The leaves are falling from the trees – from heat stress here in Central Texas. The grass os brown and crunchy under my feet. However, in my college town, the students are back flowing in to my parish past the fill line each Sunday, driving like maniacs in the increased traffic, studying in every coffee shop, and crowding the bars on the weekends. So this counts as fall around here in spite of the weather. Living with a child marks the transition as well, long before the heat lets up. My granddaughter has started fifth grade, my grandsons have started second and fourth grades, and the baby has started walking.
Thinking back on the summer of 2026, I think it was the summer of broken down cars. My daughters and I have all had excessive car trouble this summer.
It was also a summer of much reading. I tend to go through a book every 4-5 days. This is when Kindle Unlimited comes in handy with a number of free digital books. I love actual books too. In fact I finally have my Little Free Library up and running. I’ve been so excited about that. It’s something I have always wanted to do! The books haven’t been moving too fast but I hope that will change as more people notice it. If you have any ideas about books to put in it, or any advice, let me know in the comments.
I started a Christian Base Community at my house. We have had two meetings so far. And it’s just four or five people. It’s been good. We pray Lectio Divina with the Gospel from the closest Sunday, share about it, eat snacks. We talk about how we will follow up on our insights we received in prayer. So far we have been doing triage dealing with everyone’s exhaustion about the cruelty we have been seeing in our country right now. However we will move into identifying problems in our community and making plans to do something about them.
I watered my garden every day to try to help everything survive the heat. The basil did well and got so big and fluffy! I left the flowers on the plants so the bees could enjoy them, which they really seemed to. My roses bloomed a bit but by evening they looked like crinkled paper. I left water out for my chickens, cats, the birds. and squirrels and anything else that needed it.
One of my chickens, Cleo, almost had a heat stroke so we brought her in and put her feet in the sink with some water and ice until she felt better. Now we bring her in and put her in a dog crate during the hottest part of the day. The others do OK.
A crazy good thing happened to me this summer. Out of the blue I found out my book Meeting the One Who Loves You; the way of prayer of St. Teresa of Avila, won first place in the category of adult prayer and devotionals from the Catholic Media Association. I even beat out a Dominican priest! Don’t worry he still got second place for his in-depth Stations of the Cross. I had no idea I was in the running. I thought my latest book wasn’t selling that well. What do you know? Some people liked it! That was exciting and my former editor and another friend at Our Sunday Visitor told me it was a big deal. So yay!
I started cooking vegetarian for my dog this summer. I looked stuff up and figured out what to feed him. I’m vegan but I figured I would start with vegetarian for him and see how he did. His coat got shinier and softer, his energy has been up. He has not scratched as much. So success so far!
Here is my current recipe for him. He is a big dog (76 pounds) so this is one day’s food for my big boy.
Joey Francis Tribiani Chapman’s Vegetarian Dog Food
Ingredients
one cup brown rice
one cup lentils
1 cup plain yogurt or cottage cheese
a handful of ground flax seed
one cup full of chopped vegetables
a scrambled egg or two
To do
cook the lentils, rice and ground flax seed together in about 5 1/2 cups of water
(I use my instant pot for this on the bean setting)
steam the vegetables (if they are frozen you can just throw them in while the beans and rice are still hot)
stir in the yogurt or cottage cheese
scramble the egg or hard boil it
stir in the vegetables and the egg
When everything is cooked and mixed together, let the food cool off before you give it to your dog.
*Please note that dogs cannot have onions, garlic or apple cores.
One daughter is almost finished with her master’s in criminal justice. She plays around town as a singer songwriter and also in a band called The Fragments. My other girl got into flight school and already started flying. Her instructor says she will make an excellent pilot.
One of the guys I take care of as a caregiver, Mac, became very ill at the beginning of the summer. He stayed sick for such a long time, ended up in the E.R., and had a nine day hospital stay. He was still extremely ill when he got home. His parents and I had lots of extra care to do and we were all still really scared. We almost lost him. Recently he got sick again but he didn’t worsen into pneumonia it just took a long time and hard work to see him well again. Mac is so resilient.
My other guy, Sean, who is just 14, had a decent summer I think. He was out of school but he still went to his autism clinic every day. That’s where I pick him up in the late afternoon. It was too hot to go to the park or anything so sometimes we explored buildings we had never been in, and we got a snowcone every Monday because Mondays are hard. (sugar free cherry for him, lime with chili salt for me).
I started making little videos of prayer breaks this summer. I was surprised how many plays they get. I only put them on my Come to Mary’s House Facebook Page which most people don’t know about. But they get about 300 plays apiece. Funny. So I will keep doing it as long as I can. I just take little prayer breaks usually between my jobs, so I thought of sharing those.
I had the funnest day ever with my friend Mark. We went to Houston and went to our favorite coffee shops and bookstores. We ran all over the downtown, I forget how many thousands of steps he said we took. We went to the Museum of Fine art to see their Frida Kahlo exhibit. Then we went to my favorite, The Menil, and to Mark’s favorite, the Rothko Chapel. We ate at a little dive Mexican vegan restaurant, and at The Hobbit too. The big deal was a concert in honor of John Coltrane by virtuoso jazz artists from around the world. Oh it was amazing. I really felt like Coltranes’ spirit was in that place. What an experience!
I continued to volunteer with Sweet Oak Collaborative’s emergency food pantry. We have a guy who in his retirement makes vats of homemade food, boxes up meals and freezes them. He donates them to Meals on Wheels, the Boys and Girls Club, and us. A friend is donating a deep freeze which we could really use. There is a lot of need out there especially as the food banks lose federal funding and food stamps are cut for people. It’s good to be able to do something about it.
Other than tearing through one book after another, listening to audio books in the car, and Catholic Stream lecture series, listening to music, going to work and coming home, plus regular family life, and broken cars, that was my summer. My car is still down. It’s about 20 years old and my dad thinks it’s kaput. My eldest daughter has hers in the shop. Again. My youngest daughters’ car has a battery that needs to be replaced but that is difficult because of the way her engine is built (why did they make it like that). At least it runs and I am driving it too so I can get to work. Car shopping is in my near future. Wish me luck.
My eldest daughter comes over for coffee with me with the baby after she drops the boys off at school. My other daughter and my granddaughter live with me. I’m so lucky. I love them all. They’re all such unique, hilarious and wonderful people. I enjoyed my time with them this summer very much.
My Hippie Sisters pulled off some great dinner parties this summer as well. Nobody does it better.
I got to know my newly married godson better. We talked for four hours and ended up on the coffee shop steps after it closed. That was fun. He grew up to be so cool. 🙂
I also saw the son of a dear family friend who grew up playing with my youngest daughter ordained a priest in Austin this summer. That was beautiful.
Summer is still my favorite season but I don’t handle the heat as well as I used to.
Now I’ll try to get in the mood for the fall that hasn’t actually started yet.
Texas sunsets in late September are especially glorious. I’m looking forward to that. And maybe to getting some new roses from the Antique Rose Emporium. Fall is the best time to plant them. I want them to be as profuse as possible around my house! I like them wild and tangled and hanging from the trees like a fairy land. That’s what I’m going for.
Happy fall, y’all.
* Here are some things I read this summer. If you have any book recommendations for me let me know in the comments.
The Adventures of Amina Al-Sarafi by Shannon Chakraborthy. I was happy it was a trilogy.
Bat Eater and other Names for Cora Zheng by Kylie Lee Baker
Finding Francis, Following Christ by Michael H. Crosby
Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt.
The Star of Calcutta by Sujatta Massey
The Tears of Things by Richard Rorh
The Poet Empress by Shen Tao
The Poppy Wars by R.F. Kuang (a trilogy))
Katabasis by R.F. Kuang
Babel by R.F. Kuang
All six books of the Hawthorn and Horrowitz series. By Anthony Horowitz
House of Silk by Anthony Horowitz
Bunny and its sequel We Love You Bunny by Mona Awad.
The Pillow Book by Sei Shonagon
The River Has Roots by Amal El Mother (so beautiful it’s practically poetry).
The Once and Future Queen by Paula Lafferty
Green Teeth by Molly O’Neil
The Poetry of St. John of the Cross translated by Willis Barnstone
How to Clean Everything by Ann Russell (I didn’t clean much though).
Homebody by Rupi Kaur (poetry)
Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi ( an intense trilogy)
I also re-read a bunch of Agatha Christies and other favorite books when I ran out of stuff or one of these other books wrung me out and I needed comfort reading.
I’m currently listening to The Intrigue by Sylvia Moreno Garcia on audiobook
reading Diavola by Jennifer Thorn
and Bad Mexicans; Race, Empire and Revolution in the Borderlands by Kelly Lytle Hernandez
Listening to a course on Catholic Stream about Midieval Christianity and just finished one about the great spiritual families in the history of the Church (about the spiritualities of the different major religious orders from the Desert Fathers to the Vincentians). Recommendations welcome if you listen to Catholic Stream too- I have it on Apple podcasts)
Bethany Hang Out 