A Bit of Sarcasm

Because this is just the kind of thing that strikes my funny bone as we head into February (the longest month of the year, imo!).

 Have a great day!

God Bless!

Some Humor for Your Monday

As I was getting into the car this morning with the kids to go to Mass I reminded them that today was the feast day of the Archangels.  The rest of the conversation went like this:

Mr 14 yo:  "Yes, it is also the day that Mr. Bingley left Netherfield."

Ms 15 yo:  "On September 29th?"

Me:  "It says that in the story?"

Mr 14 yo:  "It says he left Netherfield on Michaelmas and that is what today's feast day is also known as so, yes, he left on September 29th."

Oh the things that boy remembers.  

God Bless!

A Smile for a Monday

Today was our first official day of summer vacation (last week didn't count because we were too busy) and I am happy to say that the kids are still doing the minor daily work that I had them start last week!  One week is an accomplishment for us!

Mr 9 yo has a math sheet and some reading sheets to keep up with every day, so when we got home from Mass I set him off to get working on them while the rest of us cleaned up the garage from the weekend festivities.  

After awhile I noticed that he was out and about so I told him to go get his sheets so I could take a look at him.  A few moments later he appeared in the doorway with all of the sheets and blankets off of his bed.  "Here you go," he said to me.  

"Why did you take all of that off your bed?" I asked.

"Because you said you needed to see my sheets."

After we were all done laughing, we washed his sheets and then I graded his "papers". 

"Just call them 'papers' okay??"

"Sure, Son.  Sorry about that!"

God Bless!

You Win Some, You Lose Some

On the win side:

There was a big wasp in the bathroom so I went in to save my family from it.  It was on the window screen so I gave it a big ole whop with the fly swatter and it bounced off of the screen and landed in the toilet, where it promptly got flushed into never land.  Couldn't have planned that one any better!

On the lose side: 

(as in, "I must be losing my mind")

I had put a roast in the oven right after lunch and was doing some things in the kitchen when the phone rang.  It was my aunt so I sat in the next room to chat for a bit.  About half way through the conversation I smelled something cooking but couldn't figure out what it was.  I even got up to look in the kitchen to see if one of the kids was cooking something, but they weren't.  It was about 10 minutes later, after sniffing and sniffing, that I finally remembered it was the roast that I had put in the oven.  Oh well!

Have a great day and stay tuned till tomorrow for Part II of my torture exercise story!

God Bless!

Saturday Night Fun

Saturday night was cooler but still humid, so between that and the heat waves that often bombard our bedroom at night, I decided to leave the bedroom window open when I went to bed.

I had started drifting off when I was awakened by a loud bang - you know, the kind that sounds like a car hitting something.  I listened carefully and heard (because the wind was blowing just right) two voices talking.  They sounded okay, no brakes screeching, no swearing or arguing, so far so good.  After a few minutes I heard what sounded like a gun shot, which really isn't all that uncommon of a sound as we live in a somewhat rural area, but it did make my ears perk up a bit so I listened some more.

Finally I heard words that confirmed what I was suspecting, "I hit a deer with my car!".  I'm guessing that my neighbor, who is an avid hunter, must have heard/seen/been a part of the commotion and came to put the deer out of its misery.

Sunday morning on the way home from Mass we saw the outcome of the accident.  On the side of the road was the massive, headless body of about a 200 pound deer.  DH speculates that, based on the size of the body, the deer had a nice rack on its head so someone must have come along and cut its head off so as to get the head and antlers mounted.  "Why on earth would someone pay money to mount the head of a deer that was hit by someone else???" was my question.  I mean really, you can't even have bragging rights to it.  I guess you could lie about it but, really??  "No," my hubby said, "they probably did it so they could sell it." 
     "SELL IT? Who would buy someone else's deer head?  They wouldn't even have bragging rights, although I guess they could lie about it too."
     "No, dear, they would sell it to someone like Cabella's or Gander Mountain or Bass Pro Shop."

Oh, okay, now it all makes sense.  

I wish we could have seen the whole thing, but I guess a headless body is all we're getting!  And that, my friends, is a fun weekend night in the country.

God Bless!

The Saga of the Strawberry Rhubarb Square

We had our graduation/confirmation/birthday party this past weekend and my husband's aunt brought a wonderful tray full of strawberry rhubarb squares covered in powdered sugar.  I couldn't wait for dessert, they looked so heavenly.  I was tempted to sneak one ahead of time, but resisted the temptation.  Little did I know I would regret that decision later.

When dessert time came, I was busy cutting cake and dishing ice cream so I had my sister-in-law set one aside for me.  She relayed that she had set it on a plate in my refrigerator in the kitchen (as opposed to the one in the garage!).

Well, time got away from me and I opted for the chocolate cake and ice cream in front of me, figuring I would save the tasty treat for later.

Sunday we got home from Mass and I was ravenous.  I looked into the fridge, but couldn't find my dessert.  I started digging, taking things out in a frantic search for the strawberry rhubarb piece of heaven that I had been craving.  It was not to be found.  "Who," I pondered aloud, "would go into the refrigerator in my kitchen and eat my strawberry rhubarb square?  The one covered in powdered sugar?"  Apparently I was carrying on a bit much about it, but I couldn't help myself.

Suddenly, Mr 8 yo was calling my name softly, peeking around the corner and motioning for me to come to him.  "I think I know who ate your dessert," he whispered.  "Who?" I asked.  "ME," he  said, and then promptly burst into a tearful apology about how he didn't know it was mine.  Well, how can a mom stay upset about that?

A few minutes later, however, he leaned over and very earnestly said, "You know, that was the THIRD one I had eaten.  They were SO GOOD."  

Now that was just too much for this mama to bear.  My baby, rubbing salt in my wound.  I still haven't gotten over it!

God Bless!

Let it Snow!!!

Oh the weather outside is frightful

 and the fire is so delightful

 

and since we've no place to go (hold this last note while singing the rest of this line) except that we really did have a lot of places to go but I guess we won't be going....

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow :)

BTW, the weather is really a lot worse than the above picture makes it seem!

God Bless!

Knock and it Shall Be Opened

It is always encouraging to realize that your littlest ones are listening during Mass, even if they appear to be more interested in blowing things up with their hands. 

Case in point.  As we were walking out of church today, Mr 7 yo said the following:

"Mom, you know in the gospel when it said, 'ask and you will receive and knock and it shall be opened'?  Well, I was thinking that after school, one person from each bedroom could go into the bedroom and shut the door.  The rest of us could go to the door and knock and they would open it for us and we would ask for something from the room and they would give it to us.  You know, just like in the gospel!"

If it were only that simple, son :)

God Bless!

How I Helped My Son to Read Better :)

This is Mr 7 yo.  He is having a hard time getting that reading thing down.  He's getting there, slowly but surely.  Okay, maybe really S-L-O-W-L-Y.

 The other day, though, I think I inadvertently discovered something that helps.  
We were sitting down with our Little Angel Readers and I was mentally preparing myself for the day's lesson, calling upon my Guardian Angel for that extra ounce of patience.

I looked at him preparing as well.  I decided to lighten the mood a bit.  I told him I was going to get him ready to read.  I first massaged his brain...

Then I told him we needed to massage his eyes so that they were ready to see the right letters...

Then I massaged his mouth so that the right sounds would come out....
 

Then we sat down to read.  Funny thing was, he actually did better.  He got to a particularly hard word (n-e-x-t...you know, words with two consonants next to each other!) and he did it...he read the word all by himself. 

He no sooner said the word "next" when he looked at me in awe and said, "Hey, that really did work!"  Ah, one of those moments that make all the other days SOOO worth it.

Of course, now we have to make this a regular part of our phonics lesson.  Today we tried it again and guess what, it worked again!  Praise God!  If I have to do this every day, I will just so I can see his little face shine when he is done!

God Bless!

Once Upon A Time...

...there was a woman who knew that she could very easily get caught up in works of fiction.  It didn't matter if it was a novel or a TV program; if it was captivating, then she was sucked in.  The problem was that, once sucked in, most of life came to a standstill.  Sure the family got fed and schooled and prayers still got prayed, but other things fell by the wayside until that book was finished or that series was done.

Such was the case when said woman's daughters brought home the first season of "Once Upon A Time" from the library.  22 episodes - 2 weeks to watch them.  Every spare moment was spent thoroughly wrapped up in the lives of these story book characters.  All extraneous work was put on hold until all 22 of those episodes were done.  It's a good thing this woman has a patient husband who thoroughly understands her obsessions.

God Bless!

 

Thank You, Lord, for Not Sending Me This...

I wrote a while back about how God has tailor-made our particular cross for us.  While I can embrace my crosses, I can also thank God profusely for the crosses He hasn't sent me at this time.  I can be thankful for so many things; and this, my friends, is one cross I am thankful I have not encountered...

A friend of mine had some plumbing problems a few weeks back.  It seems that her kitchen sink drain plugged up.  It also became apparent that her upstairs toilet pipe is somehow tied into the same pipe as her kitchen drain (use your imagination and I'll spare you the details).  That, however, is not the worst of the story.

Her son was in the upstairs bathroom emptying the garbage can when something caught his eye in the toilet.  It seems that there was something in there looking back at him.  He called his dad upstairs who, upon coming into the room and going toward the toilet, saw a nice sized sewer rat swimming back down the pipe.

They slammed the lid down and put some bricks on it to make sure the rat stayed put.  In all likelihood, the rat got trapped in the upper part of the pipe since the lower part, the one leading back to the city sewer system, was currently plugged.

Well, they eventually got it all cleared up and the city came and put poison in the manholes and their kitchen is restored to its original pristine condition.  I can't say, however, that they don't look twice before they sit down :)

So for my part, I just want to say that I am so thankful that our house is not connected to the city sewer system.  To the best of my knowledge there aren't things called "septic rats".  I am thankful for the trials in my life - the ones that don't include four legged creatures invading the very private parts of my home!

God Bless!

Joliet Vocations Video

These fine young men are seminarians from our diocese.  I just saw this on Jamie's blog from Minnesota and I had to post it here.  I hope you enjoy it as much as we all did!  Way to go, guys!

God Bless!
 

 

Spelling and My Boy

Oh the fun of spelling with my 7th grade boy!  It always amazes me how he can spell all the words I give him for the week, use them correctly in sentences and regurgitate them on a quiz with 100% accuracy and then sit down to write an adventure story and spell a large percentage of the words so WRONG that you sometimes cannot even tell what they are!!

God Bless! 

A Boy and His Pants

At the beginning of fall when the weather started to turn cooler and the wearing of pants became a necessity, I picked Mr 6 yo up some new blue jeans.  

Time went by and I noticed that I never seemed to see him in any of those blue jeans.  Instead, I was consistently seeing him in either his green or his black track pants...from last year.  As you can imagine, they were getting to be a little above flood stage by now.  

"Why," I asked, "are you not wearing any of the jeans that I got for you?"

"I don't like jeans," he replied.

"You what??  You're a boy, you have to like blue jeans.  There is no other option.  What are you going to do, grow up and wear sweat pants for the rest of your life?"

I mean, really, how can a boy not like blue jeans?   I tried to reason with him, I tried to threaten him, I told him he couldn't wear his track pants out of the house because they were just getting too short.  He was very compliant.  He would put on his jeans to leave the house and then promptly change into his track pants as soon (and I mean AS SOON) as we got home.

I tried to dig deeper.  "WHY don't you like your jeans?"

"Well, these have a button and I don't like buttons, I like snaps, and these have the buttons on the insides of the waist and I don't like those, and...I don't know...I just don't like blue jeans."  

(In his defense, I have since talked to other moms who have had the same problem with their own sons.)

I was at the end of my rope when God intervened.  Last week both pairs of track pants somehow ended up in the laundry bin for an extended period of time, thus forcing him to either wear his jeans or remain at home for the entire week.  After the clean laundry was distributed last night, however, he called me into his room and said, "Mom, I just got these pants back but, you know what, I just don't want them anymore.  I like wearing my jeans, so you can get rid of these other pants."

Alleluia!  

My prayers had been answered!  I ran out of the room with them before he could change his mind!  It is after experiences like this one that I can't believe people think there is no God.  If you know someone who doesn't believe there is a God...please have them read this story, and maybe they will believe when they see that an obsessive little 6 year old boy suddenly changed his mind about his pants :)

Stay at Home Mom, ha!

Last week I was messing around with my facebook account and was updating my "work" status. I saw "Stay at Home Mom" as the closest choice for my official work status, but then I thought about how ridiculous that really is.

Seriously, do you know any mom that actually still stays at home more than not?  I can honestly say that I do not.  All the moms I know are always out running around.  Now I know what you are thinking.  "Stay at Home Mom" means that we are voluntarily staying home to raise our children and are willing to forgo any income.  I understand that.  But if that is the case, then shouldn't we really stay at home?  Should we be out putting thousands of miles on our car, running from event to activity to performance to competition, etc.

OR...is the solution in finding a different name for what we do?  Should we call ourselves, instead, "Away from Home and Unpaid" moms?  I know that is a more accurate representation of what I do almost every day.  I just cannot relate to "Stay at Home".  Thinking of myself that way makes me want to go sit by the roaring fire and read books with the kids all day.  I know that I am in control of my family's schedule, but the "stay at home" mode is just not the season of life we are in right now.

So on to the next week, when we will have multiple places to be every day.  I will try to enjoy the running around and will continue to consider myself, at least for the time being, an AFHU Mom!

Family Fun

I was in the car the other day with one of my daughters and we heard this song again



and I couldn't help thinking how much fun it will be when the first young man comes over for that "introduction".  HMMM, which gun should we be cleaning then????

The Horror of it All

I knew it would happen...kids go off to college and they change.  Sometimes for the good, but many times it is for the worse.  I found out about it yesterday and it really put a damper on my evening.  Sometimes I wish that we didn't have technology that allowed us to see so much of what is going on in other people's lives.

You see, it seems that yesterday Ms 18 yo forgot about a project that was due in one of her classes.  It isn't that that upset me, however.  What got me upset was the fact that when I asked if she had written down the assignment in her planner, she said....NO!  "No," I asked her?  "Why not?"  "Because I forgot to" was her response.  

This child cannot be "flesh of my flesh".  We live by planners and calendars in this family.  She spent 18 years in the same house with a mother who writes down everything in a planner or on a calendar.  I make lists and then lists for my lists of things to do and she, after only 5 months of being away, has forgotten how to use a planner.  

And so it begins, the movement away from all that she knew; all that was good...to what?????  I shudder to think of what is next!

Play that Funky Music...

For most of the past 10 years, the majority of the music we have listened to has been either religious or country; quite an interesting combination, I know. Lately, as the kiddos get older, we've been branching out into other genres of music. For example, on Sunday mornings, my husband will put on the classical station. Not bad, until those men with the monotone voices start droning on and on about some piece of music.

Much to my horror :), he's also introduced the kids to Jazz! Ugh, and some of them even like it (nothing morally wrong with Jazz, mind you, I've just NEVER liked it. It clashes terribly with my sense of symmetry :) The latest direction, however, has been into that good ole' music that we grew up with - the great music from the 80's. I figure that it must be great if they're still playing it at dances and weddings 20+ years later.

At the same time that we've been becoming reacquainted with music from our youth, our children have been delving more into dancing. We've had many discussions about what is "real" dancing and what isn't. In their opinion, any body gyrations that would have gone along with our great 80's music is NOT dancing. The waltz, the fox trot, swing...now that, to them, is "real" dancing. I try to show them the kind of dancing we used to do and they all yell at me to stop. In fact yesterday, Mr. 10 yo said, "Mommy, some times you freak me out." Isn't that what moms are for???

After being at the Homecoming dance this past weekend, Ms 18 yo asked me if we danced to songs like "Play that Funky Music" and "A B C". That led to spending the next 2 hours on youtube listening to music from the past. To be certain, there were plenty of raised eyebrows (like watching some videos of Queen and Talking Heads) but overall we had a very entertaining time...until I tried to dance and then they kept yelling at me to stop :)

What a great way to spend a cloudy, Sunday afternoon and have some fun with the kids. I think it is fun to reminisce with them about when their father and I were young and hip - in fact it is good to remind them that there was a time when we were young and hip, and had big hair, and parachute pants...but I digress.


PS...I'm sorry if after reading this you find that song STUCK in your head...day and night...singing over and over...Play that funky music white boy, play that funky music right....

Envy

Not too long ago I was at a talk given by a priest and he talked about the fact that one of the least confessed sins are sins of envy. He pointed out that it is very infrequently that he hears anyone come into the confessional and confess that they were envious of their neighbor or a family member. I've tried to remember this ever since that talk and now I must confess that yesterday I had....Hair Envy.

Let me explain. We went to a lovely wedding yesterday and after admiring the beauty of the couple and the joy of their parents, I started looking around at how nice everyone else looked, since it isn't often that we all get together and take that extra special care in dressing up. It was then that it hit me: Most of my friends have beautiful hair. They have thick, long, beautiful hair. Some curly, some straight. Doesn't matter...they have nice hair and, well, I don't.

Now I used to have nice, thick hair, but years of birthing babies and thyroid medication misinformation have taken their toll. The hair on top of my head is very thin and I'm afraid to color it or perm it or basically do anything to it. In fact, the best my hair stylist can come up with is a hair cut that makes me look like my mom. Don't get me wrong, I love my mother dearly, I just am not quite ready to look like her.

So there I sat throughout the course of the evening wishing I had nice hair. (Sounds pathetic, I know, but I was still recuperating from a cold and my husband wasn't there with me so I had little to distract me :) When I feel like this, I try to console myself with the fact that my children all have nice, thick hair and that they each have a little bit of me on top of their heads.

I also try to think of the Blessed Mother and how she would deal with something like this. I've decided maybe a veil might be in order, then I don't have to worry about what my hair looks like. I suppose, however, that confession probably is the best medicine...Forgive me Father for I have sinned, I have coveted my neighbors' hair :) Wonder if they've ever heard that one before???

Kids Say the Darndest Things

It's time for "Kids Say the Darndest Things" again! This week I've got some good ones from some of the other kids. I thought I'd give Mr 5 yo the week off.

All three of these have to do with misinterpreting things that were read. The first one was from Ms 14 yo who was reading something a friend wrote. Her friend wrote that she had just visited the Naval Academy. "Eeewww," thought Ms 14 yo, "I wonder what kind of place that is?" She had an ah-ha moment when she realized it said Naval academy and not Navel academy!

The next one is also courtesy of Ms 14 yo. At Wal-Mart the other day she saw a rack of baked goods with a sign that read "OOPS...we over-baked". "Hmm," she thought, "these don't look over baked." Another ah-ha moment...

Then, not to make her sister feel bad, Ms 11 yo, on the way home from Wal-Mart saw a sign in a parking lot that said, "No Semi Parking". She vocalized her thoughts to us: "How do you semi-park?"

Maybe it was something we ate?