25 - Download and enjoy with your afternoon cuppa!

I love to save money. I love to eat. So, this is going to be a very enjoyable post for me to write.

If you read any of my “Fit in 40” posts from last year (more to come this year, I pray), you will remember that we are a big time organic/natural-food-eating, holistic-medicine-healing family. That can get awfully expensive for an average sized family. Multiply that by two (in our case) or more, and you’ve got a potential budget buster.

But there are some options for you to consider:

1. Join a traditional organic food co-op.
- Order once a month
- Buy in bulk at wholesale prices
- Take a turn helping with unload, sort, and pack
- Often free to join, but there is sometimes a surcharge or “upcharge”
- Organic dry and canned goods available. Some co-ops offer meats, dairy, and produce

2. Buy a CSA share
- Pay up front for a year’s worth of produce, picked up at the farm weekly
- milkshares (cow or goat) are also available at some farms
- CSAs are all unique - some offer only one type of food, others offer a wider variety
- breaks down to about HALF retail prices
- half shares available for couples, or families with one or two small children
- some farms allow weekly payments - especially for milk/meat only CSAs
- some farms offer the opportunity to work on the farm, or require a few hours/month

3. Marathon cooking/Once-a-Month Cooking/Freezer Cooking
- Plan a fortnight’s or month’s worth of meals in advance
- Take advantage of sales
- Take advantage of seasonal foods
- Gives you strict control over ingredients - no impulse junk food buying/cooking
- Little to no waste since you’ve purchased only what you need to complete your recipes.
- Shop in between for perishables (milk, salads, fresh fruits)
- Always food on hand for company or a neighbour/friend in need
- Shop one day - cook the next
- Add a third day just for baking
- Freeze everything, labeled well, pull out the day before to thaw in the fridge.
- Save on average about 30% on your food bill by buying only what you need for recipes and avoiding impulse shopping!

Any of these options, if you have storage space, and/or are willing to do a little extra work, will save you a bundle on your grocery budget. Often you can save 30-50%. Wouldn’t that ease your purse a bit?

Find a Cooperative Buyers Group
Find a CSA

Check out Hearth and Home Co-operative for great prices on organic and natural food and supplement buys (and a BUNCH of other really great stuff!).

If you live in Southern New England, check out Renaissance Farms for a really fabulous CSA. It’s totally different than any other CSA in the region - it’s year-round, it’s free choice, it’s got produce, milk, meat, and eggs - and the shop offers near wholesale prices to CSA members on other organic groceries (no bulk buying), discounts on other natural living supplies and discounts on classes at the farm. It costs about $5/week/family member and you get about $12/week/family member worth of farm products (your choice!). That’s a lot of bang for your buck - eat for 60% less! 10% of everything grown goes to local food pantries and shelters, and 10% of profits from the shop goes to charitable ministries… And it’s ours!

This could be a long post, and somewhat disjointed, so I apologize in advance.

Brian and I are expecting our 7th child in just a few weeks… So why am I asking about adoption?

To begin with, I never thought that my family would be built by birth children. I always thought that it would be built through adoption. I was adopted (step-parent), my grandmother was a foster child after the death of her mom, and Nana fostered two children, one of them for three years. There were “female problems” amongst all of her daughters (my 3 aunties and my mother). All of them had hysterectomies by their mid-20s. Nana was 36 when she had hers.

So adoption and infertility were part of life for me from an early age. Brian and I have been disappointed that we haven’t been able to adopt. The doors have kept closing - and now that we have a large family, it has become even more difficult. But it remains on our hearts. And we feel so very blessed with the children God has given us. We know that they are meant for something wonderful. They are - every one of them - so generous and enthusiastic about adoption. They are aware, having walked this road with us, of the importance of family, the importance of doing all we can to help other children experience the love and the joy we have in our own home.

I know that God has been keeping us on a very specific path, though I’m not entirely clear where it’s leading other than that we are supposed to do something to help children who are waiting for families. We have looked at adoption programs for several countries over the years, and were drawn to a few of them particularly - namely Russia and Kazakhstan. But we kept getting pulled increasingly to look at Poland. I grew up surrounded by Polish culture - the town my grandparents lived in is heavily populated with Polish descendants. My step-mom is 3rd generation American - all four of her grandparents are from Poland, a heritage that she has eagerly and generously shared with my family.

There are 20,000 children waiting for families in Poland. Sibling groups of 3 and more are not uncommon. One fourth of the country lives below the poverty line, which accounts for the high numbers of children in care. Interestingly, Poland is the *only* program we’ve ever seen with a stated preference for Catholic families, and the adoption fees are lower (much lower in some cases) than other countries’ programs.

School-aged children, children with special needs (ranging from very minor to more complex), sibling groups, and boys are all hard-to-place. It is these children that Brian and I are most interested in helping. We’ve been blessed with the opportunity to have newborn babes and wee ones in our lives, so we don’t have a desire to adopt a wee babe. There are so many parents who still long for that experience, and those little ones will always have a list of people waiting to adopt them.

Over the years, I have worked with two different orphan hosting programs - as an event planner, and as a host mom. Those were wonderful, meaningful experiences. Although we were unable to adopt our boys (turned down for a homestudy because we homeschool and our family was “too large”), we saw so clearly how much attitudes were changed about these “hard-to-place” kids. Folks (host families and others) saw that these kids were lovable, smart, and could acclimate nicely to a functional family environment. Of course, they were not without challenges, but overall those were quite manageable.

Which brings me to where we are today… Brian and I have been holding on to an idea whose time has come. We are working to establish an orphan hosting program of our own. The name of our organization is One Family Foundation. We are looking for volunteers to help us with various projects, specifically advocacy and organization.

We need help to:

- raise awareness about Poland’s waiting children, including more detailed research work.

- put together the paperwork and channels for the hosting program to work.

- publicize our ministry

- organize at least one regional hosting program sometime in the next 12 months

We are also seeking the talents of at least one social worker, a grantwriter, a lawyer. It would be helpful to have folks who have experience or interest in event planning, fundraising, and PR.

We would also like to hear from adoptive families, especially larger ones. We would like to find social workers willing to write testimonial letters about the wisdom of approving experienced families for adoption of hard-to-place children. We are interested in contacting political leaders in states where family size is arbitrarily limited.

This is an all volunteer effort. Brian and I are funding this with our own money at the moment - principally from the sales of Simple Gifts Magazine, my Home Management Book, and Brian’s income from contracting.

We’re all so busy here, and I understand that folks are already committed to other things. Perhaps you could help get the word out to other adoptive families you know who might be interested in helping. There is a contact link on the website.

And I ask for your prayers for this project, and for waiting kids everywhere.

We’re saving some money over on the Hearth and Home Co-op. We’ve just closed our first yarn order and are working on our second round of Chrism Essence. Coming up next…

Organic Whole Grains for all you baking mamas out there.

Blessed Beans Coffees - a portion of the proceeds go to One Family Foundation and to Renaissance Farms efforts to support local church-run food pantries and shelters.

Organic/Natural Cold Season Supplements and Remedies - because you *know* the sniffles are on the way.

Come on over - the shopping is fine! And the more the merrier!

Hearth and Home Co-operative membership is free, and you never have to buy more than you need (i.e. no bulk buying is necessary), in fact you don’t have to buy anything at all. But that’s just silly. There’s such great stuff on offer, you’re bound to find SOMETHING you need. The co-operative is open to anyone in the US or Canada, or US military installations overseas. So what are you waiting for? I don’t think anyone reading this blog is a go-zillionaire. And if you are, would you drop me a line, I’d like to beg you for some of it…
Seriously… Who doesn’t LOVE a bargain?

ETA:: We have a Michael Miller Fabric buy coming up, too! I guess that there are a lot of ladies that are working on a project from the Serendipity site, who have been after some Flower Fairy Fabric. The co-op price should be 30%-50% off retail.

AND

Christmas DVDs for a steal…

I’m growing up. Today I took Cate, my oldest daughter, out to buy her first semi-formal dress. She’s going to a party for her best friend’s 16th birthday. I remember this… I remember what it felt like to go shopping for my first special party dress. It was a little white lace dress that went all the way to the floor. It had a lovely wide skirt and a ruffle along the bodice. I remember the little open-toed shoes we bought - and the white hose. I remember my mother letting me borrow the beautiful white beaded evening bag that is now mine.

It’s funny, I thought that since I was now taking *my* daughter on her first shopping trip for a special dress I should feel sort of… well… old. Instead, I forgot I wasn’t 17 years old. It was great fun picking out a sweet little dress, trying things on - knowing that *this* was THE dress. Of course we had to go to another shop to find pumps to match. We talked about all the little sparkly things in my jewelry box that would go *just perfectly* with the outfit. I can’t wait to try the dress on again and raid the box.

Our little girl is nearly a grown woman, and I’m still just a giddy girl myself. Who would have imagined that such a thing was possible?