What I read: This week I am reading The Language of Bees by Laurie King. I have enjoyed this book so much. The interesting thing about this series is that each book seems totally different. Some of the books I have loved and others I have skimmed through or just quit reading all together. A lot of times with series, the books are basically just the same story with different people which tends to get boring quickly, but luckily this author likes to be more creative. This book is about Sherlock’s son who has gotten entangled with a cult and his daughter goes missing. The twist is that we do not know if he is the villain or the victim in the story until we reach the end.
Emma (15 years old) finished The Rosie Project and loved it as much as I did. If you enjoyed The Big Bang Theory, then you will enjoy this book. It follows a man who is clearly on the Autism spectrum but is in denial on his search for a spouse. Its a fun read.
Ben (8 years old) is reading Stink Moody Solar System Superhero and Farmer Boy.
What I watched: I am currently watching Season 9 of Murdoch Mysteries and catching up on the current season of Modern Family while I am using the elliptical at the gym.
Ways I was blessed this week:
-Our parish had its annual Lenten mission this past week and we were treated to a great guest speaker. I learned so many wonderful things and was happy to hear the explanations as to why we do certain things in mass. He also shared a lot of bible verses that explained why the church has its stance on many issues. It was very eye opening and I know that it made me grow in my faith. We also had adoration running during the service and the priest let people come up and touch the monstrance to ask for healing. A monstrance holds the Blessed Sacrament (eucharist) during adoration. Catholics believe that the eucharist becomes the real body of Jesus, so when we touched the monstrance, we were in essence touching His cloak….just like the woman who grabbed His robe to be healed did. It was beautiful!
-I took my children with me to the Lenten mission and I was amazed to notice that as we went back each night, Ben got more and more relaxed and started to complain less and less. He also knelt without prompting and joined in with the prayers. It made my heart happy.
-We also got to go to confession, so our souls are now squeaky clean:)
Things I learned:
-That the Catholic Church and its seminaries were infiltrated by communists in the 1930s in hopes that they could tear down the church from the inside…scary….
-That if you want to teach a lot of vocabulary to a large group of children, bingo is the way to go. We had a mini retreat at church that was focused on the sacrament of reconciliation and we had a lot of vocabulary that the children needed to know. Our religion teacher designed bingo cards with a lot of the most important vocabulary words printed out on them and the kids had a blast trying to win and earn candy. I gave a mini lesson on each word as well, so the kids were learning but did not know it!
Funny things that happened:
-A group of girls were picking clover during a break at our retreat this weekend and I mentioned that you can actually eat clover. They stared at me for a minute and then starting shoving it in their mouth and pockets. One little girl kept saying, “This is delicious!”
-One of the words that we were teaching the children was “conscience”. As they were looking up in confusion at me, suddenly I asked, “Who was seen Pinocchio?” A few hands popped up. I then mentioned that Jiminy Cricket was Pinocchio’s conscience because he was not a real boy yet. This of course led me to break out into song. “…and always let your conscience be your guide.” It was cute and effective.
The Thrifty Educator 