Copywork: Pippa's Song...

Pippa's Song

The year's at the spring,

And day's at the morn;

Morning's at seven;

The hill-side's dew-pearl'd;

The lark's on the wing;

The snail's on the thorn;

God's in His heaven - 

All's right with the world!

Robert Browning

Pound Cake...

I always get the hankering for pound cake on Mother's Day.  This is an easy recipe and the resulting cake is very fine.  Though it is perfect as a plain cake, it can be dressed up with chocolate frosting, lemon glaze, or strawberries and whipped cream.

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Ingredients

3 sticks butter (save wrappers for greasing the pan)
2 cups sugar
5 eggs
3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon fine salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Method

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Bring butter and eggs to room temperature.

With a mixer, cream butter. Add sugar, a little at a time. Add eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition. Stir dry ingredients together in a bowl and add to mixer alternately with milk, starting with the flour and ending with the flour. Mix in vanilla. Pour into a greased and floured tube pan and bake for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.

Mama's Day...

Wishing you a beautiful Mother's Day full of fun, love, and laughter!

Reading...

 

 The clocks were striking midnight and the rooms were very still as a figure glided quietly from bed to bed, smoothing a coverlid here, settling a pillow there, and pausing to look long and tenderly at each unconscious face, to kiss each with lips that mutely blessed, and to pray the fervent prayers which only mothers utter."

 Little Women 

Louisa May Alcott

So Sleepy...

Our littlest little one just couldn't keep his eyes open today! 

Saint Emilia...

Look at the lovely little pouch Sugar Plum made for me!  She has been churning out these little things left and right and I just love them!  My namesday is so close to Mother's Day that it seems like we celebrate for a few days.  It does seem fitting though because Saint Emilia was a wonderful mother.  She raised nine children, five of whom are recognized saints (  St Macrina, Saint Basil the Great, , Saint Peter of Sebaste, Saint Gregory of Nyssa, and Saint Theosebia).  In addition, bother her husband and mother-in-law were canonized (Saint Basil the Elder and Saint Macrina the Elder).  What a good example of Christianity and Motherhood!

Yarn Along: The Scent of Water...

I was able to see two of my sisters (and, of course, LUCY!) when we went to the Sheep and Wool festival in our area.  Kate gave me ten huge balls of her own homespun in a beautiful milk white color and I wasted no time in casting on to a simple stockinette stitch blanket with a garter stitch border.  I can't wait to give it back to her!

I've begun to read The Scent of Water and really hope that I like it...  I could use a new go-to author!

Living and Learning: May...

Faith
The Holy Myrrhbearing Women
Saint Emilia
Sunday of the Paralytic
The Samaritan Woman
Ss. Constantine and Helen
Sunday of the Blind Man
Ascension

Homemaking
Plant herbs and continue seeding lettuce
Plant seeds for children's garden
Plant window boxes and hanging baskets
Prepare for Sugar Plum’s 8th Birthday
Visit the farmer’s market weekly
Sign up Sugar Plum for sleep-away camp (!)
Sheep and Wool Festival
Tidy shed
Enjoy dining al fresco
Begin planning a spring and summer "bucket list"
Resume Sunday afternoon trips to the beach
Set up knitting corner
Finish Grasshopper Shawl
Work on blanket with Kate's homespun yarn
Read The Scent of Water

Themes
Flowers
Farms
Butterflies
Strawberries

Special Days
Saint Emilia – 8th
Mother’s Day – 11th
Full Flower Moon – 14th
Sugar Plum’s Eighth Birthday – 26th
 
Learning
Practice Patience and Love toward one another
Singing – “Christ is Risen”
Practice cleaning the bathrooms together
Practice sweeping
Nature table scene and book basket
Visit a garden
Begin fencing classesCare for bird feeder/plants
Replenish field guide basket
Visit a farm
Butterfly garden
Set up hummingbird feeder
Collect and press flowers
Use the bug house to get a closer look at bugs, frogs, and toads
Hand-wash playsilks with washboard and bucket
Pick strawberries

Copywork: Mary Had a Little Lamb...

Mary had a little lamb,
Little lamb, little lamb,
Mary had a little lamb,
Its fleece was white as snow

And everywhere that Mary went,
Mary went, Mary went,
Everywhere that Mary went,
The lamb was sure to go

It followed her to school one day,
School one day, school one day,
It followed her to school one day,
Which was against the rules.

It made the children laugh and play,
Laugh and play, laugh and play,
It made the children laugh and play,
To see a lamb at school

And so the teacher turned it out,
Turned it out, turned it out,
And so the teacher turned it out,
But still it lingered near

And waited patiently about,
Patiently about, patiently about,
And waited patiently about,
Till Mary did appear

"Why does the lamb love Mary so?"
Love Mary so? Love Mary so?
"Why does the lamb love Mary so?"
The eager children cry

"Why, Mary loves the lamb, you know."
Lamb, you know, lamb, you know,
"Why, Mary loves the lamb, you know."
The teacher did reply.

Reading...

Yarn and Knitting Tools...

I have been knitting for nearly three years and it finally occurred to me that I needed a safe spot for all of my yarn and tools!  Our bedroom had an empty corner that seemed perfect for the job, so my husband helped me set up this little spot by hanging the cubbies and securing the bookshelf to the wall.  I'm sure that I will spend some time rearranging, but it is so nice to have this little area bringing me inspiration!

May Sponsor News...

Liturgical Time provides handmade infinity veils, chapel veils, mantillas, and Christian headcoverings for their patrons to wear in church, at prayer, or in everyday life. They are the creators of the Eternity Veil - the original infinity scarf style head covering. They are able to take special orders, and to provide some customization, so don't hesitate to make special requests. Their veils are made with prayer and packaged with care. Please stop by their shop to buy a beautiful headcovering!

If you are interested in sponsorship for your small business, please contact me:  emily at orthodoxws dot com

Not Quite a Yarn Along Post...

 

I have been missing the Yarn Along updates for the past few weeks, mainly because I have been knitting the same thing for a million years and I feel like it is loosing it's appeal for my readers.  I am finally making headway now that Great Lent is over and am really hoping to be done with it soon.  There are so many things that I want to knit!  Unfortunately, all of them are with fingering weight yarn (very, very thin yarn) and so it will probably be a slow year for completed projects.

The children and I have been reading The Railway Children.  I was reminded of it by Auntie Leila this week and we have a really lovely copy that is illustrated by Shirley Hughes.  Sugar Plum knits and the boys play with their Legos while I read.  My dad read to us on the nights that he didn't have to work and I have fond memories of it of laying on the floor coloring while he read to us.

Speaking of reading to your kids, have you heard Sarah Mackenzie's new podcast, Read-Aloud Revival?  I have only listened to a little bit of it, and am hooked!

Lettuce and Firewood...

Every time I peek out our dining room windows and spot those brave little lettuce leaves swaying in their worn pot, I get a little thrill.  I get why people garden now!  I really can't wait for that first salad.  We went to a fancy garden center to wander around (it is still too cold to plant flowers), and we ended up buying a new little fern and some tiny fairy tools.  We washed the dust off of our little bell jar and are enjoying it on our table again.  I love ferns and this seems to be the only way that I can get them to love me and live.   It is so chilly and rainy that I kind of want to go buy a trunk's worth of wood so that we can feel cozy again. That would be a nice way to spend the last evening of April, don't you think?

Overheard...

"Thank you for protecting me, O Lord!"

-Button, blessing the beautiful plate of delicious food that I lovingly prepared for him.

Reading...

An open davenport stood in the window opposite the door;  in the other there was a stand, with a tall white china vase, from which drooped wreaths of English ivy, pale-green birch, and copper-colored beech leaves.  Pretty baskets of work stood about in different places:  and books, not cared for on account of their binding solely, lay on the table, as if recently put down.  Behind the door was another table, decked out for tea, with a white tablecloth, on which flourished the cocoa-nut cakes, and a basket piked with oranges, and ruddy American apples, heaped on leaves.

It appeared to Mr. Thornton that all these graceful cares were habitual to the family;  and especially of a piece with Margaret.  She stood by the tea-table in a light-colored muslin gown, which had a good deal of pink about it.  She looked as if she was not attending to the conversation, but solely busy with the tea-cups, among which her round ivory hands moved with pretty, noiseless, daintiness.  She had a bracelet on one taper arm, which would fall down over her round wrist.  Mr. Thornton watched the replacing of this troublesome ornament with far more attention than he listen to her father.  It seemed as if it fascinated him to see her push it up impatiently, until it tightened her soft flesh;  and then to mark the loosening - the fall.  He could almost have exclaimed - 'There it goes, again!'  

There was so little left to be done after he arrived at the preparation for tea, that he was almost sorry the obligation of eating and drinking came so soon to prevent his watching Margaret.  She handed him his cup of tea with the proud air of an unwilling slave;  but her eye caught the moment when he was ready for another cup;  and he almost longed to ask her to do for him what he saw her compelled to so for her father, who took he little finger and thumb in his masculine hand, and made them serve as sugar-tongs.  Mr.  Thornton saw her beautiful eyes lifted to her father, full of light, half-laughter and half-love, as this little bit of pantomime went on between the two, unobserved, as they fancied, by any."

North and South

Elizabeth Gaskell

Copywork: Christ is Risen!

I spend a little time each week looking for interesting things for my children to write in their copybooks, usually based upon a theme.  I will post them here each week as a record for myself and as a help to any other family that wishes to use them. 

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English

Christ is Risen!  Indeed He is Risen!

Russian
Khristos Voskrese! Voistinu Voskrese!

Greek
Christos Anesti! Alithos Anesti!

Arabic
Al Maseeh Qam! Haqqan Qam!

French
Le Christ est ressuscité- il est vraiment ressuscité!

Spanish
Cristo ha resucitado! En verdad, esta resucitado!

Christ is Risen!!

I am so happy that Pascha is 40 days!  Soon after we had our dinner, all five of us hit the hay and slept for 12 hours.  Truth be told, I think that I could easily sleep for 12 more, but!  It's Pascha!  Sleep is overrated!

We had a wonderful day yesterday.  Our dinner was ham, loaded baked potatoes (they sounded better than scalloped!) and roasted asparagus.  I made our carrot cake, but it was never eaten...  we were too stuffed from dinner!  I also didn't make our Greek Pascha Bread yet, but there is plenty of time for that.  Last year, I made it once a week for all 40 days!

Today will be a lot of fun!  We have Liturgy this morning and then plan to take the children to the movie theater to see Bears.  We also never held our little family egg hunt yesterday, so we'll do that today as well!  

I hope that you had a lovely Pascha Sunday yesterday! 

The Feast of Feasts...

Great and Holy Saturday...

No matter how well I think I am prepared for Pascha, I am always working on last minute details in the final hours before the midnight Liturgy.  There is a peacefulness to the evening while everyone is sleeping (and I'm so glad when my husband gets in a little snooze between all of his hard work!).  I enjoy putting together our family Pascha basket, adding the final touches to the little surprises that we have for the children, filling the plastic eggs, and putting together a centerpiece for the table.  It was a lovely Holy Week.  All of our parishioners have worked so hard to make this a special Pascha and I am really looking forward to the next forty days of feasting and celebrating!!