Category Archives: Family

Parents, keep fighting the fight!

1 Reply

I have several friends with teenagers who are struggling, and struggling mightily with a wide variety of teen angst and issues and I’ve been praying for and with them pretty regularly now.  It’s heart wrenching.  It’s terrifying.  It’s real.  It’s life.  It’s a time of exercising Trust and Faith in the One who these children ultimately belong to.  Hoping and praying we’ve built that solid foundation.  Praying we’ve planted that mustard seed on fertile soil.  With 4 kiddos of our own and two who are currently teens, I have full expectations that we too, will face our own struggles in these hormone-laden years.  We watch and we wait and we live each day in trial and error, learning as we go and gleaning wisdom and example from those around us.

Teenagers.  Hormones.  Frontal lobe nerve myelination.    These are the days where we must. pray. without. ceasing. (really, every day is)   I came across this quote during my readings this morning:

The faults of children are not always imputed to the parents, especially when they have instructed them and given good example. Our Lord, in His wonderous Providence, allows children to break the hearts of devout fathers and mothers. Thus the decisions your children have made don’t make you a failure as a parent in God’s eyes. You are entitled to feel sorrow, but not necessarily guilt. Do not cease praying for your children; God’s grace can touch a hardened heart. Commend your children to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. When parents pray the Rosary,at the end of each decade they should hold the Rosary aloft and say to her,”With these beads bind my children to your Immaculate Heart”, she will attend to their souls.

— St. Louise de Marillac

There is hope, parents.  There is grace abundant.  Keep fighting the fight.

Happy Papal Inauguration Day!

Conclave…..

1 Reply

Today it begins…..Anyone else excited???  FOCUS has several great tools for learning about the conclave and Pope election  and all that jazz AND……they have this awesome alarm….texting or email…..to let you know when the Pope is elected.  For lots of reasons, many of us can’t be “connected” all day, or watching the TV for days on end, and for this reality check I LOVE this alarm!!!

Happy Tuesday all, back to wrangling grumpy time change chillen’ and preparing for work on this rainy day!!!

Screen shot 2013-03-12 at 6.39.53 AM Screen shot 2013-03-12 at 6.40.10 AM

Seven Quick Takes (a day late….)

Leave a reply

A day late to the party, but the kids have hijacked the computer this week and I’ve been coughing so much I haven’t cared to be on it anyway….however…..bright and early Saturday morning and I’m feeling fine-ish and they are sleeping so it’s MINE.  ALL.  MINE.  And I’m joining in with Jen and her weekly Quick Takes…she says she might go last first…hmmmmm, that might bode well for me  😉   without further adieu….

  1. I’m working on a “Day in the Life” post.  Riveting.  I’m sure you can’t wait to see how my day shapes up compared to yours.  Funny thing is, it’s a little tedious accounting for one’s day AND trying to make it funny.  Clearly I have nothing mind-blowing to talk about if THAT’S my big project, eh?
  2. One week post-flu and I THINK (Oh, please, please, please, please let me not jinx myself here) we are relatively healthy.  Except for this nagging cough/sinus infection I’ve had all week.  I’ve been eating cough drops by the bagful and have had several nights on the couch trying to breathe/sleep/not wake Hubby all night.  I finally broke down and my doctor called me in some antibiotics and cough syrup…hence the early wake up–slept like a baby.
  3. Week 2 of my fitness Groupon and each workout KILLS.  Amazing how hard you can work in a 35 minute period doing just a few exercises and opposing muscle groups.  Super excited to see how I’ll be at the end of the 6 weeks.
  4. This week our boys had a WWF session in the backyard.  By boys I mean including Hubby.  Let me say, I HATE wrestling.  Someone always gets hurt.  It’s loud.  It’s annoying.  And yet…..so necessary.  Hubby had me read (and I probably need to REread) John Eldredge‘s book Wild at Heart and it helped me to understand and appreciate the male “need” to be a male, so I accept it a wee bit more.  Wee bit.  In the end, Dad still won (he’s still hanging on…).  Big brother still won (barely).  And the only blood drawn was on Dad’s chin by a stray long nail. boys
  5. I scored some AWESOME dishes at our church thrift store this week.  Service for 12.  TWELVE I tell you!  12 dinner dishes.  12 small dishes.  12 bowls.  A serving bowl and lid and salt and pepper shaker.  $50.  Except they weren’t.  They were half OFF…..yes, that’s right, $25.  S.C.O.R.E.  Super cute.  AND I saw some fantastic coffee cups that will complement this set from Pier One.  Now when we have company….we’ve got enough dishes!  So come on over!!!rooster
  6. I have the day off Monday to take our youngest athlete to the County wide Fitness Festival.  Little stinker made it to 4 events.  Sit and reach.  Standing long jump.  Shuttle run.  50 yard dash.  Should be great weather.  I’m sure there will be pictures to follow.  And blogging.  Especially since I have the DAY OFF!
  7. We’ve been in the refinancing dance for our house and got a sweet low-interest rate with no closing costs and no re-appraisal.  It takes a while, as you may or may not know, and yesterday we got the call from the title company….because we were late to our closing….that no one ever told us we HAD.  We jockeyed around lunches (fortunately Hubby was working from home that day!) and traffic—-because Bike Week starts this week….but…..it’s done.  We celebrated with a Friday night fire pit and marshmallows after our fish and chips dinner.  ‘Twas a good day, nice end to the week.  fire

Happy Weekend, Y’all!

Sunday rest, weekends are best!

1 Reply

It was a brisk one here this weekend…no snow, but with lows in the 30’s and highs in the 50’s, that’s a little on the cold side here in sunny FLA.  On the bright side, the cooler weather made it positively perfect for a fire in the backyard on Friday night.  Some of us even brought our fish and chips out and ate around the fire; it was  fabulous end to the workweek.

Saturday morning I picked up my girlfriend and we hit the gym I snagged a Groupon for (6 weeks of personal fitness training/group environment–seriously HARD!!!!) and joined in their AMRAP challenge.  As Many Rounds As Possible of:  25 Jumping jacks, 20 Basketball jumps, 15 Pushups, 10 Burpees and run to the stop sign and back (a pretty long block) and repeat for 35 minutes.  y’all.  Holy hurtness.  I did 6 Rounds.  The winner (who I’m sure was like 15) did 9, the woman’s winner did 8.  I was proud of myself, especially considering I can’t run, so the down and back was walking.  It’s going to be an interesting 5 more weeks….Tuesdays and Thursdays and Saturday mornings.  These guys are seriously professional, encouraging and motivating, even making sure they know their clients by first name….all 40 of us on Saturday!  It’s refreshing.  The professionalism.

Sunday was full on NOTHING!  Mass was great.  I mean who CAN’T relate to the woman at the well?  We all FAIL.  We all fall short.  We can all receive that everlasting water, that grace, that mercy; we just need to seek Him out.  If we can but take a minute and not judge others, but turn our gaze inward we can see we are ALL the same and we can ALL receive grace and healing in our broken-ness.

Follow that message up with a quick little trip to Target for some essentials and a day of just puttering, relaxing, tackling bills and thank you cards for 1)yummy food and 2) I job I didn’t get, some Downton Abbey (which I purely cried my eyes out on), homemade mac and cheese with ham and ALL the kids home and chilling out all day, was a total home run.  The only downside?  Today is Monday.

Have a great week, y’all!

To flu vaccinate or no….

12 Replies

An interesting debate to be sure and I’m curious to see why YOU have to say about this.  Of course, this won’t be all serious, I do have some funny-ish stuff to report as well 😉

So, a few months back I heard Mac and Katherine on Catholic in a Small Town podcast discussing Katherine’s preference NOT to get the flu vaccine….#203, you can check it out on iTunes…and it got me thinking about the flu vaccine and WHY do I bother each year?  Is it worth it?  What am I subjecting myself to?  It opened up an internal can o’ worms for certain.

CSTitunes

Anyhoooo…I work in the medical field, my employer provides the vaccine to me at no cost each year and so, I get the vaccine.  I’ve not had the flu in 10 years and quite frankly, would  prefer to not have it again.  However….due to the controversial issues on the flu vaccine for our kids…I’ve not had them get a flu shot.  Ever.  That I remember, anyway.    Questionable ingredients, 62%ish effectiveness rate, roll of the dice on which strain we’ll actually come in contact with, ACK…it’s too much, so we’ve opted out.  However…..things ’bout to change in these parts!

Our 15 yo son came down with Flu B last weekend.  I already blogged on all THAT fun here if you missed it the first time around and the kid ended up missing a WHOLE FLIPPIN’ WEEK OF SCHOOL!!!  yes, High School.  Good times.  The kicker is that I actually started getting sick at the end of the week last week, sucked it up for a couple of days (chalking it up to allergies and pollen), however, by Saturday afternoon–after an ENTIRE day of solo and ensemble stuff with our 13 yo and tag-along 9 yo daughter, I came home and went to bed and got up yesterday.  Monday.  Ugh.  Fever’s gone and I was back to work today, but still…..ain’t.  quite.  right.  And I WAS vaccinated!!!  WTH??!?!?  So when I brought the 15yo BACK to the doc yesterday for additional antibiotics for “possible” pneumonia still not resolved as a result of his flu….I decided next year EVERYONE gets the vaccine.  Mine didn’t last as long as his, certainly wasn’t as brutal and you know “Ain’t NOBODY got time for that” to be staying home with sick kids, for kids to be missing a week of schoolwork (the stuff the teachers didn’t email…) and we ALL know Mama don’t have time to be sick..even though Daddy is a pretty fantastic taker-carer.

So, what’s your take?  Flu vaccine or no?

On the upside…..I got a TON of reading in.  Finished Screwtape letters, almost finished A year of biblical womanhood, completely caught up on my Daily Catechism readings—(I MAY have been 3 weeks behind).  Mailed a long overdue encouragement card and ordered The Power of Positive Thinking to go with said card.  Slept so much my back ached.  Lost a few pounds.  Woke up from a nap to find Hubby and 75% of the kids playing Monopoly….WITHOUT blood shed.  True.  No joke.  Prayed.  (It was a good few days to be on my heart…you are so covered it’s ridiculous).  Continue to play with PicMonkey and learn a little more.

Phew.  It’s been a long couple days.