Tea Time with Tiffany #88 - Snow days & Lenten...progress?

Happy Friday all! And welcome to another Lenten edition of:

Today I talk about our snow days this week, forging our way through Lent, and plans for the book club after Lent is over. Join me!





**To subscribe to the audio version of Tea Time with Tiffany, just search for it in iTunes or use this link to subscribe via Feedburner in your podcatcher of choice. Intro music is "Tea Ceremony" from PlayonLoop.com

Items mentioned in this episode:

• Last week's Tea Time
• Rosaries by Allison (she's offering free shipping right now, and 10% off with the code: LENTEN10)
• Live Today Well Chapter 8
• Catholic Mom piece about Lent 

How is your Lent going? Do you have thoughts on a summer book club? I'd love to hear them!

Snow day!

So, in an unexpected development, all 4 of us are home for a snow day today. The university that I work at was actually closed by the Governor (which *never* happens), and we're all kind of scratching our heads a bit. :0 We're Western New Yorkers. We're...hearty. 8-12 inches of snow really isn't a big deal around here. Not even really worth talking about. But we've had a very mild winter, and I think the Powers That Be panicked a bit when this snow was officially classified as a Winter Storm. Plus the K-12 schools have not yet had a snow day declared this winter, and so here we are.

I was planning a much needed vacation day from work today. Translation -> ALONE TIME. Dancing time. Hours of endless Hallmark mysteries time. Knitting time. Tea time. Now I have my precious children here with me. :0 They were super thrilled for about 20 minutes while they watched a cartoon together this morning. Then:

"Our TV time is over? Oh. We're booooorrrreeeed!"

Upon which time they were shooed outside in their snow gear to play. Which worked until they started fighting. Then they were forced against their will to play a board game together, which also worked until they started fighting. These snow days are not NEARLY as fun as I remember them from when I was a kid. :0

Let's pray everybody has school tomorrow. ;-) As for you and I, we have book club tomorrow! We're going to be discussing how to create holy leisure time.

😇

How are you spending your snow day today (if you have one)?

Of cold snaps and Adoration seeking adventures...

Hi all! I am with you today from my snowy home in Western New York. Technically, the library I work at is open (it takes a LOT for schools and businesses around here to close due to the weather). That being said, however, we've gotten about a foot of snow, and the driving conditions at the morning commute were pretty treacherous. So I used a comp day to stay home. Ironic that I took this photo on Friday:

...and it looks pretty much the same outside right now. :0 The snow is still going strong, which is another reason I didn't want to drive in to work today. It's only going to get worse.

So that's been the story over here for the past several days. We've had an incredibly mild winter here, but February is always dicey, and true to form, we had our first cold spell beginning on Friday. Temperatures hovering around 0 degrees Fahrenheit, and some fresh accumulating snowfall. Dance was even cancelled due to the poor road conditions, which is always a bummer.

And this ties into my Saturday morning Lenten adventures with young Henry. ;-) We woke up all excited for our Mommy/son date to go to breakfast and Adoration.We bundled up and headed out onto the freshly plowed roads. It was a clear and beautifully sunny winter day.

Our first stop was the local IHOP, where Henry and I sampled ridiculously dessert-like pancakes and chose extravagant omelets. I powered up on coffee, Henry on juice, and then we trudged back out into the tundra to drive to the perpetual Adoration chapel. It was just really cold out, no other negative weather conditions.

I was excited to get Henry to this particular Adoration chapel because I tried to take him once before, last Christmas Eve. But when we arrived at the church, we found a sign tacked up saying that the Adoration chapel was closed between Christmas and New Years. Not so perpetual. ;-) But I imagine it's difficult to keep their regular schedule of adorers around the holiday travel season.

So Saturday, Henry and I pull up. We grab our rosaries and devotionals and hop out. I'm explaining to him the logistics and reasoning behind genuflecting (since he's very forgetful in this realm), when we get up to the door, and wham!

"Adoration Chapel closed due to severe cold."

*LONG SUFFERING SIGH*

I didn't see this one coming. It was indeed very cold, but I was surprised. I imagine, though, that many of their scheduled adorers are elderly, and the cold is very difficult for them to come out in.

Henry and I trudged back to the car, discussing the one other perpetual Adoration chapel in our area, but that one would be more of a drive. Henry had the excellent suggestion of stopping off at his school parish since they have a small chapel that is open during the day. It's not for Adoration specifically, but it would do! And it's quite close to our house. So off we drove.

When we arrived, we found a hearse and assorted other cars in front of the chapel.

:0

BUT, the main church was open, and we know what's in there, right? The tabernacle! So we went in there and prayed for about 15 minutes. All was well with the world. But I STILL want to get Henry to that Adoration chapel! We're going to try again in two weeks, and hope springs eternal that it's actually open.

And with that, I must sign off to attend to my chat reference shift. Yay? No, not exactly, but a librarian's work is never done! And such pleasing ambiance over here at home, with me in front of the desktop, and the kids fighting in the other room as I should "STOP IT!" every few minutes. Such joy. ;-)

I'll be back tomorrow with likely a crafty post. Snowy days cause me to knit a lot. I think I'll be able to post a Lenten book review next Wednesday, check the side bar for details!

I'm off to heat the kettle. How is your Lent going? Does anyone else have a Lenten resolution to go to Adoration? Any other Lenten details you'd like to share? I'd love to hear from you!

Getting involved in parish life & pushing cars up snowy driveways, on the 2nd Sunday of Lent

Morning all! I don't have a lot of time today, so this will be a brief check in, but I wanted to chat with you all as I do every Monday. :) We had a jam packed weekend for the second Sunday of Lent, so let's get started!

This was opening weekend for Mike's community theater group, putting on a production of Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap. Henry and I went to the Sunday matinee, and oh! It was wonderful. :) Mike plays Detective Sargeant Trotter, and he was just marvelous. I was very nervous for him, because he had a lot of lines to memorize this time, but he did great. I absolutely love seeing him up on stage. Makes me feel all proud. :)

Afterward, we went out for a bite to eat, and then got home to..a mess. It was snowing, you know, AGAIN. :0 And our driveway, already not in great shape due to the narrowness of space between our house and our neighbor, and the fact that we have had zero melting because of continual freezing temperatures, was a disaster. I did my very best to gun it up the driveway, but to no avail. My little Honda was stuck. And by stuck, I mean STUCK. It took 30 minutes plus three people, two physically pushing the car, to get it out. It struck me as we finally got the car free by rocking it back and forth a bit, that pushing a car out of thick, heavy snow is rather like giving birth. :0

*represses a few memories*

Neither very pleasant, to be sure, but a satisfying result. I'm not going to comment further on the snow situation here, because I'll just work myself up again, it's so endlessly frustrating. February was the coldest month in WNY history, EVER. I know other places get colder, but we've had so much snow and we're just stuck with it because it piles up and will not melt. It's not an easy combination, and we're all dying for a little let up. But that's that.

In happier news, Mass for smashing, as usual. I actually got a reprieve from bathroom trips this week, Anne was happily distracted by Children's Liturgy of the Word. Our new priest was there again, and announced that he wants to start a Worship Committee, and is looking for volunteers.

:0

I've been waiting for an opportunity like this for years. There are other volunteer opportunities at our parish, but they're just not a fit for me based upon scheduling or lack of talent on my part (music ministry). ;-) But committees? I'm good at those! And assumedly they meet once a month or so, and I can commit to that. So, interested people were asked to call and leave their name with the parish office, which I did this morning. I'm excited to see where this goes! Hopefully it'll be a good experience, I will keep you all informed.

How was your 2nd Sunday of Lent, dear reader? I'll talk about Lent again this week, since we're well into it now, and detail how it's going over here. Talk to you tomorrow!

So much snow and an insidious cold, but the warmth of community, on the 1st Sunday of Lent...

"You kind of set off an eternal winter, everywhere!"

Yes, that would be my family standing on the snow beside our driveway, and that thing behind their heads is our ROOF. That pretty much sums up the state of things over here in WNY right now. I usually enjoy winter, but this year has me very weary. And now I have caught Anne's cold, so you can just imagine the level of crankiness I bring with me this morning. Aren't you delighted to be here? ;-)

So I'm feeling all stuffy and weak, and I'm not happy about this at ALL. I just brewed some tea, so hopefully that will help. But anyway, you're not here to dwell in cold misery with me, let's focus on the positive, shall we?

As I mentioned on Ash Wednesday, our parish has a new pastor. There was a retirement elsewhere in the diocese, and thus some subsequent priest shuffling to accommodate for that. The kids and I really liked our first impression of the new guy, Fr. Joe, on Wednesday, so I was excited to see how he handled his first Sunday Mass with us. After all, that would be the first time many parishoners saw him.

I know that I remarked on Wednesday that he was a good homilist, and he only reinforced that yesterday. As we all sat down following the reading of the Gospel, he paused, then said:

"I've been thinking about what I'd say to you all right now...for the past two months."

Immediately, we were all rapt with attention. :) He talked about how happy he was to be with us, and how he wanted to get to know us all. He said that he loves sports and if we let him know when the kids had games, he would come watch. He wove in humorous anecdotes from his own life to let us know how he planned to structure his homilies for the foreseeable future, and how we can try and grow in holiness together throughout Lent and thereafter. He made some jokes and mentioned that his favorite drink is a Manhattan. I love this guy! He was done about 5-7 minutes later, and here's the thing - he didn't need to go on for any longer. What he said resonated with the group, and everyone was hanging on every word. It was a very effective and engaging use of time. When he stepped down from the lectern, there was the slightest pause of surprised silence before the congregation gave him a round of spontaneous and hearty applause. I'm not normally a fan of clapping in Mass, but this time it fit. He made us feel wanted and special, and we wanted him to feel appreciated and welcome. It was lovely.

During the Liturgy of the Eucharist I just felt all warm and glowy. I was worshipping with my family in faith, and I'm very excited about where we are headed together. And we have two people from our parish receiving the sacraments this Easter Vigil and coming into the Church! *tears!* We did a little send off for the Rite of Election as part of the liturgy.

I could hear people talking about Fr. Joe as we all exited the church following Mass, and everyone seemed pretty chirpy and happy about the whole thing. We paused to talk to a sweet teenage girl who has taken a shine to Anne, and to our favorite usher, and I really feel like we're becoming a part of the community. I will grant, we've been members of this parish for about 7 years, but when you're an introvert, these things take time. ;-)

I feel very blessed this Lent. How was your first Sunday of the season, dear reader?

Spring semester teaching begins, and adventures in voluminous snowfall...

Apparently some brave soul did attempt to walk that way...

It's another wintry morning here in Western New York, and my commute in was a bit on the harrowing side. :-\ Never a people to shy away from a snowfall challenge, even hardy Western New Yorkers and our hulking snow removal equipment can't keep up with clearing our drives and roadways right now. The plowed snow piles are so large surrounding the ends of driveways that it's hard to see around them to make turns. Not pleasant. And I believe we're getting more this weekend, so...

*eyebrow scrunch*

But let's chronicle starting with yesterday, since I had my first class of the spring semester. Getting up in front of a room full of people and talking about...anything, really, just does not come naturally to me, it's definitely the most challenging part of my job as a librarian. I always aim to do a good job, but it makes me seriously anxious. So yesterday afternoon I trekked across campus (thank God for the indoor walkways here negating the need to go outside) with my jump drive in hand to teach an American Pluralism class about how to find articles and online encyclopedia entries using an exact citation. Thus, it was just a short presentation I was going to be giving at the beginning of an hour and a half lecture course. 230 students, gulp. I found the room, one I'd never been to before. The instructor wasn't there yet, so I asked a student just to make sure I was in the right spot, and made him nearly jump out of his skin. Am I that scary? ;-)

At any rate, the instructor arrived, we chatted, and I opened up the web page I needed and the help document that I had created for them. I'm a big fan of organized lists, to the surprise of absolutely NO ONE.  So I did my thing as concisely and clearly as possible *gold star!* and was done well within 15 minutes. Brevity is a virtue when it comes to college students. I finished on a high note, and nearly left the room with the wireless microphone still attached to me, nobody's perfect. :0 But I got back to my office feeling relieved that the first class of the semester is behind me, it always gets easier after that.

Shortly thereafter, I left for the day, bound for the small grocery store near our house to fetch a few supplies for dinner that we didn't already have. We were making Stromboli, and so I needed dough and pepperoni. This small grocery store has a notoriously tiny parking lot, even in the best of conditions, so I was already dreading what was to come before I even got there. In the winter, their lot gets even worse because several spaces are taken up by plowed snow. Sure enough, as I went to turn into the drive, the giant snow piles were obscuring my view of a car coming out, which made for a dicey entrance. As I was maneuvering this little transaction, I could see an empty parking spot. My heart lightened. Suddenly, another car zooms over and parks in it.

*long suffering sigh*

No worries, I told myself. I see another spot...

Oh, nope. There was a small car hiding in it. I pass slowly through the rest of the small space with hope alive, all to no avail. I glance in my rear view mirror and see that several other cars have entered the lot and are driving around with solemn expressions on their faces, so I make the decision not to re-enter (why create a near occasion of sin? ;-)) and head to the nearby side street to park.

As I turn the corner, I can see the spot that I want, right behind another car, still close to the store. Wait, what is that SUV doing?! Yep, turning around in the nearby driveway TO PARK IN MY SPOT.

By this point, I was feeling *really* put out and nostril flarey. I had to wait while the car PARKED IN MY SPOT and then because of the driveway and a fire hydrant, park even further down the street. I get out of my car and see that the sidewalk is pretty much inaccessible because the snow lining the street is VERY TALL. Fine, I walk in the street, but then have to scale a snow MOUNTAIN at the corner in order to access the walk leading to the store.

 As I summited my own personal snowdrift, I could see the inevitable: there were suddenly no less than 3 or 4 empty parking spots. That's right, I have the power to make full parking lots empty out by the sheer volume of effort I have to put into parking someplace *far* less convenient.

Ugh.

I hurry into the store, fetch my stuff, and hurry out, rescaling everything and glaring at the *still* empty parking spots, compelling me to utter something under my breath that I will not repeat here.  :0 The drive home was slippery and sloppy in the slush that the plows just aren't able to keep up with, and this morning was no exception. Mike has been executing an Herculean effort to keep the driveway as clear as possible, but there is still always snow in it. Heavy snow, which keeps grabbing our car tires and making us get stuck, which happened to me again as I tried to exit on my way to work.

Yucky.

This is February in my part of the world. :) How are you doing, dear reader?

Big snow storm brewing...

...do YOU have enough yarn?!

I know I do. Whenever I'm snowed in, I want to make sure that I have:

(a) enough to knit;

(b) enough to read; and

(c) enough to watch.

We can't have ourselves being bored, now can we? Not that my children would ever allow that. Henry will pepper us with requests to play board games and throw a football around the living room (not happening) while Anne will just generally require our intervention to assure that no terrible fate befalls her.

This morning, she once again told me that she had to go potty. We travel to aforementioned potty. I prep her and she insists on getting completely naked. Although this is not technically necessary, I oblige her. I hand her the bottle of Elmo shampoo that she covets. And...

She refuses to sit down. When I try to encourage her to sit down, she won't bend her knees. Sigh. It's early, I know that there's no rush, but I guess I was secretly hoping for the "Easy!" button to be available on this one.

In other news, I make my Marian consecration on Monday and I'm excited. I may try to make it to daily Mass that morning. And I'll post early next week about my plans for Lent. Have a safe weekend everybody!

Hoping for some snow, and about to embark on my Christmas staycation...

Today is my last day at work until January 2nd, I'll be on a "staycation" for almost 2 weeks, which will be really nice. I was remarking to Mike recently that we have never taken a family vacation. Which is fine, really. I mean, I'd rather have our current, flexible job situation than have more money and thus be able to afford vacations (where you actually go someplace, that is :)). Someday, maybe. But I'm also a person that HATES crowded places, hence my moratorium on ever going to Disney World ever again. EVER. And I mean it. I actually hate Disney World, I don't care how many cute cartoon characters they have there. We'd like to do some things like go to Vermont to see the fall foliage, or maybe go to Hershey Park (in the middle of the winter, ha!). Maybe someday.

We're a little nuts in that we really like cold weather. Mike and I talk about driving up to the Ice Hotel in Quebec for our anniversary (in January) one year. I think we're quite abnormal, actually.

And so, you won't see blog posts for about a week and a half, but I promise, I'm coming back. :) We're down to a single decrepit computer at home (hoping to get a new one soon) and although we have high speed Internet, the age of the computer makes things pretty slow going. Plus, we're all sharing it, so I just have little motivation to carve out the time to attempt to compose thoughtful posts when I don't have access to my speedy work machine. I'm battling Anne trying to climb on me and rip letters from the keyboard, Hank whining about when it'll his turn to play a game, and sharing time with Mike who uses the computer to actually work. It's a very competitive computer world in our house.

But happily, we are in for some snow, FINALLY! We haven't had significant snowfall in western New York since I was pregnant with Anne. Yes, seriously! This region is known for it's snowfall (although, for the metro area, that reputation is actually unfair; south of here is where the major accumulations occur, and as one would expect, that is the ski country) but the past winter and so far this year have been uncharacteristically mild. Read: muddy and overcast. I'd much rather have snow, especially in December. I'm hoping that we get snowed in. :) In such a case, I have plenty of yarn and books on my Kindle. I won't be bored for a moment, no sir.

I'm *almost* done with my Christmas shopping, although I still have the majority of my wrapping to do. I'm aiming to get that done tomorrow morning while Henry is in school. I'm very much looking forward to Christmas with the children this year. This will be Anne's second Christmas, but really the first one in which she'll be interactive and into it.

If there are short things that I can share while I'm off I will post then. But expect me back on January 2nd with new and amusing tales. Most of all, MERRY CHRISTMAS and happy new year to all of you!

Let it snow!

After an unusually mild winter last year, I'm literally thrilled that it is currently snowing outside. We had a dusting earlier this week, but this is real, accumulating snowfall.

*doe-eyed look of happiness*

I'm planning lots of knitting, this weekend, and we're having some friends over for dinner tomorrow night. Because I enjoy giving myself unrealistic expectations and unreasonable goals, I'm attempting to knit a sweater that I can wear on Christmas Eve. Did I mention that I started it 2 days ago? And as opposed to my Ravellenic Games sweater, this has full long sleeves.

*snorts*

We'll see how this works out for me.

Advent starts this Sunday! Can't wait to get all the calendars and the wreath going. We're getting our Christmas tree as well this weekend, and will decorate the house. Very excited. I will post an update on Monday!