Catholic Woman's Almanac

Linking up with the women at Sucipio!

Moments of Gratitude:

* The absolutely wonderful birthday I had last week. 
* The great food we ate that day.
* The cake one daughter baked and the other decorated.
* My parent's returning home after a 1 1/2 month road trip.
* A great group of dads and sons at our house for a camp out.

Beauty in the Ordinary:

When Mr 7 yo was younger, every once in a while he would take a power nap - he'd go down sometime in the afternoon and sleep until morning.  Well, Sunday he was so tired from his camp out the night before that he retreated to his room around 4:00 (all of his own accord) and slept until 7:00 this morning.  He did wake up around 9:00 last night with a lazy smile, grabbed a bagel to eat and put his pjs on, then went back to sleep.  There is something beautiful, although maybe not ordinary, about that :)

From the Kitchen:

We're trying some new recipes this week:

* A crock pot beef stroganoff that is cooking right now and smells wonderful.
* A crock pot chicken and wine recipe
* Mr 12 yo is trying his hand at spaghetti this week

Reading:

* Still reading "I Believe in Love". 
* I found another book I never finished (not an uncommon occurrence, unfortunately) called "The Priesthood of the Heart" by Jo Croissant.  I hope to finish it this week.

Meditating:

Now that I have my concordance, I am continuing to meditate on scripture references of the word TRUST.  

Praying:

* For the family that is hiding in their apartment in Syria while fighting goes on all around them
* For our country
* For financial concerns

In the Week Ahead:

* Our first women's formation group of the Fall at my house Tuesday evening.
* Our monthly Evening of Recollection on Friday
* School and exercise all week long...
* Not much else...which I consider a good thing!

Captured:

 
Mr 7 yo's Lego creation!  This is just one in a series of battle scenes he asked me to photograph for him!

God Bless!
 

My Concordance and the Word "Trust"

It all started on August 31st when I read this post over at Sucipio.  Jenny was talking about how she had started a Bible study based on one word in the Bible.  I had never heard of nor thought of doing a study liked that based on a word in Scripture.  Her colorful page made me smile and I new immediately that I wanted to do this.  I even knew what word I wanted to study...trust.  

With that I went in search of my concordance.  Hmmm, where could it be?  The girls had used it for the apologetics class this past spring, but we had put all of that stuff away.

Thus began a week long intensive search of my house for this concordance.  I was really getting upset that I couldn't find it anywhere.  I knew it hadn't grown legs and walked, so where could it be?  I prayed to St. Anthony many, many times to no avail.  By the end of the week I was ready to order a new one, but thought I'd wait one more day.

Saturday morning I was still thinking about it when I walked into the back room where we have some book shelves.  I walked to the shelves, bent down and pulled the book off the top shelf like I knew it had been there all along!

I can't tell you how many times I looked at those shelves.  How many times I ran my fingers over the three rows of books and never did I notice it right there on the top shelf.  Thank you, St. Anthony, for finally showing me where it was (or putting it back there so I could find it :).

Now that I have my book back, and now that my daughter has replaced my Bible that she took from me and started writing in with a much nicer Bible, I began my word study.

The first entry that I looked up spoke volumes to me:

Yet in spite of this word you would not trust the Lord, your God.  Dt 1:32

He's right, in spite of all of the things the Lord has done for me and shown me, I still have a hard time trusting that He is not out to get me.  It comes and goes, but there are times when I really have a hard time believing this:

For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.  Jer 29:11

I think I am really going to like this form of Scripture study.  What a great way to meditate on the words of the Lord.  Thanks, Jenny, for sharing the idea!

God Bless!
  

7 Quick Takes Sept 7 2012

--- 1 ---

Today (Friday) is my birthday.  I've found that the way to always feel young is to have many friends that are older than you by a good couple of years.  Most of my friends are 50+ and I am happy to say that I...am not.  Any discussions about age with them always make me feel good.  The other day some friends were discussing the year they got engaged, which happened to be the year I graduated from GRADE school!  Gotta love it!
 

--- 2 ---

I've really come to enjoy my early mornings since I developed a love of coffee.  Every morning after I shower and dress, I make myself a nice cuppa joe and sit in the rocker in my room.  

It is here that I say my morning prayers and think about the day ahead.  I must admit that sometimes I spend far more time than I should there because then breakfast is off to a late start and we end up rushing out the door to Mass.  Oh well, it is a very peaceful routine that I look forward to every day.

 

--- 3 ---

Something else I've been looking forward to are the grapes that have been growing on the vines in our yard.  I've been watching their progress all summer and couldn't wait to pick them so we could make some more awesome grape jelly.  I went out earlier this week only to discover that EVERY SINGLE grape was gone from the vines.  Last year we picked about this time and had about 6 pounds of grapes.  Only thing I can figure is that they ripened a bit early (I only took my eyes off them for a short while, I swear) and the birds got to them before I did.  We've been mourning our lost jelly.
 

--- 4 ---

On a more positive note, the pear tree in our front yard, whose branches are bending low due to the number of pears on them, look much better than they have in past years.  Whatever disease or bug has gotten to them in the past must not have liked the warm, dry summer we've had.  These are late ripening pears so I look forward to eating some in a couple of weeks.
 

--- 5 ---

I have avoided upgrading my computer for the longest time because I just really liked Windows XP and didn't look forward to learning something new (I know, that made me sound old :).  I heard horror stories about Vista and was afraid of Windows 7 but now that I was pretty much forced into an upgrade and have had time to work with it, Windows 7 isn't that bad.  I'm just not sure if the reason why my cursor jumps from one spot to another spot while I'm typing is a Windows thing or a laptop thing.  Anyone else have that problem (besides my daughter, who also can't figure it out)?

--- 6 ---

The other morning, my daughter and I were sitting on the patio tackling math.  I thought maybe a change of scenery might help her.  All of a sudden I heard a loud buzzing in my ear.  Me being me, I yelled, jumped up and waved my hands around...see we have these HUGE horseflies around here that sound like a plane landing on your head, so I'm a bit buzz shy.  Turned out the thing that was buzzing me was a hummingbird.  It was close enough to my head for me to hear the beating of its wings.   We've noticed this guy flying by a few times a day to visit our flowers, so it must have been my bright yellow shirt he was attracted to.  One day I'd love to get a picture of him.
 

--- 7 ---

Our boys have their Blue Knights camp out this weekend.  My son was hoping for cooler weather so that he could wear the new camo pants he bought.  I think a low of 50 degrees should be good for him!  Have a great weekend everyone!

God Bless!

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

A Mish Mosh of Things

I feel like writing this evening but I just don't know what the topic should be.  Ever felt that way??  

Should I write about how well our schedule seems to be working for us?  Even today when we went to noon Mass instead of morning Mass, we were able to shift things up and still get everything done in a timely fashion.

How about the fact that things have been going well attitude-wise until today when my daughter hit her first Bridge in Life of Fred math?  I don't know what those bridges ever did to her, but she just sees the word and her brain instantly shuts down.  Can't seem to help her through it, so she'll just have to decide for herself that she wants to "move on" in the proverbial sense.  In the physical sense, she has no choice...she must move on...even unhappily.

Or what about the research I'm doing on Blessed (soon to be Saint) Kateri.  She was an absolutely fascinating holy person.  I read about her day-to-day level of holiness and it blows my mind; thus reinforcing once again why I am not a saint :)

But then I remembered that tomorrow is only Thursday, and if I write too many random things, then I will have nothing left for my Quick Takes on Friday.  So I will quit now and go beg St. Anthony for the 100th time to let me in on the secret of where my concordance is.  I have looked for that book everywhere and it is not to be found. 

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! 

Catholic Woman's Almanac

Joining in with the women over at Sucipio!

 Moments of Grace:

* Fun conversations with my daughters on facebook.  I'm sure we annoy everyone else, but they sure do make us laugh.

* Great friends, good laughs and the opportunity to spend some fun time together.  God is so good to send us such good friends.

Beauty in the Ordinary:

* The ordinary rhythm of the days.  It is nice to not be so hectic and see your days flow peacefully one to the next without huge interruptions and disruptions - at least for the time being!

In the Kitchen:

* It's a holiday, so that means burgers on the grill (which technically isn't in the kitchen :) with some french fries, lemonade and banana splits for dessert.  The rest of the week is ordinary fare, though I'm trying to figure out some meals that are "clean" and inexpensive.  Quite the task.

Praying:

* For my friend's niece who committed suicide, and for her family.  For a family fleeing for their lives in Syria - a mom and her children hoping to meet up with her husband in Damascus.  Praying we never have to face anything like that in this country.

Pondering:

* Why the message coming across my radar lately is all about trusting in God and having confidence in Him.  Every where I go, everything I read - that is the message.  Maybe it is because I should really try to do it!  Pondering how.

Reading:

* Picked up the book "I Believe in Love" and hoping to get through the entire book this time.  It seems like it might be my time to read it.

* "Kateri Tekakwitha - Mohawk Maiden" in preparation for my new unit study.

Looking Ahead:

* To a relatively open schedule this week - YIPPEEEEEE!  

* To my birthday at the end of the week.

Captured:

My daughter's prize flower - as she so perfectly labeled it!

 

Have a wonderful Day!

God Bless!

  

A Bit of Weekend Fun

Of course the weekend we planned a big bonfire and party for friends in our homeschool group it decides to rain.  Being as it hasn't rained really all summer and most of the area corn crops are worthless, one isn't allowed to complain about the rain that came...and we didn't.  We just kept changing our plans all day long based on the current amount of precipitation:

Raining- it will be an indoor party
not raining - well, still don't want to take the chance
raining - definitely indoor
sunshine -  part indoor part outdoor party, fire in the fire pit on the patio, where should the music go?
drizzle - food inside, possible fire on the patio, music in the garage
no rain but windy - food inside, fire in the pit on the driveway, music in the garage

and so it went all day long until we ended up with the final scenario as the first guests were arriving.  As my husband predicted, with the fire and the music in the garage area and the food in the house...the women stayed inside and the men stayed outside tending the blaze.

Part of the fun of the evening was the 80s music that we played.  It is amazing that grown people who cannot remember the names of their children can sing all the words to every song that came on.   Maybe if they sang their requests and questions to me I might remember them :)

Another fun thing about the music was seeing who liked which type.  My kids always get a kick out of thinking of Mr and Mrs so-and-so (who they usually see at a religious type function) rocking to some loud, upbeat music. As one of our friends put it, "I will never think of you all in the same way again!"

All in all it was a very fun evening.  What is nice about events like this it gives us all a chance to let our hair hang down, relax, talk, sing, dance even.  We are all called to be saints...we are all called to pick up our cross and follow the Lord, but that doesn't mean that we can't kick it up once in awhile.  I'm glad I have a bunch of friends who agree with me :)

God Bless!