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Lord, thank You for watching over the conclave and guiding
the cardinals by the ever-present gift of the Holy Spirit as they discerned who
our next pope should be. Jesus Christ
and Blessed Mother Mary, keep your servant Pope Francis focused on the Will of
the Lord above all else. Give him the courage to carry out the tenets of
the Catholic faith which protect and respect the dignity of human life from
conception to natural death. Make him a bright light and lasting
inspiration for priests and laity as we do our best to live, teach, and preach
the New Evangelization. May his deep prayer life and joy in serving the
Lord be an example for us all! Amen.
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Such a
Cutie! After waiting what I consider to be a long time before
getting to meet my new nephew—three whole days after he was born—last Saturday afternoon, I got
to meet the little peanut and hold him for a while. Ezra, our
youngest nephew, is my sister Mary and Jordan's first child. He is so flipping adorably cute! I asked to hold him as soon as we
came in, and then I held him again for a bit before we left since he was just
asleep in his swing so I scooped him up for some more cuddle time.
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Now It’s My Turn! It was kind of funny when my mom and I went
over the first time I got to meet Ezra.
Jordan greeted us at the door holding the swaddled not-so-little (10lbs
13oz natural birth) newborn. I gave his
proud papa a hug and congratulations, then scooped up the little guy the second I got the go-ahead. My mom
kept giving me jealous looks and making comments about how I was getting to
hold him more than she did. I told her
she needs to ask to hold the baby or just scoop him out of the swing when he’s
fast asleep. She was so busy cooking,
doing dishes, laundry, and such to help my sister and her husband that she
forgot to make time for the best part of all, snuggling up with her
grandson. It’s hard raising grandmas
these days!
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From the Under Five Crowd I always hear a number of hilarious things in a week,
many from the little people in my life.
Here are a few of my faves from recent days: “Do you want me to hold the
Earth up with one hand or two?” “The spring
is coming up soon. I saw a purple
flower.” “It’s my turn to count.” I feel a poem could easily come from these quotes or maybe a dialogue for a children's book or maybe the lyrics to a country song or...
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We’re
Just Sayin’ Kevin gets me laughing
quite often. There are many reasons why
LAUGHING TOGETHER is the perfect acronym for what’s most important in our
relationship! His sense of humor is one
of the reasons I fell in love with him to begin with. While telling me about his work day, he
commented that his supervisor had complimented him on “making it happen.” My response: “That’s about right. You spend your day making it happen, and I spend mine keeping it from happening.” He works in a call center where it’s
important to make things happen. And for
my regular paying jobs, I nanny and substitute teach—where I have found it’s
often most essential to keep things from happening, such as: major outbursts, serious
injuries, mid-morning meltdowns, whining, tattle-telling, potty accidents, objects
from nature used as weapons, hard to mop up sticky messes, teasing, pinging off
the walls, coloring on the walls… you get the idea.
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A Rare Gem Thursday evening, I found out after driving all the
way home that my sister Theresa had arrived at my mom’s. They were planning on watching a movie, and
my mom said to come on over. We had a
fun evening. I’d never seen or even
heard of Moonrise Kingdom before
then (and since they started the movie before I got there, I still haven’t seen
all of it), but what I saw was quite entertaining. The two kids in it who fall in love are quite
endearing, the supporting cast has lots of adults you’ll recognize and laugh
along at/with, and it’s a good, very entertaining story. I would have to say that my absolute favorite part of the movie was a real life scene that was inspired by watching it with two people I love dearly and find very amusing. After making a comment about dysfunctional families, my mom said that the main family in the Moonrise Kingdom movie wasn’t that dysfunctional. My sister and I looked at each other and burst out laughing. My mom (definitely a rose-colored glasses kind of gal) was completely serious which is why Theresa and I were in hysterics. It’s always nice to know that we still put the fun in dysfunctional.
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My Sisters the Saints on Virtual Book Tour Can women with very different lifestyles focused on doing
the Lord’s will above all else be companions, true guides, and sisters for women
of today? Absolutely!
This book illustrates the truth of the adage that you should choose
your friends wisely because you will become like them in some interesting and
unexpected ways.
The
six saints most prominent in Colleen Carroll Campbell’s life and spiritual
memoir are holy women also very dear to me: Teresa of Avila, Thérѐse of
Lisieux, Faustina Kowalski, Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein),
Blessed Mother Teresa, and Our Mother Mary...To read the rest of the review, click here. To check out other stops on this virtual blog tour, click this.
Check out Jen Fulwiler’s tradition of 7
Quick Takes Friday at her tremendously popular blog Conversion Diary.
