Heart of the Home

A couple weeks ago, my sister-in-law got married on the feast day of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (the rehearsal the day before was the solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus). That makes this month the month of the Sacred and Immaculate Hearts. I was a bridesmaid and for jewelry, she gave us a necklace that consisted of a heart with many small hearts within it. She said that the big heart was Mary's (could also be Jesus's) and the small hearts were all of ours.

A Catholic tradition for families is to do a Sacred and Immaculate Heart Enthronement of the home. A priest or group, such as the Legion of Mary, comes in and prays certain prayers with the family and consecrates an image or images of the Sacred and Immaculate Hearts. It is a beautiful devotion for a family to take part in. In our house, have a beautiful painting of the Sacred Heart by my father. It is huge and is easily viewed from outside the sliding glass door of the patio. It is interesting to see people peering in at the painting as they walk by. Hopefully they have an encounter with Jesus as a result.

"The Heart of Jesus is always in search of souls to save, to free from the snares of sin, to wash in His blood, to feed with His Body. The Heart of Jesus is always living in the Eucharist to satisfy the hunger of all who long for Him, to welcome and console all those who, disillusioned by the vicissitudes of life, take refuge in Him, seeking peace and refreshment." -Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, O.C.D.

As homemakers, our vocation is to be the 'heart of the home' but I think the only way that is truly possible is if we have the hearts of Jesus and Mary as the center of our hearts. Sometimes it is hard to maintain this focus, as lay people living in the world bombarded by so many other voices and temptations. I know for me, it is always a temptation to compare my situation with that of others. I tend to get negative about how I don't have the gifts that other women have and it becomes almost a competition. This quote struck a particular chord with me:

"Every human person is a unique creation of love and has his or her irreplaceable function within God's glorious plan of love. There is no such thing as competition; it is senseless to compare this one with that. Each vocation is totally unique, and temperament, circumstances, all that elements that go to make up my life are directed towards the shaping of that particular "form" which is to receive God's love and express His beauty in a way unique to itself, thus becoming a living praise of the glory of His self-bestowing Love" -Sr. Ruth Burrows, O.C.D.

In order to stay focused on this truth, we must hide ourselves in the Sacred and Immaculate Hearts. Only then can we truly live our vocations as homemakers within the world without distractions that only bring us strife and division.

"We must become aware that God dwells within us and do everything with Him, then we are never commonplace even when performing the most ordinary tasks, for we do not live in these things, we go beyond them. A supernatural soul never deals with natural causes but with God alone" -Bl. Elizabeth of the Trinity

Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us! Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!

Farm fresh!

Spring (almost summer) brings flowers, vacation, warm weather (or here in Tennessee, HOT weather), and best of all, garden vegetables!

We've been excited the past few weeks to try the vegetables from our CSA (community supported agriculture), or at least I have. Each week you never know what you're going to get.

So, I've been experimenting with radishes and turnips, and garlic that looks like this:

Also we've had all kinds of greens such as bok choy, different kinds of kale, butter lettuce and swiss chard. 

To live on a farm; that would be the life! To be preparing dinner and simply walk outside, pick what you need and get cooking! But this is the next best thing, I suppose!

For about a year now, I've been getting raw milk from the farm, and recently, because of this http://www.cornucopia.org/egg-report/egg-report-exec-summ.pdf, I started getting eggs as well. (I also get butter, yogurt and occasionally buttermilk from the farm). The milk is so delicious, fresh, and even has a slight sweet flavor sometimes. If you haven't already, you should really try it! The yolks of the eggs are bright orange, compared to the paler yellow of even the most organic, free range eggs you can find in the supermarket.

This past week, my family was busy preparing for my sister-in-law's wedding, so I wasn't able to eat many eggs, so I made this delicious crustless crab quiche from the 'Beautiful Babies' book by Kristen Michaelis. I used the delicious farm fresh eggs, milk, and green onions. 

We also hadn't drunk much milk this week because I was sick (and there was no cereal for my husband) so to use up more milk and eggs, I decided to make some oh-so-delicious, creamy and spicy cardamom gelato!! (As if I needed an excuse to make this!) I was so excited to find this recipe http://realfoodhascurves.squarespace.com/food-blog/2010/11/24/cardamom-gelato.html because it reminded me of the marvelous gelato shop in Reston Town Center 'Pitango'. I had tried the cardamom flavor a couple of times and the combination of spicy and sweet is heavenly! 

Of course, in keeping with real food/no refined sugars, I used coconut palm sugar (found here: http://www.amazon.com/Wholesome-Sweeteners-Organic-Coconut-16-Ounce/dp/B007TGH4CK/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1371248461&sr=8-3&keywords=organic+coconut+palm+sugar) instead of regular sugar. And I only used 1 cup of sugar total instead of 1 1/4 that the recipe calls for, and it was fine. I just added a little honey so the gelato wouldn't freeze as hard. 

This gelato is a bit more work than regular ice cream, but it is so worth it! The point where you heat the custard concoction to 178 degrees seemed to take forever but I am glad I was precise because this gelato is soo much more creamy than the other ice creams I've made (and this is with mostly milk!)

Anyway, here's a photo of the delightful, farm fresh delicacy: 

Yay for local farmers, and the fresh, real food they provide us! Thanks be to God for quiche and gelato! :)

The Little Gentleman

My sister-in-law just got married and since I was a bridesmaid, I wanted to have my son dressed in equally formal attire. So my friend Monica, who was also in the wedding and has a baby, and I made two bowties from the scraps of the bridesmaid dress:

We used this tutorial to do it: http://oneyounglove.com/2012/02/17/tiny-bow-ties-for-tiny-gentlemen-tutorial/

It was pretty simple and it took about an hour of actual work, I believe, though with us each nursing our sons and trying to keep them entertained, I think it was more like two hours total that we were at it.

Here's how they turned out:

Then, separately, we each worked on the attachment portion of the project. Monica did hers according to the tutorial (with two snaps on the back of the bow that would snap to a shirt), but I decided to attach the bow to a ribbon so that the shirt wouldn't have the snaps on it and could be used separately. I think it would have been better to use elastic rather than ribbon, but it worked out alright. 

Finally, we wore our matching dress and bowtie on the big day!