Preparing for Lent

Lent begins in just a couple days! Are you prepared? Here is what we are doing.... First thing in the morning (well, after 6:30am Mass) I am going to read Lent and Easter, Wisdom from St. Francis and St. Clare of Assisi by John V. Kruse. (sample pages on the link) There is a lesson a day from Ash Wednesday to the Second Sunday of Easter. Each day there is a quote from St. Francis or St. Claire, a short passage from Sacred Scripture, a prayer and something to do for the day. I had finished "The Perfect Joy of St. Francis" a bit ago and I miss it, so I hope this gives me my Francis/Claire fix :) I am currently reading "The Spear" by Wohl (I can't think of his first name) for my free reading.

Next, we are working on our daily duties where we have grown sloppy. I made a chart and I simply check everything off as it is completed... properly. We are talking things like, make your bed, put away your pj's, brush your teeth *with* toothpaste, put away clothing, pick up toy room and so on. Little things that are easy to just let go and get sloppy with.


Each child will have some small area to work on, some area that they struggle in. At meals we check the progress so far. 15 minutes a day we are working on some area of the house. Mind you 15 minutes times 7 work-able people is nearly 2 hours of actual manual labor-time . Gotta love a big family :) We may even get a couple minutes out of the little wee men but we won't count on that.

We give up sweets. The children choose saint stories for their free reading. We'll do the Dumb Ox Lenten Calendar for children.

I have my own personal *things* to work on but we won't go into all that!

Idealistically we'll get all these things in order and add on some more things but don't hold your breath waiting! My hopes include simplifying the children's wardrobes and getting rid of all the excess clothing, filling up 3 St. Vincent dumpsters, organizing my office, cleaning out all the kitchen cabinets, scrubbing all the cabinets, table and chair legs, getting my room weeded out, catching up on laundry and keeping that folded every day, planning the garden, trying not to press "send and receive" too often (haha) etc, etc, etc. I won't be bored this lent.