bits and bants vol.17

september notes with a light frost

Somehow it’s the middle of September? I’m barely catching up from the busy-ness of summer, and very slowly trying to figure out life with everyone’s new schedules. I usually try to give myself the month of September to slowly figure out new school rhythms and get back into the groove, but let’s be honest it takes more than a month, it’s still good to give myself more runway to having things running on all cylinders.

I guess I’m starting my 11th? 12th? year of homeschooling which feels unbelievable. Just as having a 16 year old feels unbelievable. I feel like the only homeschooler on earth these days, much more lonely homeschooling high schoolers than the beginning years. I feel like the only one of my friends who started out homeschooling still doing it. Which I know isn’t strictly true, but the feeling of “I’m doing something weird but at least I’ve got some friends who are doing it too!” has been replaced with,
”Am I really a weirdo for still doing this when everyone else has stopped?” Haha, trust me, to homeschool is to have constant different, arguing self doubts running through your mind at any and every point.

My original point was, as someone who homeschools and is in charge of motivating and keeping five people of school age on track with daily, consistent learning I’ve got to give myself at least a month to reach optimal routine level or else I will drive myself crazy.

Leaving a bit more time for school unfortunately is the fact that 95% of my garden is dead. We got a pretty good frost the night of September 4 which is on the early side even for us. It is just so depressing to have one night of frost and then a good ten days of brilliant, warm weather which would have been perfect growing weather. I protected most of my dahlias, but the plants have slowed down to the extent that they aren’t really throwing up many blooms. A last succession of sunflowers is still coming along, but that’s about it. I started pulling plants and the cleanup process this week, mostly because there is just so much plant material in the garden this year that it is going to take me a while to get it all chopped down. Maybe till November.

The leaves on the precipice of changing and then will be blown to winds within two days, and at think at that point I will accept it is September. Thankfully football, transitioning to bourbon cocktails, and incoming soup season will be bright spots.

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bants:

• I found so much of this article by Louise Perry to be of such good food for thought. I can’t remember the last place I read or heard about the return to paganism in our culture, coulda been C.S. Lewis since I’ve been reading so much of him this year, but it is really becoming evident. I think we’re on the downslope of civilization, but what surprises me again and again is to how boring the downslope is…is full blown and acknowledged paganism more entertaining? I have so many thoughts about this article I could have a whole commentary so we’ll stop there.

• The more I share in this newsletter the more I laugh at myself for my interest being so “on brand”. So coming as no surprise I found this from Amy Welborn completely fascinating. Church preservation Christy comes back for ya.

• I’ve seen A LOT of Catholicism in my life and weird demonic stuff has never been attractive to me, and by weird demonic stuff, I mean, I’ve never been attracted to the idea that I need to be fearful or pray a lot of deliverance prayers about what have you. I blame my cynicism. But please check out Emily Chapman’s yeoman work of explaining how to properly order how we treat things of the devil. It will behoove you. Also, anyone who reads me must already read Emily, so maybe this is unnecessary.

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reading, watching, what have you:

• I’ve caught up on Only Murders in the Building, I honestly don’t even need to comment on the quality of the season, I will watch this show for the next fifty years if Steve Martin lives that long.

• Gemma and I are also catching up on Miss Scarlet and the Duke, and finishing the final season of Gilmore Girls. I’m shook we’re going to finish it. I think we’ve been randomly watching it for almost two years? I remember being pregnant with Gemma when the final season was on tv and I remember feeling both feeling nauseous and wanting to slap Lorelei like it was yesterday.

• I’ve been reading Yellowface as my *I SWEAR* last bestseller of the summer. I kinda don’t understand how this book became so popular because it is so much publishing inside baseball, and just a smothering amount of Twitter. Is Reese Witherspoon just telling us she’s so self aware by making this her book club pick??

• I’m also starting to read Arthurian lit. It’s weird. I think it’s going to become a whole thing…

• Extra tidbit if you’re still reading: I’m a little afraid of being completely unfollowed/cancelled if I admit I really have fallen onto the Zack Bryan bandwagon.

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I feel like an all-star adult for uploading all my phone photos this week…because the last time I did it was last December!!! My husband wasn’t impressed by this accomplishment but I can tell you it has really improved the quality of my sleep.

with pumpkin spice,

Christy