Monday, March 31, 2014

Moments Of Grace

Joining with Jenny over at Plain Grace for today's journal!

Moments of Gratitude:

* Sunshine and finally some warmer weather.  It isn't supposed to last long, but we'll take it!
* Finally getting to re-pot some indoor plants
* Ticket sales finally picking up
* Having our driving schedule work out without much fuss
* Although it is now over, having the older three girls home a bit more last week for their Spring break
* Ms 22 yo making breakfast for us on Sunday

Praying For:

* Our upcoming performance.  Whenever we do a performance such as this, the devil is always out to cause trouble.  There has been a lot of it lately.  If you wouldn't mind joining me in saying a prayer that some necessary items that are lost be found in time.  Thanks! 
* Discernment on a few things

Listening to:

Mr 8 yo trying to find someone to dry the dishes for him.  His dish drying partner isn't home right now, so his pleading for help from his other siblings is falling on deaf ears.  Oh wait, I now hear help coming in the form of his oldest sister!

Pondering:

What I saw yesterday that made me sad.  I was in the narthex of a very large Catholic church near us during one of their Saturday evening Masses while we were waiting to sell tickets after Mass.  Right after communion, a good 50% of the people left the church.  Another 20% left after the final blessing but before the priest walked out.  I was amazed and saddened that people were in such a rush to leave and have been pondering what, if anything, the solution is to that type of mass exodus (pun intended :)

Reading:

I'm trying to get into St. Teresa of Avila's "Interior Castle".  To say it is slow going is an understatement.  (that actually sounds funny the way I wrote it...I'm not trying to get into HER castle, although I'm sure it is amazing there, but into the book she wrote about it!)

I'm also re-reading "The Pain of Christ and the Sorrow of God" by Gerald Vann.  This is an excellent book and I try to read it all the way through every Lent.

The Week Ahead:

* We have our co-op photography class and it looks like we'll get to be outside taking motion pictures!
* This week is also our last writing class.  This class has been such a blessing to me because Ms 15 yo and Mr 13 yo have gotten a lot of instruction in writing and I haven't had to grade one paper!!!
* Three, count them, three practices this week with the first performance on Saturday.  I'm tired already.
* For some reason I have a lot of phone calls to make this week.  Hopefully they'll be fruitful ones.

Captured:



I was messing around with my camera the other day and I took this photo of my lamp.  What I liked about it is that I got the effect by underexposing the picture, which made the background black.  There was enough light, however, to light up the glass part of the lamp.  In this picture, I changed it to black and white as the original had that yellow, lamp tinge to it.

God Bless!

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