The Mom Weekly

Author: Mom

  • Theologian in the House (From the Vault, October 2009)

    Theologian in the House (From the Vault, October 2009)

    The Mom Weekly Volume 116: October 28, 2025

    You can read this, or any other previous Mom Weeklies, by going to the home page here.

    Notes:

    I couldn’t help but add this “From the Vault” because it was so sweet, and had something to do with my birthday as well. The photo that I originally shared on the blog was not very good, so I have chosen a better photo of the fall colors. It was taken in 2024, right around my birthday, when there are great colors and cooler weather.

    Theologian in the House (From the Vault, October 2009)

    After my birthday hike last Saturday (yay! see beautiful fall colors above), we were in the nature center afterwards, and Max got stung by a wasp. He was very brave about it, though sad, and one of the naturalists examined the wasp and Max and said it would hurt but he should be okay.

    As we walked out to the minivan, Max turned to Sir & me and said, “Why did God’s creature do that to me?”

    I turned to Sir and said, “You better handle this one; you are the theologian in the house!” And apparently not the only one…

    Interesting/Notable:

    WSJ Gift Link: Why Are So Many Women Like Me Suddenly Getting Strong?

    Not for the first time do I mention that I am, almost always, WELL AHEAD of many trends. The OG blogs? (See “from the vault” above). Check. Jane Austen? Check. Weighted Vests? Check. Dark Chocolate? Check. Smiley face emoji.

    An Action Item: Offer People Three Options

    I’m borrowing this from Laura Vanderkam. It’s such a simple idea, but really worthwhile. When trying to get together, offer three options. If you’re talking with a friend and one or both of you says, “We have to get together!”, either right then or shortly afterwards, offer three options for getting together that work for you.

    It dramatically increases the chances of a get-together happening!

    Without knowing this “hack,” I have operated this way in the past—offering several options for get-togethers, whether it’s hiking mornings or catch-ups with a friend. But I’m going to be much more intentional about it going forward. Give it a try and let me know how it goes!

  • Moments of Grace (From the Vault, December 2009)

    Moments of Grace (From the Vault, December 2009)

    The Mom Weekly Volume 115: October 21, 2025

    You can read this, or any other previous Mom Weeklies, by going to the home page here.

    Notes

    Your Mom’s Birthday Week is well underway! I am happy to be celebrating all week long, and so grateful for all of you and what a full life I have because you are part of it.

    I love this “Frrom the Vault” because I still hold these views about confession, and these views about raising spiritually healthy kids.

    Remember how much I love you,

    Mom

    Moments of Grace (From the Vault, December 2009)

    The girls and I decided to go to confession Saturday after Sir told us that he had gone to a downtown parish for confession and Mass earlier that week. It was so nice to hear that Sir had gone because it gave me an opening to suggest it to the girls, and they readily agreed. Ideagirl reported that in Atrium they had talked about how Advent was a good time to go to confession. I was so glad for that reinforcement, too.

    I still would like to have a regular time for confession. I go regularly-ish, but getting the kids there on a regular basis is not a part of the schedule, and I am frustrated by it. I used to take the girls bike-riding to Church for first Saturday and the confession that was offered after Mass, but the confession time is no longer offered.

    I know that confession is such a personal thing, and I don’t want to force it. Yet I want to inspire in our kids when they are young that it is normal and usual to go regularly, so they will hopefully have that habit when they are on their own. We also talk about how sometimes we feel good when we come out, and sometimes we don’t, but we do always have the graces of the sacrament. 

    I don’t want anyone have an experience like I know some people have had, of going to a bad confession (confessor or whatever) and then not going back to the sacrament for a long time.

    I try to tell kids that you can have a good or bad experience sometimes, but that keeping going in the important thing. That’s also the same for Mass. This is actually part of my much larger theory of trying to raise spiritually healthy Catholics, a theory very much in flux but in avid conversation with Sir.

    Anyway, before we left on Saturday, we were all having a quick cup of tea, we were talking about how long it had been for the girls (we were thinking about 2 months), and then trying to encourage an examination of conscience. And I was moved, almost to tears, by our casual banter about confession. 

    There was much lighthearted joking about the lists we had all made for each other of our sins. Ideagirl was laughing as she said that my list was so large she had to store it in the attic, but she would be happy to go and get it for me. I know it may not seem like a moment of grace—some people may be offended by joking about sins or confession—but it was all lighthearted and loving, and I felt it as a moment of grace.

    At church more moments of grace—Ideagirl and Homegirl starting to bicker because of who would go after me (both wanted me to go first), and Ideagirl deferring to Homegirl. It was so big girl of her, I was just touched again.

    When Homegirl came out of confession, after she said her penance she immediately turned to me to whisper, “What did you get (for your penance)?” Her eyes went wide because mine was 40 percent larger than hers, but we both recognized that was probably because I was a Mommy.

    As we walked back to the van, (too cold for bike riding, or even walking that day), we chatted about confession and starting to talk about their first Confessions and how much better we feel after we go to Confession.

    All grace.

    An Action Item: Consider Going to Confession

    As I request every year around my birthday, I’d like you to consider going to confession. It’s really a birthday tradition for me, both going to confession, and asking others to go.

    I paused before requesting this this year, as some of us this summer had a long discussion about scrupulosity and how a tendency toward that can make confession fraught. But reading what I wrote above made me realize that I did have a good perspective all those years ago about wanting to raise spiritually healthy Catholics. 

    Also, it’s been a pretty consistent desire of mine, to want people to have a healthy relationship with confession, and go often. So I’m sticking with it! 

    Interesting/Notable: 

    Jane Austen Loved Music. What Was on Her Playlist?

    We’ll just keep October as a month of Jane Austen. Dad shared this with me.

    This is not how this works—Claire the Catholic Feminist

    Most of this is behind the paywall, but it’s honestly worth subscribing just to read. This article was published in the week after Charlie Kirk’s murder, but I find it still highly relevant.

    One quote:

    If you are a person with a big heart who cares about the world, as I know most of you are, events like the murder of Charlie Kirk will quickly make you feel utterly unhinged if you are not moving carefully through the world with your eyes on Jesus, doing intentional work to be in charge of your own emotional responses.

  • The Privilege of a Large Family

    The Privilege of a Large Family

    The Mom Weekly Volume 114: October 14, 2025

    You can read this, or any other previous Mom Weeklies, by going to the home page here.

    The Privilege of a Large Family

    This past week, as most of you know, I was in Baltimore for the Jane Austen Society of North America Annual General Meeting (better known as the JASNA-AGM). It was a wonderful event and trip and I’m still recovering from the week. But a conversation there helped solidify some thoughts I’ve had in recent weeks.

    The Sunday morning of each JASNA AGM begins with a Jane Austen themed “Fun Run/Walk.” For a conference that had nearly 1,000 attendees, I was surprised that only 14 showed up for the run—about half were runners and half walkers. But that made it a very convivial group and a fun early morning time.

    (Digression: one of the runners was Friday night’s speaker, Susannah Harker. She played Jane Bennet in the 1995 adaptation of Pride & Prejudice, and if you’ve seen that adaptation, she is EXACTLY as you would imagine her. An absolutely lovely person in every way. She was a runner, and I was a walker, so we didn’t get a chance to visit until we sat together at the SAME TABLE at breakfast later that morning. One of the people at her table called me over when I was fruitlessly looking for a seat).

    Since about half of us were walking, I was able to drift in and out of several conversations. At one point, I was talking with a woman about something medical and I mentioned that one of my sisters is a doctor (and somehow had mentioned I’m one of six). She said, “Do you have any lawyers?” To which I responded, “hahaha, you have no idea!” And then she said, “Do you have any finance people?” And I said, “Well, my son is an accountant, and I do financial writing, and there’s an actuary among the cousins.” And then she said, “Well, you’ve got everything covered. It must be nice.” 

    It must be nice. Yes, it is nice! Through the rest of that morning a phrase kept popping up to me: we experience the privilege of a large family.

    The word “privilege” has become loaded and even fraught in our current culture. There’s the saying, “Check your privilege” when discussing certain topics. I could write a lot about why I don’t find “check your privilege” a particularly useful construct because you never know what someone has gone through, either for good or ill, and may not have as much privilege or as little privilege as you suspect. Appearances can be deceiving.

    But … There is a privilege to being part of a large family. It’s not just because in our family, some of us are medical professionals, and others are lawyers and a judge, and some are money nerds, and others are artists and thinkers and extraordinary people. All those things are well and good. But they don’t “cover everything,” as my fellow walker thought.

    The connection and the love that we share are the real privilege. 

    Yes, we have a person to call or text when we have a medical issue, or a legal issue, and I in particular LOVE to help people with money questions. But that’s not the real privilege.

    It’s not that we don’t annoy or irk each other (understatement) or disagree strongly about issues, or have the same outlook on things. I, for instance, have zero interest in sports, which puts me at a distinct disadvantage among our sports-loving family. But I know I still belong!

    I invite you over the next few days to consider what a privilege you have in being part of a large family. I invite you to experience gratitude for our large family, and rest in that gratitude to help you get through the inevitable bumps and annoyances that come along with a lot of people interacting.

    Remember how much I love you (and our large family!),

    Mom

    Interesting/Notable:

    What It’s Really Like to Support a Family on a Modest Income (gift article)

    This piece is lovely, and beautiful. We can make a way to have the life and the family we want. Finances shouldn’t be the main consideration about this.

    How to ADHD: Declutter—Clutterbug YouTube Channel

    I thought this was a very helpful video about how to declutter large amounts of items, and also how to arrange an apartment or home in a way that serves the people living there and their style. In this case, lots of open storage—which can be great for ADHD. And I love the reveal. It’s worth watching in the background while you are doing something else.

  • A House With Four Rooms

    A House With Four Rooms

    The Mom Weekly Volume 113: October 7, 2025

    You can read this, or any other previous Mom Weeklies, by going to the home page here.

    Notes:

    There are a few birthdays and half-birthdays in the days around when this Weekly goes out, so Happy Birthday to all of those family members & friends who are celebrating! And a new baby! There’s now a triumverate of birthdays from October 5 to October 7. Everyone knows how much I love celebrating birthdays, and know I’ll be celebrating right along with you.

    Remember how much I love you,

    Mom

    A House with Four Rooms

    At a used bookstore or a book sale some years ago, I picked up the Rumer Godden memoir, A House with Four Rooms.

    I find her novels for children such good reads, though they are melancholy! — from The Story of Holly and Ivy to The Kitchen Madonna. I loved her novel In This House of Brede (but the BBC adaptation of it is terrible! Not worth a watch).

    Anyway, this is apparently the second memoir she wrote, and it relates to the second half of her life. It covers her second marriage, her writing and screenwriting career, and her conversion to Catholicism.

    Here’s how she found the title:

    There is an Indian proverb that says that everyone is a house with four rooms, a physical, a mental, an emtional, and a spiritual . Most of us tend to live in one room most of the time but unless we go into every room every day, even if only to keep it aired, we are not a complete person.

    What a great framework to think about living a whole and holistic life!

    A few notes about the rest of the quotes: her son’s name is Jan; her sister’s name is Jon. I found this confusing often—they are too similar! But it’s real life, not fiction, where you can name the people in ways that aren’t confusing, haha. I hope you enjoy these quotes as much as I did!

    I suppose the more you have to do, the more you learn to organize and concentrate—or else get fragmented into bits. I have learned to use my “ten minutes’. I once thought it was not worth sitting down for a time as short as that; now I know differently and, if I have ten minutes, I use them, even if they bring only two lines, and it keeps the book alive.”

    A pamphlet written by the nuns of Stanbrook Abbey explaining why they are cloistered:
    We do not engage in works outside our monastery
    For we have chose to live in silence and concentration
    At the hidden springs, the deepest level
    Where the struggle is enacted between the powers of good and evil
    Where your union with Christ bears fruit for all mankind …
    We have chosen a stillness more powerful than all activity.
    A detachment more fulfilling than all possession,
    A wisdom exceeding all knowledge
    And a love beyond all.

    “Time is a stream in which there is no abiding.” 

    (Taken from The Meditations of Emporer Marcus Aurelius Antonius)

    Writing about her son Jan when he was a young boy:

    One night I found him writing poems in bed by moonlight and, ‘I can’t show them to you until they stop being secret,’ he said. How well I understood.

    The following two quotes are in one chapter about her Catholicism, which is colored through by the many years she lived in India.

    Sometime before Jon had sent me, for the Bhavakad-Gita: “The god Krishna says: However men approach me, even so do I welcome them, for the path men take from every side leads to me.”

    ……

    “When the pupil is ready, the teacher will come.” That is a Hindu proverb which for me over and over again has proved true.

    (After this she shares about several influential priests in her life, as well as her long association with the sisters of Stanbrook Abbey, which led to the writing of “In This House of Brede.” 

    Interestingly, while I was wondering where Stanbrook Abbey is in England, it’s actually now a hotel. So we could stay there!

    The sisters some time back sold the property, and live in a different abbey, in Yorkshire, a different part of England. They still offer a lot of spiritual guidance and spend their lives in prayer.

    Interesting/Notable:

    Captain Ron’s Guide to Fearless Flying—The Atlantic, Gift Article

    I loved this article so much! Flying really isn’t that great, even when we can fly in business class due to points. But learning some tips from people who help those who are afraid to fly is a helpful way to feel “slightly” better about it.

    Both my parents died. This letter explains how I kept going. –Washington Post gift link

    Get out the Kleenex if you read this one. It’s really beautiful.

  • Time to Update Your Net Worth (Mom’s Occasional Money Advice)

    Time to Update Your Net Worth (Mom’s Occasional Money Advice)

    The Mom Weekly Volume 112: September 30, 2025

    You can read this, or any other previous Mom Weeklies, by going to the home page here. https://themomweekly.com/

    Time to Update Your Net Worth (Mom’s Occasional Money Advice)

    We are at the end of the quarter, so it is time to update your net worth!

    Yes, this headline pops up every quarter, and that is not going to change. 

    Here’s why: I am trying to convince you to start this practice early, so you can feel more confident over time about how your money life looks. It really works!

    Calculating net worth has been enormously helpful in making me feel more confident about our finances, just by knowing.

    Before doing this regularly, I might have been concerned about our spending at different times—for instance, sometimes we would have a year when we had big tuition bills, or we had done a lot of house-related spending. 

    I would have an amorphous feeling like, “eek, we are spending too much..” or “things don’t feel stable, but I can’t imagine how to figure this out except for taking a million years to track every bit of our spending…” 

    Or, alternatively, I might think, “Everything’s great!” But not really know. Knowledge is power, as the kids like to say. And it’s true!

    Even when headlines talk about how bad the stock market is doing, or how terrible the housing market is in our area—both things that occurred in the recent past—I can look at how our personal finances are doing, and not pay attention so much to what the headlines say.

    Here is a version of my regular pitch:

    This may take slightly longer this first time, if you have not done so. But I promise you, over time, you will be happy that you do this. 

    The only reason I hesitate is that, especially for younger people, it could be pretty likely you have a negative net worth, largely because of student loans. But that’s will be so temporary (over the long haul!) that you should not be discouraged by it. 

    When people begin to track their net worth, they call it “getting back to zero” when they have a zero net worth. That may not seem promising, but it’s a great accomplishment for those who have paid off a significant amount of debt, whether student loan debt, credit card debt, or other types of debt. 

    And it can be very encouraging to see an improvement in your net worth over time. 

    Here is a super-simple net worth calculator spreadsheet I put together. 

    There’s no formatting with cool colors and such, but it works and completes the calculations for you. Let me know what you think about it!

    A few notes:

    *Make your own spreadsheet or list. Unfortunately, Google Sheets does not allow password-protecting of items. I prefer to keep this information, and most of my spreadsheets, in a format I can password protect. Think Microsoft Excel, Apple’s Numbers, etc. You can even do this on paper if you want, and store it somewhere safe. 

    *There are two “sheets” in the shared spreadsheet — the first is a blank one, and the second is a sample with random numbers that I have included. I have added made-up numbers to the sample sheet, so you can see how the numbers change over time.

    *Sometimes people do not include their vehicles or mortgages. I do, because you can see how much equity you have in the house or vehicle. But I mentally don’t include them with the same weight as other assets, since they are not liquid and it’s not likely one would sell them for living expenses, in retirement or not.

    Interesting/Notable:

    Looking to Make New Friends? Try Church. — Aletheia

    I love this! This is written by an online friend I met years ago at a Catholic blogger conference. Like her, I have met people through noticing them at church. It’s really worth a quick conversation! 

    How to Include Kids Without Centering Them—Priya Parker

    Also, what great ideas of what to do with older kids in a larger gathering. Priya Parker is the author of The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters.

  • Remember, We Stay 100 Miles Away from the Occult

    Remember, We Stay 100 Miles Away from the Occult

    The Mom Weekly Volume 111: September 23, 2025

    You can read this, or any other previous Mom Weeklies, by going to the home page here.

    Notes:

    Not surprisingly, I have much more to say about our topic from last week–that will appear at some future time– but what I had wrote last week as an “action item” I felt warranted its own weekly.

    Remember how much I love you,

    Mom

    Remember, We Stay 100 Miles Away from the Occult

    The headline says it all here.

    After the Charlie Kirk assassination, there was some coverage of the women’s website Jezebel publishing an article one or two days before with the headline, “We Paid Some Etsy Witches to Curse Charlie Kirk.” The WSJ reported that the article was amended. Jezebel took down the content and, to its great credit, condemned political violence and Kirk’s shooting. It’s especially commendable because it’s not universal to condemn political violence these days! Eek.

    The WSJ quoted from the article:

    The author of the article, whose byline has since been removed, said in the piece that she was “not calling on dark forces to cause him harm.”

    “I just want him to wake up every morning with an inexplicable zit,” she wrote.

    This is a screenshot of the original, from reporting after it was amended.

    You know what that quote made me do? Resolve to pray and sacrifice for the author of that article. Most likely, she believed that buying a “curse” from a witch would have no effect, so much so that she could joke about it.

    In no way do I think that those curses led to Kirk’s murder. But I am very worried about the soul of the author. That poor young woman is joking — or perhaps not—about the occult. She is joking about the effect of the “curses,” and wanting it to be mild, like a zit, rather than an assassination.

    But it’s not a joke, and not just because a person died. The occult is no joking matter. 

    I am saying, not for the first time, that everyone should stay 100 miles away from anything occult. Do not even get close.

    After the fact, Jezebel called this a “satire” piece, so we don’t know if the author actually did pay Etsy witches. Based on what I’ve read of the article, (but this is only second hand, from this source: Variety described it in detail) the author quotes the self-described witches and actually engaged with them.

    Hear me: I truly pray that she did not. But if she did, she is in spiritual danger, and I am praying and sacrificing for her today (the day I am writing this) at the very least.

    [Also, this is not the first time that I have said this, but perhaps the first time in print: Jezebel is the worst possible name for a feminist website. Just take literally one minute to read 1 Kings 21 (Naboth’s vineyard). This is NOT a person to be emulated. There’s no “taking back” her name because she was pretty awful through and through. SMH.

    If we are looking for Biblical names for a women’s website, how about Judith for a website name? How about Esther for a website name? Get with it, people! Okay, rant over]

    The occult is not to be avoided because it is fake, but because it is real. There are real, true spiritual enemies to human souls. Opening oneself to the occult, whether it’s a ouija board or tarot cards, or going on Etsy to purchase spells, or going to psychics, is more spiritually dangerous than most people realize. I hope all of us reading this know, and so just a reminder again: stay 100 miles away from anything occult. 

    If someone, even in jest, wants to play a ouija board, or talks about spells or invites you to participate in any way, you can easily say, “Nah, I don’t do that.” It’s that simple.

    At the same time, there is no need to focus on it. As I wrote in this “From the Vault”

    “There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils,” write C.S. Lewis in his preface to The Screwtape Letters. “One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them.”

    Remember, we have no need to be concerned or afraid, because we belong to the Lord. And if you have another minute today, consider a tiny sacrifice for the young woman who wrote the article.

    Interesting/Notable:

    We all need some wholesome, lovely content as a palate cleanser to the rough news in recent weeks. So here we go:

    ‘Coop on a stoop’: Videos of toddler sitting down on a curb go viral — Washington Post gift link

    House of the Week: A Historic Storybook House on California’s Coast (WSJ Gift link)

    A Jane Austen inspired Roast Chicken That’s Really Well Done —NY Times cooking

    Dad shared this recipe with me, and I think you’ll all enjoy the article.

    And finally, finally, watch this one because’s it’s capital A adorable: “I put a camera on a dog, and here’s how it went”