Marlicia Fernandez shares ideas on how we can draw closer to Mary, and honor our Blessed Mother during the month of May, Mary's month!
Read More »5 Laundry Tips for Men
by John Clark | I have noticed a plethora of domestically-relevant articles (such as household tips) lately on this site, and have observed that they are usually written by women. But women shouldn’t have a monopoly on ideas, so I thought it was time to put a man’s perspective on things.
Read More »Why Laughter IS the Best Medicine… in 4 Folktales
by Mitchell Kalpakgian | The world’s great writers never cease to marvel at the world’s lack of common sense. Why does man, famously identified by Aristotle as a “rational animal” with an inborn desire for truth (“All men by nature desire to know,” he writes in the Metaphysics) demonstrate so many forms of folly that another great writer, Henry Fielding, remarked that a comic writer can never lack material for satire and laughter because “life everywhere furnishes an accurate observer with the ridiculous.”
Read More »A Virtual Tour of Our Home: How We Keep Life Simple (or Try!)
by Abby Sasscer | Every time I do a meet-and-greet with mothers after my Project Nazareth talks, many of them have suggested that I be open to giving an online tour of our home. And while I thought the idea was great, a part of me wanted to keep our cottage out of the public eye.
Read More »Why Reading and Rosaries Saves Souls… Especially My Kids!
by Lorraine Espenhain | For a while, after the dinner dishes were done, my family would gather around the dining room table, pray the Rosary, and then go into the family room, where I would read aloud a chapter a night from a book about one of the saints.
Read More »Why Grownups Don’t Get Stickers for Good Behavior
by John Clark | I went to school for the first five years of my academic life. During that time, if memory serves (and it decreasingly serves), I received many stickers on my papers. Somehow—and no one really knows why—stickers have become part of the primary academic life in America; they somehow signify achievement.
Read More »3 Things Confirmation Candidates Need to Know
by Marc Postiglione | How would you define the word irony? Might I propose a good working definition as: a situation that is strange or funny because things happen in a way that seems to be the opposite of what you expected. The same Peter, who out of fear for his own life three times denied that he ever knew Jesus, is now standing in front of the Christian community in Jerusalem boldly declaring the truth about Jesus Christ for the entire world to hear.
Read More »Good Manners and Politeness are Keys to Student’s Success
by Ginny Seuffert | Theme 4: Repeated exercises in the forms of good manners and politeness. Gatto’s fourth theme is that elite private boarding schools offer their students repeated exercises in the practice of good manners and courtesy based on the utter truth that politeness and civility are the foundations of all future relationships and the key of access to places a person might want to go.
Read More »Our Cottage Spring Cleaning Adventure: Part 1
by Abby Sasscer | Spring is definitely in the air and what better time to declutter and organize our domestic church than during this beautiful season of Lent. Despite the on-again, off-again winter weather we’ve been experiencing here in Virginia, the Great Purge of 2014 is well underway in our little home in the hills.
Read More »The Rights of Parents as Principal Educators
The primary role of parents in their children’s education, especially in their religious education, comes from the importance of children in Christian marriage. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says ...
Read More »4 Steps to Reach Your Educational Goals, & Succeed!
Trying to get homeschooling done before summer break can be stressful. But sometimes, when you think you’re behind, you’re right where you should be.
Read More »I’m a Wimp with Dentists… Could I be Brave for Christ?
by Alannah Smithee | I have to go to the dentist. Normally, not a big deal. At least, it isn't when you haven't been stalling. But I have, for quite awhile now, in fact. And I have lain in bed many a long night worrying about it because I just didn't have it in me to call and schedule a date to be tortured.
Read More »Walking through Wardrobes: Bonding with Your Children by Reading Aloud
by John Clark | We’ve all probably been in conversations in which a parent will comment that his child spends too much time on the computer or iPad, as though the parent had no control at all over his children. That’s pretty sad for a number of reasons, beginning with the fact that it alludes to a relationship breakdown.
Read More »Shakespeare, Swordfights and Other Small Moments
by Christine Capolino | Startling blue skies. Crisp, clear mornings and halcyon spring afternoons. An impromptu game of marbles. Discovering a family of ladybugs on the kitchen windowsill. Jungle animals imagined in drifting cloud formations. Quiet togetherness watering newly planted pansies. Joyful noise in piano and recorder tunes.
Read More »“30 Minute Meals?” Who’s Got That Long?
John Clark shares ideas for when you've got no time to be in the kitchen, and how to cook meals in less than thirty minutes.
Read More »The Day You Couldn’t Stop Smiling
by Kevin Clark | When you first graduate from college, you attend many weddings. For the five years or so after college, several weddings seem to come every year—some weddings where you know the betrothed well and you are actually in the wedding party, and some where you merely witness the proceedings.
Read More »“A New Mom at Home All Day? What Do You Do?”
by Liz Beller | As a new stay-at-home mom, I’ve been going through a lot of adjusting. Since when did staying at home all day leave me with less time than I had before?
Read More »6 Ways We Taught Our Kids to do Chores… And Learn to Work
by Jennifer Tutwiler | These days, the measure of good parenting seems to be how care-free and enjoyable an existence we have enabled for our children. Children are expected to play with their toys, play outside, play with their friends, play sports, play with video games... and yet today’s children are some of the most behaviorally challenged in human history.
Read More »A Tribute to a Mother’s Hands
by Kerry Costanzo | I love the poem, "The Beautiful Hands of a Priest," and I began thinking the other day about how one could write a similar reflection on the hands of mothers. While a mother’s hands do not share the dignity of those of a priest, they nevertheless have their own special value.
Read More »3 Essentials for Homeschool Education
One of the ends of marriage is the procreation and education of children. Procreation has gotten a good deal of attention in the recent history of the Church, but education is often of less interest.
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