Making a lovely milestone out of pandemic challenges...

Happy August, everyone! I was going to chat about crafty things today, after updating everyone about Anne's First Communion, but I decided to save crafts for next week, and devote this whole post to the big day last Sunday, and to assorted other Catholic, uplifty things. 

*heart*

As I mentioned last week, I was grateful that Anne's school parish was able to reschedule First Communion this summer, and that we wouldn't have to wait any longer. But let's just be honest, the current coronavirus restrictions are a bit of a bummer. We understand why they are there, but any type of milestone this year has had a depressing cloud hung over it's head, and it's not always easy to deal with. BUT, Anne was able to be with 7 of her classmates at the mass, and also have her grandparents there, which was absolutely awesome. Dianne noted last week in the comments that focusing on the positives really helps, and she's right! There were a lot of positives about the experience. 

Anne in her dress and veil before mass!

The day was very humid (and we don't have air conditioning! :-0) but we managed to yank on our dress clothes fairly successfully and made it to the church on time. There were 8 first communicants, plus other members of the parish attending the noon mass. The mass itself was lovely, we were so glad to have our parents there, and there was a professional photographer present to capture a few moments with each young communicant, which made me very happy. The children were all able to receive the Eucharist for the first time in a beautiful and reverent fashion.

Social distancing photo op with Father

Afterwards, we were able to have our parents back with us to our house for pizza and cake, and it all went very well. Even though it wasn't the completely traditional experience I was looking forward to, I'm grateful that Anne has reached this milestone and that it went without a hitch. I think her preparation suffered a bit because of the pandemic, and I'm looking forward to working with her this fall and Advent to grow deeper in her faith. 

In other Catholic news, the Our Lady Undoer of Knots novena started yesterday, and I'm praying it with regards to discernment for the fall and the kids' schooling. I'm linking it here if you would like to join in! It'll wrap up on the feast of St. Maximillian Kolbe. 😍 If you have intentions for the novena, feel free to leave them below and we can all pray for each other!

A Catholic Librarian family update :)

Hello all, and I hope that your May is starting off well! It certainly is over here, though we are quite busy, but in the best possible way. Life is full and good. :)

Mike is in a community theater production of "Dial M for Murder" this month, and so with his rehearsals in the evenings, plus my dance classes and events, plus kid activities...it's been busy! But as I've always told the kids: everybody should have a hobby that they love and are passionate about. Ideally, one should balance a single commitment-heavy hobby at a time, because otherwise family dinners go by the wayside and a person can hardly catch their breath for the crazy evenings. But all of us (especially this introverted family!) having one hobby that we love is a good, good thing.

Our big star of late has been Henry ;-) who had his moving up day at school and is in full-on high school prep mode. HOW ON EARTH DID THIS HAPPEN?! Everybody tells you that this will happen, that the years when your kids are growing up will fly by in the blink of an eye, but you do not believe them until it actually happens to you.

😭

Henry has been much more into sports this year, and we're very proud of the effort and patient dedication he has been putting into practicing and playing. In the fall, he played on the school basketball team, which is definitely his favorite sport. Once basketball season wrapped up, he expressed interest in playing volleyball (this is my most hated sport from school gym nightmares of old :0, but I have to say that the games are very fun to watch!) and has been doing that for about a month now.

Next year, he will be going to a Catholic boys high school that is within walking distance of our house, and he is SO excited about it. We are very excited for him, although not for our checkbook, eeks! :0 But I do think that the school will be a good fit for him, and that he will thrive there. Happily, most of his friends are going there as well. He has physically grown in an *exponential* fashion this school year. I will create a little collage of his first day/last day of school picture, the difference is that distinctive!

As for our little Anne, she is wrapping up second grade. She got her ears pierced this spring, and is also looking more and more big kid-like. 😭She comes up to my chest now in terms of height. 😬 Anne is the most social member of our family. She's an introvert as well, but she easily enjoys socializing with her peers in a very non-awkward fashion that the rest of us envy quite a bit. :0 Her birthday is coming up, and she will be 8. My baby! She's participated in Girl Scouts this year, and has absolutely loved it. They had a horseback riding gathering this past weekend, and their end-of-year meeting is right around the corner. She wants to participate again next year, and I think she's making great friends, and learning heartwarming and useful new things. It's a keeper! She'll be in third grade next year, and will continue on at the Catholic K-8 school she and Henry have been at for many years now.

As the school year wraps up, Mike and I are in awe of where are kids are in terms of their growth, physically and emotionally. When you have kids, you tend to think of just the little years, and don't think ahead to when they start becoming independent young men and women. Henry has definitely started that phase, and it doesn't seem like that long until Anne will approaching that same point anymore. It's emotional, for sure.

At Henry's moving up dinner, a number of parents put together a tribute to one of the school administrators, who started at our school the year that this current graduating 8th grade class was in Pre-K. Henry wasn't there until first grade, but I found the entire thing very touching. By the time it was over, there weren't too many dry eyes out in the audience. When the kids are little, it's a bit exhausting, because their physical needs are so vast, and they have zero emotional maturity, which makes for quite a loud and chaotic experience for a number of years. And it seems like those days, when you're going through them, will never end. But then they do, and you find a whole host of new things to worry about, and then suddenly WHAM! They're a budding small adult person, and you're like "what the heck happened here?!" I quite literally can't believe it. And I hope we're doing a good job, because there is a lot at stake. I may start to cry again.

😭

It's a time of a lot of transitions in our family, due to the kids growing and becoming interested in new things and experiences. We're hanging in there, but I'm weeping buckets of tears along the way.

So.many.tears.

What is going on with you this May? How do you handle big transitions with kids, or in other arenas of your life? I'd love to hear from you!

An Easter full of blessings...

My mini-me!

Happy Easter everyone!

🐇

I had my usual exciting Triduum plans this year, with my children along for the ride, and thought I would report in on that! 😃

So, Holy Thursday and Good Friday came round and...neither child wanted to come with me. 😂 I wasn't exactly surprised, and it *is* a lot of church in a 3 day period, so I didn't twist their arms. So I attended those liturgies by myself, and as ever, they are SO WORTH the trip. Holy Thursday is the one that is newest to my repertoire, and it has quickly become a favorite. This year, our pastor created an altar of repose in our new parish center, and we all processed in there at the conclusion of the liturgy behind the Blessed Sacrament. SO LOVELY. And hearing the bells rung during the Gloria, the first time we've heard either since Lent began, never fails to touch me. This liturgy also had very good attendance for our smaller parish!

Good Friday packs a wallop for me every single year. Our parish always holds a 3 pm scripture service with communion, and attending this has become my tradition. The bare altar and absence of the Eucharist makes quite an impression, to be sure. The veneration of the cross makes me tear up every time. And then came the Easter vigil.

Happily, for this liturgy I had 2 captives with me. ;-) Henry volunteered to serve at this mass, and Anne attended for the very first time. I let her bring some coloring along because I knew we would be there for awhile, especially since we had to arrive early in order for Henry to help set up. And it went marvelously.

I find the beginning of this liturgy, the Lucernarium, to be most poignant. After Father started and blessed the fire, and the church became totally dark...I could tell Anne was hooked. She even asked if she could volunteer to serve at this mass when she's old enough to be an altar server! As everyone lit their taper candle and the Exultet was sung, I marveled at this, my favorite liturgical moment of the entire year. I always cry, even I don't know anybody who is entering the Church that year! The darkness, the chanting, the palpable sense of communion with the global Church...it's just magnificent. Anne loved it so much that she didn't want to blow out her candle when it was time for the readings. 😂 She did GREAT. Stayed awake and alert for the duration, though granted our Easter vigil is shorter than most. We didn't have anybody receiving the sacraments this year, plus our pastor chooses less than the 7 possible Old Testament readings, so our mass was just over 90 minutes. The contemporary ensemble did an amazing job with the responsorial Psalms, and the great Alleluia was particularly spectacular.

It's a special liturgy, and I would never miss it. Easter Sunday was relaxing and lovely, and concluded with a delicious family dinner and great fellowship and conversation. Life just doesn't get any better than this. 😊

How was your Easter weekend, friends?

An assortment of winter thoughts and prayers...

That's currently my house, pictured left. ;-) We're in for a heck of a storm here in the Northeast, and apparently a Polar Vortex is coming to suck us all into another dimension, or some such thing. :0 The kids have school cancelled both tomorrow and Thursday, and we'll all be indoors for 2 straight days with lots of family togetherness.

😳

I'm joking. It's good, it really is! But if my kids can't go outside to romp in the snow (which they won't be able to - wind chill will be well below zero, and I'm talking Fahrenheit) they get bored and miserable. We'll make do as best we can! For my part, I'm planning to knit and crochet non-stop, and perhaps I'll have enough time to make a full size afghan! 😃

I do have a blanket in progress, matter of fact:

The theme of the colorway is sweet pea flowers, and I'm so pleased with how this is coming out!

At any rate, the biggest thing on my mind right now are my kids. I mentioned Henry in my post a few weeks ago, and indeed, he was accepted into his first choice Catholic high school. The only thing is, you know...$$$$. We received financial aid, but I'm still losing sleep over how we will make this happen. I think it would be a wonderful environment for him, and I'm really praying that this works out. Your prayers, as well, are very much coveted and appreciated!

Sort of along this same line of thought, the age difference between Henry and Anne has finally, to me at least, become very obvious. My kids are 5 years apart in age, and that has never been a big deal to me. It still isn't, it's just that Henry is becoming a young man, while Anne is still very much in little kid mode. And she should be, she's 7. It's a changing time of our lives, and it's both wonderful and painful at the same time.

So I've been praying a lot. It's been hard for me to pray the rosary in my car since I got a stick shift, but now that I've become more experienced with that at this point, I've adapted to a model whereby I use a one decade rosary with big round beads in my left hand that doesn't interfere with my shifting. At the very least, I can pray a single decade, or the 3 Hail Mary's devotion. I did also sign up for a print subscription to Living Faith, like we talked about last week.

It'll be ok. But it's hard sometimes with the not knowing how things are exactly going to work out. That's where the faith thing comes in, I suppose. ;-)

Are you feeling extra contemplative this winter? What types of devotions do you add into your prayer routine when this happens? I'd love to hear from you!

This Catholic parenting thing doesn't get any easier...

Happy mid-January, everybody! How is the winter treating you so far?

⛄

Things are great over here. We're still in winter term at the university for which I work, so the campus is blissfully quiet and peaceful. Classes don't begin again until January 28th, and I don't start teaching my library lab again until 2 weeks after *that*, owing to the drop/add period.

*praise hands*

This quiet winter Ordinary Time has had other benefits. January tends to be a performance lull for dancing, which is fine with me. One needs time to recharge and hone their craft, and I have a bunch of classes and workshops coming up. In faith stuff, I've been thinking a lot about the kids. For the first time, I have a teenager in my house, and I'm finding it a new challenge to think of ways to continue to share the faith with him aside from weekly Mass attendance. I touch upon sharing my faith with my maturing brood of youngsters, as well as this general post-Epiphany winter theme, in my piece over at CatholicMom.com for January:

This time of year definitely lends itself to contemplation for me. Ironically, it's *after* Advent, and yet still before Lent, but there you have it. This year, a big impetus is Henry's 8th grade retreat.

Somehow, my first baby is going to high school next year. 😭 And he'll also be leaving the school that he has attended for 8 years, and has shared with Anne for the past 3. I'm pretty emotional about the whole thing, as you can imagine. The 8th graders have a special retreat just prior to Catholic Schools week in late January, and just prior to when the Catholic high schools mail out their acceptance letters and financial aid packages. Parents were invited to write letters to their kids that they would read, privately, during the retreat. I wrote mine yesterday. Well.

😭😭😭

Let's just say that I cried. A lot. There was so much that I wanted to say, but I also didn't want to overwhelm my 13 year old with the emotional baggage of a woman in her 40's. So it wasn't easy. But I wanted him to know how proud we are of him, how much we love him. How he reminds me so much of myself, and that it's more than OK to be introverted and reserved - he will only continue to blossom into the kind, sweet and empathetic young man that God has so clearly created him to be. How the most important things in life aren't grades or what high school or college you attend, but discerning and making good choices, seeking God's will, helping others, nourishing healthy relationships, and making an impact with the causes and people that you love.

It was a heavy task, both emotionally and spiritually. But one that I am privileged to have. Henry, in particular, challenges me to be a better person because he is my first and oldest child. Inevitably, when something new comes up with regard to his life and development, I have no idea what I'm doing. 😂I feel like I'm winging it a lot. And that's one thing with dance, and quite another when it's your kid, a precious, eternal soul given into your protective care!

This whole parenting thing is a journey, an adventure, and as my mom always said (and aren't moms ALWAYS right about these sorts of things?): "babies don't come with instruction manuals." You just have to figure it out as you go along, and you're going to make mistakes along the way.

I hope that we're doing a good job for Henry. I know that we're doing a good job *with* him since he's always been such a kind and good soul. But maybe that's not really our doing anyway, but God's alone. Deep thoughts for a Thursday morning. ;-)

This year for Lent, I want to single him out for some more mature spiritual time with me. Exactly what this will entail, I do not know. I will wing it. :0 But I'll figure something out!

Any words of wisdom to share for Adventures in Catholic Parenting? I'd love to hear them!

Spiritual setbacks during Easter season, & Holy Spirit moments...

All! I've missed you.

*hug*

I'm all emotional today, so expect lots of sappy lapses like that one. As is so often the case with situations such as this, I'm fine one minute, and struggling the next. What am I talking about? Spiritual darkness with a just a touch of depression mixed in with it. Picture me walking about, looking anxious, with a small rain cloud following me directly overhead. That sums it up really well.

This tends to happen when I'm praying 54 day rosary novenas, interestingly. And we're just past the halfway point, which seems significant, somehow. And it just...happens, you know? There isn't just one reason, it's not that I'm a weak person, it just happens sometimes. All of a sudden, ordinary things seem to be more of a struggle, and it gets me down. I always climb up out of it, but for a day or two, all I want to do is sit around and feel sorry for myself while eating Cookies 'n Cream ice cream. It happens.

So this weekend I was feeling a bit fragile. On Saturday I forgot not only to pray my rosary but to pray the St. Gianna Beretta Molla novena.

#epicfail

Then I felt guilty as well as a bit down, and oh so forgetful, and it was just a whole snowball situation. ;-)

But here's the interesting thing. Grab your tea. We're going to go on a full circle journey together.

So, Thursday I recorded Tea Time. And I was fine. I felt a bit scattered, but I was fine. That's not exactly an unusual situation for yours truly.

*halo*

Between Thursday and Friday I started to feel not so fine. I began to worry about a whole assortment of things, and my heart felt heavier. By Friday, I was definitely not fully myself, and that lasted the entire weekend.

But it's what ELSE happened this weekend, in the midst of all of this, that I find interesting. On Friday afternoon, I received a package containing the gift I'd ordered for a First Communion gift. It's a St. Gabriel the archangel saint doll:

He looks very stoic, yes?

As you might expect, I was very pleased to see him. :) I pulled him out of his wrappings for a little photo shoot, and Anne wanders in. She becomes entranced with him:

"Mommy, he has WINGS!"

Wings ;-)

"Yes Honey, he's an angel."

"I want wings too, Mommy. Can I keep him?"

"No darling, he's a gift."

This was most disappointing to her, so she retreated to her room to pull out her own saint doll collection, which had been languishing for a time having fallen under her bed. She does not yet have any wooden dolls, but she has a plethora of felt dolls. All of a sudden, Anne's tiny body disappears beneath her bed, and out comes St. Therese, St. Kateri, St. Blaise, Our Lady Star of the Sea, and Our Lady of Lourdes. I could see her examining each carefully, becoming re-acquainted with them. She begins toting them around the house with her.

On Saturday, I find this on the dining room table:

Apparently St. Therese and St. Kateri are down with the sledding

She had become so enamored with her new saint friends that it was like a whole new relationship blossoming with them:

"Mommy. Can you...make me a saint? Like, can I dress like them?"

I mean...

*heart!*

So this is what we came up with:

Future saint ;-)

Yes, those are butterfly wings, inspired by our archangel friends. But she picked out a head covering, and carried that crucifix and a pair of plastic rosary beads around with her for the entire weekend. I even heard her in her bed praying a Hail Mary Saturday night.

*collapses from the cuteness*

So Anne is on this saint kick, and Sunday morning the kids and I head to Mass with me still not feeling myself. We get out to the car in the garage, and what do you suppose happens?

The car won't start.

I was about to go into the house to fetch Mike's kind assistance, but I gave myself a few tries and gave the car a little gas. It started.

My car is ancient, so this isn't exactly a shock for it to act this way, and in the past it's always been fine afterward, so we press onward. We are now running late, but away we go. When we arrive at our parish, our usual spot on the far right side of the sanctuary was full, due to us getting there later than usual. I tell Henry to choose a new spot, and he picks an area in the middle of the church, just past center.

On we proceed, and Anne goes up for Children's Liturgy of the Word. During the homily, Father devoted part of the time to a nun who came to speak about an appeal for her missionary order of sisters. Part of her discussion was about vocations, and she indicated that some of the children in the parish could be future priests, bishops, nuns and/or saints. She brought the young altar servers in as examples. :)

"And that young boy over there!" *points* "He could be the pope someday!"

I turn to see that she is pointing directly at Henry, and that he is weakly raising his hand to acknowledge her. If we hadn't sat where we did, she never would have seen him. And we wouldn't have sat where we did if we weren't running late due to the car not starting and me being in a general funk. It just seemed terribly fortuitous.

This is not to say that I'm taking this as a sign that Henry will be pope. ;-) It just warmed my heart to see my children engaged in their faith, and at a time when I really needed the boost. The Holy Spirit is always alive and well, even when things seem a bit more difficult than usual.

After Mass, I felt a little better. We took the kids on an afternoon hike after lunch, and Anne tripped, fell and skinned her knee about 2 and a half minutes into the walk. *long suffering sigh* We had to take turns carrying her for a spell. But I felt a little better still. I've been improving ever since. I'm going to try and get to confession this week.

Does this happen to you all as well? Spiritual dryness or darkness or however you want to term it? How do you handle it? I would love to discuss it with you in the comments.

Tomorrow is book club day! If you read Divine Mercy for Moms or are otherwise interested to learn more about it, stop in to chat with us then. :)

Of tales in excruciation from the portrait studio, annual pilgrimmages to The Nutcracker, & holiday dancing adventures...

Well, happy Monday to you all! I have been grading all morning, and you can only imagine how much fun that is. *sarcasm* But I'm coming up for for a breath of fresh air, and happy to be taking a break. The semester will soon be over, so hope springs eternal!

I had a nice weekend, and I hope you did too. It was busy, to be sure. Got your tea?

I started the weekend as I always do, at dance troupe rehearsal. We have a performance coming up on December 12th, as part of a "12 Days of Dance" enterprise, so we ran through the numbers we're going to be doing there. Then we got all giddy and started created a Christmas choreography that we want to record for our website, in which we dance to a Middle Eastern instrumental version of a traditional Christmas song and balance trays on our heads of assorted holiday decor: Gifts, ornaments, garland, we've all been tasked with getting creative this week and decorating our tray. I mean...is it any wonder why I love these women?! This group has brought more fun and joy into my life than I could have possibly imagined. We're all going to deck ourselves out in red, green or gold costumes for the recording and I can hardly wait.

:0

A super fun trip to the craft store is in my future, yes indeedy. In other news, Saturday morning dawned as the assigned day for our family Christmas photo. As background, we don't often take family photos. We haven't had one taken since before Anne was born, just to give you a sense of the photo-aversion we're working with here. But the grandmothers have been clamoring for a photo, and I thought it would be nice to surprise them for Christmas. Thus, I signed us up for a weekend slot over at our local JC Penney Portrait Studio and demanded that everyone dress nicely and smile. There were some collective dour faces from the children, but we arrived for our appointment looking cute.

Where we encountered...scores upon scores upon score of other people. All with pending appointments. It's a busy time of year for such things, and it was a Saturday morning, so it wasn't a huge surprise. We settled in to wait. And wait. And wait. At various points, children started sobbing. Not ours, thankfully, but you know, the ambiance wasn't exactly a joyful one.

Just when I was starting to contemplate counting the carpet fibers to pass the time, it was our turn. We zoom in. We only wanted one family photo, no extras or costume changes or anything like that, so I figured it would be a few quick snaps and we'd be good to go. And it likely would have been, had we not had Anne with us, the child whose facial expression lent the impression that we had kidnapped her on the way over and forced her to pose for photographs with us. It took some doing to get her to cooperate and smile.

In the end, we would up with a few shots that turned out well, with us all smiling and not blinking. We were there for two and a half hours, but the photo turned out great and it was cheap.

#winning

Later, we went to the vigil Mass for the Second Sunday of Advent, since our Nutcracker tickets interfered with our usual Sunday Mass time. And after we got home and had dinner, the kids put their shoes out by the hearth, in anticipation of St. Nicholas's feast day. And in the morning, da da DA!

St. Nicholas came over for a visit. :)

Each kid got a book, a saint and some chocolate. Henry has a small St. Nicholas tucked into his shoe, and Anne has Our Lady of Guadalupe. Henry keeps his saint dolls carefully up on a shelf, all lined up, while Anne puts her in baby cribs, sleeps with them in her bed where they are constantly rolling onto the floor, and generally hauls them around to watch TV with her or go on errands tucked into one of her many purses. Lots of adventures with the saints, to be sure.

Also on Sunday morning, we had our annual trip to see The Nutcracker, performed by a local ballet. I LOVE this tradition and look forward to it each year:

Anne and I dressed & ready for the show...

Henry even wore a tie, how precious is that? (he declined to be photographed ;-)) We headed to the theater, and as we do every year, procured a new nutcracker doll to add to our collection, as well as several sparkly ornaments for the tree. The kids did great for the performance, I just had to endure Anne sitting on my lap for the entire second half, kneading her elbows into my internal organs. It seems that she has an aptitude for this talent both inside and outside of the womb.

So that was our busy weekend. Now I'm in Grading Purgatory, but I'm offering it up for all of you. ;-) How was your 2nd Sunday of Advent, dear reader?

Of frantic dance prep, upcoming Mass time changes, and voyages to Swiss Chalet...

Morning all! It wasn't an easy weekend in the world news, to be sure. Oftentimes, when I think about heartbreaking situations such as this one, I feel fear, as I'm sure is fairly common. But then I remember the words of our beloved John Paul II, and try not to feel afraid: for my kids, for my friends and family, for our world, for myself. I try. But it's not easy, yes? Let's all stick together and pray for each other and for peace in our world. I know that it brings me some measure of solace to think of us all together in community, and I hope it does you as well.

Around my small part of the world, it's looking very fallen leafy and windswept here in WNY these days, very reminiscent of this photo:

It was a busy weekend for us, as we gear up for the holidays and for Advent. At our parish, the Mass times are changing, which I'm a tad chagrined about, but I'll adjust. I love our 10 am Mass, and it's switching to 11 am, which will at times not be nearly as convenient for us. Right away, early in Advent, we're going to see The Nutcracker for a Sunday matinee show, and the 11 am Mass will get us out too late to make it without rushing quite a bit. I think what will most likely happen is that on weekends like that, we will be attending the vigil Mass. We'll develop a new routine and get used to it, but as we anticipate this I'm mourning our beloved 10 am slot a bit. :)

In cute Catholic kid stuff, Anne relayed a precious story to me on Saturday:

"Mommy, we say the Pledge of Allegiance in school."

"Yes! We always said that in school, too. Have you memorized it?"

"Yes, want to hear?"

Of course I did. :) And she took the duty very seriously.

"That's excellent, sweetheart."

"Mommy, did you know that when you say the Pledge of Allegiance, you only need to put your hand like this, over your heart? And not make the sign of the cross after? My teacher told me."

Oh snort. I can only imagine how this went over in Anne's public pre-K. She must have thought it was like when we say grace at meals. I liked how she automatically wove in the tie between a physical gesture and saying aloud something important, a ritual. She's a natural as a Catholic child. ;-)

In other news, my dance troupe is in heavy rehearsal mode for the hafla this upcoming weekend.We have a bunch of group pieces that we'll be performing, and at this point it's always a hodge podge of old and new numbers, combined in new and exciting ways. ;-) So, we have a new veil piece paired with a new baladi number, but also an old pop piece paired with a new drum, and then our newish Saidi piece as a standalone. 

Solos are going to be in the second set, and mine is in there, towards the end. Lots of time to sweat leading up to that. Although I'm hoping that my little birthday party adventure last month will make me appreciate the easier-to-manage hafla atmosphere this time around, and consequently be less nervous about performing in such venues. I have my music all edited and ready to go, and general idea of how I'd like to structure things in my usual improvisational way. 

Running through my music reminded me that I needed to decide what costume to wear, and so a lot of sewing ensued this weekend. I sew about as well as I bake, so you can only imagine how well these little sessions typically unfold. Mike comes out of his office from grading student papers and finds me casually passing him in the hallway garbed in jeans and a costume top with only half a strap, trailing behind me a super long length of black satin. Anne is adorning the walls with random pieces of adhesive Velcro that I gave her to prevent her from causing too much damage in the notions bag.  

"You're probably wondering what is going on out here, aren't you?"

This is a common occurrence in our house whenever I have a dance gig. ;-) Dance costumes ALWAYS require a lot of sewing. If they're new, they never fit perfectly, and so need a lot of work to make them presentable. If they're old, they're losing beads or need new hooks, or have stretched out a bit and could use some tucking. I did not get a separate costume for when I was pregnant with Anne, I just wore my skirt under my belly throughout the second trimester, if that is any indication of what we're working with here. :0 Our costumes are generally stretchy, but don't maintain the same level of stretchiness over time, for sure and for certain.

So I now have black satin straps on my new black and bronze costume, which I'd like to wear for the solo, but the skirt is extremely heavy and needs some more tucking for it to stay put on my hips. Working on that tonight. We're getting there!

To complete our weekend, Mike asked on Sunday if I'd like to go to dinner at Swiss Chalet. Um, YES. You all know about my love affair with Canadian rotisserie chicken. I *love* it there, and given that we now have to cross an international border to get there, I don't get there as often as I'd like. However, this experience has shown me that it really doesn't take all that long to get to the Niagara Falls, Ontario location, and thus we really need to be doing this much more frequently. ;-) At any rate, we packed up the kids and headed north. Yes, for chicken. 

But it's all about the chalet sauce, remember? And we had a delightful time:

"And I think that that way, we can...wait. What happened to all of your sauce?"

"I ate it. Are you going to use all of yours?"

*I eye his cup like a vulture circling it's prey*

"No, I guess not. But...what else do you dip in there besides the chicken?"

The man is so cutely naive of the ways of the Chalet. If he's going to go all HEALTHY and choose the vegetables over the french fries dipped in sauce, well then I just can't help him. :0

And the waitress who gave me an extra cup of fresh sauce for my takeout container? Let's just say she got a very nice tip. And very nearly a round of applause.

#ChaletSauceRules

What did you do this weekend, dear reader? Write in and tell me all about it. :)

St. Monica novena starts today! And "rosary coaxing" my 9 year old...

Hi all! To put it mildly, I am having a day in which I feel very harried. I'm not saying that I'm justified in feeling harried, but I'm feeling harried. I have a lot on my mind this week, and thus am easily overwhelmed. It's not real pleasant, but I'm doing the best with it that I can.

So what I've been focusing on are small tasks, staying patient, and prayer. The St. Monica novena begins today, and the chaplets page has been updated with a video introduction to her chaplet and an audio recording of the chaplet prayers themselves, with the novena prayer included at the end. And let me tell you, this particular recording is very much like you're right here in the room praying along with me. I'll explain, but first let me chronicle my morning up to that point. Do you have your tea? Good. Me too.

So, this morning I was slated to ferry Henry to his allergist for an updated skin test. Fun wow, right? Especially for poor Henry. ;-) Since we didn't have to leave until 9 am, I made a quick trip to the pharmacy to pick up his asthma medication refills, and believe me, NEAR OCCASION OF SIN, right there. If nobody is going to pay attention to the drive up line, don't have one, kwim?! I ended up abandoning the drive up, parked, and went inside, where everybody was busily pretending that the drive up window and the waiting cars didn't exist. I KNEW IT.

But I digress. I fetched Henry's medicine, and then hurried home to gather my work stuff and my son. I found him looking surly and not too eager about his appointment, not that I can blame him. He wanted to pack his small Nintendo DS to occupy him since the skin testing requires him to sit still for a time with the schmutz on his arm or what have you. Naturally, he had forgotten to charge it and an angry red light was blinking furiously. This did nothing to improve his mood.

Mom saved the day by immediately plugging it in for a few minutes worth of charging before we left, and then locating the adapter so that we could charge it in the car. Upon getting settled in the car, I used my heroine status to my advantage:

"I usually pray the rosary in the car, Hank. Want to pray a decade with me?"

"You pray the rosary? In THE CAR?"

Henry is clearly not yet indoctrinated into the Love To Pray In The Car! Club. But he was feeling amenable generally to my cause since I had saved his ability to play video games for the next hour.

"Yeah! We have all this time, and it's very soothing. I'm on the 2nd Sorrowful Mystery. Do you want to lead or respond?"

*pause*

"Lead, I guess."

"That's the spirit!"

:0

"Do you want to use my pumpkin rosary?! It's particularly smashing!"

"No thanks. I'll count on my fingers."

Spoil sport. But he prayed along really well, and I even talked him into praying the 3rd mystery too, since we had more than enough time.

#forthewin!

But the pumpkin rosary? Prepare to swoon!

Once again, Rosaries by Allison, if you want to feed your own addiction :)

That's it there on the right, with the Madonna and Child centerpiece. It's my new fall rosary, and on the left is St. Francis de Sales, isn't he handsome as well?! I LOVE rosary beads. I may have a problem. Is there a 12 step program for rosary hoarders?

So then we got to the allergist's office, and Henry had the thing, and the poor child is allergic to pretty much every living thing that he may encounter outdoors: grass, weed pollen, dust, trees, cats, dogs, feathers (even my beloved birds!! so sad).

"Does this mean that I can't ever go outside?"

Henry looks concerned.

"Yes Henry. You're going to have to walk around in a giant bubble."

Henry does not look amused.

After that, Mike came to pick Henry up so that I could head to work, and I got in just in time for lunch. Ha! Which I used to make the St. Monica recordings. And here we come, full circle, yes? :)

I notice that my office neighbor is not in residence so I quickly get out my equipment and get down to praying. I have a private office, but the walls here are THIN. And, well. She is LOUD. She's a perfectly nice woman, but she is very, very loud. In everything that she does. Talking, sneezing, traversing her office, putting down her keys, see a theme here? And there's really no polite way to tell someone that they are a Loud Person, you know? They're just loud. They don't mean to be. But everything about them is loud.

And so I really *need* her to be out of her office to record anything in mine. She wasn't there, I start recording, and BAM!

Yes, that was her door, that wasn't just me being cutesy in my writing style. :0

I hadn't gotten very far yet, so I stopped recording. Because she had also started making other shuffling and chair dragging noises, and the effect really wasn't good. I ate my lunch and tried to wait her out.

BAM! Eureka!! She left, hurry, hurry, hurry! I grab my beads and my audio recorder and get to work. I get all the way around the chaplet, and am on the final few prayers when disaster strikes.

Literally, it sounds like someone has gotten shot in my office. :0 How is she SO LOUD?! But by that point, I was NOT going to start over again. I persevered, but in the back ground you can hear all kinds of banging and commotion. Sooooooo...consider this "ambiance" and like you're praying right along with me, snugged in my cozy office. ;-)

How are you, dear reader? What's new? I could use a little lightening of my week, so do write in to kibbutz with me. ;-)

Tea Time with Tiffany Episode 9 - Summer Ordinary Time with kids!

Well hello there, gentle readers! I was brainstorming on topic ideas this week for:

...because my legal pad had suddenly become light on ideas for video post topics. Time for a brainstorm! And brainstorm I did, and thus I have fun topics for both this week and next! (And leave comments with your ideas for video posts, because I will gratefully receive them!) This week I'm going to be talking about faith activities with kids over the summer, during this long stretch of Ordinary Time between Pentecost and Advent. I'd love it if you'd also write in with your ideas!


Items mentioned during this episode:

• Saint story books. Henry and I are currently reading a nightly entry in Saints for Young Readers for Every Day, Vol. 2: July-December. This one is great for middle readers!
• Patronal feast novenas. For my kids those feasts both fall in July, the 13th (St. Henry II) and the 26th (Sts. Anne and Joachim). 
• Extensive calendar of saint feast days to plan novenas and other activities.
• Dictionary of Patron Saints' Names is in fact still in print, if you want to find a saint for a name otherwise lacking a patron!
• Think ahead to Advent - Christmas in July, baby! 
• Saint dolls (softies and wood dolls) for the upcoming feasts of St. Nicholas and Christmas. This year I'm thinking of getting both kids a St. Nicholas doll, and also having an Our Lady of Guadalupe/St. Juan Diego theme.
• Good time to buy Advent calendars. This is the wood magnetic one that I am coveting.
• Saint of the week: St. Joseph, patron of families!

OK, now it's your turn: do you have anything special that you do faith-wise during the summer Ordinary Time? Do you have any ideas for future topics for the Tea Time series! Do write in and let me know!