St. Patrick's Day Round-Up

Right after the birth of our first son, a saint-of-a-friend carried a hot meal all the way from Queens to our apartment in East Harlem, NYC, on St. Patrick’s Day. It was corned beef with cabbage and Irish soda bread and that meal has lived on in family lore, told every year on this day. Now we always cook up an “Irish Feast” (or at least our version), pull out photos of Ireland travels, and have a retelling of the inspiring story of St. Patrick.

Should anyone be interested in beginning a St. Paddy’s day tradition, here’s what ours usually includes, best enjoyed with Irish music and friends:

Corned beef

Potatoes

Carrots

Cabbage

Irish soda bread

(There are recipes o’plenty online for all these)

Green additions for kids like grapes, cucumbers, and apples

Mint chocolate chip ice cream and brownie pie

Reading

**Saint Patrick the Forgiver: The History and Legends of Ireland's Bishop**

Creating

We had fun making art with a few St. Patrick-themed art videos from Art for Kids Hub! We’ve loved their videos for years.

Katy Rose 3/4/24 Katy Rose 3/4/24

Peaceful Home Hack: 8:30 Stop Sign

Since I know by now that molehills become mountains after dark, concerns ballooning into catastrophes as my brain loses steam, I set a rule for myself a while back: No worrying after 8:30 pm.

Seems like the worry train likes to barrel down the track right as my head is hitting the pillow, but now with that red stop sign in hand, it screeches to a halt.

If the concern is important enough, I hand it to the Lord and deal with it when I wake in the morning for prayers and reading. Perfect time to sort through what plagues me.

And you know what? The more the habit is halted at 8:30, the less worry ends up infiltrating the rest of my day as well. Boundaries bring freedom. Seems like Jesus knew what he was talking about when he told us to hand our burdens to him.

Sweet dreams!

Katy Rose 2/21/24 Katy Rose 2/21/24

Notes on Painting with My Son

I wanted to share a few notes my youngest son and I took when recently working on an Impressionistic landscape painting together:

Read about the father of Impressionism, Claude Monet, in the book, Monet’s Garden, by Laurence Anholt.
Got out supplies: drop cloth, a few brushes, canvas or thick watercolor paper, acrylic paints, water, palette (paper plate for us.)
Created an underpainting. Cover the canvas or paper in a watered-down single shade and use the paintbrush to sketch in a loose drawing of what you plan to paint.
Mixed colors or choose existing paint colors. We mixed all our colors using the three primary colors, red, yellow, and blue, plus a little white and black.
Started painting the picture! We were working on a mountain landscape. Lots of artists reach a point known as the “messy middle” where they are no loving their painting, but keep going and persevere to the end!
Considered where the light source was in the picture. We were thinking about where the sun was rising from behind the mountains. Based on the light source, we painted in where the brighter spots would be in the landscape, and where the shadows would be.
Add a little signature or initials to the bottom corner. This always reminds me that each work of art was not created by some nameless machine, but by a human hand, and makes me appreciate a painting I see all the more.