'Real' good.

A few thoughts today:

First:

This morning as I was brushing my teeth I was having a conversation with myself. Not out loud mind you, or I would have gotten toothpaste and spit all over the place, but in my head. I was thinking about all the things I want for my daily life, all the things I'd like to have in order and about how many excuses I made to keep myself from doing them. A typical moment might go something like this;

Alarm sounds*
"Self, it's 6 am, you really should get up and pray and exercise you know."

"Yes Self, I know! But I work such long hours sometimes and when I get home there is still food to fix and a house to clean and a baby to take care of. I'm soooo tired. I deserve this extra sleep. It's the least I can do for me."

"Self, you know you're right. You do deserve this sleep. Hit that snooze button and if it dares to go off again in 9 minutes, hit it again!"

I'm awful polite with myself arent I?

So..like I said, as I was brushing my teeth I thought. "Self, you are waaay too polite to me. So polite that I make excuses for me and end up not doing anything at all that requires the least bit of discipline. So, what I'm saying is....stop it!"

So what happens when I stop being polite? (and start getting real?) 10 points for anyone who recognizes the old school 'Real World' line.
I need to get real with myself. Sure, my excuses are valid. And I could (and usually do) justify them to get out of whatever difficult task that is before me. But should I? what do I get out of it? I get further in the hole thats what. I become less and less of the person I want to be.

Second thought:
The velveteen rabbit is one of my favorite stories. I think because as a kid I had so many stuffed animals there was often very little room in the bed for me to sleep. I sincerely believed that they were real, especially the ones I loved the most, and knew for sure that once I left the room they began talking and moving around. So, when I grew up and read the Velveteen Rabbit for the first time I fell in love with it. I think of this story every time I think about the word REAL and what it might mean. That little velveteen rabbit was loved with such intensity that he became real...and thats all there was to it. I think the most REAL we can be as humans, the fullest expression of our humanity (as it was intended) is to be holy- to be Saints. And, contrary to our belief about our efforts, the main ingredient for that is the unwavering love of our creator. That love, if we let it, can and will make us into who we were intended to be in the first place and THAT is holiness.

Third:
There is a book on my nightstand called "Vice over Virtue" by Archbishop Fulton Sheen (my favorite Lenten buddy). This morning I was reading a little snippit and a line caught my attention. He was speaking about how we sin because we love the flesh. He said , "the only way to stop sinning is to find something that we love more than the flesh." This reminded me of a phrase Dean Schindler used to say in class " How do you get a drug addict to stop doing drugs? Not by saying "don't do drugs thats for sure. You must make him fall in love with something else." that something in both cases has to be God. We have to understand his love for us so that we might love him in return. I don't know if I'll ever come close to REALLY understanding it but being a mother sure has helped.

Tied all together:

If I'm going to stop 'making excuses'. If I'm going to be able to get real...to become REAL...to be holy then I have to really seek to know God's love for me and then let my life be a simple response of gratitude to that love. It wont be much in comparison but it will be a joy to God. All I have to do is see my baby boy smile once in response to my silly "I love you" and I know that its true.

Hope your ashes lasted all day!

Take 2!

Ok, it's 2009 and Lent begins tomorrow. I started this blog at the beginning of lent (see here) to follow my progress in my lenten sacrifices. For the most part I did a good job with the journal (and the sacrifices for that matter). That was a few years ago. I wasn't married. I wasn't a mom. I didnt have a job (unless you count teaching Gymboree classes).
So, it's a new year. I am a wife and a mother and a busy campus minister...and things in my life need to be reordered- namely my prayer life, my marriage, my physical health and my time management.
I've ordered the books, gotten the spiritual director, started the diet (well...tomorrow), planned the excersize, resolved to pray, work out, listen, speak with charity and say yes to the opportunity to die to self. I would also like to journal about these things and since I'm bad at journaling...blogging will have to do.


55 minutes and counting.... Lets go.

St. John Vianney

"the task of man is beautiful: to pray and to love. If you pray and love, this is the happiness' of man on earth…"

St. John Vianney

Festival Acadiens...

...the only place you can find cajun music, alligator shaped bread and a bumper sticker like this.

waiting...

Homecoming float; the journey begins!

We're starting preparations for homecoming, including our kickin float! We are defending champions so I can't let out the design outright. I will tell you that it includes a pepper, a chicken and a scary bulldog :)

rebuild my church...

Happy Birthday to me :)

Lucy dog

I'm back

I'm posting...after a long long time because of the following:


It's 2am on my 28th birthday
I'm not sleeping (though I should be)
I got a new camera and want to post pictures

anything of more importance (and there are things) will have to wait until another time...

enjoy the pics :)

Goodbye Colorado!

A week from today I will most likely no longer be a resident of Colorado (though I'm not sure if legally I ever was.) Anyway, I say 'most likely' because we still havent finished dealing with all of the house 'stuff'. I won't go into it here but I will say that I think it'll all work out. We should be closing next week and both hubby and I will travel back for that event. He'll help me set up the house and then he'll zoom back over to Denver for another month or so. It's a huge life change but all in all it doesnt feel so huge just yet.
We're in limbo once again and while it is weird it's not uncomfortable. We are staying with some dear friends of ours and their very fun, very active 4 children. Surprisingly, staying with them has reminded me both how difficult parenting can be and that even in the midst of chaos, I still want to have a gaggle...(a flock? a school?...a full quiver?). Anyway, I will miss them and be sad to go.
All of this excitement also comes at a time of celebration. Thursday is hubby's 30th bday (wow) and 7/7/07 (arent' we lucky?) is our first anniversary. Can you believe that? I can't. We kind of celebrated both a little this weekend with a day of fun and togetherness. We went white water rafting which was a blast and something even my fearful self would love to do again one day. We went up to Mt. Evans lake and watched the ducks and strolled around enjoying the breathtaking view. We went to the Aquarium down town and then we caught a movie and dinner. All in all it was a really great day and I'm glad we got to spend it together.
I will try to write more in the days to come...but thats sometimes a promise I can't keep.

Moving Out Sale....

Other names i could have chosen for my 'garage sale':

The "I'm sorry we don't have any old records, stero equipment or tools for sale" sale.

The "They're tearing our house down and this stuff is going to go with it" sale.

The "Watch it rain all over our stuff " sale.

or my personal favorite...

"Nobody is buying anything so I'll take a minute to blog about it " sale.


We'll , T minus 48 hours until we move out of this place. I'm trying to sell some of the furniture and appliances that we arent taking with us to make a few bucks so that I can buy a couch for our new home.

It's thundering pretty hard out there and I think it's going to rain on my garage sale. On top of that I called the moving truck and asked them not to come today because there is street cleaning on our side of the road on the first Tuesday of every month between May and October (yeah..it took us a while to figure that one out) and what did I do? I parked the friggin car on that side of the road. Yeah. I got a ticket anyway.

Ok....I'm gone for now...

What I've been doing...

This is where I was last week...



and this is where I was yesterday...




What have you been up to?


more to come...

Random...

In approximately 8 hours Hubby and I will be on a plane destined for Gulf Shores, Al for the retreat/training for our new jobs. Today I said goodbye to my kiddos in their graduation, tomorrow I meet my new kiddos. As is life. God Gives. God takes. God's name be praised.

Did I mention I hate to fly? I do, I loathe it, but the flight is short and hubby will be with me so I guess that makes it all better. Although, I just know he'll sleep the whole time and I"ll be wide eyed and freaked out. Oh well.

While we are home we'll be looking at houses. I've made a spread sheet of all the houses we've been looking at online so that we can make notes and see all the stats side by side as we visit. It's kind of exciting, our first home.

I'm reading "Hannah Coulter" by Mr. Wendell Berry right now. It's pretty excellent and I'm almost done and I'm going to be sad when I am. Luckily he's got more fiction that I havent read yet.

Just some random thoughts before I leave.

Wish me luck!

Happy Birthday!!!

John Paul II!!!

Have a favorite story or quote or memory of our beloved Holy Father? Share it!

Go back to the beginning....

Where do I begin?

It's a retorical question, I know. Where else do we ever begin but at the begin'ning'? You could begin in the middle chronologically, I suppose, but then in essence you make it the beginning anyway. So there you are.

Sorry, I've been in a Theology department meeting all day. The wheels are turning especially fast. I'm in gerbal mode.

The beginning is wherever I start, mostly because I can't remember where I left off. Lent right? It was Lent and it seemed relatively uneventful. Then we got a call that the priest who is now at the Catholic Student Center where I first 'met' Jesus (where I first cared about meeting him anyway..as a young adult), the point of my conversion, lets put it that way. The same Church where I met Hubby and where 7 years later, we were married. So, that guy, he called and said in not so many words that he wanted both Hubby and I to send on over our resume's and letters of intent to him. So we did and sooner than we thought he called us back and offered us both jobs.

Wow huh? I know, it's like a dream come true aside from the obvious sorrow of leaving this wonderful place and all the dear friends that we've made. We prayed about it and thought about it and talked about it, alot.

In the midst of all that praying and thinking and talking I began to feel weird, not myself, off balance, no memory, lack of appetite. Yeah, you guessed it, the little blue line was there bright as day and all of a sudden our very full plate became a gluttonous display of blessings. I was pregnant.

Joy. Fear. Anticipation. More Joy. Worry etc. We experienced it all and within a month and a half nearly every family member descended upon us. They had all planned ahead of time to visit near our spring break which just so happend to be in the midst of all of this.....life.

We decided to accept the jobs, not because of the baby but because it seemed to be, undoubtedly, what God was calling us to. He had found us, and we couldn't dispute that. Hubby gave up his acceptance to the Choral Conducting program here for his second masters and the next day God provided a similar (though smaller) program back home with a full scholarship and an assistantship to boot. He will work part time at the Church as the Musical Director/Liturgical Coordinator and I will work full time as the Campus Minister, dream jobs for us both at a spiritual home that we know so well.

That all meant beginning to say goodbye to the people and the jobs that we love so much here in Denver. We began to do so even though we arent leaving until August. We continue to do so.

At about 9 weeks I was beginning to 'gush' within myself about the life that was growing within me. Little things started to show up around the house; a rattle that 'grandma' brought when she visited, little booties that say "someone in Colorado loves me very much", books about pregnancy and an item or two of maternity clothes.

I began to reflect on the pain of childbirth and what I wanted to do about dealing with it. It was one thing to say 'all natural' when it was just a thought but now there was this being that had to come out. I knew that if indeed I wanted to endure that kind of pain that I would have to start preparing myself for it now. I began to pray. I asked hubby what he thought and he said so simply "God will show you if thats what you are called to." And so, I prayed some more. That last week of lent it seemed every sermon, every reading, everything was about suffering and the beauty of suffering with Christ. Redemptive suffering...indeed. Holy Thursday is my favorite day of the Church year because it's so intimate. We found a Church here that night and opened ourselves up to God. I opened the scriptures and began to read particularly about the virtue of suffering for what it good. Plain as day it read, "and to this you are called." I pointed it out to hubby and he said, "well there ya go." It was clear, I was to suffer for this child.


On good friday I woke up to a sight that pregnant women fear. I didnt worry immediately because I had read about the 'serious' signs to look for. But as we drove to church to sing for the good friday service that afternoon, I began to get a bad feeling in more than one way. By the 5th station, every genuflect became more painful than the last and I knew the inevitable was upon me. I was losing our baby.
There was nothing we could do but go home and call the doctor, so as the last few people walked up to the altar to venerate the cross I sat before it and cried my eyes out. All I could think of was the injustice of the situation. We didn't ask for this baby. It didn't ask to be here and now it was going to be taken away. Injustice. Then, I glanced up at the cross and as if Christ said outloud, "I know" it became clear to me. Redemptive suffering.

It was a long night that I won't ever forget. The doctor said for us to keep a close watch and come to the ER if needed, otherwise I should keep my normal appointment on Monday.

Easter was hard. Hubby led the packed Church in singing 'Alleluia" but I knew he was hurting inside like me. We didnt quite know what to do or how to feel or where to go. How do you grieve someone you didnt 'know' but whom you 'knew' more intimately than any other human in your life?
Our appointment on Monday revealed a very empty womb as we suspected. We both reflected on the symbolism there and the reality of the Risen Christ. He is risen and now so is our Child with Him.

All of the details of the following weeks are beautiful and hard and I will cherish them and the people who comforted us. We named the baby Josiah and entered his name into the 'Book of Life' at the Shrine of the Holy Innocents.

So now the school year comes to an end and we prepare to move, again. That is a story in itself, but one for another time.

Where's Waldo...er..Amy?

Ok so the template has changed. I'm back, but not quite yet. I have way too much to post to start now when I'm in the middle of a great novel. I shall return......

Stuff...

In other news, my girls' basketball team won state which is amazing for two reasons. First, they were by far the underdogs and quite frankly I don't even understand how they made it to the top 8 tournament in the first place. Every other team there had a record of 21-4 or better our score going in was something like 15-10...go figure. Not only did we make it to the top 8 but we beat all of those teams, fancy records and all. Secondly, I'm starting to think I'm a good luck charm for underdog highschool teams where I work. Granted, I've only worked at 2, but lets not get too caught up in the details. When I worked in Louisiana, our little, little high school team with the big heart won the state championship in their class beating boys that I think probably at the time should have graduated a good 3 years earlier. They are probably still there. ....and now this. You do the math.

I'm just sayin'.


Aside from all that the guests are beginning to flow. Two weeks ago my Aunt and Uncle and cousin were here for a week of visiting (and eating). Last weekend my Sarie came to play with me (for only a short time *tear*)and we had a lovely time freezing our booties off in the mountains and catching up at delightfully Christian coffee shops in down town Denver. While she was here our dear friend Padre Luke came to retreat in the mountains and we were blessed with him a day on either side.

This Wednesday, my cousin/sister/cousin comes in on Wednesday for a trip that we've been waiting for for quite some time now. She leaves on the following Thursday, the same day that my inlaws arrive (dun dun duuuunnn!) Thats right, mother-in-law, father-in-law, brother-in-law, and sister-in-law all arrive in the middle of our spring break. Weeks of fun to come.

Novena To Saint Joseph begins today...joy of joys! Blessing of blessings! I love that man, though he works in his own sweet time....there's just something about Joe.

Peace out!



Ora Pro Nobis

I'm speechless...

ok maybe not but I'm shocked and confused at the very least.

I'm sitting here watching Primetime "The Outsiders" and there they show a story of a man who has (aparently) been visited by an angel and asked to be the second coming of Christ on earth. He's Puerto Rican and an ex heroin addict oh..and an ex Catholic (of course). He teaches (among other scary things) that the Catholic Church is evil and has his followers rip and burn pictures of the pope. He hates all organized religion for that matter and calls himself the anti-christ and wears on his clothing and his body (you guessed it) the number 666.

he called himself the Antichrist and revealed a "666" tattooed on his forearm. His explanation: that, as the second coming of Christ, he rejects the continued worship of Jesus of Nazareth.

His followers, to show their support tattoo the number on their skin. They throw money at him and buy him expensive watches, cars and basically anything else he desires. They adore him. He drinks, smokes, gambles and is constantly surrounded by scantily clad women. He spouts scripture as only the devil could and teaches emphatically that neither hell nor the devil exist anymore. They have been destroyed. He doesnt believe that marriage is forever and himself has been married a few times. Little children adore him and call him "Poppi" while they salute him with two fingers at their forehead to remind themselves that their faith is in their minds. He calls them the 'super nation' or something very hitler esq like that.

Are you afraid yet?
Kool-Aid anyone?

The second story on this show was about a woman who lived (and made herself look like) a man for two years as a research project for her book. Her conclusions were such that a woman's sexuality is in her mind while a mans is carnal but desperate for intimacy. Close, but not at all. She also came to the grand conclusion that "gender is in the mind".



I'm crying small salty tears of desparation and I'm pretty sure I need a Martini.

Parent Teacher Conferences day...

thats today...and here I sit in my office, parentless. And the worst part about it is I had to say goodbye to my Sarie earlier.

Anyway, I only have one class and they are seniors. I.E. not many of them show up and the ones who do are not the ones that need to be worried about their children. So, I spend a day of "She's great, always insightful and polite, good grades, pleasant smile, she's a delight to have in my class. Ok nice to meet you too. Byebye!"

It's not fake, I would never say anything I didnt mean. What I want to say really is can you go find this kids parents and drag them in cause WE have some stuff to talk about. But alas, you can't make em care. Which is why their kids don't I guess.

There are some things brewing in hubby and I's life right now. Good things, I think...big changes..maybe..can't elaborate. Please say prayers and I shall keep you updated when I can.

Peace out.