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Showing posts from April, 2012

On this special day

It is early in the morning and all is quiet. Yesterday, my mom and I spent the day in the kitchen preparing food for a big celebration. All this past year, and really, all her life, we have been preparing Anna for this special day. Today, my Anna Rose will receive her First Holy Communion. This week, my mother-in-law, who will be arriving in a few hours, sent her a sweet letter. In it, she wrote of her prayer that Anna always keep Jesus as her best friend. My prayer is that she remembers this day always as the day Jesus became her best friend and that she may continue to develop and increase that friendship all through her life. My mother-in-law also enclosed the lyrics to the song they sang on her First Communion day, back in 1931! Jesus, Jesus come to me, All my longing is for Thee. Of all friends the best Thou art, Make of me Thy counterpart. May I ask for your prayers for Anna on this most important day?

April Daybook

Outside my window... ...a glorious morning! It is one of those cloudless, deep blue skies that make it seem like you can see straight up to Heaven. The birds are chirping away, flitting from tree to tree. The kids are already tromping around outside with a flashlight to see if they can find the rabbit's hiding spot under the shed. I am thinking... ...about our priest's sermon this weekend. It got me thinking, which is a good thing. He brought up the topic of how divided the Catholic Church is within its own walls between those who are more progressive and those who are more conservative and the strain that it causes. I listened very carefully because this has been on my mind lately. He didn't give a solution. Likely he doesn't know how to bring us all together either. The one thing that I did come away with was that I need to live my faith daily so that others may see Christ in me. I am not eloquent and I can't often say effectively what I kn

Yarn Along- AAARRRGGGHHH!!!

This is getting to the point of ridiculous! I went to the local yarn shop, i.e. not cheap, to purchase the yarn for my bolero because I wanted it to be nice. This is the fourth, yes FOURTH time I have encountered what you see below. The yarn is split almost completely through. I bought three skeins for the project. It has happened twice on each skein so far. What would you do? I am tempted to go back and ask either for another skein free of charge (I will probably need it now that I have had to waste so much yarn) or a refund of some sort. I have 3 of the 5 pieces of the bolero completed and I hate to give up now. I have had to start over so many times on each piece that I have no desire to work on this project anymore.  Advice would be greatly appreciated. HELP! As for reading, I finished Hallie Lord's book, "Style, Sex, and Substance". I enjoyed reading it. I am back to trying to finish up St. Therese's autobiography and Scott Hahn's book

Wisdom of the Little Flower

Like the wind blowing through the trees, rustling the branches and sending them in new directions, God sometimes sends a breeze that helps us go in new directions. This morning, it was the words of St. Therese in her autobiography. My spirit has been very restless lately. I have this desire for things to be perfect, but I need to realize that this life is far from perfect. I was looking at parts of my life with such frustration and disdain, when really, what I needed to change was my own heart. Our tiny dogwood tree that we planted last Mother's Day. This is the first time it has bloomed. "When God told His people that they must love their neighbor as themselves, it was before He had come upon earth Himself; knowing how much man loved himself, it was the best He could ask. But when Jesus gives His Apostles a New Commandment, His own Commandment, He asks them to love one another, not only as they love themselves, but as He Himself loves them and will love them even unt

Pull up a chair

Do you have a cup of coffee or tea in hand? Good. Now we can sit down together and enjoy the morning! It is a lovely morning, with the blue sky and all the pretty shades of green right outside my window. There is also a robin in my yard searching for bits of stuff and string to make her nest with, along with a little brown rabbit who the kids desperately want to catch and make into their very own pet. I hope your Easter was as joyous as ours. Lent was so long this year. Easter morning dawned with cinnamon rolls on our plates and the delighted squeals of children finding their baskets and the eggs they colored. Anna had a plan to stay up and see the Easter Bunny but then thought better of it when she remembered that Santa doesn't come until all little children are asleep. Fearing Mr. Bunny might have the same policy in place, she went right to bed. On Good Friday, I decided that we had to color our eggs with natural dyes. I had been itching to try this for many years now, b

The spirit is willing but...

Oh this Lent. I know exactly what God wanted me to work on and I failed. Failed miserably. Was it pregnancy hormones or was it Jesus' adversary who kept poking at me, prodding me, till I could take it no more? Was it that I really didn't turn to God when the going got tough? Probably. When will I learn where to put my faith and hope? And yet, there might be hope for me. Last night, during Holy Thursday Mass, I heard a voice, that quiet voice that my heart has been tuning out, say ever so gently, "Won't you come spend an hour with me after the kids are in bed?" "Bring your husband with you that you may spend that hour with me together." So after we got home and put the kids to bed, I sat there thinking about that voice. It was so cold outside. The Church was a 20 minute drive away. Again. My eyelids were already drooping and my body ached with tired from a long day. So I asked my husband, "Do you want to go?" He looked so tired too. But he g

In other news

Anna and I have been trying to get extra schoolwork done each day. That means that Jack has time for such activities as art and extreme lego building. I had to ask for a description on this one, but I love the answer. In case you are having trouble like I was, this is a drawing of the dinosaurs waiting for the bus. The bus is at the bottom of the picture.  Here is my artist, pausing long enough to give me a sweet grin. She turns 19 months this week. One day, she looked like a baby. The next day, she turned into a toddler. I am pretty sure this guy lives under the deck. We see him many times every day. The kids get so excited at each appearance. Tonight, as Tony was grilling the burgers and I was preparing the potatoes and beans, the kids were outside playing on the swings, running around and just having a good old time. Tony called the kids to dinner and they all came running. Poor Therese was the last one in mostly due to her short legs that

We're Having a.....

Let's see if I can give you the statistics here: If you go by the month I am due, I should be having a girl. All the girls so far are summer babies. If you go by how easy or difficult the newborn has been, I should be having a boy. They have been fussy, then happy. Therese was very happy and easy-going. If you look at birth order, I should be having a boy. There is Sophie, and then after that, it has been a girl followed by a boy every time. A mother just has that feeling sometimes that lets her know before science ever can. If you go by that "feeling", I should be having a boy. Tony has a boy's name picked out that I do not care for in the slightest. I have a lovely girl's name picked out. Given all that information, it should come as no surprise that this little baby is...... A BOY!