Tomatoes, Lent, and Death

1.) Tomatoes 

One of the few things left I have to plant in the garden (until it's okra season in mid April) are the tomato seedlings I started in an egg carton. They're now transferred to a scavenged planter. 

As you can see, my planting technique leaves something to be desired. It's less than evenly dispersed. 

I'm thinking I'll put them in the ground this week. They might could benefit from being in a planter and babies for awhile longer, but I honestly don't trust myself not to let them get dried out in the porch. In the ground, surrounded by mulch, I think they have more of a chance. 

2.) Lent Beans 

I dyed a bunch of white navy beans purple with food coloring and rubbing alcohol, put them in a jar, and then cleaned two baby food jars and stuck labels with the kids' names on them. 

We now have a somewhat primitive way for the kids to track sacrifices. I haven't been confident that they could handle a long term sacrifice or fast; this seemed like something more on their level. 

I've been pleasantly surprised by the fact that it actually seems to be working out.

 Not without hiccups, but better than I expected.  I've had to have a sit down with the kids and post a list of examples of sacrifices so that the kids stopped giving people unsolicited hugs or making the sign of the cross at high speed and then putting beans in their jars for it. 

I still don't know if they understand the idea that a sacrifice is supposed to cost them something, but I figure thinking about it all is a step forward from where they were. 

3.) Hallow? Is it me you're looking for? 

As I somehow lost my Formed login info and no longer am associated with a parish that has an account, I've been reduced to the free options on my Hallow app for kid Lent stuff (I'm too cheap to pay the five bucks a month for the paid version). 

It's working out well. They have a Stations of the Cross for children that's about five minutes to a station, and you can access them one at a time. I played one for the kids after night prayer, and it went over well. I think that'll be part of Lent this year... assuming the stations don't go behind a paywall before Easter. 

That's the risk we cheapskates take. 

4.) Couch Surfing 

Bitty Baby has only been crawling with her belly off the ground for a few weeks, but I looked up from my book and saw this today...

Kiddo's starting to work on those walking skills. Shouldn't be long now. 

5.) Those Remembered

My maternal grandfather died this past week. 

It's a strange situation. We still haven't been officially informed: the only reason we know is a Facebook post my dad happened to see in passing.  We (my family, my siblings' families, and my parents) have been estranged from my mother's family for several years now. 

When I left home and started college I tried to have a relationship with them again on my own, even introduced them to my husband and son after I got married, but the situation was too dysfunctional and I decided to walk away. Ultimately I felt that it was what I needed to do for the safety of my children; the dynamic there was one I didn't feel safe exposing them to. 

There was a long time after the decision to cut off contact where I had to come to terms with the loss of those relationships. It was a process that involved a lot of grief, for a very long time, and that didn't come lightly.  I honestly feel as if I've already grieved, and completed the grieving process, before his death.

So now one of those relationships is truly gone forever, no chance of fixing it this side of heaven. I suppose I ought to feel more over that than I do. I pray for his soul. There's really nothing else to do. 

I do wonder what, if anything, it means for other relationships on that side of the family, if they're even still possible. Those sorts of wounds run deep on both sides of a rift. They may already be done grieving me. 

6.) I had it's liver with a nice chianti...

I'm trying something I've eaten but never cooked: fried liver. 

My kids have never tried liver before, so I'm unsure if I'll get away with this or if I'm gonna be eating liver for lunch for the rest of the week. They're usually pretty good with eating a variety of foods, but this might stretch them a bit. 

As a sidenote: I've never actually tried a chianti. I'm more the stereotypical girl who drinks cheap box wine or Moscato in bottles with stylized cartoon cupcakes on the label.  

I'm not classy when it comes to booze.