The Roundup

So my particular corner of the internet is all a-flutter with the news that the MSM isn't covering the news. The non-news this time is the carnival of horrors that is the trial of an abortionist. The reporter leading the charge against the media blackout is Molly Hemingway of GetReligion.

WPost reporter explains her personal Gosnell blackout - GetReligion

This is a beautiful and moving post about mental illness and the pain it brings to those who suffer and those who love those who suffer. Take-away line: I'd rather walk tall with a crutch than crawl around insisting like a proud and bloody fool that I didn’t need one.

What Christians Need to Know About Mental Health - A Holy Experience


Joshua Becker's Becoming Minimalist is one of my favorite sites these days. This post from him makes one think about not only how we judge others, but how we want to be judged.

20 New Ways to Judge Others - Becoming Minimalist

Lastly for today, the new Piano Guys video!

Berlin - The Piano Guys

The Things You Forget...

Education is implication. It is not the things you say that children respect; when you say things they very commonly laugh and do the opposite. It is the things you assume that really sink into them. It is the things you forget even to teach that they learn.

- G.K. Chesterton

h/t Laughter and Humility

Mothering without fear...

Below is a great post by Elizabeth Esther. What she describes is very much our relationship with God, but especially as my children get older, it is also how I need to love them.

Mothering Without Fear

Bad Catholic

If you're not reading Jennifer Fulwiler's Conversion Diary, you ought to be. As an atheist turned Catholic, she's deep, insightful, smart, laugh out loud funny and super-duper real. She recently won a whole boat-load of awards and decided to do her own "awards" list of blogs that she really likes. I haven't checked them all out yet (I'm in the middle of several really interesting books), but the one I did read has been added to my "must read" list. He's funny. He loves God and loves the Church. He's a bit irreverent, while being really reverent. He's the Bad Catholic.

And yeah, he's 18. 18! Seriously, how does that happen? How does an 18 year old know more about how faith and life intersect than I do? And of course, not only do I love the Chesterton quote on his banner, but his quote of the week is my favorite passage of all time, which also happens to be Chesterton. I want my daughter to marry a guy like this. Even if she has to become Catholic to do it (but maybe the right girl would induce him to be Orthodox - you never know!).

I dunno, but you really should read this post: Y'all Suck at Sinning.

And check out Jen's "Awards" post while you're at it and find more blogs that may take all your free time, but may open the world to you.

Love this...

What Children Can Do? A Guide.

I love this blog. I've been reading the archives (really slowly, because most posts are long). It's written by a mother and her daughters and the mother, Leila, is the mother figure I've been needing my whole life. (I love my mother - she's amazing. But teaching me to manage a home was not her forte and I still haven't figured it out after 11 years of marriage.)

This post was another needed reminder about what my children can and should be doing. The only thing I find hard is that this is another homeschooling mom and I really need to find a guide to what kids can do when they're in school all day and have homework in the evenings. We're one of the least scheduled families I know, yet there's still such a crunch to get it all done. I'm a big believer in free play and free reading times, but that conflicts with the homework and piano practice. And the chores. But I absolutely cannot do it all by myself. I intended to teach the kids all kinds of homecare lessons this summer, but well, you know what the road to hell is paved with.

All that being said, I love the way Leila write - it's funny, honest, blunt. She's my kind of person - someone who would way rather be reading. Actually, I loved another post, too. I've kept it open in my reader and I keep reading it. You should, too.

The Reasonably Clean, Fairly Neat, and Comfortably Tidy House

Her introduction to the series (a ways down in the post) is the funniest thing I'd read in a while. Someday, I want to be this woman.

Family matters...

Learning Really is an Atmosphere...

I really like this post from a homeschooling mom who's been there and is now finished - all four of her kids are out of high school. What's nice about her post is that what she writes can be applied whether one's children are homeschooled or in school. Some of her points are things I do. Some are things I definitely need to work on. I very much appreciate the wisdom of someone who has traveled the path and come out alive on the other side.

What are we doing?

I haven't posted this because I haven't known what to say. I'm so horrified and disgusted and saddened and shocked and everything all rolled into one.

I still believe that the heart of this country is good. But a land where such things are done as take place in this article cannot stay good for long. It's part of the "slippery slope" that began so long ago. But the loss of so much life, so much innocence is staggering.

This is very hard to read. But it is important to know what the people around us are dealing with.

The Two-Minus-One Pregnancy

Lord, have mercy on us.