A Clean Garage

In today's edition of "Why I Love My Husband"....a picture entry:

What's the big deal? you might think.

Well, we've lived in this house for 5 months now.   Until last night, this garage was full of moving boxes, recycling, and odds and ends of things that hadn't found a home yet.

Not anymore.

We have 6-12 inches of snow predicted for tomorrow, and guess what?

I don't have to load the circus into the car in the snow and/or rain anymore!!  Woot woot!

I love my husband because my car can park in the garage now.  :)

Quick Takes

Linking up with Kelly today!

1.

Holy smokes, Batman.  Today is going to be a DAY again, I think.   One sick toddler, a post-vaccination baby, and three older boys who (for some reason) can't say anything without whining or yelling.  I'm hoping that they're not coming down with what the toddler has, but I'm a little nervous.   The day before they start showing cold symptoms sometimes comes with very cranky attitudes.   Either that's what's happening today, or it's a result of our crazy busy week and they're all just recovering from that.  We'll see.  Keep your fingers crossed!

2.

I think I might try this recipe out for fun this afternoon, while the two littles are napping.   Either that one or our stand-by ginger cookies.   hmmm.  Won't help the diet any, but it might be fun.  Cookies we could freeze, though.  Doughnuts can't be frozen, can they?   If we freeze some, I won't eat it all.  Hmmm.  

3.

Schoolwork is chugging along today.   The crankiness doesn't help much, but getting back into our routine after a week of chaos will help.  I hope.     Does everyone else's kids do that, too?   I feel like we should do school year-round and hardly ever take time off, just because when we DO have a change in routine, everyone gets grumpy.   We can finish high school early, right?  haha.  

4.

We had lots of doctor appointments today, which is partly why things were so off-kilter.   Theo had an oncology appointment, which went well.  Poor little guy is in remission with leukemia, and we needed to establish care with the oncologist here.   He's still got to be monitored for recurrences right now, and then after we hit the "safe zone," we have to monitor for effects of the chemo he received.   So far, he seems to be making a full recovery with no harmful effects, but we have to watch him closely at the same time as celebrating his health.  I really liked this office - it's a children's cancer program, and they were awesome with him.   He was a bit facetious (which I now think was a sign of the sickness to come), but they were great with it.   It was a very fun, colourful, and cheerful place, and it put him right at ease.  He still didn't like the physical exam part, but it wasn't quite as traumatic as it could have been, I think.

5.

Baby Girl had her 6 month check up yesterday.  SIX MONTHS!!  Can you believe it?   She passed with flying colours - she's doing so well.  We're still in the midst of teething (blech), but she's growing well and meeting her milestones.   It was a quick, easy visit - the kind I like!

6.

Gymnastics season officially starts this weekend, with a training clinic down in the Boston area.   This guy will be their guest trainer/coach.  I'm hoping they have fun and learn a lot.  

Meet season is going to be more difficult this year with Theo and Ruthie along, but I'm still looking forward to it starting.   I love the meets - we have to travel for most of them, and we treat them like little mini-vacations.   I love that part of it.  Oh, and it's pretty darn cool to see what the boys can do.  Makes me realize just how hard they are working each time I drop them off at the gym for practice.   I stayed the other night and watched a bit of practice, and it's slightly amazing what they can now do.  I can't wait to see it all!

7.

I'm trying to come up with fun, but not-too-expensive date night ideas for me and Mike.  If you were trying to keep a date night to under $20 (not including the babysitting, obviously!), what would you go do?  Help me brainstorm!!

Five Faves: Juicing

Linking up with Call Her Happy once again, albeit a day late!

Yesterday was a pretty full day with schooling for all four of the boys (3 at home, one at preschool), driving pretty much across our corner of the state, an oncology appointment (he's fine, no worries!), and then gymnastics and errands to run.   By the time I got home, I was pooped!   Forgive me for being a day late, but better late than never, right?  

We've started getting back into our juicing habit again recently, and people have been asking for our favourite recipes.   We don't juice as meal replacements, but more of meal supplements (I usually drink my juice as my afternoon snack with a handful of almonds, or before breakfast while I'm making the kiddos' food, or alongside my salad), so we don't really worry too much about variety.   It's "extra" for us - just a way to sneak in a few more nutrients into our daily diet.

With that said, we've found that we really gravitate toward veggie juices, with a bit of fruit for flavouring.   Theo especially seems to like the veggie juices (Yay!), so that's what we've been preparing since starting back up.  I'll throw in a couple of fruit-based juices into the list because, although we haven't made them recently, they're definitely in my top five!

My "recipes" really are just lists of ingredients.  Unless I state otherwise, just juice everything on the list at once and drink up!

1.

First up is definitely our staple juice.  We make this pretty much every other day, if not daily.  It's most delicious with red kale, but we've made it with the green stuff, too, and it's pretty darn good.  For this one, we juice:

1 bunch of kale

2 apples (we like fuji)

2-3 stalks of celery (depends on how big they are)

1 lemon

2.

My favourite morning juice is a green juice.  It took awhile to get over the idea of drinking something green first thing in the morning, but I love it now.  For this one, juice:

1 large bunch of spinach

2-3 oranges (valencia gives you more juice, so if you can find those, use them.  Navel oranges will require more fruit to get enough juice)

2-3 kiwi

Mike has started to have allergic reactions to kiwi recently, so we've dropped that one out of this juice and just doubled up on the spinach and oranges.   I miss the kiwi, but it's really good without it!  

3.

This one is really sweet and creamy.  We don't do it that often, but when we do - yuuummm!

1 small or medium sweet potato chopped to fit through juicer

2 carrots

1 large (or two small) red bell pepper

2 large ribs celery

1 1/2 inch knob of ginger

(source)

4.

It's that time of year when everyone starts sniffling and the colds start circling offices and schools.   For the past two years, I've made this juice at the first sign of any cold symptoms, and with one exception (when I was pregnant last year), the colds have disappeared within 24 hours.  I don't know if it's just dumb luck, or this juice really does have health benefits, but I'm sticking with it.    It's a bit hard to get used to at first, but after the success that I've had with not getting sick......it's worth the slight "grossness!"

1 lemon

2-3 cloves garlic

Juice them and then drink it quickly, like a shot.   You won't regret it!

5.

This one is my favourite "treat" juice.  The boys call it "Daddy's Apple Cider" because Mike was the one who found the recipe.  It's absolutely delicious, but definitely tastes more like a treat.   

2 apples (again, we like it with fuji, for extra sweetness)

6 apricots

a dash of cinnamon

Juice the apples and apricots together, and then sprinkle cinnamon on top, right before you serve it.  Yuuummmmmm........

We've got a few more regulars that we turn to, but these 5 are definitely my top juicing "recipes."   Try them out!!

Why I Love My Husband, take 2

Knock on wood, today seems to be going much better.   Snow tires have been put on the car, the baby is just now waking up from a 3 hour nap, and the toddler is napping after eating a great lunch.   Schoolwork is almost finished, and then we'll be heading off to art and theatre classes.  Whew!

It's Tuesday, which is "Why I love my husband" day here at the Circus.   Let's see.....

Today I love my husband because he's our biggest supporter when it comes to our homeschooling journey.   It took a long time to come around to the idea for him, but now that he's on board, he's my biggest cheerleader.

On the days when I don't want to do any more lesson prep....he jumps in and helps out.

Those mornings when it is so very hard to get started......he sends an encouraging text.

The afternoons where we still have so very much to do before we are "done", but we are supposed to be leaving for an extracurricular activity....he reminds me to breathe.

The evenings where I'm exhausted after a day of corralling children and teaching lessons.....he heads to the kitchen to make dinner.

When I'm doubting my abilities to be both teacher and mom....he points out the milestones we've already reached.

When I hit that February burn out (other homeschoolers know what I mean!).....he substitute teaches a few days and encourages us to take refreshing field trips.

When I talk about wanting to get supplemental supplies and resources....he encourages me to spend the money (really hard for this cheapskate to do!)

I've hung out in enough homeschooling support groups and read enough pleas for help to know that this isn't always the case.   Dad isn't always so involved and encouraging - most often, I see other moms trying to do it all on their own.  

Today, I'm grateful to have a partner-in-crime and schooling sidekick.  One who encourages me, supports me, and loves what our children are learning.

Our principal rocks.

Sigh.

Ever just have a DAY?   You know, just a DAY.  

One of those days where you find yourself standing in the kitchen wondering if noon is too early to crack open that bottle of wine in the fridge.

Or you find yourself standing in the middle of chaos and find yourself completely aware that you are making a conscious choice between crying and laughing?

Yep.

Today was a DAY.   In the grand scheme of things, it was fine.  It will be fine.  I may have one or two more gray hairs or wrinkles after today, and I'm drinking the last beer in the fridge which is the last beer in the fridge precisely because it is GINGERBREAD beer  (seriously.  Who does that?!?!), but I'm pooped.   

We started with a speech therapy appointment for Theo.  He did fine, and it was only a half hour long, but MAN, I fought for that half hour.   I was dripping sweat by the end of it.  And dripping puke.  Baby puke.  Blech.  Baby Girl is a puker.  'Nuf said.   You seasoned special needs moms out there - I bow in your direction.  Holy smokes, it's tiring taking 5 kids to a 30 minute appointment in a teeny tiny therapy room where the other four kids don't fit and I have to instruct (cough cough bribe) them to focus on their schoolwork (that I packed last night) and sit and be quiet and show the world that they're NOT being homeschooled because they got kicked out of school.   I spent that whole 30 minutes trying hard to not drop the baby as I bounced back and forth between the observation room to watch his appointment and the waiting room where the other kids were supposed to be doing their schoolwork (key word: supposed).  I was just as tired as Theo was after that 30 minutes.  Yikes.

Got back home, managed to get the boys on task and close to completing their schoolwork when Baby Girl decided she was hungry and needed to eat.   I was sitting on the couch in the sunken living room, feeding the baby, when Joseph (the oldest child who DOES know better) took a running leap onto the couch and plopped his entire weight down HARD on the couch that I was sitting on.....and splintered the frame of said couch.  We were sitting on the ground.   So the baby - who was now angry that I'd stopped feeding her because she was NOT done - is now screaming on the floor as I'm trying to find some way to at least prop the couch up on some sort of brace to temporize it long enough to at least finish this feeding because there is NO more comfortable place in this house right now to feed the baby than on that couch.  

Oh, and at this point Joseph was sobbing because he "didn't meeeeaaannnn to break the couch."

I know, dude.  I know you didn't mean it.  But we have rules for a reason!!!  Sigh.

Then it was lunch time.   Lunch today was leftovers.  No big deal, right?  Wrong.  Nicholas does not do well with choices.  Especially when he's hangry, which he definitely was after a delay to fix the couch.  He finally made a choice as to what food he wanted to eat....and then took AN HOUR to eat a bowl of soup.  ONE bowl of soup.   

At this point, I was literally loading up the car with the other 4 kids and their gymnastics clothing and musical instruments and sheet music binders, while trying to force feed Nicholas his soup.  Did I mention that we woke up to snow this morning that turned to freezing rain...then slush....then just really really cold rain?   So there's that.  

Made it to music lessons on time and the littles napped in the car.   Thought things were going great, until I remembered that I had forgotten to book the dogs in the kennel for Thanksgiving weekend.   The one where we have reservations 3 hours away.   And the kennel is now full.   Sigh.

Gymnastics practice, a trip to the mall to return a shirt that we mistakenly bought in the wrong size, and then a trip to the craft store to help Nicholas (the one who doesn't like choices, remember?) pick out what craft supplies he wanted to get to make the Christmas presents that he wanted to make for everyone.  In the rain.  Oh, and my tire apparently has a slow leak in it because my low pressure sensor was on and I had to stop (in the rain) to blow up the tire until I could get it fixed.

Home by 7 pm.  Dinner in the crockpot.   A fussy sleepy baby and a sleepy toddler who didn't want to eat but just wanted to go to sleep.  Which means he'll be up by 5:30 tomorrow morning.   Fun.  

Oh and the three big boys were all working on their Christmas presents while all of this was going on.  One child is making things that involve cooking.  Another is doing a photo project on the computer, and the third decided on a project that involves painting.  With non-washable paints.

I'm tired.  Very tired.   While none of that was horrible (well, other than the couch, but Mike thinks he can brace it to temporarily fix it until a new couch is in the budget), it was crazy tiring.  With no break - just one of those days where you feel like you have to laugh or you're going to go insane.

You know.   It was a DAY.

Yawn.

7 Quick Takes: Inside the Circus

Kelly's hosting the link up today, so head on over there and check things out!  

1.

Things are crazy here, as usual.  Every day, I wake up thinking "This day is going to be calm and full of joy," and they pretty much are chaos from the moment my feet hit the floor and the day officially starts.    Going from 3 to 5 kids in the course of a month really is not something that one can prepare for.   My mantra really has become "One day this will feel normal.  One day this will feel normal."   Please tell me that's true.  One day, I will feel like I know what I'm doing, right?

2.

Right now, I've got a double batch of this delicious roasted butternut squash and apple soup roasting, and pita bread rising on the counter.  This probably would be easier if I just bought all of that stuff, but the house wouldn't smell as good, right?   And the oven being on is keeping the furnace from kicking on, which is a nice bonus, considering there's the white stuff on the ground outside today.  

3. 

Speaking of the white stuff, Theo had his first experience with dressing up in snow pants and winter gear.   He was hilarious - he really didn't want to take any of it off to eat breakfast or get into the car.   He wasn't too sure about the actual SNOW outside, but dressing up for it?   He loved that part!  This little guy is such a goof.  I think dress up clothes are definitely going on the Christmas/birthday gift list.

4.

If you didn't see the link yesterday, check out this video.  Joseph had to create a science project and decided to make a movie as his final presentation.   My main goal with this project was reinforcing the scientific method and giving him a chance to be creative, and I'd say he accomplished that.   He's a natural on camera - maybe he'll be a reporter some day, haha.

5.

Mike and I are hitting the stores today and trying to get as much of our Christmas/birthday shopping done as possible today.  We've got babysitters showing up at 3, and a plan written out.   With any luck, we'll be finishing up everything today and I can relax.   My goal is to get everything done before Advent starts, but with Christmas and 3 birthdays (4 if you include my niece!) between Dec 1 and Jan 4, it's a bit overwhelming to even think about.    Any big sales or great finds that you've discovered?

6. 

With luck, all that I will have left after today is Christmas cards.    I'm planning on ordering from a friend, who does awesome work and is trying to raise awareness and funds for the adoption of a little boy.   Check it out!    Designs for Delmar

7.

I don't know about your house, but we've been stressed to the max over here at the Circus.   I really can't put my finger on it, but something needs to change.   We instituted our first change the other night - creating a "blessings chain" that will wrap around the house by Thanksgiving.   Each day, the boys (and me and Mike) can add as many links to the chain as we want (each link has a blessing written on it).    I think it's changing things a little bit - our evenings are less "screamy" and a bit happier.   My hope is that, by the end of the month, we will have changed our outlook a bit.   

If you were coming over for dinner tonight, what would you add to the blessing chain?  Leave your blessings in the comments below!!

I just can't....

Stop laughing, that is.

This child cracks me up.

Five Faves: As far as the eye can see....

Alright, I'm trying to get back into the blogging routine, and so I'm doing it.  I'm gonna try to do some of these weekly "things"....we'll see how well it works.

It's Wednesday, so what happens on Wednesdays?

Oh right!  Five Favourites, over at Call Her Happy.  I'm giving myself a challenge, though.   Five favourite things that I can see from my computer desk.  I can never do things the easy way and all that jazz.

Alright, here we go!

source

1.   This tea.  I LOVE when this time of year comes around.   Seriously.   I am finishing up my stash of boxes from last year (I actually go into our local Trader Joe's and buy all of the boxes on the shelf at once, haha), and I'm so excited to go hunt it down.   It's perfect for this time of year.   Makes you all warm and fuzzy inside.  You should definitely try it.

source

2.  This game.   Grandma and Papa brought it with them when they came to visit last month, and it has been a huge hit.   The boys have spent HOURS playing it, and I love love love the peace that comes over the house while they're playing it.  Fantastic find.

source

3.  Okay, maybe this is a stretch, but I'm going with it.   I can see some of the rolls on the counter, waiting to be eaten later, so I'm counting it as one of the things I can see from my computer chair.   Before Ruthie's pregnancy and birth, we'd been using this company to help us fast once a week.   The bread was awesome (and nutritionally balanced, so not just the white bread stuff that gives you headaches when you try to fast on it), the service fantastic, and the price was fair.   Weekly emails with prayer intentions (as well as the chance to add your own prayer intentions, so hundreds of people would be joining us in fasting for a particular intention if we wanted) added to the experience.   Add in the fact that clergy and religious get their bread for free, and we were sold.  We've just started back up, now that I feel strong enough /the baby is old enough, and I'm just as impressed this time around.  Check them out and spread the word!

4.  This quote and picture.   We have it printed and framed and hanging in our schoolroom.   It's the basis of our entire homeschooling philosophy.  I suppose you could call it our mission statement.   I'm sure I'll blog about that more in the future sometime.

source

5.   This stuff.  It's in our liquor cabinet, locked away from little hands, but if I turn around I can see it from my chair.   It's awesome.   Doesn't even taste like pine needles.  :)  If you're a fan of gin and tonics and are local to Maine, give them a call.   You won't regret it!  

That was harder than I thought!  Maybe next time I'll do a better job remembering my favourite things from the week and won't have to try and do it from my chair again.   Nah.  Who am I kidding?  I'm not that organized.   Good thing this computer desk is in the center of the house....

What NFP did to me....

Let me introduce you to my "NFP Baby."

This is Ruthie.  Technically, this *was* Ruthie about a month ago, but it might be my most favourite picture taken of her so far in her short little life.   It just captures her personality so very well.

Ruthie's my NFP baby.  NFP, as in, Natural Family Planning.  You know, what people like to (wrongly) call "the rhythm method."   When most people talk about a NFP baby, they usually mean that they were trying to avoid getting pregnant and oops, God had other plans.  Not so much with this little girl.  She's here as a direct result of NFP, but not because of the fact that NFP failed.......nope.  NFP *worked* in her case.

I don't even mean that NFP worked in the case of diagnosing a medical problem and allowing someone to get pregnant, even though that's what most people mean when they say they used NFP to get pregnant, or the NFP "worked" for them to have a baby.

It's more than that.

NFP is so scary to so many people because of one main reason, I think.  It isn't because it doesn't work.  Statistically, NFP works.   If you don't want to get pregnant, there's a really high chance that you won't get pregnant, assuming that you're using the method correctly.  (side note:  birth control fails a lot, due to the fact that most people don't use it perfectly, too).   But what I think most people intuitively know about NFP - and why so many scoff at it - is that NFP works on more than just your reproductive system.  NFP works on your heart.

Almost exactly 6 years ago, I remember sitting in a rocking chair, singing a baby to sleep.  One who looked quite a bit like the baby in the picture above.  (It's kind of eerie, actually, how much my babies look alike).  I spent most of those nights rocking my little boy to sleep, trying to sing through tears.  Trying desperately to remember every little detail about him as a baby, about those sleepless nights, about rocking him to sleep.    Simultaneously relishing every coo and sleepy smile while mourning the idea of rocking future babies to sleep.

The weeks following his birth scared me.   A lot.   An emergency room visit just a few days postpartum where people are urgently trying to find the right medication combination to get you out of a situation that is apparently very dangerous (the word "stroke" was mentioned A LOT) will do that.   Being terrified to stand up and do even the simplest of household chores (empty the dishwasher, anyone?), while mothering a baby who is only a few days old (in addition to his two big brothers) leaves a mark on a person.  I felt like a ticking time bomb.

Eventually, my body decided to play nice again and I was able to live a normalish life.   Those first few weeks, though, had scarred me.   Convinced that it was "too dangerous" to attempt a future pregnancy, we decided that we needed to be "done."  

We'd always been Catholic, and had always known that the Church said that birth control was wrong, but what about what had just happened?   Wouldn't my risk of that happening again be too dangerous and surely, the Church would look the other way on this one?   I'd convinced myself that this was the case, and surely I could find a priest somewhere who would agree and would ease my conscience a bit.

But then we started reading.   Mike started researching more and more.  I started reading more and more about the risks associated with birth control (ummmm, strokes, anyone?) and realized that, after what I'd just been through, birth control wasn't the way to go, either.   

And then we learned about some really cool things happening in the Catholic world.  Namely, NaProTechnology.   I started to chart, and Mike and I watched as we were able to see pretty clear proof of just how unhealthy my body was.  We watched as I changed my diet and started exercising, or took various supplements, and my chart changed.  It started to look like it should have looked to begin with - the healthy chart of a woman in her early 30s.  

It was really quite overwhelming and awesome.

But wait, there's more!

NFP was "working" to bring me to a healthier me, physically. 

But what it was doing to me spiritually was equally fascinating. 

Natural Family Planning can be really hard at times.   When there are no synthetic hormones messing with your system, certain times of the month can be really challenging.  (All you NFPers out there are nodding in agreement, I can tell).  It's in these challenging times that NFP does its real, true work.   It knocks knocks knocks on the walls that you've built up around your heart and asks you over and over again to let God in.   

Each month, that knocking is there.  God's waiting for you to turn to Him and say, "What do YOU want from me right now?"   After awhile, once NFP has been hard at work on your heart, you'll find that gone is the "me" mentality.  It's not so much about what "I want" out of life anymore.  It's about what *we* want out of life (we being me, Mike, and God.  All three of us).   I stopped only looking in, but started looking UP.

Natural Family Planning works in a way that no statistic can measure, and that's why it's so terrifying to people.

NFP forces your heart to grow.   It's painful at times and yes, sometimes it can bring about something (cough cough someONE) that you never would have asked for on your own accord, but that's when you know that the real work is being done inside of you.

Ruthie wasn't supposed to be here.   Six years ago, I was rocking a baby to sleep and planning out when and how to sell the rocking chair.   I was staring down at a sleeping baby and thinking "This is my last time."

I sit here tonight, listening to her sigh in her sleep and feeling her hands fiddling with the medals on my chain (she loves to do this in her sleep, it's so cute!), and I can't help but mentally jump back in time and find myself holding back tears in a darkened nursery.

I'm holding back tears tonight, too.

Tears of gratefulness.  Tears of joy.  Tears of love.

NFP works.   That's why it's so scary.

My View

Most mornings.

Schoolwork.

Laundry.

One or more of the rascals.

Sometimes we're still in our pajamas.   Okay, most days.  Today we're waiting for a service guy to come by, so we're all dressed.  Well.  Except for Theo.  He's still in his pajamas.  He'll get dressed right before we leave the house.  It's cleaner that way, haha.

Anyway, climbing back on my train of thought.  Sorry.

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This is why I love homeschooling.  I get to be the one watching the kiddos learn and discover.  So much better than folding laundry in an empty house.  :)

Why I Love My Husband....v.1

Joining up with Kaitlin....

A long time ago, I used to do this on a regular basis.  I agree with Kaitlin when she says: 

"We need to be building up our husbands with everything we have within us, not cutting them down with hurtful comments to other women. Yes, they have faults. But we don't need to expose those faults to others. We don't need to go on and on about them."

It's true.  I hear that so much - every time I get together with a group of women.   And it's oh so easy to slip into, I'm not at all perfect  here.  It's really hard NOT to do it in that atmosphere.  It's just so easy to laugh at the expense of our husbands.  Not because they deserve it or they're funnier or more stupid than we are.....but because it's the accepted joke in our culture.   Watch any TV show.  Who is the buffoon?   Who's the intelligent, hardworking, "I can fix it all" character?   I would bet money that the "fall guy" is the dad or the man (if it's a show about singles) and the "smart" one is the mom or the woman.  

Considering that I currently have four boys that I will someday send out into the world.....I want to do my part to change that.   Like everything else, before you can really make any change, you have to change yourself, right?   So, starting today, I'm going to publicly do my best to raise Mike up instead of tear him down.  (and if you see/hear me starting to slip....smack me.  Seriously.  I'm dense sometimes).

So today.....I want to tell you all why I love my husband.  Just one reason.  I'll tell you more of the reasons some other day, hopefully on a weekly basis if I can remember what day of the week it is.  (homeschooling mom problems).

Today, I want to tell you that I love my husband because he always sets the coffee pot at night.  The nights that he's at the hospital, working, I usually forget and the next morning is soooooo not fun.  But Mike, even if he's just walked in the door from work at 10pm or has a long night of call ahead of him, always gets the coffee ready for the morning and sets the timer.   And because of that, I always wake up to warm, yummy coffee when the rascals get me out of bed in the morning.   Those of you who know me know how important this is (I'm not a morning person, to say the least).  

Why do I love my husband today?  

Because I'm drinking hot coffee right now.  

Well played, God....

Dear God,

It's me again.   In case You forgot my name, I'm Heidi.  (Just kidding.  I  know You didn't forget my name.  I guess that's just me trying to be funny.  I'll stop that now.  I know it's not really all that funny.   I guess I'm nervous.  I get silly when I get nervous).

Anyway.

Where was I?

Oh right.   Hi, again.  It's been awhile.  Things have been crazy lately, and I guess that I kind of put You on the back burner.  I mean, I *knew* You were there and I kept thinking, "Man, I really need to go talk to that guy" but, I don't know.  I guess I was sleep-deprived and delirious and well, if you can't do something right, you shouldn't do it at all, right?

Wrong.

So, here I am again.  Sitting in front of a computer, trying to put all of my jumbled thoughts into a semi-understandable post.   Do you like the new blog?   It feels good to start fresh again.  Too much mess at the old place to sort through - I guess it was just a bit too distracting.   Someday, I'm sure that this blog will turn into that kind of storage space, but for now....it's clean.  And new.  And easy to manage.   Not overwhelming.

Because, well, You know how overwhelming things are right now and have been recently.  I know You've been sitting there, waiting for me to say something, but stubborn me kind of forgot to look for You, standing out there on the front porch and waiting to be let in.   Thanks for knocking.   I'm not sure how much longer I would have made it on my own.  

Thanks for shouting at me this weekend.  I can be a bit stubborn sometimes, and when I get it in my mind that I can do it all, well......You know how it goes.  It isn't pretty.  

And I heard You pretty clear this weekend.  I mean, a busy mom of little kids who was able to go to Mass TWO TIMES in one weekend and hear the same reading both times?   Once even without kids, so no reason to miss what was being read.  (One of these days, the baby WILL stop pooping during the Gospel reading.  I know she will.  Someday).     It was such a familiar passage - one that I've clung to in the past for various reasons - but for some reason,  there was something new that You wanted to tell me.  

You wanted me to remember that You are the authour of my life.  Not me.  You are the foundation.  Not me.   I wasn't doing it on my own very well, and there was a reason.  I'm not *supposed* to be doing it on my own.   You need to be there, too.   

So, please come in.   I've been trying to do this on my own far too long now.   Forgive me for forgetting that You were standing there, all along, waiting for the invitation to come in.   I'm a bit clueless sometimes.

But You knew that already.  You've been standing out there, watching through the window for quite awhile, after all.   Sorry for that.  I'm sure the view wasn't too pretty at times.   

What was it that your buddy, St Josemaria, said? 

"Nunc coepi! — now I begin! This is the cry of a soul in love which, at every moment, whether it has been faithful or lacking in generosity, renews its desire to serve — to love! — our God with a wholehearted loyalty."  (Furrow, 161)

Right.  Now I begin.   Now that You're inside, where I should have invited You to begin with.   

Let's do this.