When a drowsy baby boy reaches up to grasp his mother’s crucifix and whispers, “Love you, too.” before dropping off to sleep.

My friend Elizabeth is expecting her ninth child. It seems that this little gal is in a hurry to get here, so mama has been advised to take to her bed for the duration. Having been both on bedrest and restricted activity for several of my pregnancies, I can relate to the feeling of dread at having one’s activities curtailed. When you are a type A person, who has energy to burn, this is a truly terrifying prospect. So I’ve compiled a list of things that she can try in order to make life in the not-so-fast-lane a bit more bearable.



Get a bell and ring it. I’m actually quite serious.



Have a television or laptop brought up with a stock of your favourite flicks.



Catch up your reading - all those titles you’ve been salivating over.



Schedule visiting time with each of the children - read a book together or just talk.



Chat on the telelphone to a friend.



Excercise your feet and arms. Try drawing out the alphabet with your feet. The little ones love doing this with mum.



Keep meals light, and have a small stash of comfort treats.



See if you can get someone to pick or bring some fresh flowers. Put them next to a collection of family photos on a table you can easily see from the bed.



Light a candle or two.



Plan little handcraft projects that you can do with a tray in your lap - make chaplets, rosaries, sacrifice beads and pray as you go. Knit booties, hats, soakers. Crochet doilies. Make small felt projects like pincushions, gnome homes… Try origami figures with the children. I’d suggest needlefelting, but that’s pretty dangerous. LOL.



Pray constantly.



Know you are loved.

Hang in there, we’re all praying for you.

P.S. As a last resort, you *could* just get all of your Christmas shopping done.

I was inspired to create this swap by the many, many talented women I know who make rosary beads. I thought that this would be a wonderful way to share our faith and talent with each other, and how sweet it would be to feel that we were praying with the friend who made the beads every time we “called home to Mother”.

Here are the specifics:

Make a string of rosary beads especially for your partner, using her profile to choose your materials and method. Beads may be strung, wire-wrapped, linked, or knotted. Please use quality materials (no plastic, please), and great care in creating your rosary beads.

Rosary beads must be handmade or vintage.

If you are not familiar with how to make rosary beads, please check out this link.

Please visit this link to sign up by 26 September. Your rosary must be put into the mail by 26 October. International swappers and newbies are most welcome!

I enjoy sprinkling little vignettes around my house. They give the eye a place to rest and always bring a smile to my face. I choose little groupings mostly for their aesthetic appeal. This particular vignette is a nod to our combined family heritage - French on Brian’s side, and Celt on mine. All of the pieces are thrift shop finds. Sometimes I get really lucky. And lest you think this is wasteful frippery, the plaid box holds essentials to the ladies in the house, and the Hotel container keeps rose scented bath salts ready for a tubful of hot water - there is a little wooden scoop inside whose raffia tassel you can see peeking out. The lavender “Grosso” imparts a lovely scent as well as gracing the basketweave bowl with its beauty. I love the slightly wonky stems.

Monday was our first day of school. Oddly, my most enthusiastic students were the toddlers. Consequently, they learned much more than the other pupils. Louis would like to share a pearl of knowledge with you:

“Be sure to follow all safety procedures. And the most important safety rule of all is to wear these - safety goggles. And they make you look really cute, too.”

Especially before testing the homemade bubble stuff in the house. Here’s our recipe:

1c. cold water
2T liquid dish soap
1/2 tsp. vegetable glycerin

Stir with a chopstick (or the handle of a wooden spoon). You can store bubble stuff in a recycled glass jar with a lid (stage 3 baby food jars are great!). And I know that you have those little metal doodahs from your Easter egg dying hanging about - they make excellent bubble wands.

I have baby jammies on the drafting (aka kitchen) table today. The Pea is going to need some nice, soft jammies to keep him warm. And I have some gorgeous bamboo velour and cotton flannels aching to be used up. So I’m drafting a jammies pattern for him in newborn size - I hope that he won’t be too large for them. His brother Louis barely ever fit into newborn. But I’m chancing it. I suppose I like living dangerously.

I love using non-fusible interfacing for pattern drafting. It’s very sturdy (use a heavier weight), pretty inexpensive, and is transparent enough to use for tracing off patterns you don’t want to cut - like the ones that come in my Ottobre magazines, or vintage patterns I’m preserving, or patterns I want multiple sizes of. That’s a handy tip for mamas with large families - don’t cut that pattern! Trace it off in each size on interfacing and you’ll have a complete version for each. I also like to mix and match pattern pieces, or modify patterns to my needs. Drafting on interfacing (first in pencil) helps me to keep the newly resulting pattern all together as one. Finally, you can preserve old garments by pinning them to the interfacing and taking a pencil tracing of each part. No worries about tearing like a paper pattern. You can shift and fiddle all you need.

So I’m off to clean up my mess now and get ready for evening Mass. The watermelon pickles have made the house smell heavenly. Sure wish you were here to taste some! I hope your Sunday was one blessed with family and simple pleasures.

Tea parties - both real and pretend - are a given on rainy days. There’s something about a nice cup of strong tea and shortbread biscuits when it’s gray and wet outdoors. Here’s one of my recipes for shortbread - just in case it’s rainy where you are too. Then it will be like we’re having tea together.

Scottish Shortbread:

2 c butter
1 c brown sugar, packed
4.5 c plain flour
pinch salt

Cream butter and sugar together. Combine salt and flour, and add slowly to the butter/sugar mixture. The dough will be quite stiff. Pat out onto a jelly roll pan and prick with the tines of a fork. Bake at 325F for 20-25 minutes. Cut into rectangles while still warm, let cool in the pan, placed on a cooling rack.

The brown sugar makes the biscuit takes very butterscotch-y. Delish!

Today marks 11 years since the passing of Bl Teresa of Calcutta. I’ve decided to re-run this very special interview I had with Donna Marie Cooper-O’Boyle as a special treat to you. You can also order a copy on CD by emailing me.

Click Here to Listen

I got 5 qt. of tomato sauce finished yesterday. I’ve also got some gorgeous watermelon rind pickle on the go. I’m off to the green grocer later to see what I can run to ground for preservable goodies. For sure I’m going to need more tomatoes - 5 qt. isn’t an awful lot for a family our size. But the ‘maters came from our neighbour’s farm - generously brought by the bagful as a gift.

Our garden here has gone by, except for the winter squash and pumpkins. It’s clear that our 40′x40′ garden is woefully inadequate to feed us, especially as we’re gardening on what used to be a pile of road salt. :S It has taken years of improvement applications to eek out a meagre harvest. And what there is, we generally eat straight away - not a thing leftover for canning. Ahh, well. It gives us an opportunity to support other local growers. We could have taken Uncle up on his offer to let us use their farm, after all. But the 20 minute daily drive to work in the garden seemed a little bit daunting for just our family.

Maybe next year we’ll have found a place of our own to grow to our hearts’ content. In the meantime, I’m thankful we have what we have, and am enjoying using the knowledge Nana imparted when we spent endless late summer afternoons putting up veggies, pickles and relishes, and later, jams. It feels like she’s right here in my kitchen. In fact, it sounds like she’s right here in the kitchen every time I remind my helpers to wash their hands. Meticulous, she was. I’ll have to wander upstairs and give that pile of her aprons a hug.

I hope you are enjoying your day and making memories to last a lifetime.

It’s hot and muggy today. I think we should have a totally ice cream luncheon. I think I’ll have these two darlings ask Papa… Who could say no to those faces?