Your Home & Family: Mission Territory by Deacon Greg explores how the Zelie family show us the true missionary spirit in our own homes.
Getting political: the Stupid Fat Hobbit explores the upcoming election.
Tissue alert: Aimee put tears in my eyes as she described the Winning Weekend.
Domenico has the video of Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live.
Enjoy! We’re off to celebrate our troop’s newest Eagle Scout! (Hopefully Big Brother will be next!)
I remember when I was in grade school and my parents would take us to the Saturday evening Mass. We attended church a good 20 minutes from home, and I have no idea how Mom got dinner on the table on those nights. I seem to remember a lot of hamburgers and Kraft Macaroni and Cheese Deluxe Dinner (the kind that came with a squeezy pouch of “cheez whiz” and that made this weird noise when you stirred it all up…boy that was good stuff…)
Our parish has 2 locations–one is exactly a mile from here, the other exactly two miles away. And once a month the choir I sing with “trades” times with the other, organ-accompanied choir. We sing at the Saturday 5 instead of the Sunday noon.
I’m having a little trouble getting used to that whole setup. We did figure out the logistics of standing everyone in a different space so that everyone can see the choir leader (kind of important!) We are getting good feedback in terms of noticing and hearing that the congregation is singing along; people stop by the choir area after church and compliment the music; so that’s all good.
But getting to church on Saturday afternoon is difficult for me. I do make an effort to keep Sunday as a day of rest as much as possible; spending time with friends or visiting family often happen in addition to Mass; household chores that can wait and shopping are put on hold for another day. But Saturday is a busy day. On most Saturday afternoons I am watching football and doing laundry and cleaning up and maybe baking something and most certainly driving someone somewhere. It is not my time to find some church clothes and put together the necessary music for Mass and settle down.
TheDad has mentioned that he enjoys the Sunday noon Mass because we have an unhurried morning. You’re not all hassled and bothered when you get to church. Not so on a Saturday afternoon. Saturdays are all about hassle and hurry.
Different families have different schedules, and it’s nice that the Church offers Masses at many different times. But we enjoy our Sunday-noon routine. It works for us, and it helps us keep Sunday a day apart from the rest.
As I do have to attend the Saturday-evening Vigil Mass once a month with the choir, I’m going to have to find a way to make it work. So if you’re a Saturday-Nighter, how do you handle it with your family? How do you make it to church without feeling hassled and hurried? Or have you found a way to lay down that hassle and hurry at the feet of the Cross as you enter the church?
Tonight we did something that our family almost never does. We got drive-through supper at Chick-Fil-A (there was a fund-raiser for Big Brother’s Habitat trip to Mississippi) and ate it while we drove Big Brother to a camping trip for another school activity, then took Middle Sister to a sleepover at her “BFF’s” house.
Big Brother juggled his dinner and the map while I held my sandwich with one hand, trying not to lose the pickles as I drove.
Normally our dinner conversation includes a little instruction in table manners and utensil use, but we had no tables and no utensils. So instead Big Brother and I fought the Radio Wars and argued over whether we wanted to listen to “Smoke on the Water” or a Dire Straits tune (that was a tough choice, believe me!)
I know it was a fund-raiser, so I can live with the $23 dinner for 4 (oh, the amazing meal I could make at home on that budget). But I do enjoy seeing the faces of the people with whom I’m sharing a meal–without having to use a rear-view mirror. And I’m convinced that driving makes me eat faster, so now I’ve got a bellyache.
I’m glad we don’t have meals like that too often. Our next dinner together will be eaten at the table. I didn’t realize how much I take that for granted.
It’s been a busy day in Housecleaning World. I took down the curtains in the living room, dining room and kitchen, and washed them along with the tablecloths from the living-room side tables. Then I washed windows in the living room and kitchen, and ironed curtains for the kitchen as well as the tablecloths (heavy starch on those, thankyouverymuch). I scrubbed the screens for the living-room windows–a bank of 4 windows 6 feet tall and 30 inches wide.
I started dough for Danielle’s beer rolls. I hosted a birthday party for Adventure Boy and was thankful for my neighbor, who made the delicious cake.
And THEN I ran out of gas.
The dining-room windows are still not washed, and the living-room windows are clean but naked. Now there’s a big, giant spider with striped legs busy building a web outside one of the dining-room windows, so it looks like my window of opportunity for washing those without the interference of local wildlife has passed.
I didn’t want to cook dinner, but I put on my apron and got things started. I was thankful for my rice cooker, and even more thankful when Middle Sister came into the kitchen, saw that I was all set up to make Chicken Piccata, and said, “I’ll cook!”
One thing I really don’t enjoy is coming downstairs in the morning to find a trashed kitchen.
But today I didn’t mind it TOO much.
There were glasses and ice-cream bowls scattered around, since Big Brother had some friends stay overnight last night. There was a skillet and a pancake griddle, from TheDad’s and Little Brother’s breakfast. I could tell Little Brother had eaten pancakes, since the sprinkles were on the counter (and a few on the griddle). Little Brother likes colorful pancakes.
A Star Wars starfighter with C3-PO at the helm was parked next to my coffeepot. (No, Little Brother didn’t do that. Apparently one of Big Brother’s friends is a big Star Wars fan).
Then Middle Sister decided to make hash browns while I worked on waffles for the visiting teenagers, who were just starting to wake up.
The kitchen is a wreck. But everyone has had a good breakfast and is now enjoying a good laugh. I can live with that.
Your result for The Commonly Confused Words Test…
You scored 100% Beginner, 100% Intermediate, 100% Advanced, and 100% Expert!
Thank you so much for taking my test. I hope you enjoyed it!
For the complete Answer Key, visit my blog: http://shortredhead78.blogspot.com/.
Take The Commonly Confused Words Test at HelloQuizzy
Middle Sister just walked through here, lifted her foot high in the air, and kicked off her big skate shoe. It landed bottom-down on the floor, and she put the shoe back on.
“Please don’t do that,” I asked her.
“Why not?”
“Because your shoe might fly off in a weird direction and hit something and break it.”
“Don’t worry–I’m a professional,” she assured me.
Jean at Catholic Fire has a quote from Dr. Alveda King on the economy and loving our neighbor:
“If financial pressures cause us to stop loving our neighbors, to think only of ourselves, we have lost much more than money,” added Dr. King. “If we stop giving to charity, cease donating our time to help others, or, in the extreme, abort a baby for financial reasons, we literally sacrifice the eternal for the temporary…. As my uncle, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, ‘The time is always right to do what is right’.”
There’s more over at Jean’s site.
That’s how many Cub Scout parents have already called me this afternoon to inquire whether Cub Scouts would be meeting today, since it’s a Jewish holiday.
This Cub Scout pack meets at, and is sponsored by, a Catholic church.
Most of the children in the pack were recruited at Religious Education.
Yeah.
Little Brother finished his breakfast and sat down in front of an Army Guy setup he had arranged yesterday.
I reminded him, “If you’re done eating, it’s time to get dressed. Then you can play.”
“Every day I have to get dressed after I eat,” he protested. “Every DAY!”