Living an idea, or, Why in the world our family lives in an urban area by choice

It has been almost a year since I posted asking for your prayers for us as we searched for a house to buy. We did find a suitable house. Not our dream house, but a sturdy house with enough living space and bedrooms not only to accommodate all of us, a lovely young lady boarder, and occasional guests, but also to allow us to "call the neighbors in" as we love to do.

The house is close enough to walk to those neighbors' homes,  to Dan and Taryn's house, to church, to the park, to restaurants, a small organic market, a farmer's market, and both the metro and the train station where John begins and ends his daily commute. My sprout of an idea of walking or biking where we need to go is starting to blossom here.

The house was built in 1950. For the past five years, it was a rental property, and it shows. It needs a lot of work, both cosmetic and structural, but by the grace of God, the structure does seem mostly sound. We are watching a few cracks in the foundation of the sunroom addition. The roof will need to be replaced, possibly including many of the actual boards under the shingles, in the next 3-5 years. And let's not talk about the retaining wall that keeps us from sliding off the hill. I have a dream for it, but it's going to take some time.

On the bright side, the moldy paneling, water-stained carpet, and root-bound floor tiles in the basement have been removed, mostly through the efforts of John and the local Catholic men's group, the Barnraisers. With the help of Katie's teenaged friends, new paint has freshened up the school room, dining room, and Patrick's room. More painting is yet to come. The "greige" paint (as the children call it) in the front hall and master bedroom has got to go! I'm a little stuck in choosing replacement colors, but hope to get past that by the time we get out of school and have time to paint. John and I are learning more every day about home maintenance. We are dreaming of new bookshelves for the living room. And we have learned that the simple act of hanging our own pictures on the walls resulted in making everyone feel more at home, more permanent, than any other thing.

With prayer, the welcoming spirits of our new neighbors, and God's grace, we are settling into this community.

It is the community, after all, that drew us here. Dan and Taryn  discovered it and moved here first, in late winter two years ago. When they started telling us about it, we were intrigued. Here was a chance to live near family in a walkable community salted with Catholic neighbors who moved here with the intention of living in this place at this time: to do something beautiful for God and neighbor in what has been a beleaguered neighborhood inside the DC beltway.

Will Seath writes here about how it came to be.

And that is why we have chosen this busy, urban neighborhood, so different from our dreams of rural tranquility, in which to make our home.

Looking for "a good house where God wants us to live"

That's Meghan's prayer, and we're working on it.

We have met with our credit union and a realtor. We have toured a few houses. We have missed seeing a few houses before contracts were signed on them.

30-day novena to St. Joseph begins today, the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker. Want to join us?

EWTN has the words of the prayer here.

Thank you (in advance) for your prayers!

So how was your weekend?

Friday started out like any normal Friday. The kids did their schoolwork; we walked down to noon Mass, and Joseph mowed our front lawn. Friday night, John, Joseph, and Matthew served for Confirmation. Joseph was a Bishop's attendant and got to wear a special cape (on top of his cassock and surplice) to cover his hands while holding the miter. Until just before the Sacrament was conferred, when he was overcome by the heat. He got to the open window in the sacristy in time to avoid fainting and remove the cape, but then he threw up instead. Poor guy! So John helped Joseph clean up the window sill, and Matthew, the lowly boat boy, was promoted to Bishop's attendant for the remainder of the Mass. He was floating on air when he got home.

He came into my room absolutely beaming and said to me, "Did you hear about the catastrophe at church?"

"No. No one has told me anything about it yet," I replied, putting down the laundry I was folding.

"Oh! It was beautiful!"

"Really? what happened?"

"Joseph has to tell you."

Joseph took the whole thing with good humor. He had felt better and returned to the sanctuary during the Liturgy of the Eucharist and partaken of the celebratory cake afterwards.

Saturday, Joseph, who has started a lawn-mowing business in order to pay for Boy Scout summer camp, had his first job at 7 a.m. Friday night's thunderstorm made the grass too wet to mow, so we walked over, met the lady, saw what she needed done, and arranged to have him come back this morning to do the work. Then, we went out to buy him a baseball glove (which was his long-awaited birthday present) and white baseball pants. Matthew also needed pants--black ones. How, with all the white pants and grey pinstriped pants that we have in almost every size, it still ended up that both boys needed uniform pants, I'll never know. Murphy's law. Thankfully, they did already have the right combination of socks (well, almost--Joseph is supposed to have white socks with a black stripe--we have plain white, navy stripe, red stripe, orange stripe, but no black stripe and no striped socks at the sporting goods store or Target. So he's going with plain white), belts, red t-shirts, protective gear, and cleats.

After the sporting goods store, Joseph came home to do chores until 11:00 when it was time to mow Uncle Dan and Aunt Taryn's lawn. He started in on that, intending to spend two hours before his baseball game. While he was working, he got a call that his game was changed to a practice because the game field was too wet. I guess the practice field was not. It saved John about 90 minutes of driving, so no complaints here.

Joseph spent about 3 1/2 hours on the aunt & uncle's lawn, then went to practice for 2 hours, then came home, begged off on weeding Dan and Taryn's garden until Tuesday, finished his home chores, hung out with a friend for a few minutes, ate dinner (glad I made Irish stew so he had something hearty), checked his email, and went to bed.

In between driving Joseph places, John finished Patrick's financial aid application, started putting the polyurethane on the cabinet he's finishing for the art supplies, and went to work on the thousands of dandelions in the yard. We're renting, but we're still supposed to keep the yard looking presentable, and in this neighborhood, that means digging up dandelions.

I also did some driving to pick Joseph up from lawn mowing and drop him off at baseball practice, went to the organic market for milk and to Target for night-light bulbs, batteries, and a failed attempt to find a mesh thingamajig to put over the end of the washing machine hose to reduce the amount of lint going into the basement sink drain. Not that it keeps it from overflowing the sink at least once a month, but, hey, it must be keeping it from overflowing the sink every week, right? Right? Still. Didn't find one. I was sure I got them at Target last time.

Then, I made Irish stew with the leg bones and leftover lamb from our Easter feast. And Irish brown bread. Yummy! While the bread was baking and the stew was, well, stewing, I went out to pull weeds in the garden beds. I did about a one-square yard area before I ran out of time. There are so many weeds here, I can see that it's going to be a daily chore for everyone all summer to keep up with this garden. Good thing we homeschool so we're home and have plenty of extra time every day.

ha!

Sunday, John and the boys served Mass, and it was our weekend to set up and clean up the  post-Mass social. This is actually not a hard job at all, and we do it with Dan and Taryn, so it turns out to be fun. It takes time, though. We got home at about 1:15, and Joseph helped John cook brunch while I made the fruit salad. John and I went out to look at a couple of houses--nothing spectacular yet, but when we saw a house on a good street that we hadn't even known was for sale and is already under contract, we realized that we really need a realtor.  Lesson learned. When we got home, I sent an email to the realtor Dan and Taryn worked with last winter.

While John and Meghan very industriously went outside to pull more weeds, I snatched an hour to read. For fun. Ahhhhhh! Sunday rest! 0:-D

The boys were at the creek with friends: a well-deserved playtime for Joseph. They stayed down there until almost 6 p.m. when Joseph went off with John to Boy Scout Troop Leader Training at church. I made a simple dinner for the rest of us: leftover fruit salad, a raw veggie plate, leftover tzatziki, and some cheese and crackers. After Meghan and Matthew were in bed, I finished my book. Hooray!

Katie was sick all weekend and pretty much stayed in bed except to do her chores on Saturday and go to Mass on Sunday. She didn't run the neighborhood 5K after all. Her friend and running partner came down with strep throat on Thursday, and by Saturday morning, Katie was feeling horrible too.

Meghan did her chores and hung out at home with Katie. She has had a terrible cold since we got back from Massachusetts last Monday, so she and I opted not to go to Confirmation on Friday. Ordinarily, I might have taken her. Bishops' Masses are exciting (who knew how exciting this one was going to be!?), but it was raining, and I didn't think we should drag her out at bedtime. She was happy to stay at home, which tells me she was tired. Normally, she wants to go everywhere everyone else is going. She did go out with John to help pull weeds in the yard on Sunday afternoon and gave me a minute-by-minute report before dinner.
Back to her old self, I think.

So that was our weekend.

I'm ready for the regular schedule of a regular week now.

Except for the clogged kitchen sink.

Spring snow

Pausing for Tea on a Snowy Morning
(with sincere apology to Robert Frost)

Whose flakes these are I think I know.
His heart is with His children, so
I know He sees me pausing here
To watch His world fill up with snow.

My little children think it queer
To stop and sit at window clear
To gaze in peace and sip my mug
This fifth spring morning of the year.

They give my bathrobe sleeve a tug
And ask for lap and kiss and hug.
The silent morning wakes from sleep
With joyous shrieks and boots pulled snug.

The snow is fluffy, wet, and deep,
But I have school and home to keep,
And hours to go before I sleep,
And hours to go before I sleep.

From Rome to Annapolis

We found the grave of St. Justin Martyr himself behind the Carroll House in Annapolis.

Washington Monument

This is the first Washington Monument.  It's located near Boonesboro, Maryland.  Joseph and I saw it during BSA Troop 224's monthly camping trip in October.