The Christmas school holidays have already begun for our family. We have eight weeks to rest and recover from a full and happy year. These holidays my priority is to create lots of family fun while spending as little as possible. We have five children aged 10 and under and like many larger families have to be careful about our spending. I wrote…
Celebrating the beautiful simplicity of Advent
This was published originally in The Catholic Weekly at the start of Advent. With the start of Advent we begin a new Church year and it’s tempting to make some new year’s resolutions, starting with making this our family’s best Advent season ever. A quick look around the internet and talk to friends yields…
What St Teresa of Avila and Jamie Oliver have in common
I’ve been following lately an excellent informal book study on the Interior Castle by St Teresa of Avila run by author Connie Rossini on her blog Contemplative Homeschool. St Teresa is a Doctor of the Church because of her teachings on prayer and the spiritual life. Next year, 2015, will be the 5th centenary celebration (500th anniversary) of…
What I’ve been up to
I’ve had an intense couple of weeks trying to write a 50,000 draft novel for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), writing around 1000-3000 words a day, mostly in the evening when the children are in bed. At a tad over 43,000 words I’m not far from the finish line, but the plot is kind of petering out lamely (is…
Marilyn Rodrigues 