Author: franciscanmom

Barb Szyszkiewicz is a wife, mom, Secular Franciscan and freelance writer and serves as Editor for CatholicMom.com. Mom to three young adults, she enjoys writing, cooking, and reading. Barb is a music minister at her parish. She is also an avid Notre Dame football and basketball fan. Barb blogs at FranciscanMom.com and shares her family’s favorite recipes with nutrition information for diabetics at www.Cook and Count.wordpress.com.

Personal Policies Meme

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Jean at Catholic Fire has tagged me for the Personal Policies Meme. As far as I can tell, it’s for all those little household-type rules that I insist on setting up, and that no one but me ever follows.

With that in mind, my #1 personal policy is:
GET OUT OF MY CHAIR. (My desk chair, at my desk, in front of my laptop.)

A few others:
2. Don’t feed the birds in the back of the house. That’s where the clothesline is. (Enough said?)

3. Unless you’re lactose-intolerant, the Proper Dinner Beverage is ice-cold milk, NOT Dr. Pepper.

4. If you’re Little Brother, even though you are lactose-intolerant, Dr. Pepper is not a proper beverage at any time.

5. “Mom always said, don’t play ball in the house.”

Sights of Summer at Chez SFO Mom

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Little Brother, outside, with a full super soaker…aimed at the front door. The front door with a screen to let in the fresh air–and the fresh water.

Feast of Saint Anthony

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Today is the feast of St. Anthony of Padua.

St. Anthony is definitely part of the fabric of my life as a Franciscan. The parish my grandmother attended, where I was part of the fourth generation in my family to attend the same Catholic elementary school, has a shrine to St. Anthony.

The shrine is the little building on the right. I’ve been in there countless times, generally in the company of my grandmother. I remember feeling that it was like another world in there. Before such things were considered “against fire code” all the candles (and there were many) were real. You lit a candle by picking up one of the long wicks from a holder on the side of the candle stand, lighting the wick from a candle already burning, and then lighting another candle. The little shrine always smelled like wax and flowers. It was cool and quiet, with a dark slate floor. Because of all the candles, there wasn’t much need for lighting beyond the flickering votives.

It was just a little building, but there was something about it–something that would make you automatically get quiet when you walked in; as a friend and fellow Franciscan tells fidgety children, “quiet on the outside, quiet on the inside.” And I’m not sure how to explain it, except to say that you could almost feel the prayers that had been whispered within those walls.

My grandmother left behind many prayer cards with images of Saint Anthony, and those are mine now. If I had a scanner I’d post some here. Micki’s got a pretty one pictured at her site, along with a link explaining St. Anthony’s Bread.

Speaking of St. Anthony’s Bread, there is a ministry in Providence, Rhode Island that is committed to providing 300 homeless adults with a hot beverage and sandwiches to go, 3 days a week. It’s called Bread and Blessings. My uncle is the Franciscan friar who coordinates this ministry. If you feel moved to donate to this program, either for the sandwich fund or for a special fund for blankets, winter boots, or household goods for people transitioning from shelter life to new living opportunities, please email me for contact information.

Visit this link to find novena prayers and other prayers in honor of Saint Anthony.

If you’d like to read a good biography of St. Anthony, I recommend A Rich Young Man by John Beahn. I’m not sure if it’s still in print but used copies are available at online booksellers.

Enter Danielle’s Prolife Raffle!

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Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Enter the raffle to benefit St. Gianna Maternity Home by visiting Danielle Bean’s blog! 100% of your donation will go directly to help women and babies in need of your support.

Like many other bloggers and fans of Danielle Bean‘s work, I have sponsored a prize. All told there are 39 prizes including a Kitchen Madonna apron, subscriptions to Faith and Family magazine and National Catholic Register, books of all kinds, gift certificates to Aquinas and More, Amazon and Adoremus books, handmade rosaries, and lots of other wonderful prizes. But the best prize of all is helping those moms and babies who need a safe place to grow.

UPDATE: There are now 55 super prizes being offered! Check it out!

This raffle ends Monday, June 11 at 9 PM EDT.

UPDATE AGAIN: Wow! Danielle just posted that the grand total raised for St. Gianna’s home is over $8300!

Time to Get Political

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It’s rare, but sometimes I do get political.

Like today, when I received a solicitation in the mail to join “Team Rudy.”

No thanks, Rudy. I’m Catholic. I’m not voting for you, and I won’t fund your campaign.

Instead, I festooned the postage-paid return envelope with the stickers I just got from American Life League–the ones with the cute babies smiling at you, and the words “Pray to end abortion.”

H/T to the Regular Guy for the link. You can get the shirt at American Life League’s online store.

What to Wear

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Ian has a great story to tell on what happened today, all because he wore a tie to Mass.

Certainly there have been battles waged here about what is to be worn to church. With the boys, it hasn’t been bad, because we consider the “golf-shirt-and-khaki-pants” outfit to be generally appropriate. And Little Brother is currently enjoying his vast collection of 5 hand-me-down clip-on ties, so he’s actually been wearing a tie every Sunday with his little Oxford shirts, for the past few weeks. (Today was the exception; he had to dress just like TheDad in khakis and a dark green golf shirt).

Middle Sister, though, is a different story. Sometimes she enjoys dressing up for church and I breathe a big sigh of relief. Other times she laments the fact that we don’t allow jeans for church unless it’s snowing hard outside.

I think, though, that she does get the idea a little. A couple of weeks ago she commented on two different outfits she saw in church that she clearly agreed were inappropriate: a very short miniskirt on an eighth-grade girl, and a boy her age wearing his soccer uniform.

That last one really got to her. “What’s up with that, Mom? I mean, if he has a game right after church, why can’t he just take his uniform and change in the church bathroom?”

I’m not naive enough to think that our before-church fashion battles are over, but it’s nice to see that there is some light at the end of this tunnel. And frankly, I liked how she came up with an easy solution to that pesky problem of how to dress for church when you’ve got a game immediately afterward.

My answer to those who say, “it doesn’t matter what I wear to church because God loves me anyway” would be: “As a teacher I have noticed that children tend to behave according to their mode of dress. If they’re dressed nicely, they are more likely to behave better than if they’re wearing play clothes. Play clothes mean play time. I suspect that it’s no different for adults. Yes, God loves you no matter what you wear because he knows what’s in your heart. But Mass is the time to show what’s in your heart. Make the effort to show your reverence for God through your words, actions and yes, your clothing.” You don’t have to look like you’re modeling for Vogue or GQ. But you shouldn’t look like you’re about to play soccer, wash your car, or go surfing, either. Really–would you wear your church clothes to do any of those things?

Was it something I said?

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TheDad came home from a 5-day trip to Tech-Ed today, bearing gifts for all: Dr. Seuss t-shirts for the kids, and a coffee mug for me.


(This is not a picture of MY actual mug but it’s similar to this one. Same character. Inside, big letters: GRINCH.

Scenes from My Morning

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If you drive by my house right now, you will see a little boy standing on the front lawn. He is wearing fighter-jet pajamas, a size or so too big, and camo “crocs.” He’s waving goodbye to the school bus that’s picking up the neighbors’ kids, and getting ready to race the bus as far as the driveway next door, which is the limit of his “wander without an adult” range.

Happy Birthday to Danielle!!

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Everybody join in making Danielle‘s birthday wish come true! All she wants for her present is for more people to enter her raffle to benefit St. Gianna’s Home, a crisis pregnancy center in North Dakota.

There are 52 fabulous prizes! You’ve gotta be in it to win it! But the real winners are the moms and babies who benefit from 100% of the money donated.

Deadline is June 12.

And 8 MORE Things

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I’ve been double-tagged by Laura and Donna-Marie Cooper O’Boyle (what a nice Polish name she has, don’t you think?)

So can you stand 8 MORE things? No? Too bad. You’re going to get them anyway.

1. The last playlist I assembled for my MP3 player includes some of my favorite 1980s songs: “Stray Cat Strut,” “Love is a Battlefield” and “Walk Like an Egyptian.”

2. As a rule, I don’t care for remakes. I generally like the original song much better.

3. I also don’t like to see any movie when I’ve already read the book.

4. Given a choice between reading the book and seeing the movie, if I’ve done neither one, the book ALWAYS wins.

5. I got my latest Netflix pick in the mail today: Legally Blonde. I’ve rented this one so much I’ve probably paid for it 5 times over. My plans tonight involve a couch, a pint of Dove Irresistably Raspberry ice cream, and my movie. Because you HAVE to eat something pink while you watch this one!

6. I wear a kids’ watch. I bought it for myself because I keep breaking out from the metal on the back of a regular watch. With this one, it not only fits comfortably on my small wrist, but the elastic watchband runs under the back of the watch. Mine has a different band style (a blue and teal design, no flowers) but it’s basically the same as this one.

7. The only shoes I have with more than a 1-inch heel are my cowboy boots. They are all black and my favorite shoes EVER. I bought them in the spring of 1995, in a mall shoestore in Atlantic City for less than $10, while waiting between rounds of the Jeopardy tryouts. Yesterday I had to glue the soles back on. TheDad wants to know why I don’t just buy new boots–but I’m pretty attached to these!

8. I am a mosquito magnet. If I’m outside after dinner, and I don’t wear shoes, socks, and long pants, I will be immediately set upon by a whole swarm of the nasty things. Mostly they get my legs and feet. Bug sprays don’t help, and they bother my asthma, so mainly I just spend the summers itching.

I think that by now everyone who has a blog has played this game at least once, so I’ll refrain from tagging anyone.