Hello dear readers! As you may have noticed, Katie and Shannon have been a little absent from this space recently. We’ve both been busy! Here is a brief update from both of us on what we’ve been doing, where we’ve been, and what we’re excited to be working on next.

Where We’ve Been / What We’ve Been Doing

Katie: Since moving to Fort Wayne, Indiana with Erik so he can attend the Lutheran Seminary here, I have been teaching at Redeemer Classical School during the afternoons. I have also been preparing for the arrival of our baby at the beginning of May. This has involved a lot of reading about natural birth and a great deal of organizing and reorganizing at home - not to mention a few naps here and there.

Shannon: My husband’s job kept us busy over the summer months. For it we spend much of our time at a summer camp near Yellowstone. This was particularly challenging this year because of the Covid precautions the Camp had to take, on top of being 7-9 months pregnant through the season.

We had a beautiful and big little boy at the beginning of September. The subsequent months have been filled with the joys, challenges, and adjustments of the first few months of a Baby’s life. We traveled a decent amount over the holidays, which kept us busy and tired. We’ve greatly enjoyed the last month or so at home. It’s incredible how much peace it gives all of us to be in our own place and within our normal routine.
What We’ve Been Learning

Katie: The best thing I have read in the last few months is The Liberal Arts Tradition: A Philosophy of Classical Christian Education (Revised Edition) by Dr. Kevin Clark and Ravi Jain. This book is a fantastic read whether you’re specifically interested in Classical Education or you just enjoy reading about the history of our culture. It has helped me to better understand what education is for and what it should entail. I’ve also read a few mysteries by Dorothy Sayers that have been immensely enjoyable and Erik and I are currently finishing C.S. Lewis’ Space Trilogy series. That Hideous Strength is profoundly appropriate given the state of our country currently. And then of course, as mentioned above, I’ve been reading a number of books about childbirth, baby-care, and the like.

In addition to those books, I’ve been sharpening my Latin skills since I’ve been teaching the language again this year. I have a long way to go before I would consider myself proficient but I’m enjoying the daily practice a great deal and I have even been able to share a little with Erik, who also happens to be learning Greek and Hebrew for school right now. 

Shannon: With a newborn, my hands have been in high demand for the past few months and my brain has been working on less sleep than I normally prefer, so my learning pursuits have been slowed down a little bit. I have converted most of my learning efforts to a purely audio format for now, which has worked pretty well! I have had three daily focuses: memorizing a new Psalm every two months or so (I’m on to my third), listening to an audiobook for at least an hour, and working through a daily Bible story with my two year old daughter. The Bible stories are a recording meant for older children (8-11 years old), so it’s beyond the simple grasp of a two year old, but the hope is to keep going through it every day while our children are young. It’s a long and thorough series, we’ve only just gotten into the Book of Judges and we’ve been at it since about the middle of October (we normally only listen to a chapter or two in a day and probably average listening 2-3 days in a week). But! This has been a great, simple way for me to reacquaint myself with many of the Bible stories that often get passed over, and to do so in such a way that gives chronology and context. I strongly recommend the series, called “The Story of the Bible”, published by TAN books.

In the moments I have been able to pick up a book for myself I have been rotating between several works: (1) A Church in Crisis: Pathways Forward by Ralph Martin, a very in-depth analysis of the difficult place the Catholic Church finds itself in at this point in history. (2) The Decadent Society: How We Became the Victims of Our Own Success by Ross Douthat. I included the subtitle here because I think it’s the best short description of the purpose of the book- an analysis of the erosion of culture in the past fifty years. (3) After Virtue by Alisdair MacIntyre. Written in the early 80s, MacIntyre examined what it means for the ethics of our culture to live in a postmodern, post-Christian society. I’ve only just begun this one and it’s definitely the most difficult for me to give brain power to. (4) Shop Class as Soulcraft by Matthew B. Crawford. This one I’ve been reading intermittently with my husband. It’s been a frequent discussion of ours, especially in the past year, that we need to incorporate more manual crafts and hobbies into our daily life. This has been a very good read for us and has facilitated a lot of great conversations. And of course there have been a smattering of parenting books, ranging from great breastfeeding guides, reminders of normal baby behavior and phases, potty training, and a couple dealing with the philosophical end of things.

Upcoming Projects and Aspirations

Katie: My biggest upcoming project involves giving birth and keeping a brand new tiny human alive. Connected to that primary project, I am also working on sprucing up our home, developing a few new healthy and easy recipes in the kitchen, and learning as much as I can about the most efficient, simple, and wise ways to feed and clothe a baby on a budget. 

Shannon: The amount of new skills and hobbies I want to pick up only continues to increase, so I’ll just mention the couple that I’ve taken steps toward actualizing. My family and I are trying to incorporate a podcast called “Coffee Break German” into our daily lives to try to pick up some basics of the language. This has only been a theoretical discussion so far, so I’m unsure exactly how successful we’ll be in implementing the idea, but we’re excited about the prospect of learning more of another language. Additionally, I am wanting to find a good way to get started with some basic sewing/knitting. I’m in such an early phase of this endeavor that I haven’t yet decided which of the two I’m going to try to work on first and exactly how, but I’m hopeful that I will have taken steps on it before the winter is out!

What We’ve Been Baking

Katie: I love baking the basic country loaf from Chad Robertson’s famous bread book Tartine Bread and do that often. I also turn that dough into pizza every week or two, which is one of my favorite things both to make and eat. I found a new sourdough banana bread recipe and a chocolate chip cookie recipe that are indulgent and lucious and perfect for a special occasion or celebration. I also baked a gigantic and seriously delicious turtle cheesecake for Erik’s birthday a few weeks ago. This is becoming something of a tradition, as I baked him a cappuccino fudge cheesecake for his birthday last year. I have to say that while baking a cheesecake is not the easiest thing in the world, it is incredibly satisfying and I’ve enjoyed the challenge immensely. If only there were more frequent reasons to bake one...

Shannon: By and large, I’ve mostly stuck to my two go-to sourdough recipes for the wheat and white starters I have. We average going through a loaf of bread about once a week, so my baking normally corresponds with this need. By a complete fluke I made one of my best loaves ever about two weeks ago (perfect crumb, crunchy crust, and an incredible taste) so I’ve been trying to retrace my steps in the loaves I’ve baked since then (with Katie’s help!), but have yet to discover exactly what I did to create such perfection two weeks ago. But I’ll only get better if I keep baking, so shucks, I guess I’ll just have to do that! 

What’s on Our Mind / General Observations

Katie: My mind likes to jump from one thing to another pretty quickly, but most recently I have become more and more convicted that social media is simply poisonous to our quest for true community. There are positive uses for social media. I’ll say that again because yes, I know there are and I know that pretty much all of us use social media in one form or another. I agree, there are positive uses for social media. But my conviction continues to grow despite that fact. And I think it’s because the nature of poison is to corrupt and taint everything that it touches. Good wine might still taste good after poison has been added but the tiny drop of poison will still kill you. The question that grows daily in my mind is when and at what point is the poison potent enough to make many of us say, “Enough! It’s not worth it! I will die another way.” One of the recent actions I’ve taken that has bolstered my conviction has been to delete the Facebook app from my phone. It’s gone and I haven’t missed my daily ritual of checking the ‘Book. When I’ve spent time there on my computer instead, I’ve realized (or really it has hit me over the head like a ton of bricks) that my mood instantly plummets while simultaneously I find it harder….and harder…..and even harder to close. the. tab. Meanwhile, I used to rarely check my Instagram app on my phone before deleting the Facebook app. Guess what? After deleting the Facebook app, I’ve begun checking Instagram very frequently (every few hours??) I didn’t used to need to do that. What in the world has changed? 

Furthermore! I find myself feeling guilty that I am: 1. Not staying up to date with friends and family members because I’m not checking their social media posts/pages often. 2. Not updating my own social media posts/pages often at all with anything about my personal life. 3. Not leading a more exciting and adventurous life that warrants sharing on social media. 

Can we all join in a collective eye roll at my silly feelings? There are good and lovely people right here in this town who I could and should be interacting with in person instead of spending time on social media and thinking about social media. 

And those are my general thoughts about that at this time.

Shannon: Golly, if we thought the world was going to hell in a handbasket a year ago, we had another thing coming, didn’t we? It’s difficult to believe that we’re closing in on a year of constant COVID. It did feel as though we had finally found other things to talk about last August and September, but then it came back with a vengeance. To be honest, it’s a little boring at this point, isn’t it? It’s exhausting to be constantly told that everyone’s going to die and you should be really worried about this disease and if you aren’t then you’re a heartless, ignorant monster. And it’s difficult to continue to take it so seriously for so long when so few of the people talking at us seem to be trustworthy arbiters of the truth.

I find myself musing quite a bit about how best to evangelize in the societal norms that currently surround us. What exactly does it look like to evangelize a post-Christian culture that has been in lockdown for a year? Without being able to utilize the infrastructure of my local parish, what’s the best way for me and my family to share our love of Jesus with others? Am I just making excuses for not reaching out to friends and neighbors more actively? I’m sure these questions will affect what I’m writing in the coming months and pray that the writing process will help to inspire new ideas for me.