Monday Musings

This weekend...We went to 4:00 mass on Saturday because we were going to visit Andy's parents on Sunday.  We hadn't seen them since Thanksgiving and Gabe didn't have to serve at Latin mass or have any other commitments and it was a beautiful day (Has spring finally come to stay?)so it was a good time to go.

We had a nice visit.  We brought some soup for lunch.  Andy cut everything up for the soup the night before and I put it together the next day before we went.  Grandma had some premade rolls she put in the oven along with Strawberries and an Angelfood cake she bought from the store.  I put the water in the and cooked it when we got there.

I have to admit I was a little nervous cooking in my mother-in-laws kitchen. It's difficult to know how much help to give/offer to people who don't ask for help.  They live in their own home and I don't want to imply that they can't take care of themselves but I can see that Mom in law gets tired easily doing the work so as long as we're there...

When we got home I went to the coffee shop for a few hours with my lap top.  I think I should try and do this at least every other week as it allows me time to sit and think and maybe even plan.

I wrote down a list of things that I want to clean this Lent for Spring Cleaning and finished a Postulant lesson for the Penitents.  I also put some books on hold at the library and put some books on my Amazon book lists.

Right now...It is seven thirty in the morning and it should really be 6:30.  I was doing well at getting up at 5:00 AM before everyone else and now it has turned into 6:00 the time when everybody else should be getting up too.  Gabe just left for school with the van and Andy is going to ride his bike for the first time this year.  The weather forecast for this week looks very promising.  So happy it is beginning to look like Spring.
Some plans for this week: begin my spring cleaning list.  I am starting with book shelves.  Try to get to daily mass two times this week, make yogurt (we'll see), going for walks outside with the kids (we haven't done this since fall). Get practicing again.  Take the kids out for a walk as the weather gets warmer and provided it is not raining.

If I find the time I want to... see plans for this week.

I'm praying for...my mother and father-in-law as they are living in their home and struggling with decreasing physical abilities, my husband that God blesses the work he does every day, for a deceased parishoner who became ill and died very suddenly, for a deceased penitent.

I'm grateful for...confession, forgiveness, insight into my failings so I can take responsablity for them as I am more prone to look to blame another

Something that makes me smile...

This picture of my baby from last summer.

Monday Musings

Right now it is a quarter after three in the afternoon.  I just put the pot roast in the oven and may bike over to my husbands place of work to bring him the left over crock pot chicken from yesterday. 

This weekend seemed rough.  My son went on a youth retreat Saturday which I was happy about and my husband worked all weekend again which I wasn't happy about.  These long hours of his have been going on for at least a month and a half.  He usually works to at least midnight most nights of the week and is rarely home for supper.  It's hard not to feel like his company is exploiting their employees a bit.  There has been talk of unionizing the software engineers but it has been said that trying to organize software engineers is like herding cats. 
This can't be good for anyone's health.  My husband is type I diabetic and he has had a lot of high blood sugars due to late hours, lack of sleep, and stress.  We know we are fortunate to be employed, but sheesh!  We really miss him.  I miss the times we had as a family together.  I try to have faith and remember that God is allowing this and I beleive is purifying me through this time. 

Some plans for the week include cleaning the living room and kitchen, watch The Song of Bernadette if there is time, practice for the first rehearsal on Sunday.  I'm hoping to take the kids out in the bike trailer tomorrow if the weather is o.k. That always lifts my spirits.

Praying for my husband and the team he works with that they will do good work and the holy spirit will guide the project and the people working on it. Praying to make a good decision regarding something in particular.

Something that makes me smile...

Figuring out how to make decent whole wheat bread in my new bread maker.  It took a little bit but I think the thing that really helped was making sure there is enough water. This really helps the bread to rise well.  I've been using vital wheat gluten too which I think improved outcome over the initial loaves; but it didn't start turning out really great until I increased the water.  It's nice that even with machine's to make things easier there is still human oversight and experimentation required.  I think the fact I have made good whole wheat bread by hand was helpful in figuring out how to do it well with the machine.

For more Monday Musings see Nadja at Patch O' Dirt.

Monday Musings

Right now...It is 5:10 Pm.  It is a beautiful fall day.  There is a beautiful view of yellow fall leaves from my kitchen patio door.  I have the little bit of laundry that wouldn't fit on my close line earlier hanging out as the son begins to fade.

This weekend...was really nice.  My husband worked all day Saturday but the kids and I took a short road trip to a little town that is surrounded by an Amish/Mennonite community.  We ate breakfast at the local bakery: eggs, sausage, muffins, french toast, all very reasonably priced.  We than walked around the town.  It's always fun to see the Amish horse and buggies. Before we went home we went to the little Amish run grocery store that's known for selling bulk items.  We got candy, sesame sticks, bag of oatmeal, maple syrup, honey.  When we got home we did a bit of cleaning and I got a chance to go to confession, at last.

On Sunday we celelbrated my birthday for breakfast with coffee cake and presents.  My husband started out by giving me a plastic slotted spoon and a nice coffee mug.  I was trying to hold back tears because I thought, "At least if this is all you're going to get me you could have got me a better spoon."  I was hoping he got me a bread maker and couldn't beleive he only got me this "cheap junk from Wal-mart."  And then when I thought all was lost, my son came up stairs with bread maker in hand.  I had to laugh at myself. 

After church we went and walked around at a local park in the city with woods and trails and then went to Wal-mart to buy frozen lasagna for supper to continue the birthday celebration.  My son made brownies.  After we put the little ones to bed we watched the movie Up!  My son and I had watched it Saturday night but my husband hadn't seen it yet.  I just loved it.  There are some very moving scenes and lots of excitement.

My plans for the week include...raking leaves, trying to clean (dust, declutter, vacuum) the upstairs, I want to get four days of practicing in and four days of walks in as well as take the little ones out in the bike trailer a few times.  I also want to figure out how to make a decent loaf of whole wheat bread in my new bread maker.  The first loaf I made was with white flour using the express setting and it turned out well.  The second loaf was a whole wheat recipe and it wasn't nearly as good as when I make it by hand so I'm doing some research to see what I can come up with. 

If I can get some time to myself I want to...keep reading the book The Yellow Lighted Book Store.  It is a memoir that includes stories about how this author came to be an avid reader and bookseller.  I love the way it's written.

I'm praying for...I realize lately that I rarely pray for my husband and I don't pray for my children that often either.  I make the mistake of not making prayer a priority when in reality if I expect to make it to heaven I need to stay close to Mary and Jesus.

Something that makes me smile...  My new breadmaker of course.

Monday Musings

Right now it is 6:00 in the morning and I want to try and plan for the week--something I was too tired to do last night.  I want to plan meals, grocery shopping and make time to celebrate birthdays that didn't get celebrated due to a weekend where most of us were sick. 

This weekend My oldest son and I got sick on Friday night.  My son threw up every ten minutes all night long while I threw up twice and just felt crappy all day Saturday.  Saturday was my sons 15th birthday.  We thought we were feeling better first thing on Saturday morning, so I stopped at McDonald's to get breakfast (in an attempt to do something special for his birthday despite our illness)  but we ended up regretting it and feeling worse later on.  I thought I was going to be able to handle taking care of the little ones on Saturday and be able to let my husband work until 5:00 (he is still working mandatory overtime) but I started feeling really bad and had to call him to come home.  Thank God I had the chance to sleep all day.  That evening I was feeling much better.  However, my husband ended up starting to feel badly that evening and he ended up staying at home from work (yes he was required to work Sunday too!). 

It all started with the baby boy getting sick and throwing up on Wednesday ( his first throwing up illness).  My daughter also seemed to be sick too but it seemed much more mild for her in that she threw up once and tried eat but didn't eat much and lied around a lot.  She had never had a throwing up illness until now and she barely did.  This was the first illness that affected our whole family.  My 41st birthday was on Sunday and that didn't get celebrated either.  We'll see what we can do about it this week. 

Some plans for the week include the stuff I said above such as celebrating birthdays and getting some grocery shopping and bill paying that I wasn't able to get in this weekend.  Oh yeah, the little kids and I need to get to the library today and get the over due books back.  We also haven't been in a while and we desperately need some new reading material.  I've been terrible about making time to read to them. 

I also want to make sure to get out for a bike ride with the kids in the bike trailer.  We just go out for maybe ten minutes or so.  My daughter loves it but baby boy can't stand it for very long.  I think he doesn't like his helmet.  I'm trying to take them out for short rides to get them used to the ride although we won't be going out much longer I suppose as the weather gets colder. 

Time for myself needs to include getting at least four days of practicing in, going for walks, and reading blogs of course.

I'm Praying that even though my oldest son is going to public high school we can work something out as far as making sure to do something for religious education.  I also want to help him plan some prayer time for himself.  It is hard as he seems like he is always tired due to getting up early and at times staying up rather late to get his  homework done.  I was thinking about "suggesting" that he start out by reading the bible at least 15 minutes every day and be able to tell me about what he has read too.

Something that makes me smile

These two on a brief stop at the park on a cold, windy fall day:

For Monday Musings and more on country living go see Nadja at Patch O' Dirt Farm.

Monday Musings

Right now...It is 7:20 and I need to get the kids up soon.  It's nice that they are relatively late sleepers in that I get them up around 8:00 for breakfast.  My older son is already out the door to catch the bus to high school.  He does a great job at getting himself up, getting breakfast, and making himself lunch. 

This weekend my husband worked all day on Saturday and he has been working all day on most days for the past three weeks.  He has not been home for supper for most days during this time and we all miss not having him around.  It looks like it may let up this week.  Thank Goodnness!  It makes me realize how good I have it when he is here to help.  Meanwhile we need tires and I got a chance to research and found some good ones for a fairly good price.

My husband managed to not work on Sunday and we finally got back to see my Dad and have a nice little one hour visit with him.  His 78th birthday was last week and I never got around to sending him a card.  Awful!  However we brought him cupcakes when we went to see him which he really appreciated. 

Some plans for the week Birthdays--My oldest will turn 15 on Saturday and I am going to be 41 the day after.  I still need to get him a present.  He loves music esp. Baroque, Irish, and Renaissance music so getting him a cd is a good bet.  He said he would like a basic mp3 player that doesn't cost a lot so maybe I'll check into that.  I better do something today if I want to order anyting online.  For our birthdays we may go to a park not so far from here with a lot of caves and hike around depending on the weather.   

If I find some time for myself I better make sure I practice as I am playing in a concert at the beginning of November and I haven't practiced in oh so long.  I also want to make sure I get at least four walks in this week. 

Prayer intentions for my husband to stay healthy despite his heavy work load and lack of sleep and that I may be able to give my children the attention they need as I tend to get distracted.

Something that makes me smile

My daughter turned three last week and we had a fun time despite all my worry about getting everything ready.

For more Monday Musings see Nadja at Patch O' Dirt Farm.

Monday Morning Musings

Right Now It has been a while since I have read blogs or written on my blog so I thought Monday Musings would be a good place to start.  It is 4:00 in the afternoon and raining.  It seems like the overcast days far outnumber the sunny days.  This is frustrating as I got a new clothesline this summer and it seems like I hardly ever get a chance to use it. 

This past weekend Saturday I organized my "office" shelves and got a lot of other things done.  Sunday morning hubby and I sat outside in the backyard (there was some sunshine in between the rain) and watched the two little ones play.  It was nice.  In the afternoon we went to latin mass where there was quite a good crowd for the first time in a long time.  Was it due to the time change from 3:00 to 1:30?  I know I prefer the new time. 
For Sunday Supper Hubby made a most delicious meal of Indian Food.  Really good!

Some Plans for the Week  Hopefully finish the online application for refinancing our house. If it goes through we would be paying the same montly payment but it would be a 15 year loan instead of a 30 year.  Clean the mold off the basement walls.  We finally got a dehumidifier and it works great.  It doesn't smell musty anymore!  Maybe play some music.

If I can find some time to myself I want to spend some time reading blogs and maybe writing a post too.  I would also like to work on my just barely started beginning knitting project--a dishcloth.  It's mostly for practicing purl and knit stitch.  I'm expecting it to be very imperfect.

Special prayer intentions Always or my dad who who lives in a nursing home about an hour away and who we try to visit every month or two.  And also for many in my family who have left the church.

Something that makes me smile

Big brother with little sister

For more Monday Musings see Nadja at Patch O' Dirt Farm.