Tag: uncategorized

It’s been a hamster wheelish couple of weeks!  If you have contacted me, please be patient while I scamper my way around to you!  Thank you!

Sweet Jenna of Call Her Happy sent me some interview questions that I had fun answering. Best question?  She wanted to know about my very first blog post, which went up about seven years ago.  Thanks, Jenna!

The indefatigable Sarah Reinhard wrote a recommendation for CatholicMom.com’s Book Notes, and explains that my book is really about relationships.  Yes indeed!  Sarah has been incredibly helpful and encouraging as I muddle my way through this first book experience.  Nothing makes me more fearful and downhearted than success, and Sarah scooped me up and set me back on the right path more than once in the last few weeks.

And finally, Cari Donaldson of Clan Donaldson took time away from LAUNCHING HER OWN BOOK to write this fantastic review of mine.  Cari says,

There is a softness to Fisher’s writing here that is absolutely perfect for the topic at hand.  There is a patience and gentleness and honest compassion that immediately draws you in, regardless of your experiences with NFP.

Don’t be mistaken, the voice is still authentically Fisher’s, and that humor that she is known for is used so, so well here, but there is a camaraderie evident in the pages that really took me aback.  After all, as ridiculous as it sounds, by reading the comboxes following any article on NFP, you come away with a decided “us vs. them” mentality among people trying to faithfully live out their Catholic faith in all areas of their life.

With good-natured teasing of all sides of the spectrum (and including herself in that teasing), Simcha manages to put everyone at ease, the better to get to the nitty-gritty of the topic.  NFP is a cross, and it’s a blessing and it takes things away and gives so much more, and it’s everything and nothing all at once. Because, as she points out in her chapter “The Golden Box”, what “God really wants is you.  How you give yourself to Him is a much, much longer story”, of which NFP is only a part.

Thank you, Cari.  I am just delighted.

If you want a real treat, order Cari’s new book, Pope Awesome and Other Stories: How I Found God, Had Kids, and Lived to Tell the Tale, coming out Nov. 5 from Sophia Institute Press.

Oh my goodness, just look at that cover!  I was privileged to be able to read this book a few weeks ago, and I zipped through it.  So entertaining, so endearing, so true.  One of the most enjoyable conversion stories I have ever read.

 Okay, so don’t forget to enter the contest!  No entries accepted after noon, eastern time, tomorrow. Oh, and those bon bons which are part of the first prize?  I had some yesterday.  They are the best chocolates I have ever had.  Indescribable.

One of the first reviews I got on Amazon was three stars, and it read:

I would have liked more pictures. And it didn’t tell me how many children to have. How am I supposed to know? Isn’t it just the same as the algorhythm method?

Now, I’m not sure if the fellow wants his name bandied about or not, but I laughed my head off when I read this.  Most people realized it was a joke, but then someone warned me that a funny joke like this could catch on, and generate a slew of hi-larious one-star joke reviews from fake disgruntled readers.  So on my “press release” post, I wrote,

There are 26 reviews on Amazon, with an average rating of five stars.

“I’m pretty sure that one three-star rating is a joke,” Fisher said.  ”My readers are real wise asses.  But seriously, if you think that taking bread out of the mouths of my children is a joking matter, by all means, continue.”

So of course the reader in question, being the nicest kind of wise ass, sprung into action; and the next day, I got a huge box in the mail:

 

I don’t know how well you can see it, but this is six boxes of Hodgson Mill Cheese and Herb bread mix, and five pounds of assorted candy.  So nobody is taking any bread out of anyone’s children’s mouths!  I love it.  And I would post a picture of us enjoying the candy, but it’s a little too close to this

x

 

for comfort.  And that was after the kids went to bed.

Thank you, guys.  You are the best!

Listen to crickets slowed way down.
Tell me this isn’t a song of praise.

Okay, so I’m finally getting around to reading that America interview with the Pope.  Haven’t gotten too far yet — just up to the part where the interviewer has asked him who he really is.

And he repeats: “I am one who is looked upon by the Lord. I always felt my motto, Miserando atque Eligendo [By Having Mercy and by Choosing Him], was very true for me.”

And then he goes on to talk about mottos, of St. Ignatius, of John XXIII.

I love the idea of having a motto — especially if you can change it when you feel like it.  My motto used to be something that I came up with when people used to ask me all the time, “How do you do it?” — meaning, raise kids and meet deadlines and make supper, I suppose.  So my answer and motto was, “Praise God and cut corners.”

My family once put together a family crest, which I describe here, including our motto, which was “It Could Always Be Worse.”  And, in the last year we homeschooled, we were doing a medieval unit, so we put together coats of arms.  The motto my son came up with was, “REVENGE.”  Yup, put the little sucker in school the next year.

How about you?  Do you have a personal or family motto?  Did you used to have one that no longer fits?  If you had to come up with one today, what would it be?

and yet I feel like there must be another solution besides this:

SO! I’m home from the fantastic, amazing, grace-filled Catholic Women Rejoice conference!  I got home around 1:30 this morning, so I have not been able to put together a post about the conference yet.  Let’s just say I thought it was going to be great, and it was 100 times greater than that!  300 women laughing and crying together, eating and praying together, helping each other with their babies,.  Mass was wonderful, some of the vendors were just outstanding, and I still have a sore throat from laughing and laughing and laughing at the Italian dinner afterward.  Sterling Jaquith, Lisa Ferry, and Heather Renshaw did something truly wonderful, and if you didn’t make it this year, this is a good time to start making plans for next year!

One of the women I was thrilled to finally meet in person was the lovely Caitlin Elder, who, in her abundant free time, ho ho ho, is helping to promote a Creighton Practitioner Educator Program in Vancouver, WA, near Portland, OR  There is a real dearth of Creighton practitioners in the Pacific North West, and women who are hoping to find fertility care must travel many hours to get it.  So if you have been thinking of becoming a practitioner, this is a great opportunity to fill a keenly-felt need!

The only catch is, the deadline is SOON.  They need to sign up three more people by October 1st, and applications are due Oct. 8.  

So even if you’re not up for this yourself, please pass the word on Facebook or on your blog!  It would be a real work of mercy if they could get enough people to do this class now.

Location: St. Joseph’s Parish, Vancouver WA

Dates: Nov 4th-11th

We need 3 more people committed by Oct 1st.

Applications due Oct 8th.

Contact person: Shira Wise, Program Director (509) 735-5380 3riversfertility@gmail.com

Or people are welcome to contact me with questions: Caitlin Elder caitlinelder25@gmail.com

Here is a pdf with the entire brochure for the Vancouver program.  (And if you can’t open the link because I’m a dope, just email Caitlin or Shira, or me at simchafisher@gmail.com).

Again, please share!  Thanks!

That’s all I have to say, because this story makes me happy.  Hooray!

Just heard the most fascinating short interview on NPR’s Morning Edition.  Anya von Bremzen grew up in Soviet Russia, where she shared a huge warehouse apartment with eighteen other families.

Behind each door there’s a comedy, a tragedy, alcoholism. You know, there were lunatic old ladies. Next to us there was the family of a black marketeer, an underground millionaire, who ate unspeakable delicacies. And everyone came together in the kitchen. The kitchen was like the public square of this apartment.

When one ancient neighbor died, they decided to illegally tear down the walls of her tiny apartment and enlarge the kitchen.

[I]n the middle of the night, in complete secrecy, they broke down the walls, they sanded down the floors. When people woke up in the morning, suddenly the kitchen was six meters larger. It was just an amazing feat. … And then the housing manager from the housing committee comes with a new tenant. And the neighbors said, ‘What room? There is no room.’

To celebrate their triumph, the tenants came together to make a feast, including a special potato salad with such costly treats as mayonnaise and canned peas.

Bremzen describes the experience of moving to America, to Philadelphia.  Her mother was overjoyed at the abundance of cheap food.  But Bremzen, who had fantasized so long about living in the West, says,

 I fantasized about having 64 varieties of salami. But when you see it? And suddenly it’s seeped of political meaning, of pathos, of social prestige, of all these multiple, multiple functions and resonances that food carried for Soviet citizens.”

When I heard this line, I was skeptical.  People are very fond of ruminating about the mystical power of food to convey meaning and memory, ala Proust, but I wondered if a young person could actually be capable of perceiving any of that.  But then she said  (and I’m paraphrasing, because the transcript doesn’t reproduce exactly what was on the air)

What’s the point of eating a banana, if just anyone can have a banana?

Most people I know are a little weird about food, but this struck me as so terribly sad.  And isn’t this true of so many of our longings?  We think we want the thing itself, but maybe we just want to be the one who has something.

Anyway, you can hear the whole interview.  I will definitely be reading Bremzen’s memoir, Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking:  A Memoir of Food and Longing, where she describes coming together with her mother to cook her way through the joys and pathos of three generations of Russian cooking.

We recently rewatched Goodfellas, and, what can I say? We’re older and fatter, so what we took away from it was:  we have to  make those meatballs.

We are having family over tomorrow, and are making a quadruple recipe.  They are the meatballs of happiness and delight.  You must make them now.  Here is the recipe.   You can thank me later when you recover from your meat delight coma.

Such great stuff here.  I laughed my head off at the Jane Austen one:

I haven’t any right to criticize books, and I don’t do it except when I hate them. I often want to criticize Jane Austen, but her books madden me so that I can’t conceal my frenzy from the reader; and therefore I have to stop every time I begin. Every time I read Pride and Prejudice I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone.”

and this:

The test of any good fiction is that you should care something for the characters; the good to succeed, the bad to fail. The trouble with most fiction is that you want them all to land in hell together, as quickly as possible.

and this:

Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very;’ your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.

Especially funny to me because this morning, I woke up and opened a 4,000-word draft I had written late at night.  Editing, I come across this passage: “A gift is given freely; and freedom always leaves room for fuck-ups – otherwise, it would not be free. Otherwise, it would not be a gift.”  My husband said it sounded like something Randy would say.

But this one hit too close to home:

The time to begin writing an article is when you have finished it to your satisfaction. By that time you begin to clearly and logically perceive what it is you really want to say.

Dammit, Mark Twain.