Surviving Grocery Shopping

I was thinking last week, while whizzing through Aldi and Wal-Mart, how my grocery shopping has changed and evolved over the past years.  

I actually detest meal planning and grocery shopping but I know that my life is much better if I take the time to do it.  Well, let me clarify, all our lives are better if I grocery shop, for without food...well, you know.  In reality, I guess all of our lives are better, too, if I take the time to meal plan since I save my sanity, my time and our money.

When my kids were much smaller, I would go grocery shopping in the evening so I could leave them home with my husband.  It would be a grueling task to drag my tired body through Wal-Mart for hours on end; because, really, who gets out of there in under an hour?  But far worse than trudging through the store at night was trudging through the store during the day with seven children.  This happened ONLY in extreme emergencies.  If this is your only option (taking everyone with you) then I will pray that another option makes itself available to you!

Once I had some old enough to stay home with the littles, I moved my shopping to the daytime hours.  I still went by myself whenever possible, but doing it during the afternoon made it go a little bit faster because I wasn't quite as tired.  If needed, I would still go in the evening.

Now that I've transitioned into older children, I still go during the day, but here's the difference.  I now try to take one of them with me.  Why, you might ask?  Well, because I despise standing in line at the deli counter and so I take said child with me, give them the deli list and send them on their way.  Usually by the time they are done at the deli, I've completed 90% of the shopping.  The only thing left is to stand in the checkout line, which can usually take as much time as the shopping did.

I've also begun shopping at Aldi again because the quality of their food choices has gotten much better over the past few years and the lower prices help in the budget area.  It has become a challenge to me to see how fast I can do my Aldi shopping because, well, you have to make it interesting somehow.  Last week was my personal best:  22 minutes.  It is also important to be accurate and last week I actually didn't forget anything even though I flew through the store.

My daughter and I then moved on to Wal-Mart, where I know the time is at least double that of Aldi.  I asked her if she was up to the challenge to make it another personal best time and she said she was, so in we went.  Now granted, I didn't have that complicated of a list, but many times that doesn't mean anything.  So I sent her off to the deli with her short list and before I had even made it out of the personal and household sections, she was done.  It was looking promising at that point.  We made our way through the food aisles and then headed to the checkout, where I knew that everything we had accomplished thus far could be thrown out the window.  Miracle upon miracle abounded and we were out of the store 35 minutes after we entered.  Our entire trip, from leaving to getting home, was 1 hour and 40 minutes.  Unbelievable!

So if you hate this whole process as much as I do, then try to find ways to make it easier and more fun.  Take a helpful child along with you, make it a game, buy yourself that special treat once a week, whatever it takes to make it more tolerable.  

As always, feel free to share your favorite shopping tips so others can benefit.

God Bless!
 

Join in the National 54 Day Rosary Novena

I just wanted to jump in and encourage you to join in the National 54 Day Rosary Novena.  If you aren't sure what that is, it is a series of 6 novenas of rosaries.  The first 27 days are days of petition and the second 27 days are days of thanksgiving.

The novena starts today, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, and ends on October 7th, the Feast of the Rosary.  How providential that these two Marian feast days are 54 days apart!  Coincidence?  I think not.

If you've been wanting to start praying the rosary together as a family, then now would be a great time to start.  This website has all of the information about the national novena, including the intention and the prayers (in case you are unsure of how to pray it).  You can even sign up to get  email reminders, which I did, of course!

Happy Feast day and I hope you'll join in this national effort to bring our country back to God.

God Bless!

A New Venture

Recently I did some cleaning up on my blog.  I removed and reassigned my labels so that there were fewer of them.  This, of course, meant that I had to skim through all of my almost 2000 posts and made me realize that I've been at this blogging thing for a very long time.

I'm also about to turn 50.  I'm not really bothered by it because I've always felt that age is more about how you feel about it than what the number says you are.  I still feel a lot younger than that, so turning the numbers up one digit higher doesn't really bother me.  Now my youngest son, it bothers him.  He says it kind of "creeps him out" to think about me and his dad being 50.  

So, after much pondering about this space here, I've decided that I'm old enough now to be more of a mentor, so I'm looking to have the posts in this ole blog be more in line with my organizing book "A Plan for Joy in the Home"; which is why I reassigned all of my labels.  I'm hoping to help people more than just keep them up to date on our doings.  Of course, that will all still find its way in here, but maybe with more of a purpose.

I hope you'll join me on this new venture and share this space with your friends and homeschooling groups.  It's so much more fun when we can interact and share, so I'm hoping you'll be game to do that.

Hopefully, God willing, this will also mean more consistent posting.  I won't be surprised, however, if there is still some sporadic moments!  Overall, I'm looking forward to see what comes of this space in the future.

God Bless!

Rosaries Aren't Just for Teething on a Retreat

Way back and a day ago, I was on retreat.  That's how long ago it seems, although in reality it has only been about three weeks.  The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius are the retreat of all retreats, and when you can go to one of them preached by the priests of Miles Christi, well then, my friend, you are in Heaven.  Once a year they hold a retreat that goes from Monday afternoon until late Thursday afternoon.  The rest of the time they are weekend retreats, so this gives you about one extra day which translates into more talks and more time to pray and meditate.  There's also more free time so I like to walk around and do all of that praying and meditating stuff outdoors.  

This is the first year I had a decent camera on my phone, so I took a few minutes to take some pictures of the grounds.  

Isn't it just beautiful?  This Shrine is run by the Franciscans and has had Perpetual Adoration EVERY DAY, no matter what, since the 1930s.  Unbelievable.

So on that Monday I was preparing to go and I looked up on my information sheet to see what time the retreat started.  I saw that registration began at 4:00 and so I knew that meant that the rosary was at 4:30.  Good.  I left my house about 3:15 and knew I would be in time for the rosary.  

Except that I wasn't, because registration really began at 3:00, the rosary was at 4:00 and I arrived at 4:25 with Mass to begin at 4:30.  Ugh.  I ran up the stairs, threw my stuff in the room and ran back to the chapel so that I could be on time for Mass. 

I'm still not sure how that all happened, but later that night I realized WHY it happened.  I decided later on that evening to go to the chapel in the photo above to pray my rosary since I had missed it earlier.  I remembered that I had won a copy of "Rosaries Aren't Just for Teething" a few weeks back from Cari and had the urge to read it along with my prayers.

This, of course, meant taking my phone out to read it on my Kindle app.  That meant possibly seeing a message or an email or a notification and then having to fight the major temptation NOT to look at it.  But the urge persisted and so I went directly to the app and began reading the meditations for the Joyful mysteries.

Wow, they were just what I needed to hear.  Had I not missed the rosary, I would not have gotten these messages that I needed to get.  For example, from the meditation on the Annunciation, "Rather than shake His head at us with a condescending grin, He mercifully offers us something better".  I struggle at times with the "loving" God and so this was a great thing to read to set me on the right path.

From the Visitation, "Miracles surround me through the everydayness of life and the suffering and the joys".  How often I forget this.  Especially the suffering part.  Miracles are there...everyday.  We just need to look really hard sometimes to see them.

From the Nativity, "God's plans are always better and the stories He writes are always more interesting."  Much more interesting and much, much better than anything I could ever write.

Finally, from the Presentation, "Motherhood isn't just about our own pleasure.  It is a sharing in the self-giving love of God.  It is also a sharing in the suffering of the cross."  The cross.  Oh how I need to learn to love to embrace the cross.  Right now I run away as fast as I can.  Much more work to be done there, that's for sure.

I continued to read the other three sections of the book over the next three days I was there.  They were chock full of great quotes and insights that really helped me during my retreat.  One of the way God typically speaks to me is through the written word and once again, He came through for me. 

I hardly ever win things, so I am thrilled that this was one of those rare times.  The book is a gem and if you can, you should get yourself a copy and use it to mediate on the mysteries.  And, if you haven't done so this year already, you should make time for some kind of retreat with the Lord.  I know times are busy, but even an afternoon away at an Adoration chapel will be well worth it.

God Bless!

Homeschooling Moms Helping Homeschooling Moms!

I've been away for too long!  A lot to catch up on, but I'm short on time today so I just want to leave you with this:

I was privileged to do an interview with Kerry Olvera from Catholic Homeschool Moms.  She's interviewing homeschooling moms from a variety of homeschooling backgrounds to help other homeschooling moms out, or just give them a boost if they need it.  It was so much fun and I'm very honored to have participated.  

You can find my interview here.

More will be coming, too, so check back at her home page often.  

Oh, and pass this around.  I think it has the potential to help a lot of people.

Thanks, Kerry, for the opportunity.

Be back later to update you all on more exciting things!

God Bless!

Corpus Christi

Happy Feast of Corpus Christi...one of my favorite Solemnities of the year.   The parish we used to belong to had two-mile long processions at noon and it never failed to be super hot.  This year, since the parish we belong to now isn't having a procession, my mom encouraged us to come to their procession on Saturday evening.  It was an absolutely gorgeous evening and the procession, while shorter, was just as beautiful and nowhere near as hot.  Here are some photos to enjoy in case your parish isn't having a procession.

This beautiful chalk image was on the steps leading into the church.  It's hard to see it (phone camera picture!) but there is a Latin phrase written on the face of each step.  Of course I can't remember what it says or what it means.

My baby and my mom *sigh*

The altar my mom was in charge of preparing

This lovely little country church

Recently remodeled and gorgeous!

 Have a blessed Solemnity!

God Bless!

Deep Clean Day 1

Today began my summer-break spring cleaning fest.  We're too busy in the spring time to do the deep clean so I save it up for our summer break, which officially started today (WOOHOOO!).  We're having a party in two weeks so I set it as my goal to be done by then.  I wrote out a list of all of the rooms (basement not included...ugh, that takes a week in and of itself!), and am thinking that if I do one or two rooms per day that I have free, I should get the whole house done in time.

Now, that doesn't leave me much wiggle room, so that is assuming that I feel good (no dizzy spells) and am motivated enough and that nothing else gets in the way.  How likely that is to happen, I just don't know.

I decided to begin in the rooms that are less likely to be seen by visitors so that the ones that will be seen and used will be cleaned closer to party day.  That being said, I began today in my bedroom.

Deep cleaning meant vacuuming the window screens and washing the windows, vacuuming up all the miscellaneous cobwebs that seem to grow this time of year, moving furniture, cleaning out drawers and closets (they weren't too bad since I've kept up with them) and then tackling these two headboard too-easy-to-hide-junk-in type cabinets.

This is what I had "hidden" away:

Years worth of old scapulars, medals, religious stuff you get in the mail but feel guilty throwing out so you hide it away, and loads and loads of pamphlets and catalogs.  After sorting through it all I ended up with A LOT of old scapulars that we can bury in the yard, a bunch of medals and rosaries and such that I will bring to our Adoration chapel, two bags of holy cards and prayer/novena cards that I will either leave in the back of churches, give to other people, send in the mail with correspondence or things like that, and a ton of outdated pamphlets and catalogs that I promptly tossed since all of the info can be found online.

Whew.  That felt good.  One room down, about nine more to go.  The countdown is on.  If they all go as well as this one did, the house should be looking lighter and brighter very soon.

God Bless!